Let the Countdown begin!

I made this fun advent calendar at a girl's night last month.  I filled the tins with chocolate and we got started...two days late last night! :)   But we're on track now and M LOVES tins full of chocolate! :)  

When she saw I was taking pictures of the calendar, she started posing underneath it.  So I asked her to smile and got this 
and this! 
I love this crazy girl!

cooing?

LG has found her voice!  She squeals and yells and coos and has a minnie mouse voice like her sister and I love it!

Our Trip

We spent Thanksgiving in MN with W's parents and sister. It was wonderful!

We had a yummy turkey day feast.

W's sister Becca was there the whole weekend.  It meant so much to us for her to take time away from school and three, yes THREE, jobs to spend time with us. We miss her already!
I have no pics of course (so you get a pic of LG ready to brave the cold to meet Mom's friends), but I had a wonderful lunch with my old co-workers.  It was truly a balm to my lonely soul to spend time with these wonderful women who I love and miss so much! 
But we had to get back home quickly so Gma Jan could get her time in with LG who was a hot commodity this weekend! Everyone wanted to meet her!
I had a Chipotle burrito!!!! I miss them so much!  I have faith though.  Every where I have lived since I discovered them, they've built one less than a mile from me, including when we were in Utah, so I have faith that it will follow me here too! ...someday!
And of course the next day we also made a trip to Noodles! M was in heaven as was I and W walked next door to get a lunch he was happy with.  
We visited with more friends that afternoon and evening (I love M's hair in this pic) and it was so wonderful to see our old friends and visit with family!
My girls had fun with their grandparents and were angels on the long and stressful ride home.

All Road Tripped Out

I normally love road trips.  This one was one for the books! And it may be my last for a while!

35 spun out, stalled, crashed or overturned cars 

18 hours to make a 13 hour trip

27 degrees with high winds that made travel slow, freezing, and icy

12 brand-new bungee cords from the Neosho, MO WalMart at 2am in one last attempt to get the dang tarp to stay down and protect our newly acquired inheritance treasures

I'm tired.  I'll update more of the fun we actually DID have before we got in the car on Sunday...later.

ps...the furniture made it fantastically well!  There was no big damage other than a few rubbed corners that will be easily waxed clean and no, the glass didn't break! Amazing huh!  The tarp was a pain to keep pinned down and added a lot of the stress besides the snow in Iowa and Arkansas, but we packed it well and everything made it safe and dry!

Back to MN!

Tonight we're driving to Minnesota for Thanksgiving! Pray for good weather for us! 

It's high time LG meet her other grandma and grandpa and show them how cute she is in person!

I'm thankful that we can make this trip.

I'm thankful for my parents' truck that will take us there and haul our junk back. I'm thankful that my parents will help us put more of our junk in their house too! 

I'm thankful that my big girl is so excited for this trip! 

I'm thankful for my friends that we're so excited to see...and well, show off our cute girl....that's really why we're visiting, right?

I'm thankful for all of my family.  I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful crazy family.

Thanks Kim!

My friend, Kim, sent me this link for a cricut cartridge! We love my Mom's so I would love this giveaway!!

me, the ladies and two thousand other crazy teens!

Oscar-worthy? not so much.

Enjoyable? definitely.

Do it again? absolutely!

I met with some of the girls from church  and my SILs, T and MM, to go the midnight showing of Twilight. I think we were the oldest ones in the theater. It was exactly what I needed!  I needed to get to know these ladies better, I needed to get out, and I needed to see a fun movie!  I thought it was fun but there were a few gimmicky things.  I can't wait to see it again with Gracie and Mom and just sit back and enjoy!