Busy Busy

Here is what I've been up to!

Yummy southern Thanksgiving dinner with my family. It was so fun to be together, the food was delish and I made my first pie crust, which turned out sooo good. We made it in the food processor- a little different but I would never do it any other way! My Dad also deep fried the turkey....I could eat that all day.

I took my chances and headed out on black friday at 6:30am. This is pretty much what I walked into at Walmart.

It was totally NOT worth it. The store was so ransacked that I couldn't even find where the movies I was looking for were supposed to be. The only positive was hitting 4 different stores and shopping by MYSELF and it was still only 7:30 when I was done!
Here is what I learned about Black Friday- don't go in the morning, go in the afternoon! Nick and I went out again around 2 to WalMart, the store was calmer and the electronics section was full of carts with return items in them. Just dig through their carts and check up at customer service- we found everything we were looking for! Then we did the same thing at Target and found lots great deals/presents. It turned out to be a good day.


I also put out my Christmas decor. My tree is so pathetic, it's not even fun to put it up. I am demanding a good tree after Christmas this year when they go on clearance. But I do love my mantel..so it helps. Here are some decorations I drool over at Pottery Barn

love it.

I have so much wrapping stuff right now I would LOVE this. You can never have too much ribbon or wrapping paper (that's why I am going to Costco tomorrow to hunt for more!)

Hope everyone is getting into the holiday spirit!

Mandy's Bridal Shower

It's over! And it was a success! With all the planning and craziness, I think we pulled off a great shower and she loved it. I don't think it needs much intro, so here are the pictures!

we had some awesome lanterns lining the yard with a veil on the front door

The arrangements were beautiful thanks to Wendy! You can see her tree that you wrote down advice to the Bride and hung it from the branches.

Favor bags- chocolate covered peanuts

water and cider table

our cute cupcake toppers. An idea we got from one of my favorite bloggers at the TomKat Sudio

I loved the limes at the bottom of this arrangement

the invites- so cute!

reading us the advice from the tree. My favorite was "Always fight naked"

tradition!

Mandy with her mom, sisters and sister-in-law

All the girls that helped throw the shower with Mandy. Thanks Jess, Kelly and Cristina

us with all the mom's that helped too

One party down and 2 more to go. Next up is Kate's 7th birthday party and it is oh so close....

I'm Back.

So I made it back from my vacation that my sweet husband set up for us- it was a blast! The worst part is coming home. I have been home for 1 hour and need another vacation. Mandy's shower is tomorrow and then Thanksgiving, I can't breathe...but no worries, you will hear all about it! (minus all the really good stuff ;) But I will tell you where we went.

 The Hyatt Lost Pines Resort

it is located about 20 miles outside of Austin and 25 miles from San Marcos (the best outlet malls ever!)

That's all for now- back to phone calls, planning, cleaning, grocery shopping and poopy diapers!

A-MAZING

Last night Nick surprised me by walking in the door at 11:00 pm (he was supposed to get home Friday afternoon) and told me to get dressed cause we were going to New Moon! My sweet BFF/SIL Cristina had kept it under wraps all day, telling me it was okay I wasn't seeing it at midnight cause then I wouldn't have to listen to all the screams. Little did I know, she had already bought 4 tickets and went to wait in line at 9pm for us. Thank you Stina, I am sooo glad we got to see it together, it was way better!!

Now I am not going to spoil the movie for anyone (don't worry!) but I do have to say that I LOVED it. I remember walking out of Twilight not sure if I liked the movie and had to stew over it for days, but this one I looked at Cristina right after and we were thinking the same thing- AMAZING! It followed the book really well too, I didn't feel like the movie cheated anything. After seeing more of Jacob in this movie it gave me a better understanding of the whole "Team Jacob" thing but my heart will always be with Edward :)

Our Anniversary weekend as officially started with a Bang! Now we need to drop Austin off at my mom's and who knows what's coming....

1095 Days

That is how many days I have been married to my sweet husband, which means today we are celebrating 3 years of marriage!

How could a girl like me be so lucky to marry a man like Nick? He is the sweetest, most thoughtful, loving and adorable husband I could ever hope for. Not to mention what a wonderful, patient Dad he is! No wonder Austin loves him the best. I was thinking back on our last 3 years and realized how many changes and accomplishments we have made. Here are a few:

-We got married
-Moved into our first apartment together
-Nick graduated BYU
-I turned 20 & Nick 25 (yes, I got married at 19. Sounds really crazy now...)
-Found out I was pregnant (6 months after we got married- surprise!)
-We both quit our jobs at WalMart together- our source of income that supported us through school and life together
-1 year of marriage
-Moved to Houston
-Bought our first car together- goodbye 'Black Beauty' (aka Nick's hideous black Camry he loved dearly)
-Nick started his first & current job- I cried that day he drove off to work because I knew it was the end of our carefree, college life, where we saw each other all day at school and work. But it was a good change.
-Had our first baby
-Bought out first house
-I turned 21 and Nick 26
-Survived our first hurricane- Ike!
-2 years of marriage!
-Celebrated our son's 1st birthday
-I turn 22 and Nick 27
-Nick got work promotion
-Survived the CPA exam (hopefully if Nick passed the last 2 sections, if not I might have to change the 'survived' part on that one)

And that brings us to today- 3 years of marriage!! As you can see our lives got a lot more boring the longer we have been married.
Today Nick is out of town, so he instructed my mom to go out and buy me a dozen beautiful roses and surprise me with them. He also has a whole weekend getaway planned and I have NO idea where we are going.
No Austin.
No Cleaning.
No Cooking.
No Stress.
all weekend. I can't wait. Stay tuned for the big surprise location and here are some wedding pictures. If you want to see more click here and here.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen

Now that's what I call a cake.

The most beautiful bridesmaids- I didn't just pick them for their looks, I am really friends with these people ;)

I love you Nick! To an eternity together...

Lonesome Tonight

My husband is gone. He finished the CPA and then had to leave town to work in Shreveport, Louisiana for a whole week. So I am feeling pretty lonesome tonight (and every night this week). Here is what is keeping me busy:


1. Mandy's shower is coming up next week and here are a few things Jess, Kelly and I have been working on:
*these are just sample pictures we are copying*

cupcake toppers

Monograms

and a number of other things but you will just have to wait. It will be adorable.


2. Kate's 7th birthday party. I promised Sally that I would throw Kate a beautiful party because she had never had a big party with friends. I am going all out! I am so excited about this party and all the details...here are some of my ideas:

the party is all pink (and this includes food). I want to copy some food ideas from this pic

(pics from Hostess with the Mostess)

pink balloons and flowers

and lots of other things that might include some tutus- every little girl loves a ballerina!


3. And of course, adding to my Christmas list. Here is my new find that already made it to the top of the list..

(pic from Samsclub.com)

These cute 3 tier stands are at Sam's for $38 buck and I can already see them in my kitchen with treats displayed in them. No more plates with crinkly saran wrap over it!

Nutcracker Market

If you have never heard of or been to the Nutcracker Market you are SOO missing out!

The Reliant Stadium is full to the max of "booths" where companies from Houston and surrounding cities come in and sell their stuff. You can get anything from food (nuts, jams, soup mixes) with samples everywhere, lots of Christmas decor, home decor, clothes, jewelry, baby stuff, fun bags... pretty much anything you can think of they sell there. (Every man's worst nightmare.)

My mom and I went this year and had such a good time. We got in around 11am and left at 2pm and hadn't even seen HALF of the stuff there. Our arms were so full, we had a good laugh trying to treck back to the car. It was awesome and surprisingly the stuff wasn't overpriced, like you would expect. I went thinking I would come home with a few finds- I was wrong. I wish I could put up pics of everything I got but most of it was Christmas shopping for people who look at this blog....Chelsey, Sally, Lisa, Teresa and a few other people I will leave unnamed :)

But I can show a few things I found...

This is for my adorable niece Kate for Christmas. She loves to help cook and I thought the cupcake on this fabric was so cute. It comes with a hat, spoon, cookie cutter and 3 recipes! Love it.

This is wrapping paper I bought. I get so excited when I find cute paper and these were 3 for $10! The zebra and leopard will probably be used for birthdays but there might be a few animals prints under our tree wrapped in a big red bow!

These adorable little boxes were buy 10 get 1 free for $1 each! Perfect for a little gift, Christmas cookies box or birthday present with a little bow on top! So of course I bought 10!

The trip was a success! I think a big trend right now is to monogram everything because it was EVERYWHERE at the market. On plates, cups, bags, make up, wall hangings- so cute. I might have bought a few of those but they will have to wait... The market lasts until Sunday- GO!

Sweet Spot

Being Austin's mom, I know lots of little things about this boy. One of my favorite things I know is his 'sweet spot'.

It is on his side right under his little ribs.

...and if you get it just right, he laughs and giggles uncontrollably. It is the most wonderful noise to my ears and I could do it all day.

On this particular day, he ended our tickle session by grabbing his blue blanket and running back to where I was laying on the floor to cuddle with me.

It doesn't get much better than that.