It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It's Christmas time!  I have been some busy these past few weeks.  The day after Thanksgiving, I put away all of my harvest/t-day decor and broke out the Christmas decorations.  Jesse had to work for a few hours that Friday and while he was gone I started putting out all the little nick knacks and decorated our front door.  Once Jesse came back home we went to go get our tree.  We headed to Home Depot and found the perfect one.  Our friend Steven came along to help us out.  We got the tree home and the guys attached it to the base and once it was set in there we all kinda stared at it for a few minutes and then Steven broke the silence and says, "wow what a great tree!"  Haha!  So we stop our marveling at the blank, bare tree and I started plugging in the lights to make sure they all worked.  Amazingly, all the lights lit up!  Not one was out, not one fuse blew, they were perfect, all 5 strands of them (3 whites, 2 flashing blues)!  Jesse helped me string them all on, we finished decorating the tree, I finished adding things here and there and before we knew it, our home was complete.   

We finished all of our shopping for the families last night.  Man, how wonderful it feels to actually be done.  I have to get Jesse a few more things and I'm not sure if he is finished with me yet either.  This year I think the plan is we are going to do Christmas here.  Just gotta figure out how we will all fit!

Well here are the pics of our decorations:

This is when Jesse got back home

Finished our tree

Decorated our bar stools since we don't have a table and chairs this year  :(

This was at our apt last year...I miss my table

Stockings

Our living area and kitchen are kinda one room, so I wanted to do something up here

Hallway

Sink area

Bathroom

Tree (no flash)

Door completed

Our snowmen, they light up and change colors

We did our pictures for our Christmas card...I'll post a pic of them once I mail them out.  I know some of my friends and family view this blog and I don't wanna give anything away just yet. ;)  Here are one of the pictures we took...I think we need a bigger tree.

Thanksgiving

In my opinion, today is the best holiday of all and is my favorite.  You sit around with family and friends and eat, and eat, and eat, all day!  What's not to love?  This holiday more importantly, gives us time to think and reflect on what we are thankful for.  I am thankful that the God I serve gave me a life with a fantastic husband, a wonderful family and a supportive group of friends, all of who I love dearly.  Sometimes this life is trying and full of struggles but it is important for us to actually be thankful in the mist of those trials.  I for one find this nearly impossible, and surely fail from time to time, but when I stop and start giving thanks, I become thankful for all sorts of things!  I hope you all had a wonderful day today!

  

Here are some pictures of our fest at my parents house.

 

My pies, 2 pecans an apple and a pumpkin

Table setup complete with paper plates.  I am so against this but I gotta be honest it was easy peasy clean up!

The goods

My brother and I

My mom loving on her son in law

Jesse's momma and his step-dad

My dad

Poor Jesse!

Us

19

Today is my brother's 19th birthday!  Happy Birthday Jared.  I can't believe this is my brother's last year of his teen years...wow!  Seems just like yesterday we were jumping on the trampoline, bike riding, and playing Donkey Kong 2 on Super Nintendo!  Now I'm married and most of my time consist of working, experimenting in the kitchen, taking care of the house, and spending time with my hubby.  He is in college, has tons of friends that take up his time and totally is enjoying his life.  Good for you Jared!  I hope you have a fantastic year!

I figured I would take the time to show some pics of his surprise party from last year.  My mom and I planned this one for months.  It was so much fun!

Love this face!  He had no idea!

Cake Table (see the framed invite, I designed that)

Wonderful cake (also made this, with a friend's help)

Love this pic

Us!

Far and Few...

My sister in law and nephew came in for a visit.  The time spent with them was nice and time sure does go by fast when you are having fun.  Dominick is getting so big.  He is a little person now, not just a baby!  When we saw him for the first time, he was about 2 months old.  He was so tiny and fragile and getting a smile out of him was nothing but work, but boy, oh boy when he smiled, it just melted your heart!  Here is a pic from that visit.

We then took a visit to Florida to visit them for the 4th of July holiday, he was 5 months old.  At this time he was more playful and sweet as can be.  I had the privilege of taking care of him during the night. As much as I missed my sleep, it was pure joy caring for him.  I'll never forget, a few times around 3 or 4ish AM, after his feeding and changing, he would become Mr. Smiley, Mr. Raspberry Blower, and Mr. Chatterbox ALL IN ONE!  That was funny!  Here is a picture from that trip.

This visit he was over 8 months old!  Little demanding person!  He knows what he wants and when he wants it.  He knows when it's time to unwind and when he is ready to watch his "shows" (Sesame Street) and he even has a certain place (the exersaucer) where he has to be, in order to.... to...you know, take care of business!  haha!

Amazing how babies grow so quickly.  Tomorrow he will be 9 months.  I can't believe it, his first birthday will literally be around the corner!  Wow!

Here are some pictures from this visit.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I look forward to it every year, but I gotta be honest, I'm looking forward to Christmas getting here and getting here quickly.  I can't wait to see this little man again!

Such a cutie!

Dommie and Mommie

We did a little trick or treating

Who are you?!  You don't look like my Uncle Jesse with that hat!  haha!

After, we went to a coffee house, he was some smiley!

Cheeeessse!

<3 them both!  :)

Dad's party

If I can sum this party up with one word it would be..... success!  Seriously, everything went smoothly and perfectly and I couldn't ask for anything more.  Here are some of the details leading up to the day as well as the day of.

So, Thursday after work I met my mom at Sams to get chips, salsa, 7 layer dip, you know the last minute stuff.  We also had to go to Walmart to get some other items too...I think I got home around 7:30ish that night.  This was such a long day....Jes had ordered a pizza for us to eat, thank goodness!  I ate some dinner and started baking cakes.  I had decided that I could do this myself instead of paying someone to do it.  Here is a picture of my inspiration, you could say.

I found this picture on cakecentral.com

Back to Thursday night.  At the time I thought I only had 4 cakes to do.  Well I have one 13x9 inch pan and my mom let me borrow hers.  Her pan has to be 20 something years old...I NOW know what to get her for Christmas!!  So anyway, I mix up 2 batches of cake in my nifty Kitchen Aid (my baby) and put those cakes in the oven...30 minutes later, I take them out let them cool some (later to be my demise), and then flipped them.  Both cakes cracked in half upon flippage...and the one that was in my mother's pan looked like this.

Jesse called this the ramp cake!  You can somewhat see the crack there in the middle and as time went on it was a full fledged 2 piece cake!  He then compared it to the San Andres Fault!  Thanks Jes!  lol!!  So at this point I'm kinda panicky but not terribly much because I figured well tomorrow I will do will these 2 over.  No biggie...So I bake one more cake, let it cool COMPLETELY and then go to bed.  I would have 3 cakes to do Friday.

Friday my friend Marie (she helped me with this cake) and I were talking at lunch about all of this and she tells me "You know Ash, we should probably do 6 total layers of cake".  Great!!  Uggh!!  So I'm freakin out at this point, because I wasn't going to leave work until 4 and she was supposed to be come over around 7.  Baking 3 more cakes was doable...baking 5 more cakes made me sooo nervous!   So I call Jesse and asked him to run to the store to pick up 4 more boxes of cake mix, more eggs and 2 aluminum pans.  After lunch my boss and I were talking and I was able to leave at 2. Whew, what a life saver this was!

My mom came over to help me finish the stuff that had to be done while I did the cakes.  I finished all 6 of them, cleaned my kitchen and just waited for Marie to get to my house. She came over and we did the cake.  Didn't have any major problems, other than running out of fondant at 11:30pm, which Jesse came to the rescue and willingly went to Walmart to get more.  This cake took a lot of time and after 6 batches of icing we finished it at 2:30am!!!  Here is a picture minutes after completion.

Saturday morning I was able to sleep in and I took my time getting ready.  My brother came over around 1:30 to help us load up the cars and I needed him to drive me so I could hold on to the cake.  We get to the place and my friends Steven,  Anna, and Brandi helped us set up.  I am so thankful for their help, there would be no way I could have done this without them.  Here a few pictures of the set up once we were finished.

 I had found wrapping paper while at Academy one day and thought it would make perfect (sorta) runners

My dad actually said this when the oil spill occurred. HA!  Ain't no oil gonna stop me!

I swear it was this big!

Gone Fishin' Be Back at Dark-Thirty!

I decorated a walker with denture cleaner, a denture brush, some glasses, a diaper, some fake teeth and suspenders...lol!

Every party needs a fancy wreath!  :)

 He was very surprised and it was a great party!  Again, a big thank you my friends for helping me make this party a SUCCESS!  :)