We’re baaaacckkk!

We had a BLAST on our cruise this past week and we can’t believe our vacation is already over! Dan’s brother is getting hitched tomorrow (hoorah for weddings!), so I need to find an outfit ASAP and then I’ll put up all the great pics of our adventures including….

• Seasickness
• Wind and clouds
• Hiking through the jungle in Belize to go cave tubing
• Eating termites (good protein and minty tasting!)
• Visiting Mayan ruins
• Lots of beaches
• SUN
• Snorkeling
• Food
• Weight gain (see previous bullet)
• Shopping

And more!

Hello Christmas

I love decorating for Christmas and since I saved my Hobby Lobby birthday gift card, I used some of it to buy some more Christmas décor this year!

Here are some pics of our house decked out for Christmas. It totally changes the feeling in the house and it just feels so cozy and wonderful!

I love our small, cheap tree. I got a great deal on it before we were married but I think I managed to fill it out and make it look pretty good considering that it’s kind of a scrawny tree!

Most or all of the ornaments and ribbon are from the dollar store (I love that place…). I added some strips of burlap because I really like the texture. Check me out in the reflection of the ornament .

I love the traditional red and gold and sparkles. Next year, we might get another tree for our living room and I want to do some different-lime green maybe??

My willow tree nativity. I want to get more to add to it, but I still love it for now.

I made these cute ornament wreaths last year and they were so easy!

I added a lot more to the banister garland this year. I wanted it to be fuller so I added red and gold berries, gold pinecones, red and gold ribbon and a few sparkly snowflakes.

I also made these Joy candlesticks last year.

Santa is hiding on top of the cupboards. My three year old nephew saw him and his mom said, “Santa is always watching…” You’re welcome Julie

I go these cute little guys on Black Friday for $20 for the both of them! The cord is driving my absolutely batty but I haven’t fixed it so it’s more hidden yet….

I made this stocking holder last year and I love it! We don’t have a fireplace (sad), but maybe we’ll get one of the fake ones for next year because I still think those are pretty great!

That is our house all Christmas-fied and we love it! We fly to Florida tomorrow night for our cruise and we can’t wait! I’ll be back next week bronzed, glowing, and rejuvenated…

Sun, sand and surf

In only 5 more days, we will be enjoying a cold drink in the sun…

I’ll probably have a diet coke instead of a fruity alcoholic beverage, but you get the picture…we will also be doing some fun adventures and WE CAN’T WAIT!

Remember when it used to be fall?

We went to Idaho at the beginning of November to see our nephew get baptized. There were a ton of people there and it was still gorgeous weather.

We had a lot of fun playing in the leaves of the huge trees in their yard!

 

I also had fun using my new camera that I got for my birthday to take pictures of my super cute nieces and nephews!

I love how much Ryan loves that stick.

Sarah was super girl and it was the cutest thing ever. She ran around the backyard like a super hero and just wanted me to take pictures and videos of her.

The colors were amazing! I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the trees were, and luckily there was tons of leaves to play in!

We had a blast and it was exciting to see Alex get baptized and wonderful to see all the family there to support him. Sometimes I wish it were fall again…

Whoa November

Where did you go? Seriously. Where? I have not updated for awhile and I have tons of pics of the past few weeks. So I will just show a few at a time and do a few posts over the next few days.

My family came over to our house to celebrate my bday a little while after my birthday. We had fun and I always love seeing my little sissy.

Birthday flowers from dad.

I have a bunch of precious Fall pictures from a quick trip we took to Idaho for my nephews baptism, but I will post those a little later.

Dan and I hit up the Black Friday sales this year (I always go shopping on Black Friday) and we scored pretty big. We pretty much did our entire Christmas (and then some), but we got some great deals!

We left the house at about 4:30 (I had to take a pic since I haven’t seen that hour in ages). I honestly love sleeping so this is saying a lot. I sleep a ton and go to bed super early and still take naps so you know there were some good sales or I would have been in my bed!

Aren’t we cute? Eww.

We got in line at Home Depot at about 4:50am and we were some of the first people in the store. Dan went to the tools section and I went to get some 4 ft porch Christmas trees. I couldn’t believe the madness. People were ramming me with their carts and others were trying to cut in line (don’t even try me…). I couldn’t believe it, but we got everything we came for! We got a 16 gallon wet/dry shop vac for $29! That was a big item and nearly everyone had a few of those in their carts!

We also got some awesome tools for our many projects. We also went to JC Penney (I got a super warm and cute down coat for $50-usually $200!), Target (SD memory card for our cruise), FYE, Lowes, Shopko, and RC Willey. We got a lot of Christmas gifts covered as well and our car was packed!

I ended up having to work most of the day (from home luckily!), so Dan had fun unpacking our bounty and checking out all his new tools! I love the tools almost as much as he does because it means more projects! And he is going to build me some food storage shelves in the basement.

Overall, our Black Friday excursion was a big success despite the gross lack of sleep, and the ramming incident at Home Depot. We had fun together and we’re really excited about the great deals we found! Did you guys go shopping? What did you get? Did you see any fights break out? I kind of wish I had…

Win a Silhouette!

I really REALLY want a silhouette (a super awesome craft tool thingie) and I get an extra entry if I blog about it. So check out tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com to check out a cute site with craft ideas and also to enter to win a silhouette! I hope I win!

sweet.

Deal Alert:

There are some sickkkkk deals at Old Navy right now.

You know when you get up and get ready in the morning and you just grab a shirt that matches your pants? You don’t really put any thought into how it actually looks or how old that shirt is, you just grab it and put it on? Then later in the day you realize it’s ugly and you wonder why you are wearing it and why you even own it anymore. Especially when you just went through your closet and purged half of it.

That’s how today was for me. I decided to make a quick trip to Old Navy on my lunch break (cuz I work at Gateway and I can do sweet stuff like that). I have some birthday money that needs spending. Anyway, I decided to do a quick google search for Old Navy coupons before I went and I came across this:

http://www.printablecouponfeed.com/old-navy/26010

30% off your entire purchase at O.D. until today. I skipped down there and was bombarded with some awesome sales on tons of cute stuff so I wanted to share the love! There were sweaters, shirts, coats, corduroy pants, dresses, and everything else on sale there. Most sweaters and shirts were around $2-$8!Everything on sale is an additional 50% off and you get 30% off the entire purchase with the coupon! I even checked and the coupon is legit! WHOA. SWEEEEET.

I was pretty stoked so if you have time to run to Old Navy and want some sweet deals for yourself or friends for Christmas, check it out! Let me know what you find…