The Holiday Season Begins!

Well friends, the holiday season is upon us! We began our holiday weekend on Wednesday night out to dinner to a fun little burger joint. We headed to church for a Thanksgiving service filled with many sharing their story of what they have to be thankful for. Many were very emotional. It was the perfect way to start the holidays.

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving! Thursday morning we enjoyed breakfast while relaxing and watching the Macy's day parade. 

I made some loaded mashed potatoes to take for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Our dear friends, Pete & Ginger, invited us over for Thanksgiving. There were eight of us all together, and it was fun to experience some new food from different cultures.

Thursday night we headed out for some early Black Friday shopping! 

We had such a great time, and got all kinds of stuff! We headed out to Walmart, Target, and the outlet mall. There were so many people out and about! The festivities began at 6, and we were out of Walmart by 6:04-we were booking it! Some of the stores at the mall had lines to wait outside the store to limit the number of people inside. It was crazy and starting to get cold!!!

Friday morning we started decorating our home for Christmas. We had such a blast!

I plan on sharing our decorations with all of you next week, but here is a quick sneak peek! I made a new wreath this year. You can also see our tree peeking through the wreath.

Friday night we went to Love the Coopers. I won free movie tickets at a work meeting and used those for our movie and popcorn! 

It was very cute and funny and super festive. If  you have some free time this holiday season, I would totally recommend it!

Saturday we did more decorating, this time-outside!

This year, we had several little girls to buy gifts for!

We bought shoes for the little girl we got for the Angel Tree. Some of our friends just received their first foster child so we got her some pajamas. Our neighbor also turns one this week and had a big birthday party on Saturday so we got her some blocks. It was pretty fun shopping for so many little ones! Saturday afternoon we headed across the street for Abby's birthday party!!

Seriously I have to brag about our neighbors for a second. The party was very fun and full of their friends and family. My neighbor made and decorated the smash cake all on her own!! Isn't this incredible?!? She has never done this before. Everything was so cute!!

After presents it was time for the smash cake!

We spent the rest of our time over the weekend baking our Christmas cookies. I hope Matt enjoyed it, he was a HUGE help!

And just like that it will soon be December, and we will be busy, busy, busy! Our weekends are full of holiday events including a Christmas party we are hosting next weekend. I will put up pictures of our decorations next week. Enjoy the season and don't forget to stay present and enjoy it!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello friends! I hope you are all adjusting to the changing weather. Ours went from really hot to real cold (for Phoenix), but we have had a few gorgeous days as of late. Well I was looking through my phone and noticed I took one picture in the last two weeks!! What have we been up to???? I will try to recapture it the best I can!

Two weekends ago we had another marathon hang out event with our neighbors across the street. Every time we hang out with them it seems like it turns into a marathon event! It's pretty fun! On Friday we headed over to their place for a bonfire and game night! Our Quelf game got pretty serious late into the night! Then on Sunday we had them over for supper and football. It is so awesome being friends with your next door neighbors! You really can't be late, and if you forget anything it is no big deal to run home and get it. 

That Saturday we did some more hiking at our go to place, South Mountain. I did not take any pictures since I figured you have all seen enough of those!

This past week was a busy week at work with early morning and late night appointments every single day. I am so looking forward to Thanksgiving for a little break! Friday we finally made it to a little pizza place several people had told us we needed to go. They were right, it was so good!! We filled up on appetizers and had enough for lunch the next day! Saturday we had some friends over for a bonfire. They had to leave early to pick up their daughter from the babysitter so we headed to Tempe to meet up with one of Matt's friends that was in town. We enjoyed a nice game of bags, and I am happy to admit I actually scored points this time!! 

I spent most of Sunday giddy with excitement of the holiday season approaching us. The Christmas cards are ordered, our Christmas party is planned, office parties are RSVP'd to, Christmas cookie ingredients are purchased, and a whole bunch of other holiday things are on the calendar. 

Our church is participating in an Angel Tree, and we were so excited to get involved! For those that have not heard of this program (me until last week), you pick a child to buy a present for who has been orphaned due to their parents being incarcerated. We chose to get a gift for a baby girl. 

I cannot wait for Thursday to enjoy some time with some dear friends but also to begin our Black Friday shopping and pull out the Christmas decorations!!! The holidays are near my friends, get ready!! 38 days and counting :)

A Time for Thankfulness

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we have so much to be thankful for this season. One item on my bucket list is to host a major holiday so the first major holiday that came around after we moved into our house I volunteered to host (two days before the big day, mind you)! We were so excited, but gosh we have a lot left to do in our house to host company. 

We started the day with some pumpkin cinnamon rolls and the Macy's Day Parade. 

Then we frantically tried to finish cleaning and start cooking. We knew there was no chance we could get everything done so I purchased our Thanksgiving feast from the grocery store. What a lifesaver! Everything was already cooked so all I had to do was heat everything the day of. I think we may be doing this for many holidays in the future whether we have the extra time or not.

Things started coming together quickly.

Then our guests arrived. Matt and I were busy finishing things in the kitchen.

My grandparents and great uncle and aunt Darrel and Jan came to celebrate with us. 

Check out our new window seat we created! (more on that in another post)

Everything went well and it was very nice to have the company of family on this special day.

That night we switched gears to Black Friday shopping. We started around 5 o'clock at Michael's. It was a great first stop-not busy at all and tons of great deals. Then we went to Walmart. The first "event" began at 6 and we arrived a few minutes before. It was busy but not too crazy. 

Everyone was lined up for items, not just the big ticket items, like everything. It was different. Not quite as much fun but definitely safer. We found several items on our list and filled up our cart in about five minutes. We decided it would be best if Matt check out before everyone else, take our cart of stuff out to the car and come back in. We could not haul this thing around any longer.

He checked out pretty quick, but after he loaded the car he couldn't get back into the store. They were monitoring how many people were in there so it took him about 20 minutes to get back in. In the meantime I searched the store for a few more items.

The checkout line started in the back of the store. Here were the lines as they came through the clothing section. Crazy!!! It was very well organized-I was impressed.

We headed back the next morning on actual Black Friday. There was NO ONE there!!! There were less people than I would expect to see on a typical day at that time. We picked up a Christmas tree and some other decorations. We did a little more shopping at a few other stores as well. I did head over to the mall between a few clients on Friday, and it was pretty crazy!! The holidays are upon us, and we can't be more excited!! Stay tuned to see our first decorating experience!