Deck the Halls & all that Jazz

we decorated for Christmas yesterday. and by we, i mean, mostly me. the girls are at that awesome age where they are totally & completely excited & all about it for about 1 hour - then the novelty wears off. but they loved helping & decorating while it was still fun for them.

i did do something a little different this year. every year, i tuck away all of our pictures & put out the Christmas decor. but this year, i wrapped the frames in my favorite Christmas wrapping paper. this way they are still in their spots & added to the decor. no pics of those yet though. it was an after thought.

we also did a tree in the girls' room again. no pics of that yet either...but there is plenty of time.

jar was at work while the decorating was happening. but he did come home in time to help me with the star. and we had our own little Christmas Story moment where we argued about whether or not it was straight. haha - i had him fix it three times.

these pics are a little backwards in sequence. it's like rewinding...



i adjusted settings on my camera in an attempt to get a good pic sans flash. this one is alright.





and with flash...this way you can see the ornaments




mantel - it has been the same for several years.




photography by Olivia




wearing a santa hat to get in the spirit



again with the popcorn garland...why do i do this? oh yes because it looks super cute.

fluffing branches for over an hour.

and Liv talked her into putting on her "Christmas" read - footy pajamas.

Thanksgiving 2012

Well friends, I had this whole post going in my head about what I am thankful for. But it never got done. We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And I am incredibly blessed & it's nice to have a day to reflect on everything I am thankful for.

I spent the day enjoying my family. The family that I see every single day. The family that I haven't seen in almost 4 years. The family that annoys me. The family that I wish I could see more of. The family that is so incredibly loud that it would make an outsider's ears bleed. The best family, of course, because they are MY family.

I would like to point out I did, in fact, kick some butt on those cornbread muffins. Jar had one & said they were decent enough to send to school for children to eat. Olivia's class enjoyed them, or at least that is what she told me.

We loaded up the big ol' effin' dually truck & headed to our first of 3 Thanksgiving meals.



I was on full-feed all day long. It's fun when everythign on your plate is about the same color. The only vegetables I ate were either a) smothered in cheese - brocolli cheese caserole or b) coated in cream of mushroom soup & topped with fried onions - green bean caserole.

It was a fabulous day. Long & exhausting. And my pants fit a little more snug afterwards. But it was fantastic. 3 stops on Thanksgiving. We got home at 11:00. Not all of us ate at each & every stop, but I did. haha. That's probably why my pants are a little snug.

awesome & random

oh thank goodness it's the week of thanksgiving. i need a 3 day work week every week. that, my friends, is 110% awesome.

i saw the new BREAKING DAWN part 2 thursday night. it was awesome! the movie was emotionally exhausting. and i loved every second of it. all the crazies at the premiere - wow. they were awesome in their own right. one gal spent a little bit talking to me about how she needs to get a glass cabinet so she can keep all of her twilight collectibles on display. i laughed, pretty much, in her face. i couldn't help myself. i went with my bff haley. she is awesome.

olivia's class is having a thanksgiving feast. she signed me up to bring 1 dozen cornbread muffins. baking ain't my thang. i want to be good at it, but i'm really not. and can i tell you a secret...i have never made cornbread. like ever. i hate cornbread. but, i will buy the little jiffy box & make those muffins just to prove a point. olivia said "we better ask bopchi" (bopchi is jarrett's mom). to which jar says "yea, she would do it". so nobody has any faith in my cornbread muffin baking skillz. i am going to do it & do it well, proving them all wrong. and in doing so, i will be awesome.

if baking was my thang, i would make these. they are so funny & cute. it would be awesome if i had a) the time, b) the patience, and c) the skill to make these.

i scratched my eye last sunday. it did not feel awesome at all. it swelled up & was disgusting. felt like it was going to explode. i finished my eye drops on saturday. i still have to wear my glasses until this saturday, but i don't want to. i want to start wearing my contacts. who thinks i should continue wearing my glasses like the doctor said? it would be awesome if i could wear my sunglasses on my drive to work - the only time i get to see the sun.

i am working on a new project - kitchen update #3 or something like that. i want to strip my cabinets & start fresh. they already have 2 layers of paint on them. i bought this stuff. and it is awesome. thank you, pinterest.

i got this awesome new statefarm t-shirt. correction, my mom got me this awesome new shirt because the company store in my building sold out before pay day. i love it. working at statefarm means i kind of work with aaron rodgers, right? because he is awesome.

awesome & random. told ya.

Jar & His Very Own Wave of Anger

This truck is Jarrett's pride & joy. I kid you not. Countless hours are spent shining it up, as you can see here. Well, last year it was the deer. This year it's a railroad crossing.

Friday, he was coming out of ADM & the railroad crossing gate came down on the top of his truck. Man oh man was he mad. Understandably so. It dented the roof of the cab and his beloved chrome stack. So, back into the shop it will go for repairs. Then in the end, Jarrett will be back to being a happy boy.

Edward is Back!

TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't care who knows it, I am so down-right super-nerd excited to see Breaking Dawn Part 2!

The BEEEEESSSSST part is this gal, right here!

Me & Haley have a HOTT date tonight! (do the kids still spell HOT with 2 T's when they really mean it?) I don't know & I don't care. We are going to the 10:00 showing. That is 10:00 pm. I will be draggin ace tomorrow. 6:00 will come so very very early in the morning.

And I'm hoping this doesn't happen to me a week from today...

Until later, friends!  

halloween - just a little late

halloween has come & gone. we went to trick-or-treat on the square in 50 mph wind gusts. olivia kept losing her hat. rachel cried that she was cold. we were half way around the square & olivia asked if we could leave. she is officially the only kid in the history of the world that doesn't like getting free candy for wearing a costume. i made her finish out the square. she griped the entire rest of the time. and i turned into the mom that was all "this is supposed to be fun. i don't want to do this, you want to do this" and i'm leading the way for my girls. every other kid there is running a good 10 feet in front of their parents & i am dragging mine. awesome, friends. just awesome.

when finished on the square we went home to wait for daddy. the girls suckered me into carving pumpkins - which i detest. the smell. the mess. all around disgusting-ness. i didn't have any templates or the carving kit things because, as i said, i don't dig carving pumpkins. so i'm left to my own devices. old-school. a black sharpie & my wolfgang puck knife set. they turned out alright. but i only had 2 actual candles. (sidenote: i don't have candles anymore because scentsy is my new kryptonite.) so in the 2 smaller pumpkins are birthday candles bundled together with teeny rubberbands sitting in shot glasses. which is now my very own hint from heloise. you're welcome. funny that i don't have 4 candles in my house, but i had 6 shot glasses.



(left to right) rachel's, jar's, mine, & olivia's - but really all mine because it did them all. by myself.



we did pictures outside after dark because i felt like we had to. it was fuh-reezing! they wouldn't really cooperate. they were cold. it was windy. halloweentown was on inside & they wanted to go back inside to watch the movie.

olivia said "it's halloween, i should do crazy eyes". mission accomplished, my dear.

and rachel's crazy eyes are courtesy of my camera flash & i didn't even fix the red-eye. happy halloween!

my favorite thing about halloween - my mantle. i love it. (but i'm ready to get those corn stalks off there & put up my christmas stuff.)

when jar got home, we went trick-or-treating at his mom & dad's - where rachel was scared out of her mind. and screamed bloody murder for a solid 5 minutes. this girl is scared of her own shadow. but in her defense, vanessa does go all out for halloween - it was a bit scary. probably super scary for a 5 year old little prim & proper lady.

we hit up my mom & dad's too. they were exhausted. but were super happy to show off their costumes (which everyone had seen already at rachel's birthday party 3 days earlier)

we didn't eat dinner that night. we just ate candy. and i feel like i have eaten candy every single day since. tis the season to put on that extra weight.

there you have it. oh what fun we had on halloween night!

Photos from the Phone

wordless wednesday

3rd position

harvest 2012

harvest 2012 has come & gone. we finished up yesterday. i say "we" because it was a family effort this year. i don't remember the girls expressing as much interest last year or the year before. but this year, they were all about it. and that made for one very happy daddy. jarrett was absolutely thrilled that they were so interested & wanting to help. even rachel, our resident scaredy-cat & girly-girl was very gun-ho about riding in the combine.

when were pregnant with olivia, jarrett wanted a boy. he thought he needed a son to be able to pass on his love of farming & trucking to. i do need to state for the record, he has since changed his mind. probably like 1 minute after olivia was born his mind changed. i know he had visions of totten & sons farming/trucking operation. but, you know what, he was meant to be a daddy to girls. he's great at it. he picks out pink dresses & hair bows in the morning like no other man i know. i think the pictures below proved that he can pass on his love of farming to girls just as easily as he could boys.

 i may have took pictures paparazzi style yesterday. so bear with me, you are about to see my very favorites.

here are my farmers, my 3 very favorite people on the entire planet.

olivia was super excited to finally be able to drive something.



hands up - like it's a carnival ride



waiting when it's your sister's turn is hard to do.



checkin out the corn that she did as it was dumped into the trailer





rachel had a minor melt-down when some COCK-LA-BERRIES stuck to her pants.