Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Happy Monday friends!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend!  Today I start my new job--wish me luck.  I'm excited and nervous too.  It's kind of scary going from something familiar and comfortable to something new, but I'm excited to learn and take on this new adventure.

We had a busy, but great weekend spending time with family, eating way too much, celebrating a 50th birthday, and decorating for Christmas.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.

My sister and I started Thanksgiving day by running a Turkey Trot 5k at 8:00 a.m.  It was 28 degrees and lightly snowing, but we had fun!  I actually finished with my 2nd fastest 5k time yet at 31:55, so I was happy with it.

Pre-race photo trying to stay warm!

Post-race after we got home and warmed up.

We headed to my parents for meal #1 of the day.  I didn't take any photos at meals #2 or #3 because I was so full I didn't even think about it.  But we ate so much good food all day!

Spent some time with my parents' puppy, Rambo.

I did some Black Friday shopping early Friday morning, dropped Admiral off for a bath/haircut, and then headed home for the night since I had to work (my last day) on Saturday.  I spent Friday night putting up our Christmas tree and some decorations.  There is a long story about the tree, but I'll save that for it's own post.

I worked on Saturday and then headed back to my hometown to celebrate my Uncle's 50th birthday.  The food was chili and soup, and there were lots of yummy desserts

My dad and my sister.

I felt like Santa in my red pants and black boots.

Saturday night was spent playing games with Kevin's family.  We headed home Sunday and were pretty lazy the rest of the day.

How was your weekend?

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

I hope your Thanksgiving weekend was as good as mine!  I headed to my parents on Thanksgiving day to enjoy meal one of three for the day.  My family and Kevin's family live about an hour away from us, and they got a lot of snow through out the day--it was so pretty!  We enjoyed three meals that days (my parents, Kevin's dad's, Kevin's mom's) and were totally stuffed!

Kevin's mom's was the last meal of the day, and that's where all of the dogs were.  Admiral (our dog), Nugget & Nera (Kevin's brother's dogs), and Callie & Diego (Kevin's mom's dogs).  While Kevin's mom was putting away all the leftovers, the dogs were hoping that some would get dropped on the floor for them!

My mom and I decided to go Black Friday shopping on Thursday night.  This was the first year we've ever gone out on Thursday night, we usually always wait until Friday morning.  We headed out around 10:30 p.m. and went to Target, Old Navy, Kohls, Younkers, Sears, Victoria's Secret, and JC Penny.  We really didn't have any issues at any of the stores.  There were barely even any lines at the check outs!  I got a few things for myself and a few Christmas presents, so I felt like it was pretty successful.

We got home at around 3:00 a.m. and went straight to bed.  When we got up on Friday, we looked at the ads again and decided we wanted to go to a few more places.  So we got ready and headed back out around 10:30 a.m.  We went to K-Mart (awful) and Meijer.  We picked up a few more things before heading home.  

I came home late Friday afternoon so I could get some things done at home...like put up our Christmas tree and decorations!  I got the tree up and decorated and decorated the house.  I'm really happy with how it looks this year and I can't wait to share it all, but here's a sneak peak for now!

Sunday was spent doing laundry, cleaning, and watching football.  I did make some yummy breakfast muffins using Katie's recipe and they turned out delicious! And healthy, even better!  I filled mine with eggs, sausage, green pepper, and onion.

I'm not looking forward to actually working a full five days this week, but I know that Christmas break will be here before I know it!  Happy Monday :)

Leaves, Thor, and a Tornado?

This weekend was filled with leaves.  We picked up a lot of them over Friday/Saturday.  I had a half-day Friday because I had to work on Saturday, so I raked/picked up the leaves in the back yard.  Kevin raked/picked up the front yard while I was at work on Saturday.  Team work is what it's all about!

After I got done working, we went and saw Thor: The Dark World (it was great-I really liked it) and then went to out to dinner at a local bar/restaurant.  Kevin got pizza and bread sticks and I got a grilled shrimp salad.  I told you I'm serious about this eating healthy thing, and I didn't even have a bite of his food.  I've been doing good and feeling great with healthy eating, so I don't want to ruin it with one meal.  I'll save that for Thanksgiving :)

Sunday I went grocery shopping and got some Christmas shopping done.  I decided that my goal is to be done Christmas shopping by December 1.  I've never been done that early, so we'll see what happens.  After grocery shopping, we had a lazy Sunday and watched football all day.  It was wonderful.  Except for the bad weather.  We had severe thunderstorm, wind, and tornado warnings all day.  Luckily, we didn't get hit too hard where we live, and we never even lost power.

Oh, I also put this cute printable up in my living room last week and I LOVE it.  It's free, so you should follow the pin to the link and print one for you house too.

Hope you had a great weekend and happy Monday!

Thanksgiving (Yes, I know I'm a little Late...)

Thanksgiving and the weekend came and went so fast, I can't believe it's over already!  Kevin and I went to Muskegon to our parents for the weekend.  We had three, yes THREE, Thanksgiving dinners on Thanksgiving day.  We started out at my parents, then went to his Dad's, and finished the night at his mom's. Yes, I ate at all three...I was stuffed by the end of the night!

Friday morning my mom, my sister, and I got up and did some Black Friday shopping.  I didn't really get a whole of Christmas shopping done, which was my goal, but it was still fun, and I got some stuff for myself which is always good :)  If you follow me on Instagram (erickamarie87), you saw the super savings I got at Kohls on Black Friday, but in case you missed it, here it is again.  I love how Kohls prints the amount you saved on the receipt...makes me feel so much better about spending my money!

My sister flew back to Tennesse on Saturday, so I said goodbye to her and then spent the day at Kevin's mom's house.  I came home on Sunday morning to try and get some stuff done around my house.  I caught up on laundry, put everything away from the weekend, and put the Christmas tree up!

I put up some Christmas decorations, but still have more to do.  I also wrapped a few Christmas presents the other night...can you tell I'm excited for Christmas?  I'll take better pictures (you know, ones that aren't from my phone) of the tree and our decorations and post them soon.

As far as wedding plans go, I'm getting everything together to send out save-the-dates this week.  I can't wait to check that off the "wedding to-do" list!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and TGIF (tomorrow)!

Long Time No See

I know I've been MIA lately, but I've been busy.  I'll recap what's gone on since my last post...mainly with pictures :)

First, here's some pics of our Halloween and Fall decorations at our house.  I took down the Halloween ones now, but the Fall ones are still up.

Kevin and I carved our pumpkins last Saturday (the Saturday before Halloween).  We had our pumpkins sitting on our front porch before we carved them, and something started eating mine.

(I did a skull and Kevin did the bat signal from Batman)

I made pumpkin seeds and they were yummy:

(Just poured melted butter on them, sprinkled some garlic salt, and baked them at 300 degrees for about 45 minute)

Kevin and I did not dress up for Halloween this year.  We stayed home and passed out candy on Halloween.  We had 130 trick-or-treaters on our first Halloween in the house!

We got our save-the-dates in the mail this weekend, so I'll be busy getting addresses together to send those out.

I took a shopping trip to IKEA, Home Goods, and World Market on Friday with my mom and her friend.  It was so fun!  I'm ready for another trip back to IKEA!

And of course, some pictures of The Admiral from the past week:

 We got a new computer this weekend and it has Windows 8 on it.  I have no idea how to use...anyone have any tips??