Week in Review

I don't have any fun pictures, but thought I'd touch base before the holiday week.

Brice and I got to have a fun date night last Wednesday. We had a coupon and gift certificate to The Melting Pot - and you know we love that place! We tried the Bananas Foster Chocolate for dessert. I was a bit skeptical, not being a big white chocolate fan, but it was heavenly! It came with a big hunk of brown sugar to melt into the chocolate, a dash of cinnamon, and bananas, of course. Wow. Yeah, just wow. Then we walked over to the movie theater and saw the new Bond movie. It was good.

I had told my boss about our big night and that Cole was spending the night with my parents. He suggested I take Thursday off to sleep in and chill. Okay!! So I followed the boss' instructions and slept in! And it gets better - he didn't want me to come in Friday to make up for it. So I've had a really long weekend!

Cole started basketball Thursday evening. One of his teammates is the son of Brice's and my high school choir director. When Cole saw him, he recognized him as the boy who takes piano lessons in the time slot right before Cole! Who knew?

Brice had class all weekend and Cole was away so I had a lot of time to myself. I wrapped Christmas presents, blew the driveway, slept, ran a few errands, slept - good times!

Cole is out of school all this week so he will be coming to work with me for Monday and Tuesday. Brice has "professional development" those two days. Then we head out of town on Wednesday for a Jackson Family Thanksgiving in Callaway Gardens! I've never been and I hear it's beautiful! I'll post pictures next week. I wonder if we'll go around the table and tell what we're thankful for?

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone! And remember to be thankful for the many blessings in your life!

Christmas in November?

Growing up around the Cheely house, the Christmas season started in December. Well, at least not until after Thanksgiving. Once we kids started going to college, Mom used the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, when we were home, to have free labor in decorating the house. The same applied for the Christmas holidays - we would take down the decorations the day after Christmas, and sometimes even Christmas afternoon, before we all headed out.

I've stuck to that timing myself for several years, but I always hate to take down that beautiful tree after 3 weeks. And I'm sure you've noticed that our retail industry thinks October 15th is the beginning of the Christmas season.

So based on our schedule and excitement for Christmas, we decorated this weekend!!

Cole was SO excited and ready to help. First came the tree and he was such a great helper!

It was quite a process - but we finally got it up.

Next came the adult only part - the lights! Thankfully, Brice and I find this process easy - no arguing! Oh, but Cole always get to put on the star!!

And after a Sunday afternoon of ornamenting, with some help from our friend, Mac, this is the final product:

That's our Veggie Tales nativity sitting under the tree.

A concern of ours was the reaction Macie would have to the tree. This is her first Christmas and we didn't know how she would take to the decor. The process itself was a bit overwhelming for her. All the boxes and paper were quite the playground. The tree is a novelty for her. She likes to lay under it, paw at low branches, and occasionally swat at an ornament. I left a couple of unbreakables low enough for her to play with.

We had a great time getting the house ready and now we can enjoy the festiveness a bit longer than usual!

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Any reason to have fun!

We wanted to do something fun and special with Cole, no particular reason. So we used the end of baseball season as an excuse to celebrate with a favorite activity of Cole's - a scavenger hunt!

To make it grand and special, we designed a list of things that can be found in the mall. Brice even went days before and took photos of various logos and words for him to find. So Monday afternoon, Brice and I met at the school to pick Cole up together a bit earlier than usual. He was surprised and curious and then excited once we told him what we were doing. He studied the list of items on the way to the mall and arrived ready to go!



We set off looking for things like a yellow candle, a green t-shirt, a blue hat, a silver bracelet, a gold watch, a light saber, a chocolate chip cookie (which we purchased), baby socks and he could only find one item per store. He found an item pretty immediately - purple shoes.


The next item he found was an air hockey table. Of course, we had to pause the hunt for a few games. We each played each other. Wanna guess who the champion was? She's really good.


We walked around for over an hour, both levels. We didn't help him much. Occasionally we'd stop and say that we could see one of the pictures from where we were standing and he'd find it. The last thing found was a postage stamp.

He had a great time and we had fun watching him. Hanging out with my family is just my favorite thing to do! And I love that Cole gets into our goofiness and has fun with our silly selves!

Halloween in Huntsville

I spent the last weekend of October with my dear friend, Penny, in Huntsville. We took her oldest, Sam, to a local fall festival where he played a few games, loved sliding down the huge inflatable slide, and visited the petting farm.

Penny and I stayed home that evening to hand out candy while her husband, Ron, took little Thomas the Train out trick-or-treating. I had talked Penny into buying more candy, but we only got two visitors!! Their house is a bit isolated from the main part of the neighborhood.

Saturday was a fun day of girl time. Ron was a sweetheart and kept the boys for several hours so that Penny and I could do some shopping, get pedicures . . .

and have a first for me - eyebrow waxing! Yep, never done it and figured it was a good time, having moral support and all.

Get ready . .

Ow!

I'm happy with the result though. They're so small now!

The other highlight of the weekend was hanging out with this little guy:

Luke is five months old and absolutely adorable. All smiles, dimples, and little rolls.

It was a great weekend to get away and chill with a girlfriend. Thanks for having me, Penny!!

Halloween '08

Cole traditionally goes trick-or-treating with two buddies he's had since kindergarten. I was leaving town for the weekend, so Brice accompanied the kids, along with the other dads, as they roamed a nearby neighborhood for mounds of candy. Here's our little Ninja. Scary!