the most wonderful time of the year

I've never minded having my birthday in December.  It's far enough away from Christmas that it just makes this time of year even better!  I decided that I actually like having my birthday on a Sunday because not only do I get to chill all day with the people I love, I also get to celebrate it all weekend long! (And a week and a half later.)  My birthday was filled with a weekend of wonderful food from The DoDo and Little America and hanging out with the best people in the world.  Steve even watched a chick flick with me. (It’s the one night a year that I can get him to watch one with me so I've decided to make it a tradition!!)  We also went out with my friends this week to Cowboy Grub to celebrate my birthday and Christmas.  Just being at “The Grub” brought back too many good memories from my high school days when I used to work there (or more like where I attempted to serve people food but ended up just playing with all my coworkers in the back kitchen.  Oh, the good ol days).  We decided to do a white elephant gift exchange as well and had some pretty great gifts including a creepy baby doll, a beta fish (which has now made our kitchen counter it’s new home. Hopefuly Benji won’t get to him…), a random family’s framed photo, and much, much more.  We also had a party with #thisisfriends over my b-day weekend with a white elephant gift exchange which was a blast as well! I L.O.V.E. this time of year!!!!  

We went to Little America on my birthday with my family and cute Bubba was so excited to give me his gift.  Lindy said that when he found out it was my birthday he ran to his treasure chest and picked a ring to give me and told Lindy "She's gonna to think it's soooo beautiful!!"  She had told me this right before I opened it so of course I said "Oh, Bubba this is soooo beautiful!"  And he just shook his head confidently up and down and walked away arrogantly.  It was pretty funny.  His $.25 cent ring sure puts my worth-a-little-more-than-$.25 cent ring to shame! ;) 

I think my favorite part of the birthday dinner with my friends was Marci opening up the present with the creepy baby doll.  She reached in the bag and was squealing the whole time because she kept feeling "a creepy hand and bald head".  She was hilarious. 

What a cute lil fam!

The best part is the tag from the D.I. was still on...who would actually pay $2.00 for this creepy thing without it being a joke?  Hmmm....

BENJI BOY!! (aka Mr. Benjerman)

It was only a matter of time that we would fall in love with a pup and have to bring him home and that time happened to be this weekend!  There is a pet adoption center in our neighborhood that we always go to and play with all the dogs there but none of them have ever stolen our hearts like Benji did on Friday.  He’s been adorable so far and we are so in love! 

Welcome to the family Mr. Benjerman!

Gobble Gobble Gone

I can't believe how fast November flew by! I have too many pictures to upload so I'm just going to do a photo dump from the last month.  Here goes!!


Since the weather was so nice this November we decided to go to the Zoo with the women and children of the Child clan.  It's been so long since I've been and it was so fun!  They have some really cool animal exhibits and the kids were loving it!

Just Steve and I putting on a show for er body.
(We thought it was fitting for us since I'm always grabbing him in a desperate attempt to keep warm.)

Bubba was OBSESSED with Steve-O.  (I don't know where he got that name but he sure loves his Steeeeve-Oooohhh)

We also celebrated Steph's bday and went to Sawadee for dinner.  It's so great that we all have significant others now and can do group dates!  Poor Steve was dragged to way too many girl dinners where he was forced to talk about dating and relationship problems. (He was always a good coach though.  So good that his advice must have worked since they're all taken now!)

Got a spontaneous pedicure with my mama!  So glad I happened to call her while she was there so she could invite me. Thanks ma!

We celebrated #Thisisfriends Friendsgiving which was a success!  Who knew we could put together something so extraordinary?! The food was delicious and so was the company! Hopefully this will become tradition. 

Yum Yum to ma tum!

Of course we couldn't let the evening go without taking some chick pics...

Steve and I were staying at my parents house to watch Gizmo while my parents were in California so we ended up having the Child gang come over to my parents on Thanksgiving day.  We smoked a turkey in a garbage can in my parents front yard (talk about redneck).  The boys loved being all manly and stuff.  Even Parker wanted to be involved and watched them through the window from inside all day.
It was quite an entertaining day.  Not only did we smoke a turkey in my the front yard, we broke my moms crock pot, spilled wax on my moms expensive tablecloth, broke her oven light, and found a scratch on my dads jeep (that I had been driving previously that week).  Luckily, my parents don't know half of the items on that list so I think they'll let us borrow their house again one day! Don't worry, I did tell my dad about his jeep and was SO relieved to find out that it had already been there! (I don't have the best driving record and was terrified to tell my dad because of the grief I would get for wrecking yet another car of his!)

We wore Parker out!

I am so thankful for amazing family and friends to spend time with this weekend. I sure love them all and we made some great memories!

Mr. Halloween

Ohhhh, Mr. Halloween....I never know quite how to feel about you. You usually disappoint me with your lame parties and your pretty-much-naked-trying-too-hard-to-be-sexy-but-failing women running around. Buuuut you made a great comeback this year! I'm real proud of you.

We decided to start off the night with a yummy dinner at my parents where we got to hang out with all my nieces and nephews in their cute costumes.  After dinner we were pretty anxious to get home since it was our first time living in a neighborhood  to give out candy to the kiddos. It was so fun to see all the cute kids in our neighborhood! And luckily, the kids were generous enough to leave a bunch of candy leftover for us to keep as decoration for the month after...who am I kidding, the leftovers didn't last longer than a day after Halloween...woops! ;)

Our next adventure for the night was a couples party at Russon's Mortuary.  It was fun to dress up and hang out with our friends all night...and eat. and eat. and eat. Did I mention I ate too much?  I think it was worth it though.  It's the one day out of the year that you have an excuse to eat more candy and treats than your body can handle and I don't regret a thing!  We decided to double up with the Kent's and dress up as Biggest Loser contestants which was fitting since we've been work out buddies for the last couple months.  It was the warmest and most comfortable costume I've ever been in!  It's rare that you get to take a nap on your "pillow boobs" on the drive home from a late party so that was definitely enjoyable.

Thank you Ms. Halloween for being good to us!  I look forward to seeing you next year! 

FALLing for FALL

Although some people say that fall is their favorite time of year, I've never been able to get past the fact that the temperature change means winter is coming...oh, dreaded winter. That's all I've been able to focus on until this year.  I also love being married and being able to appreciate this time of year with my love instead of focusing on which guy is catching my eye and how I can catch the guys eye that's catching my eye. and so on. and so on. Now that I don't have to worry about falling for a new guy, I can focus on falling for fall! And boy, have I fallen hard this year! (although, I still REALLY hate the bi-polar weather.  Just make up your mind if you're going to be cold or warm already!! I can't handle wearing my jacket and then taking it off and then putting it back on and then taking it off and then......yeah. I hate it.) 

This month so far we've gone to Cornbelly's (where we played their little Halloween games, got lost in the corn maze, had good chats by the campfire, and....froze our butts off!!), we went to a pumpkin patch that had a spook alley with my nieces and nephews, and then we went to a real haunted house! It's been great so far! But I really can't wait for Halloween and Thanksgiving so we can finish off the fall season with a bang!

Not sure who won the race...I'm gonna go with Steve ;)

We love our chick pics!

The kids loved the spook alley.  Our neighbors did such a good job on decorating their garden to be spooky for kids.  We also had fun jumping out and scaring each other to make it a little spookier.  I think the best was when Steve thought Spencer was coming through the sheet and went to scare him only to find my cute dad jump instead. Haha too funny.

(Steve hates clowns.  It took all his manpower just to take this picture.)



We went to The Fear Factory downtown and I think this is the best haunted house I've been too.  Just the factory itself is creepy enough and when you add all the people jumping out at you it makes for a good haunted time!

Good thing you can't see the dark pee spot on my jeans from being so terrified. (Kidding!!! I only did that in elementary school......with a boy I had a crush on......and that boy commented in the haunted house that something wet rubbed against his leg when we were running from the chainsaw guy.....and then I had to walk around the fun dome with a big ol noticeable wet spot on my pants the rest of the daaaaaaayyyyy......nbd.....not embarrassing. at. all.)