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Deck the halls
The other day I received a Big Lots ad. I normally trash them straight away but the subject caught my eye. Christmas stuff was on sale. I’m looking for a new tree so I decided to check out the ad. While I didn’t see any trees I felt would work, I did see a pair of 4.5 foot lighted trees in urns for $35.00. Umm sold! I called the Big Lots near my office but they were out so I called the store closest to my house and they still had some in stock. I ran to Big Lots after work and picked up my new trees.
I got home and put them together and got them fluffed and ready for outside. Then Matt asks how I plan to light them. Umm, I don’t know. He’s the outside light guy! Since our timer only had one additional plug and the cords on the trees weren’t long enough I was unable to immediately plug them in. I ran to Lowes on Saturday and found a cool split plug. It’s a little bigger than we needed but I’m sure it will come in handy. I now have the icicle lights, and both trees plugged into the timer. YAY!
That left my wreath. I guess sitting in the garage for a year didn’t do much for the lights because when Matt plugged it in a few weeks ago it didn’t work. I picked up more lights and I told Matt I’d redo them yesterday. About 3 pm he grabs the wreath and starts trying to take the lights off only to realize they were clipped in place. He spent the next half hour or so taking them off while I took a quick nap. I woke to find new, working, lights on the wreath. I fluffed and secured a few of the new lights before reattaching the bow and adding a few Christmas ornaments. It’s not my best Christmas wreath by far but it will do. So now I think I have all of my Christmas stuff up and in place. With the exception of the table. I think I want to do a little more with it but I’m not sure what. I feel like table settings are my weakness.
~k
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Christmas decor
Here are a few pics of our holiday decorations so far.
Our Tree
The Mantel with my Nutcrackers
I am now collecting Nutcrackers. I need more!
Wreaths for the windows
I think I really need to do all 4 windows. Mom said she would pick up 2 additional wreaths if I wanted.
I have a few printables sitting around plus a few nutcrackers that I printed on old book pages. I saw the idea on Etsy and feel in love with them so I ran to Goodwill a week or so ago to find used books. I didn’t really find what I was looking for but it works for now.
~k
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Holiday Humbug?
I feel like Thanksgiving was super early this year and I’m having problems getting into the Christmas spirit. Last Friday Mom and I braved the crowds, at lunch, to do a little Black Friday shopping. We found a few items and I bought a few more gifts for Matt.
When we finally got home, I pulled in to the driveway and what did I see, Christmas lights on the house! My awesome husband had put them up without me even mentioning it. I think he grumbled something about it being cold as balls over the weekend and Friday was in the 60’s. 🙂 Whatever, I now have lights up outside!
On Sunday he asked if I wanted to help him get the Christmas stuff out of the attic, to which I grumbled, NO! I wanted to have a super lazy day and I had no interest at all in starting to decorate. I still have no interest. My goal all along had been to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving so hopefully I will be more in the spirit by Friday.
I have decided I want to hang some wreaths on the 2nd floor windows. This could be a challenge but Matt has said he will help. He probably would prefer I not kill myself trying to get them up. Hopefully the windows open for cleaning and we can just stick them out that way. If not I have plans to hang them from the 3rd floor windows using fishing line. Should be interesting. 🙂
Happy Tuesday!
~k
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Matt and I had a nice thanksgiving day. We woke up, finished straightening up the house and waited to begin lunch. Matt put the turkey in the fryer a little after noon and my parents arrived around 1:30. I started the rolls when they arrived and then began cooking around 2:00. Everything went fairly well and by 4 we were almost ready to eat. The stupid corn casserole took a lot longer to cook than the recipe said but it turned out to be a fan favorite.
On the menu this year we had turkey, of course, dressing – it was okay, Mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole – which was actually my least favorite dish, and homemade dinner rolls. I think we now have an Edwards family menu. I can’t believe I forgot to take a pic of our spread. 🙁
I mentioned I was making homemade apple pie on Wednesday night. Peeling the apples was the WORST but making the crust was pretty easy. The pie itself was delicious. It is definitely getting added to the menu but not until I get an apple peeler. I told Matt he was lucky he hadn’t asked for this or he would have been peeling apples. Ugh! I did take pics of the apple pie process so I will share those. 🙂
I hope everyone had a great day!
~k
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Biting off more than I can chew?
This year Matt’s parents will be in England for Thanksgiving and his brother will be working in Atlanta. My parents are now about 15 minutes away so they will be joining us for Thanksgiving. This will be the first time in about 3 years I think.
Since Matt and I have been together, I have been determined for us to find our own Thanksgiving traditions, including foods. The past few years we done this and that with the hopes of finally nailing down a menu but this year, this year I am going to do all of the cooking myself (I’ve even labeled all my recipes so I will have them moving forward). Matt will deep fry (with our oil-less fryer) the turkey and I will make the sides.
We sat down the other day and came up with a rough menu. Yesterday at work I started looking for recipes for the items we want to have. I guess everything on the menu is pretty standard but I really want our kids (and us too) to look forward to the familiar foods that are Thanksgiving. I am also adding a few new items to our menu this year including homemade rolls and an apple pie. 🙂 I had a test run with the rolls a month or two ago so I know what to expect but I’ve never made an apple pie. Honestly I’m looking forward to this little experiment. I’ve decided to make the pie the day before. This should allow me plenty of time to cook the food without worrying about dessert. I also plan to prep a few items the night before so I can just throw them in the oven when I’m ready.
Hopefully the day will be semi-stress free if I have a plan. I’m sure the wine will be flowing so that will also help. 😉
~k
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Hello Halloween!
I normally don’t do much for Halloween but the craft bug bit me, again, and I needed something to do. Since Halloween is right around the corner I thought I would decorate some. I found some great printables, and you might remember the crazy Target spree I went on a few weeks ago. I also decided I wanted to do a Halloween wreath. I found a great one on Pinterest. It was plastic snakes hot glued to a grapevine wreath with everything spray painted black. I figured I could get the snakes and wreath at the dollar store since I didn’t care to spend a lot of money.
I ran to the dollar store only to find they didn’t have either item. So as I was wondering around I saw some skeleton garland and some fake rats. I grabbed 2 garlands and 1 pack of rats. My mom was with me and said she had a black feather wreath I could have. Score! This meant I would spend a grand total of $3.00 on my Halloween wreath.
I picked the wreath up during lunch so I could work on my wreath when I got home. I must say the damn thing took longer then I thought it would. The little skeletons weren’t as close together as I thought they were so I had to retie all of them. Next I had to figure out how to get the plastic rats to stay without hot glue. As I was looking in our junk drawer I found a paper clip. I unfolded it and cut into 3 pieces. I stuck each rat with the paper clip and stuck it into the wreath form. I thought the wreath was a little too black so I added a bow. Overall I think it turned out great!
~k
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Looky looky
Someone got flowers for Valentine’s day. 😀 I had a box of flowers waiting for me at my desk after a meeting yesterday. I think I was the only girl on the floor to receive flowers. They are beautiful! Matt did a great job and quite a few of the guys said he did a good job.
We had a nice quite dinner at home with perfectly cooked steaks, baked potatoes and cupcakes. Everything was delicious and the night was great!
Not your typical rose bouquet. 🙂
Don’t judge me I can’t arrange flowers.
Playing with manual on my camera.
My handsome assistant.
Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the
rosestulips.I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s day!
~k
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Our Love Story – Valentine’s Edition
1. How long have you and your significant other been together? 4 years in May2. How did you meet? {What’s your “love” story?} Matt and I met at Topsail Beach. I went on a trip with my co-workers and Matt happened to be friends with them. This is our first pic together.
3. If married, how long have you been married? Nine months and 1 day.4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding? We had a small wedding in St. Lucia.5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share! MattE (Matty) or hon. He calls me sweetie.6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey. He makes me laugh. His laugh. And I love that he takes care of me, he is sweet and caring.7. Tell us how he proposed? He proposed the night before my birthday at home with a ring pop (and a real ring.)8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals? He is more of a flowers and teddy bear guy.9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch? Both please.10. Tell us one thing you’d like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere? Bora Bora or Tahiti.11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine’s Day. We are doing the same thing we do each year. We will stay home, cook steaks and I will make dessert. Valentine’s day 2009
12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine’s day? Not really. We don’t really do gifts for Valentine’s day. Flowers and candy are standard.13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love. You both have to compromise. And you need to laugh, at yourself and with each other.14. Show us a picture of what love means to you.
Happy Valentine’s Day!~k -
I may or may not
already have my Valentine’s day wreath on the door. I know it’s a little early but I am really enjoying wreaths. I made a burlap wreath a few months ago as a gift but ended up keeping it.
I have many many plans for this wreath and I am really excited all my hard work paid off. Burlap is kind of a pain in the ass to work with but I got some helpful pointers from a fellow crafter at Joann’s while I was buying it. I’m glad I took her advice. If you mist it and then clip a single string close to the bottom you can pull it out and it gives you a guideline for cutting. It was still messy and somewhat dusty but much easier to work with.
I found a cute heart and ribbon at Michael’s over the weekend and viola. I have a wreath….on my door.
~k
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Happy New Year!
Matt and I talked about going to the Chick fil-a Bowl for New Year’s Eve to watch the Auburn v. Virginia game but a few weeks ago at the ornament exchange the girls were talking about doing something low-key. Since the bowl game hadn’t really been discussed further I decided to offer up our house. {hehe} Matt was less then thrilled but whatever, I felt like it was our turn to host something.
Last week I sent the evite and slowly people began to RSVP. We only ended up with 4 couples which, honestly, was a great number to have. We made chili and cornbread and had a champagne toast at midnight. Not to mention we watched the game on TV. Of course Auburn won! 🙂
Here is a nice blurry pic of me and Matt.
And one of me and the girls.
If you’ll notice my hair is semi-curly. It took me about 20 minutes to do but I think it turned out pretty well. I’ve tried this a few times with no success. It’s amazing what a can of hairspray can do. 😉
Happy New Year!
~k
