Christmas Memories

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Mav and I had a really great Christmas! We spent the earlier part of the week with his parents and sister and then headed back to Beulah on a very snowy morning. We made it back just in time to enjoy Christmas day and the rest of the weekend with my family and grandma. It has been storming non-stop since we got home and the wind has just been ferocious. We woke up this morning to a snow drift that was overtaking our kitchen window. I took some pictures to show all of you who are enjoying nice, sunny weather! :)

O Christmas Tree!

So when Mav and I moved into this house three years ago, we started with the outside projects first (mainly putting up a fence). In doing so, we discovered that we had a few evergreen trees in our backyard that were either too close our property line or were taking up too much space in our not so big backyard. We decided that in order to justify cutting them down, we would wait until Christmas each year and then cut them down to be used as our Christmas tree. I just had to put a 2008 vs 2009 pic up as last year our tree ended up being about 11 feet tall (that was actually only the top half of the tree we removed from our yard). This year we ended up with a very nice, small to average size tree.

Funny puppy...

Yesterday we got a paper and usually if either one of the puppies get a hold of it, they rip it to shreds. But Mav started throwing it and Duncan would go and fetch it and trot it back to us. It was so funny cause as you can see, the paper is a bit oversized for Duncan!! Then, last night he found a new bed. He loves clean, warm laundry and I had just brought this basket up. He climbed into the basket and then Mav covered him up with laundry. He didn't seem to mind and stayed in his cozy spot for quite a while.

Adoption Profile

Our adoption profile has finally been posted to the internet! I have added a link below so that anyone who wants to check it out can see the pages on this site:


http://www.thevillagefamily.org/adoptionoption/profiles.shtml

Turducken

We had an awesome Thanksgiving with Mav's family.We had a very relaxing Thursday just visiting and hanging out with Tara, Seth, Jasmine, Mav's parents, and my dad. We had THE BEST meal complete with fresh rolls, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and a Turducken. I had never had a Turducken (a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey) before and so I was really excited to see what it tasted like! It was seasoned with Cajun spices and also had stuffing in the middle of all those layers. All of the meat was very tender and had a great taste! It made the meal!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

We hope that everyone has a chance to spend some time with family and friends this Thanksgiving! Mav and I are so thankful for our families and friends, who everyday bless us with their love, kindness, and friendship. Have a great turkey day!

I love all things baby!!

So Mav and I made our first "big" purchase in preparation for having a baby. We were just a little worried (ok so it was mostly me!) that we had NOTHING for the baby to sleep in, combined with the fact that we have NO IDEA when a birth mom will choose us, so we thought that it would be smart to at least invest in a Pack and Play. It came UPS today and of course I unpacked it right away and set it up so that I could see what it looked like. It is way cute and I am so glad that we have this to use in the event that things move faster than we planned.

Decorating

Jess and I had a fabulous girl's weekend shopping in Fargo this last weekend!!! I wanted to try and get some things to decorate my beautiful mantel with, so Jess and I spent a lot of time at Gordman's shopping for just the right things. I had this inspiration picture from Pottery Barn, which I used to kinda help me get a layout and shape that I liked. We found a few things that I fell in love with and were more my style, all the time hoping that they would look ok together once I got them home and on the mantel. I think it looks great and really makes it a focal point to show off Mav's excellent woodworking skills!!!

Happy Birthday Hailey and Cole!!

Mav and I went home this weekend for our niece and nephew's birthday party. Hailey had some school friends over to her princess-theme party. Steph made her this awesome castle cake (she could totally be on ACE of CAKES!!). It was so cute and better yet, tasted awesome! Cole celebrated his 1st birthday a few days ago and so we had a little party for him too. He even had his own cake! He did pretty good in the beginning, taking only a finger or two of frosting. As you can see from the pic, that didn't last long!

Happy Halloween!

We had an AWESOME Halloween! Jim and Jess and the boys came to stay with us and we all went trick-or-treating! We even stuffed the puppies into their Halloween hoodies and took them with us! We all decided last minute that we should be dressed up too so Mav scrounged around for some Army attire for Jess and me. Jim had brought a pair of scrubs and a HAZMAT suit, so he shared his scrubs with Mav and he donned the suit. I think we all looked pretty good! My dad stayed behind at the house and handed out candy to all the trick-or-treaters. The boys (Preston and Nate-not Mav and Jim!) brought home quite a haul!

Pumpkin carving party

Mav and I had a blast at the pumpkin carving party! Mav of course had to have the biggest pumpkin he could find at the farmer's market! He bought it regardless of my promise that I WASN'T going to help him scrape it out! We all carved pumpkins and then took them outside to see what they looked like in the dark with candles. We had a lot of pumpkins out there and they all looked so cool!! I tried to get a few good pictures of them in dark with my awesome camera and in the process learned that I really needed to buy a tripod. (hint hint Mav!)

Fans and Cookies??

So we had a few different things going on tonight...Mav decided to work on hanging up our new ceiling fans and replacing the horrible brass/gold spotlight above our fireplace. The new fans are way more our style and the track light is 100% better than what was there. Now, I just need to figure out how I am going to decorate my now in-the-spotlight mantel...
Tomorrow night Mav and I are headed to a pumpkin carving party!!! I decided to bring Halloween sugar cookies. I didn't have a whole lot of time to do any fancy decorating but they were fun to make and they tasted so good!

Halloween puppies!

Yes, I KNOW, we actually bought Halloween clothes for our dogs...I couldn't resist! I saw these puppy hoodies at Pamida and they were even on sale! Grover and Duncan didn't seem to mind wearing them so they are going to be all dressed up for Halloween this year! :)

FINISHED! COMPLETED! ACCOMPLISHED!!

Mav and I completed our profile pages last night! We are really happy with how they turned out! We hope that we accomplished our goal of representing our lives together and that it told the story of all the things we enjoy and value together. I took them to be printed at Staples last night and then my mom will hand deliver the copies to Julie today! We are both ecstatic to finally have our profile/life snapshot available to birthparents out there looking to make an adoption plan. Let the excitement/waiting :) begin...

Mav's latest project...

Mav has been working on building us a mantel shelf for our fireplace and last night he finished it and placed it above the fireplace. It looks soooo awesome and he did an amazing job! We found the design on the internet (mission style - our fav) and he built it from a picture he printed off. He is so talented and I am so lucky to get to put his beautiful woodworking pieces around our house!

Papa's Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday Mav and I went to Papa's Pumpkin Patch with our friends. It was gorgeous out there and they had tons of pumpkins! They had all sorts of fun stuff for the kids to play on and Mav and I had a fun time picking out a pumpkin. I love the fall season!

Stormy Weather

Check out this massive cloud from the storm that went south of Beulah last night. It didn't storm here much at all; just some distant thunder and lightening. But as it got darker last night you could see that this was a pretty wicked storm.

ADOPTION news!!!

Mav and I had our final meeting yesterday in Bismarck with Julie. We have a few things to wrap up over the phone but we are finished with our home study portion of the process!!! We are soooooo excited! We need to finish our profile pages, which is a very daunting but also exciting task. These pages will represent us and aide the birth mother in choosing a family. We are so ready for this point in the process! :)

Surprise Birthday Party!

My fabulous husband planned (with the help of my mom and Jess!!) an awesome SURPRISE birthday party for me last week! I can't believe he kept such a good secret! He took me out for a steak dinner while everyone arrived and when we got home I was so shocked to see all my friends and family there in my house! Jess made me the cutest birthday cakes (of course with my all time favorite cake) and we had a ton of other goodies to eat. I had such a fun time visiting with everyone and was humbled by the gesture of love from my friends and family!

Mav and I are so excited as we have another meeting planned with Julie! We are going to Bismarck on September 9th to have another visit! Depending on what we can accomplish, this may or may not be our last meeting. We will keep you posted!!

We went south of town to watch the coal mine for Mav's plant move their dragline from the East side of HWY 49 to the West side. What a huge piece of machinery!!! It moved very slowly and will take days to move into its new position.

Sailing

Greg and Pat sailed down to Beulah this week! Mav and I met them out at Beulah Bay and they took us for a sail. It was so awesome! The wind picked up shortly after we got there so we had really great wind for a sail around the lake. We even helped raise the sails. Sorry Greg-I can't remember the correct terminology! :) We loved being out on the lake and had a great view of the sunset.

Beulah Bay

We headed out to Beulah Bay yesterday with some really good friends. It turned out to be a beautiful day to enjoy the lake! The boys went wakeboarding and Jess and I hung out on the "beach" with the kids.

Mav and I had our home visit yesterday and we both think it went really well! We had a really nice visit and the time flew by. We mostly talked about our relationship and how we relate to one another--all so that Julie can get to know us better. We are awaiting the results from our personality and parental inventory tests before we meet again. That meeting should be really interesting as these tests are read by a psychologist!! Mav and I each took two tests for the personality part: one to describe ourselves and one to describe the other person. We will see how well we did!

Ok, so tomorrow is the "big" day! Julie is coming for a visit! Mav and I are so ready to meet with her again and are anxious and excited at the same time. With this home visit, we are one more step closer to completing our home study. Wish us luck!! :)

I LOVE SHOPPING!!! Steph and I (and Cole) went shopping in Bismarck yesterday. I think we were gone for a total of 12 hours!! We spent a lot of time at Hobby Lobby, Hancock Fabric, JoAnn's, Kohl's, and Menards (not by choice). We were mainly shopping for fabric as we are each going to attempt to make our own upholstered headboard. Mine is going to look similiar to the one above, except that my squares are going to all touch and the border will just be around the outside edges. Mav is going to help us cut the plywood to shape and then the rest is up to us! :)

Mav is so proud of our garden this year, so I thought I would share a picture of it (for those of you who don't know-Mav built this raised rock garden last year). Everything is looking pretty good and again we are going to have an overload of peppers!! We have decided to try and make our own pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa this year as we will have all the fresh ingredients for them. We are on the hunt for good homemade recipes so share if you have a good one!! :)

Colorado: Day 5/6

The last couple of days of our vacation were pretty relaxing. On Thursday we did a little shopping in Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. On Friday Mav and I went paddle boating on the lake at the resort and then we found a really good Southern BBQ restaurant in an old firehouse building for lunch. I will miss the beautiful views from our room and from the balcony of the resort! FYI: the middle pic is a view from our room, which happens to be the mountain that contains NORAD (notice all the antennas on the top of the mountain).

Colorado: Day 2/3/4

This week is flying by!!! On Monday we went downtown Colorado Springs and walked around. They have a ton of eating places (of course we found a brewery) and some cute shops down there. I found THE best store full of purses, shoes, and jewelry! I fell in love with this leather wallet but just couldn't make myself fork out the $70.00. I knew I would think about how much it cost me EVERY time I used it! :) We headed out on a bus tour on Tuesday afternoon and made a stop at the Garden of the Gods (pictured above). These sandstone rock formations are really close to town and some are actually named. The one farthest away in the pic is named the Three Graces because it looks like hands praying. Wednesday night we were taken to the Flying W Ranch, which was by far the funnest thing we have done. They served us a spectacular dinner and then the Flying W Ranglers (band with bass, guitar, fiddle, mandolin) entertained us for an hour. They were all very talented and the show was awesome!