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...