This Weekend in Review

This weekend has been fashioned from traditions that we’ve started, enjoying each others company, searching for a tree, cutting it down at Lakeside Tree Farm. Then, heading to Columbus to eat at Chef Lee’s. Coming home to watch the SEC & ACC Championship games. The next day we finished decorating the tree and putting up the other decorations, enjoyed a warm fire, and watched our favorite Christmas movie of all time, Christmas Vacation! Looking forward to having a wonderful Christmas embraced by love and tradition.

Christmas 2009

Cutting down the Tree

Cutting down the Tree

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009

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Show Us Your Life {Christmas Trees}

Show Us Your Life with Kelly's Korner
I wrote three posts last year about my Christmas decorations.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Christmas trees
2000
00xmas

2004
Christmas 2004

2005
Christmas 2005

2006
06
2009
Christmas 2009

Here’s a pic of Drew in our other house with the bare tree, waiting to decorate it.

Bare Tree

Photobucket

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Show Us Your Life {Christmas Traditions}

Show Us Your Life with Kelly's Korner

I wrote a few years ago about my traditions I had growing up, but not sure I’ve talked about the traditions we’ve started with our family.

1.) Choosing & cutting down a real Christmas tree ourselves

Growing up, I never had a real tree. So now that I’ve been in Auburn for 14 Christmases every year we’ve had a real tree. We love the Virginia Pines, but there was a year that those were hard to find around here, so we settled for a Cyprus. We now have a place that we go to every year with a hayride through the hills out to where the trees are and the boys get down on their hands and knees to cut it down. It’s fun. Some years we are in t-shirts and shorts and then there are some years we’re bundled up.

Shopping for a Christmas Tree
This was Monkey’s 1st trip to the Christmas tree farm. It was a drizzly one!

2.) Having the boys unwrap their new PJ’s on Christmas Eve
Another family tradition that I started was having the boys open a present Christmas Eve. It’s always a new pair of PJ’s, because I want them to be cute for pictures the next morning. And it is so funny that every year TV Boy acts a bit sad and disappointed when he opens it, like he forgets what it’s going to be.

Christmas 2008
Here they are in their PJ’s 2008

3.) Making Sausage Balls & cookies for Santa
On Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve day I enjoy baking cookies for Santa and making Sausage balls. Most years the kids get a Gingerbread kit and decorate it also. Makes for a cute table decoration. This year I’m thinking of making one without a kit! Will post about that.

Food

Christmas Food

The making of our Gingerbread house

5.) Taking Christmas portraits of the boys

Christmas 2004
Here’s Monkey’s 1st Christmas portrait. If only you knew how I was dripping with sweat after trying to get this shot!

6.) Taking the boys to see Santa


Santa visits through the years

7.) Watching Christmas movies
Leading up to Christmas, we enjoy snuggling around the fire as a family to watch some of our Christmas movies (post about that coming soon!)

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Dating {Post from March 2008}

Ok, so Rob and I started having “date night” back in December. We would go every other weekend and we would take turns planning it and usually it was a surprise. So I’m going to recap our dates and what we did…

Dec. 8 – (planned by Rob) We went to see the ballet, Nutcracker, and ate a fancy restaurant called Dawson’s at Rose Hill

Dec. 22 – (planned by me) I pre-purchased for the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was the night after it premiered so I wanted to make sure it wasn’t sold out. After that I had asked Rob to email me restaurants we didn’t go to much that he would like to go to more or just some of his all time favs. I narrowed the list down to a few. I wrote them on little pieces of paper and before the movie I had him draw one. Actually I had him draw 2, one just for backup if the first one was too crowded. The restaurant he drew was Longhorn, which was only about a 5 minute way. Rob thought it was really intriguing, because when he drew he didn’t know why or what he was drawing. All he knew was that he was making a decision by drawing. I did it this way because I didn’t want to take the blame for doing something bad. LOL!

Jan. 5 – (planned by Rob) He took my ‘interactive’ idea and made a little quiz like thing on his computer and so I had to choose from different pictures and that would determine what our date was. What I ended up choosing inadvertently was a movie with dinner of course. We saw a great P.S. I Love You. GREAT chick flick! After that we went to our fav restaurant, Durango.

Jan. 19 – (planned by me) I went back the list of places Rob said he wanted to go to more often and chose a restaurant called Ole Auburn Ale House, which was nice and different. We had been there one other time with some family that came in to town for a football game. After that we came back to the house and watched Bourne Ultimatum, which I had rented prior to the date.

Feb. 10 – (planned by Rob) Valentine’s Day Date early.

Feb. 23 – (planned by me) dinner at Carrabas and then to see the Columbus Cottonmouth Hockey Game. It was awesome! We got free bobbleheads at the game. We seriously need to make this a tradition and go much more often. I HEART hockey!

Since then we went on our cruise without kids and it was awesome. We’ve been so busy with other things that we haven’t resumed our dating schedule….

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For Today…

Saw this from Fun Mama. I like doing these and haven’t done one exactly like this before.

Outside my window… beautiful 67 degree weather.

I am thinking… why my 11 year old is crawling around on the floor when he’s supposed to be in bed.

I am thankful for… my family and the roof over my head.

I am wearing… my comfy gown since it is almost bedtime.

I am remembering… how much I enjoyed having date night with Rob and wish we could do that again.

I am going… to be going to bed soon after watching more shows on the DVR.

I am reading… High School Heroes

I am hoping… for a wonderful Christmas.

On my mind… are so many things. Lots of worries, although, I try not to, because I know it doesn’t do any good.

From the learning rooms…, you can overcome anything…somehow.

Pondering these words…, “To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.” – Charles William Stubbs

From the kitchen… lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving. Looking forward to making some little goodies for Christmas.

Around the house… cleaning and putting away the Fall decorations to make room for Christmas decor!

One of my favorite things… is looking through pictures as I recall all the memories that flood back from each snapshot.

A few plans for the rest of the week… lots of working, start pulling out Christmas decorations, and try to eat normally.

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Pizza Bagel Party

pizza party

The day after Thanksgiving was a day of tailgating, celebrating, and football. For the Iron Bowl, I decided to have to have a Pizza party with mini-pizzas. I kept it simple with minimal ingredients, but for a true pizza party here’s what you will need:


Ingredients:
Mini-Bagels (cut in half)
Soft Dinner Rolls (cut in half)
Pizza sauce
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Mini-pepperonis or Pepperonis sliced in 4ths
Ground Cooked Italian Sausage
Diced ham
Sliced black olives
Slice mushrooms
Pepperoncinis
Banana peppers
Parmesan cheese
Red pepper flake

This list could go on and on. Just put whatever pizza toppings you like. Have a toaster oven near your pizza bar. This was fun and easy and was a crowd pleaser for sure!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Earlier this year while going through all the stuff I got from my Grandmother’s house, I came across a book with a lot of my stuff from school. Seeing these Thanksgiving projects brought back many memorable memories and I just had to share them.


My turkey from 2nd grade (I think)
One of my Art Projects (2nd grade- I think)

My Thanksgiving letter from 1st grade
1982 - 1st Grade - My Thanksgiving Letter

Now this! This I love! This was from 2nd Grade where our assignment was to tell How to Prepare a Thanksgiving meal…
2nd Graders tell how to cook on Thanksgiving (1983)

2nd Graders tell how to cook on Thanksgiving (1983)

2nd Graders tell how to cook on Thanksgiving (1983)

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Family Campout with Cub Scouts

Back in October we went with Pack 29 Cub Scouts to Family Camp. For those of you who don’t realize, Drew crossed over to Boy Scouts in April and Alex isn’t old enough to be in Cub Scouts. That means that Rob is a the Cubmaster while not having a son in the organization. That’s true dedication in my eyes! Totally! You should see the time he puts in to it. Anyway, so here’s some pics from our fun weekend.


Our campgrounds
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

Rob handing out bracelets to the cub scouts
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

One of the activities
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

One of Drew’s friends who came with us to help out
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

They were a great help at the Archery station
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

I adore this kid!
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

Doing that annoying snapping thing
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

Love the look on this leader’s face
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

Peach cobbler; who knew you could cook cobbler while camping?
Family Camp at Camp Pine Mountain, GA

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Busy, Busy, Busy

I’ve been so busy lately. I started a temporary job at the Auburn University Library. I’m there four days a week M-Th from 6 pm to 12 am. I also substitute as much as possible and still work at the day care teaching music M & W. All this means that if I sub on M & W I work from 7 am to 12 am!! WOW! If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not! I’m actually shocked at myself that I’m able to survive this, and very glad to have this opportunity to get some extra money, with school being out so much for the holidays.

I am so very thankful for my wonderful husband, who is doing a great job “taking over” for me while I’m gone. He’s helping me out in every way he can to ensure I’m getting as much sleep as possible. He’s started getting the kids up for me in the morning to allow me to sleep a little longer. Every evening it’s so comforting to come home to a clean kitchen…sparkling clean! There’s just something soothing about not seeing dishes piled up in the sink. Thank you, Rob!

{{So I’ve got several posts that I need to get caught up on. Hopefully I can get those done soon.}}

Posted in Life's a Beach, Me, Myself, & I, Mr. Mag, My So-Called Life | Tagged | Leave a comment

Nov. 23-29 Menu

Monday
Dinner: Red Beans & Rice

Tuesday
Dinner: Leftovers

Wednesday
Dinner: Chicken Cordon Bleu

Thursday
Dinner: Thanksgiving
Cajun Fried Turkey from Creole Seafood Shack
Praline Sweet Potatoes
Apple Cornbread Stuffing
Peanut Butter Cookie Candy Bars
Praline Pumpkin Pecan Cake

Friday
Dinner: Pizza Party

Saturday
Dinner: Sliders* and fries

Sunday
Brunch: Sandwiches
Dinner: Leftovers

*Recipe with Pics coming soon

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