Another Birthday and Some Thankfulness

This year my birthday fell the day before Thanksgiving.  That’s the closest it can ever get toThanksgiving. I usually hate when it falls like this but it actually worked outfine this year.  It was a pretty laidback day and I was overwhelmed by all the birthday wishes and love sent myway.  Facebook ROCKS on yourbirthday.  I heard from so many friendsand family members that I don’t see or talk to often.  We drove to Illinois and made a pit stop inWilliamsburg at the outlet mall.  Ipicked out a few birthday presents to me from me.  Who doesn’t love that?!?!  The boys spoiled me with presents and made mesome birthday brownies.  All in all itwas a great day.  In year 36, I’m goingto focus on being thankful and appreciating all the blessing I have in mylife.  Feels like an appropriate goalwhen the day after your birthday is Thanksgiving!!

Speaking of Thanksgiving… it was a busy couple days asalways.  We spent Thanksgiving Day withthe Schermerhorns, Friday with the Fogelmarks, and Saturday with theFogelmark/Johnsons.  Here are highlightsthat made this weekend so much fun:

• Relaxing ALL DAY on Thursday.  Talking to Grandma Jane on FaceTime.  Searching Black Friday ads and doing a littleonline shopping to avoid the crowds while still getting the awesome deals.  Hunting- Schermerhorn-style:  Trying to get squirrels wit a nerf gun!
• East Peoria’s Winter Wonderland.  We go through this every year and every yearI love it.  We went on Thursday and itwas so warm the boys could stand up through the sunroof.  They had so much fun!!  We saw a utility truck and told them it was thepolice.  They both freaked out and jumpedin the car because they didn’t want to get arrested.  J
• We picked up G-pa Harold on Friday and told himwe went through the Winter Wonderland. (He invented the Festival of Lights you know!)   I told him I was bummed that the FOL paradewas held a week earlier than normal.  Heexplained that the city did that so that more families would go through theWinter Wonderland Thanksgiving weekend which would bring in more money for thecity!  He’s 87 years old and still thinkslike that.  What an amazing man.  East Peoria was blessed to have this guyhelping run the city for as many years as he did!!
• MarioKart on the movie screen at the Cranford’shouse.
• AJ waking up and going rogue on Saturday morning to go wake up Ashley with his nerf gun!
• Tyler giggling when someone made a comment aboutusing their noodle.  Yep, he’s startingto get THAT humor now.
• Avanti’s on Wednesday night. Butch’s pizza onThanksgiving night.  Monicals on Fridaynight.  And all the other traditionalthanksgiving meals in between.
• A couple trips down memory lane – driving by ourold homes in East Peoria.  The boys wereso confused that we used to live in a ranch house and they couldn’t understandwhy we didn’t just go in and look around. Going back to IVC to a boys’ basketball game to see Ashley’s pom-pomroutine – I haven’t been there since I graduated!

Where Have I Been?? With a Happy Belated Birthday...

It's not like I've been overly busy but I feel off the blog train for a little while!  So the biggest thing I missed sharing was my hubby's birthday!!

He's 41 now.  This is what I know about him:

• He loves ice cream. 
• He loves coaching basketball. 
• He loves his ipad.
• He loves Buffalo Wild Wings.
• He loves pizza with sausage and banana peppers.
• He loves the Bears and the White Sox.  (But not the Cubs - Definitely not the Cubs!)
• He loves french dressing from Monicals.
• He loves the snooze button on our alarm.
• He LOVES OUR FAMILY MORE THAN ANYTHING.

We met when we were 27 and 22.  I never really thought about what our lives would be like at ages 41 and 36.  I would have never imagined it would be this great.  Thanks Hersch for helping make our lives what they are today.  It's perfectly crazy and I wouldn't want it any different!  I can't imagine what it will be like 55 and 50!?!?

No more Halloween

Decorating this time of year becomes a problem for me with all the holidays falling back to back. There's a very short time frame between taking the Halloween decorations down and putting the Christmas decorations up. Usually I let these two holidays merge together. I take down the Halloween decorations just in time to put up the Christmas decorations. This year was different though. I decided to decorate my mantle for Thanksgiving!

It was actually very simple. I took some mason jars I had on hand and filled them with acorns. I typed up the word "thankful" using my cricut. I put a letter in each jar and voilà it was done!!

Home "Sick"

I got a call today from the nurse at Ashland bridge. She told me AJ wasn't feeling well and that I should probably come and get him. When I got to the school and he saw me he had a huge smile on his face. We got home and he wanted to do homework, watch tv, and cuddle. I don't think he was really sick. I think I've been scammed. Lets be honest though....this is a great way to spend my afternoon.

Give Thanks Board

Yesterday was November 1.  How did that happen???  Where did 2012 go?????  I realized it WAS November 1 when all my FB friends started posting what they were thankful for.  AND then I realized it was time to pull out my "Give Thanks" board! 

So about my Give Thanks board....

1. I got the idea last year from Pinterest, of course.  (Here's a link Jellybean Junkyard where I found a GREAT tutorial.)  Instead of using a piece of wood, I used a big ol' canvas from Michaels - gotta love 40% off at Michaels!!
2. I started making this much too close to November 1 last year so by the time I completed it, it was December 1.  :(
3. I'm squeal-out-loud-excited to use it this year!!

Last night I ran downstairs to our storage closet and pulled it out, printed up some 2012 tags, and tried to hang it up on the door.  Struggling with the hanging it up part but I'll get that figured out.



And here's a sample of our 2012 cards.  I'll keep you posted on what we are all thankful for. 



Day 1 (if you can't read it) - Jordynne's 16th Birthday (Traci), Helping with Backpack Buddies (Kevin), God (AJ), Friends (Tyler).  (I need to figure out how to focus with my iphone's camera!!)

Halloween Wrap-Up

Everything Halloween in one picture-filled post!  So many great Halloween memories to share.  Let's start with the crazy afternoon of class parties....

Tyler's Class Party: I didn't realize I had volunteered to be the homeroom mom for Tyler's class... but I am.  I wasn't able to take many pictures because I was busy playing a dice jack-o-lantern game. I had some great parents who volunteered to help out thankfully.  The kids made popcorn monster hands, played a dice jack-o-lantern game, played a Hershey kiss math game, ate at a snack station, and made a toilet paper jack-o-lantern craft.


Tyler with his monster popcorn hand.

Mr. Schermerhorn's first class party.  Ready to lead the dice game!

Mrs. Sullivan has this class in line!

AJ's Class Party was led by FIVE homeroom moms.  I didn't realize I volunteered for his class either... but here I am!  This one was pretty simple since I was only in charge of one station - the craft station of course!

Here we are, hard at work making paper plate ghosts.  Kevin is such a good sport!

One of the other moms took this picture.  Not exactly sure what is going on but certainly looks like AJ is up to no good!

And then there was the AFUMC Trunk-or-Treat! I absolutely love the idea of a trunk-or-treat. This is my third year planning it at AFUMC. Each year I stress out and each year it's awesome. A little colder than I would have liked this year but at least there wasn't any wind. The boys love this event too. We decorated our trunk but again, since I was busy running around, I don't have a picture of it.  This picture is courtesy of one of my favorite photographers - Stephanie. What would I do without my awesome friends....


Don't let the Luau in the background fool you - We were freezing!



I don't have a picture of the trunk but this Storm Trooper was part of festivities. Thanks to Kevin and Debbie for making him happen!

 

And then we Carved our Pumpkins..........


Real Men Eat Pumpkin Guts

He's So Brave



Tyler did a lot of the carving of his pumpkin this year.  He's getting so OLD!!!
 

 Trick-or-Treat!!!  Like every year, this night is so much fun.  Weather was much better than it has been in years past.  We got together with the neighbors for dinner.  Jack-o-Lantern pizza... OF COURSE.

So, funny thing about the costumes this year.  We were all going to be "classic" Halloween.  AJ - a skeleton, Tyler - Frankenstein, Me - a Mummy (because I'm their "mummy"), and Kevin - a Vampire.  We couldn't find a Frankenstein costume that Tyler liked.  AJ found a pretty cool skeleton costume that he chose and Tyler loved it and decided they should be twin skeletons.  I fought it for about 10 seconds and then gave in.  It should be their choice, not mine.  They showed their friends their costumes who also thought they were cool.  So this is what happened....

Skeleton - Party of Five

Peek-A-Drew

Strike-A-Pose-Skeleton-Style

Happy Halloween!!!

Whew!  I'm exhausted!!