I'm a LABOR and DELIVERY nurse!!

Yes, you heard right, I landed my dream job and I start in the next couple weeks! So happy!!! More details soon!

Happy Birthday Connor!

I can't believe my oldest child is now SIX! Time has flown by. I am so blessed to have my Connor in my life. He's the sweetest, kindest child I have ever known. Seriously, not just saying that because he's my kid. Connor started kindergarten this year and has loved every minute of it. He's made so many friends and is so outgoing, which is surprising because both Bryan and I were shy growing up. He told me the girls chase him on the playground and he "likes it!" LOL!

So far this year, Connor has participated in Ice Hockey (and is doing well, skating faster and faster), and he's in running club. He runs 2 miles a week! That's really far for a six year old! He will also start coach pitch baseball in January. He likes to stay busy and I hope to keep it that way!

Connor chose to have his birthday party at The Play Factory in Chandler. The awesome thing about having a party there is that you can invite up to 25 KIDS and they don't count adults. We invited his whole class and knowing that they wouldn't all be able to make it, I got to invite some of our oldest, dearest friends as well. Connor had 20 friends come to the party, WOW! We decided to make this party a friend party and we had a family party separate on Thanksgiving for all of the November birthdays. We had 4 other birthdays in my family so it worked out well. Thinking I will make that a tradition!

The Play Factory has bouncy castles galore, slides, a jungle gym and a play area for little ones. There is a room with couches for the adults to sit and relax while still being able to watch the kids. We ate pizza and cake and opened presents in the party room. I loved the fact that I didn't have to do a thing. The employees served food, wrote down the gift list, set up, cleaned up and kept the party on schedule. All we had to do was show up and send out invites that they supplied. So worth it!

Connor loved playing with his all of his friends...old and new. He got some really great gifts but really, he just loved the fact that everyone was there and they were all having fun. Here are the highlights!

This digital collage made with Smilebox

Black Friday!

One of my favorite holidays of the year...LOL! Bryan and I make it our yearly "date" to do all of our Christmas shopping in one day. This was our 4th year and one of our biggest success stories! We actually didn't have to wake up early....or camp out like crazy people. (Although we have camped out in the past, just glad we didn't have to do it this year since it was the coldest Thanksgiving in 80 years).

The only place we really needed to go was Toys R Us, and they opened at 10pm Thanksgiving night. We kicked our family out around 7:30pm and hauled butt to TRU to get in line. We were running late! We ended up being about the 100th or so person in line. Thank goodness our kids aren't into the IPODS and other electronic items! We were in line for TOYS so we had that in our favor!

We always end up in line next to some really great people. Usually parents out doing the same thing as we are....getting massive amounts of toys for CHEAP. It really makes the time go by when you have nice people to chat with. Then there are always those damn line stalkers. They get there about 20 minutes before the store opens and they look for a place where they can cut the line. Pacing up and down or just waiting right in front of the door. Mind you , by now the line was at LEAST 1000 long. It stretched passed where the shopping center ended and wrapped around the side of the building. No parking at all in the TRU parking lot. Thank goodness for the kind police officers that kept the losers from cutting all of us that sat out there for hours. When the doors finally opened, they only let in 50 at a time. It made for a much easier shopping experience. When we got into the store, Bryan and I split up and ended up getting everything on our list plus some bday presents for some birthday parties we had coming up. In all, we spent less on all 3 kids than some people spend on just one and we got some massive presents! We just have 1 or 2 more things to buy for the kids and we are done! Here's our loot...

Full size play kitchen- $59
Push Around Buggy-$29
Kids Outdoor Picnic Table-$19
Dora Couch-$19
Lincoln Logs-$10
Bucket of Army Men-$9
2 Razor Scooters-$35
24 Pack Play Doh-$7
Fur Real Butterscotch Pony (last year) $100, normally $300
2 Free 64 packs of crayons
2 Free coloring books
Bday presents- Polly Pockets Roller Coaster set- $19 (normally $50) and a Crayola art set for $10.

Our big item for Connor is going to be his Polar Express Geo Track set. I'm hoping it goes on sale, it's $124 but it's something he REALLY wants so that's his present. Drew has been wanting a play kitchen so that's his big toy. The one we bought is normally $100, we just got it cheap. We need to get some playfood and that's about it. We already bought Taylor the "Beauty and the Beast" movie, a cute tutu skirt with leggings. I got all of their stocking stuffers by just picking up clearance things over the last few months at Target so that's done.

Now for the adults.....that's where things might get pricey! Happy shopping!

Thanksgiving

So, I got nominated to host Thanksgiving for my family this year. Not a big deal, I love having my family over, we always have such a great time together. I hosted Christmas last year and it went great. I was nervous over just one little thing.....I've never made a turkey before! EEEK!

I started making my preparations at the beginning of October, I figured one can never be too prepared, especially when hosting Thanksgiving for 20! I made my menu and asked that everyone bring something to share. I have one sister that makes the BEST salads ever and another sister that is known as the "Potato Queen". I wasn't about to mess with those dishes! I bought a practice turkey and cooked it a few weeks ago. It turned out okay...just a bit dry. I decided to make a few changes for my Thanksgiving Turkey. I went with the brined turkey. I got the recipe off of Food Network's "Good Eats". Let me tell you, the turkey was the BOMB! Super moist and the skin was nice and golden brown. DELISH! Some of the other dishes included my famous sweet potato casserole, sweet corn casserole, spicy cornbread stuffing, rolls, green beans, swedish meatballs, deviled eggs, chips, dip, a veggie tray, cranberry sauce and of course, desert! Pumpkin pie, German Chocolate Cake and my dad's homemade cheesecake (which, in my opinion, is WAY better than the cheesecake factory!) We were all stuffed!

After dinner, the girls hung out with the girls, the guys with the guys and the kids with the kids. This is typically how it goes in my family. The guys drank beer, watched football and sat outside by the firepit. The girls looked at the Black Friday ads, drank wine and chatted. The kids were upstairs, downstairs, at the park, riding bikes up and down the street, out in the yard playing football, in other words, EVERYWHERE and keeping very busy. My nieces even made up a dance and performed for the adults. It was very cute.

We have a fun family tradition that started just last year. We played LCR (Left, Center, Right). It's a dice game where everyone starts with $3. You roll 3 dice that are marked with either an L, R, C or a dot. If you roll a dot, you keep your money, you roll an L, you pass a $1 to the left, roll an R and pass to the right and if you roll a C you put the $1 in the center. Last person with $1 at the end, wins the entire pot. We had 20 people...even the kids played (Yes, my kids are gambling, LOL!) so we had $60 in the pot. We sat at my big long table, the game lasted quite a while but in the end, CONNOR won the giant stack of $1's. He was beyond excited and I was so happy for him. Guess I will be taking him shopping soon!

I was so relieved that Thanksgiving was a success. The holidays are really about spending time with family. I'm truly blessed and I feel so lucky to have so many people in my life to love.

Halloween!

We had such a fun October this year. We celebrate Halloween all month long at my house! The night before Halloween we went out with some friends to the McCormick Stillman Railroad park, then to dinner at ZTejas at Scottsdale Fashion Square (they make a mean margarita by the way) and then back to their house. We let the kids watch some Halloween cartoons while the adults hung outside by the fire pit. SO much fun! I'm so glad we are making new friends! It's so hard to find "couple friends". Normally, I will have a friend and then Bryan can't stand the husband or vice versa. Tyson, Christina and their little boy are a lot of fun and seem like a really good family.



The next day was Halloween. We carved our pumpkins that day and that evening I made a pumpkin chili and some "mummy dogs" for dinner. Bryan's mom brought over some "witches brew" and we roasted our pumpkin seeds...yummy! Then I got the kids ready for trick or treat! We love being in our new neighborhood, everyone really goes all out around here. Just about every house on our street was decorated for Halloween. People were playing scary music, there was a family that brought out their 50 inch flat screen TV into their driveway to watch the World Series while the kids Trick-or-Treated. Lots of fun. We sat outside on the driveway with our fire pit and handed out candy. I bought 5 of the BIG bags of candy and Bry's mom brought over 2 more. We ended up giving it all away that night. We have tons of kids in our neighborhood. There are 1000 kids at Connor's elementary school and the ALL live in our neighborhood....just to give you an idea. Once we checked through the kids' candy, we combined it into the same couldron that we were using to give away candy out of....it was full! It was like we just traded candy with the neighbors! LOL! The kids had so much fun and so did I! I love seeing all of the neighborhood kids with their costumes. My favorite holiday!



It's "Jack" from Nightmare Before Christmas! It's not perfect but I drew it freehand! Go me!

New Van!

I'm so excited that we finally bought a new car! It's been a long journey for us, deciding on what we wanted and what was practical. Originally, we both really wanted a Suburban or a Toyota Sequoia....then we saw the price and it was INSANE! We could afford to buy one as long as it was bare bones, no extras.....and I really like those extras! Plus the insurance and gas would cost a lot of money for us too. Even though we live much much closer to Bryan's work and the kids' schools now, we still drive a lot so the gas alone was a huge expense. It took us months to decide that an SUV was not a good choice for our family. It was a hard choice though, considering everyone in my area drives a ginormous, shiney SUV....and here I pull up in my minivan...as Debbie Downer (and Taylor) says...."Wah, Wah, Wah". I had car-envy.....bad. So when our van started leaking at 110K miles, we took that as a sign to hurry up and get a new vehicle!

We had a 2005 Town and Country Minivan. Not the most glamourous of cars but it was great for the 5 of us and it NEVER ever broke down or left me stranded. In the last 5 years all we have replaced was a set of brake pads, a battery and some sort of gasket that was less than $100. I think that's pretty good! That led us to make a practical decision.....another minivan. For about $10,000 less than a bare bones SUV, we bought a brand new 2010 fully loaded Town and Country. I love love love all of the extras! We have all leather, 3 rows of heated seats, automatic doors and trunk, remote start so my car can get nice and cool in the summer before I even set foot inside, camera in the back to help me back up without running into something, automatic seats, touch screen controls, Sirrius Satellite Radio, 2 over head screen dvd players and the front screen in the console can play movies too (if you are in park), wireless headphones for the DVD player, we can download all of our Itunes to the van, it stores up to 300 cd's so we never have to carry another cd again, capability to sync to my cell phone. I just tell it who to call and it calls it for me. Then I hear the voice through the radio speakers. Totally hands-free. The only thing this van didn't have was the GPS....that's ok though because my phone has it. It came down to either a model with GPS and no DVD player or a DVD player and no GPS. The DVD player was a requirement. I was getting tired of our ghetto portable DVD player in our old van. The kids were constantly messing with it and it drove me nuts. In this car, I just pop in the DVD into the front console and it plays on the the over head screens. Kids can't reach them! YAY!

Want to know the best part?? Our car payment actually went DOWN! On our last vehicle, we had to roll in a car we were upside down on so our payment was really high. Our payment on our new car is almost $200 less! Woohoo! I think in a couple of months we will go back and get Bryan a new car too! We're thinking Honda Accord.