Thanksgiving 2013

For Thanksgiving this year we headed up to Nebraska to celebrate the holiday with my dad and Kim and my grandparents. It was a wonderful, relaxing trip with a great BIG surprise! My birthday fell on black Friday this year and the Hawkeyes just happened to be playing Nebraska in Nebraska. So, what better birthday gift than tickets to the football game!!! It has been years since I have been to a game and I LOVED every second of it. Thanks dad and Kim for the surprise tickets! It was such a great day....I got to spend the day with my hot/sexy husband, the Hawks WON, I got to spend the evening celebrating with my family, and then gifts and chocolate cake. What more could a girl ask for? It was a wonderful birthday! 

The rest of the time we spent taking gator rides, sitting in a deer stand, and eating lots of great food!!!! I even made "turkey" cupcakes.

It was so nice spending time with my parents and grandparents.....I love watching my dad with Gavin too. Gavin seems to really like Grandpa D. It is always great spending time on the farm and of course Gavin can't go to Grandpa D's house without wearing his "pioneer" hat.

November Recap

When I think about this past month I realize how much I have to be thankful for. So here is a quick recap of November and all the wonderful people in my life that I am very thankful for.

Friends: I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends in my life. Some of my KC friends took me out for sushi and a night on the town to celebrate my 30th birthday. It was a late night, but thanks girls for a fun and crazy evening!

Family: Courtney and I are so blessed to have such wonderful parents and siblings. This past month my mom celebrated her 50th birthday (she looks FABULOUS by the way) so my brother Curtis and I along with Gavin made a surprise trip back to Waterloo to help her celebrate. It was a short, but great trip. We even got to spend some time with my sister-in-law Vicki. We love spending time with our parents and try to take advantage of these special moments.

Gavin: I can't even begin to explain how thankful I am to have the privilege to be this little boy's mother! He is one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me. He is such a joy to be around; always smiling and laughing! I love him to pieces and I can't stop kissing his sweet chubby cheeks. I love waking up everyday knowing he is in my life....I love you to the moon and back Gavin Bo! Here is my sweet, silly boy in November....

My Husband: Lastly and most importantly I'm so truly thankful for my husband Courtney. He is my EVERYTHING....I can't imagine one day without him in my life. He truly is my better half and makes me a better person. He is such an amazing father to Gavin! I always knew he would be a good dad, but I had no idea he would be this great! I have two wonderful boys in my life and I thank God for them everyday.

Running Naked

Well, now that we are getting settled into the new house....so is Gavin. His new routine before bath very night is running around the house naked. I guess he likes the "freedom"....such a cute little behind!

Happy Halloween

We have been so excited for Halloween this year...it was extra special since we are in our new home and we actually had trick-or-treaters this year. We have been getting ready for Halloween all week by setting up our fall/halloween decorations, carving pumpkins (which you can't do without some wine), baking ghosts cookies, and reading some of our new halloween books at bedtime.

Real quick let me just tell you....when we moved into this house I could not believe all the Halloween decorations people had set-up on our street. Our neighbors across the street had an entire yard set-up as "Pirates of the Caribbean". He even had flaming pumpkins last night all up the driveway. I guess another neighbor did a raffle and gave away an Ipod to some trick-or-treaters. So, I guess one could say our street takes Halloween pretty serious....and I hear Christmas is even bigger! So, looks like Courtney is going to have to get real good at hanging lights if we are going to compete. lol

We had an awesome day that started out with dressing up as "Herky the Hawk". We headed to music class in the morning where we celebrated Halloween with some of our friends. Isaac (who we meet at swim class this summer) has become one of Gavin's buds. Isaac was a very cute dinosaur! The two did great the first part of class, but started to get cranky at the end, it was passed nap time!

Once 6:00 hit our street came alive!!! So, the thing to do in KC is for all the adults to "tailgate" in the driveway while the kids run around crazy trick-or-treating. Now, I did not know this until about 5:55pm when I noticed some of my neighbors (in costumes) sitting in lawn chairs in their driveway with their spooky Halloween music playing, fire-pits going, and drinks in hand!  It was crazy, however it was the perfect opportunity for Gavin and I to go around and meet some of our new neighbors. Since I could not decide what Gavin should be for Halloween I got him two costumes....so last night for trick-or-treating and for meeting the neighbors he was a "roar-some" dinosaur! I think his favorite part of the night was greeting the trick-or-treaters at our door....but he was a little unsure about some of the costumes. He also really enjoyed emptying the candy bowl and then filling it back up...over and over and over again. I heard our street had over 500 trick-or-treaters last night....so I guess you could say I under bought this year. However, next year we will be ready....in costume and all! Happy Halloween!

Our New Home!

Well, it has been a crazy month, but we are all moved in to our new home. We closed back on the 7th and officially were moved in on the 12th. It took us a week to get the new house cleaned and ready for us to move in....not mention we had to take quick trip back to Iowa for a funeral that same week. Anyways, we made it all work and owe a big thanks to my mom and brother for coming to help us! Here are a few pictures of the house now that we are mostly settled, we do have a finished basement but I have not taken any pictures yet. We still have a few things left to hang and do, but for the most part is it starting to look like HOME!

My favorite part of moving was watching Gavin follow Courtney around....whatever Courtney was doing Gavin wanted to be doing. He is such a big helper! :) 

Fall Fun!

Fall is by far my favorite season! I love everything about fall: pumpkin spice lattes, big cozy sweaters, haunted houses, and craving pumpkins to name a few. I have been so excited to take Gavin to pick out pumpkins this fall now that he is older and walking. We had a blast this last weekend watching Gavin enjoy "Pumpkin Hollow"a pumpkin farm in Overland Park. I think he just liked being on the loose....he was walking/ running all over the place. They had a special section of "small" pumpkins just for the kiddos to pick out. He also experienced his first hayride....not sure if he was a fan or not. I think his favorite part was running through the corn maze. Anyways, the weather was perfect and we walked away with three pumpkins and are looking forward to craving them!

Good Times on the "Plaza"

A few weekends ago we went with some friends of ours Bill and Jessica and their son Caleb to the Art Festival down on the Country Club Plaza....OMG can we say people!! It was a mad house! Basically, they close down all the streets on the plaza from traffic and fill the streets with art vendors. There were people everywhere and I did not see a lot of people buying art. This really was nothing more than a large party! All the local restaurants on the plaza had booths open and were selling food and drinks. They had live music and entertainment not to mention that all the shops were still open for shopping! So, seems like a good time right? Well, yes but not with your one year old! Next time we will be leaving Gavin at home with a sitter....Gigi? Dudie? Kim? Any takers? Anyways, we still had a good time walking around and enjoying the beautiful fall day! The boys seemed to really like the stroller ride and people watching.