Pre Party Set Up

Here's the mess of stuff for the party. There was no way we were going to get everything into my car, so we filled Doug's truck.All of the plasticware and plates/cups were red (ruby red slippers) and yellow (yellow brick road) to go with the theme and I bought blue/white checkered material (Dorothy's dress) to put in the baskets (like Toto's basket).6 pounds of ground beef. Our house still smelled like taco meat when we got home.A peek of the Temple on the way up the hill:I bought cupcakes just in case we had as many guests as we were hoping...it was also just in case my mom wouldn't let me cut the cake. There are plastic ruby red slippers in each one.

60th Birthday Banner

My mom's birthday party finally came!!! My stepdad and I have been planning it for months and my mom had NO IDEA. I'm so glad I can finally mention this party; it's been hard to keep quiet about it for so long. Here is the birthday timeline for the party. A friend helped with the drawings and I only planned on putting about 10 pictures of my mom through the years. I found so many pictures that I liked, so the banner ended up with over 60:

The party had a Wizard of Oz theme.

Friday Fun

My Friday started with a beautiful sunrise: Then lunch was tailgate style goodies; we had a baked potato bar and a nacho bar:Kristie and I dressed for the "tailgate party". I meant to get a picture of everyone dressed up, but I forgot. There was also Giants and Raiders gear in the office:When I got home, I added white lights and all our ornaments to the tree:
Here are some of my favorites:
Doug/April sledsGreen Bay Packers - P.S. 250,000 shares of the Green Bay Packers go on sale on Tuesday!!!!
I can TOTALLY own part of an NFL team!!Doug's Superman jacketMy mom made these - the beaded names and the present square
Doug/April snow globesAlaska ornaments - totem pole, bear, wolf and an eagle And many many more.More ornaments my mom made - Santa and the little beaded snowman:More decorations around the house:Doug made this snowman when he was 10:
** Correction: Doug made that snowman when he just turned 7.

Decoration Time

Time to put up the Christmas tree - nothing says Christmas like a dusty smelling tree (we really need to get some pine scented candles:) )Doug added a strand of colored lights I was excited to put up our Nativity set. It fits perfectly on the bench we use at the front door.My aunt got us these years ago. I look forward to putting them out each year. One is a few candy canes made from wood with pretty red lights and holly berry decoration and the other is a snowman gourd:
The mantel is decorated and pretty:

My mom made these placemats many many years ago.

Christmas has arrived in our home!!

Wreaths

Here are the wreaths we bought while at the Christmas tree farm.

Drawing

I wish I could draw. My coworker drew this for me last week - she is now stuck on the Smurf Village too. She is so talented; she also helped me with another project....which will be posted later.

Closet Clean Out

We went shopping on Thanksgiving and on Friday I spent the morning going through our closet and getting rid of clothes I don't wear. I've kept them because they fit, but I haven't worn them in 2+ years. I can't believe how much I got rid of! The white bag in the back is stuffed full and the extra pile on the floor got a little bigger.It felt good to purge the clothes and it'll help with tax write offs when we donate them to Goodwill.

Christmas Tree Farm

Saturday we went Christmas tree shopping with Bonnie and the kids. It was a fun day, but I forgot how much work it is....and I didn't do any of the manual labor :)GOAT!!! A llama llama with no red pajama:We ogled the precut trees, but most of them were $90. They were beautiful trees:I forgot to take marshmallows with us. Fired. HA, no pun intended.Time to net the tree:

I bought a few wreaths while we were there. After they make the wreaths they soak them in white goo that looks like milk:

They made a snowman wreath too; Bonnie suggested I put one on our front door:

After Doug cut some branches off and made a couple clean cuts on the bottom, the tree was up and ready to go. It was a really fun day.....TA-DAAA!!!!That is....until I got a text and a picture from Bonnie on Sunday morning - the picture was titled "Timber!"

I feel to bad! I can't believe it fell! She said it took 4 towels to clean up all the water. I have fired Doug and myself from tree stand duty!

Thanksgiving

We went to Kevin and Debbie's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Each family brought different items for dinner and I offered to make the turkey. I went over and over what I wanted to do with it, but I fell back on the same ol' thing. I put butter under the skin and smear it around and then salt, pepper and herb the top of the turkey. I'm a very big fan of the oven bags by Reynolds. They are so easy to use and help keep the turkey moist while browning the skin:Mmmmm fooooood:Then it was time to take the rest of the meat off the turkey. Doug's cousin, Lance, helped me and we ended up laughing pretty hard. As we were taking all the meat off the turkey and breaking it apart it started to look like a skull. Lance used his forearm as the lower jaw of our "wolf skull" and we were cracking ourselves up making roaring noises. Then we noticed another portion of the turkey looked like it could be the lower jaw. ****THIS IS A TURKEY SKELETON, NOT ADULT CONTENT**** I was laughing and saying we could turn the family into vegetarians if they were paying attention to us. Then Lance's daughter wanted to see what we were doing and we showed her the "roaring wolf skull". She made us laugh even harder when she said it looked like a pterodactyl. Yep, it's gross, but it was pretty funny.To end on a less disgusting and totally random note: Aren't fall leaves beautiful!!How was that for a total change of subject. LOL

We had a great Thanksgiving and even went shopping yesterday evening. Old Navy was open on turkey day, so we took advantage of it. It was actually pretty busy. I would have kept shopping if more stores were open. I bet more stores will be open on Thanksgiving next year. The outlet malls around our area started opening at 8pm and then a majority of the stores were open at midnight. I don't venture out on Black Friday because I avoid crowds, but it was nice to go shopping with Doug, Debbie, Bonnie and Paige yesterday.