We have a Tree!!!

Had so much fun with my sillies yesterday morning!  For the second year in a row we went to Butler's Orchard to cut down our own tree.  Well, more specifically, us girls stood around and watched Cosmo cut the tree down and then we all applauded.

After cutting the tree we stopped in at the market and had some hot chocolate and caramel and apples.  I had to go to the office for a bit but when I came home they had the tree up complete with lights and baked macaroni (T's favorite) in the oven for dinner.  We decorated the tree and enjoyed dinner and just relaxed the rest of the evening.  This year's tree is HUGE and I think it's one of my favorites we've ever had.  The girls didn't want to use any of their hand-crafted "kiddie" ornaments so the tree is just balls and stars and candy canes.  It looks great!!!  

Well Hello There!!

Wow.  This is the longest I've ever gone without blogging.  It's just been super busy the last couple of weeks and we've been enjoying the recent snow.  KJ had snow days last Monday and Tuesday.  They could have went on Monday but Tuesday was pretty messy and it was probably good that they cancelled classes.  She's enjoying sledding down the hill in our backyard and the dog likes frolicking in the snow, too. 

For the first time in our family's history we cut down our own Christmas tree last week.  We went to
http://www.butlersorchard.com/, the same place we got our Halloween pumpkins.  It was a gorgeous day and we had so much fun.  Finding the perfect tree was a lot harder than I thought! 

KJ started volleyball practice two nights a week and is really enjoying it.  The other night we saw 3 deer walking down our street, 1 deer as I turned out of our sub-division, two more deer on the way to the school for practice and I saw 4 deer in someone's front yard on the way home. 

I've got most of my Christmas shopping done, Christmas cards are out, decorating is done.  I still have wrapping to do and one package to mail out.  We'll bake next week when my mom gets in.  My parents arrive on Saturday and T got in this past Saturday.  Her flight out of Memphis was delayed 3 hours due to the weather here.  We had some snow Saturday afternoon that turned into rain by the time her flight got in around 10 PM.  One of her residents was on her flight so I was glad she had someone to travel with.  Her "little" lives here in Arlington so I'm sure they'll get together over break. 

Cosmo flew to Bham Friday to do a few things at the house and do some lax stuff.  He got to see his lax boys on Saturday and ran into a bunch of friends Friday and Saturday nights.  He misses lax a little bit and is toying with the idea of coaching here.  Which I'm OK with. 

Pumpkin Chunkin'

We had such a great weekend!  Very "autumnal."  The weather was amazing -- lots of bright sunshine, temps in the mid-60's and lots of blue skies.  Cosmo was on a roll and cooked almost the entire weekend.  Saturday morning he and KJ made biscuits for breakfast.  That afternoon they made homemade white pizza.  Sunday morning he made us French toast.  Love a man who cooks! 

Thursday I didn't feel like cooking so KJ and I planned to meet Cosmo at Uncle Julio's, a Mexican restaurant we like which is close to Cosmo's office.  I wasn't paying attention when I entered it in my GPS and it felt like we were driving forever.  I actually said to KJ, "hmmm....I didn't remember it being this far."  Double-checked my Garmin and realized I hit the address for the Uncle Julio's in Fairfax, VA.  Fortunately, I was able to get off at the closest exit, turn around and found my way to the right Uncle Julio's in time for a yummy swirly margarita!  My fave! 

Saturday we went to a local orchard to get our pumpkin on and couldn't have picked a better day.  The weather was perfect and we had so much fun.  http://www.butlersorchard.com/  Lots of stuff to do -- we went on a hay ride, found our pumpkin (35 lbs!), pet some animals, slide, walked through the corn maze, etc.  Every year we went to a farm in Clanton http://www.alabamagrandolepumpkinpatch.com/ and going to the pumpkin patch is one of our favorite family traditions.  KJ's obviously too big for pony rides and face painting but this year was fun because she did a little Pumpkin Chunkin'!  It was AWESOME and her pumpkins went flying!!  They must have gone at least 100 yards. 

Saturday night we watched a bunch of scary movies -- the remake of the Amityville Horror (w/ Ryan Reynolds) and the remake of The Omen (w/ Liev Schriber).  I'm not a horror movie fan and had never seen either of those movies (originals or remakes).  Cosmo was out like a light on the couch and KJ and I were up until almost 1 AM watching scary movies.  She slept with the light on that night. 

Sunday KJ had her final rec league volleyball game.  It was one of those "play until you lose" kind of things.  (Un)fortunately they lost in their first round so it ended up being an early afternoon for us.  Since the weather was so good we did our outside Halloween decorations.