More things to be thankful for...

In case leftover pie wasn't enough, Butler's basketball team won the NIT championship yesterday. In order to get there they had to defeat both Notre Dame (TAKE THAT KEVIN) and Indiana (NEENER NEENER MIKE). The best thing about it, for me? The fact that now, maybe people will actually have heard of the school I went to. ("Butler? You're going to school to learn how to open doors?")

Last night, we went downtown to see the Christmas decorations. I dressed Porter in a little fleece Santa suit (that I got at Target after Christmas last year for, like, three bucks). Matt teased me for dressing his son up but I'm glad I did - practically everyone who looked at Porter was smiling. You've got to admit, he is cute.

I started my Christmas baking yesterday also. I have four kinds of cookies in various stages of completion, and a pan of fudge which may or may not turn out. (I don't exactly have the best track record with fudge.) I've already made a double batch of chocolate cherries which is, um, rapidly disappearing.

My house smells awesome because my thoughtful husband gave me a Christmas-tree-smelling candle. This is something that's very important to me: the house has to smell like a Christmas tree, even though ours is fake. It's almost as important as listening to the Muppets (badum-pum-pum).

Also, BYU beat Utah State in the last 3 seconds. Awesome!

thankful

I am thankful for...

Not having to touch any giblets this year.

Pies.

The Macy's parade.

That our house didn't burn down in, what was it, 1986? '87?

A huge kitchen to cook in.

My family.

Shop windows

We went downtown (the downtown of our town, not the city downtown, if that makes any sense) on Saturday. A lot of the stores have their windows decorated already - it was really cool. I think I need to go back and take more pictures when it's overcast or something, so I don't get glare off the glass.

Betsy had fun though. She made a new friend.

I wasn't kidding...

... about my kids not being photogenic. I was able to tweak the photos a little using Picasa, but I have yet to figure out how to edit a smile onto their little faces. Oh well.

I made two apple pies last night: one to eat now, because pie is good, and one to freeze for Thanksgiving. I was all set to start peeling the apples by hand when I remembered that I bought a Pampered Chef Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer last summer at a garage sale (five bucks). Of course, it's slightly more complicated than a slide rule, but my friend Rachel has used them before and was able to show me how to set it up. And now we have two gorgeous pies - okay, one and a half gorgeous pies - with the crumb topping and everything. My crusts turned out really good, too; I was really on a roll, pastry-wise.

I also got my NCIS Season 2 last night. Way to go Amazon! I had pre-ordered it with free 2 day shipping, but I wasn't expecting to get it until Thursday, because yesterday was the actual official release. Awesome! I started watching the bonus features last night - they talked about SWAK a lot which made me happy, because that's a really good episode.

I'm trying to finish up my design team assignment for this month, but I can't find a brown cat-eye ink pad anywhere. Why is that??!!

Catch-up blogging

So, I fully intended to write actual paragraphs when I uploaded the scary bear pictures, but I totally got distracted. Sorry. Here is a real blog entry, complete with multiple sentences.

Emily and Russell were here from Sunday night until Friday morning. We had a really fun time. On Monday, as you’ve probably seen, we went to the zoo (the weather was really nice that day, except for the rain) and had dinner at Steak ’n Shake. Emily is an SNS-aholic (can you blame her, really?) and Russell had never been before. We all had milkshakes: they have the new holiday flavors in. Yummm… (cue Homer-like drooling noise here)

On Tuesday, I taught ‘Stretch Your Scrapping Dollar’ to 2 people, one of whom was my sister. Oh well. I don’t think I’m going to teach any more classes, even though I’ve been enjoying myself, because it’s a lot of effort to go to for only 1 or 2 people. At any rate, it was a hoot teaching Emily stuff, and I think she really enjoyed shopping afterwards (though Russell may have to kill me for getting his wife addicted). Em got some cool wedding stuff and I picked up two packs of the new American Crafts ‘Thickers’ - they are so cool - I can’t wait to play with them!

Russell cooked lunch for us on Wednesday: hamburgers and fried potatoes with a side of Lipitor. It was soooooo good. Plus, I enjoyed having someone to talk about cooking with (Russell is a regular Martha Stewart, only with more tattoos). I also introduced Emily to the happy place that is Hobby Lobby. They were having a sale on adhesives so I showed her what kinds to buy. And I escaped without any patterned paper, which is a truly impressive feat.

On Thursday, I attempted to take pictures of the kids to send with Christmas cards. Emily was the stylist/wrangler for this photo shoot. They turned out... interesting (I'll post some later, when I finish editing them and everything).

Rrowr.

Emily is a bear.

My kids aren't photogenic.

Apparently they don't believe in smiling, or looking at the camera, or holding still for the 1.2 seconds it takes me to take a picture. Whatever.

At any rate, the princess and the zebra went trick or treating last night. Matt worked a day shift so that he could take them out, and I stayed home distribut

ing candy and watching 'Treehouse of Horror' episodes on TV. We didn't have a lot of kids come around, so I got stuck with a lot of extra candy. I got the stuff I like (read: chocolate) so that's either a good thing or a bad thing.

The kids had a great time, although I don't think Porter really got it. His favorite was the one house that had a soccer ball sign in the yard; Porter yelled "BAAALLLLL!" all the way up to the house. (You should hear the way he says ball: he sounds like a Mexican soccer announcer. GOOOOAAALLLL!) For what it's worth, Porter figured out how to say "Trick or treat!" this morning. Good job, buddy.