Thanksgiving in Arkansas

Last Tuesday, the girls and I ditched DJ for Thanksgiving at my mom's house. We haven't been home for Thanksgiving in a few years, so we were excited to head home. 

8 hours in the car with this crew. Thankfully, we survived with charged tablets and a Hamilton sing a long. 

We celebrated our Thanksgiving on Wednesday so my brother could be home. He's a fireman and was scheduled to work Thanksgiving day. Gee and Papaw took the girls down to the haystacks to get a few pictures of the cousins together. 

Then, they came home for some baking. Gretchen was a huge help and baked pumpkin pie and helped Gee a ton. Megan was just in it for the photo op. She mixed up the dressing and then ran off to play. 

We snacked on our favorite cheese ball. 

And headed back down to play on the hay bales. I mean, what else should we do on Thanksgiving in the country. 

Megan of course, did cartwheels. 

Sweet sister-cousins. 

These girls were made for country life. 

After a quick game of hide and seek we headed back to the house to warm up. Y'all, it was cold in Arkansas and we were not ready for it! 

But, we were ready for the food! 

My mother always has a beautifully decorated kitchen table. 

Siblings! 

We were stuffed and full of pie.

These two were wonderful cooks! 

Thanksgiving morning, we settled in to watch the Macy's Parade, and then we headed to Branson! 

All snuggled in Christmas pj's and ready for bed! 

These girls were pumped for a little getaway and had all decided they would sleep in the living room, and then both of them ended up in my bed! Ha!

It was so fun to celebrate Thanksgiving at home in Arkansas. 

 

A Whole Lot of Random

Happy Thanksgiving week! We are pumped to have a short week and then to get away for a girls weekend with family! It's going to be a good one! 

Here's a whole lot of random for you today! 

I came home from work and needed a minute. Adalyn crawled in the bed, snuggled up close, and fell asleep. I'll take these precious moments when I can. 

School work and stinky faces! 

Megan decided to dress as an 80's girl last Sunday and headed out to play with friends!

Adalyn on the other hand, preferred her dress and booties. 

She came over to me and said "take my picture like this". Ha! Ok!

This is how I always want to remember her- messy face, missing teeth! I was at work and she texted me that she lost another tooth! 

Loft has been having some awesome sales, and I ordered two new tops. I was super happy with how fast they shipped too! 

I grabbed this black top; it's hard to see, but the sleeves are sheer, and it's a perfect dress up or dress down top. 

And this brown top for Longhorn events. 

I recently grabbed the girls a pair of blue light blocker glasses for when they're doing school work. Both Megan and Gretchen use the computer for their homeschool, so protecting their eyes is a must! You can go here and get 20% off your order. They're a perfect stocking stuffer! 

I'm obsessed with these new oils from Young Living! I diffused the oils together (3 drops each) in all of our downstairs diffuser and my house smelled so wonderful! I think I'm going to be making room sprays for Christmas gifts with these! 

DJ and I snuck away for a quick date night since he came home early one night! 

I've had some recent moments of feeling like we aren't getting enough done in our homeschool days. We've just had busy weeks and weekends so we're a bit behind or we've had to leave off Bible on some days. 

Thankfully, last Friday was a great homeschool day and we got lots done! 

Gretchen and Megan worked on rock and mineral identification together. 

Megan and Adalyn went on a little noun scavenger hunt.

And Adalyn and I got through lots of math with zero complaints from her! 

Megan has been working her way through a multiplication workbook and on Thursday, she finished the very last page! When she left school last year they were just starting to learn multiplication facts, so we really wanted to hit them hard at the beginning of this year. She's come so far! 

The girls found a caterpillar in the street on Thursday and brought it up to our flower bed. It eventually made it's way into one of our plants! 

And then made a chrysalis! We're excited to watch it over the next few days and hoping that we make it back from our Thanksgiving trip to see it turn into a butterfly! 

 

Come On In: Christmas Tour Part 1

It's 2020, and anything goes- right? I knew that I would decorate for Christmas sometime this week (I had planned on decorating this weekend while DJ is at an away football game) but I didn't have anything to do on Sunday, so I figured I would drag out all of the boxes and go ahead and decorate!

I usually wait until Thanksgiving weekend, but this year, we are heading to Arkansas for Thanksgiving, and once we get back we'll only have a few weeks before Christmas and I really wanted to enjoy the decor. 

So- here's part 1 of our home tour......

In our entry way, I used an old garland that I had, and added greenery picks from Target, as well as gold sequin ornament picks. I also had to add lights because the lights in my garland had gone out. I hung a sign above, placed a Spode bowl to collect odds and ends, and I love the way it turned out. 

Our entry way wall has all of the hand and footprint art the girls have made over the years. I added wreaths to two of the baskets (I had intended to hang these wreaths in the kitchen, but then I decided to put them in the baskets, so I need to go back to Target and grab one more wreath for the top basket. 

The art work pieces are so fun and the girls have loved created these every few years. I wish we would have started this tradition sooner and continued every year, but there are years we've forgotten or been too busy. Anyway, Megan has already told me to grab more canvas so they can create more this year. 

On to the dining room....

I usually have this lantern on the entertainment stand, and I was trying to figure out what to use as the centerpiece in the dinning room. I like to keep the centerpieces in here somewhat minimal because we use the table for homeschool and eating and it's always a mess. So, the less clutter around the table- the better.

I added holly bushes that I've had forever, added in some berry picks, pheasant feathers, and antler ornaments around the bottom of the lantern, and I love how it turned out. 

When we moved to Texas, I was really bummed that we didn't have a fire place. But, this space below my TV has turned out to be the perfect makeshift mantle, and it's one of my favorite areas to decorate. And now, I'm realizing I should have taken some closer up pictures for y'all. 

I added wooden deer and wooden trees (both from Hobby Lobby) with garland, flocked picks, pinecones, and balls that are wrapped in red burlap. 

In the shelves, I placed pictures from our Santa visits from over the years. 

On one of our bookcases, I added a Santa tray, Santa clothtique, snowman, and garland with sparkly picks. 

This year, we didn't use our large nativity. I received this nativity at my Christmas wedding shower- which I think every bride needs to have.... and placed a big Santa face above. 

On the floor, I placed a large Christmas pillow and baskets of the Christmas cards we've received over the years. These are so fun to go back and look through! 

I added wooden Santa's and holly bushes over on a sideboard. 

I love these wooden Santa's- they were my mother's, and our advent was the perfect addition. 

Since we don't have a mantle, our stockings are hung on a stocking stand that I purchased from Kirland's. For now, it's right in front of the window and we'll move it before Christmas Eve. 

A cute metal Santa, another Santa picture, and a Spode bowl on the table, along with more garland, and sparkly picks. 

I moved our tiered tray to the coffee table, added part of our nativity, and a little tree. 

We also have the giving manger, waiting to be filled, and a Santa figure with his "nice list"

We still need to decorate the girls' play room, and I'll share the kitchen with y'all in the next part of our Christmas tour! 

Happy Holidays!

(Even if it's a little early) 

 

Fredricksburg

DJ was off on Saturday thanks to a bye weekend, so we decided to take the day and drive to Texas Hill Country to see the Fall foliage. And we basically forgot that Texas is Cedar and Cypress trees in hill country and their leaves don't change colors. 

We've been to Fredricksburg just once before but I've been wanting to go back and Saturday was the perfect day for it. Although, the next time I go, we're leaving the kids at home and planning on enjoying the wineries on the way up. 

 We parked and walked by a gorgeous little garden and headed straight for lunch. 

These girls were hungry and ready to eat!

Fredricksburg is a German town so I really wanted to eat at a German restaurant. Auslander's it is! 

I ordered the chickenschnitzel which was so yummy! 

And DJ ordered a sandwich. 

The restaurant had a biergarten feel.. but neither DJ nor I opted for German beer. 

We were all stuffed and all enjoyed our lunch! 

Downtown Fredricksburg is lots of little shops. We walked and explored a few of them.

Their town square was all decked out for their Christmas festivals, and when I found out they had it all decorated, I was excited to see it all! 

I follow an instagram page that shares a lot about Fredricksburg, so I was excited to see this in person. We had talked about leaving the house in the afternoon, to see Fredricksburg at night, but I'm so glad we were able to go during the day to see everything in detail. 

We walked back to our car through the garden and spotted the most gorgeous butterflies. 

It was the perfect little day-trip getaway.