Christmas is UP!

Well, it has been way too long since my last post.  So much has been going on, where do I begin??  I had the pleasure of going to Las Vegas to see my mom and dads new house.  It is too cute!  We had such a great time, except for the food poisoning.  We went to dinner the second night we were there and I ordered shrimp.  Not the best decision on my part.  I have never been that sick in my entire life!  I thought I was going to die!  Anyway, I felt better a few days later, but man...did that put a damper on my weekend!  Ashley hosted Thanksgiving this year.  She did such a great job and everyone had such a great time.  We were all designated a side and she did the turkey...and what a great job she did!  It looked and tasted fantastic!  We then went shopping at 4:30am on Black Friday and shopped all day long.  I am proud to announce that I have already finished and wrapped all of my gifts.  I also PROUDLY had my Christmas tree and lights up the week BEFORE Thanksgiving.  I love Christmas time!  Its the most wonderful time of the year!  We also had Kevin's family over for our own Thanksgiving.  I made Butternut Squash soup, Cornish hens with cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and asparagus.  Sadly, I served the Cornish hens raw and had to put them back in the oven for another 45 minutes.  Talk about embarrassing!  Oh well, at least it was family.  I love doing dinner parties because of the decor.  I love setting a table to make it the perfect ambiance!  All in all, it has been a great last 30 days.  I am so thankful for the family and friends in my life.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Ashleys Table Setting

Her Beautiful Turkey

Ash and mom cooking away!

I served a cheese platter for an appetizer



Table Setting







Christmas Tree



Tablescape









Christmas Tree at night! 



<>









Birthday Week...

As I have stated before, I love my birthday!  This year, turning 30, I was even more elated than ever!  My mom and sister rock, I must say.  They turned my birthday into BIRTHDAY WEEK!  Here is what the week looked like for me:



Monday was a Happy Birthday balloon and very cute puppy card.

Tuesday, Starbucks gift card...

Wednesday was "Chocolate is a good thing" with chocolate goldfish and chocolate mousse

Thursday was Birthday Eve.  My wonderful sister brought me 30 roses, Pumpkin Spice Latte,  blueberry scone, slippers for spa day and a beautiful card. 


Friday...Its my birthDAY!!!

My mom, sister and I enjoyed an absolutely perfect day at The Broadmoor Spa.  We had our long massages, lunch and then pedicures.  During lunch my mom had a cake brought over.  Its was so great!  I love being 30 so far!

Broadmoor Spa

Ash and I waiting for lunch

Mom and I

Cake time!

We picked our color and off we went for our pedicure

These are a lot of the cards that I received for my birthday.  Thank you to everyone who made my birthday week so amazing!

                          

What a great day!

Today was such a great day!  My wonderful husband let me sleep in until 10:30!  Kevin wanted to play a quick game of "Catch Tinsley".  He pretended that Tinsley was a fish and caught him in his net.  I then enjoyed my late pot of coffee and then headed over to Ashley and Matt's.  I had the pleasure of meeting little Lucy for the first time.  What a perfect baby!  She is beautiful!  Congratulations to Chad and Lisa on making an angel of a baby.  We then played a few games of Bananagrams...all of which I lost.  JJ kicked ass!  I then went shopping at Eve's and had the pleasure of seeing baby Natalie.  It has just been a baby filled day...I found some great buys at The Rev while enjoying wonderful champagne!  Thank you to all of the moms that let me fill my life with the joy of your children.

Lucy..absolutly beautiful!







She is sooooo little.  It is so hard to imagine that Matthew was this small!





Kevin "catching" Tinsley! I couldn't leave that out!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASH!!

This week my sister, Ashley, turned 28.  I know I will be 30 next week, but that doesn't make it any less weird that my "little sister" is now 28.  Ashley, Matt and Matthew spent the day together on her actual birthday shopping and just enjoying each other.  We had family dinner the following night to celebrate.  We had such a great time.  Ashley got a CUTE Polo warm up, a sweater and a couple of gift cards (always nice).  Matthew was so great throughout the entire dinner.  He just loves being out and about!  He ate a meatball and really liked it.  Ash thought she was FOR SURE getting something from Burberry...as did Kevin and I.  Not so much.  That mom...she's a trickster!

Happy birthday Ashley!  I love you so much and hope you had a wonderful day!

Fall is here!

I usually hate this time of year.  I hate cold weather.  I wish it could be 90 degrees all year long...but it can't.  This year I have been lucky.  We had a very late Fall, and the leaves are just now changing.  Although I hate this time of year, I love what the weather does to all of the trees!  My best friend, Kara, lives right up the street from me now.  So... I get the pleasure of driving this beautiful drive, very frequently.



 Kevin and I have a back yard with 4 huge trees that "shed" their winter coat.  This also has been quite the experience for us raking, blowing and vacuuming.  I have found recently that raking is a GREAT workout!


This is what the backyard looked like before raking...

Tree #1 right above our house...As you can see not many have even fallen yet!

This is tree #2 that is in my backyard...also not many have "shed"

As you can see, Kevin is working hard at blowing the leaves.  We attempted the vacuum first, but soon realized blowing and raking needed to happen beforehand.  I was very proud of myself...I made all of those piles.  My back was so sore the next day!

What a great weekend!!

SO...I love my birthday!  I do what I can to make it my birthday throughout the ENTIRE month of October. Also, the fact that I am turning the big 3-0...makes it extra special.  Because of this, I bought myself an early birthday gift...Bronco vs. Jets tickets.  Now, first let me explain the new love I have formed for Mark Sanchez.  He is so stinkin cute!  I think the reason I think this is because he looks a lot like Kevin.  Anyway, I bought a pink jersey with his name and rocked the heck out of it at the game.  The people in our section were not very happy about it...but who cares!?  I had a blast.  Ashley, Matt and Sarah joined me as I cheered my little heart out for that hottie!  During half time, they did a tribute to cancer survivors, being October.  It was really cool...

Thank you Ashley, Matt and Sarah for making such great memories!  I will never forget what a great time I had with the three of you!  (In case anyone wondered why Kevin did not attend...he hates football)

Here is a picture of Mark Sanchez...in case any of you were not aware of who I am talking about :)

This past week...

Many things have been going on with our day to day.  Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Christa's new baby girl for the first time.  She is so cute!  I was with her a little over an hour and not a peep from that one!  I love when babies are this little!  So precious!

Kevin and I also decided that it was time to take some recent pictures of the two of us together.  We haven't done that in a couple of years, so it was time.  Kevin was such a trooper.  You know how us women get...so demanding when we get an idea in our head.  He did outfit changes, poses and even brought home his bunker gear for some firefighter shots.  I was felt so grateful that he was so patient with all of this.  Here is some of what we got.

Kevin is so stinkin cute with Matthew!



Last Friday, I had the pleasure of watching baby Matthew all alone while Ashley and Matt went to play bingo for Matt's brothers birthday.  Of course...Chad won the jackpot (not the birthday boy).  He always wins.  Words of advice, don't invite Chad to bingo if you want any chance of winning alone!  Back to Matthew...we had a great time playing basketball, farm animals and of course, watching Mickey.  This is us right before bed time.  I love him!

Last, but not least...Tinsley ate a Chocolate Chip cookie this week.  Chocolate is NOT good for dogs, so of course, I did not so not sleep at all that night.  I got up about 100 times to make sure the dog was still breathing!  He was fine to say the least!   He knew what he did ...this is him post cookie.  Very happy dog!