Dirty Santa Christmas-7th Edition

I am more than way behind thanks to the Christmas rush of getting decorations up, presents bought, food prepared and enjoying time with family and friends.

I realized why it is that I don't wait till the last minute to do my Christmas shopping and that is because it is not only stressful, but not good for my hubs sanity! I was more than a little bit pissy this last week or so and bless his heart he took the brunt of it! :) Love you honey!

So last weekend we had our 7th Annual Dirty Santa Christmas Party at Mere and Ben's house!

The theme this year was to dress up as your fav Christmas Vacation character.

Problem numero uno...

I have never seen the movie!

Yes I was deprived as a child, but my girls (and hubby) came through for me and made sure that I was fully educated on the Christmas Vacation phenomenon before the party.

Yours Truly as Margot (the next door neighbor and the hubs as Clark when he gets stuck in the attic)

Costume contest winners!

Clark with his Uncle Eddie's

As you can see the costumes were pretty funny and it was a great time had by all! Ben and Mere never fail to throw a great Christmas party that is sure to get everyone in the Christmas spirit! :)

P.S. I really liked the movie and now a lot more things make sense to me now that I've always heard and never quite knew where it came from :) (Sh*tters full!)

Earth, Wind, and FIRE

This past Saturday, we joined our long-lost friends Jenn and Harper at their house for a little impromptu bonfire and smores, shortly followed by dance party USA in their yard!

We had so much fun and am really glad that we joined them...the only downside-->make sure next time to not volunteer your (new)car to be the "radio car" and leave all of your doors wide open next to the fire = car smells like burnt flesh for a week! :)
Pics not so good-taken with phone with smoke

My honey doing his best Eminem impression :)

My love!

Random Button

Ello ladies!

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!

Mine has been random to say the very least so there is no telling what direction this post may go. :)

We celebrated my Pop's birthday party last night with Mexican Fiesta (aka taco salad) and my Grandma's famous Apple Dapple Cake (recipe to come)

My parentals-still cute 31 years later :)

In other news, this fab couple found out this week that they will be having a bouncing baby boy in April!

Sweet Baylor will be here before we know it and I'm so happy for them that not only will they be having a handsome baby boy, but he will have some many buddies to hang out with since all of our other friends (with the exception of maybe 2) have or are having boys! :)

Congrats Matt and Jess!

 

The hubs is working his cute little booty off for the next few weeks, so that gives me time to start/finish up my Christmas shopping.  I am usually much more prepared for the holiday season and buy gifts throughout the year, but for some reason this year, Christmas snuck up on me and I'm in full blown panic mode now. 

 

I have always been a fan of the D*amn You Autocorrect websites and Pins you see on Pinterest of strange people sending random texts and today I was able to actually expereince one instances first hand. 

Observe

People make me laugh...

and no I have no clue who's number this is. :)

Happy Friday peeps!

Mi Papa's Birfday!

58 years ago today God blessed us all with one of the greatest men to ever set foot on this earth...one of the funniest, most thoughtful people I have ever known and am proud to call him my Pop!

He is the epitome of a true family man with a heart of gold and a voice to be heard from miles around! :)

Pop-

I love you more than you will ever know. You are what every man in this world should hope to be in their lifetime and I couldn't love you or be more proud to be your Squirrely daughter! :)

I love you bunches!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POP!

The Ultimate Photo Bomb

After going through my pictures on my computer, I realized there were some that I have yet to post.   My mind escapes me at the moment which game this was, but to be honest, I'm not sure it really matters after you will see a few of these.  The day started off fine and then it goes off the way side after the sun went down. 

Enjoy!

The girls!

My extremely-happy-to have-his picture-taken hubby!

Chillin' by the fire, watchin' the game

Refer to blog post title...

The proud parents of Baby Mattox before he came into the world

Harper and Ben playing dress-up...Santa pants and Mere's yoga pants...aaannd this is when it was time to go to bed! :)

PINspired-Mini Apple Pies

I have become full blown obsessed with Pinterest (along with the rest of the world) and am truly convinced that I can/will become a super duper craft machine before you know it. :)

I have so many ideas I've gathered for the Christmas season, but decided to try a simple recipe for Thanksgiving-Mini Apple Pies.  (Note: I cut the orignal recipe in half and it made 12 pies)

Dice 4 Cups of apples (approx. 4 apples)

Mix apples with:
6 T flour
3/4 Cup sugar
2 t cinnamon
*can't get pic to turn around

Cut pie crust to fit muffin molds (make sure to spray with Pam)...I used a wide plastic cup to make sure it covered good and the fill cups with apple mixture. (you will need 2 packages of the pie crust)

Put a few dabs of butter on top of the mixture before topping with the remaining pie crust.  I used one of my grandmothers old pie cut out things <--technical name to add a little bit extra snazz. :)

Brush with a little bit of melted butter and bake at 400 for 18-22 minutes

and gobble 'em up!

They were so yummy and if I can make these, anyone can b/c I do not bake. ;)

 

I'll be better next post...

I have ever-so-slightly been putting this post off b/c there really isn't a whole lot of interesting stuff to blog about...not to mention that I was a horrible blogger and failed photo document via pictures all holiday weekend!

I should most certainly have my blog taken away.

Epic fail.

So, in an attempt to jump this hurdle, I'm going to enlist the help of bullet points to get us all through this somewhat pictureless post and move on with our lives. :)

Yes, we had Thanksgiving last week:

-I gained 45lbs (sweet potato pudding = well worth it)

-The hubs got a stomach bug literally right before dinner (sad)

-we watched more movies in 6 days than I have watched in 6 months (2 Rob Pattinson flicks = awesome)

In other news:

-Baby Mattox came into the world the Friday before Thanksgiving (the 18th)-Congrats Angela and Burton!!!!

Love those chubby cheeks!

-Iron Bowl = not the outcome AU fans were hoping for

-The hubs was awarded an apprentice position on his old crew in Network Underground-for those of you who aren't familiar, this is a lateral move in the fact that he basically changed crews, but it is much better for our family in the sense that he will be back with his old buddies doing the job he loves and be able to advance more quickly within the company.  :0  I am so proud of him for all he does for us and couldn't be more thrilled to be back on our normal schedule. :)
-Wrigley says "Hello!"

Finding My Mommy Style...(one day)

Last night I had the honor of joining these 2 lovelies at Workplay for a little mix and mingle with Rosie Pope from the Bravo show "Pregnant in Heels".  Rosie Pope is a maternity concierge helping mommies-to-be with anything from designing the nursery to coping with delivery anxiety to baby-proofing homes and she does it all in the most fabulous of ways while also living her life as a mommy and a wife.
 I am a huge fan of the show and was super stocked to actually see her in person...the icing on the cake was actually meeting her! :)

The event was in honor of the opening of the new Brookwood Women's Medical Center here in Birmingham and was all about "Finding Your Mommy Style". :)

We enjoyed a very candid, no filter, open forum discussion on anything from husbands to maternity fashion to breastfeeding and everything else in between. 

While Megan and I were there to not only enjoy the event, we were also there in support of our newest mommy-to-be Jess and to learn more about what she has been through and what she will soon go through and how we can better support her and our other mommies in our group.

 It was truly a great time and I'm so honored that I got to be apart of it!

Thanks Jess and Megan for a great girls night!

1/2 off bottles of wine = We're getting too old for this

Two Thursdays ago (still playing catch-up), I met up with Phoenix, Mere and Savannah to collect my camera for some wine and snacks at Grey Bar.  We took advantage of their 1/2 off bottles of wine specials and a little gift certificate that I got a while back.

While the service was less than Kosher, (there was one chick working the entire place on a Thursday night after work with a not-so-great attitude) the food and company were both great!

Playdates

This Friday night we made the trek to Hayden, AL to hang out with the wild boys (aka our nephews)!  

We lounged around, played football, baseball, did a little bit of wrestlin' and stuffed our faces with hushpuppies and Oreos. 

It was so much fun to see how much Cohen has grown since the last time we saw him a few short weeks ago and how "grown up" Hunter is getting. 

You can officially no longer have conversations with him in the room and him not be completely in tune with what you are saying.  I learned this the hard way as I discussed my "surprise" purchase of a new mattress for the hubs and the spolier alert (aka Hunter) let the cat out of the bag! :)

the Oreo's were a big hit as you can see :)
Who knew 1 Oreo could do so much damage!

How Uncle Mitch spent most of the evening

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Since I chose to not take any pictures Saturday in a very disappointing loss against Georgia, I decided to take a few of our little man at the dog park on Sunday.
He had so much fun an played till his little heart and poor scratched up feet couldn't take it anymore. 
He was of course the biggest one out there but made some really great friends except for the Bull Mastiff he decided to get up in his business a little too much-we'll just say Herc (as in Hercules) didn't appreciate Wrigley's intense sniffing. :)

All was good and after we got home and had a bath, we was pooped. He is still recovering and will be sleeping for the next few days. :)

Ready for me to throw the ball and stop taking pictures

Watching football with Daddy after a long day of playin' :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! :)