playing catch up!

Wow, I can't believe it's almost been two whole weeks since I last posted. I didn't plan on being away so long but with Thanksgiving and just doing life stuff, I didn't have a lot of chances to spend on the computer.

Our family had a nice relaxing Thanksgiving at my mother.in.law's house. I made Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes, some yummy cranberry sauce that I found here and an apple pie. The potatoes turned out yummy, of course....it's Pioneer Woman and so did the cranberry sauce. The apple pie....ummmm....not so much. It was my second attempt at making an apple pie and I've got to say, the first one that I made several years ago at Thanksgiving was way better than the second. I used two different recipes for them and I'm sad to say that Barefoot Contessa don't win me over on this one. It looked really pretty heading into the oven but when I checked it with only 10 minutes to spare, the entire top was burnt. I was really bummed especially since it was actually supposed to stay in the oven 10 minutes longer. Oh well.

Here it is all pretty pre-baked!


One neat thing that we've been up to has to do with video games. A couple of weeks ago we purchased the new Kinect that just came out for the Xbox and let me just tell you....F-U-N! The Kinect works similar to the Wii but instead of using controllers to track your movements, it's just you! The camera on the Kinect tracks all your movements and that's how you play the games! It's really really fun! The unit came with a game called Kinect Adventures where you do all these fun sporting games like rafting, stopping leaks in a fish tank and other fun things. We also purchased the new Dance Central game with it and this is where all the fun is! There are over 30 songs that you learn dance moves to on three different skill levels. Since I've been taking step aerobic classes for many years, I'm pretty good with choreography so I've been able to do a pretty good job with setting the game on medium and even on hard sometimes. Both of these games are great workouts and what's really cool about it is that you don't even feel (or even realize!) that you're working out! It's awesome! We spent a lot of time playing this on Thanksgiving with my in-laws and we had a blast. It was a great way to burn off some of that extra turkey! haha!

The day after Thanksgiving we headed to Sacramento to visit my brother and his wife for the day since we weren't able to see them on Thanksgiving. We had a nice visit even though my SIL had to work and we didn't get to see her. We ended the day with dinner when we met up with Ben's best friend, Jeff, at BJ's. On the way home we decided to stop at Sonic for a couple milkshakes. We don't have any Sonic's within 50 miles of us and we both had never been so it was actually exciting to go! I had the chocolate cream pie milkshake and it was so yummy! You should have seen the cashiers face when we ordered to milkshakes and a bag off apples! The apples where for Evan but it sounded so funny to order those three things together!

On Saturday my mom and I headed out to the annual Harvest Festival Craft Fair in downtown San Jose. I go every year and just love walking around visiting the different booths and seeing all the fun items. For the past several years, I've been purchasing a new Christmas ornament at this one booth that personalizes them with our names and the year. You can view last years post with our ornament here. This year I went with a pretty wreath with hearts all around it with all of our names on them. I tried this year to include the kitties names as well as they are a part of the family too!



Another thing that the Lord has really blessed me with recently is my photography business. Over the past couple months, I've had the wonderful opportunity to photograph for a lot of my friends and their families! It's also really helped bring in some extra income that we could really benefit from during Christmas time. This past Sunday, I shot for my sister's good friend and her side of the family. It was such a pleasure to shoot for them and I just know they'll love their new family portraits! Here's a little sneak peek of just a portion of what I captured for them!









This week has been a nice quiet one which has been nice. I'm hoping to get out all the Christmas decorations tomorrow evening after Ben gets home from work and get the tree all set up. I'm looking forward to having Evan help us too. We helped my MIL on Sunday night with decorating her tree and it was so cute because Evan was pointing to where he thought we should put the ornaments! He had us cracking up when we'd give him the less breakable ornaments and he'd just plop them on the tree all in the same spot! He was so into it!

Anywho, I think that's about all that's been going on over here. I have a giveaway coming up so be sure to check back!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week!