November Coffee Chat

Hey Friends!  Grab your coffee and let's catch up.

1. Have you had any trouble with big box store shipping this season?  Walmart shipped me something fragile that wasn't protected at all and it arrived broken.  I had to make several phone calls to get a replacement/refund.  Target shipped ornaments to me one of the four arrived broken.  The replacement arrived safely.  Then Target shipped a box of lots of different gifts that was oozing upon arrival.  That's never good.  A sugar scrub had exploded all over every single item in the box.  A phone call later and a replacement box is enroute.  Old Navy and Amazon have been shipping just fine.  Thankfully.  So beware of shipping gifts and give yourself plenty of time to return/exchange/replace just in case your item is damaged on the way to you.

2. I'm excited to order Christmas cards.  Where do you order from??  I order lots of cards so I'm looking for any recommendations for cute AND affordable nice Christmas cards.  I used Walgreens last year and it wasn't as smooth as in years past.

3. Where are we shoe shopping this Fall?  I'm on the hunt for cute loafer and cute dressy shoes to teach in all day.  Marshalls and TJ haven't come through for me this season.

4. What are you in charge of fixing for Thanksgiving?  We are going to Thanksgiving lunch and dinner with our families and I'm bringing - cookies, pies and a veggie tray.  I can't wait to eat all the Thanksgiving foods on Thursday.

5. How are you doing on your Christmas shopping and planning?  I'm working hard to pull everything together for Elf on the Shelf, gathering kid gifts and talking through friend/neighbor/coworker gifts.

6. If you have school age kids, practice putting on their coats, zipping and unzipping at home.  Your kid's teachers will be so thankful.  It's also a good idea to practice taking on and off a sweatshirt because you'd be surprised at how many kindergarteners have gotten stuck in their hooded sweatshirts this month.

7. Any tips for removing Sharpie from curtains?  Asking for a friend.

8. Thank goodness for grocery pick up.  How did we ever survive without it.  I schedule a pick up every weekend so that we are set for the week.  This weekend was busy in store and in the pick up department.  I had to wait a bit for my order to be brought out, but it was still SO much faster than shopping and checking out in store.  I'm hoping I planned it all out right and I won't need to be grocery shopping again until next weekend.

9. Have you ever hired an upholstery cleaning service to come and clean your couch or other furniture?  Would you recommend it?  I'm considering it for our big white sectional.  I'd love to see it shine again.

10. Unpopular opinion - there is no sign of Christmas at our house.  I love to shop for Christmas and plan for Christmas in November.  But we don't decorate inside or out until the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Then you'll find us at a tree lot picking out the perfect tree and decking the halls.  The kids are eager to put up their trees and I'm nervous about Mr. Mittens with all of our trees.  I'm praying he goes easy on them.

Thanks for chatting!  I hope you have a wonderful day!

Weekend Happies

This weekend was a fun one - lots of basketball, family time and good food.  There were a lot of happy moments.

We went to our favorite local pizza spot on Friday night - Turonis - with my parents.  They had a magician making his rounds and the kids enjoyed his tricks.  Fletcher was eager to volunteer.  The pizza was delicious with tons of leftovers for another dinner.

We went to an Aces basketball game afterwards.  They are not off to a great start this year, but we all enjoyed the game.  Papaw loves going to the games.  They are a little late for Leo so Kevin and the big kids will enjoy going to them.

Mimi doesn't love sports so we distracted her with conversation when Leo would share her.

Find mom.  Sit on mom.  Barely ever happens anymore so this was sweet.  We made a big breakfast and had a slow morning at home.  I make the bacon, stir up the pancakes and the big kids use the griddle to make their own pancakes and eggs.  Yum.

Penny didn't want to be left out of the snuggle time.

I picked out a Christmas tree for my classroom.  I'm going to decorate it later this week so it's ready to surprise the kids when we come back to school in December.  How is it almost December??

I got tickets for Fletcher and I to go to Blue and White night for our school.  I let him pick dinner and no surprise cheese curds + fries were involved.  He ordered for himself, got drinks, picked our seat and loved having my full attention.  We chatted so much + some traffic made us a little late to the game.

We both bumped into school friends and had a great night.  We both still feel pretty new at school so it was good for us to try something new and see school friends outside of school.  It was also fun to go to a high school event to see a sneak peek at what's ahead for the kids.

Leo impressed us all with his PreK cutting skills.  We offered to cut out his snowflake and he assured us that he could do it himself.  He did and it looked pretty perfect.  Wow!

Great job, Leo.  A simple and sweet way to thank a teacher - when you notice your child has mastered something new or has improved a ton, email them and thank them.  I promptly sent Leo's teacher a thank you email because we have been really impressed with all the things that he is learning this year.

Quilt season.  It's been chilly lately and the kitties are loving the quilts on the beds.

Kevin loves to take the big kids on a weekend Starbucks run.  They love it, too.  Hot PSLs for both of them and some snacks for the week.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!  We are all excited for a short work week and a Happy Thanksgiving week!

Friday Faves

Happy Friday!  I'm ready for the weekend with some fun plans in the works and Thanksgiving break on my mind.  We had a busy week - school, work, meetings, cooking lots, seeing friends, tennis for Olive, gave the boys haircuts, saving all the elf on the shelf ideas, ordered some Christmas jammies and making some lists for the holidays.

The best parts of my week were:

1. Samples at Sams

We LOVE going to Sams on Saturdays, trying the samples and stocking up on groceries for the week.  The holiday samples have been so yummy.  One week we got ot try all the holiday desserts and the next we got to try Thanksgiving dinner samples.  Yum yum yum.

The tuxedo cake was a family favorite.

2. SO proud of Fletcher!  This guy switched schools this year and is doing so well!!  He's setting goals, working hard, making great grades and making friends.  It's so fun to see him thriving and bumping into him at school every day.  My class thinks he's the coolest and he loves helping out in my room before school starts.

3. Stay tuned for a little mudroom update.  We don't have a coat closet so we are making our mudroom a little extra functional now that it's coat season.

4. Thanksgiving crafts at school are my favorite!  Look at these cute pumpkin pie slices.

5. Sunrise!  I'm loving seeing the sun in the morning and not leaving home in the dark.  We have had a drastic drop in temps and some really pretty sunrises this week.

6. Mr Mittens.  He's loving cozy blanket season.  I have been reading some interesting things about tuxedo cats.  It turns out that they love the spotlight and are never far from you.  It seems to be true so far.  Mr. Mittens is interested in everything we do.

7. Packing lunches.  The kids are loving these lunch ingredients.

Hope you have a great weekend!  I'll see you back here next week :)

Fall Break Wisconsin Favorites

I'm finally getting around to recapping our Fall Break favorites from our trip to Wisconsin.  Kevin surprised us with fun plans and a really great room.  It was a lot of work to leave right after work on a Friday, but we did it and we were so thankful to have a full week off of school.

We pulled into the resort at 12:30am and were so excited to wake up to this view!  It was chilly and the fall colors were beautiful.  We spent a lot of time on this pretty patio.

There were pumpkins and mums everywhere!

Kevin upgraded our room reservation an we were all impressed with this beautiful spot!

One of my my very favorite things to do is to grab local cheeses and make cheese boards for us to enjoy in our room.  We grabbed Bucky Badger cheese from Walmart and loved it.  I could eat this meal all day every day.  We even brought home cheese from Wisconsin this time.

We would 10/10 recommend this Wisconsin cheese.

The Fall leaves were so pretty!

Kevin found some new things for us to enjoy in Baraboo, WI.  We love to go to Ski Hi apple orchard there and he was determined to find us some new favorite spots.  Mission accomplished.  The town square is darling.  Head to the used book store, the boutiques and antique shops.  The town is the home of the original Ringling Bros circus so everything is circus themed.  It's quirky and cute.  We loved it!

The Village Booksmith was a dreamy bookstore.  The kid's section was huge and the books were really affordable.  We all came home with treasures.

We did arts and crafts together.  The kids made ornaments and fun things.

We had the best day at Devil's Lake state park.  It's beautiful all year round.  A quick hike on a new trail was a great way to spend the day.

One big breakfast at Camp Social with cheesey potato casserole that I dream of.

Kid's Club is always a good time.

We enjoyed some shopping.  It was CHILLY and I loved it.

The big kids did the ropes course and I watched Leo climb all over this fun maze.

We're counting down the days until our next trip to Wisconsin!

Birthday Weekend

My birthday was on Saturday and we spent the weekend doing all of my favorite things.  I was treated to all of my favorite things at work on Friday, saw my favorite people, we shopped and ate my favorite foods.  You couldn't ask for a better birthday!

We couldn't wait to eat this yummy tuxedo cake from Sams.  We sampled it a few weeks ago and decided we had to come back and get one for my birthday.

Birthday dinner at my parent's house.  Adult table with a delicious meal by mom.

Kid's table.

My birthday is the 16th and my BIL's birthday is the 17th.  My sister made this cake and we also had cheesecake and s'mores.  No one left hungry.

My dad has been working hard to build a fire pit at their house.  This was the first time we got to use it.

Kevin got me a beautiful Fall bouquet!  My very favorite kind - tons of variety and colors.

Birthday paper goods are always my favorite to put together.

My assistant surprised me with my favorite drink and I got treats all day from people at school.  Some teacher friends had lunch delivered for us, another made my favorite dessert cheesecake for our whole team and the kids were cute with surprises all day.

Leo wanted to help me open gifts.

We met friends at the playground.  Our friends brought doughnuts, fancy coffee drinks and good conversation.  It was so much fun!

Jacque is the best!

We headed to Sams to do our usual Saturday shopping because everyone still needs to eat.  We bumped into school friends and grabbed all our favorite foods.  The samples were flowing, we grabbed soft pretzels for lunch and it was just fun to be together.

I got lots done around the house, finished some projects like a closet overhaul, had fun with my family and the weather was perfect.  It was a great birthday weekend!