So thankful!

What a truly thankful Thanksgiving it was indeed!

Thank you to Marcella T. and the Cassidy clan who made is such a wonderful vacay. Also thank you to Herman for somehow managing to drive my anxious butt through 8 hours of pouring rain and gale force winds to make sure that I got to Cleveland safely. This year was truly miraculous in that both Aunt Barb and Uncle Pat were able to come and wonders of all wonders Jonny made it too! It was like something out of a movie where somehow through a crazy twist of unanticipated fate everyone needs to make it to where they need to be and they live happily ever after :)

We brought our Wii with us this year so there was much competitive playtime and I also discovered out of complete left field that I am rather good at bocce, who knew? Thanks to mom and dad for purchasing and serving such a delicious meal.

Truly these Thanksgivings just keep getting better and better and I am very blessed indeed that I am never at a loss to come up with all the things, people and places that I am super thankful for.


Aunt Barb and Cousin Catharine united again!

Pints at the Great Lakes, their favorite place to be!

Cutting up some super delicious pie!

Getting competitive with some Wii games, who knew if I was so good at bocce?

So glad to see Jonny again! love my brojo

My boys :)

The girls :)

Momma to the RESCUE!

I just got the BEST news in the whole wide world today. My super incredible and amazingly creative mother is going to fly out to the sticks to help me with the holiday hometour!

Hurrah!

Now I know it is going to be the best weekend ever. For those of you who think that I have been blessed with the gift of creative vision you have no idea, because everything I do is just a watered down version of what my super crafty mother pioneered. She is the consummate hostess, everything is always beautiful decorated, elegant, delicious and most importantly sparkling clean. She never met a decorative cheese spreader she did not like and the woman's collection of clever cocktail napkins is starting to overflow out of her massive and well stocked dining room buffet.

She was the original Martha Stewart back when Martha was making potholders out of popsicle sticks. With her by my side I am sure to have the most gloriously glowing and lovely home on the entire tour.

Our creativity combined we will be unstoppable, look out So. Ill because shit just got real :)

Photo Call !!!!!

Attention lovely friends and family who are as obsessed with pictures as me. I have decided I want to do holiday pics on my fridge for the open house so if you have any cute pictures of Jonny or I, any fun old family pics of mom or dad, or pics from friends party's of the holiday season I would love to have them so I can put them up. You can email or send them to me and I will make them a lovely focal point on my hometour.

Apparently for some reason I have really been slacking on my holiday picture taking in the last few years. This year I vow to not suck at it. Paparazzi is back!!!!

Funny local sign

Gus and I were walking around Paducah, KY on a random Sunday afternoon and came across this sign and I could not stop giggling.... gee I wonder why?

Murphysboro Hometown Christmas... booooyah!

Apparently Herman and I are cool kids here in the 'boro as we have been asked by the Chamber of Commerce to be included in the Murphysboro Hometown Christmas tour. Apparently they are fans of 2011 Elm St. :)

So come December 4 and 5th we shall be opening our 'elegantly decorated' home to those who purchase their tickets in advance and people shall oohhh and ahhh over our bunny bitten baseboards and marvel at how clean and organized everything is (because a benefit of the tour is I can throw all our junk in the basement and shut the door). If any of you want to stop by and tour the Chamber has graciously given us several complimentary tickets and right now flights out of Richmond are crazy cheap, its true!

Seriously though I have to get cracking on some decorating. I have decided my inspiration will be cranberries. Let me know if you guys have any ideas for how I can wow my community and make my house stand out on a grad student and recruitment coordinator budget...

I have never had my house featured on a hometour before, probably because I used to live in a shed, sigh I miss the cottage so!

Christmas starts...... now :)

Its Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!

Sorry that it has taken me so long to post these but our epic Halloween on Elm St. party was a blast and a huge success. It was a super fun party, everyone went all out with their costumes and there was much Monster Mashing indeed! Enjoy the pics of our crazy sweet costumes that took loads of time and creativity to create :)

We had a big pumpkin carving evening the Friday before to get everyone in the mood for the next nights festivities. Everyone's pumpkins looked waayyyy better than ours. All I kept thinking was I wish my dad was there to rescue my pumpkin from its inevitable mediocrity as he had been oh so many times before :(

Picking through the pumpkin guts so we could toast the seeds. Pumpkins are kind of smelly actually.

Herman's little brother JoJo flew in for the weekend to participate in the festivities. The don't look alike at all do they ;)

All of our guests posing with their way creative pumpkins, so jealous!

Anna's best costume ever, we always call her Anna Banana so she went as a banana split.

Posing with the homeboys who were our costume judges for the evening, Gus and I graciously took ourselves out of the running because we would have totally dominated the competition :)

My friend Amanda as Alice.

The girls before the party

My spooky, awesome table.

Hot red heads who are not me. We are taking over :)

JoJo and Caitlin as Nixon and Alice... totally makes sense

The best costume winners. They were crazy authentic!

Now I realize everyone is going to get all huffy because I never post scandalous pictures on my blog (yes mom I realize my grandparents read it) but the image of Gus doing a kegstand in his JIF suit was just too classic. Poor thing had the biggest bruises from that costume.

My little banana split hearts the mad hatter. Don't worry Alice was not jealous