December

It's more than a week into December...what? This year has gone by way too fast in my humble opinion. I am grateful that the snow held out as long as it did, and it's already starting to melt as it gets warmer. Will we luck out with one snow? Doubtful, but a girl can dream, can't she?

November was pretty uneventful...I think...I can't really remember anything before the week of Thanksgiving, so I'll start there. The day before Thanksgiving I went and saw Breaking Dawn with a couple coworkers. It wasn't too bad, except for the talking wolf scene...if you've seen the movie you are probably nodding in agreement. It was a nice time, and can't wait to do it again in November 2012! Also, on a sidenote, there was an awesome Hunger Games trailer before the movie, and I am so psyched to see that in March with my fellow HG fanatic Val. Team Peeta baby!

On Thanksgiving Day, we headed to Columbus to celebrate Thanksmas with Erich's mom's side of the family. We usually do this on Christmas day, but with everyone getting married and having kids, it's getting a little more complicated...so this is our compromise. It was a fun day, and it was so stinking nice out! We did some family pictures outside and just enjoyed each other's company...and reviewed the black friday ads of course.

It goes without saying, this didn't make the Christmas card!

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I remembered a couple things we did before Thanksgiving. My friends Lindsay and Tony visited with their new little girl Arianna (Ari for short). We gathered the masses and had a nice football party. The three little girls in the group were fast friends, and I can't wait to see them grow together.

Ari Stern

Harper and Emily Ballou

The three girls

Let's touch her face! Yeah!

Harper loves Emily.

Another fun thing is that we celebrated Christmas a bit early at the cupcake shop. We did some decorating, drank all the wines, and played a fun game where the girls dominated! I even donned a Christmas sweater and sang along to Last Christmas, all before Thanksgiving. It was a first!

Matt and Heather

Some of our handiwork...guess which one is mine?

Rocking our awesome sweaters!

Some of the cookies. Notice the camel to the bottom right? Awesome.

OK, back to Thanksgiving. I went back and forth about black friday shopping, and in the end, it won out. I headed over to Toys R Us Thursday night around 8, and they opened at 9. The line wrapped around the store, and my only hope was that since I wasn't there for an xbox or baby alive, I should be safe. Made it into the store (after sitting through some interesting convos along the way) by 9:30, and was out by 10:30 (with majority of time inside in line to pay...ahh, the things I do for a grocery cart and guitar). I was initially gonna head home, then I remembered some of the deals Kohls had, and I figured I could get a good spot in line since they opened at midnight, and it was plenty early. I was right, and got a great spot in line...so I waited, in the cold, for over an hour...only to be almost trampled by line jumpers as we entered the store. Jerks. But, I got what I went for, and a few other items, and was out of there by 12:30. All in all, a success! I was initially against the midnight openings, but I think I can get behind them.

We then proceeded to celebrate a couple more Thanksgivings; one with my mom and the other with my dad. My pictures didn't turn out that great, but Harper was obsessed with my dad's camera, so I bet he has some great shots that she took :)

Some random items of note. Our tree is up and Harper has left it alone. We made sure to only decorate the top half to hopefully steer her away from the ornaments, but she just likes to look at it and point, and then she has a lot to say about it...wish we knew what it was. She's a talker, and sometimes the words are coherent, like: up, ball, tree, mama, dada, abbey, dog, grr(bear), quack(duck), NO! That last one is most definitely her favorite. For yes, she gives you a very decisive head nod. That kid is pretty hilarious. Coming Soon: Pictures from our visit with Santa, and from Harper's 3 minute Christmas program at daycare. I know, you can hardly contain yourself! I promise to post those yet this week!