Thanksgiving

Allen and I went to Alabama for Thanksgiving this year, it felt so good to get to spend time with family, that is why I love the holidays so much! We got to spend a few days with Kevin, Karla and the boys and I couldn't believe how much they had grown and changed...but they are still so much fun to be with as always! we had our big Thanksgiving meal and this year everyone helped out Uncle Kevin took care of the turkey, Aunt Karla made the best green bean casserole I have ever had, Julie made the dressing, it was delicious, Mom made sweet potato souffle, I made yeast rolls, and I think just about everyone had a hand in making the corn casserole Karsten strained all of the sweet potatoes, Kaleb melted the butter, Allen even put something in the microwave! Jaden and Karsten helped with dessert, it was so much fun!

Even though it was a rainy weekend the boys still got out and played some football, as per our Thanksgiving tradition. Also going with tradition, Allen and I woke up super early to do our black friday shopping, and the boys did too this year, it is always fun to get a bargain! Because of our sale dedication we are about 90% finished with our Christmas shopping! Woo!

As much fun as the weekend was, it feels so good to be home! We had lunch and a game of Mexican Train with good friends yesterday and picked up our Christmas tree (pictures to come once it's decorated)

Now back to decorating the house and baking cookies (it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...and it smells even better! Yum!)

These pictures are courtesy of Aunt Karla:

Making S'mores by the fire pit
Almost time to eat!
Thanksgiving Football
Everybody helped out.

Our first weekend in mississippi

This weekend was one of the most fun weekends we have had in a LONG time! We have gotten so much of our house unpacked that we were able to have company so we had our close friends Anthony and Leslie over (They live in town. Anthony works with Allen, they have been close friends since college and I am good friends with his wife, Leslie) We each had half off coupons for IHOP and enjoyed breakfast for dinner Friday night, we had so much fun that we all got together Saturday evening for the Razorback game (Woo Pig Sooie!)

I cooked Chili and pepperjack cheese bread. Leslie had been telling me that she wanted to do more baking and I love to bake so we picked out a recipe for chocolate souffle (neither one of us had ever eaten or baked it before so we thought it might be an adventure. It was actually a lot of fun to make but it was an odd texture and wasn't very rich in flavor... we all decided souffle isn't our thing but we can't wait to try something else soon!

Today we visited a really nice church on town, there were things we liked and things we weren't over the moon about (this is our second time visiting) but there are a few more churches we would like to try out and we are excited to begin the process of finding a new "home"

After church today we went to the matinee showing of the new Harry Potter movie, it was SO good! and then Allen said he had a surprise activity for us and he took us to a park that he passes on his way to work. We brought Kaya with us and we all had a blast! Kaya found the lake and we learned that she LOVES splasking in the water...it was such a fun day!







We're looking forward to many more weekends like this!

The start of something new

As of tomorrow we will have lived in our new home for a week! I can call it a home now because since I haven't found a job yet I have had nothing to do all week other than unpack, which has turned out to be pretty nice because everything is coming together nicely! I am in LOVE with our apartment! I was really sad to have to leave our beautiful house in Searcy, and we looked at getting a house here, but we decided that it would be in our best interest to live in an apartment for a few years to save up and get more financially settled before we make any huge money descisions.

I was not looking forward to downsizing, we had accumulated a house full of stuff in our three years together and I did not think it would fit in an apartment, but we found this amazing plce and the units are HUGE...it feels like a house, and they are very well built so we can seldom even hear our neighbors and it is in a very safe part of town for when Allen has to travel and it is just AMAZING!

I am not the worlds best at remembering to send out updates, but when I teach I always set up a blog to give the parents access to what is going on in the classroom, so I figured I would apply the concept to our family...this is an easy place to check in and get updates on our {oh so thrilling} life!

I will post lots of pictures, if you click on them they will enlarge and can be saved to your computer to keep or to get printed {Just let us know if you need any help with this, it is easy to get them printed at walgreens!}

Because I just got this started I will play a little catch-up on this post. And the picture quality will improve once I get my camer unpacked, these were taken with my phone.


Okay this is my proudest accomplishment EVER! Let me explain, I am obsessed with learning to be handy. Ever since I helped with a building project by measuring, cutting, and hanging drywall on our mission trip to Mexico a few years ago I have been very interested in learning how to do home improvement projects. The only thing I ever watch on television is HGTV for all of their home improvement shows and this was the first time I have gotten to try out my handy-woman skills and boy was it fun! Our cable jack was on a different wall from where we needed our T.V and the cord couldn't be run on the ground because it crossed our high traffic hallway.
So I pulled up the carpet and ran the cord underneath and laid the carpet again.
By myself.
{yay!}

Notice anything odd?
After 13 hours of moving
{no, that isn't a typo, the whole process took 13 hours}
we were pretty gross, but I hadn't unpacked our shower curtain. I had thought ahead to bring a curtain liner...but I didn't think about shower curtain hooks...whoops!
So I made some impromptu "hooks" our of packing tape.
classy, huh?
this is our living room
and our kitchen
{pardon the fact that it more closely resembles a storage facility}

Last week I heard back from a school in our area. Now from the beginning I felt like this opportunity was too good to be true, and you know what they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is...well that held true for me. This was a very prestigious all girls prepratory school {Hutchison} The headmistress called me and we had an initial phone interview and it went well, she seemed really interested in me and asked me to drive down for an official interview, I was over the moon excited, I hardly slept that night, I woke up at 5 the next morning to drive down and I arrived an hour before my interview. As I was waiting in the parking lot to go in she called me and cancelled the interview saying that they had filled the position from within the night before. I was crushed, but I went in and turned in all of my paperwork anyways and they said they were still interested in me if any new positions become available.

When I left the school I prayed and asked for calmness and clarity to be able to trust that everything would be okay and I felt a little better. I went into a home store to get ideas for our new house and the first piece of art I saw was a poster that said "Keep Calm and Carry On" I thought that was fitting and it made me smile. The very next store that I went in I ran across that very same phrase and when I went into a third store and saw it I laughed out loud. It was almost like a personal little message to just keep going and know that everything will be fine, in HIS time! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as I am still holding out for a teaching position!
And although we are so happy and so blessed to be in such a wonderful place of our own it is undeniable...we both really miss this little guy. A LOT!

I know that was a lot to read, but that is a pretty comprehensive update! Allen says his new job is pretty boring, but he is going to like it. They are really good to their employees and it is a great, stable job...we couldn't ask for more!