Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful and blessed this year. Most importantly, I am thankful for this time with my family. We have enjoyed this long holiday weekend celebrating Ian's first Thanksgiving with friends and family.

Casey had to be at work at 5 AM on Thursday to get the pre-game meal out for the football players before their departure for Nebraska ( they lost! loss=no bowl game=Casey home more!) Ian and I watched the Macy's Day parade. I made cranberry salad and egg noodles while he was sleeping. When Casey got home, we headed to the Nelson's for good food and company. In honor of Ian's first Thanksgiving, we figured we should introduce him to the world of meat...his first meat, why Turkey of course! Ian couldn't get enough while Uncle Jon was feeding him. FYI - still a hater on the mashed potatoes. Ian had fun exploring a new place and hangin' with his Uncle Jon. I am thankful to have my brother near me because we still have each other even if we cannot be with our parents. It was a great time, but we had to call it an early night. We were all exhausted!

The only thing getting us up at 3 AM on Black Friday was Ian. Fortunately, he was back in bed a few ounces later and so were we. We had a laid back morning at home. I met my friend, Kate, for a pedicure in the afternoon. We had plans to get a pedicure back in July, but she had to take a rain check since she went into labor. We were finally able to make up for it! It was so nice to hang out with a girlfriend and get pampered.

That night I prepped the hallways and started painting. I have been wanting to add just a dash of color to our hallways for awhile and I finally had the time. It is subtle, but good. I have spent time catching up on a lot of home decor projects this weekend. We are going to update the dining room with new art and such tomorrow. I am excited about the new design. Once we have new dining room chairs, it will look fabulous! There is a lot of decorating that I want to do, but it often drops to the bottom of the priority list so I have enjoyed these past few days to catch up.

We woke up Saturday to snow! Technically, it is not our first snow of the season. But it is the first snow that has lasted past Noon. It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I cannot wait to get our tree next weekend. I really miss living in WI this time of year. I always loved going to chop down our tree and we don't have that tradition here. However, we have found a local family owned business that we like to frequent. The Flower Bin. I love them year round!

Despite the wintry weather, we bundled up and hit Boulder for some last minute Christmas gifts. I am officially done with all of my holiday shopping! I think this is the earliest I have ever been done. Impressive. It helps when you have to ship about half of your gifts across the country - anything to avoid the super long USPS lines!

Tomorrow our friends, Moses & Amanda, are coming over. They have a 6 month old daughter, Emily. Moses is going to be taking some shots of Ian. We are hoping it goes well. We have never been in a photo "shoot" type of situation so it should be interesting. In the meantime, take a peek at our slideshow for some amatuer shots of our peanut!