November Save the Date

November was a busy and fun month

We went out for dinner together after a successful doctor appointment and anatomy scan for Baby Daniels!

We took a weekend trip to Oklahoma and enjoyed our rivalry football game

We spent lots of time together in the car on the way to Missouri for Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed a day of listening to our favorite podcast, talking about random Road Trip questions and dreaming about the future together

And we decorated our Christmas tree together to kick off our 12 dates of Christmas.

I sure love all my dates with this guy!  11 months of the Save the Date challenge done, 1 more to go!

12 Dates of Christmas: Decorating the Tree

Since we first got married, David and I have decided not to give each other many Christmas gifts.  We've always planned to spend the money on doing something together or on getting something together and then we usually do a few small gifts in our stockings.  Since this is our last Christmas as a family of 2, I thought it would be fun to be intentional with our time together.  So when Pinterest started recommending ideas for Christmas dates, I decided it'd be fun for us to do 12 dates of Christmas.  I had originally planned to figure them all out and give David the cards right after Thanksgiving and surprise him with it, but then I decided that he might enjoy it more if he got to help choose.  So I made a list of lots of ideas and we picked 12 that we wanted to try to do this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One of the ones we had on the list was putting up our Christmas decorations.  This is of course something we do every year, but it fun to "make a date of it" by putting on some Christmas music on our TV and getting our tree decorated. 

We had gotten most of our Christmas decorations out of storage before we left when we were getting our suitcases, so all we had to do was bring in the the tree.  I put on the bow and ribbon and then we hung up all of our ornaments.  It was fun to look back at the ornaments we've gotten over the last 4 Christmases and remember our first married Christmas and our first Christmas in our house.

 Grateful for my hubby indulging me in decorating the tree, even after we'd spent 8 hours in the car driving home!  We had a good time getting it all set up and it is so fun to have the lights glowing now!

I'm excited for the rest of our dates.  We've got a mix of things that we do every year and things that are new to us this year!  Looking forward to a fun month with my guy.

Thanksgiving in Branson

 We set off Wednesday morning for Thanksgiving in Branson MO with my family.  Ever since my mom's older sister turned 50, we have done big family get togethers for my mom and her sisters' 50th and now 60th birthdays.  So this weekend was also set up to celebrate my Aunt Carol's 60th birthday.  We had a pretty drive up through Arkansas and into Missouri.  We listened to podcasts and enjoyed conversation together.  We got there after it was starting to get dark, so the first night we ate dinner and talked around the table with family before heading to bed.

On Thanksgiving Day we had beautiful weather.

 Our cabin was gorgeous and so were the views of the lake from the deck

 David and I hiked up a little ways and took in some scenery.

 Otherwise we spent most of Thanksgiving hanging out in the cabin.  We watched football and played games.  My mom and my Aunts cooked dinner and we waited for my cousins to get in to share dinner with us.  

I spent a lot of the day being entertained by this cutie:

Piper is still not so sure about anyone but her parents, but after spending several days together she warmed up to us and enjoyed playing with David and I.  She would frequently call out "hi David!" when she would see David from far away (but not necessarily up close).  We also played lots of games with her big brother.

My aunt had planned out the table decorations and she set a beautiful table for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had 20 people around this big table and enjoyed the meal together.

One of the trademarks of our large family get togethers are matching clothes.  My mom and her sisters had matching dresses when they were younger, so for my Aunt's 50th birthday she tie dyed a bunch of shirts and did different colors for each family (Blue for ours, Green for hers, and Red for my Aunt Carol) and since then we've had matching shirts at each of these big get togethers (see here for matching shirt day at Disney World).  This year my mom and Aunts decided to go with matching pajamas for everyone.  My Aunt always buys her kids and grandkids matching pajamas for Christmas and my mom has done that for us a few times, but they decided to break them out for Thanksgiving this year and we took our big family picture.  

On Friday David and I got out for a while and drove into Branson.  We didn't end up doing a whole lot and decided to head back to the cabin around lunch time.  

 We spent the rest of the weekend resting at the cabin, playing lots of games with family, watching college football and eating.  It was a very relaxing time away and we enjoyed extended time with family that we don't get to see as much.

And we get to add another state to our map!  That's our 7th new state this year.  We figure our traveling will slow down a little with baby coming next year, so we are grateful for so many opportunities to see new places together this year!

What's Up Wednesday: Thanksgiving Edition

Bonus questions this month: What's your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

What we're eating this week

Lots of Thanksgiving food!  My mom and her sisters are taking care of Thanksgiving dinner this year and I don't really know what all we're having since we don't usually spend Thanksgiving with them.  But I'm sure there will be Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes, Desserts--all things I love.  I am in charge of making breakfast for everyone on Saturday morning, so yesterday I baked 2 of my Grandma's Coffee Cakes to take with us and I will make Biscuits and Gravy casserole on Saturday morning.

What I'm reminiscing about

This photo from 2012 Thanksgiving came up on my Timehop this week and made me smile and reminisce about times with my Grandfather.

We spent almost every Thanksgiving growing up at my Grandparents' house in Palestine.  A lot of times we would get there Wednesday night and wake up on Thanksgiving to eat Coffee Cake for breakfast and then spend the day with family.  My Grandfather sold his house after my Grandmother died and moved in with my Aunt just down the road in Palestine, so our last Thanksgivings with him were at her house.  This is one of the last times I sat at Thanksgiving with my Grandpa and I am grateful that even at the time I knew how special that was.  Love reminiscing about this old man and all of the years we had with him!

What I'm loving

I am loving that it is finally starting to cool off!  After temps close to the 90s last week, I am grateful for cooler weather!

What we've been up to

Lots of traveling and family time this month.  We started November with birthday celebrations for David's sister and my brother.  We spent a weekend in Oklahoma with family and we're about to leave for a long weekend in Missouri with my extended family.

What I'm dreading

Christmas Allergies.  Every year I get sick at Christmastime.  I'm allergic to Christmas trees and even though we have an artificial tree, the pine is still in the air.  So it's been a long time since I've made it through December without getting sick.  

What I'm working on

Lots of projects for baby!  We had decided a while ago to use navy as our main color and then use an accent color depending on gender.  So I've gotten started with all of my navy projects.  I made this "boppy" pillow and a cover for it recently along with a lot of other sewing projects.

What I'm excited about

We took pictures with our friend Amy last weekend for our Christmas card and she is working on designing the card for us.  I'm really excited about sending out cards this year!

What I'm watching/reading

This is Us is the one show we are consistently watching this season.  Both David and I really like it and we sit down and watch it together every week.

This week I've also been watching some Gilmore Girls.  In preparation for the new series on Netflix this Friday, one of the channels has been doing a 24 hour a day marathon of the show.  So anytime I'm home and have nothing to watch, I flip to that!

And I've been into Cakewars Christmas and The Holiday Baking Challenge on Food Network.  It's always amazing how talented everyone is and I love seeing what the come up with!

What I'm listening to

Still listening to The Popcast Podcast.  David really likes it to, so we listen to several episodes on our road trips.  We've got a few downloaded and ready to listen to for today's drive to Missouri!

I've also been getting excited about Christmas music.  I haven't listened to much of it yet, but I did buy this new album so I have listened to it already.  We're planning on listening to lots of Christmas music when we drive home from Missouri after Thanksgiving!

What I'm wearing

I honestly wear a lot of sweat pants and t-shirts around the house.  But I have found a few other fun things.

I found this tunic on Groupon not long after I found out I was pregnant.  and I am always looking for good tunics to wear with leggings, so I bought the red one.  And then I loved it so much that I bought one in navy and black.  So I wear these a lot with either jeans of leggings.  Now that it's getting cooler I may not be able to wear them as much, but Texas winters still lend themselves to some short sleeves thankfully!

What I'm doing this weekend
We'll be exploring Branson after Thanksgiving and then we'll come home and get started on our Christmas decorations!

What I'm looking forward to next month

All things Christmas.  It's our last Christmas just the 2 of us and we've got some fun things planned to enjoy that!

What else is new

Not too much

What's your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

I don't feel like David and I have any Thanksgiving traditions so far.  Every year that we've been married we've been somewhere different for Thanksgiving (my Aunt's house, his parents' house, my mom's house).  And this year we will be with my mom's family for a family reunion and I don't ever recall spending Thanksgiving with them, so it'll be all different this year too.  We will be excited to develop some traditions with our family in the coming years!  But right now the only tradition is being with family and that's a pretty good one!

And now I'm off to finish packing up and head up to spend a few days here:

Oklahoma Weekend

This past weekend was our rivalry college football game.  This is our 5th year watching it together and our 3rd year going in person.  David took off Friday so we could head to Oklahoma for the weekend.

We stopped at the Chiloso in Denton for lunch on our way out of town.  We love Chiloso so much and it was fun getting to go to a new one!

We got to his Nanny's house Friday afternoon and enjoyed dinner with her and time with family that evening.  We went to bed pretty early since the game was the next morning in Norman

 We got up Saturday and headed to the game.  We had great tickets that David's uncle had given us and were excited to be at the game together!

This was the first year that we watched together where I didn't go into the game with high expectations for Baylor.  They have not been playing so well the last few weeks, so I wasn't expecting them to win.  And they didn't.  We were sad to see Seth Russell (Baylor's quarterback) get hurt with a season-ending injury, but all of the OU fans and players were very supportive of him when he was hurt.

Love my football watching buddy!

After the game we met up with David's cousin for a little while to catch up with him.  Then we spent the rest of the day relaxing with family and watching other college football games back at Nanny's house.  We had a great weekend and really enjoyed our time with family!

 And just for fun, here's a look back at all of the Baylor OU game days since we've been married.  The first year, we had a rehearsal dinner the night of the game, so we watched it afterward.  Then we've gone to it every year since then!  It's been a fun tradition to go every year and visit our old schools together.  We'll see how long we're able to keep it up!