Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! Here is Kaylee's Easter basket! 

Contents all from Target: Swimsuit, The Tail of Peter Rabbit, Leggings (white, pink & black), Hair bands, & Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I got her basket wrap from Etsy and her basket is from Micheal's. 

This is our first holiday as a family of 3 and we are so excited! Even though she's too little to go egg hunting or know about the Easter Bunny, it is still really fun to share it with her. Holiday's really are much more fun with a baby! 

 How cute are these Easter Bunny socks =)

Being Thankful for Great Friends

One of Chad and I's favorite holiday traditions is having all our close friends over for Thanksgiving dinner (Friendsgiving, as we call it)! We are so thankful for ALL our friends and look forward to many more years of Friendsgiving dinners with each of you. It will be so much fun to watch as the dinner changes over the years to accommodate our growing families! =)

We love you guys!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! 

We are spending this Easter with Chad's family, up in Chad's hometown so, Chad got his Easter basket yesterday! I decided to take a page out of Jessica's book over at Little baby garvin and make Chad a cool Easter basket out of a beer case. 

I bought a 6 pack of Chad's favorite beer, Angry Orchard (it's actually hard cider). I removed three of the beers out of one side (for drinking later).

I pushed the separators out of the way and stuffed it with Easter grass.

I added some candy and goodies that he likes (I can't promise I didn't eat some of it while assembling). And that's it! Easy as pie! You could add some decoration on the actual box, like Jessica did, but I chose the easy way out!

Enjoy your Easter!

Falalalalalalalala

I am so glad that the holiday season is here (it's going by too quick as usual). We had our annual friends-giving in November. It was Sooo much fun. I love getting together with friends and eating a bunch of delish food! It was a night full of wine, food, trivia and great friends that I wish I saw more often.

We got to spend thanksgiving with my side of the family this year. I got to see cousins I haven't seen in over a year and it was great catching up with them. I love spending time with family (I also love the good food.. Shhh). As usual, my 4 day weekend flew by in the blink of an eye.... And I was back to the daily grind all too soon.

Black Friday shopping was left up to the husband, as usual, while I stayed in the comfort of my home, not fighting crazy people in the malls, stores...etc. God bless ya if you are brave enough to fight the crowds, I am not. He was able to get a couple good deals, but mostly I think he ENJOYS watching all those crazy people I just referred to (himself included) run around shopping for deals. He left at approximately 4:30 A.M. (WAY before I ever think about getting up!) and got home about 11 and immediately crashed on the couch for 2+ hours. I proceeded to clean the house around him as quietly as possible (not an easy task!)

I was determined this year (as with every year) to get all my Christmas shopping done early so I can relax and enjoy the season. I love this time of year, it comes with a sense of optimism and love that fills the air and no one is immune. (Well almost no one, Scrooges!) Anyways, I was determined, so I went out one fine Saturday, with my list in hand and a plan in my head to accomplish as much as I could. Something was in the water this day because I did my hair, put on cute clothes and wore high heels, which took all of 20 mins at the mall to realize was the worst decision ever. (Scratch that -Second worst, never go kayaking in the ocean). Anywho, 5 hours and 2 very very sore feet later I had accomplished ALL of my Xmas shopping. You heard me, DONE! I will say we did buy several things online, but my shopping was done! Woohoo. I got everything wrapped as soon as I could and I have been enjoying my christmas tree with the gifts under it ever since. It's beautiful! Love!

The Holiday Season

As usual, time has gotten the best of me and it has been a month since I blogged last. I left off after getting home from an amazing trip to Chicago. We got home and had to prepare for Thanksgiving that week. Tuesday before thanksgiving we had all of our friends over to celebrate, play games and eat a pot-luck Thanksgiving meal everyone chipped in on. It was great to catch up with friends and have some fun!

The only picture I took at Friends-giving!

We spent thanksgiving day in Chad's hometown with his family. It was laid-back, fun and relaxing! We had to come back that night, I had to work on Black Friday, Chad spend the day shopping. He got us a brand new flat screen TV for our bedroom that has paid off to be an amazing idea - I love to lay in bed and watch TV! Then Saturday we had Thanksgiving with my family! It was another laid-back fun day. We ate way too much and just hung out!

A couple weeks after Thanksgiving, we went to the Festival of Lights with a couple of our friends and their kids. It was a lot of fun, not too cold, and watching the kids get excited made me smile! The Festival of Lights always seems to get me in the Christmas spirit!

Festival of Lights

With Christmas around the corner, we went over our friends for an annual Christmas party. We watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and eat food and celebrate! It was great to have fun and see our friends at Christmas.

This was the first Christmas season we had to splint the holidays between our families. I was very thankful to be off work for several days following the holiday which allowed us to spend time with both sides of our families. We sent Friday night and Saturday (Christmas Eve) with my family. We typically do most of our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve, so this worked out very well. We ate a big meal and unwrapped our gifts. We are extremely spoiled and got way more than we deserve. After a long night driving to Chad's hometown, we went to bed only to wake up early the next morning.

Chad and I on Christmas

I woke up around 730 because I forgot to make the dessert I was planning to make the day before. I wanted to get a head start on the baking, so it could be in the oven while we opened gifts. Well all was well until halfway through the gifts when we realized the kitchen was full of smoke. Apparently the pan I used had a hole in it and the sugar was burning to the bottom of the oven. My mother-in-law spent too much time Christmas morning cleaning the oven and we had to keep all the windows and doors open to all the kitchen/living room out. However, it gave us a funny story to look back on. Again, we were way too spoiled and got way more than we deserve. We spent the afternoon with Chad's extended family and the next two days in his hometown visiting with friends.

Blackburn kids on Christmas 

With New Years (Chad's birthday) on the horizon, it made me stop and think about our past NYE. We have not had a normal NYE together since we met. Our first NYE was spent apart, Chad went home and I stayed in our college town. Our second NYE was spent in Miami, probably our favorite time. Our 3rd NYE was spent in New Orleans, although we hate the town, it was a fun time. Last NYE I was supposed to be working  night shift, I got sick and had to call off. I spent the night on the couch watching Glee reruns. Chad had already made plans, expecting me to be at work, to go skiing with his brother. This was my least favorite NYE - didn't like ringing in the new year all by myself. So this new years we decided to surround ourselves with friends and spent the night with our friends. We had a great time and hope that 2012 brings a lot of fun and happiness.

Neither Chad or I have a new years resolution and looking back on 2011 with all the great things that happened: getting married, buying a house, our honeymoon, Chicago...etc I think we just hope that 2012 is relaxing and laid-back. We have the best family and friends we could ask for and we look forward to a great new year! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Labor Day Weekend

So we had a fun filled four day holiday weekend! After Chad got off work on Friday we went to my very favorite place to eat Chipolte. :) we had to scarf it down so we could meet up with Lauren and her kiddies! We packed everyone in the van and headed off to watch our friend, lauren's husband, coach high school football! It was extremely hot! We were all sweating to death in the humidity. The game was good and very close. Both teams played well, it was the first high school football game I have been to since.... Well... probably high school! It was interesting to see today's "youth" and how different and similar highschool is since we have been out. It sparked much conversation. Soon it was the kids bed time so we headed home! We were so tired from the heat we hit the sack to get some rest for the days to come.

Saturday we woke up early and went to our local farmers market. Unfortunately, there were only 4 tents of produce. We stocked up on corn and potatoes though! We were very excited to get home and get ready for that night THE FIRST UC FOOTBALL GAME OF THE SEASON! We put our UC gear on and made our way down to the campus that Chad and I miss so much. It was great to be back down on campus and see all the things that are different and all the things that have remaind. We ate at a campus pizza place with some great friends from college and met up with my parents who were tailgating. The game was great, a blow out, 71-10, or something like that. I hope we can play well all season! Being out of college is bittersweet, we miss it so much but we do like being "grown up" at times and having our own house and finances.

Sunday came and it was a rainy, gloomy day.... Chad's favorite! We had planned to go to the fireworks with chad's brother and my best friend but with the rain we decided to forgo the hours we would have to sit outdoors and save seats, the money we would spend on carnival food and fighting the crowd. Instead we decided to invited my parents over to see the decorative additions we have made to the house since they saw it last, mostly hanging pictures and an AMAZING dining cabinet my husband remodeled but painting it and adding new hardware!

Looks great! 

We went out to eat with them and my best friend and then came back and watched the fireworks from the comfort of our, dry, family room! We were very glad we didn't go when we saw how wet everyone was getting and the fireworks were not that great!

Monday came all too soon! We woke up early to hit up the local labor day furniture sales, bought a new couch for our front room, and then headed to Chad's sister, Jenna's graduation party. Jenna just graduated from college and to celebrate we thought what a great time of year to have a picnic! No one would have thought it would be 62 degrees out and cloudy! We were all wrapped in blankets and fighting the cold the whole afternoon so we decided, after eating to pack it in and call it a day. We went back to Chad's grandparents to let Jenna open her gifts and eat cake. We ate WAY too much food that day, but it was great to see family and spend quality time together.

Overall, we had a great weekend, filled with a lot of football, food, family and friends! We are so blessed to have all that we do and all the people around us that love us. And weekends like this remind us just how lucky we are!