Our Thanksgiving

A quick review of our fantastic Thanksgiving holiday... We left last Wednesday at 7am headed to Mt. Pleasant to see my family. It's a 5 hour drive and Mac gets antsy but he did so well on the drive there and back. We wanted to get a jump on the traffic so we left the house the same time we would if we were going to work, such a good move! There was no traffic and we did the same thing on Sunday when we drove home (on the road at 6am, followed Dad to his exit for work!)

We got into town around 11am and went to the house. Mac couldn't wait to get out of the car and play with Sandy!

They wore each other out numerous times over the weekend. While Mac was playing I took this picture from the drive way of our front yard... is there a question as to why I love going home?

Now some of you may know that Mac is not a big fan of nature, for those of you that don't know this here is the proof. Mom was going to sit him on the ground and as she lowered him he lifted his feet.

She lowered him some more and he picked his feet up more so they wouldn't touch the ground!!

He doesn't mind eating nature though...

On Thanksgiving Day everyone comes to my parents house. We had such a good dinner! Tons of food and tons of cake and pie! I ate my weight in cake and pie, the scale doesn't lie... I have a lot of running to do this week :/ but it was worth every bite! YUM! Oh and if you come to our house for Thanksgiving, be warned, you may get put to work...

The family stayed at the house visiting until around 4pm and after they left we found the couches, recliners, floor, whatever was closest and relaxed.

Friday I worked on cutting out snowflakes using the Cricut for Mac's birthday party. Mom played with Mac and Dad, Jimmy and Randall went skeet shooting. Mom, Mac and I ran a few errands in town later in the afternoon and then we were invited out to Randall's house for dinner! He cooked us spaghetti with meatballs, bread, green beans and Mom brought the tea and salad. It was so good and lots of fun! We got to see Randalls awesome Christmas tree too!

Friday was also my Mom and Dad's 39th Wedding Anniversary!

Saturday we visited with the grandparents, after I finished up some more snowflakes and banner stuff for the party. However, by Saturday the trip had taken a toll on some of us...
We ran a few more errands after leaving Mamaw's (where Jimmy and Mac were napping) and then home to sit! Then I remembered I wanted to take pictures of Mac to try and get something I could use for the Christmas card!! Here are a couple...I think they are so cute!!


It was a great trip!! I am looking forward to Christmas even more now! I just need to get through this week of birthday party prep and then the party on Sunday so I can start Christmas shopping!! This birthday party has consumed every spare minute and thought that I might have so Christmas shopping hasn't even made the to do list!!

In Theaters This Thanksgiving: Hubby Babysitting

Here's a teaser...

TheMom: "Jimmy, I need to take care of some things in the guest/Mac's party staging room can you keep an eye on him?"

Jimmy (playing Madden10): "Sure"

TheMom (exiting livingroom): "K"

(TheMom leaves the room for a while and upon returning to the livingroom finds an interesting situation, grabs camera)

TheMom: "Seriously"

Jimmy (smirk)

Hahaha...How does your husband watch baby?

All's Quite on the Western Front...

Whoever said "Silence is Golden" didn't have kids. Silence means somethings up, even brand new, 11 month old parents know this.

This morning things went quite and I went searching. And sure enough things were not as they should be...


Now, I knew he had been walking around with the Puffs but he had never been able to open them before. I also know that it could have been a lot worse, a lot lot worse.

and no I didn't throw them away. I scooped them back up and put them in the can, good as new.

I did leave a few out so he could finish eating them, yes off the floor. What? Like you wouldn't have done the same thing... right? I vaccumed up the crumbs when he was finished. Nothing like having to vaccum at 6:45am!

Date Night Friday

I can not tell ya'll what an awesome time Jimmy and I had Friday night! My friend Erica told me she would watch Mac for us if Jimmy and I wanted to go out. Um. YES!

So I started looking around on Citysearch and came up with a plan to go to Max's Wine Dive for drinks, Pirahna Killer Sushi for dinner and then figure out dessert if we still had room left. A progressive dinner, fun, a little walking and downtown sight seeing.

We dropped Mac off with Erica a little after 7pm and headed downtown. We got to Max's and decided to sit at the bar since we were only going to have a drink. Well, we sat down and decided to have an appetizer and got the Bad A** Chips. YUM! They have an open kitchen so while we were eating and sipping amazing wine we zoned out watching the chefs cook and plate the food. It was sooo cool! The longer we watched the plates of food go out the more our interest was peaked, Pirahna Killer Sushi was put on the back burner (pun intended) and we picked up the menus!

I ordered the Fried Egg Sandwich and Jimmy ordered the Famous Fried Chicken. This place is gourmet comfort food at it's finest. My sandwich was huge and fantastic. It literally made me smile. A lot. Jimmy's chicken was amazing. The crust was awesome!! The mashed potatoes were perfect and the collared greens were phenomenal (and really how many times have you ever heard of collared greens being refered to as phenomenal??).

Our waitress asked us if we were glad we decided to stay and YES a thousand times YES we were! We left, slowly because we were stuffed (I still might be a little stuffed) and took the long way back to the parking garage.

I think the last time Jimmy and I went out to eat alone was when Mac was 3 months old. We were long overdue for a night out but I'm not sure we realized it. This was a fantastic reminder and now we are ready to do this again... so, um, babysitters?? Show of hands...

Last Saturday

Despite the fact that our Longhorns are having a less than stellar season we are not fair weather fans. Mac and I left the house in our UT gear in full support of our team. Heads held high we hit the errand trail...but not before I got a couple of pictures of my sweet sweet boy!







Hook'em.
(and there's always hope for a winning basketball season?)

101 List Updates

Just wanted everyone to know that I have completed a few things on my 101 List! I am going to post on my 101 page a more detailed account of what I crossed off but here is a little list, a teaser if you will...

Completed:
9. Lose 40 pounds.
53. Retire gaucho pants.
82. Lose 25 pounds this year.
101. Picnic in the Park.

(Insert Big Cheesy grin here)
(Que confetti cannon)(Yes that is a Glee reference)


YAY Confetti!!!

Weekly Weigh-In

I am linking up with Marvelous Mommy & My Little Apricot for my Weekly Weigh-In.


Start Weight (7/8): 206 lbs
Last Week (Oct 21): 184 lbs
This Week: 180 lbs

Goal Weight by Dec: 178 lbs
Goal Weight Overall: 165 lbs

Ok, so I have been MIA. I got tired of constantly worrying about Thursday weigh in's since I kept gaining and losing the same 2 to 4 pounds so I took the week of October 25th off. I did not run at all that week and it was a good week to rest since it was filled with after work errands and fun appointments and that Friday we went home to Mt. Pleasant for Halloween and my little cousin's party. That next week, Nov. 1st, I planned on getting back on track and uping my mileage to 5 miles. I ran that Monday, mentally ready to tackle an extra mile only to get almost to the end of my run and realized that according to my time there was no way that loop had been 5 miles. Completely disappointed and deflated I went home and checked and I had infact misremembered and had only run 4 miles (which I already knew). Now I don't know how many of you run but it's 90% mental and this was a big blow to me. I didn't run the rest of the week. Last week, Nov. 8th, I started again on Monday with a 5 mile run (a real 5 miler this time) and it was great! I ran 3 miles on Wednesday with my friend Jocelyn and Friday I did 4. This week has been a good week as well, I did 5 miles Monday and 4.5 yesterday.

All that to say I am really happy that I lost 4 pounds. It has been nice to not have that Thursday weigh in pressure hanging over me for the last couple of weeks. I do like the accountability that our weigh in provides and I am happy to be back!!

Next week we will be in Mt. Pleasant for Thanksgiving so I am not sure if I will be able to check in but I am hoping to at least go walking with my Mom while I am there!

Oh and ps... As of this week, I have lost 26 pounds since starting this weigh in and that means that I have completed #82 and #9 on my 101 List. To explain, I had already lost around 20 pounds before I started this weigh-in so I decided that I would just wait until I met the 25 pound goal and then say I had completed both goals even though I have technically lost more than 40 before today because I couldn't remember exactly how much I had already lost when I started weighing in with ya'll... but yay! I get to cross to things off my list.

Wordless Wednesday

As Promised...

walking pictures. He just gets better every day with this whole "walking" business. It's crazy. These pictures are from two different days over the last week or so.




See his plastic cup. Yep straight from the kitchen cabinet. I gave up, I just make sure he doesn't get into the cabinet with the kitchen cleaners and bug spray but all other cabinets are game because I just don't care anymore haha.




And yes, he is playing with a wooden spoon. I gave it to him to beat on the tupperware with since he is deprived of real toys... ha!



I don't even remember why I bought this storage bin because he pushes it around all of the time. I think it was/is for old outgrown baby clothes but as long as it is entertaining him it's intended purpose can wait.


This is what my kitchen looks like all the time now. I stopped trying to pick up after Hurricane Mac, I can't keep up so I just step over.

It's amazing how fast he is at walking and getting away from us even if we turn our heads for a second! He goes all over the house and as of this past weekend the new rule is "All Doors Closed" and I am currently in the market for a baby gate to keep him in the livingroom kitchen area.

And speaking of baby gates. Remeber this post "We Don't Need A Baby Gate", um yeah. Apparently he has gotten over his very short lived fear of balloons. This last week and a half he has been getting more and more brave. He would go and touch the balloon and then walk away. I would try and scare the fear back into him when he touched the balloon by grabbing him but he would just laugh. And as of last night...



He moved the balloon out of the way and went staight for the TV and cabinet! So we will be getting a gate to go around the TV as well.. ugh!! WAIT clowns are scary!? Right? Pennywise!
Ok then I wouldn't be able to go near the TV...

HELLO

So I have not posted in a while. I keep forgetting my camera so that I can download pictures that I want to put up and tell you about but that is just kind of how my life is going lately. Mornings have been crazy since the time change and I can barely get out of the house with a properly packed diaper bag AND the baby much less remember my camera! I am going to try and download pictures tonight or in the morning so that I can post some pictures of Mac walking!!

On a holiday note: Can anyone believe Thanksgiving is next week!!?? I thought October flew by but November is putting it to shame with a quickness. Where is the time going? I am excited, though, for the upcoming holidays and the time I am going to get to spend at home.

It's A 'Shutterfly' Christmas!

Yes, you read that correctly, I said Christmas! And when you think of Christmas what's the first thing that comes to mind! CHRISTMAS CARDS! Ok, maybe it's not the first thing, but they rank pretty high on the "Christmas is only 'X' weeks away and I still have to..." list.

I have been thinking about Christmas cards for a few weeks but I am in 'birthday party planning mode' for the first birthday that is about to happen at my house so Christmas cards keep getting shoved to the back seat! Well, I was on the blog It's "A" Sweet Life reading her latest post and she was talking about Shutterfly and how they are offering a special promotion for bloggers to earn 50 free Christmas cards by blogging about Shutterfly's Christmas selection. My interest peaked, the Christmas cards I had been putting off could be done online! I was off to Shutterfly!!

I have been looking around their website and they have an incredible Christmas card selection!! I just don't know how I can choose!! Here are 3 of my favorites:

Yeah, I know. How stink'n cute are those! But they have so much more than just holiday and Christmas cards.

You can get Christmas gift tags, I like these:



And while you are checking "Christmas Cards" off that "To Do List" you can start purchasing Christmas gifts for your friends and family. Their photo calendars would be a great gift and the canvas prints could get you some major points with a grandma or two.

I seriously can't wait to start working on Christmas cards, it's going to be so easy with Shutterfly!

Ps. Tons of items on their site are 20% off. Who doesn't love a sale!!

Mac The Walker

Well we officially have a walker in the house! As of last Thursday Mac is taking several steps and was walking to me in the living room! I would put him by the couch where Jimmy was sitting and then move back and Mac was walking to me! He did it about 5 or 6 times and took at least 5 steps each time. Since Thursday he is walking more and more over longer distances and crawling a little less. I think it's about to get a little interesting around the Clanin house!

It's exciting but sad, my little baby boy is growing up!!

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween MtP Trip: Part 2

Halloween! Well, the day before anyway. Saturday was Neeley's 4th birthday and the day of her Hello Kitty Birthday Party! The party was fun, Neeley received a ba-jillon presents and the cake was fantastic!! There was a bounce house, a swing set and frisbee for the big kids (aka my husband, Neeley's Dad, Neeley's Grandad, and my brother! haha)

Mac and the Birthday Girl, she wanted to hold him. haha


Neeley and her cake. Lydia, Neeley's mom, made the cake! I told her she better watch out or she would be making the cake for Mac's Mt. Pleasant First Birthday Party!



Mac with his Uncle Glenn and Aunt Sheryl.


Neeley opened her ba-jillion presents but the lip gloss was a big hit. She took off running in a huge circle screaming and showing it off.


Mac needed sunglasses to protect his corneas from all the hot pink!


After all the presents were opened and people were starting to leave, I changed Mac into his Halloween costume so that Lydia, Sheryl, and Randall could see him since we were not going to see them again this trip after we left Lydia's house. Sheryl had put together a big, fun treat bag for Mac's First Halloween. He loved the dancing skeleton!!



We left and went to Trick or Treat at Mamaw's house.




And Mac wanted to show her the dancing skeleton...


After Mamaw's, where he definitely ended up with some treats, we went home to meet Pops and eat supper! After we ate I threw his costume back on and tried to get outside before we lost all daylight for a couple of pictures.






After the outside photo shoot Mac, Mom and me went up the road to Mama's house for the last Trick or Treat of the night. He got a lot of candy there too!



And after a quick check in her cabinets it was time to go home for playtime with Nana and Pops!


Nana, Pops and Mac played with Sandy and with a baton. Mac and a baton are dangerous. He hit himself in the head several times and even got his Nana once.





Me and Mac, again!!


Nana and Pops!


We had a great weekend. It was too short, we left around 9:30 Sunday morning so we wouldn't get back too late. I can't wait until Thanksgiving when we get to stay longer!!