Overwhelmed!

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed? I think you can in Europe." -10 Things I Hate About You

I am totally OVERWHELMED! Last year I had the bright idea to host Chrismas Dinner with both of our families in our TINY little one bedroom apartment. This resulted in extra card tables, couches being moved, and attempting to fit 10 people and 2 dogs comfortably in about 700 square feet. Not such a bright idea. Not to mention the fact that although everything (in my opinion) was wonderful, and I worked my butt off to make it that way... it still wasn't good enough (for some individuals that attended). So my meticulous, obsessive-compulsive self has decided that Thanksgiving would be a great time to torture myself again and attempt to do the impossible... PLEASE MY MOTHER-IN-LAW! So here I am, a week before Thanksgiving... already gone shopping, and ready to have a complete hysterical break down! I have no idea how my perfect mother made everything look so effortless! Every year, my sister and I watched the parade in our pj's and wondered into the dining room around 3pm (after eating numerous, mouth-watering appetizers with the extended family, I might add) to find a feast fit for Southern Living laid out for us. I'm toast.

How on earth do I take all of this:

and make it look like this...

Without ending up in one of these???

Anyone have any suggestions?? I'm at a loss here.

I have all of my recipes compiled and the shopping done (minus a few things that I couldn't find! agh...) Now I just have to sit, wait and STRESS lol. I need a massage. Or maybe we'll just go to Cracker Barrel!! :) I do have to figure out the table decor... so that gives me something else to worry about while I wait for next week and freak out haha. (I'm NOT a nail biter... but mine are dangerously short!) According to Chris Alt, it's improper to have people over for dinner without a tablecloth and place cards. I seriously set my self up for failure on this one.

Any suggestions on how to please the mother-in-law?? And if anyone says it's impossible, I may just jump off a cliff. And take the Turkey with me! (Which I'm sure will be too dry, the Sweet Potato Casserole will have too many sweet potatoes, and I better not put chocolate in the Pecan Pie or I might get my butt handed to me on a platter -which will be the inappropriate serving dish anyway- AGAIN this year.) I am determined... it will be wonderful, regardless of what Mrs. You're-Never-Going-To-Be-Good-Enough-For-My-Son has to say!

For the record, none of the photos are mine... all are courtesy of Google Image Search! :)

Yummmmy!!

Last week I made an AMAZING homemade Apple Pie and it was FANTASTIC! It was devoured in about 5 minutes, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie

Ingredients:
-1 Recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
-1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
-3 Tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
-1/4 Cup Water
-1/2 Cup White Sugar
-1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
-2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
-2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
-8 Granny Smith Apples- Peeled, cored, and sliced
-1 Egg White

Directions:
-Preaheat oven to 425 Degrees. Melt the butter in saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer 5-10 minutes. Pour about 1/4 cup of the mixture into a small bowl and set aside.
-Add apples to filling mixture. Toss to coat.
-Place the bottom crust in a 9 inch pie pan. Use a basting brush and brush with egg white. (This keeps the bottom crust from getting soggy.) Fill with apples, slightly mounded. Cover with a lattice work crust. Pour reserved caramel mixture over the lattice work.
-Bake 15 minutes in the preheated over. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 35-45 minutes, until apples are soft.

(Tip: Place a cookie sheet under the pie pan to keep drips from getting on the bottom of your oven.)


Recipe from allrecipies.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Pie-by-Grandma-Ople/Detail.aspx) ENJOY!!!!

I Love This Guy!!

Every night before bed, after we read our scriptures and say our prayers... we've started saying 1 to 2 things we're thankful for. It helps us keep things in perspective when things don't always seem so great. I keep saying things about Matt. I am SO GRATEFUL for him! But he never lets me use that and I have to come up with something else. So I wanted to take a few minutes to say how thankful I am for my wonderful husband. He is AMAZING. I have never met a more wonderful man (except of course my Daddy!)
I am grateful for Matt because he:
-Loves me
-Takes care of me
-His smile makes me melt and gives me butterflies
-Puts up with my insecurities
-Always always makes me laugh
-Makes sacrifices for me
-Always wants to make sure that I'm happy
-Rubs my smelly feet
-Makes me dinner
-Gorgeous Gorgeous Gorgeous Baby Blues :)
-Gets up early to iron my clothes and pack my lunch (when he doesn't have to work)
-Tells me he loves me all the time
-Asks about my day and is genuinely interested
-Is willing to learn about what I believe in, and it's important to him because it's important to me
-Helps me make the bed
-Calls me at work just to say hello and see how my day is
-Snuggles with me
-Takes me out on a date night every Friday
-Goes to the movies and watches chick-flicks and vampire-love stories with me
-Stays up late so that we can spend time together
-Always kisses me goodnight
-Wants to be a Daddy one day
-Vacuums
-Empties the mouse traps, and kills spiders
-Hangs pictures
-Puts together all kinds of cool surround sound stuff
-Works hard to provide for us
-Works 9 hours a day, then goes to school for 4 1/2 hours so that we can have a better life
-Randomly smiles at me for no reason, and then just says "I love you."
-Goes and gets the car in the rain
-Carries groceries in the house
-Puts everything together that involves a screw driver and/or hammer
-Goes to Craft Shows with me
-Attempts to enjoy my overwhelming Holiday Cheer :)
-When I start to freak out about money, work, life, family, weight, dishes, my never ending checklist, and everything else that I worry about (and I worry about EVERYTHING!) He smiles, holds me, and assures me that everything is going to be okay.

He is an incredible man. He has the kindest heart, and is the sweetest person I've ever met. Sorry... I know this post will probably induce barfing because I can't stop gushing. But I could go on for hours about everything about Matty that I am grateful for. I love him so much! I can't wait until the day that we can say we'll get to be together for eternity.

Walking down the aisle and seeing this wonderful man smiling at me was the best moment of my life.

Definition of a Veteran

DEFINITION OF A VETERAN: A veteran, whether active duty, retired, National Guard or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount "up to and including my life", risked life an limb to protect the freedoms that we all enjoy and is proud to do so.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has served, is serving, or will serve our country. I know I'm a day late... but it is because of these brave men and women that we are free to LIVE. I'm so thankful for my husband and the years he spent in the military to protect us and keep us free to enjoy the freedoms that we take advantage of on a daily basis. Freedom doesn't come free. There have been so many lives lost over the short history of our country to protect our rights. Because of them, we have the freedome of religion, speech, press, right to bear arms, etc. Thank you! A special thanks to Matt, Jake, Pops, Grandpa Lobel, Grandpa Bocek, PawPaw, Uncle Joe, and Jeremy.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I'll admit it!

Yes, I was listening to Christmas music yesterday. And I LOVED it!! I know, Halloween wasn't even a week ago. But, I've started my shopping, the Craftsman Christmas Classic is this weekend, and everywhere you turn in the malls there are Santas and Snowmen. So I broke out the CD's! I blasted "All I Want For Christmas is You" and sung along (on the top of my lungs) to "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". It's never too early to get into the Holiday spirit! Although I doubt Matt will let me put up the Christmas Tree before Thanksgiving this year haha. I'm seriously contemplating going to see A Christmas Carol in 3D this weekend! Can't wait!

Betty in front of our tree last year :)

P.S. 5 Below has Christmas Specials on DVD for $5!!! :) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Frosty the Snowman, & How the Grinch Stole Christmas!!

Busy Busy Week!!

Whew! What a week!! We moved last Saturday, it was pretty much a miserable day to move! Haha it started raining as soon as everyone got there. It only took two trips to get everything over the new apartment, I think we had about 5 cars, a truck, and a trailer! So it was actually pretty easy. The new apartment is nice. There were a few things that had to be fixed, but they're taken care of already! We're mostly unpacked, the spare bedroom is full of boxes, but hopefully we'll get that taken care of this weekend. Everything else is mostly unpacked. I'll take pictures of the new place soon and post them!

We decided to have a Halloween Party at the new place on Saturday. It was pretty rainy and gloomy outside, so we mostly ended up watching football! haha But we had fun, the food was good, and the decorations were fun. Matt and I carved pumpkins for date night. Oh and what an adventure it was!! I should not have waited until Halloween Eve to buy pumpkins for carving. It took FIVE STORES! I called Wal Mart after I went to Food Lion, Kroger, and a second Walmart to find them and they were all sold out, and they hung up on me three times!!!! Who is really surprised though. So finally I called Ukrops and the nice manager went outside to check for me. And we found pumpkins!!! I love Ukrops! :)

My Little Monster!

Apparently Matt's pumpkin isn't feeling so good.

After we carved pumpkins, we watched Hocus Pocus. :)

Such a fun movie that's not scary (so I can watch it!) haha

Saturday we planned for and had the party. We had a ton of good food and then has some friends over. We ended up watching football haha. It was rainy and pretty gloomy outside. But it was still fun to get all dressed up.

Characters from one of my favorite books (Vampire Academy Series)
Rosa & Demetri
(and Betty the piggy haha)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Oh! Also, I got a new job!! Well, a second job. I'm going to be working part-time/seasonal at Yankee Candle on top of my full-time job. Hopefully I'll have a little extra cash for the Holidays! :)

Weekend Fun

I had the bright idea to try to earn some extra money at work. We own 13 properties in Richmond and whenever there are fliers that need to be posted, employees can do it for a little extra moolah. It's 13 cents a flier, which doesn't sound like a lot, but where there's 780 units on a property... it adds up. Unfortunately, I bit off a wee more than I could chew. I signed Matt and I up to do THREE PROPERTIES today! Yikes... although making $300 in a few hours sounds fantastic, about the 340th staircase we climbed my legs were screaming at me and threatening to go get in the car and leave me on the third floor of the complex. It was raining and about 42 degrees. =/ Yuck!!! I'm sorry to say, halfway through the third property, we gave up! I will have to forfeit about $50, but it was so worth it to go get a hot chocolate and take a bubble bath!

When we got home, we decided to do some MAJOR packing. We are moving in ONE WEEK! This time next Saturday we'll be getting ready to go to sleep in our new apartment for the first time! We're so excited. But boy is packing a chore! Who knew we'd collected so much junk in the last two years. The night we moved in, we sat on the floor eating Chinese take-out with chopsticks watching our ancient tv (which was also on the floor- and has since exploded and been replaced)! Our mattress was old and also on the floor, and our only furniture was a $25 yard sale find of a kitchen table and Matt's military trunk. Now we have so much STUFF!! I guess that's what happens when you get married. I can't help but wonder if we'll ever use all four fondue pots we have haha. It was a pretty successful night though. Matt's family came and helped for a few hours. We've got about 80% of our stuff packed. Now to navigate all the boxes while we try to survive here for another week. We had a very productive Saturday! I am really looking forward to Sunday. We're taking a "Strengthening Marriage" class at church and tomorrow night's class is on Communication. Hopefully it goes well. I know Matt certainly doesn't have any issues with communicating! :)

They packed me!!

Umm... who's going to help me out of here?
(I seriously need to hit the tanning bed, yikes!

This is Jake's version of "helping".

I got to babysit my ADORABLE niece Isabelle this week. She is getting so big and I absolutely adore spending time with this little sweetheart. Her favorite thing to say is "wha dat?" and she calls Matt "Pat". She has 8 teeth and has moved right from walking to running all over the place. She is getting so big so quick, and she is such a joy to be around. I have never been around a happier baby! I can't believe that it was 14 short months ago that I held her little tiny 8lb self the day she came into the world. Now she's growing up into such a fantastic little toddler. Uh-oh, I think I'm starting to get baby envy...

We went to the state fair a few weeks ago! :) I finally got the memory card out of the camera, so I thought I'd share. It was fun, but raining. And now that the fair has been moved to the new fair grounds, there was a LOT of walking to do. I think my favorite part was the corn-dog, cotton candy and apple cider! ( and my hair's getting long again, yay!)