Halloween, Princesses, and a Wedding

It's been a pretty crazy month around the Kramer household. It all started with Halloween, which was a blast. Kristi dressed up like Princess Ariel and we met up with her bestie Caitlyn and her family to go trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. It was a blast getting some mommy time along with the experience. Kristi and her girlfriends looked so adorable in their costumes. 

All the girls were incredibly excited and had a great time. 

Next on the list was Kristi's birthday gift from the Wilt family. They bought her a ticket to go see Disney Princesses on Ice at the beginning of November. She spent most of the weekend with them and had a blast! 

Next up was my sister's wedding. That was a crazy busy couple of days. We spent most of the Thursday before decorating the church. It honestly didn't take nearly as long as I thought. We had a lot of help which was nice. The wedding itself was spectacularly gorgeous! She looked like a princess! Here's a couple of shots:

Rehearsal

Servers I decorated

Table decorations

Head table

Banister in front of the head table (These looked awesome when lit.)

First dance waltz

The beautiful bride

Pretty, pretty flower girl <3

We spent Thanksgiving with Andy's family, specifically at his sister's house. We had a lot of amazing food including perfectly cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, crescent rolls, and stuffing. I took just a little of everything and was so stuffed I couldn't even finish it. Surprisingly, I didn't take a single picture the whole time we were there (I know... What's wrong with me?!)! We drove Kris to her father that evening and afterwards, had some awesome desserts. Even though we ate much earlier this year than normal, most of the desserts didn't even get touched. We had pumpkin pie (which I'm now realizing I didn't get any of), pumpkin roll, and ice cream. I made orange cranberry cookies (click on the link and it'll take you to the recipe) and 2 different kinds of sugar cookies. I wasn't very impressed with the first sugar cookie recipe. I don't know if they just didn't turn out right because I used Splenda instead of "real" sugar or if my taste buds are just off, which is totally possible since I'm pregnant. Even though they didn't turn out the way I thought, the orange cranberry cookies came out perfectly! I again substituted Splenda for sugar and the Splenda-blended brown sugar. The recipe called for a glaze on top but I liked them so much without it so I decided not to put it on. That just means less calories and carbs right? ;-) Even though cookies aren't the healthiest snack foods, I do try to make them "healthier". 

We went Black Friday shopping and found some really great deals. We went out around 7 to hit Toys R' Us first. We found a fantastic deal on a crib and changing table set. The set was on sale for less than the cost of the crib itself! We just got the call today that it's ready to pick up. I'm so excited to pick it up and set it up in Trinity's room. Now, I just have to get started making the crib set. The other thing I wanted to look for was the Leapster Leappad. I know they weren't running a sale on it, but I wanted to see if it was available. Since it's still pretty new, they've been unavailable every time I've tried to purchase one. TRU was sold out but I'm actually happy about it. I didn't realize that VTech had their own type of tablet. The VTech Innotab actually seems better than the Leappad and it didn't cost as much. The only issue with the Innotab is that there is only one game out right now that is rated ages 7-9. All others are 4-6 or 5-7. Kristi has a Leapster 2 right now and the games don't go past age 7. She's unfortunately beat most of the ones she owns and doesn't want any new ones. I thought the Innotab would be a great system for her since I can't see paying the price for an actual tablet. I guess that was a long winded way of saying we got it for her for Christmas and hopes she likes it. We also picked up some more Squinkies and small craft stuff as stocking stuffers. With that, we got Kristi completely finished. :-)

With all that over, not much else has been going on. I completed two scarves for our church's Christmas Bazaar. I'm making a batch of the orange cranberry cookies for that as well. I'm excited to see what families have donated to the bazaar this year. After that, it's mostly just getting ready for the holidays. We got the tree up last weekend and finished most of the decorating around the house yesterday. The only thing I need to finish is the lights outside. I found out that the one strand of icicle lights I bought last year are already out. I tried changing the fuses but no luck. I want to pick up a couple more strands of lights for outside and possibly some of the windows. The last thing I have to do is make the new bows for the wreaths and swags that hang outside. We found a great deal on ribbon at AC Moore on Black Friday. I got the bow maker machine from my mom this past weekend so now I just have to figure out how to use it and what size to make the bows. I'm just hoping that we purchased enough ribbon. I honestly don't know if we can get that ribbon again because we had purchased the last two rolls. Anyway...

Well that's about it so until next time... much love and many blessings!

♥Courtney♥

Updates and Holidays

When I first starting blogging my goal was to blog once every week or once every other week. Then, when Kris started school, my goal was to blog everyday. Haha! Well, we have seen the fruits of that wishful thinking! I was doing pretty good with the bi-weekly updates until November. That was my really long way of saying, "Hey guys! Haven't talked to you in awhile!!" Now on to the more important things...

November was a fairly busy month, especially at the end, and a roller coaster ride of emotions. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving South Hamilton's kindergarten classes put on a little musical production. They sang like 5 or 6 songs and dressed up like Indians and Pilgrims. So adorable!! Kristi was a girl pilgrim and looked so cute:

My pilgrim and "her" Andy

Kristi did such a great job. I was very proud of her! I took a videos for each song because they were so cute! Here's a couple of them:

I'm a Little Turkey

The Turkey Pokey

If You're Thankful and You Know It

Thanksgiving was awesome! Kris spent Thanksgiving with her father this year so that was a bummer but we all went down to Andy's sister's. It was so much fun spending time, grubbing, and playing games. We had an amazing array of food: turkey, stuffing (in and out of the bird!), deviled eggs, homemade pumpkin rolls, mashed potatoes, and lots more. After prayer and much eating, everyone went into the living room to sleep off the tryptophan (yes, I realize that you'd have to eat a crap ton in order for it to actually make you sleepy)! After naps, we had dessert while the some of the boys played Wii with Sophie and the rest of us played Yahtzee and Apples to Apples (of which Ellie won). After that, we played a new game called Curses. This game was hilarious! At one point, I had to pretend my arms were only 2 inches long and my wrists had to touch my chest at all times. Let me just tell you how difficult it is to do things, i.e. get water, etc., with having your wrists touching your chest! Matt had to give himself bunny ears every time he wanted to speak. But the funniest one yet was Andy's. He had multiple curses so he had to swat at invisible mosquitoes while talking like Dracula. He did a really great impression (he totally should've been an actor!). It was even funnier when he got his challenge card and had to accept a Tony Award while doing both curses!



We spent the rest of the night hanging out talking and watching movies. All in all a really fantastic time. Andy and I spent the night and went Black Friday shopping with Ellie. We had a great time shopping with her and found some really awesome deals. I do have to say that I wasn't so impressed with the deals this year as in previous years but it was still fun. :-) I would usually have an array of pictures to share except that I forgot my camera (I know... I forgot my camera?!)!! Here's the few shots I got (and the few I copied from Shari):

The Dracula speaking, mosquito swatting, Tony Award winning Andy!

Uncle and niece! 

The most fabulous homemade pumpkin roll...EVER!

Laughing so hard I was crying!

Hello bunny!

Sophie the Red-Nosed reindeer

Dessert... Now that's what I'm talking about!!

Now on to the emotional roller coaster... The week before Thanksgiving I found out some really awesome news and was very excited about it. That Saturday and the ensuing days that news quickly had a horrible turnout, which was confirmed that Tuesday. Needless to say, going from the high of excitement to the low of lows was not fun. It's still hard but I'm taking things one day at a time.  

Everywhere I look I see beautiful Christmas decorations and nothing makes me happier!! This is my absolute favorite time of year but not for the same reasons as most. I love decorating, wrapping, and giving presents. Nothing warms my heart more than taking a drive through the neighborhood at night and seeing all the beautiful lights! I'm more excited about this year because it's the first Christmas in our new house together and Kristi will be here as well! Yay! A couple of days before Thanksgiving we decided to decorate our Christmas tree. We usually do it the day after Thanksgiving or that Saturday but since Kris was with her father for the holidays, we did it a little early. It was a lot of fun and much easier for Kristi to help this year. It only took us about 1 1/2 to get everything up, including restringing the lights (it has a whopping 700 lights!!). Unfortunately, Andy hurt his shoulder so he couldn't help but still chimed in :-) Here's a couple of the photos:

Birthday suit!

Most of the ornaments

700 lights later...

Adjusting our makeshift topper

Yes... we do this in our PJ's with Christmas music

All finished!

Since Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday, I just had to get Kristi her own tree for her bedroom. We found a purple one super cheap at Big Lots that matches her room perfectly!

Silver balls and mini ornaments

All decorated

She was so excited to have a new "night-light" that's so pretty! Andy and I decided to start a tradition by purchasing a new ornament for our tree each year. We're going to do this for Kristi too so that whenever she moves out and has her own tree, she'll have a start with good memories. We went to Snavely's on Sunday afternoon with Andy's parents to look for ornaments. We found a bunch of ornaments and one in particular had the most meaning  for Andy and I than any of the others we looked at:

Kristi's ornament

Our ornament

We even found mini ornaments for Kristi's tree that she loves:

Kristi's glass cupcakes

I got the outside of the house decorated completely and totally finished. We got the wreaths and swags up:

It took me close to 3 hours to get all the lights on the outside up and lit (part of that was leaving twice to get an extension cord and outside timer for them upon which I had to return the timer because it wasn't working right):

Saturday night we bundled up and braved the cold to go hang at Dutch Wonderland for their Winter Wonderland. Although it was really, really cold, it was absolutely beautiful!! We had a great time with the Echterling and future Mazzulla families! I didn't get many pictures because about 10 minutes in my camera batteries died and of course, I forgot to bring an extra pair!

Beautifully decorated entrance

She was so excited that she was an amber this year!

My mountain man love and I all bundled up

This was timed to music... So cool!!

The gang minus Megan, Andy, and I

Attempting to buckle herself in

And this is the point where my camera died. Ugh!! Anyway... we had a great time. About half way through we stopped at the cafe to grab a bite to eat. The food was a little pricey but really good!

Okay... so I think I've caught you up to speed. See, this is why I need to blog every week or at the very least bi-weekly because these updates get long if I don't. Until next time... Many blessings!!

♥Courtney♥