Overload

Hey everyone!

It's Tuesday night and I have yet to blog about my many randoms that have been on my mind lately, as well as all of my other thoughts. Preparing to put our house on the market has certainly taken up most of my time these days. Not that it's not a wonderful step in the right direction to get out of our townhome, but it had literally worn Scot and I out to our breaking points. Trying to do this with two small children, in a week, has been close to an impossible task, but I'm happy to say that it will officially be on the market starting tomorrow!

So in many ways, yes I am feeling overload in all areas of my life. The kids are probably sensing stresses from us, and in turn have acted out, a lot of tantrums and screams, and just fussiness in general. Just the other day I took the kids to Target and then Lowe's to get some Mums for the frnt porch, and Ryder had a fit because the flowers were orange red instead of his favorit color blue. Meanwhile, Brynley was overtired and close to a meltdown and it was all I could do to keep her calm long enough to get through the store and checkout. Mom fail? I think so. Double Mom fail when just two days ago she then fell down the stairs because we had to remove the baby proof gates and locks, and while sorting things from our attic to the top of the stairs, Brynley was able to push open the gate as it wasn't locked, therefore tumbling down the stairs! Luckily she was okay and scared more than anything, but it certainly wasn't a proud moment of mine.

 I will be so glad once our home is officially put on the market because then it will feel like an accomplishment that we are getting closer to moving! Don't get me wrong, I am very blessed to have a roof over my head, and truly it is a large home, for a townhome, but we are just ready for more space, an office for Scot, a big back yard, and more space from our neighbors.

Between cleaning, purging the attic and all of our storage, more organizing and cleaning, painting, cleaning again, re-organizing again, drop offs at both consignment stores and Goodwill to get rid of the things we didn't need or have room for anymore, on top of planning for Ryder's 4th birthday party, and getting ready for Thanksgiving this week, it has been a big task. Although it has caused a few tiffs between Scot and I, I do realize how fortunate I am to be married to him, and to be part of a solid team. I just pray that I turn all of my worries and thoughts over to God and let him do all the worrying for me. I heard somewhere that maybe that's why God has us worry, so that we will depend on Him in those moments.

Although a busy week, it's been a good week. Like I said, I still need to post my Blonde Moment Monday, a recap of Ryder's birthday, some yummy Thanksgiving recipes, the Thanksgiving Feast I attended at Ryder's preschool yesterday, and just some odds and ends posts that I wanted to get out. But, at this point, I don't know that any of that will get done.

So all of this rambling is just to say that I have a lot on my plate right now. I am still very behind on commenting and blog reading, but just know that you all are in my thoughts and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving holiday with your loved ones. I do hope to get caught up, and that once tomorrow is over with, I can start dreaming of the yummy foods I'm going to get to eat Thursday. I know that it's easy to consume 2,000 + calories in one day just at one meal alone, but I'm not counting calories because I just want to enjoy the day with my loved ones.

Well, enough thoughts on feeling overloaded. Maybe this time come Friday, I will have a better sense of peace and start to feel caught up on my sleep so I can get ready for some deals for Black Friday!

Happy Thanksgiving :)

Blonde Moment Monday

• This post brought to you by the letter "W"
• For WINE!
• 
  I am a day late posting my blonde moments, because in a matter of a few days this past weekend, Scot and I decided to go for it and prepare to put our townhome on the market.
• In order to do so, we have a LOT of work cut out for us in the next few days.
• Which brings me to my next point. I have hardly known what day it is, and therefore did not get a chance to post anything yesterday due to all of the de-cluttering and purging.
• Not to mention, this also explains the need for a glass of wine tonight!

•  I know I mentioned the thankful tree last week, via Ann Voskamp's blog, but I wanted to show what we've been working on the past few days, in getting our own thankful tree up!
• These are just some of the thankfuls that Ryder has told me each day.

•  I had to laugh at quite a few of Ryder's thankfuls, yet a lot of them were really sweet too!

•  I still can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week and there is still so much to do! Our plans are to celebrate with my sister in law, at her parents house, and to have all of our families together. Easy for us, we volunteered to bring the Honey Baked Ham!
• What are your plans for Thanksgiving??
• I will be posting more of my ideas for sides and main dishes soon, but one of the best side dishes that I posted on Friday, was Paula Deen's Corn Casserole. YUM!

• On my way to pick Ryder up from preschool last week, I stopped to take a few pictures of some of the changing leaves that I passed.
• Since his school is in an older part of town with lots of gorgeous trees, I wanted to take just a few pictures of these beautiful trees!

 When Scot went out of town, I took the kids to the park after dinner, followed by an after dinner treat to get ice cream. I loved how sweet Ryder was being with his sister, and this picture of the two of them in the swing together is priceless.

•  On Saturday, we went to a friend's birthday party and had the best time. I love it when you attend a party of function of some sort, and you expect it to be difficult with the kids, and it turns out to be a blast! This was the case this past weekend, when both Ryder and Brynley behaved and it gave Scot and I time to talk and hang out with other adults too!

• So those were some of my blonde moments, what are some of yours?
• Ps I will gladly accept any takers to come help me organize and declutter to get my home ready to be put on the market by this Friday.
• My only saving grace right now, is knowing that I have 4 days left until the realtor comes to take pictures and literally put our house for sell.
• So with that, I will fill up my wine glass and have another!
• Happy Monday/Tuesday :)

 

 

 

Kelly's Korner SUYL linkup- FAVORITE Side Dishes

Hey everyone, and a BIG Happy Friday, ya'll :)

I am trying to do my best to linkup each Friday, and participate with Kelly's Korner on SUYL Fridays. So far it has been an epic fail on my part, but I'm happy to bring some yummy goodness your way!

{photo via food.com}

For today's linkup, I wanted to share my favorite side dish. Paula Deen's Corn Casserole.This may not be the healthiest dish, but it is delicious, easy to make, and everyone will be asking for seconds and thirds. Not only that, but your guests will think you spent hours in the kitchen making this delight! You can make it to go along with a soup or main dish, or you can eat it all by itself. You can also lighten it up by using light sour cream and half the butter, or skipping on the cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 (15 1/4-ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1 (8-ounce) package corn muffin mix (recommended: Jiffy)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, stir together the 2 cans of corn, corn muffin mix, sour cream, and melted butter. Pour into a greased 9 by 13-inch casserole dish. Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and top with Cheddar. Return to oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Let stand for at least 5 minutes and then serve warm.

Here is the direct link to the recipe, on Food Network to make life easy so you can print it off.

I promise that ya'll won't be disappointed! Thanks for stopping by my blog :)

Interview With Ryder, 47 months (almost 4 yrs)

6 months ago, I decided that it would be fun to interview Ryder and see what some of his answers were. He was so cute with his responses to my questions, and now 6 months have passed, I thought it would be fun to do yet another interview with him. As his 4th birthday nears, I wanted to remember the things that he likes and even some of the things he doesn't like so much.

 

Here is the interview I did with him awhile ago, and just looking at his baby face and shorter hair makes me realize how fast time flies!

And here is the interview I just did with Ryder. He cracks me up with some of his answers.

 

1. What is your name?

2. How old are you?

3. Who is your best friend?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. What do you want to be when you grow up?

6. What makes you happy?

7. What makes you sad?

8. What are you thankful for?

9. When is your birthday?

 

And that's about when he was done, no more interviewing for this guy!

Afterwards, he wanted to interview me, so I took on the opportunity to see what questions Ryder would ask me. I know one day I will treasure these videos, at some of the things you can hear him say. Please realize this was at the end of the day, makeup rubbed off and I'd probably picked the mascara from my eyelashes (bad habit I can't stop!).

Then it was time to ask Daddy some things. By this point the camera man (Ryder) was getting a bit silly, but I still love his interviews!

Blonde Moment Monday

• It's Monday, and it's time for some random blonde moments!
• First up, HAPPY NOVEMBER! Four days in, I have posted on Facebook what I feel led that day to be thankful for, as well as asked Ryder what he is thankful for.

His list looks something like this:

Day 1- his birthday

Day 2- trains

Day 3- Brynley

Day 4- hot air balloons (not sure about this one, ha!)

• I have to admit that I've done it again. I've scoured the pins on Pinterest for way longer than I should ever admit, and I am so excited to start some fun Fall/Thanksgiving crafts!
• Just look at my Autumn board for some adorable things! I would love to take on any of these great wreaths, if only I could make my way to Hobby Lobby to purchase the right materials.
• 
  And speaking of Hobby Lobby. Look who finally has one in their town! That's right, Moi!
• It's been here a few weeks, but the grand opening was actually back at the beginning of October while we were out of town.
• 
  
  
  
  
  
   
• 
  {images via Pinterest}
• And just look at these adorb crafts to do with the kids! Ryder's thankfuls could easily go on the tree or the turkey jar. LOVE!

•  I promise not to go all political on ya'll. But please remember to VOTE tomorrow!! I voted early last week, and managed to take both kids with me. I was pretty impressed with said task, because I never would've tackled the grocery store when Ryder was a baby, much less a voting booth. With both kids!
• There is never a "perfect" candidate, but I just pray that the best choice is chosen tomorrow.

•  Once we got home from voting, we had fun playing around in our stickers!

• Oh Daylight Savings Time, why did you have to leave? Not that I don't mind waking to sunshine, but it makes for much harder times during the day, when my body is thinking it's time to settle the kids, eat dinner, and get readied for bed, but my mind is looking at the clock and saying, "NOPE, the clock is an hour behind now!"

•  Even though Halloween was just days ago, I am so over the sugar rush from all of the candy laying around here! I devoured plenty of candy corn, and am ready to not look at another piece of the stuff for another year now. And on that note, I'm ready for Ryder to detox from all of the sugar he's inhaled too. Every.single.day he requests a piece or two or five of the leftover candy, so we finally took it upon ourselves, to rid the house of all remaining junkfood.

•  So I completely forgot to post our outing at the Music playdate with my fellow MOPS Mommy friends. I love these pictures that my friend Alyssa captured.
• We learned that one way to get kids to feel more confident is to get a children's microphone, (I found one at the Dollar Spot at Target), and you will be amazed at the difference in your child.
• It was the best dollar spent, and we had so much fun taking turns interviewing.
• Another thing we had fun doing was playing with these fabric leaves

•  We would throw them in the air on the count of three, while singing along to a song about falling leaves, and then the kids would lay down on their backs and watch them fall. It was so fun and we did it again and again!

 

•  You may remember my love for Taylor Swift. I did go to her concert a year ago so I was extremely happy to get her newest cd, RED. It's upbeat and poppy and I just adore her!

•  Another Facebook pic, but look what I caught Brynley doing. She was just moments from dumping all of the toilet paper in the toilet! Yikes.

• And more trouble on the horizon!

 

 

• I am obsessed with the new Fall OPI colors! In fact I went to Ulta today to check them out in person, and decided I really wanted to try "The World Is Not Enough", and "Moonraker". However, I walked down the next aisle and decided to try the blue nail trend, and discovered their Germany line.
• Well that's all of my randoms for now! Hope that you have a fab night :)

All Hallows Eve

 Halloween at the Gelinas house was spent at my friend Alyssa's house. Well her parents house, to be more specific. You see, they live in a huge neighborhood and every year they have a potluck dinner where they close off the cul-de-sac and the friends and neighbors all bring sides to accompany their jambalaya, chili, and gumbo. Then it's followed by a trip or two through the haunted house that her Dad makes through the garage. We were in for a treat this year, and Ryder even got brave and went through! I was all "oh this will be cute for the kids", and then someone or something grabbed my leg!

And I may have cried like a 3 year old afterwards, because the terror, ya'll!

 Bellies full, and the night was young, we set off in their neighborhood to do some trick or treating. This was technically Brynley's first year doing so, considering she was just a few weeks old last year, and she slept most of the time that we were trick or treating. Oh but this year she was fierce! She watched her big brother like a pro and all it took was one time, and she was my brave little batgirl! We had lots of comments on how cute they were, which thrilled this Mama and I just beamed.

 The Hulk, and his counterpart, Batman. Alyssa is so crafty and actually made Topher's costume! Maybe I can enlist her help next year! This was maybe the third time through the haunted house and rather than looking straight ahead at me, he was eyeballing the big barrel of candy!

Round two of trick or treating!

Somehow I managed not to get a picture of the four of us, but instead, love this treasure of my girl, Alyssa, and her little guy! We were the Avengers + Batman and we were packing plenty of superhero! And don't be fooled by the expression on Brynley's face. She was actually just yawning, haha!

SUYL- Halloween Costumes

Hey ya'll and welcome to my blog! My name is Laura and I'm the girl behind "Laura's Blonde Moments", where I ramble on about my many blonde moments in life. Today I'm linking up with Kelly from Kelly's Korner, to show  you just what we've dressed up as over the years. I will preface by saying that I want to always dress up as a "theme", but having a son and a daughter means that it's doubtful we will be able to pull this off as the kids get older. But never say never, right?

I have loved looking at some of the costumes already posted, and have gotten some great ideas for the Halloween holidays to come! I will share that when Scot and I met, he was big into Halloween and dressing up, even though he was past his college years. I guess his passion for having fun and getting all dressed up was passed onto me, so we got to be Vampires and Sea Wenches before we were married with children. Now the fun is coming up with an idea that we can dress up as a family of four. Well, here are just some of the things we dressed up as since having kids. Hope you enjoy!

2008- Theme: Pregnant Pumpkin
 Let's rewind, shall we? Let me take you back to Halloween 2008, where I was 3 weeks from having my first son, Ryder. There was no way I was dressing up that year, but instead, I asked Scot to paint a pumpkin on my growing belly. The pumpkin ended up looking more like Charlie Brown haha!

 2009- Theme: Teddy Bear
Back when we celebrated Ryder's first Halloween, Scot and I still weren't dressing up. I'm not really sure why, other than the fact that we probably would've felt silly being the only adults in costume. Fast forward a few years and we don't mind being the few adults that dress up, and we have a blast!

These are seriously some of my favorite moments!

 2010- Theme: Giraffe
Again, another year where Scot and I didn't dress up, but we thought Ryder would be pretty cute as a cuddly giraffe! And again, we did a Halloween March around our little town square.

2011- Theme: Pirates & friends
 Finally ready to dress to impress for Halloween, we went as pirates, with a penguin as our parrot, and a pumpkin as our treasure ha! It only took welcoming Brynley to our family just weeks before to make us realize maybe it was time to play along and dress up too :)

2012- Theme: Batman & Friends
Here we are at Magic Kingdom, celebrating with Mickey in his Not So Scary Halloween Party. After going through pictures from this past Halloween, I realized that we really didn't have one of the four of us other than this one.

Here's a few more from the fun night at Disney, as we dressed in our Batman, Robin, and Joker best!