Christmas Pictures

We did it! We sent our Christmas Cards out on Saturday! Too Early? I don't think so, I just like to think I'm ahead of myself and it's one less thing I have to worry about! David's Dad took our Christmas Pictures way back in October and he did a wonderful job! Their were so many we liked. Here are some of our favorites;

We had a very nice Thanksgiving! We went to Dad and Mom VV's house. It was very nice to relax, and visit with everyone.Chris, Kristin and the kids were their as well as Grandma and Grandpa VenHousen! Here are pictures from our Thanksgiving;

Wednesday night I got all of Gavin's Christmas books and set them by the Christmas Tree! He sat for almost an hour and 'read' his books! Then we had to really re-read all of them : The boys getting ready to carve the TURKEY & Ham!

My yummy plate of food :)

Gavin and Nolan sitting in the massage chair watching a movie!

Grandma Mariella and Lily playing the piano!

Friday I got done working at 7am and then met David and Gavin out shopping! We also met up with Kristin and the kids and then later met up with Mom and Dad VV! It was a successful day of shopping! At the end of our day we left Sam's Club and Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus were there!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, All! What a wonderful day to be Thankful for every thing in my life!

Today is a day of traditions for our family. Every Thanksgiving we either go to David's Parent's or my parent's home. Wherever we are though, we seem to do the same thing!

Eat tons of traditional Thanksgiving food!Look through the Black Friday Ads! And watch Football!Wishing Everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This-n-That

David's mom is so good about saving everything, and I mean everything! She has saved all of David's toys from when he was a little boy! Gavin is at the perfect age where he is able to play with some of David's old toys and that latest thing are these K-NEX! By the way, they still sell these in stores! Gavin has been in love with them since they brought them home to play with! Although he is not very good at putting together anything by himself, daddy is MORE than happy to help him :) He's like a little kids again.
Some of their creations! A Dinosaur, dune buggy, motorcycle, and a race car!
A Fish, of course!
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Gavin and I made and ornament of his hand yesterday! Thank goodness we did it this year, because next year his hand wouldn't have fit in the mold! After 6 tries as getting a good hand print Gavin and myself were fed up with it and he was ready to be done! I wasn't too impressed with how it turned out, but we'll try again next year! Oh Yeah...Gavin also got a haircut this past weekend, David and him always go together, and as you can see in the picture above...Gavin's bangs are crooked! Thank goodness we got our Christmas Pictures taken already!

MIA!

We have been MIA lately! We've been so busy with things going on that I haven't had time to sit down...well I have, but not to blog! Last week Gavin had a little cold/caugh so we stayed inside all week and got our Christmas stuff out and relaxed!

My sister and Matt got me this wreath for my birthday! It completes our 'red' door for the Holidays!This past weekend I had a Bachelorette Party for my cousin's Wedding! It's less than 3 weeks away! I'm getting so excited. I've never been in a wedding before, besides my own :) and now I am in 2 weddings in less than 6 months!

Our for dinner at Katsu-Ya!Ashley, Krissy, myself, and Keely!We also put up our Christmas Tree this weekend! We have not decorated it yet, but it's up and took us a long time to get it up! I got a new Christmas Tree for my Birthday from David! I Love it and it fits perfectly in our home! The thing is massive compared to our old tree!This week is going to fly by, which I am looking forward to very much! I love Thanksgiving! We will be going to Mom and Dad VV's for Thanksgiving this year! I am hoping to be home and in bed by at least 8pm that night! I have to get up and work at 2am! About 2 months ago I started working at Old Navy, two nights a week! And...Old Navy is opening at 3am on Friday! They have some great deals going on and I am glad to be working from 2-7am, 1- so I can get the deals that I want their and 2- after 7am I still have time to hit up the other stores that I need stuff at! I am hoping to get the majority of our Christmas shopping done this weekend! I love shopping on Black Friday, something I look forward to all year long! Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!

Christmas Spirit?!

Why is this year going by so fast? Christmas Music is in full swing here. Many people I know are almost done with their Chrismas Shopping, AND...Last night I was making Christmas Eve Invites!? How is this possible?...It hasn't even snowed here yet! I can't get into the Christmas spirit until it has snowed! We really need to get started on our Christmas Shopping! Is anyone done yet? I can't wait for this year's Christmas with Gavin! He has made numerous Christmas lists to Santa and he LOVES to circle the things he wants in catalogs! It will be a Christmas to remember, thats for sure!

This past weekend we had Matt and Ashley (David's cousin and his wife) visit us! Saturday evening we all met up with Kristin and Chris for dinner and then we all headed to the Comedy Club here in Madison! It was alot of fun and the comedians were wonderful! Could you imagine going to a comedy club and having the comedians be awful? I couldn't and I hope I never experience that! On Sunday, we headed to my Mom and Dad's house to celebrate my birthday, which is not until Tuesday the 17th, but we will not be able to see my family so it was nice to celebrate with them! My DQ cake! Y.U.M.M.Y.

Gavin helping me blow out the candle!

Our Trip to Nashville

We’re back!! Nashville was amazing! It is such a wonderful city! So much to do too, I would totally recommend checking it out, especially if you like Country Music!
We arrived on Tuesday around lunch time! Our flights to Nashville were great, except for the fact that the planes were a bit on the smaller side, and that tends to freak me out more! After we got settled at the hotel we headed over to Opry Mills, which is a big Mall in Nashville. We ate lunch and did some window shopping! We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening and to have a group meeting! There were 97 couples that won trips through their radio station and they were all over the U.S. so that was really neat! We met a lot of nice people on our trip, which always makes it better! There were 4 couch buses that were shuttling us all over! Tuesday evening they dropped us off downtown. We were able to go eat dinner and then head over to the Wildhorse Saloon. For dinner David and I ate at Jack’s Bar-B-Que!! Oh my lord, they have the BEST barbeque sauce ever, and I’m not a huge barbeque sauce girl! After that we headed over to the Wildhorse Saloon where we had cocktails. You could also get out on the dance floor and they have line dance lessons! They had live bands EVERYWHERE! It’s a pretty neat place to go and experience AND they have even been on over 4,000 TV shows and tapings, which is pretty neat!!
Wednesday morning we headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame! This was also neat to experience, but if we had to pay for it ourselves (which we didn’t) it is $30 and it wasn’t worth it to us! There was a lot of really cool things to see but it was not our ‘era’ it was more the Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams Jr., Elvis, Dolly, type of stuff, which is okay, but didn’t interest us all that much! Here are pics from the that;This dress below was worn by Carrie Underwood. It is over 120+ yards of fabric! Could you Imagine?This was Elvis' vehicle! I thought it was hilarious with the TV in the car! This Jacket was Hank Williams Jr.'s and it was his Monday Night Football Jacket! It had alot of sequence on it!The two dresses below I fell in love with! The first one I would love to cut the sleeves off and make it strapless! It was so beautiful!
This dress would be the perfect dress! I wish I had it! After the Country Music Hall of Fame we headed downtown for lunch, we ate at this hole in the wall Mexican restaurant, it was so good! They made all their stuff homemade, yummy! Their Chips and Salsa was to die for too! I probably gained 5+ lbs on this trip with all the eating we did! After lunch we headed to Music Row, which was SO cool to hear about! It was totally not what I expected Music Row to be like! We got to see all of the stars offices (which by the way are little houses). We got to see where they record the music and everything. This picture is of Virginia's Market. They told us that this was the best place to run into an artist! It's the place they all come to during the day if they are at their offices or recoding studios!
I have never felt like more of a tourist then I did on this trip! Haha, but that’s okay! We learned a lot and got to see a ton of neat things!
After Music Row it was time to head back to the Hotel and get ready for the CMA’s! I had no idea what to wear to this! It’s not like I was going to dress like the ‘stars’ dress, but I also didn’t want to be under dressed! So I wore a little red dress and David wore jeans, and a sports coat! There were a lot of people over dressed and a lot of people under dressed! Hopefully we were right in the middle! When we arrived at the Sommet Center and found our seats I was shocked at how high we were! We were closer to the stars in the sky then the stars at the CMA’s! But that’s okay! We got to experience something so neat! It was fun to see how an awards show is pulled off! I was able to bring our camera inside with us, but too bad our camera is a piece! It doesn’t take very good pictures, maybe it’s just me and I don’t know how to use it, but I was ready to throw it over the edge at one point! Here are a few pictures we took; sorry the pictures of the CMA's really didn't turn out good!
Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood! Can't you tell? :)Taylor Swift winning one of her awards!This was when Taylor Swift performed! They people around her was actually people from the High School she went to! I thought that was neat!After the CMA’s we headed to Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner! That was the end of our ‘trip’. It was the perfect amount of time! We were ready to go home Thursday morning and see Gavin!