It's Garage Sale Time

Garage Sales are one of my guilty pleasures in life and now is when they are in full swing.  Every other community around us has a community wide garage sale day and they advertise with huge signs.  Whenever we drive by one I can just hear Jake clenching his teeth hoping I don't see the huge-unavoidable-not-gonna-miss-it sign that is posted at the front of the neighborhood. 

I've always been a garage sale kind a girl-always looking for the lowest price and best deals around, but now that Nora is around I love them even more FOR THE TOYS and other kids stuff.  Our community sale brought a couple good deals on toys for her even though they are for when she is a bit older, but garage sales don't happen in the winter....but then again that's what Craigslist is for! This past weekend I cleaned up at a few community sales.  I first went on Friday morning. Since I'm not working Fridays its nice to get to the sales the day before most people go out so I can get all the deals-see how this is a game for me?! I scoped them out first before lugging the stroller out and wasting time that  I could spend down the road at other sales and decided this upscale neighborhood was a good find.  I strolled around getting a few things mainly for myself. This lady was selling a bunch of Pampered Chef grilling spices and a Easy Accent Decorator that had never been opened for $5...Cha-CHing! I've been waiting for the next PC party to get the Easy Accent Decorator because we take deviled eggs to my side of the family for a lot of our get togethers.  I got a few cute outfits for Nora that day too, but most of the toys were $3-$7 and I was not paying that price at a garage sale! I mean come on...seriously?

Well, little did I learn later that day at Babies R Us that $3-$7 for the toys they were selling was a HUGE discount since most of those toys were $45 and up! Holy Cow! I went back Saturday morning and scooped up all the toys that were fifty cents to $7 and seemed cleanable.  I never realized how expensive toys were especially when kids get so bored after 2 minutes with a toy.  Later that night I disinfected all the toys and stored them away for when she is ready to play with them.

Next weekend there are 2 more community sales I think I'll go to just to see if I find anything worth the money.

Weekend Happenings

FRIDAY

Brian & Megan came over with Nolan. He is a week older than Nora so this was their first "play date". Unfortunately, Nora was not in the mood for a play date. She was fussy almost the whole time they were over. I promised them she wasn't always like that. Nolan was an absolute charm. He is so handsome and well behaved! Here they are in a picture that Nora isn't having too much of a fit in!

SATURDAY

My mom came down from Lafayette to see Anthony & Beth's new apartment. They moved in about 2 weeks ago and are only 10-15 minutes from us so it's convenient for mom to come down to see all of us now. They ended up coming over and we went on a stroll around the neighborhood-pups and all. Although Chubbs (Anthony's dog) got a work out and had to be carried (somewhat like the picture below) or else I think he would have had a heart attack! Baby Hunter is less than a month away!

SUNDAY

We made it to church again! Yay! Then after church we swung by Wal-Mart to get a few things then we were back at home to enjoy the 80 degree weather. Nora & Jersey napped in the screened in porch while we did a little yard and flower gardening work. After working in the yard we took a long walk around the neighborhood trail-we were all worn out and relaxed when we got home.

Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Haisley

I went through college and our dietetic internship with Maria and this past weekend she was married up in northern Indiana. We had a great time with some of the other girls that I went to school with, but never seem to be able to catch up with becuase everyone is so busy and all over the place. The wedding was in Plymouth and the reception at Amish Acres in Napanee....yes amish food! Family style fried chicken, beef and noodles, green beans, fresh bread with apple butter, homemade mashed potatos, roast beef, stuffing (or dressing as some people called it), and some yummy wedding cake. It was the best food ever! Well, I've been all for homestyle since the beginnnig of pregnancy-so it was awesome. The reception was in a barn looking restaurant and was decorated to match the barn perfectly as you'll see by the cake sitting on top of a log and the lantern centerpieces. It was all too cute! Maria looked stunning and she is one of the only people who can pull off the hat/headpiece netting thing below!

The fabulous RDs!

Until 1:30 pm

We had an awesome weekend with Britt and Matt down in Nashville. It was our second trip down there this summer because we had such a good time the first time we wanted to make it again while it was nice and I was feeling good. Yesterday, Jeanie and Rick took us all out on their boat for an afternoon in the sun (getting sunburnt I mean). Needless to say, I'm a bit scared of the boat-always have been, but we had a great trip downtown to Nashville and had lunch on the boat. It was a blast and a great way to end the summer as the warmer days wind down.

Jake loves boats times 10 or to infinity. It is one if his only 'wants' in life (outside of a motorcycle, and convertible) but it (and they) costs way more than most of mine together-funny how we work out!

We always brag about how nice the drive down there is being all interstate...until 1:30 pm today. Well, technically it started before then with a traffic jam because of an accident which held us back about 30 minutes. About 20 minutes south of Louisville our car died. And when I say our car died...I mean dead as we were cruising 75-80 mph it kind of just slowed to a stop thankfully without causing an accident. After calling roadside assistance and waiting over an hour and twenty minutes we were relieved to see a tow truck coming our way. Side note: we didnt see 1 police car the entire time we were waiting on the side of I-65. So when the truck had our car ready to go the guy said, "it might be a tight squeeze" as he opens the door to let us in the passenger door. Upon opening the door to a small (only a 3 person) cab truck we find his wife and 6 year old son in the front seat with him on her lap...I was trying to figure out where we were going to fit?! frustrated from the wait, hungry, and needing to use the restroom I dealt with it and was glad the truck had air conditioning. P.S. he wanted to smoke a cig in the truck-Jake was quick to say, no..my wife is pregnant or I would have gone off on the man and died from the smoke! After a ride to the airport and renting a car I went to the Audi dealership to pick Jake up and we head home. We left Nashville at 9:30 our time and got home around 5:45...when the trip down there only took 4.5 hours.

We did learn that the Chevy HHR's are not the car for us, but I think we alredy knew that I'm just trying to be positive about the whole situation since we still dont know what caused the problem. So for now the car is still in Louisville waiting for tomorrow when hopefully they can get the problem fixed only to drive back down and pick it up!

Thankfully we werent in an accident or hurt...we are glad to be back home again.

Picture Update!

The cute buffet where breakfast was

Walking in the snow!

Different night, more snow!

Morning of...snow!

Jeep covered in snow...24 inches!!

Skiing at Purgatory!

Kari & I after we made our 90 minute trip down the hill. Shes running a franchise of our company up in Detroit, MI and was there for training as well!

Cheese! Behind me there was some serious partying going on-never though it would be like that!

Pretty scenery

My sister at the baby shower I threw on Sunday! She's due Thursday!! YIkes

Finally Fulltime

This week marks my first week as a full time worker! I started at 30 hours per week and have made my way to 40 each week. I'm excited to be making a little extra money that we can now put towards my student loans in January. In addition to getting extra money to pay off debt, I will be working on Thursdays now which will prevent me from going shopping and spending money that I dont need to spend! Win win situation either way you look at it.

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend spending time with family first at my aunts house on Thanksgiving and then at Jakes grandpas on Saturday. We did, however, get a chance to run the drumstick dash Thanksgiving morning which was 4.5 miles in Broadripple. It was cold and it drizzled a little to-very undesirable conditions for running, but needless to say we both finished running, Jake just finished 10 minutes before me. Yeah, yeah, he runs a lot faster than me, but we were both really sore until yesterday! It made me realize that I had better get moving if I'm going to be running the mini in May! The dash was fun- we got dry fit long sleeve Brooks t-shirts for running and after wards we were ready for meal time.

Friday, the Monrovia Bulldogs played at Lucas Oil for the state championship and lost...they had a great run, but couldnt come through in the end. But, my HS team didnt get to state so that was a great accomplishment for them. Earlier that morning we finished our Christmas shopping with some great Black Friday deals-it was Jakes first experience, I'm not sure if he'll want to do that again or not but he was a good help to me by standing in line!

This morning we put up the Christmas tree and tomorrow we will be decorating it-we didnt have time since I had to work at 12:30 and Jake was ready for bed. We also began our project of putting plastic on our humongous windows to try to keep the cold air out. I hope it works because its been cold in here lately. Speaking of cold when I got back to the office my car had frost on it!! I wasnt expecting that at all so I had to dig my scraper out. Gotta love 4 seasons :) Happy December tomorrow!

Yay, the weekend

It's Thursday & that means Friday is right around the corner! And, today is my day off-so I get to relax a little bit which is a good thing because I think I'm catching a cold. Two days ago I went to bed with a sore throat, yesterday I woke up with a cough, and today I have all that and a huge headache-it's coming if it isnt already here! I just hope I don't pass it along to Jake.

Tomorrow we are going to watch Monrovia in the Semi-State high school football tournement, then Saturday we are going to tailgate & hopefully go to the Purdue/IU game. I will finally get to meet my brothers new girlfriend who is 4 years older than him! Not that it matters, but everyone else in my family has met her so I kind of feel left out.

My sister found out last week that she's having a girl and is due on Valentines day! I've been working on planning her shower and hunting down some good deals in the baby department-which is fun, but I get carried away! I feel for Jake the day I'm preganant and want to buy EVERYTHING in the store! That is if it would be a girl-the little boy stuff doesnt really appeal to me as much. Speaking of being pregnant, my cousin Matt's wife is in the early weeks of her pregnanacy & she just found out the other day. Exciting, but I feel like that 'itch' is coming on a lot lately especially with lots of people around me pregnant or with little kids. I think that means a visit to my mother-in-laws to see her baby sitting kids-that usually does it 6 kids, screaming, etc its good birth control!

Outside of all that I'm extremely excited for Thanksgiving this year. We are doing it at my moms on Thursday and at Jakes grandpas on Saturday-Two times the fun & we should be seeing most of our families which is also good! I've already made a pumpkin ice cream cake to take somewhere, but being ice cream it can not travel very far and both our travels are at least an hour so we might just be eating it at home!

After Thanksgiving I plan on buying a fresh turkey on sale (if they go on sale) from Sam's to make. I never feel like I get enough turkey with all the other yummy foods there are available so one turkey for two people ought to be enough!

Have a great weekend!

Happy Halloween!

It has been another rainy, cold, fall day here in Plainfield and I'm hoping we will at least have a few more nice days left before it gets extremely cold-but I dont know if it will happen! Over the weekend we carved our pumpkins. It was a lot of fun, but as always in this Standeford house we are competitive. Everything is turned into a competition-so with that-here are our pumpkins for this year. Let us know which one is better because obviously they are both well done, but one is clearly above the other!

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The book that we bought for our designs was a 'shadow' book-where you carve something on the front and something on the back to put a shadow on the wall behind the pumpkin. It worked out alright, I thought they were neat!

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Darlene, Zane, & Jake starting the carving process

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Jessica & Zane helped me clean my pumpkin out!

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Working hard on our designs...

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Darlene observing greatness happening! haha

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Jake's finished product...pretty good! Nice spider web in the background!

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My fabulous scardy cat! With the city in the background!

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Our awesome pumpkins we had so much fun carving :) Lite up outside our apartment! So...whos design wins? You decide...

I Married a Simple Man

This morning Jake got off work at 7 am and was home and in bed by 7:30, but we had made plans to go to a church that one of my co-workers goes to in Brownsburg that starts at 10am. So that meant that he could only take a small cat nap between working all night and the rest of the day. His only condition was that we stop at Starbucks after church so he could use one of his gift cards he recieved from his old co-workers when he left the Lafayette Sam's Club. I said, "Ok, but only because you twisted my arm..LOL". So after a great message and meeting lots of people we headed to Starbucks where he ordered a "venti bold with sweet n low and fat free milk" for $2.09!! I was thinking maybe a pumpkin spice latte or triple chocolate carmel macciato or something specialty, but I definately married a simple man and it works for me! After gasping that he wasnt getting something other than a plain ole cup of joe he then told me his reasoning behind it and it was that even though he has a gift card he wants it to last as long as possible and thats the cheapest thing he can get and he could get 10 of those rather than 4 specialty coffees! I'm amazed at his frugalty (if that is even a word!) and I love it!

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To finished out our day we headed to the Zeroniks house for the Colts game and homemade chili and beer bread by Brian-which was delicious. I also discovered a pumpkin dip from Target that would be awesome with cinnamon graham cracker sticks. After that, we went to John & Rachels to see them and the girls and we were just in time for 'Trunk or Treat' at their church! So, Ann & Nellie put on their lion costumes and we all headed to the church. Needless to say, 'Trunk or Treating' with over 15 cars and 2 16 month olds translates to Uncle Jake & Aunt Rox getting some nice candy! Snickers, Skittles, cotton candy, Hershey bars-you name it we could've had it! Ann & Nellie made out like rockstars with candy & half of it they can't even have! Nellie chewed her way through a mini Snickers bar and found herself something good, I felt bad that Ann wasnt eating anything so I opened a small Hershey bar for her to have. After suckers and more chocolate they were in heaven! How funny & Ann started going around to the trunks again :) Shes a smart cookie.

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Tomorrow, they will be on their way up to their new apartment for 2 months and we will miss them a lot, but we are heading up to Detroit next weekend for the game on Sunday. Overall, we had another great weekend! Pictures to come....be looking for them in the next post!

Surprise!!

Last weekend we went to the Purdue vs. OSU game-which was awesome! Purdue won...for the first time against a ranked opponent since 2001! Thats HUGE! And it was The Ohio State University, so we felt pretty good about ourselves after the game even if we dont win another game!

Tailgaiting with Alex, Jackie & her parents before the Purdue game

After the game we had planned on surprising Jason for his birthday, by heading up and staying in Plymouth with them. We had to make a dash- after saying goodbye to Jason because he went to the game as well-for the car! We made it up to Plymouth about 30 minutes before he did and I think he was confused and surprised at the same time. Rachel and the girls made it up that afternoon and also stayed the night with all of us! We had lasagna for dinner and cake and ice cream to celebrate. We were entertained by the 3 toddlers we now have in the family! But, boy are they busy....never ending energy! Isabella, Ann, & Nellie played well together and even enjoyed playing with Bella's kitty a little too much. The kitty would let the girls pick it up and carry it around and of course they were holding it like a stuffed animal-but eventually it got tired of the chasing it and pulling it out of it's hiding spot. I tried once again for my "Aunt Rox" photo op, but as you can see (below) it hasnt turned out yet! But, I'm not gonna stop trying :) The pictures below show how adorable they each are-and thankfully they belong to my sister-in-laws because I'm not ready for that yet!

Ann carrying Sophie (the kitty) around at cousin Bella's house

Ann & Nellie finding and getting Sophie from her hiding spot!

Isabella on her horsey!

Uncle Jake & Nellie hanging out

Bella & I posing for a pic!

The cutest nieces ever!! Dont mind that they arent looking at the camera and are more interested in the Goldfish or monkey!

We had a great time up north, but Monday we were back to work. This weekend we are carving our pumpkins and relaxing-Jake works both Fri/Sat overnights so I will be cleaning and getting ahead at work-I start on my own Monday! Life is good :)