Christmas Has Arrived!

Have I mentioned how much I love decorating for Christmas? Because it may be one of my most favorite things to do.

A Thanksgiving Weekend in Pictures

Counted off at 32 people! This is almost the whole Verheyden clan :)

And this is how we fed those people.....soooo much good food

Skeet shooting after lunch

He was NOT a fan of the shooting

Gaius had such a great day chasing goats, alpacas, and children

Sibling love :)

UT game watching attire :)

Collin, Jen, and Gracen

Such a sweet Uncle and baby :)

With the gingerbread house they made! They are pretty much the funnest nieces ever

Lizzy just being her adorable self

What a fun weekend! Bring on Christmas!

Lately...

I realized the other day that its been a long time since I posted something! We have had a few things going on, but nothing major, so just chalk it up to laziness on  my part. Here's a little  really long  run-down on what's been going in my life....

   We have been cat sitting! Now, let me just say that I am not the biggest fan of cats, but I do love my in-laws. They have been staying with Michael's sister Lisa for the past 2 months while their new house is being built, and Libby (the cat) needed a place to stay. She has done pretty well, and has tried really hard to endear herself to me. Its kind of working, at least to the point where I want to pet here when she decides to come out of her closet and grace us with her presence. Although, she does wake me up every now and then in the middle of the night when she decides its fun to meow at the top of her lungs.....


   I have been able to accomplish several new sewing projects. I made a quilt for Rachel's newest little girl Sophie, made a couple of really cute onesie dresses for my new niece Leah, and I am 3/4 of the way done with the quilt blocks for another quilt!

   We have a new niece!! Her name is Leah Katherine, and she is just as beautiful as her name :).

   And, speaking of babies, my friend Rachel had her second little girl, Sophie Marie!

   I do have some sad news. Gaius went and broke my heart when he made a hole in one of my quilts. I received it as a graduation present from a lady who was my mentor all through high school. I still see regularly and love her so much! Anyways, one of us (we have no idea who) forgot to close the guest bedroom door all the way and Gaius decided that it would be fun to take a nap on the bed where the quilt used to live. He has done that before, and whenever he does, he paws at the blanket to make it more comfortable and to his liking (at least that's what it looks like). After one of these times, I noticed that his nails had caught an area and some of the threading came out. So I thought, no big deal, we would just keep the door closed all the time to prevent that from happening again and getting worse. WELL, the door was accidentally left open one day, and he did what any dog would do in his position.....he went in, moved the blanket around and took a nap. Except this time, I found a hole in the blanket when I got home from work. I know (now that I am emotionally recovered) that he did not do this maliciously or intentionally (he IS just a dog) and other than the one spot, he didn't do any other damage. In spite of knowing all this, many tears were shed. I am hoping that there is a way to patch it or somehow make it whole again. The quilt will probably be making a trip to San Antonio soon for my friend Emily (who is basically a sewing expert) to work some magic on :).

   One of Michael's co-workers gave us his tickets to the UT vs Kansas State Game back in September. It was on a Saturday night, and they won!

   I have been working in the kindergarten-1st grade children's choir at my work every Sunday evening! I wasn't all that excited about it at first, but I really do have fun when I am there with the kids singing all the fun songs we are learning. Plus, its good for me to do new and different things out of my comfort zone every now and then.

   It's finally feeling like fall here! The weather has been cooler which is SO nice. And, I found an amazingly good smelling pumpkin candle at Kohl's that we light like every day. I haven't done much fall decorating in the past, but this year, I decided why not? I realized that its almost as fun as decorating for Christmas :)

   We have a new foster dog named Ace. He is really sweet and loves to cuddle and explore at the park. He's a mix we think, and about 2 years old. He's been easy to have around which is nice, but I hope he finds a good family!

Weekend in Dallas: 
   We went to Dallas last weekend to meet the newest niece and got to go to the State Fair of Texas! We actually took Hannah and Abby with us for about 3 hours and it was crazy fun. Just the 4 of us went and they did so great being obedient and seemed to really enjoy hanging out with just Michael and I. I really enjoyed doing a few different things than I usually do since I have not been there with little kids in quite awhile. We went to the petting zoo, watched a dog show, rode some rides, saw Big Tex, "painted" pumpkins (with sharpies) and I even let them eat some fair food (but don't tell their parents) ;).

After the girls were picked up by Lisa, Michael and I got to walk through all the buildings and eat lots more great food!

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with the fam :)

sweet, chunky Lizzy.....love it!

She is the proudest big sis ever!

Consider yourself officially caught up! Plus, if you made it through this whole thing, you get a gold star AND the pleasure of enjoying this fabulous video of 2 of the most precious girls ever :)

NYC

My BFF Brooke moved to New York this summer so I decided to go visit her! We went together to New York about a year and a half ago and both just loved it, but Brooke decided to actually move up there for a few years!

Since it was just a short weekend that I was visiting, we decided not to do too many big touristy things, but we still had a great time. Every day we slept in until around 10am so I was even able to catch up on some sleep! The weather was really nice while I was there and we spent a lot of time walking around the city.

Brooke actually lives in north Manhattan in an area called Washington Heights. She is super close to the bus and subway and her apartment in super cute and actually a really nice size. I forgot to get a picture of the apartment, but here's the outside:

 And here is her hallway, she is the one in the middle :)

On Saturday we walked around Central Park and checked out the Zoo. They had a really cool indoor rain forest exhibit where a ton of birds were flying loose above our heads!

Saturday night we went to see Newsies on Broadway and it was spectacular! I could seriously go to a musical every night of the week and never get tired of them!

 We had dinner beforehand in Little Italy and my pasta was sooo yummy.

Sunday was spent doing some shopping on 5th Avenue, and Brooke's friend Annie from her work came and hung out with us all day. After shopping, we went and saw a movie since it was raining and then walked around Lincoln Center where we found a free outdoor opera show! The show was halfway over when we found it, so we just stayed for few minutes, but it was pretty cool.

 We also had lunch on Sunday at mine and Brooke's favorite diner called the Stardust. We found it last time we visited New York and besides having good food, all the waiters and waitresses are aspiring Broadway stars so they take turns singing the whole time you are there. Its super fun.

On Monday, we went downtown to find a bakery Brooke had heard of called the Magnolia Bakery and we ate waaaay too much sugar. But it was so worth it! 

Sadly, I left on Monday, but I did learn that the easiest and cheapest way to get back and forth from the airport to Manhattan is by subway. We did have a few delays on Monday because of the holiday, but I am going to have to remember that for next time.