Someone Needs a Vacation

Okay I have to vent today. Everyone knows that whenever you have people over at your house for any kind of get together, it's stressful to do the preparation, right? Well take the stress from getting everything together for the pumpkin carving party at my place last weekend and add that to coordinating everything for Janine's baby shower this weekend, throw in some anxiety about Lenny officially moving in this week, to having a huge implementation project I was working on at work for the past week or so, and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster! Umm yeah, who got so overwhelmed at work the other day that I started bawling? That would be me. I just feel so frazzled right now! It's like I have 10 gazillion things going on and not nearly enough time to do them all. I feel like a chicken running around in circles with my head cut off! Hopefully after the shower this weekend, I will be able to just sit down and breathe for a minute.

4th Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

For the last 3 years, Jason and Janine have hosted a pumpkin carving party at their house the weekend before Halloween. They invite both of their families over (somehow I got included in the mix too) for food, fun, and best of all, pumpkin carving! It is a lot of work to get everything together for the party, and with her being pregnant this year she thought it would be too much stress so she wasn't planning on doing it. I felt like this was unconstitutional seeing as though everyone always has so much fun and looks forward to the party each fall, so I finally convinced her to still have the party only I would host it this year with her help. Keeping up with the Orf tradition, we had chili, hot dogs, apple cider, caramel apple dip, and various other snacks and as soon as we were done eating, we headed outside to carve our punkins. It's so fun to see all the different designs everyone does, and with each punkin party the carvings are getting more and more intricate. I'm one of the non creative ones that uses a pattern from a book each year. ha Maybe one of these times I will actually try to come up with something on my own...then again maybe not. :) Here are a few pics from this year's party. Enjoy!

Hard at work

Sandra did Mike from Monster's Inc!

Jen is one of the creative ones - drew this by hand. It looked awesome lit up!

Lenny, me, mom, and dad

Janine, Corinne, Debbie, Kirstie, Louie, and Marshall

Nikki, Aidan, and Carol

Check out Janine's homemade "I swallowed a pumpkin" shirt. Isn't that the cutest thing ever?

This is my pumpkin. Planning on putting a green glow stick in it instead of a candle.

Our Photo Shoot

A couple weeks ago, Nikki asked Lenny and I if she could "borrow" us to do some mock engagement type pics. We had so much fun at our photo shoot! We started in the Central West End, took some pictures at several different locations there, then after that headed to Forest Park to finish out the evening. We had a blast doing this, and I think she did an awesome job with the pics! I am going to have a hard time deciding which ones to order because there were so many good ones. You can check them out by clicking HERE. You can also check out some of her other work on her website by clicking Nicole Welch Photography. She is very talented and is the first person I would turn to if I needed a photographer for anything. Keep up the good work Nikki!

You Want Some Cheese With That Wine?

I don't think anything can beat a trip to the MO wineries in the fall. Yesterday I went to the Hermannhof winery with a bunch of friends from work and despite the bus being about 45 minutes late to come pick us up on the way there, we had an awesome time. Unfortunately Lenny was not able to come yesterday and I know he was upset that he had to miss out, so maybe we can sneak one more trip in before it starts getting too cold?! I never pass up a winery trip! :)Here are a few of my favorite pics from yesterday.

Fallin In Love

So I FINALLY got around to putting up my Halloween and fall decor last night. I usually do this at the beginning of October but we've had a lot going on so I just now got around to doing it. The Monster Mash would have been good accompaniment while I was setting everything up!

Over the past few years, I've noticed that fall is starting to become one of my favorite times of the year. I love everything about it! I can't seem to get enough of the stunning colors of the trees, the crunching sound the leaves make when you walk through them, opening the windows and feeling the cool breeze when you sleep, the crisp morning air in your face, that maple-y syrup smell of the leaves, I love it all!!! When the weather starts to cool down and get into the 60's I always get a hankering for a Caramel Apple Spice drink from Starbucks. It's basically apple cider with a yummy caramel kick. If you haven't had one, I highly recommend it! Deeee-lish! And dude - what's up with me promoting Starbucks in my last two posts? They should be paying me or something.

Facebook Shmacebook

Following the recent suggestion of a couple friends, I finally joined the world o' Facebook. Anybody who knows me knows that I am not the most computer savvy person in the world, but I figured I had the blogging thing down pat for the most part, so Facebook shouldn't be too hard, right? Well then why can I not figure it out for the life of me? I guess I kinda figured it was the exact same thing as myspace, but it looks a lot different than I expected. I just haven't been on it enough to know what I'm doing yet I guess. I need some Facebook tutoring. Anyone want to volunteer? lol
Lenny got our laptop up and running tonight, so now I can go hang out at Starbucks and try to stumble my way through this Facebook thing from time to time. Everything is always better with a Caramel Macchiato in hand :)

Long Time No Write

I've been slackin on the whole blogging thing lately. My bad! I guess I just feel like I haven't done anything terribly exciting lately so there's nothing really to write about. Although... this past weekend was pretty fun. I got to meet Lenny's extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids) from Michigan over the weekend. The weather was beautiful and we were able to play outside most of the time and even snuck in a trip to Ted Drewe's - a St. Louis tradition when visitors are here from out of town. Saturday we all celebrated Bella's 2nd birthday. She wasn't too impressed with the new jammies that Lenny and I had picked out for her (big surprise there, right?) but she LOVED this stuffed kitten that the aunts and kids gave her. It's got a motion sensor in it so when you walk by or pet it, it starts meowing or purring and blinking it's eyes. It's amazing how realistic it is! She dragged that thing around with her everywhere for the rest of the weekend.