Planes, Trains and Banana Cream Pie

So, my last few posts could hardly be considered posts.  I apologize, but with all of the Thanksgiving fun, I didn't have a lot of free time.  We had so much fun with Mike, Melissa and the boys!  We truly had a blast. We were so sad to see them leave this morning.  I'm pretty sure that Monroe will be talking about this visit for weeks to come.  She just adores Max and Mason.  It's pretty hard not to.  They are the sweetest little guys.  We are so used to everything girl around here, so it was really refreshing and fun to have a dose of all things boy.  We talked all about trains, planes, trucks and dinosaurs and I really loved it.

Here are a few pictures from the visit...

 The kiddos, enjoying their breakfast. 

 Mason! 

 Keeks and Auntie Melissa 

Showing off our dessert handiwork!  Melissa made an absolutely perfect Banana Cream Pie.  I made Lori's Pumpkin Surprise/Heaven/Delight/...any appropriate adjective works.  Mark would probably call it Pumpkin Hades, as he hates anything that includes pumpkin (not including Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte).  

Melissa and I had a great time being together and even took up a new creative hobby.  We are now stampers:)!  The project we conquered was a very cute, but super functional one.  If you know me, you know that remembering birthdays is not my forte.  I just recently misplaced my little purse calendar that had all of my birthdays in it and I really needed something to keep myself more organized.

Melissa and I both pinned the same birthday calendar idea on Pinterest and thought we would change it up to make it suit our needs more.   We ran to Michael's for a few supplies and got started on our Family and Friends Birthday Calendar.

Some of our supplies.  Have you ever used cling stamps?  They are so fun.

This is our finished product...

All of our family and friends' birthdays are included.

 It's super easy to add more birthdays.

All in one place and in order so you always know who's birthday is coming up.  We are talking about adding additional information on the back (addresses, phone numbers, emails, clothing sizes, etc)

Melissa and I both fell in love with stamping and we can't wait to think of new projects to do with them.  We even went and got more stamping supplies to add to our loot.  I'm sure you will see more projects on both of our blogs! 

I wanted to show you my favorite birthday gift ever.  I just love it...

It's hard to tell, but it's a great sized bag.  It fits everything I need and more!

I think houndstooth is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread.  The sections are removable and you can position them any way you want.  Very handy! 

It's a new camera bag from Mark.  I have had my eye on it for over a year and now it is mine and it is just amazing.  If you are a woman in the market for a camera bag, Jo Totes  is definitely the way to go.  They are extremely well made and have such cute designs.  Love, love, love it!

Also, look at this adorable gift that came for me this week from my bestie, Kaylee...

I haven't framed it yet, but it's a little anniversary print.  It's such a special and meaningful gift.  Thank you, Baughman's... your thoughtfulness is just so wonderful.  

Kiki is definitely going through a growth spurt.  I guess I should be glad that she's growing, but boy does it take a toll on a girl's sleep.  I ended up taking a two hour nap this afternoon.  It was amazing.  I feel so much better and am praying for a better night tonight.

Have you decorated for Christmas yet?  I took down all of the fall decor tonight and we plan to do it tomorrow.  I'm excited to see what Monroe thinks of everything.  I think she's going to LOVE everything about Christmas this year!!!

I'm already so behind!  I haven't even started on Christmas cards yet!  They might end up being "Holiday" cards again, as I wasn't any better last year and didn't get them out until New Years-ish.  Oh well!  My Christmas shopping is coming along, though.  I just have a few more gifts to buy.  I've decided that Dads are absolutely the hardest people to buy for in the whole wide world.  If they really need or want something, they are practical enough to go get it themselves and they don't seem to need/want much.  I am really scratching my head trying to come up with gifts for our dads.  If you have any great ideas, do share!

Well, it's been good catching up.  I'm so relieved that November is almost over.  This blogging every night thing is really quite hard!  Thanks for reading and love to you all!