If you love caramel corn but hate the hulls… We usually get it from Grannie every year but I made it this year!
The best caramel corn ever!
Category Archives: Holidays
Yes I’m wrapping gifts with an Olive on my lap.
She was whining to get up in my lap so… Yeah.
Botanical Gardens Lightscape
Admittedly I bitched a lot beforehand about Anna making us go to Lightscape (I’m turning into a major homebody as I get older!)…but it ended up to be super cool and I have apologized.
Christmas lights on my car!
I saw these on Amazon and had to try them. They are reflective — which is cool but obviously I can never see them because I’m in the car. And there was only enough to do this on both sides (unless I wanted to add more “string” between each bulb). Also, can’t wait to see if they stay on as the magnets aren’t that strong. But it’s cute, right?
The second best part about Thanksgiving!
Holiday decorations go up!
Tom hauls everything up, puts the tree together, then comes back to do the star. Unfortunately the lights in the star were dead and we didn’t realize until it was attached.
Our first hosted Thanksgiving dinner!
I was so busy with a houseful of guests and dinner prep that I barely had time to look at my phone (so most of these are from everyone else)! But it was so worth it to have everyone together — from Georgia (Filipek), Michigan (Schwalm & Coe), and Illinois (Schwalm & Hudson). And our best friends joined us, too…and fit right in!
Then we did some reenactment shots!
I can’t believe it was 22 years between these photos. But we all still look the same, right?! Also: no kids in 2000, six kids in 2022!
Let the family festivities begin!
We excitedly volunteered to host the Schwalm side family thanksgiving this year—Filipeks usually host in Atlanta but they’ve recently downsized and didn’t have room. We had plenty of room for everyone (most even stayed with us—kicking the kids out of their rooms of course)!
Everyone had varied arrival times, but by Wednesday afternoon everyone was here! It makes my heart so happy to see my kids having fun with their cousins.
Dinner for 21 is served! Charcuterie that takes up our entire kitchen island!
GJ enjoyed Olive—and vice versa!
I have so much to do today…
to prepare for our houseful of guests—but as you can see I’m off to a raring start.
Here’s the new rule!
If I wasn’t so busy getting my house ready for our first huge Thanksgiving family dinner…my tree would already be up. You can bet it’s going up Thanksgiving weekend!
Trick or Treating
Owen didn’t decide until the day before that he wanted to go trick or treating so his choice of costumes was limited… I didn’t even get a picture of Katie because so much was going on.
Olive loved everyone! She would wait patiently and wouldn’t bark or go crazy.
But she loved the attention.
Of course, Katie refused to wear her wig at the last minute, so Tom put it on instead. It looked epic.
And he and Anna made a cute couple.
Bat dog!
A fairy eye look!
Trying out a fairy eye look for Halloween! I started by attempting something I found on Google but that quickly went south so I improvised and came up with this!
It was really easy because there wasn’t much blending at all—just a touch so it looked like I put forth some effort.
And I think the Violet Volt lipstick looks amazing with it!
I’m a clown today!
I was challenged to do a clown Halloween look…and as fate would have it, we just watched Killing Eve last night and a character played a clown! So this is the look I decided to recreate! Unfortunately I didn’t have a clown nose and the makeup looked silly…so I changed course and did my own thing.
Holy crap I’m 49!
Yes you bet your ass I’m wearing my crown!!
No fun errands or escapades… We were on our way to Michigan for my cousin’s wedding (technically like second cousins – whatever my cousin’s kids would be to me!).
Birthday dinner at a super yummy Chinese restaurant in Saginaw.
And a birthday margarita, because of course. The waitress guessed it was my birthday – telling me her mom wears a crown, too. Hey, it got me $1 off. LOL
And then we realized we wanted water for the hotel room so stopped here.
Tom’s new ride!
He’s waited 20+ years to have a truck and he certainly went all out! (I’ll just be over here choking on the monthly payments.) He put a deposit down in February just to get on a waiting list and it finally came in! Happy 50th birthday—you get no more presents for a few years!!
P.S. I guess I should tell you what it is (if you’re not a car person and have no idea)—a Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.
Wearing my dad’s shirt…
And thinking of him on what would have been his 74th birthday.
Happy 50th!
I decided to do something different — and a bit bigger for Tom’s 50th!
Kudos to David!
David surprised me and Anna with purses we adored (but didn’t want to splurge on!) at the craft fair in Eagle Harbor!
Happy 21st Anniversary
Happy anniversary to my lobster—21 photos for 21 years! I wouldn’t want to do this life with anyone but you.
And then I realized our marriage is old enough to drink today!
Trying to take an anniversary pic before we left for dinner with Anna and David and we had two photobombers! And I caught Tom mid-scowl.
And we left the kids home with this:
2022 dual birthday pool party!
For as much as I take pictures of everything we do, I seemingly always let it slip on pool party day. At least I got one of both kids.
This one was from a friend.
And this was as we were packing up—Anna found a little grasshopper and put it on Katie.
The party was a big success again! All the kids love it! And it’s easy since we don’t have to clean the house.
Happy 10th *GOLDEN* birthday, Katie!
Double digits today! She says Owen calls her the double digit midget.
This is Katie’s GOLDEN birthday!! (Let’s not talk about how I apparently didn’t take a 9yo photo. I have no idea what happened.) You completed our perfect little family, even if Owen screamed that he didn’t want you to come home with us because you wouldn’t stop crying. You’ve been a cute little pistol ever since, and he loves you now, even if he’s a teenager that rarely shows feelings. And we love you, too, even though you challenge us on a seemingly daily basis.
July 4, 2022
Why there, Olive? You’re weird.
Katie wanted me to do her makeup so I used the same colors on both of us.
My first Father’s Day without my dad.
My first Father’s Day without my dad around is a little more emotional than I thought it would be. Lin sent me these pics this morning.
I still can’t believe he’s gone. I still feel guilty I wasn’t there at the end. I still can’t believe he’s not going to be there for grandparent camp. Or see his grandkids graduate high school or get married.
Hug your friends and family. You never know when might be the last time you see them.
She wanted blue hair so she got blue hair!
We finally did Katie’s Christmas gift! And my friend Amy helped because I’d never done anything exactly like that before! (I could totally do it now, though, after watching!)
And after the shower… plus look how long her hair finally is!!
This is karma for the empty park on opening day.
Just shoot me. I am in my own personal hell today. A full park. No seats anywhere—let alone in the shade. So I’m stuck in a tiny sliver of shade on a steep hill so that I’m constantly sliding down. And there are ants.
Olive, Day 9 — Happy Mother’s Day
She crawls into her bed when she’s tired.
I posted some pics and a little story (unseen in photo) about Olive in a Boston Terrier Facebook group and got quite a few likes!
Cinco de Drinko
Michigan Egg Hunt
Katie was ready at 5am—she’s ALL about the egg hunt. And I think Owen is about over it.
And then the ever important opening and sorting process.
Picking Pysanky “rejects”
Going through the pysanky my mom calls the “rejects” and picking some heirlooms. They are gorgeous. Next visit will be the “good” eggs.
These were some of the “better” ones:
