Anna and I each needed one thing at Aldi.

HAHAHAHAHA. We’ve learned our lesson over the months—always ALWAYS get a cart.

It’s crazy to shop with two enablers.

  • Want a Sangria? Yes, how about a white, too? Yes.
  • Bellini? Yes, of course. Six? Yes.
  • How many cheese bread? 10? Sure!
  • Peanut butter cups? Duh.
  • The boys want a Summer Shandy. Okay I’ll get two.

We just ended up splitting the bill since we are still eating together 5-6 nights a week. We’ve both discovered that we love crowdsourcing meals!!

Brunch is served!

We’ve started doing Sunday brunch with Anna and David. Sometimes we order out, sometimes we go out, and sometimes we cook. Today we cooked.

  • 2 kinds of bacon (sweet and hot and Kirkland regular)
  • 3 kinds of sweet rolls (cinnamon, apple cinnamon, and caramel)
  • 2 kinds of scrambled eggs (plain and cheesy)
  • 2 kinds of drinks (fuzzy navel Bellinis and Bloody Marys)
  • 5 kinds of fruit (not pictured—apples, oranges, cantaloupe, strawberries, and pears)
  • and friends and parents!

We really surprised the kids tonight!

Papa and Grannie have had both of their shots so had been planning to come visit as soon as their waiting period was over. They were originally supposed to be here today but then they said Wednesday…but then ended up able to make it today but we didn’t tell the kids.

We kept our plans to take them to a movie with our friends (we rented the whole theater!) and then planned to have them arrive while we were out—plus park in the garage so their car wouldn’t give it away.

We walked in and they were hiding in the dark on the stairs and Katie hit the floor when they said hi. I wish I had been recording it but that would have looked really odd…

Everyone was happy and getting and giving hugs and it was wonderful…

I love it when you find THE perfect gift!!

My mom friends have been doing ninja porch drop offs with random gifts every so often (it’s hilarious what some will do to try and avoid the Ring)!! And I’ve been wanting to return the favors but just couldn’t come up with the right thing. Then I hit on these tumblers. It took awhile to decide on the perfect saying but once I found this one I knew that was it! (Piper Lou has great stuff and great deals, BTW.)

Needless to say we’re all looking forward to using them together again this summer!

Charlie hiding from Honey

We had brunch with Anna and David today and they brought their dog, Honey. She’s a great dog and we love her but she wants to play with Maggie and the cats and they want NO part of it. Charlie actually lasted fairly long in her bed but eventually she snuck up the stairs and just sat there. She RARELY goes upstairs so you know she wasn’t herself.

The cherry vodka matrix!

After the boys did their Matrix we wanted to try one, too. The only thing we found that we really all agree on was Cherry vodka and pop. So you can see our 7×4 matrix below. Probably half of them were beyond awful so we had just the tiniest sip and dumped them. One vodka was definitely the best (Oma’s) and one was the worst (Effen).

The Manhattan Matrix

One of the YouTube channels Tom watches is called How to Drink with a non-professional home bartender that likes to “make drinks and drink them!” He’s funny and we enjoy listening to his reviews.

One recent episode was called This episode tried to kill me where he did a Manhattan Matrix…with like 42 different versions to try (6 vermouths by 7 Bourbons)! The boys decided to try it with 3 vermouths and 3 Bourbons…

Both looking up the recipe that was used because neither could remember and they wanted to do it exactly right.

Don’t worry—they did not drink all of all the trials. It was mostly small sips of each one. They also rated them all 1-9.

Owen gets a new bed!

Long story short, a neighbor friend and I decided to switch beds. She had a Queen that due to previous circumstances had been cut into but was still good (but you couldn’t really sell it) and we had been talking about getting Owen a new bed…so we agreed to trade and she took his bed and headboard for her youngest!

We borrowed another neighbor’s truck and moved everything Clampett-style around the corner (they’re on a different street but only like 12 houses away).

I missed the pic of taking Owen’s old twin bed to their house but it was similarly precarious.

Owen had to help a little.

And both kids enjoying hanging out on it that night.

This is what needing absolutely nothing looks like at Sam’s Club.

Anna and I stopped by Sam’s today—I wanted to see if they still had clearance Christmas candy and she needed chicken stock. We decided one cart would obviously be enough.

Haha.

Hahahahahaa.

I taught Anna that the reason you go down every aisle is to look for clearance stuff! Today was Tootsie Rolls ($3.47!), Laser tag guns ($14), holiday jar sets ($5), satin pillowcases ($6 for two), and a styling doll head for Katie’s birthday (didn’t want to pay $49 at Christmas but I’ll pay $14.81 now!).

There was another layer, too. Both husbands love Snowdrift Vanilla Porter so we stocked up.

Please tell me we are not alone. Everyone else does this, too, right?

Challenge accepted!

So this morning a friend was having fun with the SeneLook app and I joked not to tempt me because I could do that look. So then another friend challenged me to make it a totally wearable daily look.

So here’s the look!

It isn’t perfect by any stretch—I need more blending, I need a liner and probably fake lashes, and the lips are too gold (I think I need to do an ombre)…but overall it’s not bad at all! 😂

Regardless, it was fun and really didn’t take that long!

Reach out to your friends.

People. Reach out to your friends. You might just have a great time!

I just had the best video call with a college roommate who I literally haven’t heard her voice in 20 or so years. We see each other on Facebook but that’s it.

So tonight we were chatting on messenger and she was like hey we should video chat why have we never done that?! Due to the time difference (she’s in New Zealand) our schedules don’t always mesh, but tonight it worked. So we chatted FOR AN HOUR and it was soooooo great. And we’re going to do it again soon—probably with margaritas if we’re being honest.

So just some advice to reach out to those old friends. You might just have a great time. And we all need more of that these days.

Let the festivities begin.

5:25pm — Anna and David and the kids came over. Anna and I needed to do our makeup so we had a shot and then…

6:13pm — Next-level New Year’s Eve makeup!

7:10pm — Then we cooked and ate a delicious Hello Fresh dinner.

10:39 — Rum punch down!

10:55pm — Look at this cute little family, LOL.

11pm (Midnight EST) — Small fireworks! We did it for the kids but they didn’t even care.

11:04pm — Adult champagne celebration.