Novembrrrrrrr

Just when I thought October was the best month of the year, November happened.

& it was glorious. BUSY, but glorious.

**I have a problem with having to tell too many details when I tell a story, maybe I'll get better about that one day, but for now please excuse me for this long winded, photo overloaded post. **

We were out of town/traveling 4 of the 5 weekends of the month.
In this order: Roomie reunion/Football game/crafting, Peanut Festival/elephant ear booth, temple trip, wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving weekend.
All of that intermingled with R being gone a lot/traveling for interviews!

5 of the 6 of my college roommates were in town so we got together for brunch. It was SO good to see everybody plus some - so much changes in such a short time!

While boys went to a football game that evening, my sister in law and I hit up Five Guys (YUM) and Hobby Lobby for Christmas Stocking supplies!
The most difficult part was choosing fabric because we kind of went in there blind.
We each spent less than $8! (always use their 40% coupon!)
We free handed a pattern and didn't look up a tutorial...which caused a few stressful moments and some questionable sewing but the end results were pretty decent!

It seemed like every time we unpacked our bags it was just so we could re-pack them.

One of R's favorite things to do is work the elephant ear booth at the Peanut Festival. 

I had never done it before but he's talked about it every year since I've known him.
This year the stars aligned and we were able to go.
COLD. busy. FUN.
He had this unadulterated grin of pure joy on his face the whole night. That was my favorite part.
We left early Sunday to be back for the primary program in our ward (church congregation).
Those sunbeams (3-5 year olds)...they're a story of their own.

         

The following week my friend Deina and I tag teamed Hobby Lobby (so we could both use coupons, of course) to get supplies for the Relief Society craft night.
My crafts after completion (decorative jars & coasters!):

           

                                                              ^^ that's red glitter paper!

That weekend we went to the Birmingham Temple. It was really neat/precious to go just before our anniversary. 

After finding out I couldn't pay somebody to embroider my stockings because they wouldn't fit on an embroidery machine, I decided to try applique...which turned into embroidering by hand...I worked on them on the bus ride to the temple and a few days later when R was out of town for an interview.

I'm pretty proud of the outcome, especially since I had no idea what I was doing.

(Seriously, I didn't even know embroidery floss was called that...or that there is a difference in the needles)

          

Our anniversary came and went just as quickly as our wedding day -

we went on a 20 mile bike ride, R watched football while I pinned, R wanted to take me somewhere nice but I wanted fried grouper and cheese grits...so we tried a place over the bridge.

It was delicious and perfect. Then we went to Starbucks and enjoyed some frapuccinos, got a red box but couldn't get any of our dvd players to work...so we played wii until we were tired of it. It was a pretty simple anniversary but I loved every bit of it and I love every bit of that husband of mine.

Also, we thawed and had a bite of one of our brunch reception wedding cake....almost died.

Our Orlando wedding cake top was MIA.

^ heart leaves were everywhere along the trail!

^ death.

We had dinner with the Smith's (K Smith is my FAVORITE, love her so). 

R and I said we'd provide the boston butt for dinner so K came and picked it up that morning because our crock pot wasn't big enough.

Well, she gets home...opens up the bag....and this is what she sees:

she asked "is this a joke? all I see is ice".....embarrassing!

Luckily R found a real boston butt that fit in our crock pot.

We all got a pretty good laugh.

not even a week later it was time to leave town, again, for THANKSGIVING.

^^ That pretty much sums that up. (sorry for the terrible terrible quality!)

 It was delicious and wonderful. & even though we were with my family for the break, we didn't miss out on the Sims' annual Christmas tree farm visit. 

AND our Orlando wedding cake top was found. I was hesitant to eat it but it was delicious.

we're fancy.

^ i LOVE this picture. Gma looks so cute.

It was a month full of love and gratitude for family, friends, love, health, memories, and yummy food.

As soon as we got back from Thanksgiving, Christmas threw up in our house...

& that just makes my whole heart swell up with happy. 

Life lesson of November: time FLIES.

Things we're looking forward to in December: Christmas, duh! A week off of work. Family time.