Black Friday Tradtion

Day After Thanksgiving Thanksgiving was an absolute amazement once again this year!

First there was the annual freak out over the turkey...
And here I thought I had it all figured out. I roasted what was deemed "the best turkey ever" last year I thought this year would be a piece of cake.

Of course it wasn't.

I started freaking out over whether to brine or not. There is so much information out there about each option being the best and the other one being the worst (dern internet). So I did what any red blooded American does, I took it to a Facebook debate. While I got a lot of great feedback, the winner was a neighbor who literally hand delivered to my doorstep, some William Sonoma brine mix, a brining bag and a turkey recipe. Patricia you are my hero!!!!

Oh how I wish that was the end of the freak out. For some reason, after 5 or 6 times with 5 or 6 different calculators, I put the turkey in the oven too early. It was done almost 4 hours before dinner!! The little thermometer popped right out of that thing before noon. And on top of that, I forgot to put it in the turkey bag Janice gave me the day before! Thankfully, because of John's cool head, we were able to keep it warm without over cooking it and save Day After Thanksgiving.

(But there was no saving those damn brussel sprouts...aka snot wads. Ps. Everybody that ate them said they turned out great but they sure didn't look pretty.)

Evan made name tags for almost everyone. He was all in until Lane got here. Then he abandoned ship and went out to shoot the bow and arrow.

While he was making these name tags, I accidentally cut myself with a knife. That prompted him to write me a secret note that I didn't find until halfway through my dinner. #cursethatknife

This year we were soooo lucky to have Lane join us. These boys are just the absolute cutest things together.

Baby Callie also woke up just in time for some sweet snuggles from me!

After 7 hours on my feet of non-stop food prep, cleaning, and cooking, I told John we weren't doing this next year. Of course, he looked at me, smiled, and said, "okay, honey." Seriously, what would I do without him.

Sadly, I don't have a lot of pictures from either Thanksgiving celebrations, but that's okay. I think I spent more time living the day rather than documenting day.

It was a great day...and it will keep being my favorite day of the entire year.

 

Over the hills and through the woods...

Well there are no hills or woods, but we did go to Grandmom's house!

I have been looking back on my Thanksgiving posts from years past (2014: aka Turkye Gate, 2013: Asbells visit, 2012: Uncle Fred comes).
It seems as though this Thanksgiving was one of the most low key. There was still too much food and great memories, but I either just didn't take pictures or spent more time living the holiday!

Thursday was spent, as always, at John's mom's house. She once again out did herself!! All the regulars were there, but the difference this year was it was 70 degrees! The boys took their holiday outside to play a quick game of football. I am not sure anyone really knew what was going on...

These boys lovvvvve their grandmom!

Even though I didn't spend a lot of time behind the camera, doesn't mean someone wasn't able to capture pictures. Luke loves loves loves taking pictures. I gave him my camera and let him take as many pictures as he wanted. I have to say...he's not half bad. LOL!

 

It's not a priority.

It's an ugly truth, but one that finally needs to be spoken.

I have a pet peeve. It's embarrassing to admit and will probably offend a couple people. I cringe when I hear "I don't have time." I have one particular relationship in my life where that statement has been uttered so many times I've stopped counting. It bothered me to the point where I started complaining about the people complaining about being busy.

Until....

I caught myself saying it last month (while hyperventilating....)

Was I busy? Yes. Did I have time? Yes. The trick to this statement is EVERYBODY has the same amount of time in their day. God has blessed each of us with 24 hours. Every one. Every day. From the Pope to my 5 year old. No more, no less. It is up to ME to decided how I am going to spend those 24 hours.
So I am trying something new. Instead of "I can't because I am too busy/don't have time," I am going to say,

"It's not a priority right now."

Ouch. That sounds selfish, but isn't how we spend our time a measure of our priorities? My pastor, Eli Morris, preached on this a couple weeks ago at The Stirring. He said, "Show me your bank statement and calendar and I'll tell you your priorities."

So. much. truth.

The great news about priorities is they change with seasons of your life!
There are going to be a lot of times that my boys are the number one priority BUT there are going to be times where they aren't and John is (hello date night!). And guess what...that's okay.

There are going to be times when work is my number one priority because of a big event or special project and my kids homework may not be reviewed or I may not have a lot of time to spend with John. And guess what...that's okay.

There are going to be times we can't go to a birthday party because we have church. There are going to be times when we can't make church because I have to work. And guess what...that's okay.

There are going to be times when I need to be with my girlfriends to laugh, cry, vent, gossip which means I am away from my family. You guessed it...that's okay.

Because not only to priorities change with seasons of life, they can change day to day.

But what I have to remember is I made the choice to have two kids. I made the choice to work full time with the position I have that requires more than 40 hours a week. I made the choice to be heavily involved in our church. I made the choice to put my kids (or not put my kids) in certain after school activities. I make the choice to work out 4-5 days a week.

At any point, I can change these things to 'make more time' (well, except for the two kids thing...I'm kinda stuck with these two messpots). The fact is, I don't want to change any of these things because they are all priorities. It's a priority for us to be heavily involved in church because John and I both have God given gifts we want to share with a ministry we both believe in.
It's a priority for me to work full time because I enjoy working. I love my school and my job AND (this isn't popular to say but) we want to continue to live in this house. Financially it's a priority (and sacrifice)  to send the boys to SG...which means I work.
It's a priority for my boys to see me working out and staying healthy so they understand this God given vessel is a gift and I need to treat it that way.

I probably won't be saying "It's not a priority" out loud just yet, but in my head, before I commit to anything, it will be put through this filter. I truly believe this is going to prevent burn out and all that hyperventilating I was doing last month.

But most of all, I hope I never have to utter "I'm too busy" again because these boys deserve a mom who isn't stretched too thin.

Halloween 2015

I was never a huge fan of Halloween as an adult. I loved staying home and passing out candy and seeing all the excited kids, but that's it. All that changed when I had kids. Kids look forward to Halloween almost as much as Christmas.

We started our Halloween countdown on 10/1. Every day on the way to school we would talk about how much longer we had to wait until Halloween. Luke by far was the most excited about it. He would almost get giddy with excitement talking about how much fun trick-or-treating would be.

And our neighbors only helped with the excitement. The VP (Village Park) goes all out for Halloween. I truly believe there were more house decorated more elaborately for Halloween than Christmas. John, the boys and I took many after dinner walks just to check out the decorations.

This year Evan wanted to be a Jawa. There are only two type of people in this world. One that just said, "A what?" and the other that said, "Cool". I fall in the first category.

Me: Whatcha gonna be this year E?
E: A jawa
Me: A what?
E and John simultaneously: Jawa
Me: Are you both making this word up?
E: NO!
Me: blank stare in confusion
John and E: blank stare in confusion how I couldn't know what this was.
Me: A what?
E: JA-WA (as John shakes his head and walks away)

If you haven't figured it out by now, a Jawa is a character from Star Wars...don't ask me which one or which side the little thing is on or what it's purpose is. All I know is according to some Star Wars experts, Evan is spot on with the voice. <sigh>

Luke didn't hesitate a moment when we asked him. He excitedly said "Spider-Man"!! Guess what Luke said he wanted to be last year (but wasn't; story in link)? And the year before that? #score

Halloween really started on Friday at school.
Evan read over 400 minutes for the month of October, as did all his classmates, so they got to dress up in their Halloween costumes on Friday. I can probably say it will be the only time Big Bird and a jawa stand side by side and say the Lord's Prayer in chapel.

 

 

 

Luke had a blast moving around to the stations at his party. And it's never really a party until the dancing starts.

 

 

Halloween fell on a Saturday this year. There could not be a more perfect day for Halloween! After we carved our pumpkin we headed out to a Halloween party of a classmate. The boys had a blast running around in their costumes. 

We were worried Halloween night would be rained out. I had been stalking the weather all week prepping myself for the 100% chance of rain they were calling for. Thankfully, all the rain cleared out by 4pm and my little Spider-Man and Jawa took on the neighborhood. We met up with some neighbors and classmates of Luke. At one point we literally had to tell the boys to stop going into the people's houses! They were too excited!!

Halloween throughout the years

 

 

We SnapChatted a Pumpkin

Last year's pumpkin carving was hysterical, so of course we had to do it again. Luke had been asking for weeks when we would carve. So here is the story of our pumpkin carving experience via photos...

PS. I kept Snapchat open so I could document this. Snapchat is a social photo sharing site, but it groups your photos into 'stories'. So unlike Instagram, when you view a story, you could be looking at 5, 7, 15, 20 pictures at 5 second each. AND when you get done, all photos can be downloaded to your device OR you can download the entire story as a movie. You can follow me on Snapchat at amanda.asbell.

We gutted the pumpkin.

   

 

 

Then we got down to business and carved the pumpkin.

 

I really don't understand these faces, but hey, they were proud.