Thanksgiving

This year we cooked our first holiday meal in our new home for Nate's side of the family the day before Thanksgiving. And then we spent Thanksgiving with the Nordquist side of the family. Good food and good times were had by all. We all have a lot to be thankful for.

Here are some pictures from dinner at our house, unfortunately I forgot the camera at Grandpa and Grandma's house.

Nate made a dang good turkey this year
Our table all set for the delicious meal

Nate's parents
Nate's Aunt Joann and cousin Eric

And of course a picture of the hosts

Christmas lights!!!

Yay! Nate decided to take advantage of some decent weather this evening and started hanging some of our Christmas lights. Who needs a ladder when you can just crawl out your office window? We thought we were going to either have to buy a ladder or borrow one, but realized that it's just as easy if not easier to just climb out the window. We are super excited to decorate this year, especially since last year we thought we would be in our house for Christmas but closing got pushed back. I will post more pictures when it's all done!

Oceanside

Last weekend we went to Oceanside with our friends Tyler, Lindsey, Rachel and Brian. We stayed at Tyler's parent's new beach house. It was a lot of fun, and always nice to get away for the weekend. Charlie got to come too! Her and Matix are good buddies and played all weekend. I think there was maybe a half hour stint when they were not playing (besides bedtime). Charlie was one pooped pup when she got home. The weather was fabulous on Saturday and we were able to walk on the beach. After the beach we went into Tillamook and got ourselves some squeeky cheese and icecream at the Cheese Factory.

went to a fight...

and a hockey game broke out!

Go Winterhawks!

We got hooked up with some Winterhawks tickets from our buddy Tyler (well... his Dad's company hooked us up). We went with a bunch of kids from the youth group and our new pastors at church. Not only did we have free admission, but free hotdogs/soda/popcorn, and a Winterhawks hat. We had the ultimate experience ;)

With our friends Lindsey and Tyler

The game was very exciting! At less than two seconds left in the game, the score was 2-3, with the Winterhawks behind, and they scored!!! It was an amazing shot. So that brought us into overtime, with no one scoring. The Winterhawks got their winning goal in the shootout!

Blazer game and Baby shower

Went to the Blazer game last night and the Blazers rocked the house!

I threw a baby shower for my great friend Cori, with just a small group of our friends from nursing school. Had a great time, and of course it was even better because we got to see little Brody (he was premature, so tiny!).

Cori and Baby Brody

Some great friends from nursing school. It had been way to long since we've gotten together. So hard with crazy nursing schedules.I made some Blazer onesies for Brody! Cori and Evan have 1/4 season tickets with us, so they had to have a styling baby fan when they go!the monkey cupcakes I made (got the idea from my friend Leslie) So cute!Brody does not help my baby fever, he's just too precious!

Oh yeah, and I got my hair done on Thursday! I haven't been a brunette in a long time. In fact, I can't remember the last time I wasn't blonde. It's a little darker than I was planning, but it's growing on me and it's a very fall color.

exhausted

Just worked 3 nights in a row (last night was an extra shift) and back again tonight for another. Something about the full moon always makes it crazy at work. We only had 1 available bed left for patients, which rarely happens. I also got my free H1N1 vaccination last night at work. I wasn't really planning to get it, but because I am exposed to it a lot I figured I'd better go ahead and be on the safe side. Hoping tonight is low key at work, I'm definitely going to need coffee for my 4th night. Ugghh.... I just keep trying telling myself that I need to be thankful and blessed to have a great job where I get hours and opportunities for overtime. Well, off to catch some Zzzz...

Halloween 2009

We had a laid back Halloween, and just stayed home to pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters and watch the Blazer game. We didn't have as many kids as we thought we would, but it might be better next year when there are more houses on our end of the neighborhood. This is my crazy pumpkin with lights. Turned out a little different then I was hoping, but it was still pretty cool.
All of our left over candy! Guess I'm going to have to work extra hard on the elliptical the next few weeks, haha.

I ♥ Target!

I've always loved Target, but now I really love Target!!!

I subscribe to several home goods type catalogs like Crate and Barrel, PB, West Elm, Ballard Design, etc. I love catalogs mostly for ideas. Since I am what some would call more frugal when it comes to shopping, I usually just look for the ideas and try to find stuff similar at less pricey stores.

A few months ago I received the West Elm Fall Preview '09 catalog and fell in love with these zebra window panels. They would be perfect for my craft room, right?

(sorry the zebra print is hard to see, scanned image from catalog)

If you haven't noticed zebra print is kinda "in" right now, so I thought maybe I could find something similar somewhere else. Did some online shopping, and no luck! Since I loved these curtains so much, I thought I would go ahead and splurge and buy the ones from West Elm. Well... turns out they never actually had them to purchase at West Elm. Weird! I kept looking for months on their website to see if they had them, and it was nowhere to be found. So I pretty much gave up on the zebra curtains. Very disappointing!

Our bamboo vertical window coverings from JC Penney were delivered this week, and so we went to Target to get a curtain rod. Well, the curtain rod that we wanted they didn't have in stock, so we will have to wait for the next shipment. But guess what they did have!!! I couldn't believe it! Zebra print curtains, that look exactly like what I wanted from West Elm! For over half the price! Let's just say I pretty much flipped out and there was no way I was walking out of Target without those curtains. And this is why I ♥ Target! Great style, great price! (sorry, way too many exclamations in this post, but I'm still excited).

Here is a picture of my awesome curtains in the craft room:

home gym

One of our spare bedrooms (future baby room) is now the "home gym". We've had our eyes on this elliptical at Costco for the last couple of months, and I finally decided we just had to have it. It's great! I now have no excuses not to exercise. I am proud of myself because every afternoon before I showered before work this last week I used the elliptical! And boy am I out of shape! About twenty minutes on the "glutes" program and I am wiped out. It kicked my butt, literally. :) The weight bench and weights came from my parents house, and I am just trying them out. I haven't decided if I want to buy them from my mom yet, but I'm sure I will.

This was my view as I worked out. Love rainbows!