A Week of Thanks

I have never enjoyed a Thanksgiving break as much as I did this year. The nine days off from work could not have come sooner. I am so blessed and each day I was reminded of the blessings in my life and how thankful I am.

The first day of my break the husband, myself and my parents went to one of my best friends' weddings. I have known Nate since elementary school and he is a lifelong friend. I have always loved weddings but this was different. I had never seen so much love in one place. I could not have been happier for my friend. A wedding means so much more to me now, as a wife... I know now why the bride is always smiling so big, because I too felt that way. It was so special to be a part of their night. It was a night full of love reminding me of how blessed I am to be married to my best friend. I had the hottest date there... I am thankful to have a husband who will not laugh at my stupid "dancing" faces or my moves but he dances beside me. (Consider yourself lucky if you have seen Tom getting down to his all time favorite wedding song, "Shout!") It was a great way to start the break.

My sister and I went to see New Moon on Monday morning. We went to the early bird special at 10:10 AM so we only had to pay $5! I have a mild, lets be honest crazed obsession with the Twilight series and had a hard time waiting through the weekend to see it. It was well worth the wait. Although after reading the books I was 100% Team Edward, after seeing the movie my heart hurt for Jacob. And I definitely did not mind the fact that Jacob became a werewolf requiring him to lose his shirt for the 2nd half of the movie. Taylor Swift is a lucky lady. I think I may have to re read the series to get my Twilight fix and hold me over until Eclipse comes out.

( This is the first time in my life where my hair is darker than hers... she is mad! :)

I spent the majority of the week cleaning our apartment and
conquering the mountain of laundry in our bedroom, the last load will be in the dryer tonight. I am thankful to have a husband who is just as messy as I am. But we did already agree that our New Year's resolution is to be cleaner, more organized people. Therefore, I am thankful that is November 29th and not January 1st. But the apartment is clean as it has ever been and only because we had to make room for the best gift... my parents gave us their china hutch! I was finally able to unwrap our china and serving ware from the boxes they came in for wedding presents. They have been hiding away stacked in our laundry room but now have a home in our beautiful hutch! I love it even more because it was my mom's because I love her so much;it is now and will forever be an family heirloom... if I ever give it up.

I am so thankful for the friends I have in my life. Each of you brings something special to my life and I love you ever so dearly. I love time off work to spend time with friends. Tom was busy spending time with our cousin Chip who came in for the Thanksgiving break so I had some time with the girls. Friday night me and Lindsay went to BJs with Lynsie and Dacia for girls night and then Saturday I went to Blue Goose with Mandi, Wendy and Stoney. We went back to their new house to see Kendra and Mandi's new Snorkie, Ellie. She is a mix between Schnauzer and a Yorkie and so precious.

Thanksgiving was amazing... we had two! One with the Hruskocy side and then the Farrell side. I love that we can do both. It was so fun to see all of our nieces and nephews. Then Tom got fry a turkey for the Farrell Thanksgiving. The pictures are on my mom's camera so I will have to post them soon. It was so wonderful to spend our first Thanksgiving surrounded by family, we are so thankful to live so close.

I was going to try and wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate our apartment for Christmas but after KLTY's SECOND Christmas preview... a weekend full of Christmas music, I could not resist the urges any longer. I ripped into our storage unit and half a day later... well you can imagine the husband's reaction when he walked into a winter wonderland since he just shook his head when he saw our Christmas blog layout in mid November. I have always loved everything Christmas but when your best friends are 19 kindergartners and you countdown the days until Christmas everyday... I am excited as they are. I am happy to have our own home, even if it is an apartment, to decorate and to start our own Hruskocy Christmas traditions. It is our first Christmas as husband and wife and I intend to take full advantage of every second of December! Instead of decking the Christmas tree with glitter and everything else girl, I bought some ornaments last year at Kohls with Tom's hunting obsession in mind. I love our little tree and the fact that I caught the husband closely inspecting the ornaments

tonight after dinner... I am thankful for the Christmas season.

We have decided to have a Christmas party... after Tom got over the shock of the decorations he asked if we should have one. Why? "Well you decorated it so nice, don't you think people should see it?" Oh yes I do love him! And I do love a Christmas party... so the date is to be decided upon but we will be having a Christmas party...

A TACKY CHRISTMAS SWEATER PARTY!

Don't be shocked if the upcoming posts include pictures like this...

(Here is Tom's! Since he loves Laila and Tucker soooo much!)

I am quite excited! Great idea husband! :)

I am so thankful for you all. Thank you for being a part of our lives. We love you!
P.S. There are 26 days until Christmas!! :) Just getting back into the Kindergarten groove! :)

Ode to Pioneer Woman

After curing my killer migraine with a Sonic happy hour cherry Diet Coke and an hour of Oprah, the husband gave me the go ahead to try a new recipe I have been dying to try... the Pioneer Woman's chicken parmigiana.
Here's to you Pioneer Woman, you make all working women look like cooking rock-stars to their husbands. If only I had the energy everyday to have a hot meal on the table waiting for him when he walked through the doors. Laying in bed tonight he told me, "You did good woman, but now you've spoiled me..." I guess the nights of grilled cheese sandwiches are over.

Here's to you Pioneer Woman, without your step by step pictures on your website I would not have known that 1 clove of garlic in fact, DOES NOT mean the entire garlic onion, garlic head, garlic bulb... whatever it is called. Yes I am a cooking noob. When I saw the recipe called for 4 cloves of garlic I was ecstatic to find 2 garlic thingies for a mere 99 cents.Your picture of 4 minced garlic cloves saved me, the meal and our breath! Let's just say none of those evil Voltari vampires from New Moon will be stepping foot in this apartment, we have garlic for a year. You're off the hook Edward (yes I am excited for the movie!)

Here's to you Pioneer Woman, you let us all feel a little less guilty for adding those few extra sprinkles.. cough.. hand fulls.. cough of Parmesan cheese to our recipe. For you, do this as well!

Now.... if you could only tell me. Did you kitchen look like mine did when the meal was over? Flour all over the counter, crushed tomatoes splattered on the microwave above the stove? Did your arms get tiny burns from bubbling olive oil causing you to wear oven mits while flipping chicken? I will just say yes to all of the above, for my sanity.

I do love you Pioneer Woman! You provide me with many hours of procrastination reading your blog instead of tackling countless chores that await me. And not too mention your numerous pictures of men in wranglers... :)

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

I just looked at the clock and I am amazed that I am awake at 1 AM on a Friday. Usually on Friday when the 3 o'clock bell rings my adrenaline runs out and I am ready for bed. But tonight I am too excited...

This weekend on 94.9 KLTY a local Christian station is playing Christmas music all day as a preview for the upcoming holiday season!! Driving home from "scrapbooking" at Christina's with some teacher friends I heard my first Xmas song of the season. I started smiling like a giddy school girl who's ponytail just got flipped by her crush... (SEESTER! :) Needless to say I wanted to come straight home and pull out our new ornaments I have been dreaming about since I bought them December 26th of last year at Kohls. Instead of tearing into our storage unit I came home belting out Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, belly full of Chips and Ritas and changed the blog layout.

Tomorrow morning the hubby and the rest of his Police Academy class are hosting a 5K run to honor a fallen officer who was killed in training a few years ago. I am looking forward to meeting his classmates at the run, but not so much waking up early seeing that it is past midnight. After the run there is a BBQ for the boys and their spouses! :) I am a spouse... still kind of weird, in a good way! Before Tom went to bed the last question I asked him was what I should wear... "Should it be something sporty since its a run, something cute... maybe I need to go shopping tomorrow on the way..." He just rolled his eyes... it's stressful. He said no to the shopping trip, but he is leaving before me... shhh!

After the 5K I plan on catching up on some over due household chores; laundry, vacuuming and scrubbing... I'll let you know how that goes :) Who am I kidding I will probably work on the Hruskocy's FIRST EVER Christmas letter since I found some WAY CUTE fonts online tonight! Feliz Navidad!

It's smelling extra "dumpy" today...

Alright, I'm done defending it... we live by a dump and it SUCKS!

I've said, "Oh there's only been once or twice that we have smelled it..."
"It's only when it's been raining and when the wind blows, just right..."

Today has been the worst. While I was out on the patio dying pasta noodles for my class' upcoming Thanksgiving feast (another story) the wind started to blow "just right." It was terrible!!! So terrible Tom walked in and the first thing out of his mouth was, "It's smelling extra dumpy today!"

And that is how my Monday has gone... extra dumpy!
But instead of throwing myself a pity party I am going to celebrate a few praises in our lives in order to chase the Devil out of my dumpy Monday.

1. Finally I am finding the time to blog again! Reality I went to my mom's and got the pictures I wanted to share with you. Either way... I am updating!

2. Tom is in his fourth week of the Arlington Police Academy and doing quite well. Before his first day of the academy I threw him a surprise/ congratulations party with our families! He was very surprised and it was the perfect way to start our new beginning together. Here are a few pictures of his homemade goodies! :)

My hunky Police Officer!3. Tom and I have finally fallen into a routine now that we are trying to be grown ups, with our jobs. It has been very nice. We wake up at the same time as pleasant as I may not always be at 5 5 stinkin 30 in the morning. But it is still nice to share the earliest moments of the day with each other. I am doing better at having dinner ready for him when he gets home. This is absolutely my favorite part of our daily routine.. when we get to sit down at the table and eat dinner with each other. Whether its a good day and dinner is hot on the table waiting for him or we order Chilis ToGo, I love these moments. Here are a few of our favorite wines lately... Tom's pick is on the left and mine is on the right! :) 4. When the alarm clock blares at 5:30 Tom and I often say, "being a grown up stinks!" I have never appreciated the weekends more. This weekend Tom and I managed to waste away an in tire Saturday. Studying, cleaning and lesson planning were all on the Hruskocy agenda and not one thing was accomplished. On a detour after a lunch at Which Wich with the seester and the father, we meandered into Costco looking for a Thanksgiving turkey to deep fry. We left with no turkey but with a value pack of two quiches for Sunday's breakfast and a dog bed for Kali.

Tom had never been in a Costco and was amazed at all it had to offer... reminding us of our new favorite show Modern Family. (see #5) Although amazed he was a bit disappointed about leaving without a turkey although Kali did not share in his disappointment.#5. Modern Family: Our new favorite show. Wednesdays at 8pm. You should give it a try! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wezT5rTaCmQ

#6. Our cool fall weather came early and now has gone into hiding. We were so excited to turn off our air conditioning, but in the past week we have had to turn it back down. The warmer weather blew in the smelly dump but also a flock of Canadian geese. I love that our apartment looks over a pond and when the stench is not too strong we can sit out on our patio. We were able to watch this geese land on the water and I snuck down and took some pictures.

#7. Although I have been M.I.A for a few weeks on our blog I have found the time to read some blogs. After weeks and weeks of hearing my mom rave about this awesome blog she found I gave in.... I LOVE the Pioneer Woman!!!! Around 10 oclock Sunday morning I opened her blog for a quick look but I fell in love with her way with words and reading chapter after chapter of her love story with her Marlboro Man. As the hours passed I helped myself to a second helping of quiche for lunch and finished the last chapter of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels with a huge smile on my face and a few dried tears, I do love a love story. So I can call myself a fan... sorry Mom for doubting you! :) But now after discovering and falling in love with the Pioneer Woman, my Payless cowboy boots simply won't do...

Luckily, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! :)