The Fun in Gift Giving

Do you have any big plans for the long weekend?

I mentioned that I would be MIA until after the weekend, but I have a few minutes while AJ is napping so I thought I'd check in with y'all!

My father-in-law and brother-in-law came into town last weekend and FIL headed home early this week while BIL is staying with us for the summer and working here.

Today my parents, brother, sister and sister's boyfriend are coming into town for the long weekend. D and I are currently trying to hash out the final list of what booze we're going to need before their plane lands! Just typically of my family, we make sure the important things are taken care of.

I've been cooking up a storm (mostly so that I can keep myself busy all day while waiting for them to get here!) and I'm making a few things that I cannot wait to try and will totally be posting on This American Kitchen when I get a chance, so be sure to check in there if you see a new post from me!

I am so incredibly excited to see everyone, but most of all, my sister. She has been in Australia for the past 3 months and I haven't seen her since Christmas. Even though she is 5 years younger than me, we're pretty close, so its been hard to not be able to text her anytime I feel like it! I also have her birthday gift that has been sitting in my bedroom since it arrived in late April. I will post a picture of it here after I give it to her.

Let's just say that I bought the same one for myself, as well. There's really nothing that Abby and I love more than shopping for gifts for each other. Its so much fun to buy a gift you know someone is going to love (and honestly, she is the only person I know will LOVE the gifts I buy for her).

Anyway, this post has turned into the most random post ever, and not at all what I set out to write about! Stay tuned for a real post, hopefully soon! No promises, though! ;)

The Gift That Keeps On Giving....

If you read my blog regularly, you now know that D and I share a birthday. We tend to not really go crazy when buying gifts for each other, because as you can imagine, that would get pretty expensive, being the same day and all. {Read: we don't do gifts.}

This year we decided to get each other a gift. We I have been talking about getting a Keurig single-cup brew station coffee-maker for about 6 months now. I wanted one so bad, but I was having a hard time justifying the price. D finally put his foot down and decided that we were going to buy each other the coffee maker as our "gift" to each other this year. To top it off, friends of ours gave us a gift card to a store that sells them, so we upgraded to the super-duper-awesome-makes-iced-and-hot-drinks version.

This is the one we have.

I can't even begin to explain to you all how wonderful it is. We have coffee issues in our house. If I set the coffee to turn on before D goes to work in the morning, then its already shut off and cold before AJ and I get up. I'm not a huge coffee drinker (one, maybe two cups in the morning) so I'm not going to make a whole pot for myself. This new coffee maker is literally the greatest thing ever (a far as solving the insanely important coffee crisis in our house goes) and you should all get one!

Oh, and since we have this nifty, new caffeine machine, we're a little hyped up on caffeine!

**Keurig has no idea who I am. I'm not getting anything for this post, its just my own pure, unadulterated love for the k-cup that drives me. Although, if I'm lucky, someone from Keurig will read this and send me free k-cups, because those suckers aren't cheap!**

How's That For A Surprise?

Remember when I said that D was going to have to be in the field for Valentine's Day? Well, yesterday when he went into work, they informed him that he wouldn't have to (none of them did). Not only that, but he was able to come home early as well!

I was planning to run to the commissary to pick up some stuff for our makeshift Valentine's Day later this week and also get some stuff for my parent's visit this weekend. Since D was home early, he suggested that I go alone and leave AJ with him for the afternoon. (All you mama's out there know that there is no better gift than running errands with no kids in tow.)

I had a few things I needed to do, including pick up my book for the next book club session and I wanted to get my nails done too, so I kind of took my time.

When I got home I was informed that there was a surprise waiting for me. D walked out to the garage and came back in with the cutest thing in history.

D and AJ finger-painted this for me while I was gone! It says, "WE {Heart} MOM," which I'm told was written with AJ's toe dipped in paint.

Me and my little artist posing by her masterpiece. ;)

After we put AJ to bed (who, by the way, has been the crabbiest baby in history lately, ugh) we sat down to eat our delicious, fancy, candlelit Valentine's Dinner. We even turned off the TV. ;) I made Barefoot Contessa's Roasted Chicken (that she makes every Friday for Jeffrey) and root veggie mash instead of mashed potatoes. For dessert we had frozen chocolate covered pound cake. OMG. So good! Recipes for the complete V-Day meal are to follow.

I just have to say that this Valentine's Day ranks up there with the best. It was seriously so nice to just relax and spend time with my loves.

Best.Valentine's.Ever.

Un-Happy Valentine's Day...

Friday afternoon I got a phone call from D, letting me know that he was on his way home from work, but that he needed to stop off and get my Valentine's Day gift first.

Yay!

This was followed by him telling me that his unit decided that they're going to start making the guys stay overnight in the field once a week. They're starting this on Monday. As in, Valentine's Day.

As in, they told them Friday afternoon that they need to be prepared to stay overnight on Monday.

Now, D and I aren't really big celebration people, and we have a baby, and we'd rather die than go out to eat on V-Day, but we did have plans to exchange gifts and have a fancy dinner at home on Monday night. You know, flowers, candles, wine, etc.

Instead I'll be watching episodes of Toddlers and Tiaras Million Dollar Listing off my DVR and eating Girl Scout cookies bon bons dinner alone with AJ.

The good news is, D loves his gift (a rowing machine!) and I got a pair of Ugg boots (my first pair ever, can you believe it?!) and a pair of the new Merrell Barefoot shoes (since D desperately wants me to get into Vibrams and I just can't do the whole separate toe compartments).

D's new rower!

Yaay for Uggs!

So tall and pretty...

Pretty new Merrell shoes.

Oh, D got AJ a gift too....

A new water bottle for AJ!

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to drop in and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! We are enjoying our time back with our families in Chicago and had a wonderfull Christmas Eve, as well as a fun Christmas day so far!

We all got many awesome gifts and are enjoying playing with all of our new stuff this afternoon! We are gearing up for a big Christmas dinner and possibly a movie in the theatre later on tonight. I feel like we have been eating non-stop since we got into town, but I can't complain, the food has all been delicious.