From the Cutting Room Floor

Y’all, I’m sitting here right now watching a bear try to open every single door of our cabin guests’ van. If I’ve learned one thing about cabin ownership in the Great Smoky Mountains, it’s this: don’t keep food in your car and make sure you lock your car doors at night. Most bears are just curious and will sniff around (they really are just oversized racoons and will run off fairly easily), but if there is motivation for them in the form of food, they’re smart enough to figure out how to open your car door. Crazy!

Anyway- happy Friday! Has your week been a good one? Can you believe that Thanksgiving is NEXT week? It’s a family-filled extravaganza for us and one we look forward to so much every year. But first for this weekend we have a TKD belt test, three soccer games, and two basketball practices. David is co-coaching both their teams and I’m so excited about the season. Basketball is so fast-paced and the energy is high; I can’t wait to watch them play!

I was trying to think of a topic for today’s post but the scatterbrain has the best of me. I’m probably 75% done with deciding on Christmas gifts, 40% done purchasing gifts, and 0% done on wrapping. I know I still have time, but I’m really hoping to have this knocked out in the next week and a half and plan on taking advantage of some sales next week. I’ll share all the sales and discount codes I know of on Monday in case they help you out as well!

Since my mind is all over the place, let me share a few snippets from the cutting room floor of this week:

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned these here or not yet, but I am SO IN LOVE with these real wax LED flameless taper candles. It’s a set of six and they are remote controlled. You can adjust their brightness and how much they flicker (or don’t). Every early evening when it gets dark outside, I switch them on and instant coziness. Highly recommend. Here are the holders I have them in.

Fun with hair! I’ve never put a lot of time into the kids’ hair, as long as they brushed it. Now they are getting a little more interested in fixing their hair and I love helping them implement what they come up with. H is a fan of braids and having it out of her face. K can be more bold in her choices, and the fact that she liked Rae buns and wears them out with confidence makes me smile.

Umm… Kohls. What is this? We’ve taken the tacky Christmas sweater thing a bit far, don’t you think? I mean, I kind of want that Santa suit though…

In other fashionable news, Aldi currently has dog pajamas on sale for $4.99. The kids (and I) LOVED this so much! Finley, on the other hand, looks like she’s trying to blink twice and signal for help.

Bundle up and go. When it gets cold out my instinct is to hunker down inside and be cozy. But yesterday Kaitlyn convinced us to go on a picnic. She made hot tea and we packed a blanket and peppermint bark pretzel thins and wandered to our old picnic spot. It was so much fun! K had to do her reading first, then we played Christmas charades in the crisp air. A good reminder for me to say yes a bit more often.

I know I already said David was co-coaching, but I just thought it was so cute when a clipboard and cones showed up at our door. The Yellow Jackets and the Hot Shots sure lucked out with this coach!

I grabbed a video snapshot from IG because I had several questions about this shirt. It’s less than $30 and they have become my cold weather go-to. I have it in a couple different colors, it’s stretchy, and it has THUMB HOLES. Big fan.

First martini in my new gold rimmed cocktail glasses! We got these when we hung out at World Market for an extra hour to play their hidden gnome game and came away with $70 in store credit. I am so in love with these. They feel “old-timey” to me and are the perfect size. Some martini glasses have gotten SO big that one martini ends up being way more than I need. If you like the gold rim look for festive drinks, too, these are pretty similar.

Ok, signing off now because I have a very whiny pup that is ready to go on her morning sniffari, so I’m bundling up and heading out. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and not to beat a dead horse, but thanks so much for sending me some extra love this week. It’s really filled me up. Hope you feel loved and appreciated, too, as you head into the weekend. And if no one has told you lately, you’re freaking amazing <3