Weekend Recap

Happy Monday! This weekend was a cold one, getting down to 18 degrees in the evenings, but it seems like the temps are going back up into the 40s this week. At least they are in NYC which is where I'll be Wednesday night!

I spent a ton of time at home this weekend which is exactly what I needed between traveling last week and now this week. And now, 87 pictures of me in my house. Just kidding. Kind of.

FRIDAY

After work on Friday, I went straight to HomeGoods and Target because I needed some remaining things for Friendgiving and my bridesmaid proposals.

Luckily Sammy's mom made us chicken soup last week, so I was able to pull that out of the freezer and make a quick dinner for us before I started Friendsgiving prep.

Meanwhile, this guy likes to be involved in e v e r y t h i n g now, so in a desperate attempt at actually getting things accomplished, I gave him an empty jar of peanut butter I was going to recycle and let him go to town.

I put all my purchases away (or decorated with them), cleaned the lower level of the house, and set the table after dinner. 

I grabbed these burnt orange velvet pillows from HomeGoods and love the richness they add to our white couch. I proceeded to rip the white tags off the bottom of them (because Henry will rip them off himself) instead of cutting them which immediately resulted in the seams coming apart so a giant hole at the bottom of each pillow SO FUN. My mom always told me to never rip tags off things... I never listen.

And I grabbed this pillow at Target for the same price as I paid for the pair of giant ones at HomeGoods haha. I just love the simplicity and the sentiment (and that it doesn't say "blessed" or "grateful." Nothing against those sentiments haha I just think they're so overused for Thanksgiving decor.) because it's the number one thing I want people to feel when they're in our home; that they're always welcome.

And wouldn't you know they had it on a towel too ;) this is actually a kitchen towel because neither Target nor HomeGoods had any Thanksgiving bathroom hand towels (but they had 42 million Christmas ones), so I layered it over bath towels and called it a day.

And then this guy sat with me while I started working on the boxes I was making for my bridesmaids. Don't be fooled, he sat here for two seconds before going nuts.

Needless to say I couldn't do much with my boxes downstairs while Henry was awake other than taking the plastic wrap off, taping their note to the inside of the lid, and adding box filler, so I had to continue my work upstairs after he went to sleep haha.

I ordered their names in gold vinyl on Etsy (because my Cricuit machine was still at my mom's at the time) and a box of 12 stemless flutes from Amazon and adhered the names to them myself.

I got these gorgeous Sugar Paper boxes from Target (as well as the gift tags). They're $6 a box which is a little high when you're buying multiple, but it eliminated my need to purchase wrapping paper and ribbon (I was going to get brown craft paper and white ribbon if they boxes I got ended up being simple white shirt boxes or something) and they were the only ones I could find (in the store and online) that were deep and wide enough.

They each got their glass, a gold straw, soft socks, a candle, and their favorite drink (and favorite snack which didn't fit in their box so I just handed it to them after they opened them haha). I was kind of particular about what I wanted to include. I wanted it to be personal, so I didn't want to give everyone the same thing, but I did want some element to be similar across all of them, so I think I struck a nice balance.

I wrote them each a note that included a graphic of something we both have in common and tied my message in with that thing. Chelsie's below is Sex and the City, of course. I was her maid of honor last year, and she's my matron of honor, and I've been waiting to ask her, so that was really special to me.

And if you're kinda nosey like me and want to know what the other ones were... Tina was Disney (I used a Monster's Inc. quote because her and I were Sully and Boo for Halloween this year).

Jacqueline was Seinfeld. I included a line from the "Dinner Party" episode and put a Pepsi and Ding Dong in her box (even though neither of those are her favorite anything haha she's a good sport).

Sammi's was Ellen Degeneres because she's our queen.

And Alicia's was Anne of Green Gables because we always call the other our kindred spirit.

They were all ready to go by the end of the night and I had such a fun time making them. Of all my bridesmaid proposals (each "group" is getting slightly different things), these were the ones I was most excited about. If I go into even the littlest bit of detail of what these women mean to me, I will dissolve into tears. I am beyond words grateful to have them and so happy they'll be up there with me on our wedding day.

SATURDAY

Since I did a lot of prep Friday night, there wasn't a ton for me to do Saturday which was the goal, but I got up and hung out with Sammy and Henry in bed for a bit before heading back upstairs to clean the upper level. I cleaned the kitchen floors and vacuumed the stairs before heading to the basement to straighten up and bring the bridesmaid boxes down there.

My uncles and grandma came over during the day because my chef uncle was going to help me roast the turkey, but as a result of my stupidity and not knowing how to properly defrost a turkey, we ended up chucking it and running out to the store and getting chicken to roast in an attempt to avoid giving all my friends food poisoning. Happy Friendsgiving! *eye roll*

But it all worked out. And it turns out, some of them prefer chicken to turkey anyway. Anyway, because I have the nicest friends on Earth, they all brought me a hostess gift (which was unnecessary!), and my girlfriend who lives a few hours south of us brought me popcorn and glass bottled soda from a shop near her which was so thoughtful since these are like my favorite things of all time.

I set out a cheese board and spinach dip with crusty bread as appetizers.

And I wanted something festive for our cocktail, so I did this cranberry one that was cranberry juice, sparkling wine, and Sprite (and whole cranberries for aesthetic reasons ;) ).

My girlfriend who lives further away hasn't seen our house yet, so I gave her a tour and knew the rest of my friends would follow along because our guest room is now set up and wasn't the first time they saw the house, so they wanted to peek at that. I put the boxes in the basement to surprise them because I knew we'd end up there by the end of the "tour."

My heart, my heart. I love this picture so much.

We came back upstairs, I plated the meat, and we got ready to eat!

Sammy stopped by during his shift to say hi and I had him take our annual picture for us.

For dessert we had pumpkin pie and Jacqueline brought all the ingredients to make fried ice cream which is shown in this so lovely, high quality, not blurry photo I took. You fry cornflakes in sugar and cinnamon and roll a scoop of ice cream in them. SO good.

After dessert we sat around my living room until midnight talking and laughing. It's always my favorite when we get to do that. And after they left, I fell asleep immediately haha.

SUNDAY

I was so pumped to do NOTHING on Sunday. And that's basically what I did haha.

This guy turned four months old on Saturday, so I took some pictures of him so I could post to Instagram, obviously.

Sammy had to work so it was basically me and Henry for most of the day. We spent it in our sweats, eating leftovers, watching the Harry Potter marathon.

Please ignore how I look #SUNDAY but this is what eating is like if I choose to eat in front of the TV...

Thankfully I got a few chunks of the day where he was lower energy and actually napped so I could chill out.

Before it got too dark, we took four laps around our neighborhood while I called my parents. When we got back, I made a stir fry for dinner with leftover rotisserie chicken and proceeded to watch the rest of the Harry Potter marathon (remember how I hate Harry Potter? ;) ), before ending the evening with a fall Hallmark movie: Falling for You. I thought it was cute and was really digging the male lead. Full disclosure: I've been recording all the Christmas movies that have been airing, but I'm trying to save them until after Thanksgiving.

Sammy came home to eat dinner earlier in the evening and bombarded me with a list of things we needed to get in terms of Christmas decorations, which normally I would be all about, all hands on deck, but I was trying to watch someone defeat Voldemort, so like, you're stressing me out with this at the moment, but I did spend the rest of the night in bed on Wayfair and Amazon looking at stocking holders, tree skirts, ornaments, a faux tree for the library (real tree downstairs, people, we're not amateurs in this house), etc. 

Anyway, that was my weekend! I'm looking forward to Sammy being off today and tomorrow so we can spend some time together before I leave Wednesday night. I shall be spending the rest of this week researching places Chelsie and I can get the best pizza, Chinese food, bagel, etc., in NYC and figuring out how to fit enough sweaters into my carry on.

Have a great week all! xo

*linking up with Biana and Heather!