Parties, Presents, and Pictures

I can't believe it's only 6 days until Christmas!! This past weekend we were busy busy with all kinds of different festivities. Thursday night we had Justin's HotSchedules Christmas Party at Cool River. They had a nice buffet, free drinks and games. Justin won a $100 gift card to Ruth's Chris! Whoop! He has so much better luck than me but I'm not complaining :)

The only picture from the party - @ least it's a keeper :)

Friday night we headed to College Station to spend the evening with Sandie, Rachel, Neil, Audrey, and Laura. We had a great dinner and then had fun watching Audrey open her presents. It was good practice for Christmas morning because they realized to have Audrey open her books last. She opened the book first and didn't want to open anymore presents! What 9 month old do you know that loves books that much?! She's just so precious!

"Hey mom look what I've got"

The tag was more of a hit than the clothes

My FAV picture!! So sweet

After a great breakfast at Madden's on Saturday morning, and a stop at Grandma's house, Justin and I were off to Huntsville for Kristin's graduation. After graduation we took some pictures and then headed over to Margarita's Mexican Restaurant for Kristin's party. We had some great food and fun but then it was time to head back to Austin.

Congrats Kristin!! (boo for the dark picture)

Sunday was the first time in 6 weeks that I woke up at home on a Sunday. It was SO nice to relax and enjoy the morning with Justin and the dogs. After some down time it was time to run errands and clean the house. But inbetween my dad and I took the dogs to get their pictures taken with Santa. I've been so busy this month that I almost forgot about this! We've done it every year since Hunter was a little puppy and I wasn't about to let my busy schedule stop me this year!

Love!

Look at those sweet faces!

We ended our weekend last night with our Neighbor Christmas gift exchange...It was the perfect end to a perfect weekend! I am super exicted about Christmas next weekend!! Not only is it Christmas but it will be my first full weekend at home in 7 weeks (that's almost 2 months). This has been a crazy busy year but an extremely crazy busy last couple of months. I am looking forward to spending the holidays with family and just relaxing. I have 10 days off for Christmas and am looking forward to relaxing :)

ICE: Shrek The Halls

This past weekend my parents and Justin and I went to Dallas and stayed at the Gaylord Texan to go to ICE. We went 2 years ago with Michael and Christine and had a blast. This years theme is Shrek The Halls. It was SO cute!! A little more hectic this year since it's gained popularity in the last couple of years but I definitely want to go again next year...just maybe in November before the craziness starts. The only time I've been to the Gaylord it has been decorated for Christmas but it is SO pretty!!

Gaylord Texan

Handy Man Reindeer!

One of the many Christmas trees

Housewife Reindeer!

Gingerbread cowboy on the outside of the life size gingerbread house

Justin is suuper excited about the gingerbread house

Yumm

Train Village

View of the lobby from our balcony @ night



So many pretty lights!



ICE: Shrek the Halls

Shrek the Halls!



Shrek & Fionna :)

Donkey!



Christmas for Village Idiots...appropriate?? haha



3 Piggies & Puss in Boots

Justin in Shrek's outhouse - he's trying REAL hard haha

I'm a little more modest :)

Me sliding down the ice

Gingy!

Shrek!

Family ICE picture

Dad ready to catch the Shrek babies

Dragon! She wrapped around the whole room



Pinocchio all tucked in listening to Christmas stories



Final room - Nativity Scene!



Christmas at the Trojacek Household

Christmas is Justin and my favorite holiday and we loove decorating for it! It has been a little hectic this year with me only being home 15 out of 30 days in November so we have been decorating in spurts when we have time. The house has been finished for about a week now and we are just loving it! Here are some pictures of some of our festive decorations :)

Some of the Dicken's Village New England Edition houses I got from my grandpa's house



You might recognize this from our Christmas card??

House & Lighthouse :)

 

Table Centerpiece



I love non-traditional Christmas colors! They brighten up the room



Howdy Snowman!

Some kitchen garland

Silent Night Candle

Christmas Shelves

I love the window/mirror gel decals!

Front door Santa greeting

Our Christmas Tree!!

All lit up & festive :)

 pretty lights

Our outside lights :)



We are having Christmas at our house this year and I couldn't be more excited! Definitely makes it feel more like the holidays with all of the decorations and having family around :)

Mini "Hershey" Bar Pies

We had a mini neighbor dinner on Wednesday with Michael and Christine so I decided to make mini desserts! Hershey Bar Pie is one of my go to recipes because it is so EASY and FAST. It's pretty much impossible to mess up. I decided to make mini pies since I saw the cute little pie crusts at HEB and I love miniature things!

Ingredients

8 oz of chocolate - I used a 4 oz Nestle Tollhouse Dark Choc baking bar & 4 oz of semi-sweet choc chips

8/9 oz container of cool whip

Pie shell(s)

Directions

Melt chocolate in double broiler (or the microwave I suppose)

Once chocolate is melted mix in with container of cool whip

Spoon into pie shell and refrigerate for 1 hour

Enjoy!

I decided to put ready-whip on the top of the pies and garnish with sprinkles. The whipped cream melted so fast - I never use whip cream so I don't know if this is typical or if it's because I used the low-fat. However, I did get to snap a few pictures before they melted and looked kind of sad - but don't worry...they still tasted yummy!

Bedroom Makeover

After we redid our floors we decided our bedroom needed a little bit of a makeover. We pianted it the same Pebble Grey color that's in our hallway. Justin was sweet enough to paint the WHOLE room by himself! He knows that if I were to help there would be paint everywhereee. When we painted the walls we had to take down our quote sticker about the bed - which has been crooked since the day I put it on so I wasn't really sad about taking it down.


I had a vision in mind inspired by a pinterest post - shocking I know! I had picked up pieces here and there that I liked but with all of the traveling I did last month I never had a chance to figure out exactly what I wanted. I liked all the pieces but wasn't in love with how it was coming together. This past weekend we went to this new cute little shop in Schulenburg and found a mantle and fell in LOVE with it! I didn't know I was looking for a mantle until I found it...but the wall turned out PERF and I couldn't be any happier with it...I've been walking into our room and just staring at the wall :) So here are some before and after shots!

Before

Before (with our summer comforter)



Crooked sticker...ughh



After



My 2 helpers

 

 I'm really excited about having a mantle in our house - even if it is in our bedroom. It will be so easy to change the look of our bedroom just by changing up the mantle...much easier than a complete overhaul everytime I want to change something. I have a feeling I won't be changing it anytime soon though :)