Happy Friday Everyone!
One – Current Happenings
Happy Friday, friends! I hope you’ve been hanging in there during this BUSY season!! We have been packing a lot in and I’ll be sharing some of the fun things we’ve been doing in this Friday Five today! Do you have Beyond Van Gogh in your city? We have it here in St. Louis right now and we decided to go during the long Thanksgiving break. Autumn had school, but Brian was off work and Nathan was off school and we had a fun time going during a non-peak time to see it. It was REALLY, really neat! There is a huge room where they project Van Gogh’s artwork on the walls and it changes every 60 seconds or so to something else. As you’ll see in the photos above, we got a family shot of us with Starry Night behind us and in the other photo you’ll see I found a painting that matched my outfit! Ha! After we did the Beyond Van Gogh, we headed over to the neighboring mall and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory! Yum!
We had a low key Thanksgiving lunch with my family at Flemings this year. It was really good! It was my mom’s birthday on Thanksgiving, which was cool. I don’t share a lot of photos of my family on here, but here I am with my mom and my brother, Jeff.
Grant’s Farm in St. Louis has a drive through light experience and I thought it’d be fun to grab hot cocoa’s from Starbucks, see the lights and then enjoy dinner somewhere nearby afterwards. It was a lot of fun! Grant’s Farm gave us sodas, kettle corn, a Grant’s Farm ornament and two stuffed animals as part of our package. I tried a new (to me) hot cocoa from Starbucks, their White Chocolate Peppermint Hot Cocoa. It was DELISH! The lights were beautiful and we got to see some animals on the farm, too.
We ate at Katie’s Pizza and Pasteria after the lights and we indulged in SO much delicious food. We had reservations, but we got there 45 minutes early, so they gave us a toasty warm table in their outdoor (heated) dining area. It was nice! I had the Punch It Up For Me cocktail, which had pineapple rum in it. For appetizers we had the Buffalo Milk Ricotta Dip and Potato Fonduta. I got their Famous Fried Artichoke Salad (SO big, shared it with everyone!) and for an entree I got their seasonal Hand-Made Butternut Squash Cannelloni. Yum!!!!
We’ve had a couple school functions lately, which was nice since both of these didn’t happen last year due to Covid. First up, Nathan had his end of season cross country banquet. We had a nice buffet dinner and they listed off rewards and gave each player a certificate. Nathan got the ‘Most Valuable Player’ award, which was exciting! Then, Autumn had her first in person band concert in 2 years. It was so nice to hear her play the flute with the rest of the middle school band.
Two – Autumn’s 13th Birthday!
Autumn’s birthday is in November and this year she turned the BIG 13!! Oh my, I have a teenager now! Honestly, it isn’t a HUGE shock, because she started acting like a teenager in 5th grade. She is such a blessing in my life and I love my sweet girl so, so much! She is such a silly yet serious, motivated, smart, creative and loyal girl. I am so proud of her, she really is just turning out to be such a great person!
Since Covid has made for some bummer birthdays as of late, I wanted her 13th birthday to be EXTRA special this year! She had one friend over to spend the night and I surprised her with this HUGE yard sign from Sign Gypies. We then had hibachi with her friend the next day. It was a great weekend!
Three – Holiday Coffee
Have you tried any of the new Starbucks holiday drinks? I am addicted to the Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte! I sometimes will add whip, because I think the sprinkles are much cuter above the whipped cream! And, do you see my cute ‘Home Sweet Home’ wooden beaded sign? I found it at Hobby Lobby! And, of course I picked up some of Starbucks reindeer cake pops for the car line!
I’ve been really enjoying my Coffee Advent Calendar from Yawn Brew (photo on left). And, lately I have been really into trying coffees at new to me local coffee shops. We tried the Teleo Coffee in Kirkwood recently. Brian tried their Peppermint Latte and I got their Gingerbread Latte. Both were delicious!
Four – Latest Book, Movies and Shows
I FINALLY finished my last summer book, ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ by Emily Henry. It was really cute! It is about Poppy and Alex, who have been friends since high school, yet can’t seem to understand that they’ve fallen for each other. Poppy works at a job where she gets to go on exotic vacations once a year and she always brings Alex along to hang out with her ‘as just a friend’. However, things start to get more and more complicated as they get older and start getting into serious relationships with other people, etc. and one trip helps them to realize that maybe, just maybe there is something more to them. Such a cute, light read if you’re craving a book with fun vacation adventures and romance.
I always enjoy reading a holiday book this time of year! I finally finished Elin Hilderbrand four book series called Winter Street last year. It was based in Nantucket and about a family that owned a historic bed and breakfast in Nantucket. The books were about the big holiday bash they’d throw at the bed and breakfast and all of the romance and drama going on with the family and neighbors during the holidays. It was such an addictive series and I was so delighted to start her other holiday series of books called Winter in Paradise. I’m on the first book and instead of being based in Nantucket, like most of Elin Hilderbrand’s books are, it is based in St. John’s. I’ve just started the first book, but it is about a mom and her two sons and how they are trying to unravel the mysterious death of her husband while he was away on a work trip. So far it is SO good and I’ve been flying through the pages on my Kindle!
Holiday Movies!
While wrapping gifts this year, I’ve been watching Christmas movies! So far I have watched the new Netflix movie, ‘A Castle for Christmas‘ with Brooke Shields in it. It was really cute and it will give you all of those warm and cozy holiday feels! And, WOW… Brooke Shields looks AH-mazing! I also watched White Christmas, which is an oldie yet goodie. I had never seen White Christmas before, but I absolutely loved it! I have all of the songs stuck in my head now!
As for shows, we are almost done watching The Morning Show. I think we have 2 episodes left. Once we finish that, we are going to start watching ‘And Just Like That’, the NEW Sex and the City show coming out on HBO Max!
Five – 1.1 Million Monthly Viewers on Pinterest
I wanted to give you all a BIG thank you! I reached 1.1 MILLION viewers on my Pinterest page this month! So crazy!!! If you don’t already follow me on Pinterest, you can by clicking HERE! And, I’d love to follow you if you’d like for me to follow back… just let me know in the comments!
I hope everyone has a nice and relaxing weekend!
