There's no place like home...

for the Holidays! We headed home for Thanksgiving. We missed my sis and her family sooooo much. We usually all pile in Mom and Dad's for almost a week @ Thanksgiving, but they couldn't make it this year! :(


We hads lot of fun, though! SMORE'S!!!!

After Thanksgiving dinner at my brothers, (I will steal some of his pics to post because I took my camera but left the camera card in Mom's computer-DOH!) . Anyways, after dinner, we decorared Mom and Dad's tree. Little bit about Mom's tree....it's angel ornaments ONLY...
except one very special ornament that's mine...this ballerina!

Dad completed the tree with the angel!

So pretty!!

Late Thursday night, we decided to attempt Toys R Us...we got there, got out in the rain and freezing wind, walked the mile or more to the back of the line, stood there for 5min. and never moved, said, 'FORGET THIS!', came home, got some sleep and got up @ 3:30am to tackle the stores. This year's team was me, Mom, Britt and her BFF, Miranda! We had so much fun and laughed so hard! We went to Kohl's, Target and the mall and were home by 9am! We decided to do some gingerbread house decorating that afternoon...

And, the weekend was filled with lots of silly fun!

Christmas Decorating, Round 2

Just a couple of days before Thanksgiving, we got out the BIG dog! MY big 9 (almost 10) footer!

My face looked similar to Abby's...I was SO excited! ha! And, look @ Scott's! He was NOT so excited! ha!

We thought we wanted it here....

Liv and Dixon just watched and caused trouble for the most part...that's their specialty!

But, we didn't like it in it's first spot, so we moved it to here! :)

And, I am going to keep you hanging on this one. The tree is decorated and gorgeous, but I can't find a topper that suits me, so it still isn't completely finished! It took us HOURS to just get it fluffed and get the ornaments on it. What a job! But, we love it!

And, Avery, Abby's good friend and our neighbors who moved to New Jersey for a couple of years, wer in town visiting, so the girls were able to play and we decorated cookies! We sure do miss them! :(

Christmas Decorating, Round 1

For those of you that know Scott and his family, you know that they set up their trees and Christmas decor on November 1st (NOT exaggerating!) Well, I am used to putting it up after Thanksgiving. It's taken me YEARS to work him into pushing the decorating back a little later, and this year we held off until mid-November. We started with the girls little tree, the Christmas village, decor and the dining room tree.

Our master decorator hard at work! :)

Olivia is very into dressing herself, and I love it too much to do any different! (unless we are going in public, and even then I will compromise with her a little :)

Putting the star on the tree....and, then Scott remembered he wanted colored lights on this tree! SERIOUSLY!? haha! So, we re-strung the lights! He's such a brat! ;) ha!

But, I must say, the colored lights look good on this tree. They won't touch my big tree, but they look good on this one! ha! The tree is the perfect back drop for dining! :)

Our festive foyer! (See that beautiful table there...that was out big purchase from the dinner auction (much to Scott's dismay-ha!)! It's a hand made barn wood table! I LOVE it! (and Scott does now, too)

Auntie Anne's Pretzels...

have nothing on us! :) Gi-gi found a baking kit for Auntie Anne's pretzels (the delicious mall chain). Abby couldn't wait to try them out. We both LOVE soft pretzels! YUMMY!

I wish this wasn't blurry, but it's still cute. She was having a BLAST! I LOVE that I am always having to move stools and little chairs out of my way in the kitchen. Both girls LOVE to help me in the kitchen, even if it's putting dishes away-ha! I know I will miss moving those little things out of the way one day! :(

We had to get a little creative with our pretzels! :)

And, I was hesitant about what they would taste like, but they were actually REALLY good.

COUSINS!!!!

We went to Scott's parents the second weekend in November so he could be home to hunt with the family oepning weekend. Sara, Jeff and Baby Will were there. I am pretty sure that even when they are all teenagers, the girls will still call Will, Baby Will! ha! They just adore that little guy, as we all do! :)

Helping Will play with his toys...and, what big helpers they are! ha!
Awwwwe!! Be ready, Will...you are in for it with these 2 big cousins! :)

And, cuteness overload!

Beach Blast...

I briefly mentioned the dinner auction I planned for Abby's school. Well, it's the school's largest fundraiser of the year and for some insane reason, when they asked for people to help plan it, I volunteered. Well, no one else did, so they asked me to chair the whole friggin' event! WHAT!? Abby is only in preschool and they need me to chair the event! That should have been my first red flag! haha! Why wouldn't anyone else want to do it!? So, at my first planning meeting I talked Staci, who was room mom with me last year and our girls are friends, into co-chairing with me! I didn't really know Staci all that well at that time, just knew she was nice and we chatted when we picked the kids up, etc. Well, we will just say we have spent so much time together planning the auction, she's now a dear friend of mine and we rarely go a day without talking! haha! So, here we are...all ready for BEACH BLAST!


The auction date happened to fall on our Anniversary! ha! Poor, Scott! Not only did the auction planning rule our life for months, but then he had to spend our Anniverary @ the auction! Planning was hard and intricate and time consuming and involved SO much, but the actual event was a great time!

My first taste of ski....was chasing Jack Daniels! haha! Back story: Ski is a drink that is bottled here in this little town. Ski is a way of life around here. Dairy King opens at 7:30am so that people can stop and get Ski, even though they don't start serving food until hours later! It's a Moutain Dew-ish drink. I am not a fan of drinks like that, so I had never even tasted a Ski. I mentioned this at the auction, and when you say that...get ready! Next thing I knew they were at my table with a 'snoot shooter!' Ugh!

What a relief to have the auction OVER and we know all to well why no one else volunteered to chair the event-ha! Scott thinks it should be a paid position at the school! ha! But, it is that much work. But, the end result was great. We raised almost $60,000 for the school! :) Go, us! haha!

Life in the Utley House!

*I am going to write a boring, no picture post, just to get caught up and to publicly declare that I am going to try REALLY hard to update on a regular basis like I used to (although, I am probably just talking to myself, because I probably have ZERO followers left!-ha!).

*So, Halloween was my last post, and I apologize, some of this will be a repeat. Anyways, since then, we have celebrated 6yrs of marriage, I turned 30 (dear Lord, I can't even hardly type that without getting depressed-ha!), Abby turned 5 (again, can't even think of that without bursting into tears!), we raised almost $60,000 for the school at the auction I was the chairperson for and I am SO thankful that is OVER!!!!!!, we made a trip to Scott's parents for hunting season, an extended trip to my parents for Thanksgiving, we have decorated 3 trees (and, all 3 are still standing-anyone remember the Great Christmas Tree Crash of 2009?!-ha), we hosted a Birthday party for my big 5yr old and all of her little crazy friends, basketball season has kicked off which means I am SUPER busy since I am coaching the JV and Varsity cheerleaders at Carlyle high school and we kicked off the season last week taking the VICTORY in the Kaskasian Classic, Scott had some time off for the Holidays, I'm still coaching tumbling around 6-8hrs a week in addition to coaching the school squads, I completed my first round of choreography for a college cheerleading squad and had a great time working with the ladies and gentlemen at McKendree University, Scott got a deer while we were at his parents, Abby is keeping busy with tumbling and her busy social life :) and has recently told us she wants to start dance again, Liv LOVED story time so we are looking for something else for us to do this winter, the girls are more fun than I could ever have imagined and we have so much fun it should be illegal! Abby got her first 'report card' of the year, and just as we expected...she's brilliant! :), she is more than ready for Kindergarten, she knows how to speak Spanish better than I do and I studied it for 4yrs in school. Liv is also a little tumbling fool. She's a little natural, though, so I'm not all surprised when I find her doing something on her own after watching me at work one night. She is sassy and sweet and a little streak of naughty. Abby and Liv are night and day, and I LOVE it! :)

*We are all healthy, doing great, looking forward to Christmas and, as always, our only complaint is that we wish we lived closer to home! :( Now, here is my promise...I will be back tonight with LOADS of pics from all of the events I mentioned above. So, hopefully, we still have a few faithful followers! :)

More Halloween Fun...

As I mentioned below, we have a good time with Halloween. The girls are at such fun ages. They are so into everything that the Holidays involve. I love it.


Highland Trick or Treat trail. Abby's 3rd costume (there were 4 this year-haha).

This picture cracks us up. Scott was telling Abby and I to say cheese and look at little Liv in the background. She thought she was having her pic taken, too!

How dare we leave her out!

And, more from Halloween night.

Going through their loot. Considering that they only eat the suckers, gum and maybe Liv will try something else, the candy gathering is pretty much just for sport. We pick out what we want and the rest is trashed, but it's still fun. We showed them how we used to sort our candy when we were little. :)

And, the great Halloween Crash of 2010! haha! They were DONE!

Halloweeen Festivities

We love Halloween around here. Abby has always enjoyed Halloween and Liv is excited about anything we are excited about, so we had a big time this year.


Decorating pumpkins....

Abby's 2nd costume of the year....Snow White for her class party! :)

And, theser are out of order because I use both cameras most of the time, but here they are getting ready to leave for Trick-or-Treating. This was actually Abby's 4th costume this year and Liv's second. They were the cutest witches anyone had ever seen! :)

We all went as witches this year!

Paducah Halloweeen Party!

Aunt Elizabeth had her annual Halloween Party, so we headed down to Paducah. Abby never misses an Aunt Elizabeth party! :)

Scott with all the kids! We were all just chatting and the next thing we know we hear, "uh, can I get some help here, guys!?" haha!
Costume #1 for Abby...a beautiful flower AND Olivia, the wild cat!

And, the girls with Will! He was the cutest little pumpkin!

Nature/Deer Hunt

Scott went scouting a few weeks ago and took the girls along. I know this is going to shock you, but they didn't see any deer. I can't imagine...I am sure they were really quiet! haha! They took along their nature buckets and came back with all kinds of goodies.

LOVE this picture!

*I can see it now, they will be out in their pink camo and shoot a deer bigger than any of the boys! haha!

Story Time

I can't believe my baby is old enough for her own story time class at the library! We started a Mommy and Me session and she loves it! She calls it story time school! ha! She so badly wants to be just like her big sister! :)

So, here she is on her first day of Story Time School!

For as wild as she is, she is very reserved with people and situations that are unfamiliar. She is very much the observer.

She loves doing the arts and crafts...just like big sister! :)

It worked out that the class meets on a morning when Abby is in school, so it's just the 2 of us, which is so nice. She's growing way too fast!