50% off at Payless or Stephanie Doesn't Have Will Power

So I have no self control.

Seriously.

But I can't pass up a good deal!

When I heard about the 50% off all shoes at Payless yesterday I didn't believe it. But when I realized it was true, I had to rearrange my plans today to be able to go! See...I have this problem with shoes. I love other people's cute shoes all of the time. But I am cheap. And I won't buy shoes that aren't practical. Also, I have picky feet and I can't really wear heels without wanting to die. So I have one pair of black flats and one pair of brown flats and I wear them. Every. Single Day. And I go through about a pair a year because I wear them. Every. Single. Day.

But at Payless today I hit the picky feet/cheap shoe buyer/jealous cute shoe jackpot!

It was a complete mad house in the store and a lot of things were picked over. But apparently 7.5 is a good shoe size, because there were lots of options left!

I ended up purchasing 11 pairs of shoes for $110! Now...$110 is a lot. But they are shoes I will wear to work every day! And in that I got 2 pairs of boots (which are flats) that I have desperately wanted (Now I just need some skinny jeans and maybe a skirt with leggings or thick tights...or both...oh no...more money!).

I also got a Christmas present for someone, a pair of shoes for Adam and some little sock things. The total damage was $145.

I actually feel pretty good about this. I don't feel guilty because I know they will be put to good use and I NEVER buy myself shoes. Really. Well...I keep convincing myself that I don't feel guilty. Mom said I don't need to! Adam about passed out. But he liked the shoes I got him!

Onto the shoes....

All 11 of my pairs!

My crazy empty boxes and bags.

Did anyone else go to Payless today and splurge???

Visit to a Haunted House!

Randomly last week Adam said, "I want to go to a Haunted House". He says he has never been to one before and I haven't been in a LOOONG time. In fact, I can't remember when I last went. I don't remember if it was high school or college. In college, we went to the Haunted Corn Maze in the area...so fun AND frightening!

Just about the same day, Adam's bro Austin and his girlfriend brought up the idea of going to a haunted house....so I agreed. I was a bit leery because I get REALLY scared. But I thought it would be something fun to do!

The outside of the place.

Austin and Heidi getting ready to go in.

Adam and me getting ready to go in....I had already screamed once!

Our visitor name badges for the "Psych Ward" inside.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. I screamed way more than anyone else. I just do that. I was terrified inside...but by the time we got home, I was OK and slept perfectly well. The only part I didn't like was when one of the creepy people got in my face and wouldn't let me pass. Austin, Heidi and Adam had gone around a corner and the guy wouldn't let me go. It was getting a little creepy. He just kept getting in my face and wouldn't let me pass. Adam was no help...he was just laughing. FINALLY....he let me pass and I was able to move on to more scariness.

Babies at the Pumpkins Patch

Last weekend the girls from work and their babies came to visit the pumpkin patch for a photoshoot. Erin took the pictures with her fancy camera and they turned out awesome. Here are the ones I took on my not-as-fancy camera! Still cute babies!

Jen's Baby bug Ella...what a cute little Ella Bug!

All 4 babies in the wagon attached to the John Deere. SO CUTE!

The boys...
As you can see Mitchell is not very happy with the idea!

Spencer was totally content to go along with the photo shoot!

The orange pumpkins you see in the pictures are the ONLY orange pumpkins we ended up with. Most are huge and beautiful and....green. And people don't want green pumpkins.

Froggy Baby Shower

***Warning, this post contains about 2 million baby shower pictures***

Last weekend, we had a baby shower for my friend Katie who is due right before Thanksgiving. Katie is one of my college roommates and Kristin and I were so excited to work with a couple of other girls to plan this shower. They are not finding out the sex of the baby, but the nursery theme is frogs.....Kristin and I LOVE a good theme, so we went with that as the theme for the shower.

The invitations I made (obviously with personal information covered up) with Mom's help of course!

The girls!

Kristin, me, Katie (the soon-to-be Mama), Amanda and Katie's friend Michelle

The diaper cake we made for Katie! It was so much fun to do and it turned out so cute! Kristin, Amanda, and I did it one night the week before. It is made with all diapers, a blanket in the middle, and pacifiers, onesies and toys as accessories.

The favors
Kristin found chocolate frogs (frog shaped chocolate) at the local Confectionery

The tags I made on the frogs.

The baskets Kristin put together as decorations. Each one had a theme and they were all baby items for Katie. She even included the cute sock roses!

Dessert table

Mommy and Baby Frog cupcakes!
They ARE adorable...if I do say so myself!

The green food (including cucumber sandwiches with gummy frogs on top)

All the presents...in the fun frog pool!

Miss Layla giving me her "cheese!" smile!

We had everyone decorate a onesie for the new baby!

We also had a bottle drinking contest. Everyone had to drink 2 oz of orange juice through a baby bottle. It was super hard!

Check out the fun!

Kristin with all of the empty bottles.

Katie opened all of the presents....this it the cute frog humidifier from me!

And lastly, Katie checking out her diaper cake.

I had so much fun planning this shower with the other girls. I love to plan showers for my friends. I seriously enjoy thinking up cute little ideas to make people smile. People always think I must have my own wedding planned already because I am so organized about other people's showers....but not so much! We are coming along with the plans....but not as quickly as when I plan a shower!

Just a little too tan!

So Erin tagged me for this photo-meme and since I LOVE photographs...I was SO excited! I had to open my first photo folder, upload the 10th photograph and post the story behind it.

Here is my photo:

This photo was taken in the dorms my freshman year in college. It is me (in the middle) with two of my future roommates (for the following year after we moved out of the dorms). Kristin is on the left and Karyn is on the right. We were getting ready to go roller blading..but what I notice the most is our crazy tanness. At that point we were all three a bit obsessed with tanning. It was nice to have friends to go with, but now we can admit we were just a little too orange! But boy....do our legs look good!

I tag the following girls to play along...come on...it is fun!
Kristin

Jen

Jackie

Kate

Sister-Erin

Amy

Target find!

The other day after work friend-Erin and I were chatting (like we do quite often) and I mentioned that I wanted a new lightweight jacket. I had tried to find one last spring, however, there were only bathing suits available! Later on, I was at Target because....well....I am ALWAYS at Target and I found this on the clearance racks...for $20!

I have never in my life owned a red jacket. Really, I have never owned any brightly colored jacket. But I just loved it when I saw it!

But then I started having second thoughts. What do you think???

This was my other Target find. A long heavy grey sweater. I think it will be perfect for the cold days at school so I have something other than my ducklings sweatshirt to wear over my clothing!

Please excuse the pile of shoes in the background. I would NEVER leave piles and piles of shows by the front door.

Never.

The Story of Some Carrots

Last weekend when we harvested pumpkins and washed the gourds, we also dug up the last carrots. "We" being me and Adam's niece Zondra.

I am not a good carrot farmer. I do not have the patience required to dig up carrots. Carrots are rooted so deep and you have to be very patient and dig all around the carrot before you try to pull or it will break off.

And break off it usually what happens to me!

However, with Zondra's help, I was much more patient and we dug up some beautiful carrots!

One wasn't so beautiful....it must have hit a rock, so it split and had 2 legs. It was....interesting!

That night I made cooked carrots that we super yummy! Adam loved them! I just microwaved them in some brown sugar and a little water and then added a little more brown sugar at the end. Yum!

Here are some of the HUGE carrots we harvested.

We were laughing about this carrot because we decided it looks like a naked girl. Seriously.

It even has buttocks!

Here are the yummy cooked carrots!

Swarf Swap

I am super excited about this!

A couple weeks ago I decided to participate in the Scarf Swap that Love of Life was hosting. I LOVE scarves and thought this would be an exciting activity to join.

I got matched up with Jackie from The Roaring Twenties who is so cute and I love her blog! I also love that these are two new blogs that I am excited to follow. Jackie gave me so much good information to help me pick out the perfect scarf. I had so much fun shopping to find one that would fit her perfectly. I hope it did! You should definitely head to her blog and check it out....so cute!

Then I had the fun of receiving a package in the mail! I love packages in the mail!

When this cute package came in the mail I was so excited!

I put on my adorable new PINK scarf (I LOVE pink!) and took some dorky lovely pictures for you to see my new scarf!

(Yes, I am in my bathroom...and Yes, it took 300 pictures to get these 3).

Happy Scarf Day!

THANK YOU Jackie for the adorable scarf!

A Blog Party!

On Friday after work, a couple of the girls from work came over for us to have a Blog Party! Even little Ella, Jen's daughter, joined the fun!

Erin and I helped Jen and Katie make blogs (both personal blogs and classroom blogs!).

We also had a lot of fun eating snack and just chatting!

Pretty Ella! She was so good!

Me be a baby hog? NEVER!

The girls all working on their laptops. Thank goodness for WiFi!

Katie also gave us a hair lesson. She comes to work ALL the time with cute hair and I want cute hair. So she tried to help us with some cute hair ideas. We shall see if any of it works! Even if it doesn't...it is always fun to have someone play with your hair!

Katie and Jen leaving (Katie is Jen's classroom assistant)....

Notice that Katie is carrying ALL of the stuff (diaper bag, tummy time mat, Jen's bag, AND the baby!). Jen has the extra puppy chow.

Assistant ASSIST!

Just kidding....Katie was just trying to help Jen, but then we were laughing because when she picked up Ella, it looked like she was Jen's personal assistant. Not a bad idea...

CPR Class

On Saturday I taught a CPR class for Adam's brother, his girlfriend, and Adam. We did a class last year with more of the family, but these were the only ones who could do it this year. We did adult, child, and infant CPR and adult and child AED. It is supposed to be a 7.5 hour class but it ended up going on forever because we had to take a break to go pick pumpkins and save them from the frost (pictures later). We didn't end up finishing the whole class until 10:00 (9 hours!).

Longest. Day. Ever.

For the infant portion of the class, we used baby dolls to save on money (since they have done it on the manikins before). I raided Mom and Dad's house and ended up with two of sister-Erin's baby dolls. I was laughing so hard wondering what Erin would think about it!

We really had a laugh when the doll Heidi was working on (Ashley) started passing gas! She is one of those dolls that ate and then....it came out of the diaper. So when Heidi blew into her mouth....it came out the....diaper area! We couldn't stop laughing. Austin's doll is a doll that makes a noise that is supposed to be crying by sounds like a dying cat. So every time he flipped her back and forth when we did a choking conscious infant...she sounded like a dying cat!

It was hilarious! Thank you Erin for the use of your dolls!

P.S. Everyone passed!

(Sorry about the quality of the pictures. I left my camera at Mom and Dad's, but Heidi let me use her iPhone.)