The tree is up....

and I bought a few gifts for my niece.

Please Santa, bring me....

this beautiful, sleek new iMac



and this wonderful software

The kid in me

On Sunday, I met up with one of our copy editors and her daughter Rachel to attend a gingerbread house event at a local church. We perused houses made by Wichitans before making our own little houses out of graham crackers. It was quite fun. I discovered it takes patience and great care to contruct one. I imagine making one with my own child some day, God willing.

These are some of the ones on display.











Our houses

Fall

Here are some pics of my trip to the KC area last weekend.

The Flint hills on the drive up




Abby and I playing in the leaves

Hmm....surprising

I found a link on a friend's site to see what level my blog is at. I was surprised by this. I didn't think reading about a toddler and my job took so much brain power.

Get a Cash Advance

Okay, so I just typed in my old xanga blog to this thing and it says that one is at an elementary level. I think this site just randomly gives out verdicts.

Happy times

I'm in Gardner (near Kansas City) visiting my best friend. It was nice to have a girls night and see a good movie. We saw 'Bella' an independent film. It was quite a tearjerker, but also very sweet. Tomorrow I get up really early to go babysit my niece. I bought her a new coloring book and some nifty Crayola stuff, so we should have fun. She'll probably wear me out!

Annoying phone calls...holiday spirit?

I just signed up for the Kansas No Call list. I am so annoyed with not answering my land line, because I know it will be a telemarketer. I come home each night with at least four blank messages on my answering machine. How do these people get your number so quickly??!!

On another note, I just don't feel the holiday spirit this year. Usually after Halloween I start gearing up for Christmas. I start planning what I'm going to buy everyone and start looking for the perfect card I'm going to mail out. This year, I feel nothing! Yesterday, I bought some cinnamony smelling candles hoping they'd get me in a festive mood. Note to self...always buy Yankee candles over fancy Pier 1 candles. They will smell much stronger and last longer. Oh well... Silly me bought flowery scented candles from Party Lite this year. The fact that I'm running my AC in November is slightly odd too. My apartment stays so warm, even when it's 50 degrees outside. It's weird to think that I won't see as much snow this winter. I'm used to all-day flurries in South Bend. Will I miss the snow that I've complained about so much.....I think I might. Christmas in KS tends to be brown. Occasionally, we'll get snow on Christmas Eve that might last until the next morning. Guess I'll start praying for my white Christmas now....like I used to do every year as a kid.

Halloween at the Eagle

When my co-workers told me the Eagle lets employees bring in their kids for trick-or-treating I thought, oh...it will just be 10 or 15 kids. Oh my...it was WAY more than that! It was like a Halloween party last night. I saw several Spidermans, princesses and bugs but only one Hannah Montana. There was so much candy sitting around. I took some pics of the little munchkins.


My co-worker Rod's display


I know this pic is blurry, but it's a cute one of my friend Lindsey and her Lily bug.