Giveaway!

Since I'm totally super thankful for all the love on my Facebook and Instagram about my blog, I've decided to give away (3) Thanksgiving paper garlands that I've made myself! 

I have been in the garland making mood, and I'm thinking about making them for every holiday! I absolutely love them! 

So here's how you can enter:

~Comment on this post telling me your favorite holiday and why. Also, are you a garland fan like me? 

~Comment and like my Facebook post regarding the giveaway

~Comment and like my Instagram post regarding the giveaway

And of course my family can enter as well! 

Each one you do will enter you once. So therefore you get 3 chances! 

And there will be 3 random winners! I guess I'm feeling the #3 tonight! 

I will ship you the paper garland if you win! 

The giveaway ends tomorrow (November 19th, 2013) night at 8:00 pm. 

Ready, set, go! 

Why is Black Friday so awesome?

Black Friday is my favorite day of the year! The whole weekend including Thanksgiving is my favorite actually. 

It's because for as long as I can remember, it's been our "family day."

It's full of soo much fun Christmas activities that include our family! I love every second of it! 

Black Friday usually starts for us at about 5am when the deals start! (Even though this year it starts much, much earlier. I'll talk about that in a bit....) 

We get up and most often just stay in our pjs or comfy clothes and head into town. We will grab a yummy holiday drink from Starbucks on the way. Normally it's just Eric and I on a mission to get what we have already decided what we are buying from the ads, but this year we will have a probably still sleeping little Harpie in her car seat coming along too! 

We don't normally go all crazy buying a bunch of stuff. Just a few things we cannot pass up because of the crazy low price tag! 

Except for 2 years ago. 

2 years ago Eric got a little out of hand. We had just moved into our home 3 months earlier and we were waiting to buy certain things that would be cheaper. I don't even remember all of the stuff we got, but I do know we had to call Eric's aunt and uncle (the most awesome people on the face of this earth) :-) to follow us around and haul our stuff home cause we didn't have a truck then. It was overkill. But we got some great deals! 

I don't know what we will get this year, maybe nothing at all, but we always go. 

We usually get breakfast somewhere after we go shopping before we head home. 

When we get home, we unload all of our goodies and more often then not, take a nap. Hey, it's hard work doing all of that eating and shopping! 

When we get up, it's Christmas tree time! What I've been waiting for all year! Since the very second we took it down the previous year! I love it! We play Christmas music and put it up! I can't wait to see what little missy thinks of it! 

We might make a leftover turkey sandwich to share..... Maybe we will be too stuffed though! 

Later in the day we will head downtown for tons of more fun! Every year there is a craft fair and Christmas parade the day after Thanksgiving in our town. We walk around and sip hot cocoa, and maybe a beer or two! Love it! So festive! 

After the parade is over we come home, throw on our comfys and put on a Christmas movie. Christmas vacation of course! The greatest Christmas movie of all time. I know every word. I could watch it 50 times this season and not get sick of it. And I just might! 

I just love Black Friday! It is the best tradition of holiday festiveness ever! I cannot wait for it! My sister will be home to tag along also! Double score! 

That weekend we hang our Christmas lights! Also listening to Christmas music! Usually we just do a few strands of the big lights, (because that's what my grandma and grandpa used to do) but this year, I'm feeling like goin' all Clark Griswald on the neighborhood! So we will see what I can get away with! 

We will watch more holiday movies we love including... Elf, The Grinch, A Christmas Story, Four Chritmases, and Christmas Vacation eight more times! 

Ok..... Here's my rant about Black Friday. The only thing I hate. But I will not take part, so it won't ruin my day. 

What the hell is up with "Black Thursday" now??? It seriously pisses me off that most stores are opening at 6 or 8 pm on Thursday! Retailers are just being greedy and it's all a big competition who will open first. 

What happened to Thanksgiving dinner? Now you have to eat earlier and cut your time with family short in order to get to the store to save a few bucks? Don't get me wrong, I love shopping the next day. But I absolutely refuse to take part in the Thanksgiving night crap. 

I believe in family time. And going out to shop that night is totally eliminating that. So I think everyone should boycott stores on Thursday and head out on Friday morning with me! Trust me, you're not gonna miss anything. 

My mom and Eric's mom both work in retail. So they will be at work at 5pm and 7pm on Thanksgiving. 

I'm hoping that next year they choose to open on Friday morning again like old times. And let their employees have Thanksgiving with their families. 

Comment and let me know what you think of Black Thursday or Friday! Tell me what it means to you! 

And thanks to everyone who takes the time out of their day to read my blogs! It means so much to me! Love you guys! 

Enjoying Our Family

We've been surrounded with family lately. And we love it! 

Eric's mom Lori and her boyfriend Dave came to our house for a visit last week and they headed home on Sunday. They live about 7 hours away so we always love when they can come see us!

We had a lot of fun with them, as always! We went to lunch and did some shopping and just had dinner at home every night. Then on Saturday, we went to a local tasting room that brews their own hard apple cider. The place was beautiful and the cider was delicious! We got to tour the place and learned how they make it. That night we decided to have a mini Thanksgiving since they wouldn't be here for the real one! My sister came home this weekend too so her and my mom came too! We had some other family there as well!

Eric always deep fry's our turkey. It's soo delicious! It's not oily at all. If you haven't tried one, you should! But don't just go trying to fry a turkey if you don't know what you're doing. Cause people blow up their houses and what not! So let someone who has done it before, do it! 

We went to breakfast on Sunday and they were off. The worst part of them coming. They actually have to leave. It's terrible. I hate it. We hope to see them around Christmas time so we are looking forward to that! 

On a different note, as I write this, Harper is doing her high pitched squeal that we have labeled her "elk calls". It's soo cute. She makes all sorts of crazy noises lately. But we don't mind! 

Eric had Monday off for Veterans Day so we took a drive. And stopped and had some lunch. It was a beautiful day! 

We don't really have too much going on this week, just trying to clean up our house because we will be having Thanksgiving here. 

I hope everyone is having a great week so far! 

One of my favorite pictures of Harper ever! She's getting so big! I can't believe it! 

What's goin on!

So what's goin on over here in the Everhart house? 

We took our Halloween decorations down the day after Halloween and now we are thinking about Thanksgiving! It is my favorite holiday of the year. 

I like Christmas too, but it just seems like it's over so fast! Know what I'm sayin? Thanksgiving is so fun with all of the food and family and being thankful stuff, and the next day is the best day of the year for me! I'll post all about Black Friday when it gets closer! But it's full of fun Christmas things! Well then you have all month of December to prepare and look at lights and put up your own lights and get gifts and just enjoy the Christmas spirit. Then..... BAM!!! Christmas is here and gone.

It only lasts a few short hours and you spent so much time preparing for it!

That's what it seems like to me anyways! But don't get me wrong! It's my favorite time of year! October-December! 

And I cannot wait for this year! Harpers first Christmas! I'm so excited about it already! I'm sure she will give me some Christmas hope! 

I think that Christmas is just a lot more fun when there's kids involved! When you get older Christmas just isn't the same, but now we get to start over with Harper! 

Yeeeeee!! 

Ok got a little scatterbrained! So I hope you understand what I meant by all of that. Holidays really are my favorite though! 

Anyways, Eric's mom is coming this week! (Insert tons of fun, here)!!!! I can't wait for her to get here and see how much Harper has grown since she was here last! I'll post about all of the fun stuff we do later! 

I hope everyone is as excited about the holidays as we are! No seriously, I really am! 

Happy November! 

Halloween 2013

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, by any means. I don't like scary stuff or bring scared or watching scary movies. I hate spiders. I don't get zombies. I don't really like blood. It's just kinda creepy to me. Sorry if that all was just the same thing over and over, but basically I'm just not into all that.

I am, however, into the fun part of Halloween. Like dressing my little cutie up. And all of the non-scary costumes. And getting candy. And seeing family! 

Last Halloween was one to remember because we found out that we were going to have Harper! I was surprised out of my mind! Even though it's definately what we wanted, and planned, it's still a shock when it actually happens. It was so exciting! 

So this year, our first Halloween as a family of three was pretty non eventful, but it was perfect for me! 

Me and Harper just stuck around the house until Eric got off work, when we planned on going out. 

We made a batch of pumpkin spice scones to take with us to give to our family. 

And we dressed up little miss Harper into a leopard "costume" which was really black tights with a leopard onesie and headband that one of her grandmas made her.

So. Much. Cuteness.

I loved it! I thought she looked soo cute! And definately not scary. I was thinking about drawing whiskers on her face and a little leopard nose, but then I realized that Harper doesn't sit still and moves way to much. So even if I did get them where I wanted them, she would no doubt rub and smear them everywhere and then I would have a mess to clean up.... So anyways, we went just like this. 

We went and visited my mom and grandpa, our aunt and uncle and cousins, then tried to visit with Eric's papa but he wasn't home. The man is 78 years old and was out doing something on Halloween night! At least he was having fun I guess! Then we stopped at Eric's dad's aunts house. So Eric's great aunt and Harpers great-great aunt. Get the picture? .......ok. 

I'm sure you don't care about the details. Basically we went and showed off our little leopard to family because she's too young to trick or treat. And she slept most of the time anyways. And she doesn't walk or eat candy so that would have been a little ridiculous. It was kind of a long night and didn't get home til late. 

I'm glad that Halloween is over because my 2 favorite holidays are coming up! I cannot wait for them this year! And I'm so excited to share them with Harps! 

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!

Happy Friday! Woo hoo for the weekend!