A Not Many Plans Weekend!

This weekend has been great. I started off on Friday night by helping out with a little "Sprinkle" for my friend Chaley that is having a baby in January. She didn't want anything big since this is her 3rd child but her two kids are older so she has no baby stuff. We had it at her sisters house and had good food, good conversation with all of her closest friends. She got a lot of nice things such as hangers, bath stuff, diapers, wipes, wash cloths, blankets, some outfits, etc. Holden Hamilton Hausle will be making his appearance in January and I can't wait to meet him! Chaley's son Brody is my Godchild and was in our wedding.
Jeremy went to the last GCMS Friday night football game. They won and will be in the IHSA playoffs. They are a good team this year. At least we can say that about GCMS since our Illini are terrible this year. Can't wait for basketball now....it should be better!
Yesterday Jeremy and I and the dogs got pictures taken at our new house by the local photographer in town. I can't wait to see them! We should see them this week. We didn't really have any other plans so we ended up going to dinner and going to check on our Urbana house, stopped at Target and Farm n Fleet to get our dogs some bones and Halloween candy.
Today we are being lazy. We have made some veggie soup which is smelling pretty good. I made some little sandwiches for Chaley's Sprinkle and I had an extra package left so we will heat them up and have with our soup.

The sandwiches consist of this..
1 package of Hawaiian Rolls
Lunch meat (I used Ham & Turkey)
Sliced cheese (I used Swiss & Cheddar)
Mustard
Minced onion
butter
poppyseed
Slice the whole package of rolls across so the whole group of rolls are still together and you can spread the mustard and butter mixture easily (you will cut them into individual sandwiches when they are done cooking)
Spread mustard on the bottom
Mix 1 stick of butter, minced onion and poppyseed and spread that mixture on top half of rolls
Spread lunch meat and cheese in the middle...wrap in foil. I baked for approximately 30 min at 350. Although Friday night I had to bake them a little more. When they are done, cut individual mini sandwiches. They are really good.
Tonight I look forward to watching Extreme Home Makeover. Extreme Home Makeover came to Central Illinois and built a house for a girl I graduated High School with. The showing is tonight. It was a huge deal around here when they were here. Their house is in Philo, IL. which is about 10 minutes South of Urbana. The family is very deserving. Her husband runs Salt & Light Ministry in Champaign, IL. It is a place where needy people can go get food, clothes, etc. I am looking forward to seeing the new house that Jenny and her family have received. They were flown to Disney for the week their house was being built. The builders of their house own the subdivision that Jeremy and I live in and they have built several houses in our subdivision. Although they did not build our house.
This week, on Friday, my work is having Trick or Treaters....for the people that have children in our office, they are allowed to bring them in from 4-5 on Friday to Trick or Treat. I always look forward to seeing everyone's kids. Our Trick or Treat hours in Gibson City are from 5-9! Holy cow! That is a long time. We spent about $50 on candy and I hope we have enough!
Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday...."Hey, where did my socks go?!!"

A Great Fall Weekend!

This weekend was a great weekend. We started out on Friday by going to visit our friends Chris and Kelly Welch and their 4 kids. They live in Lake Geneva, WI. and were staying at a hotel in Bloomington. Bloomington is just 30 minutes from us. We were so excited to see them. We have not seen them since January when we went to the Dominican Republic....the kids did not go so I can't even tell you the last time we saw the kids. And we had never met the new baby Aubrie yet.
Saturday night a couple we have only met once had a big party/bonfire at their house and they invited us over which was really nice of them. We had a great time, watched football in their garage. They had a big blow up fun house for all the kids. There were a ton of kids there, Jeremy said job security for him:) Too funny! But The Fanson's house is awesome! They have a really big house with an inground pool in the back yard. Their shower in their master bath is a walk in shower with no door, it is so huge you don't have to worry about water coming out...and they each have their own luxury shower head! Soooo nice! I could go on and on about their house.
I made the best Caramel Apple Dip for the party. The recipe is as follows:
Caramel Apple Dip
1 package of cream cheese softened
1 c. brown sugar
1 container caramel apple dip
1 package of Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee crumbles
Mix the cream cheese and brown sugar. I spread in a round pie plate/pan
Top with the caramel apple dip and then top with the Heath crumbles.
Serve with cut up apples.
This recipe is to die for and I had so many people ask me for the recipe last night!
Today, I got the house all cleaned and have just been relaxing with my doggies. Jeremy is gone to a conference for a few days so we are home alone. I ran to Champaign today to do a few errands and that is about it. Looking forward to Jeremy coming back! The house is quiet, except for my squeeky dog that thinks she needs to whine at everything:)

Me holding baby Aubrie Welch


The Welch kids are sooo darn cute! Ashlyn, Alec, and Addie

Of course I had to put in a few pictures of my pitiful dogs. In case you were wondering, this is Dee's World and we are all living in it. She is 12 years old and thinks she runs the house!

And my sweet little baby girl! She was snuggling with her Daddy watching football Saturday!
Hope everyone has a great week!

I Love Punkins!

Monday, I took off work and my Mom, Erin, Erin's Mom and myself all went to The Covered Bridge Festival in Indiana. We went to Bridgeton and Mansfield. We always have a good time, get cute decor for our houses and eat a bunch of junk food. Below are some pictures from our fun day! The weather ended up being great that day.

Erin by all the food!


Erin took a pic of me. You sure can tell she is a lot taller than me:)
Often times when Erin and I are together we act as if we are 15 and not 32. We laugh so hard and just act silly. Erin is the Mom of two precious little boys so when she gets away, she likes to let loose. So we had our Mom's take some fun pics of us!

Right by our parking spot. Our Moms were afraid we would fall in the water.

My "senior" pic

Erin's "senior" pic

Where's Erin & Kim...too bad we didn't borrow our husband's camoflauge!! Hey but we did get them both a little something to take hunting with them. We got them a sling to carry their bow/gun with.

Erin's slab of cookie! The cookie was soooo good and soooo huge. I really think they baked it in an 8x8 dish.

I took a picture of my Pumpkin, only because Erin drives a Honda Pilot and between the 4 of us, there was no more room in the back for my Pumpkin. My green gourd sat in the backseat between my Mom and Linda.

This is Mike & Erin's poodle Dexter. Erin found him this rain coat at Covered Bridge. Since we have had so much rain lately and he has a lot of hair, she thought this was perfect.

For some reason this Fall, I looooove pumpkins. I always like pumpkins but I can't get enough this year. Below is a few pics of our fall decor.

My wreath stand with fall wreath and argyle pumpkins from Gordmans!

I think this little jack-o-lantern is cute so I hung him from our TV stand.

I got this wrought iron pumpkin at a garage sale for $1. I had seen these in the past at Covered Bridge for about $30. While Jeremy's Mom and I had our garage sale in Pekin, I went to Sue's (Jeremy's Mom's neighbor and family friend) and got this pumpkin. I want to get some sort of fall vine or wreath to put in with it and dress it up.

I bought this little door hanger at Covered Bridge a couple of years ago...as well as the ghost below.

I got a few cute table runners at Gordman's this year. I really love Gordman's for home decor right now. It is fashionable and cheap!

We are visiting with some friends tomorrow night we have not seen in quite some time and I made some Halloween treat bags for their kids.

I got this guy at Covered Bridge last year. I did not buy any pumpkin stuff this year since I figured I have enough:)

Tomorrow is boss's day so my co-workers and I are taking our boss to Hooters for lunch. We are looking forward to a fun lunch! Tomorrow night we look forward to hanging out with our friends Chris and Kelly and their 4 kids. Saturday we are going to a fall party/bonfire here in Gibson City. A couple we have only met a time or two invited us to their party which I thought was very nice! We are also looking forward to hanging out and relaxing the rest of the weekend.

A Lazy Sunday!

Today I have nothing planned and it feels great! I am also not working tomorrow as I am going to the Covered Bridge Festival in Indiana with my Mom, Erin and her Mom. We were supposed to go Friday but since it was a torential downpour, we decided to wait and go when it is bright and sunny.
This weekend my in-laws stayed the night with us Friday night. Jeremy and his Dad walked up to the GCMS football game. It was homecoming and GCMS won pretty easily. Jan and I stayed in since it was so cold and wet out. I baked some cinnamon bread and scones for our breakfast the next morning. Lucie and Dee were so happy to see their Grandma and Grandpa.
John and Jan have season tickets to Illinois games as well so we went to the game yesterday. Sad game but still fun to go and hang out with friends.
Last night we had a wedding reception to attend. The wedding and reception was for Jackie Williams and Paul Douglas. Jackie's Dad Preston is the Superintendent of Urbana schools where Jeremy worked for 11 years. Jeremy taught Jackie's brother Preston Jr. who plays football for Northern IL. Jeremy also hired Paul to be the 8th Grade Basketball coach at Urbana Middle School last year. We were excited to be invited to their wedding. We witnessed their engagement this past spring. Paul totally surprised Jackie and proposes to her at the end of the season basketball banquet. He did it in front of all the kids and their parents, Jackie's parents, friends and family. So fun! So since he proposes in front of all the kids, he invited them all to their wedding as well. I am sure it made the kids feel speical to be invited to their coach's wedding! How fun!
On the way home from the reception, Jeremy and I decided to crash the GCMS homecoming dance! We stopped in for a moment to listen to "There's a Party in the USA!" and "Boom Boom Pow!"


Me & Jerm at the reception at I-hotel.


Paul & Jackie with the basketball players. Too cute! The picture is blurry darn!



Their monogram on the wall was really cool!

On a sad note, Jeremy and I got an offer on our house this weekend! I know you are thinking sad, why sad? Well because the people that put in the offer were basically trying to steal it from us. It was a very low ball offer just to see what kind of response we would give. The offer was very insulting to us and Jeremy made it a point to tell our realtor that. It is not our realtor's fault by any means he is just presenting to us what he is asked. I feel really bad for our realtor as he has shown the guy about 20 houses and now he will probably rent since we did not take his low ball offer! Waste of everyone's time.
So we are ready for something good to happen around the Darnell household. We have been waiting for our house to sell and waiting for a child for sometime now and it is about time something good takes place. The good thing that has happened to us is that we moved to a nice community and have a beautiful house that we both love to death!
So today consists of being lazy, possibly making some chili or soup and snuggling with my doggies. Jeremy just went to mow at our house in Urbana and took the dogs out to a ditch where Lucie pointed a pheasant. He called me and said she was soooo excited and pointed it within the first 5 minutes! She's a princess!
Have a great weekend and stay tuned for pics from Covered Bridge.

Fighting Illini Football

Kelly's Korner blog is having a Show Us Your Life Friday and this week's theme is favorite teams/tailgates. Just a fun way to see all the different traditions.



A couple of years ago Jeremy and I got season tickets with a group of friends and we have a blast so we have been getting them every year since. We tailgate (although I don't have any pics on my laptop of tailgating). Usually our tailgates consist of frying turkeys, chicken wings, fish, or grilling brats or hot dogs, we always have a ton of other food as well and of course lots of drinks. We sit around and talk and play bag toss or hillbilly golf. We also walk from tailgate to tailgate to see others we know that are tailgating. The UofI tailgates are spread out covering a lot of ground so it is hard to make it to all the tailgates you want to go to. The lot we tailgate in has many tailgates of people we know. Often times, people will hire a band or dj to come out to their tailgate, a lot of flat screen tv's hooked up, and I have even known of people to have their wedding reception at a tailgate (they had rented a tent, had white tables & chairs and all the guests got matching orange tshirts that they got to wear!



Although our team is not very good this year, it is still fun to go and enjoy the atmosphere, support the Illini in hopes that they will make a Rose Bowl appearance again in the near future. These are some pics I took at the game yesterday...yes we got our butts kicked, but still fun to go and enjoy the sea of orange and blue!





Jeremy and I at the game. Our seats are in the Horseshoe of Memorial Stadium!



Yesterday was homecoming and had I thought about it, I would have had my camera ready, they had a fly over of two jets (alumni of the university) right after the National Anthem. Always cool when we have a fly over!








The big orange section at the very end is part of the student section, it spills over to the right.








The East side of Memorial Stadium!








The new West Side of Memorial Stadium. They added luxury boxes and revamped that side, which just got completed this year. The rent out the luxury boxes for wedding receptions now which is totally cool. Obviously not during a home football game but when a game is not happening or away you can rent them out for quite a pretty penny.








The Marching Illini. The alumni band was marching as well since it was homecoming!





The mascot is and will always be Chief Illiniwek! Although many still think of Chief as our mascot, The Chief was boycotted from performing at any function and merchandisers can no longer print Chief apparell. Some people of Indian heritage thought The Chief was offensive. I think of The Chief as a tradition to Illinois! The Chief would come out at halftime and dance! Such a fun experience! Boy how a lot of people miss Chief Illiniwek and hope that the Chief will make his appearance back again!

Go Fighting Illini!

Looking Forward to the Weekend!

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday. I am looking forward to the weekend. I had originally had tomorrow off of work to attend the Covered Bridge Festival in Indiana with my Mom, Erin and Erin's Mom, however there is a 90% chance of rain. So we all rescheduled our day off for Monday when it should be nice and sunny! So at least I will have Monday off.
This week is homecoming week at GCMS so we will be attending the homecoming game tomorrow night. Jeremy's parents will be coming to town to go to the Illinois/Michigan State game on Saturday which is also homecoming. We have a wedding to attend on Saturday as well but since we have season tickets (let's hope for a win or we may be giving away our season tickets) we will probably just make it to the reception. Sunday, we do not have anything planned which I am very happy about.
So, the week of homecoming in Gibson City, the kids go around and TP coaches, principals, etc's houses. It is all fun and games and no one gets upset about it because they actually ask permission. So tonight we stopped at our neighbors house which happens to be the high school football coach and we are sitting there and they got his house right when we were there! It was hysterical. And mind you, the weather has been crappy all day, raining all day long....so needless to say the toilet paper is going to be a mess to clean up. One minute we look out and there is no one there and then the next minute we look out and the whole yard is covered in TP...they work fast! We all ran outside and ran them off and Jeremy and Mike stopped them in the middle of the street to give them a hard time....it was too fun! If it was not dark and rainy, I would have totally got a picture! The good thing is most of the high school kids do not know us or know where we live so we should...I say should....be ok. However, when they left Mike and Jenny's house they went down and turned around in our driveway since we live on a dead-end. Had they known who's driveway they were really in, our house probably would have got it too. We don't have any trees though so they would have to do the fence, front porch, etc.
Have a great weekend! I am sure I will have some pics to post from our weekend!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday was my Mom's birthday! I want to take a moment to wish her a Happy Birthday. I was not able to get on the blog yesterday to post about her birthday. We celebrated her birthday on Sunday. We went to Jim Gould's for brunch. It is my absolute favorite brunch place and my Mom, Grandma and my Mom's two sisters had never been there so we went! Everyone loved it. It is a little pricey but sooooo worth it. After brunch my Mom and I went to Tarjay (Target) and the Mall for most of the day. It was a fun time. I got my Mom a set of colored mixing bowls she liked for her birthday. As most everyone is aware, I am the only child (well for the most part....see below) so my Mom and I have a special relationship. I loooooove hanging out with my Mom. We love to go shopping together and have lunch and just do whatever. I am looking forward to having a child so my Mom can be a Grandma for the first time! That will be even more fun. If you ever hear me refer to Effie! that is my Mom! She has had that nickname for years from family and friends and I call her that all the time! Does not mean I love her less cause I don't call her Mom 24/7, just kind of fun. And she sometimes calls me Joe so we have our own callings for each other:) We also share the exact same little pugged nose! Ha! It is kinda funny! Effie cracks me up, you never know what she might do. Anyway, Effie, I hope you had a Happy Birthday. I love you very very much! Dee and Lucie want to tell their Grandma Happy Birthday too! They love their Grandma and going to Grandma's house. And I also share my Mom with the little brat below! That is Chloe my spoiled rotten little sister! She loves coming to her sissy's house and playing with Dee and Lucie. Although she doesn't so much love it when Dee and Lucie come to her house and invade her space and play with her bazillion toys!