B, Harry, and I are packing up and heading down South tomorrow for Thanksgiving. We will be here.....

......at my aunt's house with family until Saturday! Can you say fried turkey and sweet potato casserole? YUM! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Christmas Pretties

Well it's definitely starting to FEEL a lot like Christmas outside. I think winter is here to stay, and it's making me wanna decorate. I'm still going to try and hold off 'til after Thanksgiving, but here are some cute inspirations.

 Metal wreath from Kirkland's

 Outdoor stack o' gifts from Kirkland's

 Oversized wine glass from Kirkland's....are you catching the theme here? Love that store! I think this would be really cute on the bar filled with some mini ornaments.

 Found on Red Door Interiors' website, I love the idea of the wreaths in all the rustic frames.

 Sequin winter animals from West Elm, and all the proceeds from these go to St. Jude's. Win win!

Last but not least my super cute Santa nightlight from Kohl's. Thanks Mom!

Panera Preview

The new downtown Panera location is scheduled to open on Tuesday! *YAY* Definitely couldn't come at a better time since we have officially shifted into winter mode, and soup in a bread bowl always helps.

All of us at work have been eagerly watching the progress since we are right across the street, and my friend Terri and I were surprised to see people actually inside on Friday at lunchtime. There hadn't been any grand opening announcement that we had heard, so we marched right down to see what was going on, and more importantly CAN WE GET SOME MAC N CHEESE??

We arrived at the doors to see a giant "DO NOT ENTER--TRAINING IN PROGRESS" sign. Bummer. But as fate would have it, one of the managers standing near the door saw us looking and invited us right in to help them practice. Well don't mind if we do! 

We were given $15 in Panera money to spend on anything we wanted, since they were so grateful for us helping them practice. All in all a pretty sweet deal! We both got the mac n cheese (which is amazing if you have never tried it), a drink, cookie, and a couple of bagels for the weekend for breakfast. Definitely give them two thumbs up, the food was great and so was the atmosphere. Panera is definitely gonna be a hit downtown. Feelin' lucky we got a sneak peek before the mass hysteria hits on Tuesday. 

Side note: The downtown Panera is at the corner of 10th and Walnut. Read more at www.paneraiowa.com/downtown or on Twitter @paneradowntown.

 Our Panera play money. Isn't that the coolest thing ever?

 View from our booth.

The chow.

Trip to TJ's

B and I braved the opening weekend crowds and went to Trader Joe's on Sunday afternoon. I think it's safe to say that TJ's will do VERY well in Des Moines. The only bad part of our trip was the fact that they were completely out of 2 Buck Chuck ($2.99 Chuck in Iowa) until tomorrow. Oh well, guess I will just have to go back :)

 YAY.

 The craziness at the checkout. We didn't even *TRY* to navigate a cart around in this mess.

 We made it out!

 Some of the loot. And my super cute reusable TJ's bag.

I've heard nothing but rave reviews of their Orange chicken. Can't wait to try it!

Saturday Stuff

 This post brought to you with the help of Harry.

Kinda bummed out with some football results today. ISU was SOOOOOO CLOSE to beating Nebraska, and then Bama lost too. Grr. Today Mom and I went to the craft fair in Ankeny and a couple other stores......including Trader Joe's which was PSYCHO. I think B and I are going to try and make another run tomorrow and hopefully be able to walk through the aisles and buy some things. I'll let you know how that goes.

Here's some pics from today. There are a couple of our new rug to begin with; I had a few requests for some more pictures of it. I love that we were looking all around town at places like Pier 1, World Market and Homemaker's and ended up finding exactly what we wanted at Wal-Mart. For $49.99. Boom.



 I love this Paris clock at Urban Mix in Ankeny. I've been looking at all the walls tonight trying to find where to put it. B is suspicious.

Found these super cute painted glass panes at the Ankeny Craft Fair. You can't tell from this picture but the pane below it is also painted with some grapes and other fun stuff.