This post is brought to you by my insomnia.  Why is that when you don’t have to work, you are up hours before you want to be?  What.The.F*ck.

I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but we’ve been spending a lot of time with family these days.  I know, we always get together.  That’s how we roll, I guess.

I took my nephews to soccer practice a few weeks ago and it was pretty cute.

Kai is in the orange and black jacket and he’s holding Kaz’s hand.  Kaz was pretty pissed after he fell down a couple of times so Kai was helping him get back in the game.  Kai’s practice was after Kaz’s so it was so cute to see him help Kaz and NOT play.  I really like that Kaz gets pissed off all the time.  One thing goes wrong and Kaz starts raging.  Kids are hilarious.

Then we had Thanksgiving!  We hosted it for the second time and I decided to get a bit crafty.  I bought some gold paint and painted these pumpkins:

It took about 40 coats to cover the orange pumpkin skin, but I love them and they are sitting on the mantel now.  And then I made a banner too!

As you can tell, Bing was thankful.  For sanitary reasons, I had to move the table after I took the picture because Bing thought it was a new bed for him.  F*cking cat.

And for Thanksgiving food I made these vegan dinner rolls from Minimalist Baker:

I also made Minimalist Baker’s vegan green bean casserole.  Both dishes were such a hit (even with the non-vegans!!) that I made them again for Friendsgiving a few days later.

I was dying to decorate for the holidays so I’m surprised I was able to wait until the day after Thanksgiving.

We recently moved our furniture around and started using the fireplace so it was fun to put our tree in a new location this year.  And after painting the walls white last spring, I really love this space!  And I think it looks great at night too.

I haven’t taken a picture of the lights George hung outside, but he did a really great job.  We are pretty festive around here this year!

And speaking of being festive, Laura and Hart hosted our annual swag and cookies get-together this year!  We used to go to my mom’s house, but since they moved to the city, Laura and Hart were forced super excited to host!

And look how excited the kids were:

From left to right, that’s Natalie, Kaz, Kai, Julia and Kennedy.  It took a few minutes, but eventually they were fighting and destroying everything playing nicely together.

I know you missed seeing George in all these pictures so here you go, Laura and George:

And some of the girls:

Ken is super thrilled to be with us.

I haven’t taken a picture of our swag, but trust me, it looks beautiful.  Oh and I have one more food creation to share!

Vegan maple pumpkin bread!  The recipe makes a lot of bread and it’s really good.  Easy recipe and festive.  Win-win.

We’re going to a Gospel Christmas show tonight and I’m really excited.  This will be our third time attending.   My brother and sister joined us last year and we have a group of 16 people going this year!

Party time.