I may have gotten carried away...

...with grocery shopping.

But the pre-Thanksgiving sales were just too good to pass up.
All of the groceries above were a great price, and I stayed under my grocery budget for the month with enough money left for Mon Amour and I to have a little budget-date-night!

The real question was, would the 8lb bag of fries, 24lb turkey, frozen vegetables etc, fit into my freezer...

It took some shuffling, but I got it all in!

Sunny and 60 November

Recently we had the pleasure of enjoying a 60 degree November Saturday. We seized the moment to take a little family day trip to this cute little city:

Papillon took in the sights from the sling.

This city has a lovely little water walk way.

With an informative sign on the side of the walk way. Apparently there is a step there, under the water.

Eventually Papillon succumbed to the sleepiness

But at the end of the trip she was up again for a little fall photo shoot. I pretty much loved every picture we took during this photo shoot, but I shall exercise restraint and only show you a few.

We tried to get some cute, propped up against the tree shots, but Papillon would have none of it.

This was her opinion on that matter:

I love these faces

This is what we like to call "Classic Papillon"

This one cracks me up.

Sweetness with the finger in the mouth

Classic

Our Trip Out West: The End

I could say a whole lot more about our trip out west. There were birthdays celebrated, church attended, pizza eaten and chai consumed, but I think its time to move on.

I will conclude with this:

A beautiful rainbow that we saw one evening.
What a fabulous location for that house!

The whole sky that evening was gorgeous.

It was also cold. Papillon tried to take it all in, but mostly I think she was cold.

All around a lovely, lovely trip.

Our Trip Out West: The Best Chair Ever

During our trip, Papillon discovered a love of antique furniture.

Particularly this chair:

It was pretty much the perfect chair for her. She could sit in it pretty snuggly, and where it was situated was a perfect vantage point for watching the goings ons.
She loved it.

Our Trip Out West: Photo Ops

On our last full day out west, we went to explore a (relatively) nearby city.
It was a lovely place and lended itself to many in interesting photo op.


Windy....

Falling Over...

A family of bears...

It was quite cold that day, so Papillon stayed snuggled in her stroller for most of the photo ops. But we did check out one consignment store and found this excellent reindeer hat.

But no, we did not buy it.

Our Trip Out West: Fun Family

The primary reason for our visit out west was to hang out with these fun people:

My brother and sister-in-law. It seems we forgot to tell them which camera to look at first. Oops.

Papillon thoroughly enjoyed her Aunt and Uncle.

They are clearly tons of fun to play with.

Papillon tried, but could not rival their enthusiasm.

She got lots of loving during our visit.

Our Trip Out West: Not Actually Cousins

On our trip out west, Papillon and I had the pleasure of meeting this sweet baby:

She is my sister-in-law (pictured)'s brother's daughter. Which means that technically she and Papillon are not related at all....but that is ok, cause unofficially, they are cousins; and we like it that way.

A photo op with the "cousins". (And us sisters in law, of course)

Cousin love.

They held hands, which was possibly the sweetest thing in the world. Papillon wasn't sure how she felt about someone grabbing her fingers, but it was cute nonetheless.

After a little lunch at a cute sandwich shop, we all set out to do some shopping at this tiny little town.
Here is Papillon doing some window shopping:



This is the first of two wonderfully honest signs that we encountered on our trip:

Among the "stuff" that we browsed was this fantastically dated dish set...which was oddly nostalgic. :-)

Our Trip Out West: Alpacas

During our stay out west, we stayed at my sister in law's parent's house.

It has a nice view.

And it has an alpaca farm.

They are like lamas.
I thought this one's snarly teeth were funny.

Papillon wasn't sure what to make of these strange creatures.

Our Trip Out West: Crazy Sleeping Schedules

Papillon, who has been a phenomenal sleeper all her life, got quite confused about sleeping while we were three time zones to the west. Despite the fact that we kept her up super late, she still thought that 5am was a great time to start the day.

Crazy sleep schedules combined with a stuffy nose somehow also led to a Papillon who thought that getting up every hour from midnight until 5am was the way to go. Not a whole lot of sleep happened on this vacation.

But, the early mornings with Papillon were actually kind of fun.
Here she is hanging out with her Nannie. (Who was quite helpful at putting Papillon back to bed in the middle of the night)

Happy Face!

Finger Munching

Ferocious finger munching

Falling over. Still a bit sleepy.

Due to the crazy lack of sleeping at night, Papillon was always trying to catch a nap during the day.

Sometimes with her Uncle.
In case you can't tell, he is trying to imitate her face here.

Sometimes with Nannie.

Sometimes with her hat pulled down over her eyes.

Sometimes with her Aunt.

Very rarely with me. But it did happen!

Pretty much wherever she could find to sleep, she slept.