A Letter to Target.

Dearest Target,

I thought I would write to say how much I love you.
I really appreciate the vast selection of things that you always seem to have.
I love that I can buy groceries, lightbulbs, wet wipes, and cute workout clothes, all in one place.
And all at a price I usually am quite happy with.

You see Target, before I became a mom, and even before I was married, I made pretty good money for myself doing hair.
I lived with my best friend in an apartment for about 8 months when I was 19. 
I learned a lot during those 8 months.
I was responsible.
I paid my bills.
And usually any cash or extra that I had leftover was spent on ME.
Not saved, but spent.
Yes sadly this is how I did things back then.
Then soon after I was spending all my money on plane tickets to fly to Idaho but that's a whole other story.

And when I say spent, I mean spent.
My favorite store was and still is Nordstrom. (No hard feelings Target, I love you too... just wait...)

I've always had a thing for fashion.  I just love it.

So you see Target, now that I am a wife and a mother, and a busy woman with big responsibilities, I can not spend so frivolously on myself as I once did.

I need to provide food and clothing for this pretty little girl...

 and for this one too...

So while I do still love to read every single Nordstrom catalogue that comes in the mail with great detail, and occasionally buy myself something I simply can not live without, more often than not I have swapped Nordstrom for you Target.

 These little girls are expensive Target. 

 I love the cute and affordable clothes that you have to offer them.

Target, I have always wanted to own a nice trench coat.  I think it is an essential item for every wardrobe.  There was one that I loved in the Nordie's catalogue this month, but it was $498.

That just is not gonna work.

But today, as I was reading the new In Style magazine,

they featured the Mossimo trench that you are selling for only $49.99!

What a deal.  It's water resistant, cute, and affordable.

I HAD to have it.

So when Mr. Hass got home from work tonight, and those cute little girls of mine were screaming and fighting,

I had to get out of here and I knew right where I was going to go.

TARGET.

I found the trench Target and I was so excited.

I wanted it in black and you only had tan.

But, I re-thought things, and decided that I needed the tan.

Then to top it off, when I went to pay it rang up for $24.98!!!

Seriously? 

Oh Target I love you so.

Now don't worry, I won't wear this great trenchcoat with my sneakers.  I know I know.  I just had to put it on and take pictures to show you. 


Thanks for the great deal Target.
You're my new bff.

Love,
Genn

My Day. Some Thoughts. Some Pictures.

You know those days when everything just seems to go pretty smooth and you are happy all day?

Claire did not have one of those days today.

 She is so dramatic.  Like throw yourself on the floor, kick your feet up in the air and scream at the top of your lungs dramatic.

I have no idea where she gets this from.
It's hard to be two.
I wish she would start talking more soon.  We work with her on words all the time, but she feels that she can get her point across better by screaming. 

 Unlike Claire, I had a pretty good day.  My hair was curly today (leftover from yesterday).  I feel like I have a bit more pizazz when I wear my hair curly.  Not sure why.  It's like the curl lets out my inner diva or something.  And I wore some pre baby citizens of humanity jeans today.  That was nice. 

It was gorgeous outside today too.  Sunny, but not too hot, not cold, with a slight breeze.  Cool in the shade.  It was perfect.  I realize this picture isn't great, but you can tell it's nice outside.  I took it while driving home from picking up Hannah at school.  And yes, shame on me, I took it while driving.  But I was going slow, and I didn't take my eyes off the road, I just rolled down my window, pointed my camera, and voila. 

I flat ironed Hannah's hair today.

She instantly looked older.

I don't like that.

I love this flower shirt on her. 

I found it at Target.

I love Target.

 I love this picture of Hannah, and I am realizing now that Abbey is in the background preparing to take care of business.  Lovely. Sorry about that.

This morning while I was getting the girls dressed and combing Hannah's hair, with all three of us in their teeny tiny bathroom, I looked down to find Claire scrubbing the wheels on her Barbie corvette with her brand new toothbrush that I just bought.  Way to go Claire.  It made me laugh.  She's so crazy. 

 I bought new socks for both girls recently.  Both got their own package of 10 socks.  Problem was, the socks were exactly the same, just different sizes.  I knew it was going to be near impossible to keep track of all of those socks coming out of the dryer.  So Hannah said to me, "Mom why don't you write my name on mine."
Genius Hannah.  So that is just what we did.  "H" on the bottome of the bigger socks, and "C" on the bottom of the slightly smaller socks.

I can't imagine what I would do without either of them.

I can't imagine what I'd do without Mr. Hass either.

I miss him lately.

Life has just been so busy, and date nights have been too few.

Luckily, we have a great date planned for this Saturday!

Tickets to see these guys...

and we have great seats too!

And I am pretty sure I have my outfit picked out.

I just have to decide which boots to wear.

And I think we will eat at ROCKNFISH again too.  We ate there before we went to the Spurs (Clippers) game and it was awesome.

Mr. Hass is watching the BSU game right now.

I wonder what the chances of him pausing that game so we can watch GLEE are?

Probably slim to none.

Good thing I never get bored.

I have a stack of things to read.

Guess I'll get to it.

Goodnight.

Ghoulfest at Grandma's House

Yesterday afternoon, the fun neighborhood that my Grandma lives in had a Ghoulfest.  There was a carnival with all sorts of fun things in the clubhouse (we missed the carnival so we'll definitely have to check that out next year).  We got to Grandma's just in time to fill our bellies with lots of good food.

Aren't my cowgirls cute?  Talk about easy costumes.  That is my idea of a costume anyway.  And this was the first year that it was not a fight with Hannah to get her costume on.  Simple.  Just the way I like it.

My fam & my cousin Tim

 Mr. Hass and I decided to dress the part too.  Well, actually Hannah insisted.  I wanted to wear a cute cowboy hat, and couldn't find one anywhere.  One day while I was at work, Mr. Hass took the girls to the dollar store and called me to say he found hats, and he bought 4 of them.  Great I thought, one less thing for me to have to go and hunt down.  I asked him if they were cute hats and he said, Yeah, one is black and has glittery stuff...Well.  Good try Mr. Hass.  "A" for effort.  But, said hats were made out of some sort of foam.  No straw.  No genuine cowboy look to them at all.  Foam.  Nice try Mr. Hass.  Nice try.  The girls straw hats are actually party favors from Hudson's birthday party!

 I think he still makes one handsome cowboy.  Even though his foam hat is too small.

 And he can make my Grandma laugh.  Or maybe she was just laughing at his hat.  I'm not sure.

My cowgirls sure were well behaved last night. 
After dinner, it was 6 o clock. 
Time  to trick or treat.
All of the neighbors set up tables in their driveways on the culdesac and there were so many cute kids with their families and lots of adorable costumes.  It was fun to see.

Grandma GG (great grandma) and her great granddaughters.

 A lot of the neighbors dressed up too.  These avatar guys were my favorite.

The gentelemen in front of this house had a huge tub full of red vines.  My girls favorite stop by far.  Claire reached right up there and put her licorice straight into her mouth.  Luckily my girls hands were the first to touch that tub!

I wish I brought my tri pod.  I thought about it, but with everything else we were bringing I did not want to lug that around too.  So when it was getting dark and I did not want to use the flash on my camera, I set it on top of the fridge in my Grandma's garage to take this picture.

Thanks for having us Grandma!  It was a lot of fun.  The girls are still talking about it.  Hannah just wanted to make sure that she still gets to have another Halloween at her house.  (Because that is just what we need... more candy)

Now if you feel like blog hopping, pop on over to my Mom's blog and say hi.  She took some really cute pictures too.

Happy Monday!

Monday Monday...

Rain, Boots, and Family Pictures

I've enjoyed the rain this last week.

 Thursday afternoon while Hannah was in school it rained pretty good.  When I left to pick her up it was 3:15pm and it looked like it was 8 at night. 

 She couldn't wait to get home and run out in the rain with an umbrella.

Claire did not quite figure out the concept of the umbrella.

So she threw herself on the garage floor and rolled around in dog hair throwing a fit. (no picture of that)

 It's been boots wearing weather.  Like my new boots?

 It is also pumpkin spice creamer season.  Oh how I love my pumpkin spice cream.  It makes me drink too much coffee.  I can't help it.

So I shared with you some of my favorite pictures that I took at Oak Glen...

And I promised a few family shots that we posed for.
I was really hoping to get a cute family picture to use for Christmas cards.
I don't know if any are contenders.
This is some of what we got...

I really wanted one of us all holding hands, spread out across the apple orchard.  If it wasn't for Claire not cooperating, we might have made this work.

 This one is cute, but of course Mr. Hass and I are looking at my Dad with my camera, and the girls are looking at my Mom and her camera.  And Claire kicked her shoes off.  Again. 

 This one is semi decent, but there's Claire trying to run away. (And messing up her hair in the process)

No one ever looks at once.  It's almost impossible.

We gave up for a while and finished picking apples.
Then when we got to Snowline we saw this great spot for a picture...

 What do you think, this one for a Christmas card?

 No?

 What about this one?  Doesn't it just scream Merry Christmas?

Or, maybe that's just Claire screaming.

Or should this just be the Hass Family Christmas Card? 

Which one gets your vote?

Oak Glen- Part 2

As the mist and the fog rolled in all around us,

we got busy picking apples.

And goofing off. 
And some of us continued to kick our shoes off. (Claire)

 My Dad was a trooper.  He is still in so much pain from the nerve damage to his leg that he has suffered from since his fishing trip in Mexico back in May.  He gets the VIP of the day award.  Well done Dad.

After we filled our white paper bag with as many apples as we could stuff in there, we drove down a ways to Snowline Cider Mill.

After I sprang from the car and relieved my full bladder in the nearest ladies room, I looked around and noticed how lovely Snowline was.  The fog had gotten even thicker, and the weather got even cooler.  It was practically perfect in every way.  I just wanted to say that.  I love Mary Poppins.  But, I digress... back to our adventure.

Note to self- Next time, pack lunches and eat at Snowline Cider Mill.  Then spend the day reveling in it's beauty.  And maybe leave the kids at home.  HA HA HA.  I'm not kidding. 

 We saw a long line that wrapped all the way around the store and asked what it was for.  We were told it was the line to buy the famous apple doughnuts.  My Mom and I passed the kids off to Mr. Hass and Geeps and ran to the end of the line.  We were told it moves fast, and it did.  The man behind us was in line for a second time after finishing his first dozen doughnuts already.

 So we bought three dozen.

You know, just to be safe.

They did not disappoint.

 It was a great day.
I can't wait to go back.

Oh wait.
Don't go.
I almost forgot.
Is anyone interested in seeing a handful of the family pictures that we posed for?
Any takers?
Besides my Mom?

Anybody?...