"The One With...Holiday Mart Festivities"

Today I met my friend Margie and her little girl Isabella out for an afternoon of shopping at the Holiday Mart. For those who don't know, the Holiday Mart is a 4-day event that is held annually at the Overland Park Convention Center. It features over 200 specialty retailers and attracts over 22,000 shoppers. It is an upscale holiday shopping extravaganza that over the last two decades has become a fall tradition to many in the Kansas City area. This years' Holiday Mart benefited children's literacy and has helped to raise more than $5 million for Kansas City community charities overall.

We enjoyed the afternoon browsing all the merchandise, holiday decorations, sampling food, coffees & teas, listening to holiday music and even made a few purchases!

Attending Holiday Mart always puts me in the mood for the upcoming holiday festivities. Just incase you were wondering...Christmas is only 60 days away! Or better yet, there are only 8 mores weekends left to shop before Christmas :)

"The One Where...We Rock with Metallica"

Saturday night found us getting together with our neighborhood friends Ken & Keri. We started out the evening at their house enjoying a few cocktails and then we made our way down to the Sprint Center to take in the Metallica concert. We had decent seats and watched a pretty good concert while enjoying the evening with our friends.


Pictured: Keri & Crazy Ken :)

"The One With...LL Cool J & Janet Jackson"

This evening me and my girlfriends Heather K and Maria went to the LL Cool J/Janet Jackson concert. We started off at our favorite Mexican restaurant (Rudy's) and enjoyed margaritas and way to many chips & salsa. We later headed into downtown for the long-awaited concert.

When we found our seats we all agreed that they were in an awesome location! We ended up sitting 12 rows away from the stage and had a great view of the entire performance. LL Cool J started off the evening and played over an hour of all his greatest hits. All 3 of us agreed that we could have left after his performance and have been fully satisfied with the show. He was the bomb diggity! A little dissappointed that we didn't get to see his 8-pack though :( He wouldn't lift that shirt of his no matter what the entire performance. Oh well....he was definitely worth seeing, despite the no-ab-visual!

Next up was Janet! She is such a great performer and entertainer. I saw her 10 years ago during her Velvet Rope tour so I knew we were in for a great show! I had heard that she was singing 36 songs on this tour of hers and she did not dissapoint! She awed us for over 2 hours and had at least 6 wardrobe changes and many more stage changes. It was worth every penny spent! Here is a little teaser of what we took in:

"The One With...Dinner with the Girls"

This week was "Restaurant Week" down at the Power & Light District. My friend Melissa invited some of us from the neighborhood as well as a few of her friends out for the evening to take part in the festivities. Despite the torrential downpour of rain, we managed to all make it - minus 2 - and enjoyed the evening with good food, good wine and good friends. Thanks Melissa for getting us all together and for the photo op :)

Pictured L to R: Heather, Christy, Stacey, Melissa & Lindsay

"The One With...Rock Band 2"

October 19th is finally here. Shane & I have been anxiously awaiting this day for months! Today is the day that Rock Band 2 for Playstation 3 was released and in stores. And what did we do first thing this morning? We raced to the nearest Best Buy to buy our very own version of the game. Yes, we are adults and no, we don't have any children and with all our "toys" one would think we did have children but we couldn't wait nor resist the temptation to let this game pass us by. So you can imagine how we spent our afternoon into the early evening? Oh yes - we played Rock Band and battled each other with me on guitar & vocals and Shane of course playing the drums. We had SO much fun and had to finally stop due to "dry eyes", the development of carpal tunnel in the wrist and the amazement that 5 hours had passed us by :) We can hardly wait to invite friends over and have our own Battle of the Bands at the Taylor household! Rock on...

"The One With...My 2 Handsome Boyz"

It was such a beautiful day out today. Shane & I spent a good part of it outside cleaning up the yard, mowing, trimming flowers/bushes and applying lacquer to our concrete patio. After we were all finished, Bubba and Shane sat down to rest and enjoy the sunshine on the patio. Here is a pic of my 2 very handsome boys :)

"The One Where...The Lights Go Out"

Around 5pm this evening our electricity went out for no apparant reason. There weren't any thunderstorms, not any warnings, nothing but a flicker and the lights were gone. Not sure what happened. Even our friends 16 blocks away didn't have electricity. As it got later in the evening our house and the neighborhood grew darker. I ended up lighting every candle I had in the house and enjoyed the next 3 1/2 hours with the dogs by candlelight...doing absolutely nothing. I did manage to get a pic of Bubba enjoying his evening snoozing by candlelight:

"The One Where...Tanner goes shopping"

On Sunday, we headed up north to The Legends to meet my brother Steve for lunch and some shopping. We ate at T-Rex which is similar to the Rainforest Cafe only it is decorated in dinosaurs. Tanner had lots of fun looking at all the dino-decor and watching the many movable replica dinosaurs. We even made time to stop and pose for a few pictures:

After a fun afternoon of shopping and hanging with Uncle Steve, we all arrived back home ready for naps and relaxation. Before we laid Tan Man down, Jen thought it might be fun to ask Uncle Shane if Tanner could "try" out his drumset. He agreed, so we sat Tanner on the stool, handed him the drum sticks and we all agreed we have a natural-born drummer on our hands:



I am a bit sad tonight because my little Tan Man and sister are heading back home to Wisconsin tomorrow morning :( We had a lot of fun with them this weekend and it just makes me miss them all that much more! Tanner is such a fun and happy baby and I am SO thankful to have a sister that is so good about sending pics and calling me weekly keeping me up to date. I look forward to our next visit together over the X-mas holiday!

"The One With...A Trip to the Zoo"

Saturday morning we all met my brother Steve & his girlfriend Meghan along with her son Caleb and nephew Nate at the Kansas City Zoo. It was a perfect day to be outside and we couldn't have asked for better weather. We ended up seeing many animals at the zoo but I think the highlight of the day was the big gorilla sitting next to the window and the chimp with her 1 year old baby.

Tanner LOVED the monkeys:Tanner and Jen in front of the giraffes:

After our great afternoon at the zoo, we all headed back to our house, fired up some burgers on the grill, had a few beverages and later enjoyed a bon-fire with the neighbors. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day!

"The One Where..."Tan Man" comes to KS"

This morning I woke up super excited. Today was the day I picked up my sister Jen and 11 mos old nephew Tanner from the airport. They got in around 10:30am & after many hugs & kisses on those chunky little cheeks, we all headed to my favorite restaurant for lunch - Sweet Tomatoes. If you like a good salad bar and yummy homeade soups this is a great place to eat. We then headed to the house to chill for the rest of the afternoon. Tanner had fun playing with all the toys Aunt Heather bought him but I think he liked the dogs the best. He kept saying "doggies" over and over and giggled everytime they gave him kisses on his hands or feet. He also found much fun in crawling up and down the stairs ALL weekend - not fun for whoever had to keep an eye on him :)



Tonight was also my monthly Game Night get-together with the neighborhood girls. Jen & I took Tanner for a walk and decided to stop by and say HI to all the girls. Tanner enjoyed "flirting" with everyone and it was nice to visit and share a beer with all the ladies.

"The One Where...the house gets a makeover"

This past couple of weeks we have been busy giving the house a makeover. First the hubby tiled the entryway from the garage into the house. Yesterday we had a painter come in and re-paint the entire house (minus the bedrooms). He did a great job at a very affordable price and we will be hiring him back to paint a couple of the bedrooms in the near future - once I can figure out what color scheme I want to do :) If anyone in the KC metro area needs an interior painter I would be more than happy to pass his name along to you!


Then tomorrow (Monday) we are having new carpet installed in the family room and up the stairs to the kitchen. I am looking SO forward to getting all these "projects" done around the house so I can put everything back in its place and start setting out the fall/Halloween decorations! My sister and 11 mos old nephew are coming Friday morning from WI for a long weekend so I hope to have everything back to normal around here for their visit. It is sure to be a busy week!

"The One With..A PSA"

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month! So this is just a friendly reminder to all the women in my life - perform or start performing your monthly self breast exams OR schedule your yearly mammogram - an appointment that could one day save your life!

The best way to stop breast cancer is through prevention by early diagnosis and treatment.

The most powerful weapon is self-awareness!