Christmas Highlights

Wow, so much to blog about! I'm sure most of you blogged about your Christmases last week, but I'm a little behind. I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. That's bad ladies! It's been one of those weeks, err months.

Let's take it back a few days to Christmas eve. Beau and I went to our Christmas eve church service and it was AMAZING! I seriously thought they had the Trans-Siberian Orchestra there. (On a side, we are now official members of our church as of 12/6/08!! It was a very exciting day for us and we can't wait to get more involved.) It was decorated so beautifully. We had a candle lighting ceremony and it was very emotional. The room was lit up and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. So pretty!

We came back to our house after church and opened up our gifts to each other since we were going to be staying at my parents house that night. We went ahead and got small gifts for each other aside from the elliptical and rifle scope. Here's what I had: a beautiful gold locket and Yoga Toes from my fabulous-ly funny hubby!! Love them!

Jesus' birthday cake!

Next is Christmas day at my parents house!! My mom got me, my sister and herself some new furry Uggs! (Above) And this beautiful Dogeared "daughter" necklace. I teared up pretty good when I got this one. Sweet gift!I have to give a shout-out to my precious parents for celebrating their 28th anniversary this last Saturday!! I love this picture of them. I ran out of chairs since we had the whole fam over so I used some dining room chairs and they sit very low! I like how they are doing the 2&8 with their hands. This, of course, was after a few glasses of the ole' vino :)

Below is the gift that my aunt gave them, Margaritaville Blender. You should have seen my dads face light up when he opened this! I have to admit, I'm a tad jealous :)

Whew that was a long post!! I had a feeling this post was going to be filled with pictures. Thanks for being patient with me through it all :) I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and got everything you were wanting! You all deserve nothing but the best!

P.S. We finally got our room fixed from hurricane damages. It has been over 3 months sleeping in the guest room!! We built our house and were in it for maybe 3 months and then BOOM! We had carpet in there, but decided to go with wood floors. So glad we did! I love them!!

Read more...

Turkey Day and Christmas Decorations

Hello Ladies!! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It seemed to go by so fast! This was the Beau and my first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. I'm not used to eating 2 HUGE meals in one day so that was an experience all in itself. We had "lunch" with Beau's family at 3 and then my mom hosted dinner at 6. When the Mr. told me that his family normally ate T-giving at lunch time I was thinking noon. Well, that wasn't the case, so we got to cram in 2 meals in 3 hours. Let me tell you that I hope this never happens again. I felt sick! But it was sooo good :) I really love the food around the holidays. I can't imagine not having the traditional turkey, dressing and pie. I got to spend some time with my Mimi too! I was able to snap a few pics:

Me and my Beau

My momma after a long day of cooking....she's stabbing that roll!!
Me and my sweet Mimi in her "Cowboy orange" (She's a big OSU fan:))

Friday we spent the whole day putting up lights outside. The Mr. did such an awesome job! He was like a pro on his newly purchased ladder, ha! He hung those lights really fast for our first time.

Mr. A on his ladder. He's wearing shorts and a t-shirt b/c it was about 80 degrees outside.

The finished product (sorry for poor picture quality. Guess what's on my wish list....)

We decided to hang garland in our entry way. Now this little green strand of fake pine has caused a couple of arguments in this house. Aaron seems to think it was all his idea to hang it, but for the record, I was the one who first mentioned it and had the idea to make it "swoop" in the middle!

Saturday, we went to cut down our own tree. We got there a little late and it was raining so we had to get a pre-cut tree. No big deal. It's a real tree and that's all we wanted!! It's a fat tree too! We didn't really expect it to take up so much room, but it's perfect. We decorated all night and watched football. Here's a pic of the finished tree and the TV stand. I'll give the Mr. credit for the TV stand because that was his idea. I must say, he's quite the decorator. Should I be worried????

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I can't believe it's already over and it's December!! I have so much more shopping to do. Have a good night!!

Side note: Aaron just informed me that we have more ice cream in our freezer than food. Is that gross or what???? Santa, please bring me a treadmill and a stocking full of self-control, please!

Read more...

Does this make me a loser.....

That my parents have more Christmas parties and events to go to than I do?? My mom has called me several times to see if the Beau and I are available to babysit my little sis. We have no plans so of course we're available!! My company is foregoing their Christmas party this year and if the Mr.'s company is having one then I won't find out until the weekend after they've had it. I doubt any of the neighbors will have one since it's a new street and no one has really gotten a chance to meet everyone. I could always host something, but do I really want that pressure? Nah! I just want to show up somewhere and have some fantastic (free) cocktails and delicious food. So I'm just wondering if anyone else is going through this right now or am I the only one.

On a side note. I went shopping today at lunch and got some pretty good Christmas gifts. I also found some stuff for the house and a couple of cute stocking holders. Can't wait to put up all of our Christmas stuff. Hope everyone is having a swell afternoon! Tomorrow's Friday!!

Read more...

Happy 50th Pappa!

Today is my dad's 50th birthday! It has been such an amazing weekend celebrating it. My dad has been such a great inspiration in my life and he is the best dad a girl could ask for! He is incredibly patient......I guess he kind of had to be with all girls in the family :) I am so proud of my dad and look up to him so much. I still remember the seconds before he walked me down the aisle. I was so nervous and we had all been so emotional leading up to the day, but he held it together for me in that moment. I looked up at him before they opened the doors and said "I love you daddy." It was one of the best moments from that day.

Now onto the celebrating. My mom planned a surprise party at Americas. It's one of our favorite places to eat. She invited neighbors, friends and coworkers. He was so surprised and incredibly grateful. It was such a great night! The food was awesome and the wine kept flowing. He got some pretty fun gifts. I thought I would share some pics from the night!

Here he is with his "old geezer" glasses on! I'm sure he'll love that I posted this one!!

The inflatable walker I got for him just in case he couldn't make it out of there on his own ;)

Family picture!

My favorite girls: big sis, momma, lil sis and me

Big sis and me. Isn't she just gorgeous!! Love her!

Read more...

It's Monday....

I hope every one's weekend was great! We definitely had a busy weekend. Friday night we went out with 2 of our fave couples, Lauren & Ryan and Mark & Alison. We hit up "our" spot for dinner, El Tiempo, then headed to a bar to listen to some live music. So much fun! Here's a little pic from the night. It's not the best of the Mr., but he was refusing to cooperate for the camera so this is all we got. Did we really need the mustard in there with us??? Come on hun :)

Saturday was pretty eventful. I went to my parents house to babysit my little sister, G. She's 8.....pretty big gap, I know. She was a "surprise" to the fam. My sister and I were 16 and 17 when mom and dad broke the news. I'm not going to lie, I was a little shocked, errr angry at the time, but I LOVE this little girl soooo much! I can't imagine our family without her. She is the sweetest little thing ever! So back to Saturday. My older sister, C, and I took G to her softball game. What a fun family day. She did awesome! I was so proud of her. Picture this: bases loaded, G goes up to bat; my heart is racing and I'm thinking "please don't strike out", she swings at the first pitch and misses (aww) and second pitch she hits a line drive out to left field!! AWESOME! I don't think I've ever been so excited! She got 2 runs in (they tagged the last girl out) and the whole crowd was on their feet. So exciting. The cutest part was when she ran into the dugout, she started telling all of her friends about her to big sisters that came to watch her game. So precious! Here's a pic of her mid-swing:

Her team won the game! It was a close game, but they pulled through. We went back to the house and C, made some wonderful food and fixin's and we watched some football. Our family team (our whole family went there, g-parents, aunts, uncles, parents), OSU Cowboys were playing UT and it was such a good game even though they lost . It was so nice to spend some time with both of my sisters! I took G back to our house for a sleep over. She was so excited. We carved pumpkins and ordered Pizzia :) Here's some of her carving.

All in all it was a great weekend! My parents came to pick G up yesterday and we had a little cookout at the house. It was a beautiful afternoon and the weather was gorgeous. Perfect weekend!

Happy Monday to everyone! It's almost lunch time :)

Read more...