Our first Christmas!

So since its been exactly one month since Christmas Eve,

 I decided I should probably document our first christmas as a married couple

 before I forget everything!  Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love decorating for it.  

I began purchasing items of Etsy months ahead of time to prepare for the most wonderful time of the year!  I was so excited to have our own little home to decorate.

Our first stop was finding our Christmas tree.  We did not have an artificial one yet and thought about getting a real tree.  We went to Lowes and decided to buy an artificial and use it year after year.  I absolutely love it!  Its pre-lit and beautiful! I cant wait to put it up every year!

The rest of the decorations I either bought off Etsy, handmade, or purchased from a local store.  I love all of them and cant wait to add to them next year!! 

On Christmas Eve's Eve :) we stayed at Charlie's parents house.  I love Christmas Eve because its the last day before it all ends.  Its the last day of the hustle and bustle: shopping, cooking, wrapping... I just love it!  Not to mention its the day we got engaged two years ago!  Anyway we stayed the night there and had so much fun just being with family.  We woke up to an amazing Kringle Cake that Tippins sent us for Christmas and it was super yummy!!  We ate the entire thing for breakfast!

the pioneer woman

We lounged around a bit and then I went over to my parents house to go shopping with my dad. 

 Each year we do something to help another family in the area at christmas time and this year Dad decided to get some presents for the people at the local Nursing Home. 

 It is one of my favorite things that we do at Christmas as a family. 

 I cannot wait to keep the tradition alive with my own family in the future.

We went all around town and mixed in with the other last minute shoppers, i really loved it!  

The only place I did not love was WalMart........suuuuper crowded. (duh..)

We got all of our goodies and brought them home to put into their bags.  

We finished just in time for Christmas Eve Service.

Charlie met back up at our house and off we went to Church.

The Christmas Eve service is always so amazing.  In our town there is a show that local singers are in and some of them go to my church.

On Christmas Eve they sing and we look so forward to it each year.

Tangena is one of the people who sings at the service, she also sang at our wedding and it was just beautiful.  Her  and her daughter sang at the christmas eve service this year and it was AMAZING!  My sister and I always freak out when she sings because we feel like she is a celebrity!

This is from last year, isnt little Sadie soooo cute!!!

We then went back to Charlie's parents house for Christmas Eve dinner.  My parents, sister and grandparents all came as well to celebrate.  We had an amazing dinner!  Charlie's mom always decorates sooo pretty for Christmas.  

After dinner we opened presents with Charlie's family.

It was neat to be able to spend time opening presents with them.

It was fun to see their traditions and how they were similar to my families (thank the Lord!).

We opened them one at a time and got soo many beautiful presents.

Charlie's sister got our wedding invitation painted with the scene from our wedding.

It is beautiful!

After we finished up with presents we went back to my house and opened our Christmas Eve jammies!

We got in them and charlie, my sis, and I all cuddled up and watched youtube videos!  The best way to spend Christmas Eve!!

The next morning we woke up to Santa and all of the wonderful gifts.

We had soo much fun opening presents and just being together as a family.

After lunch we took all of the gift bags over to the Nursing Home.

My dad had sooo much fun handing them out to everyone.

They were all so kind and gracious.

It was a blessing for all of us to go and visit them on Christmas Day.

We went back to Charlie's house and opened our stockings and found the pickle on the tree!

His mom hides a pickle shaped ornament on the tree and we have to search for it.  Whoever finds it gets a special prize.  Charlie claims to win every year so I thought I would give him a run for his money.

We all searched and searched for literally 15 minutes until of course Charlie found it...

He won all of the change his parents collected for the year!!!!! Awesome prize and even more awesome that I get to share in the wealth even though I didn't win!

We had a fabulous Christmas spending time with both families.

We are so lucky to live so close and experience Christmas with both of them!

I am already looking forward to next year, but then again, who isn't!

An Etsy Thanksgiving !!

Woah Thanksgiving!

Slow Down!

I cannot believe it is already that time of the year.

But I am extremely happy that it is!

I love thanksgiving, the trees turing colors, the time with family, being at the lake, 

of course the yummy food..but thats a given right?

Everything about this season is so fun for me.

I recently purchased some cute decorations off Etsy and I cannot wait to share them!

They have been set up in our little apartment, but will be making the big trip to the lake to add some holiday cheer!

All of the purchases I plan on packing away to use for years to come!

Fall Banner by makentake

Harvest letters by allysatticcrafts

Turkey Day sign by yourethatgirldesigns

Give Thanks Pumpkin by kellykrockerkreates

I cannot wait to search for Christmas decorations on Etsy!

Hope yall have an absolutely fabulous Thanksgiving! 

Oh and if you need help with all that cooking, Ree Drumond from The Pioneer Woman was recently on Throwdown with Bobby Flay! It was awesome!! Be sure to catch it next time its on, it was a Thanksgiving dinner throwdown and there were some ama-za-zing recipes!

Mark 1-6

I went to a small Christian School for 7th-10th grade. 

 I had a math teacher, who was also the assistant coach, in the 7th and 8th grade.  

He is one of the nicest people I know.  His son was in my grade and we became friends in the class.  

His son was always talking to me in class, moving my desk up and back during class and i was just annoyed with him.  But when I left school in the 11th grade to go to public school, he is one of the people I miss the most.  

I was not on a sports team but all of my friends were so I would be at most games and became the #1 fan.  Mr. H would always bring me a cookie from a bakery down the street when he would go to the games to coach.  He said that I stood out in his mind because I reminded him of his cousin.  

He drank mountain dew like nobody's business and i will always remember the little math tricks he taught us in his class.

I recently found him again through the powers of Facebook and each day he posts an explanation to different passages in the bible.  

The past couple of days he has been doing the first few chapters of Mark and I wanted to repost them here because the words have touched my heart.

Charlie and I are going through a difficult change, career wise.  We are just trying to seek God's purpose in our lives and it is getting very hard to accept what we feel he is telling us to do. 

 It is hard to change what you always thought your life would be.  

Its hard to accept when something is not right but you both want it to be right so badly.

 It is time to drop everything around us and listen to God's plan and follow what we feel in our hearts to be the right path no matter how difficult the consequences may be. 

 These words made me understand our decisions better.

Mark 1-2 We messed up when we stopped calling people to become followers and started calling them to become leaders. Leaders aren't born: they rise up from those who have accepted the responsibility of following upon themselves. When we stopped calling followers, we interfered in HIs process of raising leaders. Follow, first.

Mark 3-4 The day I realized that God knew more about my life than I did, my life changed. I no longer saw God as a law giver but as a Father whose counsel and direction would help me to achieve those things I could never achieve on my own. That day, I stopped looking for a reason not to listen to Him and started to find ways to listen more closely.

Mark 5-6 When we change, the hardest place for that change to be accepted is with the people who love us most. If we change for the good, they find it hard to get past our mistakes. If we change for the better, they are the easiest to fool.

I am so thankful he posted these.  Its amazing that what you really need to hear comes in the most random forms!  

Please keep Charlie and I in your prayers as we make our most difficult decision thus far.  

Blog Award!!

Whoo Hoo!

So excited about this Blog Award!

Thanks so much Kit and LivKit!!!!

I have loved reading both of these blogs!

To accept the Versatile Blogger Award the rules are:

{1}: Thank and link back to who gave you the award.

{2}: Share 7 things about yourself.

{3}: Pass it along to 7 blogs you've recently discovered and enjoy!

{4}: Leave the recipients a note, telling them about the award.

So here we go! 7 things about me...hmm lets see if we can do this!

1): I am like 100% obsessed with Kelly Clarkson.  I love her, she loves me ;) we are practically best friends. I mean I have met her twice and she did smiled in my direction at a concert.

2): I LOVE Sunkist.  Even though it is one of the worst drinks for you in the entire world.  And the fact that it is galactic, glowing orange probs doesn't help.

3): This is getting hard....  I have inherited a kitty cat.  My sister got him for her apartment but she can't have it in her apartment...so auntie jess is now the proud adoptive parent of her nephew kitty. Now I am not a huge fan of cats but Saw Saw is growing on me.. ;)

4.) I Love, Love, Love Ree Drumond.  She is amazing.  She is going to make my pants stop fitting, but I  will LOVE the process.  I have her cookbook on display in my kitchen and any time i get a hankering to whip up something in the Kitchen The Pioneer Woman is the first place I turn!

5): YouTube rules my life.  I secretly wish I could be a YouTube vlogger but i really don't think my life is interesting enough.  I want to be the shaytards when I have a family!  They are adorable!  I also watch all these makeup videos and.... this is embarassing...when I put on my makeup in the morning I pretend I am making a video on YouTube and describe all of the things I am doing.  Charlie has heard me in the bathroom before and come in laughing hysterically wondering what I am doing....

6): I am missing my boo! ;)

7): If I could have any talent it would be singing.  I cannot sing worth a lick, but if i could, girls, I'd belt out a solo in the drop of a hat.

whew that was kinda tough...

now its my turn to tag!

I tag:
1):

2):
Southern Girly Diva


3):

4):
Simply Extravagant

5):
Kels

6): 

7):
Oh, the Places We'll Go

A Wee Bit of Me Wednesday!

Just found this on my leigh ashley and I decided to join!

{one} Have you ever seen a ghost?

When I was like 12, me and my friend Lauren were sleeping on a hide-a-bed couch and I woke up and saw a figure of something glowing.  Looking back it was probably a dream or the dark playing with my eyes.  But i freaked out and ran to my moms room.  Lauren saw me and followed me into mom's room and when she got in the door way both me and my mom screamed sooo loud!!!

{two} When was the last time you dressed up for Halloween?

Last year, Charlie and I decided last minute to go to a Halloween party for his fraternity.  We both pulled what we had and I ended up being Audrey Hepburn and he was a Canadian Hunter.... It was interesting..

{three} What's your favorite candy?

M&M's and KitKat but honestly, I will eat any candy you hand me except for Almond Joy....

{four} Did you have a favorite Halloween Costume growing up?

YES! I was Cruella DeVille for Halloween when I was younger.  My neighbor made a cape out of dalmation fabric, a black dress with sequins and i even glued fake red finger nails to the outside of my snazzy red gloves! Of course my trick or treat bag matched my outfit with the same dalmation fabric an a red silk trim! haha I was stylin' My sister was the Mask!  We went to Disney World for Halloween that year and it was also my favorite Halloween I have ever had!

{five} Did you carve pumpkins this year?

no...we painted pumpkins though!

{six} What's your favorite scary movie?

Definitely What Lies Beneath.  I remember watching that in high school with 3 of my best girlfriends.  We spent the night at my friend Margaret's house and scared ourselves silly.  Later a family moved into our neighborhood and Lauren and I called the mom Mary Fewer because she was creepy and weirded us out! 

{seven} Haunted Houses or Corn Mazes?

Well i have never done a corn maze before.  But i think I would like it.  I have been to a few haunted houses.  I screamed the whole way thru both of them, walking with my eyes closed and clinging to Charlie for dear life.  They were horrible.  The Haunted Mansion at Disney is my kind of Haunted House!

{eight} are you superstitious?

nope..

{nine} Have you ever owned a black cat?

nope...

{ten} what are your plans for this Halloween?

I will be handing out candy at my parents house and watching movies! Hopefully making some kind of fun Halloween treat!

Verse I needed to hear..

"I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,

the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.

I remember it all -- oh, how well I remember --

the feeling of hitting the bottom.

But there's one other thing I remember,

and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,

His merciful love couldn't have dried up.

They're created new every morning.

How great Your faithfulness!

I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).

He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,

to the woman who diligently seeks.

It's a good thing to quietly hope,

quietly hope for help from God.

It's a good thing when you're young

to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take,

go off by yourself.  Enter the silence.

Bow in prayer.  Don't ask questions:

Wait for hope to appear.

Don't run from trouble.  Take it full-face.

The "worst" is never the worst."

-lamentations 3: 19-30

the message

Found this when reading through my blog subscriptions and had to copy.

Thanks a lovely life for inspiring me today.

Shaytards!!!

I was feeling sad and sorry for myself and all of the things that put you in just a down right bad mood.

Until shaytards came on my youtube homepage.

As soon as i saw shay, malachi and the cute chillins the sad lump in my throat was replaced by a huge laugh and now i feel about a TRILLION times better!

Its amazing what a cute little family will do for the soul!

 along with a little:

and Taylor Swift's new album while the next shaytard video loads makes for a fabulous night for me and the kitty!