Cookies, Family, & a Single Man Alert!

Since I've been super slack about posting lately, here's what we've been up to:

Baking Christmas candy & cookies with MawMaw...

....and enjoying eating them!

Going to see the Ludy's Christmas Light Spectacular

(A local family who puts on this free show every year!)

Ready to attend her very first Christmas party at school...

She thought the idea of a Pajama Party rocked. :)

She LOVED the gifts from her teachers!

On the 21st, Michael & Sara drove up to just above Atlanta

to meet his parents for the day. (I was with my mom at a doctors appointment.)

Sara LOVES seeing her Nana & Pop Pop, as evidenced here in this picture!

I wish I could have went with them, but I'm looking forward

to a few days in their hometown in a few weeks.

My Aunt Dot sat and rocked June for nearly the whole time

they were here on Christmas Eve.

She loves babies so much, and we love her too. :)

Aunt Dot and her husband, Bobby.

I told her she was all laid up on him like they were dating!

She was quick to remind me they've only been married 10 years,

and have every right to act like they're newly in love. ;)

Don't know what's up with the spot of dirt on Sara's nose!

The man you see pictured above

is one of the most important people in the world to me.

He has been there for me through every hard time I have ever faced

He has been a positive male figure in my life when I had few

He has shown me that nothing worth having comes easily

And I have watched him be ripped of everything he thought he had

I have watched God break him into a million little pieces

Only to build him up stronger and more Godly than before

He is my cousin, but I don't consider him as such.

He, and his brother Michael, and his sister Lee...

they are my brothers & sister. That's just how it goes.

Sara LOVES her Uncle Bubba. She would do anything for him!

Ladies, this is a single, available, God fearing man.

He has two beautiful boys, one of which lives with him full-time.

He's a hard worker, he loves all things Southern, all things family,

and is in church whenever the doors are open.

I told him I was going to put him in my blog & on my Facebook...

I don't think he believed me!

If there are any hard working, stable, God-fearing women out there...

...I can get you his FB info.

I'm just sayin'! LOL!

A short & sweet Christmas recap

Christmas started out like this:

Miss Sara caught a bug from someone at school,

and bless her heart, she got SO sick.

Then she passed it on to June (who has been sick off & on for a month now).

Who passed it on to me.

We've been passing it back & forth for days now.

Thankfully, Michael never got it.

Christmas ended like this:

First time I've ever had a white Christmas, in all my 25 years!

Please excuse the bag of Christmas trash on the front step.

Michael went to take it out to the dump & saw the snow.

Needless to say....the trash was forgotten!

I was SO happy to have snow on CHRISTMAS DAY!

And now I'm off to take care of a sickly Junebug.

Sara went home with my mom,

in hopes of getting both girls well in separate houses

so we don't pass this stuff back & forth any longer!

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Christmas!

(I'll be back tomorrow with a better Christmas update!

For now, I must rock my baby.)

Merry Christmas!

Hope ya'll have a wonderful Christmas Day!

I'm off to enjoy my girls & all their new gifts.

I'm so thankful that they are loved by so many people!

Take a moment today to remember those families who have an empty place

in their home, whether that person is simply somewhere else, has passed on,

or is serving their country in the war.

We never know what tomorrow holds. Cherish each moment you have today.

And before I go, I just have to say that

I JUST READ IT'S SUPPOSED TO SNOW TONIGHT!

If it snows on Christmas, it WILL be a Christmas miracle!

5 years!

December 23, 2005

Today I celebrate five years of marriage to my best friend.

It's not always been easy.

We've been through a LOT in our five short years.

An international move, a lot of time spent apart

(thanks to the Air Force),

the always-lingering-in-the-back-of-your-mind

worry about deployments.

Four pregnancies. Two angels in Heaven,

two difficult births on Earth.

2010 was the hardest yet. A hard pregnancy,

a very early arrival,

three months of spending 24/7 in the NICU,

a tough adjustment to being at home,

watching my sweet cousin Britni

go through Hadlei's homecoming to Heaven.

A marital separation.

LOTS of marriage counseling.

Even more time spent on our knees.

But -- I would not trade it for anything else.

He's the one for me, and I'm the one for Him.

(Mostly because no one else would put up with our faults!)

As I do every year, I've spent today thinking about what I was doing at this moment five years ago. I don't think I slept a wink the night before our wedding. My sisters spent the night with me at my mama's house, and my dad picked us all up, including my mama, and we went to eat at Huddle House at 5 a.m. for breakfast. For those of ya'll who know my daddy, know why we ate at Huddle House at 5 a.m. I haven't ate at HH at that time since. I have to say, I miss it sometimes! Then we headed over to a local salon to get prettied up for the big event.

My youngest sister snuck my veil on -- she was 12 then.

She's changed SO much!

Then we headed over to the church. If I could go back & redo my wedding, I'd pretty much do everything different. I'd DEFINITELY have a different hairstyle, a professional photographer, and more personal touches. But -- I was only 20, we had 6 weeks to put it together, & I was doing all of it with Michael in a different country than I was. AND I hadn't even met my in-laws at the time! And really, what is most important is that my family and friends were all there. My Daddy got to give me away while my mama sat on the front bench and cried. I married someone I loved more than anyone I had ever loved before. That's all that matters!

Michael watching me walk down the aisle.

Seeing Michael for the first time.

(My dad's totally thinking -- "Two down, two to go!"

Bless his heart -- he's still waiting on the last two and will likely be waiting a LOT longer;

they're only 19 & 17!)

Michael, congratulations on putting up with me for five whole years! :)

I love you now more than I did in 2005, even though I swore to you

that was impossible. Even though we've had our hard times,

if five years has brought us this much happiness --

well, I can't hardly wait to see what ten years brings.

Out of Commission

I've been slack for about a week, so I just wanted to let ya'll know it's because the girls have been sick. They had gotten better....but now they're sick again. After ONE DAY out & about. I have company (a LOT of it!) coming on Saturday AND Sunday, and my house is full of germs and needs a good cleaning. I want to show ya'll my Christmas decoraitons, so I'll try to be back with that tomorrow.

Until then...take care and STAY AWAY FROM THE GERMS!

Christmas Decor 2010 (Picture Heavy!)

Bookcase decorated for Christmas...my favorite thing is the wooden advent calendar!

I got it our second Christmas together, in England.

Each drawer holds a tiny ornament.

We put up Christmas decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving, so it's about time I showed them off to ya'll! I am sad to think this may be the last Christmas we celebrate in our home here. But really, when you're a military family, ANY holiday could be your last in your home. You just never know! Hope you enjoy your tour around our home!

The first year we got married, we didn't have a tree. We got married two days before Christmas and spent the holiday in Tennessee with his family before he shipped back overseas. In 2006, we went on a "Christmas decoration" shopping spree and I proclaimed I would NEVER have COLORED lights on my tree! I loved the clean, crisp look of white lights and I think I even went so far as to declare colored lights *gasp* trashy. (Sorry to anyone who likes colored lights!) So in 2006, we had white lights. In 2007, Sara was 3 months old at Christmas. We pulled the decor out and started putting white lights on the tree. I made Michael stop. It didn't seem right. I always had colored lights growing up and something just seemed off about it....so what's a mama to do? I went to Wal-Mart and got colored lights. And we've had them ever since. I've grown to like them, but I STILL love white lights the most. Way deep down inside. ;)

The first year we were married, I picked up a cute reindeer ornament at the mall and put it in Michael's stocking. It had two reindeer, our last name, and the year "2005". I'd share it with ya'll....except I can't. Last name and all. Ya'll understand, right? In 2006 we were in England so I had no way of getting another ornament....but in 2007, I got this one. I love it.

(I also dropped the ball on 2008 & 2009. I don't know what the heck happened!)

2010 ornament -- apparently I have a thing for reindeer.

LOVE this little Christmas tree. I got it in an exchange one year.

And then there's my Christmas village. Mama O LOVES Christmas villages. The details get me. (I have the same fascination with dollhouses.)

My wonderful mama scored the Dickens Christmas Village at K-Mart one year after Christmas for something like $15.00 -- and it was regular $99!

That's what started this whole thing. From then on I have been buying one piece each year.

I'm about to run out of room on my bar -- next year I'm commissioning Michael to make me a pretty buffet-typet able to put beneath the bar. Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

Our fireplace:

And the little Christmas tree in the guest bath:

And that's all, folks! I hope you enjoyed Christmas in our home. We will definitely be enjoying these decorations tonight because I have a Christmas movie to watch, some hot cocoa, and presents waiting to be wrapped!

Doctors, bonus rooms, and Uggs

Poor JC has a chest cold. I feel so bad for her! Bless her heart, she can't seem to completely get rid of one before she gets another. A quick run by the doctors yesterday confirmed that her lungs are clear, so mama is happy. :) And holy chunky baby! She weighed in at a whopping ELEVEN pounds! That's one pound gained in 3 weeks! Way to grow, JC!

M is gone this week, so in my time after the girls go to bed I will be cleaning out the old nursery. We're turning it into a craft room/office for us. I'm really sad to see the nursery go....we had such fun painting the walls pink for Sara's arrival. So many memories...I'm so nostalgic it's not funny. But we just don't USE it anymore! So transform it will. It will definitely be nice to get the computer out of our bedroom! I'm thinking I will paint our current computer desk white, find a desk/table for my sewing machine, grab a couple of chairs in fun prints...maybe a rug...it will be heaven! Do you have an office/bonus room? Any decorating "must-have's?"

Speaking of must-have's. I saw a girl in the doctors office with these suckers on today, and now I'm DYING for a pair! I've never owned a pair of actual Uggs, but I've owned several knock-off brands and loved them. It will be months before I can purchase these, but I'd love to have a pair. They're definitely something to save for!