O' Christmas Tree, O' Christmas Tree

Every year since Daniel and I have been married we have tried to come up some new Holiday traditions! Well....being a creature of habit I am not willing to give up any of the traditions that I have been accustom to for the last 29 years (hot dogs on Christmas Eve, Christmas a.m. at my parents, looking at Christmas lights at my favorite places, and the list goes on)! So this year we finally found a new tradition that we both agreed on...Going to a Christmas Tree Farm to get our Christmas Tree! And this might now be my new favorite tradition. IT WAS AWESOME. I highly recommend doing this. Now, it is not exactly what we had in visioned-(insert scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) I think it was even better. We found Tom Saywer's Christmas Tree Farm the weekend we were in Highlands in November, so we did a little sneak peek and instantly knew this is where we wanted to get our tree from.

Now for those of you who know me know that me, my mom, my sister, aunt and cousin (are all crazy) and we get up at the crack of dawn the day after Thanksgiving to do some shopping. This is one of those traditions that I am not willing to EVER give up except for this one Friday. **On a side note-we got married on November 17th and that year I guess Thanksgiving was early because we missed it while on our Honeymoon. I cried on Thanksgiving day and on Black Friday because I was a little sad to be missing them. Needless to say I have a very understanding husband and he now knows that we will never be out of town on a Holiday!** So anyways...Daniel is on a horrible rotation and if we were going to do this Christmas tree farm thing this was the ONLY day we had unless we waited until this upcoming weekend in December. Well of course that is ENTIRELY too late for me to do decorations. So I caved on the black Friday shopping-sort of we did do a little shopping in Highlands- and we headed off to get the perfect Christmas Tree!!!

So this place had everything...an elf village complete with a chapel (where Jami and Gabe wanted to get married), elf gift shop, hot cocoa, a cute little Santa house, story time, outdoor fireplace and of course lots of Christmas Trees. We decided to do the Santa thing first and then find the tree. Well Miss Priss LOVED Santa! She saw his beard, grabbed on to that thing and wouldn't let go. She thought it was so funny! I am so glad her first experience was a good one. I know that this doesn't really mean anything for the future Santa experiences, but we have a least 1 picture of EG and Santa without her screaming bloody murder!

I have to say that I ended up finding a Christmas tree relatively fast considering the first year Bones and I bought a real tree I made him go to 3 different lots before purchasing 1! At the farm they are much easier to pick out because you can see them all full and in the ground! So after walking around for a couple minutes we found the perfect one, cut it down, got it wrapped in burlap and off we went!

It was a great day, and a new tradition has been made for years to come! I can't wait until EG is a little older and can enjoy this new tradition! Here are some pictures from our trip!!!

Here is the whole gang at lunch in Highlands. It is very rare that we all get a picture together!

On the bus to the farm





Checking this guy out

I think she likes him!

This one is a little awkward...it was kind of close quarters in there

All the girls

Here it is!


This one is kind of dark...the finished product!


We are all ready for Christmas-minus some final shopping that needs to be done!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you!

My Christmas Wish List...

If I could tell Santa anything I wanted for Christmas, here are a just a couple of things that would be on my Christmas (yeah right not in a million years) list!

1. 2011 Tahoe
I think that EG and I would look great scootin around town in this thing!

2.The setting that goes with my wedding band


3.A tropical vacation
This looks pretty heavenly!

4.This very cute monogrammed necklace (The real gold one is a little pricey)


So Santa if you happen to be reading this blog here is my Christmas list!! Haha!! A girl can dream-Can't she!

Not a Creature Was Stirring...Not Even the Baby!

I cannot believe that I am sitting in my den ALL BY MYSELF! I am pretty sure that this has not happened in oh about 4.5 months! Daniel, the baby and the dogs are all settled down for a long winter's nap and I am sure visions of Sugar Plums are dancing in their heads!

I am sitting in the dark with only the light of the Christmas tree and gas logs! I love it! It is so cozy in here. I am sort of tired (and should probably go to bed), but have decided to use this time to do a little online shopping/browsing/idea getting while watching Home Alone 2.

Here are a couple of pics of my little Christmas Elf to leave you with!!!!




She is such a great sport!! I bet she will hate me for this one day!

Poor EG and Pearl were just worn slap out from all the Christmas decorating!


Sleep tight and stay warm!

LPS

Thank you to Jami....

She is such a great friend! She took some pictures of EG and I a couple of months ago! I love them! It is hard being in pictures when you are the mom because you are always the one taking the pictures. I so appreciate her taking some of the both of us! I will truly treasure them forever! In hinds sight I really wish I would have made Bones come out back with us (he was watching the USC game) to get some pictures of the 3 of us! Oh well...next time!

I totally think Jami should start doing photography (even if it is just on the side)-Dont you agree?! She did an amazing job!

Here are just a few from our little photo shoot in her back yard! I cant show you all of them because they will be featured on the infamous Christmas Card!

HaHa...poor thing couldn't sit up yet so we had to put her in this basket!!

Love EG's face in this one!

She is just such a happy baby!





I love this one!




Thanks again Jami for being such a great friend and for capturing such great memories with me and EG! I hope I can repay you one day!!

A Picture (and a Christmas Card) is Worth a Million Words....thanks to Shutterfly!

Wow....Thanks to shutterfly for offering bloggers 50 free Christmas cards! That is awesome...and such a money saver! Since I am a slacker and NEVER did any birth announcements for sweet Emma Gray I had to make it my mission to send Christmas Cards this year! After searching many places I found the perfect card on Shutterfly!!! I wanted to be able to include as many pictures as possible of our little Fancy Pants! I found the perfect one! This is one of the many reasons that I love Shutterfly! I also love being able to share pictures of Fancy Pants with our friends and family through Shutterfly!I also love shutterfly because if I can get my act together I will be ordering some Christmas presents from here!

There are so many cards to choose from! Here are just a couple that I liked! Of course the final one I decided on will not be shown below-You will just have to wait until you get it in the mail!!!

Here are a couple of my runners up!






I think I love this one so much becasue this little girl is adorable!

So....if you havent ordered your Christmas cards yet check out their selection Here. And if you have a blog and want to take advantage of this amazing deal click Here!

Happy Shopping!

Happy Thanksgiving.... a little late!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving....lots of food, family, fun and shopping (of course)! This year we sure do have a lot to be thankful for!

Daniel had to work Thursday a.m. so I headed to my parents to go walk with my mom-unfortunately we got rained out. I really wanted to burn some pre-turkey day calories, but oh well at least we tried! Instead we ate breakfast and EG enjoyed her very first Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I truly feel that the Thanksgiving Day parade is the start of the Holiday Season! I love it and EG seemed to really enjoy it as well! After the parade we headed back to my house to get ready for a full day of eating. We hit up the Smiths' first! Since our families were eating only like 1hr. apart this year, I decided that I was only going to eat one meal. Last year I had an excuse to eat as much as I wanted-I had another human being to feed! But if I ever want to get rid of the rest of this baby weight off I cannot allow myself to eat 5000calories in one day! Needless to say we definitely got plenty to eat and it was as delicious as it has ever been! Before we ate at my parents I saw my dad cutting the Turkey and he cut off these 2 GIGANTIC turkey legs (my mom cooked at 25lb turkey). I asked him to put one aside-I had the wonderful idea to take some pics with EG and the turkey leg!!! It was the greatest idea ever because these pics are too cute! This will def. be a new tradition!
Another new tradition will be our pre-Thanksgiving baking session! I know EG is too young to understand what is going on but I really think she enjoyed baking with me!!!! And I hope in years to come she will continue to enjoy doing things like this with me
!!
Here are some pics from our great first Thanksgiving with our little one!






EG was such a big help (quite the messy baker)baking the pumpkin cupcakes! The final product was delish if I do say so myself.








This is my favorite! She wanted a bit of this thing so badly! I think she is going to do great with her smash cake on her 1st birthday!



Here are all the girls getting ready to go to Gaffney for some shopping! Dont worry EG stayed at home with daddy...but next year she is going with us! :) I mean she is one of the girls too!




This is from our dinner the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. I hope this will be a new tradition as well!!

I hope everyone else's Thanksgiving was as great as ours!

July 20th What???

That was the last time I blogged! OMG...I have a lot to catch you up on!

My biggest hesitaiton with starting a blog....not keeping up with it! I have proven myself right. I have been such a slacker since Emma Gray's arrival. I am going to try my best to be better from now on out because we have lots going on and I want to remember everything that is happening in my little lady's life as she grows up! So my December Resolution is to be a better blogger!


Look for another post today...with pictures!

LPS