what a difference a year makes: christmas edition

I realize it's now February and a bit late to post Christmas photos, and yes, I'm always playing catch up when I finally decide to update the ole blog, but to be fair, we didn't celebrate Christmas with Keith's family until mid-January, so I'm not quite as late as it might seem:)

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas this year, with both sides of the family. Spending time playing and relaxing with the people we love is such a blessing! My parents and sister were able to come here and celebrate with us for a week, then we were able to spend another week with Keith's grandmother and parents in Memphis and St. Louis. Carson is at such a fun age and really enjoyed the Christmas festivities. He got some fun new toys and both of our talented moms worked really hard to make him fabulous handmade gifts too. They each made awesome quiet books that are perfect for church!

For Thanksgiving, I posted some pictures from this year and last year to compare and see how much Carson has grown, so I thought it would be fun to do the same thing with a few photos from Christmas. Of course, there are lots more pictures on facebook, if anyone is interested:)

with his stocking last year:

(my sweet mama made our adorable stockings!)

with his stocking this year:

(no the stocking didn't shrink;) my boy has grown sooo much!!)

reading with granny and mama last year:

reading with granny and mama this year:

(yes, i realize i'm wearing the very same pjs!)

reading with bobel last year:

reading with bobel this year:

from our family to yours...

Merry Christmas

We hope your weekend is filled with joyful celebration!

Thanks to our sweet friend and neighbor, Michelle for the Christmas card photo shoot:)

wordless wednesday: carson meets santa:(

Merry Christmas!!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. Carson's first Christmas made ours especially wonderful this year!! We were thankful that Pops, Granny, and Aunt Misty were able to visit us and that we were able to spend the week of Christmas with them!! See facebook for lots more pictures if you're interested:) Blessing to you and yours in 2011!!!

a very merry christmas

In early December, I got to go to a conference in Gatlinburg, so Keith came with me, and we had a blast! Gatlinburg is a super fun place to visit, especially at Christmastime! Everything was beautifully lit up and decorated. We spent the evenings bundled up, walking around town, sipping hot chocolate, chatting, and shopping. It was fabulous:)
Then, we celebrated our sixth anniversary at Chaffin's Barn, a neat dinner theater in Nashville. It was a Christmas comedy set in small town Texas:) We loved it.
Then, we got to travel to Texas and spend Christmas with my family! Yippee! We had the best time relaxing, talking, eating, and playing games together! Then, to top it off, we got a gorgeous snow on Christmas Eve!!!! It was neat, because instead of snowing during the night and melting the next day, it snowed all day, and stuck around for a couple of days, so we had a white Christmas and loved it!!
But, the best, most wonderfully amazing thing about Christmas was.............we got a positive pregnancy test!!!!! We could not be more excited and thankful!!! Our hearts are full!! We are in constant prayer for our itty bitty miracle, and we love him or her soooo very much already!!!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

There's nothing like the most wonderful time of the year right around the corner to motivate a blog slacker like me. I love the holiday season so much! Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, the weather is getting chillier, and "Christmas in November" is this weekend! If you've been sipping cocoa in your fuzzy socks and making holiday lists, you probably love Christmastime as much as I do, and I'm sure you're already thinking about this year's Christmas card. The very talented Sharon has recently started redbud designs and is giving away a free custom Christmas card design, and it's guaranteed to be super cute:) Leave a Christmasy comment on her design blog and you might just be the lucky winner!

Our Holiday Highlights

I hope you all had a joy-filled holiday with your family and friends.


We celebrated four years of marriage in December. I'm so thankful for my sweet husband and I can't imagine living life without him! Since I'm a teacher and Keith's a student we've gotten really spoiled having long Christmas breaks together. Because we probably won't have such a long break together next year and last year we spent most of our break doing unexpected home renovations, we've decided to "live it up!" We've been staying up late and sleeping in everyday, watching movies, running errands, and just spending time together.





We are blessed to have two wonderful families and we enjoyed spending time with both of them, first in Jackson, and then in Roby. We enjoyed lots of good family time, sleeping in, staying in our pjs all day, eating lots of good food (both of our moms are wonderful cooks!!), drinking hot chocolate, putting together jigsaw puzzles, and playing lots of games.


Reluctantly, we took the Christmas tree and decorations down yesterday, and things are slowly getting back to normal. But, normal is good too! Christmas wouldn't be special if it were always Christmas:) Happy New Year everyone!