the holiday season

well, christmas has come and gone and that makes me sad, but it was sure wonderful. in 7 days, we were in cherokee village, memphis, and mobile, worked 3 days, had 4 christmases, made gingerbread houses, watched 15 or so christmas movies, baked and delivered 5 dozen cookies, listened to 36 hours of christmas music, ate a lot of good food, and made a ton of great memories.

one thing i didn't do in these 7 days of christmas was take a picture WITH my husband. oh well, we'll remember next year. so, besides a what i'm sure would have been a real doozy of a picture of ryan and i, here are some of my favorites from the week.

when they opened their beatles rain tickets

as much fun as this christmas season was, in the future i hope to be able to slow down a little more around this time of the year (and take a couple of pictures with my husband), but unfortunately i will probably always be left saying "where did christmas go?".

just in time for making a new year's resolution...

mine: slow down, learn spanish.

what a wonderful year it has been

today is our 1 year anniversary, and it what a better way to spend the weekend than by having christmas with our family! ryan and i drove up friday morning, and as is custom when i arrive to the lake, i like to go to my favorite antique store in hardy, ar, memory lane. this antiquing trip was my best in a while and i must share my treasures:

old guitar strap for ryan to use as a camera strap

4 readers digests from 1977 (i just bought them for looks)

wooden cake stand

that afternoon the rest of the family arrived and we ate and did puzzles, duh.

saturday morning we got up and started preparing the christmas feast, and did we ever feast. i'll just say that ina garten ain't got nothing on my grandmother, and i'll take that to the grave. after our bellies had rested a little while we had christmas together. every year my granddad usually gives my mom money to pick out my grandmothers christmas presents from him, but this year i was the chosen one. it was so fun to watch her open all of her presents, especially because they had said that they weren't getting each other gifts!

cousins

typical

looking through the photo book of her garden we made her

last night we enjoyed coffee from grandmother's new keurig coffee maker from my aunt and uncle, and puzzled until bedtime.

this morning we all got to go to church together, then we feasted on leftovers, and had to make the sad journey back to the real world. christmas memories at the lake are some of my favorites!

husband and wife

i realize ryan's head is cut off, but this was the best we could do

so back in memphis, ryan and i exchanged anniversary gifts and wrote in our book of ten,

made for me before our wedding by jesse. we listed the 10 most wonderful memories from our first year of marriage. (it was hard to narrow it to 10)

our gifts:

i got and framed ryan a print from rifle paper co, the website of anna bond (an artist we love)

he got me a record player and some old and new albums, and he made me a beautiful collage with a song lyric of one of our favorite bands, the avett brothers. (i know, i was outdone)

art

his print on his side, my collage on my side

1 year down, 100 to go...

apt additions

i love christmas and i this is my first year for decorating my own tree and home and i have loved every minute of it. i love making my own decorations and my newest was our wreath.

easy as pie. i hot glued felt snowflake ornaments from target and pinecones to a store bought healthy looking wreath. i also glued some cute buttons to the center of the snowflakes.

we have been on a hunt for a narrow entry table (with a narrow price, haha) for throwing the mail and putting a lamp on, and visited almost every antique store in the memphis area in the process. today i went to a favorite of ours, secondhand rose, and finally found it...and a few more things.

this table is scandinavian and over 100 years old

(according to the antique dealer man)

i don't care, i just love it!

retro fan (i don't know why but i've always wanted one)

and it still works

the table and fan's new home

old mustard ottoman

the ottoman's new home

(notice our christmas tree and homemade

pinecone garland in the background :)

the cookie swap

oh, the cookie swap... a great excuse to eat nothing but sugar for dinner. as leslie previously described, the cookie swap is an annual cookie exchange between the wives in our church class. it is also a competition for best overall, best taste, prettiest, best packaging, and most unique cookie of all. it's really all for fun and we do have a lot of that!

here are some photos from the event:

the table of cookies

my cookies: chocolate peppermint shortbread

(recipe from real simple that i adjusted a little)

my plate (this is sinful)

hey marth

ode to the hubs

i love this man.

when i came home from a long day of work today, i walked in the door to find scrubbed toilets, shiny sinks, folded clothes, dusted shelves, and vacuumed floors. the apt was spotless! i never want to make it sound like the hubs doesn't clean. i rarely clean the kitchen, fold clothes, or change sheets alone. a lot of times he even does those things when i never even ask him to. however, it was beyond words enjoyable to walk in the door, completely surprised that my home was oh so clean.

it's just a great feeling and i am so thankful for the little things the hubs does that he knows i will love. to you, my love...thank you for everything you do for me everyday. i love you more than you know.

now enjoy some pre-dating/early dating photos of the hubs and i, just in time for our 1 year anniversary (the 20th)

nice sweat

thanksgiving adventures

i know it's bad that i'm just now discussing thanksgiving on december 2, but i think there are some stories worth telling from our weekend of thanks. thanksgiving itself was not that great because i was at work but as far as a day at work goes, it was pretty fun. we pretty much did crossword puzzles all day and ate, and took care of a few patients. clayton also came to see me at work and helped us with our crosswords.

after work, clayton was waiting at our apt and he, ryan, and myself drove to the lake. we got there late and to my surprise, everyone was still awake! we enjoyed some nerts and then were off to bed.

i must say that ryan and i shared a full size aero bed and i woke up at 5 am with my hip bone throbbing in pain as it dug into the ceramic tile floor... for our "bed" had deflated. i retreated to the couch, while ryan went to his favorite chair and 1/2 for the rest of the night. ever so confident in our aero bed we tried it again the next night, thinking maybe the latch hadn't been closed properly the night before. needless to say we were awoken again to the stinging cold pain of lying on a tile floor and assumed our couch and chair beds from the night before.

so friday morning we had our thanksgiving meal and it was heavenly! ps we still have the adult table and kids table and instead of ryan and i moving up to the adult table we just pulled another chair up to the kids table (i like it that way, i hope that never changes). after lunch we performed our thanksgiving ritual of writing on the table cloth. yes, my grandmother has a plain white table cloth that she got the year they bought their lake house. every year at thanksgiving, after we are stuffed with a glorious meal, grandmother breaks out the sharpies and we all write what we are thankful for. it's so fun to look back at what everyone has written over the years and i will carry on this tradition forever.

the man (we were looking for the eagle that lives at the lake)

after we rested from our meal, the girls all went to the home and studio of rodney lemonier, creator of the good earth pottery. he has an open house the day after thanksgiving every year, where you can watch him make the pottery. i don't know how my grandmother found out about him, but he lives in the hills near my grandparents, and we have all become fans of his.

the pottery studio

mom and rach sitting on the storm cellar at the pottery house

back at the house that evening we watched movies and football, played nerts and phase 10, and did a 1000 piece puzzle. it was so much fun to just be together and relax at my favorite place in the world.

grandmother and ole trusty boy (she snuck him in out of the cold)

my loving mother

the puzzlers

unfortunately we had to leave saturday morning, it was a short but sweet trip, and i'm so glad we all got to go.

a view of our house from the other side of the lake

this year i'm thankful for a healthy family, and an amazing husband (i'll leave out the mush). i couldn't ask for anything more than that.