Christmas Eve 2012

Josh had Morgan for the holidays this year, so we spent Christmas Day with his parents and Morgan at their house. We decided to have our Christmas the night before, on Christmas Eve. Growing up, we had a yearly tradition of going to mass on Christmas Eve, then opening one present each, and Christmas morning we would open the rest of the presents, along with our stockings. As we get older and create our own families, it's harder to continue those traditions but always nice to make new ones as well. Josh and I created a tradition of opening our presents on Christmas Eve, and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (another tradition from my childhood). So that's what we did this year, and we were lucky enough to get snow on Christmas Eve that stuck around for 2 days, so we actually had a white Christmas! I normally go out all with decoratioms for every holiday, but I've just been so busy lately and so stressed that I didn't get a chance to do much this year. But the snow helped give the holidays a festive feel!

 

Toby enjoying the snow:

 

 Josh opening his stocking:

 

Toby is not a fan of cameras so he wanted to run upstairs and hide without opening his stocking: 

 

 Yummy Godiva goodies in my stocking!



Josh's goodies: chocolates, Starburst jelly beans, Rice Krispie treat, and a Star Wars light saber with M&Ms!

The new Oliver North book:

Signed to Josh by the author:

 

Me with Oliver North when I bought the book and had it signed:

 

Another stocking stuffer....

 

 The last shot of the tree before it becomes bare!

 

 The last present from his stocking:



Wizards tickets for when the Chicago Bulls come into town in January!

The puppies love these chicken sticks!

Decorations:

Lucy enjoying her treat in her Christmas sweater:

 

Stockings...except for Morgan's, which was too heavy to hang:

Christmas Festivities

This December (well this whole year really) seemed to fly by. I had so many things I wanted to do this holiday season, but it seemed like we just never had as mch time or money as we needed. So I've already started planning everything we want to do for next year, but we did manage to squeeze a few things in there for the 2012 holiday season. Last weekend, we drove to Manassas for the Bull Run Festival of Lights, a drive-through light experience. Unfortunately, you can't stop during the drive so I wasn't really able to get as many pictures as I would've liked; the shutter speed just wasn't fast enough. There was a walking festival of lights that we were hoping to do yesterday, but it was so windy that they had a wind advisory all day, so the idea of walking a half mile in 40 degree wind at 7pm just wasn't something we were looking forward to! We decided to reschedule for Christmas Eve, but with a 70% chance of rain all day, it looks like we may be going next year instead. That's okay, now that we know about it, we can plan better! But a couple pictures came out decent from the drive-through lights, so I included those below.

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving through one of the nearby shopping centers on a cold and rainy day to grab some frozen yogurt and do a little window shopping while Josh was spending the day helping his dad out, and I happened to see a horse-drawn carriage ride go by. I asked the people running it if they were going to be back, and they said between 12 and 4pm on December 23. So I decided to surprise Josh by bringing him by on the 23rd! He's been super intrigued for the past couple of weeks as to what I could possibly be planning, so I was really excited about his reaction. It was just a quick 15-minute ride around the area, but he loved it! Or at least he's a really good liar if he didn't ;). And the weather ended up being perfect! He's lucky enough to get the day off tomorrow, with the President closing the government at the last minute. I COULD have the day off, but I don't want to use any paid time off so I figured I'd go in. It'll be really slow I'm sure, hopefully the day doesn't drag! We're planning an evening of Christmas movies and cuddling on the couch while opening gifts, should be a great Christmas Eve. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday as well!

 

Sitting in Santa's sleigh...

 

 Pretty horses....Thunder and Lightening

 

 

Gotta stay stocked up on Josh's favorite part of the holidays:

 

 Ready for some Christmas movie watching!

Christmas Tree Decorating!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas season is officially here! Normally, I put my decorations and the tree out on Black Friday, but I had been wanting to do a big cleaning in the house first, so it took a little longer this year. But with December beginning on a Saturday, I figured it would be the perfect weekend to get everything started. Josh and I drove out to Winchester and had lunch at Cracker Barrel, then went to Hobby Lobby to look at the decorations. Although Josh was bored out of his mind, it ended up being totally worth it for him. Ever since we first bought our house and started putting up our own tree, we've been meaning to get a tree topper for the Christmas tree. But the top of the tree is kind of big, and no normal toppers ever fit. So Josh has been joking about getting a Yoda tree topper, but since I didn't think such a thing existed, I never paid much attention. But when I was browsing at Hobby Lobby, what do you know.... there was Yoda, 50% off and waiting for us to buy him! There was no way we could pass up that opportunity so we bought him lol. After we were done there, we stopped at Sweet Frog, our first time trying it, and it was delicious. I got chocolate and mint mixed together, with chocolate chips and crushed Andes mints on top. Amazing. When we got home, I started wrapping Christmas presents, which is probably my favorite part of Christmas. I love picking out presents for people, and I love seeing their faces when they open them. But by the time I had everything wrapped and ready to go, it was so late and we were both too tired to put up the tree, so we saved it for Sunday instead. I normally put up and decorate the tree myself because Josh doesn't have much interest in it, but this year we had a really great time putting it up together! Now all the presents are under the tree and the stockings are stuffed, and I sent out Christmas cards yesterday so I think I am now officially ready for the holidays! Hope you all have had a good time creating holiday memories as well!

Supplies are ready for wrapping

Presents are ready!

Bringing up the tree:

 The worst part...separating the branches

Ornament time

Plugging in the lights:

 Finished product:

November 2012

Less than one month until Christmas, I can't believe it! I love the Fall, but the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is my absolute favorite. I love all the lights and wreaths and decorations out everywhere, and with it getting dark so early, it's great to be able to enjoy them every time we go out at night. I love all the smells of the season too.....pine, peppermint, apple cinnamon, burning wood....and sometimes I feel like I can even detect the smell of snow in the air, even when the temperatures aren't below freezing. This is Toby's favorite time of year too, he spends hours outside, and smells like cold weather and firewood every time he comes back in.

Although I am really looking forward to Christmas, we had a great month in November as well. On Saturday the 18th, my friend Melissa had a "slumber party" at her house...let's just say, it was very similar to my bachelorette party, if you know what kind of slumber party I mean! There were about 5 or 6 of us total, and we had a great time! It's always fun to get a group of girls together like that and just let loose and be silly and enjoy yourselves. I had never been to Melissa's house before, but I really love it. She and her husband and daughter live out in the country in Front Royal, and I LOVE how her house is decorated, in a country apple sort of decor. I wouldn't mind living out there myself, except that I've been out of Beaverdam for awhile now and I've been spoiled by trash pickup and pizza delivery! But it is definitely a very cozy, very comfortable place to live.

Heading to the party!

Josh had never met Melissa before, but he had to work on Black Friday, so we decided to stay in the area instead of going down to Beaverdam for Thanksgiving, and Melissa and her husband were nice enough to invite us to their house for dinner! So we headed over there around 1pm that day.....not only were we excited about a delicious meal, but Josh and I are Cowboys fans, and Melissa and Jay are Redskins fans, so we were really pumped for the Cowboys-Redskins game. We ate about 2pm, and the food was SO good....it's always a little unnerving to eat Thanksgiving at a new place; neither Josh nor I have ever spent Thanksgiving somewhere besides one of our family's houses, but Melissa's cooking reminded me so much of my mom's cooking! We immediately felt right at home.....we had chicken, turkey, green beans, rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing (my favorite, and it was JUST like my mom's, I was really excited), mac and cheese, and this AMAZING green bean casserole. Then apple pie and pumpkin pie for dessert, and cheese and crackers before the meal. It was really nice to have some touches of my mom's type of cooking, but also eat some new things that were really delicious. Strangely enough, while we were about halfway through the meal, the power went out! It was a beautiful, calm, sunny day, but out of nowhere, everyone's power went out in the neighborhood, it was really bizarre. Maybe someone deep-fried a turkey and blew out the power haha! Luckily all of the cooking was complete, and it was early enough that the sun was still out, but we were all keeping an eye on the clock because the game was coming on soon, and we definitely didn't want to miss it! It ended up being out for about 2 hours, but came back on 20 minutes after the game started. Unfortunately for Josh and me, the Cowboys ended up losing, but it was really fun to watch it with fans of the other team, who don't rub in the win but we can have some friendly competition. All in all, ended up being a really great day!!

My decorations