sprinkles, sprinkles, everywhere

Yay for Christmas cookies! It's my families turn for Christmas this year and I can't wait because I know there will be tins of cookies lined up on the counters and one of them better be filled with chocolate covered peanut butter cracker sandwiches!!!!

Two years ago (pre-Micah) I did major holiday baking because that was the gift we gave out. I have given up the major holiday baking until my children are somewhat older. Taking care of Micah is tiring enough without busting out all the ingredients, scaring him half to death with the mixer and then cleaning all the mess up! I'll just wait until they all can help with it.

However I did want to do something so I made some sugar cookies and Micah (and I) decorated them. He was so darn cute with all those sprinkles. At first he was a little cautious, but by the end he was shaking those sprinkle jars like crazy. He also loved to veto the colors himself. He'd be staring at them all and say green....no, pink....no, orange.....orange and shake the orange everywhere then he repeated the process with other colors. I haven't eaten any because I tried just a little of the icing and it was so sweet my pregnant self got sick, but they sure look cute!

Cautious sprinkling

Crazy Sprinkling

Girl's Weekend

This past weekend I went to Helen with 5 girl friends, some of whom I've known since elementary school. We had such a great time, we are planning to make it a yearly thing, however in the future it will be in late summer or fall because it was soooo cold! At least cold to a bunch of south Alabama girls!!

Once we got to the cabin we had a great time but it was quite an adventure at first. We finally got on the road about 9:00 pm after meeting up in Atlanta, but as soon as we were on the exit ramp traveling onto 85 North the car I was in ran over something and I heard a very unfavorable noise coming from the back tire. Oh yeah, in the first 5 minutes of the trip we got a flat tire. There were three of us in the car plus an adorable 7 month old boy and all of our stuff, not to mention the fact that none of us have changed a tire, let along on the side of an interstate in dark 30 degree weather...NOT FUN!

After about 2 1/2 hours of waiting, sitting, unloading, reloading, staying warm we were on our way. I would go into the entire ordeal but if you want to know you'll just have to ask personally because it would take FOREVER to write! We finally made it to the cabin at 12:50 am, dragged our things inside and promptly went to bed.


The next morning we woke up not so bright and early and headed to downtown Helen around lunch time. I had been there once before in the summer and had an ok time, but Christmas Helen was definitely more fun. There was a brass band playing in the middle of town, Santa Claus visiting children, horse drawn carriages, and decorations everywhere!!! We looked at the river, ate lunch, walked around the shops and took pictures. It was cold cold cold but it was very fun!

Diana, Me, April, Brandi, Briana, Kristen and baby Eli

Later that evening we went home to watch the SEC Championship Game. The majority of us are Auburn fans so we were pulling for those Gators to beat Bama!!

After the game we did our Christmas Ornament Swap...it started off tame but got good in the end which is hard to do with such a small crowd. I love my cute 'candy' ornament.

It really was a great weekend and thankfully my wonderful husband had a boys weekend with Micah so I could go!!!

Grinch and Scrooge Update

Hello all! Thanks for your comments/opinions on the Grinch and Scrooge issue. I'm going to share with you my opinion real quick and then link you to the original question and answers.

Overall I have to go with Scrooge as being the meaner one. Scrooge lived day to day life surrounded by other people and made an active decision each day to be as unloving as possible.

However my biggest sympathy goes to the Grinch. Now I'm talking cartoon/book Grinch not Jim Carrey Grinch. That poor green man lived his entire life up on a hill judging people not realizing that he was the one being hurt the most. They paid him no mind even when he stole everything he thought was precious to them.

The big winners in both stories here are the Cratchitts and the Whoos though. Wow what an amazing example of unconditional love and grace. Even after Scrooge screws him out of a good salary forcing him to live in poverty and for one child to remain lame he thanks him at their Christmas dinner and continues to wish him well. and the Whoos (cartoon whoos not stupid spend tons of money on crap whoos) knew that presents were not what Christmas was all about.

The 'semi'- official results!!

Who's Worse...

Scrooge or The Grinch?

I heard a very interesting discussion on the radio today. Apparently someone did a study by asking 3 different people, a judge, a minister and a cop, who was worse Scrooge or The Grinch. Each man was required to look at the lives of these two characters and decide who was worse or 'more' wrong in how they lived. Then after deciding they were then to tell whose redemption at the end of the story was bigger.

I would love to hear your opinion on the matter and then I will update the post and tell you what the results were found.

It's Beginning...

to look a lot like Christmas!

OK so Thanksgiving is officially over so now I can think about Christmas. I refuse refuse refuse to think about it before Thanksgiving. While Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday, (how can you not love a day that marks the most amazing gift ever given...our Savior!!) Thanksgiving is amazing to me. To stop and spend time with loved ones and concentrate on the blessings in your life...I mean seriously how often do we do that!

I am not a black Friday shopper...it's way to stressful and I don't go gift shopping without an organized list of ideas. If I did there would be lots of wandering around stores and way too much money being spent. So we are starting off our Christmas season in a different way, by cleaning the house of fall decorations and rearranging furniture in order to fit the fabulous REAL tree. Also we are attending our first Christmas concert of the year. Zach and I are going to three different ones this year. Mike Kinnebrew's in Macon, Andrew Peterson's in Nashville and Inside Out's in Conyers where my handsome man will be using his own musical talents.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are gearing up for a fabulous Christmas season.

a perfect 27

Very few times in life do you picture an event in your head and it actually works out that way. This weekend I had the perfect birthday day in mind and it definitely came true.

Saturday was my 27th birthday. It sounds old just because it's so close to 30 but it doesn't bother me...yet! I wanted a relaxing, low key birthday and got just what I wanted. Zach let me sleep in and I woke up to the smell of pancakes...yummy! Micah, Zach and I ate breakfast and then I opened my presents. Zach got me a North Face pullover and had 4 of our family pictures enlarged and framed ( I knew exactly what I was getting because I helped pick it out online but still it's always better in person!)

When we started figuring out where to hang the pictures it just didn't seem to work out. I really wanted them in the kitchen so we finally rearranged the furniture to fit them on the wall. This was my first big rearrangement on my own, but with Zach's great table idea I think it turned out well. Here's a shot of the new arrangement and a close up of our beautiful pics.


After breakfast we headed to Sports Authority to exchange my pullover for a different size and then I went to get a manicure and pedicure (courtesy of my parents' gift of bday money) while Zach headed home with Micah. If money allowed it I think this would be a monthly treat. It's just so relaxing!!

I made it home just in time to watch the Auburn/Georgia game at 12:30. While eating wings we watched the game until the 2nd quarter when our power went out! boo! For the next hour Zach and I each had one ear piece and listened to the game through the crappiest radio feed imaginable. By the end of the 3rd quarter the power was back on. We ended up losing, of course, but I have to say it was the best loss we played all season so we focused on that.

Later that evening some of our closest friends were able to come over to grill out, watch football and make smores!

Thanks Zach, Micah and everyone else for a fabulous day!

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