Christmas

I LOVE this picture. He looks like a big boy!

Checking out Granny Frances' Christmas Tree
Hadleigh loves Christmas presents...

smiling at her auntie. :)

I am half way done with Christmas celebrations. Bryan and I have done Christmas with his family. We have done Christmas with my mom. More to come. But here's some favorite pictures so far.....pretty much all my pictures are of Riley and Hadleigh...they seem to steal the show! :)

Christmas Party 08

The tree and the gift exchange items

Kati and Lindsey with Bryan jumping in.

I love Hadleigh's face in this picture. :)

Bryan and I borrowing Hadleigh for our picture! :) Hey, she's not crying in ours. Being aunt and uncle is fun! :)
Jeane's gift to me. Hairspray. She knows me TOO well. I just realized I'm holding this hairspray bottle the same way I was holding Hadleigh. I'm crazy.

Bryan and I had our 3rd annual Christmas Party this Saturday. It was SO much fun. We really enjoyed ourselves, and it was great to have all of our friends there. We always do a gift exchange, and this year's was really fun/funny. It's always a good assortment of movies, games, and unexpected mess. The first year we had our party, Patrick's gift he brought to exchange was a copy of the movie Brokeback Mountain. :) Nobody wanted it. Well, this was our 3rd year Brokeback has made a comeback to the party. My brother Joe brought it back because he ended up with is last year. I had completely forgotten about it. Now the torch has been passed to Matt, he's now obligated to come to our party next year to keep the Brokeback Mountain tradition going. :)

We made this recipe for a Pomegranate Sipper as our drink for the evening and I thought it turned out well. It smells great, and made the whole house smell good while Bryan and I were making it Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
1 (2 1/2-inch-long) cinnamon stick
5 whole cloves
5 thin fresh ginger slices
2 (16-oz.) bottles refrigerated 100% pomegranate juice
4 cups white grape juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
Garnishes: pineapple chunks, orange rind curls
Preparation
1. Cook cinnamon stick, cloves, and ginger in a Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring constantly, 2 to 3 minutes or until cinnamon is fragrant.
2. Gradually stir in juices. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 15 minutes. Pour mixture through a wire-mesh strainer into a heat-proof pitcher; discard solids. Serve warm. Garnish, if desired.
Note: For testing purposes only, we used POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and Welch's 100% White Grape Juice.
Tipsy Hot Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare recipe as directed. Stir in 1 1/4 cups almond liqueur just before serving. Makes 9 1/4 cups.
Cold Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare recipe as directed. Let stand 30 minutes. Cover and chill 2 hours. Store in refrigerator up to 2 days. Stir and serve over ice. Prep: 10 min., Cook: 25 min., Stand: 30 min., Chill: 2 hr.
Fizzy Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare Cold Spiced Pomegranate Sipper as directed. Stir in 1 (33.8-oz.) bottle ginger ale just before serving. Makes 16 cups.

****We chilled, fizzied, and tipsied ours. The almond liqueur was just a little something without making it crazy punch.

Bringin' Cupcake Home

Lindsey's Dress Cupcake!

This past weekend, Lindsey, Kati and I went to Little Rock to stay with our friend Jeane and go wedding dress shopping. Lindsey is getting married July 3rd...so it's fun doing all this shopping together!! While in Little Rock we went to Proposals, then to Brinkley to Lowe's, and then final stop Ashley's in Sherwood on the way back. I found two dresses I really liked at Proposals....and found nothing at Lowe's. I was kinda dissappointed. But, really the help there wasn't great. It was OK, but NOT great. I was so tired by the time we got to Ashley's, I didn't really look too hard. Lindsey ended up trying on a dress at Ashley's she had really liked at another place. After putting it on again, she decided that it was THE dress. It looks GREAT on her. We named it "cupcake." We carried her out as you can see.....YAY LINDSEY! I can't wait to find my dress! The search continues!

After dress shopping we celebrated with dinner at Cantina Laredo and then dessert at Ciao Baci. The dessert was S'Mores...and it was AWESOME!

S'Mores at Ciao Baci!
this is what a day of dress shopping does to you.

A year of blogging...and a year to be thankful for!

I have hit my year anniversary (or close to it) on blogging. When I started, I had no idea what I would write about...but apparently I either have more going on than I thought or I'm really good at talking about a whole lot of nothing.

I'll say that I must have lots of stuff going on. :)

There have been many big things happen in my life since this time last year. So, I think this is as good as an opportunity to say all the things I am thankful for this year!

I'm thankful for God's love, my family, my future husband, bryan's family, my friends, my health, a niece that I am SO in love with, the holiday season, my country, my job, Bruce returning from Iraq, a wedding to look forward to....I could go on. It's just amazing.

It's sometimes hard for me to understand how I ended up with such a wonderful life, with so many people to love, so many people that love me, and all of these material comforts...and more THINGS than I will ever need when there are so many people who will go with out. I'm guilty of doing nothing. I'm definitely guilty of "wanting more." But, my goal this holiday season is to be content, grateful, humbled, giving, patient and kind. My other goal is to make a difference...even if it's something small. They say every little bit helps. Here I go.

Engagement Party

Lindsey and Kati threw Bryan and I a wonderful engagement party. We had SO much fun. We got to see lot's of our friends, and spend an evening eating and visiting. Johnny made us a special "Love CD" for our engagement party....and he played it for us later in the evening. It was great. It was SO fun having so many of our favorite people in one place. Thanks to everyone who came!! We love you.

Meet the Flinstones....

THE GROUP!

Wilma and Barney! :)

My "husband" Fred trying to fix my bracelet. We just can't have anything nice.

The Flinstones were a hit. It's fun dressing up as a group, it makes more "impact." We went to two friends' houses to their Halloween parties and had a great time. While we were driving we were scheming for next year. Since Bryan and I will be getting married smack in the middle of October, we will have to make our costumes in advance next year.

Halloween Tradition

Halloween 2006 - Wizard of Oz Line-up

Bryan and I 2006

Halloween 2007 - Oompa Loompa AKA Celebrities for the Night

Kati oompa loompa...her wig's a little crooked.

Stay tuned for Halloween 2008, we'll try not to disappoint. :)