Merry Christmas (almost a week late!)

What a wonderful Christmas! Sorry a week late, but I just haven't been ready to admit it's over. Now, of course, our tree is empty and looking pretty pitiful, the gifts are (for the most part) put away, and it's a little sad. I always get the After-Christmas blues a little, I think. It's kind of like your wedding day... so much excitement and anticipation, and then it's over SO fast!

We went to Hattiesburg Friday afternoon to spend some quality time with my parents and their new pup, Ponji (formerly known as Gypsy), before all the craziness started. We watched old home movies and had a great time reminiscing.

We had a great Christmas Eve morning with my parents opening gifts, drinking mimosas and watching "The Help" after Santa left it in my stocking. Then we were off to Christmas #2 with the rest of my family at Granny's.

Mom got a Forever Lazy! Derek and I got the biggest kick out of this gift from my grandmother. Mom had never seen the commercials, but I think she loves it! :)

We headed back to Jackson Christmas Eve night and got home just in time to watch the second half of the Southern Miss-Nevada bowl game. We walked across the street to help our neighbors prepare for Santa's visit, then sipped some eggnog by the fire like you're supposed to do on Christmas Eve. It was just lovely.

Christmas Day we woke up early to do our own little family Christmas with just the two of us then we walked across the street to have breakfast and coffee with Ben, Tina and Brady. Then it was time to get ready for Christmas #3 in Vicksburg.
Ryan Hadley and Frances are at SUCH a cute age right now. It was so much fun to watch them open all their presents (and trust me, there were A LOT to open.) It was just great! Only one minor melt-down over sharing, but it fine. They were precious.

We slept in until after 11 on Monday morning after the whirlwind of weekend activities. It was a rainy, ugly day after Christmas, and while I felt bad for the kids who couldn't ride their new bikes, I took full advantage of a rainy day at home to rest and relax.

Another wonderful Christmas in the books, folks!

It's not Christmas until...

Derek says his mom always said that it's not Christmas until somebody cries. I love that.

And yes, I can promise you at some point over the next few days (probably Christmas Eve after a few glasses of wine while listening to John Lennon's "So This is Christmas") I will get a little teary-eyed. I always do. It just overwhelms me to think that another year has passed. It's hard to think of the people who aren't with us anymore and how quickly life just passes you by.

Okay, enough of the sadness... let's talk about other things that can fill in "It's not Christmas until ______."

#1. It's not Christmas until I hear Elvis and Willie Nelson sing Christmas carols on my Granny's old record player. By far, one of my FAVORITE Christmas traditions...

#2. It's not Christmas until Derek and I drive home Christmas Eve night from Hattiesburg and get comfy in our pajamas in front of the fire and relax until we ring in Christmas Day at midnight with a stiff cocktail. (This is usually when the tears come along with the John Lennon song, by the way.)

#3. It's not Christmas until we walk over on Christmas morning to have coffee with our neighbors (still in our PJs, too). We've done this since Baby Brady was four months old. It's become a nice little tradition. I think when one of us moves we'll just have to drive over to keep the tradition alive.

#4. It's not Christmas until at some point the real reason for the season hits you and you feel very humbled at the miracle that happened so many years ago.

#5. It's not Christmas until all the presents are gone, the tree and garland look wilted and you realize, once again, that another year has passed.

So, Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve and enjoy ALL the things you love about this holiday and cherish every memory. Make new ones. Remember old ones. It's not Christmas until you fill in your own blanks.

Rockin' Around the Chrimmus Tree

Saturday night we hosted the 4th Annual Tacky Christmas/Dirty Santa party at our house. This party is always SO much fun, and even "scaling back" this year didn't stop our good time.

Some special guests included our friends Cassidy and John home from the holidays from Japan! They flew in at 2 Saturday afternoon, took a power nap, and put on their party hats. What troopers!

Here are a few pics from the evening. I'll save you all the crazy late night photos - I don't want to blackmail anybody. ;)

Now only five days til Christmas (and three more days of work)! I'm so ready.

My New "Sister"

My parents have spent the past few months volunteering with the Southern Pines Animal Shelter heading up a professional photography project with local photographers to increase the adoption rates of the animals there.

It's been a total success, and another great thing that has come out of it is that they're now ready to bring home a new baby girl!

Meet Gypsy (whose name may or may not be changed)... What a beauty!

I can't WAIT to meet this sweet little girl, my new "sister". She's 7 months old, and from what I hear, as sweet and mellow as they come! It will be a fun Christmas with this little thing running around the house. I asked Santa for a puppy (to stay at Mom and Dad's, of course) and he delivered.

No dog will ever replace Sweet Annie, but she never replaced Suzy, the dog we had when I was a little girl. I'm a FIRM believer that animals are placed in our lives for a purpose, and I can't wait to see what Gypsy's purpose is... But I really can't wait to get that sweet baby in my lap. :)

Busy in Birmingham

I took Friday off to make for a nice, long weekend in Birmingham. I just made this trip last week to go to Georgia, but who doesn't love a little alone time in the car singing Christmas carols by themselves?

My visit was multipurpose: a visit with my grandmother in Decatur, a visit with Brooke to catch up, and a visit with my friend Wendy to meet Baby Jack, who was born at the beginning of November. Plus, I wanted to squeeze in a little Christmas shopping while I was at it. What a great weekend!

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but trust me when I say that Baby Jack is a doll, I got fully caught up on all things Brooke, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit with Grandma.

To top it all off, I'm not officially 98% done with all my Christmas shopping. It was a very productive weekend.

I'm now looking forward to spending the next few weekends at home though. LOTS going on! (Which is at least great for the blog! Ha!)

Thanksgiving in the Mountains

For Thanksgiving with my family this year we decided to be adventurous and head to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. It was a looooong 7-8 hour drive but absolutely beautiful once we got there!

Our cabin was first class with three separate floors with master suites and a great hot tub on the bottom floor overlooking the mountains. That is where Derek spent most of his time, I can tell you.
My dad and Derek did some hiking, we did a little shopping in downtown Ellijay and a lot of sunset-watching. We spent most of Wednesday through Friday in our pajamas, and it was so incredibly nice.


My Granny saved the sign we made for Pap when he came home from the hospital from surgery on Thanksgiving Day in 1988. They hung it up to make us feel at home. :)




It was a great way to spend the extended Thanksgiving holiday. Now only 28 days til Christmas!

Grey Family Thanksgiving

On Saturday we headed to Vicksburg for the Grey Family Thanksgiving at Mamaw's house. She decided to make a "Country Thanksgiving" meal and it was SO GOOD! We had roast, homemade macaroni and cheese, greens, speckled peas, broiled onions, cornbread and then apple crisp for dessert. We were stuffed.

We burned off a few calories after lunch by playing kickball in the backyard with Ryan Hadley and Frances. Frances was more interested in wandering around and playing with the leaves, but she was LOVIN being outside! What a fun day!

While we were in town, we stopped by and visited with the Gorneys (all of them) at Drew and Kristin's temporary house on Washington Street. It was a beautiful day outside and we made the most of it before heading back to Jackson when the sun started to go down.

I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS! Happy Thanksgiving and remember to always, always be thankful!

Santa's not ready!

I can NOT believe that it's already mid-November. Where did August, September, and October go? I mean, really??

This past weekend was our second annual Girls' Christmas Shopping Weekend in Alabama. I headed to the Coast on Friday and we made a major day of it Saturday by hitting the outlet mall in Foley and Eastern Shore in Malbis. I got most of Derek's gifts checked off my list and a couple of other small gifts for family.

Sad to say, but I just don't have nearly as much money saved up for Christmas this year as I know I did last year. I'm trying really hard not to stress over my Christmas budget, but I just LOOOOOVE this holiday, and I always go overboard on gifts. It just makes me happy.

I love everything about this time of year, and I can't believe it's just weeks away. Not to mention the fact that Thanksgiving is next week. Whoa... we're doing something different this year that should be fun. It's just such a busy time of year, and my mind is spinning!

Of course, it's also the most WONDERFUL time of the year, so I'll never complain. :)

Maybe it's genetic...

My precious niece Ryan Hadley was clearly a strong supporter of her grandfather (Pops) in his run for re-election to the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

And here they are anxiously awaiting the results... he won!
For all we know she might be the next President. Never too early to teach them politics! :)

Halloween in D.C.

Our friends Katherine and Paul just moved to Washington, D.C., for a few months. While Paul is working on his research sabbatical, we decided we'd fly up for a long weekend and keep Katherine company.

We flew up early Friday morning and spent the afternoon wandering around Bethesda in Maryland where they're living. Friday night we enjoyed a little progressive dinner around Bethesda Row. These people take happy hour seriously with GREAT drink and appetizer specials. We had a great time, despite our long day of traveling and the one-hour time difference.

Saturday we woke up to FREEZING weather and then snow later in the afternoon. It would have been pretty to look at from inside the warm apartment, but Saturday just happenned to be our big Halloween night out, so we suffered through in our Beer Guy/St. Pauli Girl/Hansel/Gretel (depending on who asked) costumes and weathered the snow and sleet. Brrrrr.... I'm cold just thinking about it.

We took the Metro to an area called Adams Morgan and went to this bar/restaurant called Madam's Organ. What a cool bar! It was three stories with the top story being sort of like a treehouse. We had SO MUCH FUN!

In fact, after all our fun on Saturday night, we were struggling a little on Sunday. We had a lazy day until time to get ready for the Silent Disco Zombie Crawl on U Street. We went to the Goodwill Store and got nice, cheap outfits to zombify.

This pub crawl was the coolest idea ever. The organizers gave everyone wireless headphones, and two DJs went with you from bar to bar. So all the "zombies" were dancing to the music they were hearing (two different stations to flip between) but if you weren't a zombie, it looked like we were dancing to no music. I'm sure it was quite the sight to see, especially carrying the coffin from bar to bar to mark where our next stop was. Really really cool. Plus, it started early at 5 p.m. so it was good for a Sunday Funday night.

Monday and Tuesday were our big sightseeing days in D.C., including all the monuments, the National Mall, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural Science, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the National Mall, and the White House.

We were totally worn out by the time our Tuesday night flight rolled around, but it was worth it! Great weekend and great Halloween!

BICEworks

I have to take a moment to brag on my parents a bit... they just unveiled a new website for Bice Advertising this week, and they're really starting to get into the whole social media marketing thing, too.

This was what they posted on Facebook earlier this week:

Why cross the road? The good stuff's right here. http://www.biceworks.com/biceworks2011/. All new site!

They are the ORIGINAL graphic design firm in Hattiesburg, and they've been the best since 1978. They're constantly implementing new ideas and proving to everyone why they're the best around. I'm just constantly amazed by their creativity.

So, pass it along... If you ever need graphic design work done or websites or logos or branding or anything related at all, check them out. They're the best in town, and I'm not being biased. They really are. :)

SMTTT!!!

On Saturday morning we hit the road for USM's homecoming game against SMU. It could not have been a more beautiful day, and I was ready for some serious tailgating!

We had SOOO much fun! AND the Eagles won, making their debut at #25 in the nation. GO EAGLES!

Here are a few pics from our great day in Hattiesburg... good food, good fun, great people, great day!