Christmas 2008

Christmas was wonderful this year! Matt and I flew to Fayetteville, AR for Christmas Eve/Day with his family.
Here we are with all the Arkansas family...
Then on Christmas Day, Matt flew back to Memphis to go to work and I flew to Houston to see my family. Though I missed the family portrait...I'll just pretend I'm the one taking the picture.

I was still able to arrive in time to meet my first 2nd cousin on my mom's side...Will! He's 8 months old and has a crush on my mom. :-) So funny! Here we are...

On Friday, I was able to catch up with a few Academy high school friends that were back in town for Christmas. We grabbed a quick lunch at Guadalajara....yeah right! A quick lunch turned into 3 hours of reminiscing! Story after story. Our 10 year reunion was rescheduled because it was supposed to be in September...when fabulous Hurricane Ike left Houston without power for a few weeks.
Anyway, here we are at lunch. The man in the center is "Hammer", aka Mr. Rippetoe. He was our physics teacher in high school, but we were lucky enough to call him our friend too.

So I made it back to Memphis a little earlier than I planned. I caught a 6am flight on Saturday morning and made it back before the rest of the world decided to travel. It was a wonderful Christmas!

Funny Christmas Story

Okay, Sunday night Matt and I went to the staff, elders, and deacons Christmas party. There were about 60 people there, and we did a White Elephant gift exchange. So I packed up 2 bags and 2 gifts for us and headed out. Matt carried the bags into the party. When it was his turn to go pick a gift...remember ... Read Morethere were a ton of people in this living room...All of a sudden I see him open up a gift and lift it up for all to see and....HE PICKED ONE OF THE GIFTS WE BROUGHT WITH US!! A trillion gifts to choose from and he picked the one he carried in! We laughed so hard- the $5 crappy gift we brought we were going back home with! :-)
Moral of the story is....make sure your husband stares intently at the color, shape, and design of the gifts you take to a gift exchange so he knows what not to pick!

great picture

My friend from college is a photographer and posts on her blog everyday. Here's one from yesterday....
This is her son, Rett, meeting Santa. Check out more here...ashleyannphotography.com
I love it!

Thanksgiving Fun

Matt, Marley and I drove to Oklahoma City for Thanksgiving with my family. My brother flew in from San Francisco, and my parents drove up from Houston to spend the week with my Grandmommy, Aunt, Uncle, and cousin. We had a great time. Check it out!

I love Christmas!

I love many things about Christmastime but one of my favorites is...Lights! Decorations! Stockings! I love to see houses lit up at night with the amber glow of Christmas lights! 

So here are a few pics of our house at Christmas. Matt put up lights today, we did indoor decorations yesterday.

I'm always looking for some fun traditions to start in our home, so if you have any ideas, be sure to comment!

The Christmas mat Aunt Suzie bought me

The berry light holder Aunt Suzie also bought me

And....do you see Grandmommy's scary banana on the right side??? :-)

Our tree!