Birthday Girl!!!

My good friend Jessica's little girl, Emma, turned 1 today!!! I can't believe that it's been a whole year since she was born...amazing how time flies. Emma had a ladybug themed party this afternoon to celebrate the big day. I was unable to make it to the party, but I stopped by after work to visit with the birthday girl.

Tissue paper out....

Bow holder I made for her and some new bows

Posing for Em's blog

Loving the tissue paper!!!

Sweet girl in gift #2....a little dress I made for her

Another one year happening this week. Happy 1 year anniversary tomorrow (Dec 31st) to Amy and Brad (my mother-in-law and father-in-law). This time last year we were finishing up last minute preparations for the wedding and getting ready to go on their honeymoon cruise! Wouldn't you want to spend your honeymoon with 75 of your closest friends/family?

While we aren't going a cruise....Clay and I leave tomorrow for Tampa and the Outback Bowl. WAR EAGLE! Please keep us in your prayers as we travel. Hopefully 2 hours early at the airport will be enough tomorrow.... :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Wow wow wow

So much to talk about I don't even know where to begin!!! We spent Christmas in Atmore with my family this year. We left Birmingham on Wednesday afternoon and headed south. Luckily, we missed some pretty serious traffic on I-65, and made it to Atmore without too much trouble. Thursday we spent part of the day at Granny Cheney's house visiting with my mom's family, then headed to Communion at church, then onto my Hardy grandparents house to do Christmas Eve with the whole Hardy crew. Christmas Day we spent the entire day at home as a family. After an exciting game of Dirty Santa, we played games and watched movies....it really was a lot of fun to spend the whole day doing nothing. It's very rare that all of us are together at one time....

All the grandkids at MaMa and PaPa's

Little cousin Jessi....can't believe she will be 17 very soon!!!

Hardy crew on Christmas Eve

We left Atmore on Saturday morning and headed to Auburn to visit with Clay's dad and grandparents. After visiting with them we headed back to Birmingham. To say that we put a lot of miles on the Trailblazer this week is an understatement!!! Sunday we also got together with Clay's brothers to exchange gifts with them since we weren't at his Mom's for Christmas. We got a little spoiled have Christmas 4 days in a row!

I hate that Christmas is over because we all know how much I love it. But, I'm looking forward to our trip to Tampa this week for the Outback bowl. We leave on Thursday and don't come back until Monday!!!! Excited about vegging out and reading a good book.

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!!!

sidenote.....Prayers for Leah today! (See Case of the Mondays) Bless her heart she had her 3rd detached retina on Christmas Eve!!! Hopefully she received good news at her Doctor's appointment today. Leah....we love you and are praying for you!!!! xoxoxoxo

Christmas Brunch!

Pictures from this past weekends' Christmas Brunch with my favorite group of girls! I'm so glad we could all get together and visit. We don't get to do it often enough! I hope you'll all still be my friends when we're forty! :) :) (nothing against being forty....totally an inside joke!)


Our loot from Dirty Santa!




I think it's stuck.....

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

For anyone that is unaware.....I LOVE Christmas! I love everything about it....decorating, buying/giving presents, wrapping presents, being with family, giving thanks, eating....the whole sha-bang. Last night, Clay and I were sitting on the couch after wrapping a bunch of gifts. I was staring at the tree, in all her glory, and he said to me, "You wish it was Christmas all year round don't you?" YES YES YES....except that I would totally and completely broke.

So here is my beautiful tree with her beautifully wrapped gifts. I generally buy a lot of gifts for my mom because I live in the "big city" and it's easier for me to pick them up for her. I love it because it gives me extra gifts to wrap and to put under my tree. Just didn't want you to think that all those gifts for for Clay and me!

I didn't do much decorating this year as a lot of my "containers" for decorating are in storage. We had obviously hoped to be moved by Christmas...but it wasn't in the cards this year. I'm learning patience. Anyway, this past weekend the "KPMG girls" had our annual Christmas get-together and this is what I won (after much stealing) in our Dirty Santa game. Leah made it out of a book! It's so fabulous....so now I have a decoration in my kitchen!

So if you aren't in the Christmas Spirit yet.....get there! As the song says, "it's the most wonderful time of the year." We all have so much to be thankful for....even if we don't have everything we want!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Turkey Day....a little late

So I told you guys all about my cooking for Turkey Day, but I never finished up the story. Well, everything went GREAT! All of my desserts were a hit. I tried to sample all of them, and I must say, that they were all really good. My most prized dessert was the pecan pie. I was so proud that it actually tasted a lot (maybe not exactly) like my grandmothers...can't get any better than that. I was also really proud of my cornbread dressing. I was really nervous about how it would turn out since I've never made it before. It was great also.

We enjoyed two great meals. Lunch at Clay's Dad's parents house with all the Branches, then dinner at Clay's Mom's house with her people and Brad's people. It really was a great day. We all had so much to be thankful for....especially our families!

We followed up Thanksgiving with the Iron Bowl on Friday. WHAT A GAME! I was so proud to say I was an Auburn Tiger that day. Those boys played their hearts out and can truly say that they left it all on the field. What an amazing sight to see all the thousands of Auburn fans still in their seats after the game chanting, "It's great to be an Auburn Tiger." Clay and I have decided to go to the Outback Bowl on New Year's Day. Not only will it be fun to cheer on the Tigers one more time this season, but I'm really looking forward to spending a vacation with the hubs. I've traveled a good bit this year for work, but none of it has been with Clay. I'm pretty sure this will be our first "alone" vacation since our honeymoon, so I'm really looking forward to the trip. We are leaving on New Year's Eve and not coming back until Jan 4th. In addition to the Auburn game, we'll also be seeing the Tampa Bay Bucs play the Atlanta Falcons on that Sunday. So much fun!

At Tiger Walk before the Iron Bowl

BA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So I just received this in an email from my brother, Ben, and now that I've picked myself up off the floor from laughing so hard, I decided I had to share!

The Tiger's Prayer

"Our Tebow, who art in Gainesville, hallowed be thy name. Thy jump pass come, thy will be done, in Atlanta as it was last year. Give us this day our annual Bama beatdown. And forgive us for never letting you beat us (WAR EAGLE!), as we forgive the media for defying you. And lead us not into redneck chants of "13, baby!" but deliver us from Saban. AMEN."


GO GATORS!!!!!!