New and Improved

Our living room before...

Our new living room... (new couches and new stove)

Chimney area before...

And after... (our beautiful new wood burning stove)

Word's can't express how much I love it all! And did I mention that my handyman husband took out that whole chimney and built our new mantle all by himself? He is SO good :)

December...where did you go?

WOW, I really can't believe it is already January and another year has come and gone. December seemed to fly by. Most likely because I was gone for two whole weeks. So let's play catch up..

Shane finished up his EMT training. Next semester he starts his fire training. So very proud of him!

This picture is from a mock accident they did so that all of the EMT students could practice all the skills they have learned. That is Shane on the far right. He was so professional! I was such a proud wife :)

A week before Christmas me and Shane, along with his mom and brothers, headed to Florida. Once we got there we enjoyed three days of fun at Universal Studios. We got to stay at the wonderful Hardrock Hotel, as well as the Nickeloden hotel. We had a blast and really enjoyed the wonderful Florida weather. Then Shane's dad and brother Hunter met up with us and we headed to Cape Canaveral where our Cruise awaited us. From there went on a 7 day Carribean cruise and boy was it awesome! I had never been on a cruise before so this was an extra special experience for me. We stopped in Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belieze and Mahogony Bay and loved each one of them. It was so nice just being able to relax, read (I read two whole books. A big deal for me!), and enjoy the warm weather. Thank you to Jackie and Allan (my sweet in-laws) for this wonderful Christmas present! We will always remember this trip!

At the Waffle house for Shane's 24th birthday!

In Cozumel!

Ziplining in Belize

Costa Maya

We were traveling back to Abilene on New Years Eve and didn't get to stay up till midnight and celebrate....but it was perfectly okay with me! We were pooped and headed to bed at 10 pm. Opps :)

2011 was an amazing year. So many HUGE milestones for me. GREAT milestones. I will definitely never forget 2011.

Grandchild Blessing

This past Sunday Shane's grandparents had a little Christmas party for all the grandkids. It was so special getting to be a part of this. I loved the idea of having this grandchild blessing that I had to share..

After Christmas last year Shane's grandmother Paulette told each grandchild that she was going to crochet an afghan blanket for each of us. She asked us to pick which color of yarn and design we wanted. All year long she has worked on them for us. All 11 of us grandkids! Then on Sunday we all headed to their house for the blessing. We had Christmas food and treats, sang Christmas carols, and then they gave each of us our blankets as well as a blessing. 

We are truly blessed!

Distorted

Not sure if you all have seen this or not, but it bothered me so much I felt that I had to post it! I came across this article this morning that talks about the popular clothing line H&M and how it uses a fake computerized body and then crops a head on top for modeling their clothes. I guess this bothers me so much because 1 in 200 American women suffers from anorexia and 2 to 3 in 100 American women suffers from bulimia. We wonder why there are so many people suffering from eating disorders? Maybe it is because people look at these FAKE models and wish they could look like this. But in reality, it is not even a real person. This makes me so sad..

You can find the articles here and here that talk about this.

Thanksgiving Post

Oh my gracious, this Thanksgiving I have SO much to be thankful for. At first this post was going to be a list of all the different things I am Thankful for this year, but I think that list might have gone on for days... let's just say I am one blessed lady! It has been a wonderful year for me and I couldn't feel more lucky. This was me and Shane's first Thanksgiving together. We headed down to San Antonio to spend it with my family since we will be spending Christmas with his family. It was so nice to get to be with ALL my family. It is hard to get us all in one place, but somehow we made it happen and it was an awesome time filled with lots of great food, a little bit of shopping, pedicures, some great catch phrase playing and lots of pictures. Just love family time. I hope everyone else's Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas..

Okay so I must confess....I use to be one of those people that got so irritated when people put out Christmas stuff way early. Mostly for that fact that I hate that often times Thanksgiving gets looked over because people are already getting so ancy about Christmas. But guess what I did this past weekend? I put up my Christmas decor. Yes, two weeks before Thanksgiving.Yikes....I know I know! BUT I have a whole new outlook on this situation and I promise I will not judge others that put their decorations out early ever again! Here is my reasoning for my extra earliness this year:

1. Shane & I are spending Thanksgiving with my family in San Antonio this year, and I really really want to come home from the Thanksgiving break to a house ALREADY decorated.

2. We are also going on a two week vacation during the second half of December with Shane's family, which means I only get two weeks in December to enjoy the decorations at my house. This made me sad.

3. This is the first year that we have our OWN tree to decorate. I personally felt like this was a big deal!

So there it is, my three reasons. I also made sure that I am not overlooking Thanksgiving. Not at all. We actually have SOOO much we are Thankful for this year. It has been one special year for us. But I realized that it is completely okay to love Christmas decorations and as long as you don't forget about how special Thanksgiving is as well, you can put up you Christmas stuff whenever you like! No judgement here!

Poor Shane was sick with a stomach bug, but he still managed to help with getting the tree up. He is THAT great of a husband.

All lit up. I just love it.

 Of course my Nutcracker collection came out as well. This isn't even all of them. They are scattered everywhere. I try to get a new nutcracker each year.

And here is our Santa Cookie Jar. Found this little goodie at Target this weekend. Felt it was a must have! Shane made sure to let me know that there HAS to be homemade cookies in there at all times. Need to get on the baking pronto so he will be a happy camper.

Happy Halloweenie! (just a little late)

Our Halloween weekend through Pictures:

Okay, not a Halloween pic, but it came from the weekend of Halloween, and I like it. And I LOVE him. Lots.

Lucy wanted a picture also.

Trunk 'n' Treat at Highland. Our trunk was a campsite theme. So naturally we pulled out our flannel and were campers. I guess Greg and Shane thought they were too cool for flannel! ha

Shane came up with the brillant idea to do the go fishin for your candy at one of our trunks. It was lots of work for us, but the kids loved it!

On Halloween night, we decided to go to a Haunted house? Why? Good question. None of us were too crazy about haunted houses, but it was HALLOWEEN. It felt necessary to go to one.

Poor Shane had to put up with me going through the haunted house. I was not to keen on the idea of people jumping out a me. 

And of course I had to take a picture with my pugs and our cute scarecrow and pumpkins :)