Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great Holiday!

I must admit that I have been a little worn down this holiday season. When you work retail and clock in over 60 hours a week during this time, its hard not to get exhausted.

By the time Christmas Day rolls around you are just ready for a day off! But I definitely got in the spirit starting last night at a beautiful Christmas eve service at our church.

Then we had a great day today getting to visit both of our families, eat GREAT food and open presents!

What an exciting season!!

Congratulaitons Rebecca and Walker!!

They got engaged this past Friday and I am sooo excited for them!!!

I can't wait to attend another Fall wedding!!!

Busy Times

I work in Retail so this is a really busy and crazy time for me. This past month our store has had so many special events and promotions going on.

This past weekend was one of my favorite night of the year at our store. Its called VIP night and its a by invitation event for our best customers (and I sneak in my family). We put up tents at the entrances, we have musicians and local restraunts serve food.

Here are a few pics...

Judy our store secretary took this shot of me at the raffle table with my "friend" who shows up to every event we have in the store trying to win anything free-yes she did win an ornament at the raffle.

For anyone wondering- The one man band did take my request to play one of my favorites- "Brandy." (Jennifer you would have loved it!)

Funny Picture

Can you see me??

Christmas Time is Here.....

I was so excited to take out all my Christmas Decorations and get them up this weekend.

I actually upgraded my tree from a 3 ft to a 7 ft this year too!!

Wednesday night we poured our eggnog and took the new tree out of the box only to find I had bought the only non-Prelit tree at Lowe's. Sad! But we loaded up and got our lights and came back and got it all decorated!!

Congratulations!!

On Friday my sister got engaged! I am so excited for her and Ryan!

We were all at one of her friends house and got to really suprise her. She had been calling everyone and was dissapointed no one was answering her phone calls to tell them the news-little did she know we were all waititing for her and Ryan to show up!!

Newleywed Tip of the Week...

Always have your spare car keys handy.

Yes, yesterday I not only locked my keys in the car-I locked my whole purse!
The officer at work tried to get in with a "slim jim", but it didn't work.
When David got home he had to look in all the "possible" places I thought the
keys were. Thankfully he found them and came to my rescue before anyone saw my purse
in the front seat and decided to break in!

So Cute!

Another Holiday House Find-

http://www.twosisdesigns.com/

Check out the website! They had the cutest frames!

Back when I had lots of leisure time (before having a full time, demanding job) I actually

used to be very crafty! I really want to get into some crafts again-or at least when Christmas

season is over. I really want to learn to make cute frames like these! I know, mine won't

look anything as cute-but I have been inspired!

Highlight

After a long week at work I went to Holiday House(put on my the Junior League of Little Rock) on Friday night after work. I LOVED IT, it was the highlight of my week!!! It was the first time I had ever been and it will be a must from now on!
They have vendors set up booths in the State House Convention Center and they were selling some very cool unique things. I came out with a lot of fun Holiday peices!

My favorite booth was THE PEWTER CO. from Ruston, LA. It was full of great silver platters and other pieces.

Now I am looking forward to setting up Christmas Decorations!!!

New Years Resolutions

This past January as our resolution we decided to give up something or doing something different each month instead of one thing for the whole year. We have made it to November
so I thought I would let you know what we have done so far.

January- Wing Stop
February- Bethany gave up shopping(except groceries) and David gave up Sushi
March- Buying Wine
April- Eating out (unless it was once a week and had to be under $50)
May- Eat at our Kitchen Table (not in front of TV)
June- Ice Cream
July- Bethany gave up using her Dillard's card,
August- Bethany can not eat anything from the vending machine at work and
David is brushing his teeth EVERY night
September- Digiorno Pizza
October- Shells and Cheese
November- Do Tai Bo(We bought a Billy Blakes DVD)
December-? Any ideas?? We are open to input!

After each month of giving up something, for the most part we realized after the time was

over it helped to cut the craving or bad habit out. Of course this does not apply to the

shopping or drinking wine!

Haloween

I am not a big haloween person, which is surprising because I REALLY like candy!

But, this year I got a little more sprited than usual and got Racal a Haloweencostume. You can tell in the picture how excited he was to be wearing it!

Weekend!

This weekend we went to Hot Springs. It was a wonderful weekend away and we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast for the first time. It was called Lookout Pointe and was right on the Lake.

We had an awesome view, great room and WONDERFUL breakfast! We were very spoiled!

While we were in Hot Springs we went downtown and ate at the Historic Arlington Hotel, where
Al Capone's car was parked in the Lobby.

Here are some pictures of the Bath Houses.

We ate at Chef Paul's restaurant, which for a small town was very upscale. Today we went to Garvin Gardens, unfortunately my camera was out of batteries so no pictures of it.

Goals

I bought a new Southern Living cookbook last week. On Sunday I decided my goal for the next few weeks would be to try some new recipes. So I went to the grocery store and bought all the ingredients.

Here is whats on the menu-
Last Night I made Parmisian Tilapia, Rosemary Red Potatoes and Asparagus

Thursday I am making Praline Pecan Chicken

Also up ahead-

Bannana Coconut Muffins

White chicken Chili

(Photo: Becky Luigart-Stayner; Styling: Jan Gautro)

The meal last night turned out great, so lets hope the rest do as well!

The 27th Bday

Happy BIRTHDAY BABE!!!!
I love you!!!

New Discoveries...

Its was only a matter of time until Rascal discovered shoes!!

I thought maybe we would get by and avoid this phase most dogs have, but it seems thats not the case.
He first took interest on David's slippers and tennis shoes (which I thought was funny).
Then Tuesday morning he came prancing in with my Cole Haans in his mouth-NOT SO FUNNY!

But you can't be mad too long when you see this sweet face as he sleeps...

Update

Good News about the T.V....
After Five Weeks and hours of talking to supervisors, repairmen, store managers, customer service, ect. they are going to exchange out t.v. out for a new one!!!!
As long as the t.v. of equal or lesser value we get to pick out a all new flat screen HDTV LCD!
We are exchanging it out tommorow!

In other news....
Our water leak in the front yard was fixed. We had to get part of the Kitchen plumbing replaced at a hefty price.

David's car breaks were fixed and it is riding much better now.

Confessions....

Ok so, on my way home from work today I heard a Michael Jackson song on the radio.
It really got me thinking and I think it is time to confess I really love some Old School
Michael Jackson. We are talking Billie Jean, Bad, Thriller, Man in the Mirror...- good stuff!



(Courtesy of http://www.michaeljackson.com/)


Other confessions I feel the need to now get off my chest-
-I also love some Old School Lionel Richie

-I watch really "brain trash" reality shows like The Hills, Keeping up with the Kardashions, any Bravo show and I even saw a few of the Livin Lohan shows. And why hasn't a Laguna Beach been on MTV in awhile??

-I am still devastated that The O.C was cancelled and love when I have a weekday off and can
watch reruns on Soap Channel

-Love me some "Meet Me in St. Louis"
(shout out to Rebecca and our times of getting pumped up with Lonnie and Skip to my Lou)

I think that may be enough information for today.

Newlywed Tip of the Week...

Make sure you always have two working T.V.'s at ALL times.

(Our living room tv mentioned last week still hasn't been fixed, due to a part coming in)

It is a hard choice to make for a couple when one wants to watch Desperate Housewives on Sunday night and the other loves Sunday night football.....

Or the choice of Monday Night football second half and The Hills....

Or my DVR of Project Runway and NFL network Highlights......

You get the idea. :) Do not put yourself into this position.

Lets hope the other tv gets fixed quick!

Mums

I got my mums last Thursday for the front door just like I wanted.

Now I am spending this weekend relaxing, enjoying taking Rascal out in the Fall weather and
watching season 2 of Dexter.

Another post for the day-Pictures of our house!

FALL!!!

IT FINALLY FEELS LIKE FALL OUTSIDE!!

Today is the most gorgous day outside and feels like a beautifual October day.
I have today off since I worked Sunday and I am so happy to be able to enjoy the weather
some.

I can't wait to break out turtlenecks and sweaters again!

Goal for today- Buy some mums for the front door

When it rains it pours....

Why does it seem like everything breaks and goes wrong all at once?

We have a broken T.V. (at least it is under warrenty still)

David's car is in the shop and he is having to get new breaks.

We have water coming out of the ground outside in front of the kitchen.

Hopefully this will be the end of our woes!

Christmas time again already?

Yes thats right it is September still, but yesterday I spent the whole day at the Store setting up

our Christmas Trim a Home department. This is my forth time to transform the home department with the Christmas set up and I can't believe we are already gearing up for the
Christmas season.

Here are some pictures of my favorite trees....

Newlywed Tip of the Week....

When doing laundry always check what is going into the washing machine.
TV Remote Controls do not sound good when going through a washing cycle and
even if you dry out the batteries, it will never work again.

September Trip

WAR EAGLE!!!

Early September we took a trip to Sylacauga, AL. for my friend Beth's wedding and then to Auburn to show David my alma matter.

In Auburn we stayed at the newly renovated Hotel at Auburn University which was awesome!

And ate at all my favorite restraunts including Amsterdam's......

Here are some Highlight pictures of the wedding-