Christmas Week - A Few Family Photos

I am so excited it is Christmas week! What is even more exciting is my mom is coming into town on Christmas Eve. Getting through these next 3 work days is going to be tough, but then I am off for 6 days!! WHAT??? Yes 6 days! I am so stoked!

My mom hasn't visited for awhile. It is coming up on a year I think. Being so far away is hard. Luckily we have been back to Colorado and she has seen Kinley but even the last time we were there was 6 months ago. Kinley has changed so much in the last 6 months. We can't wait for Thursday!

She comes in on Thursday morning and we will probably run some last minute errands and then let Kinley nap. I will be putting her to work on the pile of presents I have to wrap. Does anyone else hate wrapping presents? I really am not a fan. Luckily for me my mom is and loves wrapping, little does she know that I have saved all the wrapping for when she comes :). I am hoping wrapping with her will make it a little more enjoyable since I can't be wrapping while drinking wine :). We Matt also has an easel to put together for Kinley. We never had our "big" gifts wrapped when I was younger and I loved waking up and seeing that with all of the wrapped presents under the tree, so that is the tradition we have started for Kinley. Last year Matt put together a kitchen and we of course didn't wrap that. She was a little too young to understand last year but I think this year she is going to be soooooo excited when she wakes up.

Thursday afternoon we are going to go over to Matt's parents to open presents and celebrate Christmas because we are going to have Christmas at our house this year. I am very excited about that! My mom loves to cook so we are planning on a full menu with many yummy dishes.

Of course Christmas will start bright and early with opening presents and a yummy crock pot casserole we are going to try. Lets hope it turns out. At first Matt wanted to cook a casserole in the morning, though it takes 3 hours. So I asked him if he was getting up at 3AM to start breakfast :). He declined.

We want to go check out the lights at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens at some point while my mom is here. Have any local readers been? Is it worth it? Please tell me it is! I am kind of kicking myself for not getting Christmas Town tickets when they were $14! There is always next year right! Plus Kinley will enjoy it even more then and we will have little man with us too. Did you see news on us having a boy! We are still shocked!

Other than enjoy the time together we don't have any other plans. We actually might make these amazing sugar cookies again! If you haven't checked out the recipe go do that! It is worth it. Hopefully your dog won't eat all of them like ours did and you will get to enjoy them. Hence why we might make them again.

Cheers to hoping these next few days fly by for everyone and your holiday is blessed! I know ours will be. Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

I love our Christmas pictures so much! Lori Woodhouse does it again! Thank you! 

The BEST Sugar Cookies

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We had pretty unforgettable one! I can't believe there is only one more weekend until Christmas! And even better my mom comes on Christmas Eve. I can't tell you how excited we are for her to spend Christmas with us.

I worked all day Saturday but on the way home I really wanted to go see some Christmas lights. It was totally last minute but after we finished eating dinner we packed Kinley up and headed to a street that was full of beautiful houses. My friend had told me there was a street at the ocean front that goes all out with the lights. They definitely did not disappoint and Kinley enjoyed every minute. If you are a local reader it is off of 43rd and Pacific.

Sunday we had our family fun day! I love Sunday's with the family. It is the only day we all three get to spend the whole day together so we soak up every minute that we can. We went to Target and grocery shopping, made sugar cookies, made a few special deliveries of cookies and made a wonderful Philly cheese steak dinner with side salads. Perfect day.

I found the best sugar cookie recipe on PB&J Babes blog. I love reading her blog and her kiddos are the cutest. You should definitely go check her blog out. The recipe was super easy to make and the cookies are the best I have ever had. I highly recommended making these as soon as possible! And the almond extract is a MUST. It makes the cookies.

Christmas Butter Cookies

COOKIES

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter, softened

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

ICING

4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3-4 tablespoons milk

Festive sprinkles

--

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar until well combined.  

Add vanilla and almond extract, and then the eggs.   

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture while beating on low speed until smooth.

Scoop the dough by rounded tablespoons and roll into 1-inch balls.  Place them evenly spaced on a non-stick cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown at the edges and puffed.  Cool 3-5 minutes on the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

While the cookies cool, prepare the icing.

Combine softened butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar, adding milk to thin as desired.

Once the cookies have cooled it is time to frost and decorate! 

She wanted the two colors separate....at first :)

 

Yep you caught me eating all the sprinkles mom. 

All finished and looking so pretty! We had such a great time making these cookies! I hope you enjoy these as much as we did. 

Happy 4 Years - A Walk Down Memory Lane

Our anniversary was yesterday and it was pretty uneventful, but that is ok! We are in the middle of a move so things have been pretty crazy. So maybe uneventful isn't the correct word. It was pretty jammed packed but not with all the lovey dovey anniversary mush. We did get to go out to dinner which hasn't happened for a LONG time! That was amazing!

We got married 4 years ago on the amazing beach of the Secret Harbor Resort in St. Thomas. We had the best wedding ever! I highly suggest a destination wedding to anyone! Best decision I ever made. I think about our wedding often and how unforgetable it was and how much I can't wait until we can get back to St. Thomas. It is a pretty easy trip from Virginia Beach so I am hoping it won't be too many more years until we can get back down there.

I wanted to share a brief history about Matt and I in case you are new here and would love to take a walk down memory lane with me :)

Matt and I met online - Yahoo personals to be exact. There were some entertaining conversations because I was a nanny at the time and referred to the kids often so he thought I had kids and wasn't sure he wanted to get involved with that. This was our first date over 6 years ago.

I moved in after 3 months of knowing him. I was in quite a predicament and he offered. I was scared out of my mind because I didn't think we were that serious yet. LOL! Boy was I wrong. I am pretty sure his brother hated me at first for moving in and basically kicking him out. Thankfully we have a great relationship now.

4 months after that we got our adorable puppy (Kodac) after putting Matt's Shiba Inu to sleep due to cancer. Gosh that was a hard night! RIP Riley

We got engaged in February 2011 on a gloomy day at the beach. I just thought we were taking the dog to the beach and when we were about to leave he proposed. It was the sweetest thing ever. I was so shocked! It made my love for the beach that much more.

We knew right away we wanted to do a destination wedding with my family being in Colorado and his family here. We had visited St. Thomas the year before and knew exactly where we were going to get married. Now planning a destination wedding was a little lot stressful for me. I am a planner and want to know how things are going to turn out. It was hard for me to put trust in the wedding planners and know that things were going to be perfect. Long story short it was a perfect day! Things could not have been better. We had 28 people attend. The whole trip is a memory I will never forget!

I always knew I wanted kids, Matt, he took a little convincing; but I think deep down he wanted them he was just scared. We got pregnant in March 2013 and welcomed our little monkey November 27th, 2013. The second best day of my life. She is such a blessing to our family. She is constantly keeping us on our toes. As we enter the terrible 2's, with another one on the way we couldn't be happier to embark on this journey together. You can see the announcement pictures here for Brooksie #2.

The past 4 years have been better than I could have imagined. I can't imagine life with anyone else and I am so thankful to have my best friend by my side. Here are to many more years and many more memories!

25 Things to do this Fall

September is almost here. It is time to start thinking about what is on our bucket list for the fall. Kinley is getting older so she is able to participant in more activities. I have already been contemplating her Halloween costume :). I really do love fall and am super excited for it to be here! I am not sure what I love most about it. I think it is the cooler weather and wearing a hoodie. I also love being able to have a fire in the backyard and catch up with old friends.

What is your favorite thing about fall? What is on your fall bucket list? Here is ours:

1. Drink a pumpkin spice latte

2. Go apple picking

3. Watch football

4. Go on a hayride

5. Carve a pumpkin

6. Drink apple cider

7. Make pumpkin bread

8. Make s'mores

9. Go trick or treating

10. Jump in a pile of leaves

11. Watch Hocus Pocus

12. Visit a pumpkin patch

13. Roast pumpkin seeds

14. Wear dark nail polish

15. Make chili

16. Smell wonderful fall candle scents

17. Bring food to a food bank

18. Walk through a corn maze 

19.  Make fall crafts

20. Cuddle by the fire with a pumpkin beer

21. Watch the leaves change

22. Celebrate Kinley's 2nd Birthday

23. Get lost in a corn maze

24. Bake a pie

25. Wear my favorite hoodie

Feel free to share any other wonderful fall adventures in the comments. I would love to add to our bucket list for fall. Lets see if we can get to all of these! 

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!