Christmas Time is Coming!

A Christmas Post in bullet form:

- I have 2 more days left of school! Wahoo!
- I have a staff party Tuesday night and it should be a lot of fun.
- Wednesday, me, mom, Nickel, and the girls are going to the American Girl store in Atlanta. I am so excited because I have an American girl, but I never got to actually go to the store and shop!(not that I will be buying anything this trip)
- Matt is already in Dadeville helping out at Camp, and I will leave Thursday morning and head down with the cat, dog, and all our Christmas goodies!
- Me, my brother, my sister, our spouses, and the nieces and nephew will be at my mom's Christmas Eve/ Chrsitmas Day so it should be an interesting weekend! Of course exciting as always. (this will be the first time since Eddie was born that we will all be at the house together!
- We are leaving the day after Christmas (once Matt and his friends play paintball) to spend the rest of Christmas Break in North Carolina!
- We will return New Year's Eve and hopefully lay low that weekend because I start school again on January 3rd, Matt has to go to Knoxville for a week in mid-January, I have state testing, and then we have to prepare for Matt to leave for Knoxville until July!

I will definitely blog sometime over the break, hopefully in between Christmas in Dadeville and North Carolina! I hope you and your family has a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!
Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

Because I Cannot Leave Him Out!!!

This is my first love, Waylon, enjoying huskies in the tv this morning! Matt sent this to me as I was driving to work and it cracked me up! He is so funny, even though he woke me up at 4 AM today hacking and coughing!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Cat and his Mice

This precious angel, Jennings, has recently found that he loves mice! Sunday morning I was awoken to the sound of a squeaking mouse scampering in our bedroom. I shook Matt awake and told him that he had to get the mouse out immediately! So he got up and picked the mouse up in a bag and threw it outside. It unfortunately did not make it past where Matt threw him in the yard. Well, Sunday we both get in the bed pretty early and about an hour and a half later I hear squeaking again. So I wake Matt up again and tell him to get up and get the mouse out! Being the loving husband he is he got up and took care of the mouse, again! I decided then that the cat was not allowed in our bedroom anymore. That lasted about 4-5 hours until the cat realized he was locked out and whined/cried/scratched at the door. So I let him in. Well at 4:45 AM I hear the squeaking again and wake Matt up, but he refuses to get up so for the next hour I listened to Jennings playing with this mouse and praying that he did not bring it on the bed! When we both finally got up I told Matt to grab the mouse and get it out...Well before Matt could grab the mouse Jennings scooped it up in his mouth and ran to the basement. I closed the cat in the basement and wished him luck. While I was getting ready this morning, Matt went to get his pants from the dryer and he told me to come look downstairs. What did I see? My precious Jennings tearing that poor mouse to pieces and eating him. So needless to say Jennings is banished to the basement until it is warm again. I just DO NOT DO MICE!

This look just like those little mice that Jennings was terrorizing!



1 Year Later

I can't believe that one year ago today I married the Man of My Dreams! We had a long, complicated, 3 states away courtship that turned into a quick engagement and a dream wedding. This year has brought us 5 1/2 months apart, a cat, a niece, a nephew, a coaching job, the house buying process, countless trips to North Carolina, 2 birthdays (one bringing Matt closer to 30 and me closer to 25!), friend's babies, ups/downs, on and on and on. I could recap everything that we have done but that would take forever! I also feel that if you want to know what we have done over the past year just check out the December-December of the blog! I found this idea on Pintrest and you take a picture each year on your anniversary with a picture of the year before. So we held a picture of our wedding day! (Next year we will hold this picture, so on and so on!) I think it is a super cute idea! Matt, I love you more today than yesterday and I cannot wait for the next 65+ years!


Our Cake that Mrs. Kelly made for us!

I was not really into the whole tradition of freezing the top of the cake and then eating it a year later, so Mrs. Kelly made us a replica and it was delicious!!


It was sssssooooo good at our Wedding and this replica was amazing as well!!!




2010 (picture) and 2011



My beautiful Sapphire ring that Matt got me!! He got new Costa Sunglasses, but we didn't get a pic!

Saturday night we went to eat at Bellini's in Hoover. I found it on Urbanspoon and it was delicious. Matt had the Filet and I had pan seared Grouper. Since it was our Anniversary we got a free dessert. We decided on their White Chocolate Bread Pudding. All in all the dinner was fabulous and it was fun to get dressed up and go out!

It's Christmas Time at the McMillan's

I know I have not done a House Post, but Matt was able to capture all of our Christmas decorations last Wednesday! I have enjoyed being able to look at all our wonderful ornaments that we have and also start our own Christmas decorations collection. We are still trying to come up with some of our own Holiday Traditions, but I will keep you posted! I also promise to do a full house post after the Holidays so you can really get the look of the house! They are in no particular order, btw!!!!

Our Christmas Tree with my awesome tree skirt (Mom and I found it on Pintrest!)

We have a tradition to get a new ornament every year! I don't know what we will do once we have kids!

Up-close of my Tree Skirt! It use to be a tablecloth!

Outside decorated!

Front Porch

Matt's Christmas Tomatoes!

Front Door

From the front door looking toward the kitchen!

Tree in our bedroom! This has actually gotten more Red Deco mesh around it, so it looks better!

The mantle in our bedroom.

Downstairs bathroom.

Living Room, Dining Room, Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

Dining Room! I love my Christmas China!

Stockings and Christmas Frames

Stairwell

This is in the Dining Room

Christmas with The McMillan's

As mentioned in a previous post, Matt's parents, sister, brother-in-law, and our niece came to visit us the day after Thanksgiving! Since we will not be able to go to North Carolina until after Christmas, it also served as our Christmas with them. This was a great excuse to get my whole house ready for Christmas 2 weeks in advance!!! ;) They were able to travel half-way on Thursday and got to our house Friday around lunch. After they unpacked we spent the rest of the day touring the house, lounging around, and watching football. On Saturday we got up and had a wonderful breakfast and then we split up (boys/girls) and went shopping. I took Matt's mom and sister to Home Accents in Pelham and they were both able to get some Christmas decorations. We had a great lunch at Jason's Deli and then ended our shopping excursion at The Christmas Tree Shops! After we made it back to the house it was time for the BIG GAME! I was not worried one bit about my Crimson Tide (haha!!) They ended up making it a solid performance and I am proud to be apart of the population that has bragging rights for 366 days (2012 is a leap year!). After the game we opend presents and attempted a family picture! It was funny to say the least! Just so you have a mental picture: We were using a $12 tripod that was barely sturdy enough to hold my camera, I had the camera on manual focus instead of auto, and an 11 month old....case in point: All the pictures very blurry and tilted! Thanks to my genius husband he fixed everything and got us 1 good picture where we are all looking! Thanks goodness! After our picture we ate delicious ribs (Matt smoked them and they were so good!) mac and cheese, and sweet potato casserole! That night we watched more football and just vegged out! Sunday they got up pretty early and headed back to North Carolina! On Sunday, Matt and I did as little as possible and barely move off the couch! We watched a couple movies and I slept for about 2 hours! Matt's family did hit a little snag in Atlanta and ended up sitting in traffic for 2 hours, but other than that made it home safely! We are so blessed that they were able to come to our home and we enjoyed their company so much! We can't wait to see you in December. These are some of the highlights from the weekend. Hope you enjoy!

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

Thanksgiving was a wonderful event as usual! It was a little more low-key this year considering Chip, Cara, and Eddie, Nickel, Russ, and the Girls did not come down. We also only spent about 12 hours in Dadeville because Matt's family came to McCalla the day after Thanksgiving! We had a great time in Dadeville at Aunt Suzy's and Uncle Bill's. There was plenty of food, fun, and most of all family! I got to work on my photography skills with the little cousins. We always wnjoy being able to spend time with our wonderful cousins that we don't see as often as we want! Cristin helped us take our Christmas card picture: which was funny, funny, funny!! Matt even snagged a couple pictures of Cristin and myself acting "our normal selfs!"



Nothing beats a cousin!



Mac playing in the leaves.

One attempt at a Christmas Card Pic....Notice the hat? Yep that won't be showing up on my cards!



Dyma, Vlad, and Sasha




Raking the leaves!



We should definitely stand like this...

Love this pic...True M & C

Matt really captioned us exactly the way we are! Silly!!!

Weekend Before Thanksgiving

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Matt and I headed to Dadeville for a relaxing weekend! We were suppose to have "Camp Family Thanksgiving", but due to the fact that Eli Veres came into this world a little early we had to postpone until New Year's! Nickel, Russ and the girls were in town for Auburn's Homecoming game, so we even got to spend some time with them which is always fun! Saturday was spent hanging out with Lawson (She is still a bit too young to go to a game!), meeting Eli, and enjoying a family dinner at Oskar's! Sunday after church, Mom and I were busy working on Christmas decorations and various crafts! Enjoy the pictures!

Nothing better than these sweet angels!



This Sassy Little one is my love!



My new camera strap my mom made for me!



For some reason all the photos are mixed up, but they are good and I am so glad I captured these memories!