merry Christmas!!!

{yeah, i'm still catching up...whatever}

over the Christmas holidays, my hubby's mother, father, sisters, + maternal grandparents came to visit + spent a few days with us at our house. his brother also stayed a few days with us as he was already living in the area at the time. we had a great time just visiting with one another, shopping {well, they did...i'm not much of a shopper - at all, lol}, cooking, + visiting other family members.

Christmas morning, we exchanged gifts + then headed over to my hubby's cousin's home for an awesome breakfast! here are a few pics of us exchanging gifts + at breakfast...

there's a funny story about my mattress pad - LOL!!!

breakfast/bunch....YUM!!!

it started to SNOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!

after breakfast/brunch, we all headed over to rae's aunt + grandmother's homes for Christmas dinner!

more snow pics to come...

Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree....

{playing "catch-up" on posts}

the week after Thanksgiving, the hubby + i decided to look for a Christmas tree to put in our living room. we had been eyeing one at a local store + after a few trips back + forth, we decided to go ahead + purchase it. i don't even remember what we were indecisive about at the time, given the fact that this all happened almost two months ago but once we finally got the tree home, we were pretty excited about it. it was the perfect size for the space we had picked out.

the tree came in two pretty large boxes. we literally spent about 20 minutes trying to stuff fit the tree into our car. keyword: car...not a truck, a van, or an SUV...you know, any kind of vehicle that could actually fit a 12 foot Christmas tree...a car. the experience was pretty exhausting fun. after realizing that fitting the boxes in the car just wasn't going to work, we decided to improvise + take all the tree parts out of the boxes - SCORE!

we waited until the next weekend to actually put the tree up + decorate it...we had grand plans to do it all in one night, but that didn't happen - at all. it took us about a week {yeah, i said it} to finish the tree. i mean...the thing was HUGE!!!! and, of course, it had to be just right because soooomebody in our house is such a perfectionist, lol! i'm not saying any names {especially since it's mine, lol}.

although it took us a few days, we had a great time doing it....here are a few pics of the process...

 we had yummy chocolate chip cookies! sorry, i couldn't wait until after the pic to take a bite....

  hubby setting up the Christmas music + slideshow of pictures of us through the years...

some of the decorations

the space BEFORE

 

the grand reveal....

note: we couldn't find a tree topper that we liked, so we went without one this year

Christmas card turned online greeting...

today, i will be doing a series of "catch up" posts. so much has happened over the past couple of weeks since i last posted, like Christmas...New Years...lasik surgery, lol...so, enjoy the next few posts!

soooo, without further ado, let's get this "catch up" party started...

in a previous post, i mentioned that i had taken pictures of my father + brother for their Christmas cards, but i wanted to wait until they had mailed them out before i posted the pictures online. to be honest with you, i'm not even sure that they sent them out.....men, i tell ya! in their defense, they didn't receive the cards until 2 days before Christmas, but stillll!!! {i knew i just should have had the cards mailed to me so that i could've made sure they got out, lol}.

anyhooo, you know what i noticed?!?! there's no date on these....soooo, my vote is to send them out next year, LOL! just kidding...kinda :)

well for the sake of the cards not going 100% to waste, i am posting an online version of the card here...

i think you can click on the card for a better view....check out my wonderful beginner photography skills :)