Goodbye 2014

I cannot believe it is New Year's Eve, and I cannot believe 2015 is almost here.

It definitely has been a year of ups and downs for us...

Some of our ups included:

 Amazing trips to Disney World, Clearwater, Blue Ridge and Chattanooga

Briana's 1st communion (including a great visit with my BIL and SIL)

Briana's 8th birthday and her wonderful birthday party

3rd grade starting for Miss B (and she has been doing great)

Doug's coaching of Bri's soccer team and me continuing on as team mom

Lots of fun holidays ~ Chinese New Year, Halloween, Christmas

Briana running her first 5K

A super fun-filled summer break

Lots of quality time with family and friends

Doug doing amazing in his job

Me still loving my time as a stay-at-home mom

Some of our downs included:

The passing of my grandmother (Bubbie)

The passing of my fur baby Asia

Snowpocalypse in January (and my 7 hour journey to get Briana home from school)

My battle with bronchitis in March

My stuggle with an unusual bug bite on my leg that caused me to be on antibiotics for 3 weeks

Doug's super abundance of travel for work

 Watching several friends lose a parent this year

 I still have a ton of things to blog about when it comes to December. December was crazy busy for us - which is why I didn't have a chance to blog about it yet. But I will.

Looking at my year ahead, I already see a couple of trips in the future. We are planning on getting a new kitty in the new year. Doug will be coaching Bri's soccer team again in the spring and I will stay on as team mom. I am sure Briana will continue to rock 3rd grade. And I pray we stay happy and healthy.

I'm so blessed to have such an amazing husband and beautiful daughter, a wonderful family (including the best mother and father a girl could have) and so many awesome friends.

Thanks to all of you that still check in with my little blog from time to time and continue to follow my life and the amazing people in it.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2015!

Merry Christmas From Our Family To Yours

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Eating And Shopping In A Quaint Town

I am sure that you are not surprised that I had booked up our first weekend of December back in November. Unfortunately though, our good friends that were supposed to come over for dinner that Saturday evening were sadly not able to come due to their daughter getting sick. :(

So, Doug decided to take Briana and I to a little town near where we live to do some shopping and have dinner. We went to the same town last year around the same time and loved it. I'm so glad we were able to go again this year.

Above you will see Briana standing in front of the tall decorated Christmas tree. She was wearing my jacket because she was chilly.

This is our favorite shop in the town...

Somehow Miss B came out of the store with this very pretty scarf...

The store/coffee cafe is just so adorable...

This pretty tree below is actually in an antique shop...

We went into another store and I found a package of these adorable camper air fresheners. I bought a pack for my friend Kathy. She got a "new to her" camper earlier this year and I just had to get them for her..

Doug, B and I then had dinner at this grill...

The food was amazing...

And the atmosphere was so rustic and quaint...

I'm sad we didn't get to spend time with our friends that evening, but we had a great evening despite that. I love spending quiet evenings with my guy and best girl. It really puts me in the Christmas spirit!

Elf Adventures

Our Elf On The Shelf Red showed up the day after Thanksgiving. He has been making life quite interesting since he arrived. Briana absolutely loves finding him each and every morning, and she is so sad he will be leaving soon.

He's been all over our house.

With our K-cups...

Hiding in kettles...

Standing at attention...

Enjoying our Christmas trees...

Playing jungle gym with Briana's tinker toys...

Just hanging around...

Hiding in a stocking...

 Sitting in a manger...

Riding reindeer...

Sitting in a Charlie Brown tree...

Building marshmallow snowmen...

And he even staged a brown paper bag race...

Briana decided to leave Red a note one night a couple of weeks ago...

It was so adorable. She asked him if he had a girlfriend. And she drew a picture of her and me being surprised finding him in her bedroom (hanging with her beanie boos)...

She also threw me under the bus a bit. She wanted to buy Red a girlfriend and I nixed that idea. So, she ratted me out to him. Heh.

She drew a picture for him as well...

Red returned the favor by writing Bri back thanking her for writing and letting her know what he does when he is not with us and that he has a crush on a girl elf named "Twinkles"...

She thought that was so awesome...

And last night, Briana informed me that she made a skirt for Twinkles (for Red to take back to the North Pole to her). She is really trying to encourage their relationship...

This correspondence is getting a bit more complicated than expected. Heh.

Twinkles made Red bring a thank you card to Briana...

Briana's priceless reaction this morning...

 Red will be returning to the North Pole in a few days. Briana will miss him dearly.

{Me ~ I'm kind of ready for our visitor to head home soon. ;)}

Christmas Decorations

I really did the house up this year with Christmas decorations. Briana loves it so much ~ it's a lot of work, but I don't mind doing it for her.

The whole decorating thing for us starts with a live tree (we always go pick one out on Thanksgiving weekend)...

Briana loves looking for a tree. We disagreed on which tree to pick this year. Doug and I liked the one we ended up buying and Bri liked a different one. She got outvoted, but it didn't damper her spirit...

It was freezing the night we picked our tree. Doug and Bri kept going back inside the store to warm up (we went to Pike's Nursery). They had free hot cider to help keep warm and Bri loved that...

We bought this one and I put the lights up...

A few days later, I decorated it...

It is such a pretty tree and I am so happy with it.

My fireplace, carolers, light up houses and tree...

The day after Thanksgiving, Bri and I decorated the artificial tree that I put up in my master bedroom sitting area...

 We also decorated our special China-themed tree (which is in the dining room)...

This is the little tree that is in Bri's playroom (it has Looney Toons characters on it)...

And this is the tiny tree in Bri's bedroom. This is tree I used to put up in my room when I was a kid. I asked Bri a while back if she wanted a bigger tree or one that was pink or something like that. She said she wanted to keep this one. She is a sentimental thing like her mama...

Besides the trees, we have a Christmas Lego village (that Bri pretty much built all by herself over the past few years)...

An assortment of light up snowmen...

Nutcrackers...

And angels...

And while Bri and I were decorating inside, Doug was taking care of our outside...

He did an amazing job.

And since the day after Thanksgiving, our little friend Red has visited daily. He has been all over our house bringing much joy to a very excitable 8 year old.

More on that in my next post. :)