10...9...8...

...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! As 2008 comes to an end, I thought it was only right to do a year in review! So here goes, 2008 in review...

You win some and you lose some and sometimes you call it a draw. For 2008, I think it would be called a draw. This year, I married the man of my dreams on October 11 and we had the fairytale picture perfect wedding. Our wedding was everything that we had imagined and so much more. I want to thank my parents, my family and those friends out there that stood by my side, supported me and helped me keep things in perspective. Matt and I are very excited about this new chapter in our life and sharing the rest of our lives together. After our wedding, we went on an amazing honeymoon in Jamaica and things couldn’t be better-him, me, the beach, romance…life with him gets better and better every day!

So while we began our lives together, we also said good-bye to Matt’s grandfather this past summer along with two other friends of his family. My dad had full shoulder reconstruction, Sally’s mom found out she had cancer and Matt hurt his back. All three are working on getting better but it’s a long road for all of them.

In January, we gained a new member to our family. His name is Shadow and he’s a black lab. He had some bad habits when we got him (like eating anything on the counter) but he’s learned and is a very good dog. He and Emma get along very well although Shadow likes to shred her bandana! In August, we found out that he had heartworms but we got him treated and so far so good. We take him back around March for a final all clear and then he should be good to go!

In June, I finished my Masters in Business Administration from Lindenwood University. Luckily, the program was quick and painless and definitely well worth it! Work this year has been a learning and growing experience. Never do we stop learning-if we do then we stop growing.

So 2008 has definitely been a year of ups and downs but, overall, it was a year of understanding…understanding that the good comes with the bad, that true friends stick by your side and what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Here’s to 2009!!! Happy New Year!

(Here's a picture of Matt and I at our rehearsal dinner-never before seen!)

Merry Christmas to all...

...and to all a good night! The holiday season FLEW by!!! Here are just a couple of memories captured on our camera from Christmas 2008.

My neice and Emma!
Emma got bored watching us open presents so she fell asleep in my lap.

The infamous trio tried to get a picture together...this was the aftermath of Emma giving us crazy kisses!

Here's our reindeer...eh...dog Shadow! Don't you just love the ears?

Here is Mattie and I in front of our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve (the only couple of hours we actually had to ourselves) before we exchanged presents. Being the good husband that he is, he got me everything I wanted!!! I got a Carthart jacket and bibs for hunting, a past/present/future necklace in aquamarine stone which matches my wedding ring and ponytail holders!!! He's so funny on what he picks up on!

Here we are on Christmas day at his parents house where they got me a 22 rifle for hunting!!! I swear to you not 10 minutes after this picture, Matt and I walked outside to put our gifts in the truck and a deer ran across the field! It's a sign!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and, after all my gifts, hopefully I'll have better hunting stories for you next year!

Mr. and Mrs. Claus...

...kissing!!! Here are Emma and Shadow donning their holiday attire and Emma is giving Shadow a kiss!


Here's Emma sticking her tongue out at me saying Ha! Ha!

Happy Holidays everyone from the human Mr. and Mrs. Claus and the doggie Mr. and Mrs. Claus at our house!

It's beginning to look...

...a lot like Christmas!!! So I had to work this morning but I'm home now and Mattie and I are busy baking, wrapping, cleaning, hanging, etc...

First things first, we decided to do little baskets for our neighbors which included cinnamon ornaments. FYI-the batch made about 6 PLATES of ornaments and our all house smells of cinnamon. They are spread throughout the house in HIGH places so the dogs won't eat them.

Here is a pretty cardinal that's been eating at our birdfeeder.

Here is the finished baskets for our neighbors. Contents include a glass snowman filled with potpourri (I made them myself and my mom knitted the hats-they are made out of frappacino bottles), homemade applesauce, cinnamon ornaments and homemade cookies. I've only given one basket away so far and she loved it!!!

Here I am (and I look awful) with one of our wedding gifts. It's one of those that lights up (but we couldn't catch all the colors). It looks really good.

Right now, I'm waiting for my dough to chill then I'm going to make Andes Mint cookies-yum!!! Hope everyone is finished up with their shopping and enjoying the holiday season!!!

The Story of Us...

...happy Two Year Anniversary of our First Date! So the story of us...here goes! This is all very ironic and a story full of fate. So back in spring 2006, I was working at the front desk with a friend/co-worker, Mel. It was SLOW and we were BORED! So we decided to play MASH and all those fun girly games...great idea except I wasn't dating, interested or talking to anyone SO who would I put down? Well, Mel starts telling me about this guy named Matt and he becomes the object of my MASH fun that day. After that day, she starts telling me that I really should meet him and we'd be great and all those fun things you say to get someone to go on a blind date. So about a month and a half later, it was Cinco de Mayo and (hold on to your seats...this gets romantic) I'm standing in line for the Port-a-Potty and this guy is standing in front of me. I had seen him earlier but thought he was with a different girl so I casually start making conversation and during the conversation I figure out that this is MASH MATT!?! OMG! So the night goes on, we danced, talked and drank and nothing came of that night. Mel tried a couple other times to get us to go out and we were in a couple of group settings but fast forward to December 2006. We FINALLY go on our first date!!! Dinner, comedy club and then to BWW for drinks...I loved how everyone casually had to leave so that it was just Matt and I talking. We had a great night, chatted, got to know each other, gave each other a hug and I gave him my number. WELL, Mr. Matthew let the three-day rule expire so I was like great he's not interested but we really did have a GREAT time but at the same time, I tried to tell myself it was the holidays and he was busy. So two weeks go by and I finally just tell Mel give me his number and I CALLED HIM! The rest is history and now I'm Mrs. Matthew!

Here is one of the first pics of us together. I'm not real big on taking pictures together because I think it will jinx stuff so Matt is probably the only boyfriend I have pictures with.

Here we are 1 year ago today when we got engaged (FYI-this is a totally staged picture and Matt had no idea what I was doing).

And here I am with my pretty husband on our wedding day (I love this picture because I think it truly captures how in love we are).

So happy two year anniversary to us! I love you Mattie!

Vistors...

...in our backyard! Matt put a birdfeeder up in the back yard and almost EVERY day we have to restock this corn for the squirrels. We always find the empty cobs but never saw one until the other day!!! I ran and grabbed the camera and snapped a couple of shots. Mattie was very disappointed he didn't get to see them in person but he was very happy I got the picture for him!!!

Isn't that a fat squirrel? Anyways, the birds that eat out of the birdfeeder (not shown) always knock the feed on the ground and the squirrels drop corn so when we let the dogs out they run straight to it and look like cows grazing!!! Hope everyone has a great week and FYI-this is my 50th post!!!!

You know Comet, Cupid and Donner and...

...Blitzen but do you know Bojangles? Well, allow me to introduce you! Faithful and loyal readers of my blog meet Bojangles. Bojangles my faithful and loyal readers! Tonight I had to work at Celebration of Lights and aside from drinking enough hot chocolate to turn into a Hershey kiss and having my little toesies (not sure on the spelling of that) frozen off, I also got to meet Bojangles. He mainly hung out with Santa and Ms. Claus but he took a couple minutes to meet me. Once I told him about the blog, HE suggested we take a picture. He knows that Rudolph and the gang are busy practicing their take-offs and landings for Christmas so he's trying to get his name out to make appearances for them. He was very soft and a pretty sweet reindeer but he was getting a little cranky probably because he was so cold too! (Notice that I am wearing two scarves, I also had on long underwear, two pairs of socks, a hat, a hood and 4 shirt layers PLUS a coat and oh yeah, it was raining too!)

So first I got a Christmas tree today and then I got to meet a real reindeer so it really is beginning to be a lot like Christmas!

Our First Christmas...

...as Mr. and Mrs. Matt didn't have to work today because of the weather so when I came home from work today, I came home to this teeny tiny Christmas tree! It's a real one that Matt wants to plant in the yard after the holiday season. If you can't tell by the picture, it's "swamped" (sarcasm if you can't tell) with all 5 ornaments we have which are all primarily mine. Let's see there is one soccer ball ornament, another soccer ornament that is cross-stitched with my name on it and we can't forget the wooden cheerleading bear in orange and black-GO TIGERS! Yes, soccer was a pasttime of mine, orange and black were my high school colors and I used to collect bears. OH, if you read Kristal's blog and mine which I know all two of my readers do, please do not compare my wrapping to hers-I'm embarassed!

Now, tonight, I'm actually working at Matt's part-time job and my full-time job...so we'll kinda be together and cold and outside SO I'm in charge of bringing hot chocolate AND I get to sleep in tomorrow! Happy Holidays everyone!

Silly doggies...

...that's exactly what my two pups are-silly doggies! Since Matt and I both now have full-time AND part-time jobs, we haven't eaten dinner together since last Monday night which was....SURPRISE-leftovers!!! So today, I had to work my FT job this morning then we both had to go work our PT jobs so we decided we'd have a nice lunch together (yummy deer steak!). So while we were waiting for lunch to finish, my 100lb black lab decided to jump up and give me a hug! I can't believe we're almost the same height! Isn't he cute?

On a side note, we are his third (and final home) but look at this face, who wouldn't want him? I mean his worst trait is that he wants you to love him, he's always trying to get in bed or slowly climb in your lap. About 8:30 on a Friday evening, Matt's friend calls asking if he knew anyone that wanted a three-year old black lab. The friend was getting kicked out of his house and had to find a home for all their animals. Matt gets off the phone, comes in the room I'm in and in his sweetest, biggest puppy dog face says, "Baabe...." I told him to give me 20 minutes alone so I could think about it. We'd been talking about getting another dog because Matt felt outnumbered by Emma and I and I think he felt leftout because Emma and I were so close. I agreed and we went to get him. The first day, I'd laid some hamburger in the sink to thaw. I was in the bedroom getting dressed and here comes Shadow with the hamburger meat in his mouth. He brought it right too me and didn't try to eat it so it was hard to not laugh. A couple weeks later, he had a seizure which scared the beejezus out of me! Then in August, we found out he had heartworms. He's doing good now, we won't know until about March if he's in the clear from them but I'm so glad he's a part of our family now even though he is pretty crazy and loves to eat birdseed.

Now I'm not one to play favorites so here's a picture...eh, we should say attempt, of Emma and I. Once again, her biggest problem is that she wants to love you-notice the blurred snout on her, that's because she's giving me kisses. Emma is a great dog too. We got her from a free ad in the newspaper which turned out to be more like a puppy mill so my mom took her thinking we'd at least clean her up and find her a good home. Well, you know how those stories go and she's now a part of the family although she almost didn't get to stay. Talk about dogs that love to chew...that would be Emma. At our old house, we had a screened in porch that the dogs stayed on when we left. Emma slowly ate everything on that porch until there was nothing left on it and there was A LOT on it!?! So she lived at my mom's house until she was two being "the red-headed step-dog" because the other two dogs were black and so she was the outcast. Then I graduated college and moved to SC and in my biggest puppy dog eyes, I asked my mom if I could take Emma with me. She agreed and this was probably the best choice ever for both Emma and me. We lived out there for about 1.5 years but while we were out there, it was just us learning to be in the "real world" together and being each other's family. We spent holidays, birthdays and sick days together taking care of each other. I always ask my mom if she thinks Emma would have rather stayed with my mom or me and my mom always says, "She wouldn't be happier anywhere else but with you."
So that's the story of my "kids" and how they came to be a part of our family. I know most all of you out there like dogs so I thought you would enjoy this post plus people only comment when I add pictures! Hope everyone had a great weekend and spent some quality time with their dogs!

My Head...

...feels this big (see extended arms)! I came home from a weekend with the fam with a massively horrible head cold. Monday I woke up and couldn't swallow, luckily I was already off work. The sore throat is gone but the stuffy nose, headaches and general icky feeling is still there. Matt has been doing a great job taking care of me...bringing home OJ and Sprite, fixing me toaster pizzas (I really wanted pizza!?!)and reminding me to take my medicine. He's so sweet because every night before bed, he'll ask my symptoms and then bring me whatever we have that matches it. I also brought a gallon of OJ to work that I've been sipping on all week.

On a brighter note, we got our wedding album in the mail yesterday! There are a couple of things I would like differently but overall I love it! Matt hasn't even seen it yet! Speaking of him, he's working tonight so I should take the opportunity to go Christmas shopping for him except I have no idea what to get him!?! The whole wedding thing put me WAY behind this year! Ususally, I'm done shopping for everyone and gifts are wrapped! Not this year though! I did buy him a new winter coat but he was with me for that one so I don't think that really counts.

Happy early Friday to everyone!!!