Oh Man...

Wow, not only is this month over...but I have barely put a dent on my goal list. AND I have been super terrible about updating everyone on our exciting lives. So here is a quick recap.

Last week was my birthday. Josh took me to dinner and a movie on Tuesday. Since we were already out, we decided to do a little bit of bar hopping and see our friends at work. Wednesday was spent at home being lazy...we had WAY too much fun Tuesday night. Josh had to work Thursday night, so I stayed at home and did some much needed straightening up (not that you can tell now, but oh well.) Friday was my birthday, and unfortunately I had to work Friday night. It was still a good night, but I would have preferred to be out with friends celebrating. Oh well, can't win 'em all, right? On Sunday we met up with my parents at Foodworks for a birthday brunch and boy oh boy was it delicious! I had a Philly cheese omelet and a good portion of my mom's apple cinnamon pancakes. I. am. in. love. A trip back for those pancakes will be definitely be planned.

This week so far I have booked two appointments to look at places for the wedding. Tomorrow we go check out Lindsay Street Hall and next Wednesday we will spend our afternoon at St. Luke United Methodist Church; checking out their sanctuary and talking prices and what not. Oh and we have a good idea of what we want out invites to look like! Not really on the list for this month, but oh well. It's something. Which right now is a lot, since we have nothing.

That's just a quick recap. Like I said, the month is almost over and I really have not done anything off my goal list...but luckily I still have 5 days...I bet if I really try, I can get a good part accomplished. And if not, there is always next month!

Lola, My Little Super Model

January Goals

Ok, so I decided that I am going to try this monthly goals thing. It's just a test run, seeing as I tried this once before and it was a MAJOR fail on my part. But, it is a new year and a new start, so why not give it a try for the first couple months and see what happens, right? Alright, here it goes:

FUN:
* Read a book a week: My Horizontal Life - Chelsea Handler
Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea - Chelsea Handler
Pratical Demonkeeping - Christopher Moore
Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies - Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
* Celebrate my 25th birthday
*Have lunch or dinner with 3 friends
* Have a couples night at our house with our friends, Sarah and Jerry

DIY/ CRAFTING:
* Make pages for 4 family events in the scrapbook
* Work on our family tree
* Make new wreaths for doors

HOME:
* Organize house
* Keep house clean so only minor straightening needs to be done
* Put up Christmas stuff
* Clean out garage

COOKING:
* Meal plan for nights off
* Try 1 new recipe
* Try 1 new yummy desert

HEALTH:
* Use the Wii Fit everyday
* Drink 4 glass of water a day

****Disclaimer: As we know, I am not really the workout kinda girl, so this category is going be taken in baby steps.****

WEDDING:
* Find venue/ venues
* Bridal party list
* First draft of guest list
* Make timeline of when things need to get done

Alright my friends, it's all out there for everyone to see. These are my intentions for the month. Hopefully now that I've committed to it, I can actually get some of this stuff done ( especially stuff for the wedding). Check back to see how the progress goes!

Resolutions

Happy New Year to all!! I can't believe it's a new year already; seems like we just started 2010. But, I couldn't be more excited about 2011. New beginnings and new memories to form. Oh, and have I mentioned..I'M GETTING MARRIED THIS YEAR!!! No, I'm not excited one bit.
Well, I'm sure just like everyone else, I have made a few New Year's Resolutions; things I want to get accomplished this year or even just things to improve my life and household. I'm not really very good about keeping up with resolutions, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this year IS going to be different. I'm also going to be trying out either monthly or weekly goals, but that is still to be decided. Hey, I think I'm doing pretty good in just making plans for the whole year, am I right?? Alright, so here is my list:

1. Reorganize and keep my house organized. I realized during all the Christmas festivities that my house is not organized AT ALL. This will be fixed.
2. Keep up with laundry...including actually putting it away. I am soooo bad about this and Josh will be very, very happy to see this one come true.
3. Meal plan for days Josh and I have off together and grocery shop weekly. Again, Josh will be proud.
4. Budget our money every week as best as we can and start saving as much as possible for the wedding.
5. Make out a plan of when I want things done for wedding and what needs to get done, AND STICK TO IT.
6. Work out and lose some weight! Wanna look my very bestest in my pretty white dress. :)
7. Start working on my family genealogy again. I had started once, worked on it for a good while..then stopped. Time to pick that back up again.
8. Read more. I love reading...I have time now, just need to actually do it.
9. Take more pictures. I always have my camera with me, but usually forget all about it. No more my friends.
10. Work on my scrapbooks. Again, something I really like doing, and I had started a huge family scrapbook. But, it has been collecting dust. I need to work on getting that finished and starting on one for Josh and myself.
11. And last, at least for now..try to have friends over to our house more often. There for awhile we would do a cook out/in with another couple that we are friends with..but with the holidays, we didn't get to have them over. Time to start that back up again.

Well, that's my list. It seems like a lot, but in reality it's just a lot of little things that I want to work on. I haven't figured out month goals or anything; I might have that posted by tomorrow. Hopefully.

Out with the Old; In with the New.

It's New Year's Eve and I couldn't be anymore excited for 2011 to begin. Josh and I are going to be so super busy this year and tons of fun, exciting, and wonderful events will be taking place. But, before we begin a new year, let's take a quick look at 2010.

January: I turned 24!!

We had a crazy snow storm where I had to walk to save my momma, then we both

trekked back to my house. Josh also had to park his car on the side of the road and

walk home, which meant walking back to his car in the morning so we could have a car

and get to work. The good thing about it, Lola got to play in the snow for the first time!

February: We had a tree fall on our house and my car. Enough said.

March: I bought my Blazer, Randy. (I don't think I ever actually introduced him, but that's his name.)

April: We found out we would not be able to move back into our old house, and began looking

for a new place to live. We also took some beautiful pictures at our church's gardens.

May: We moved into our new (and current) home.

June: My best friend, Amy, got married on the 12.

My other best friend, Rikki, married a friend of mine from High School, Austin on the 26.



July: We were super busy with work, and really didn't do anything fun. :(

August: Josh and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary.

September: Josh turned 28...AAAAND WE GOT ENGAGED!

October: We were busy, busy, with Halloween parties. Rikki and Austin's Zombie Dinner and

both our bars had parties we had to dress up for.



November: We celebrated Thanksgiving with Josh's parents.

December: This Christmas we had both of our parents at our house. It was lots of fun to be able

to have everyone together. OH, and it snowed!

Wow! I really didn't think that a lot had happened in 2010, but once I started looking back, we had a lot of good, and bad in our lives! All in all, it really was a great year, but 2011 is going to be even better! I just know it...I mean, I am getting MARRIED! Anyway, I hope 2010 was good to you all, and that 2011 brings even more happiness. Be safe, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A Very Merry Christmas

This Christmas was a little different than other years. Usually we load up the car and head up Signal Mountain to my parents' house for Christmas festivities. However, this year, Josh and I had to work on Christmas Eve AND his parents came in town to celebrate Christmas with us. So, this year Josh and I hosted Christmas at our house. Around 11 A.M. my parents arrived and we started the day with my mom's wonderful egg casserole. Then it was time for presents. Everyone really loved their presents, I got a beautiful necklace and bracelet from Josh, he got some games for the PS3 and some tools, Mom got a really pretty jewelry set from Dad; who got a TomTom from Mom, and Josh's parents got some books and a really pretty handmade Humming Bird feeder. By the time we finally got done with the presents, Santa was very good to us all this year, it was time to bring out the snackies and start working on Christmas Dinner.

While my mom, Josh's mom, and myself were busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, the boys stayed in the living room playing the Wii. For dinner we had ham, Parmesan potatoes, homemade mac and cheese, green bean casserole, holiday veggies, and the famous Landis family rolls. There was sooo much food and we are still trying to finish it all. After dinner we all relaxed on the couch and swapped Christmas traditions and favorite stories about Christmas' past. Then once we weren't so full from dinner it was time for some dessert ( shoo-fly pie and a cinnamon swirl cake with homemade butter cream icing; thanks Mom.)

We spent the rest of the night playing the game Apples to Apples, which Josh and I got from Santa. It was so wonderful to be able to spend this special holiday with both of our parents. I was really nervous about cooking such a large meal and then I was even more nervous because my parents almost couldn't make it because of the snow. And luckily they stayed the night on Christmas because of the weather. Don't need any accidents on Christmas. Everything turned out beautiful and we all truly enjoyed each other's company and being able to make precious memories. I can't wait to be able to have that quality time with everyone again. But, enough talk, here are a few of my favorite pics from the day.

All the pretty snow we woke up to.

Lola and Kitty's stockings hung up, ready for Santa.

Yay for presents!

Lola in her Christmas PJ's all snuggled up with Papaw (a.k.a. my dad)

Josh was really excited about his presents.

The dinner table all set.

The wonderful desserts that my mom brought to share.

My favorite part. As much fun as it is to get presents, it's good to remember the reason why we celebrate this wonderful holiday. It's a time to step back and think more of others than ourselves and be thankful and happy with what we have, and that's family and friends. None of this would be possible if this one small child had never been born. Everybody and everything makes an impact on the world, Merry Christmas and have a very, very, happy and blessed 2011.

A Big Chill Christmas

On Monday, I got to celebrate Christmas with my Big Chill Family. It all started the same as last year with a quick drink at Hair of the Dog and then car pooling out to Scottie's, our boss, house. There we had a spread of Bojangles fried chicken, cole slaw, green beans, biscuits, and Scottie's homemade pepperjack mac and cheese. After some lunch and joking around with each other, it was time for the present exchange. Every year Scottie and Scott, our manager, get us all something really nice for Christmas. This year Scott got all the girls bathrobes and slippers and from Scottie I got a Wii Fit. I was sooo excited about; she had heard through the grapevine that I was really really wanting one. Then the whole crew brings a present for a Dirty Santa gift exchange. Which is always a good time since you never know what you will end up walking away with and it's fun to see what everyone wants to steal .

After we packed up all of our goodies, we loaded back into the cars and headed back to Hair of the Dog to start our annual Pub Crawl. We stayed there for a couple games of pool and rounds of darts then headed over to Honest Pint, which just happened to be opening for the very first night of business. After a drink or two there it was time to head to the Big Chill to see what was going on at our most favorite spot. Then we sang a few songs at Sing it or Wing it, danced some at Raw, and by the end of night we right back at the Big Chill. It was a great time with people that make my job so much fun. We have been looking forward to this party for quite awhile. We have so much fun with each other, but hardly get to hang out all at the same time...I mean, someone's gotta be runnin' the bar right? So to be able to have one night out of the year set aside specifically to hang out with each means a lot to us and creates a great bond between the Big Chill Family. And of course there are ALWAYS great pictures to go with it.