Eek!!

I cannot believe it's been a month since I've made a post. I am SO sorry ladies! The time has just gotten away from me. I am going to try my hardest to begin to post more often.

A few things you should know...

-We are coming up on our ONE YEAR anniversary and I simply can't get over how this first year of marriage has gone! What a blessing it has been for us. We are so excited to see what else the Lord has in store for us as we continue on in our journey!

-We won the vacation contest we were in!!! Thank you so very much to those of you who voted for us, we couldn't have done it without you! Because of this amazing contest, we will be able to spend our one year anniversary in Hilton Head Island, SC! This is such a blessing for us and we are so excited to get to go back to where we spent our first week as husband and wife!

-While I have been absent from posting I have been very busy here at home and of course with work as well. Here are a few of the things I've been working on lately....

Solar landscape lights my mother-in-law gave us. The left hand side are the before shots. The left are the after. They were spray painted with silver paint and then I put a clear coat on them for protection. Now they look new and they look great along the sidewalk to the front door!
My flower bed! I absolutely LOVE gardening!! And when Home Depot had a huge sale on their summer annuals I knew I had to get some. The large pink plant on the left is a candy stripe creeping phlox and it was planted last year and has more than tripled in size! Besides the Phlox, there are Petunias, Violas, a yellow Gerbera Daisy, Dianthus, Celosia, and two different varieties of Hosta.
Charles also picked out this beautiful Dwarf Rhododendron and he also picked out a Cherry Tomato plant so we are hoping that does well so we have them to snack on this summer!

I designed this mosaic stained glass table top, cut the pieces to fit, glued them down and then grouted it!

I've been enjoying spending time with my niece Daisy when I am able to...love her tons!!

And this beauty has adopted us and we are trying to find him/her a home as we cannot afford to have a pet right now. One of Charles's co-workers is considering taking "kitty" (my name for him/her).

So that's a quick look at what I've been up to lately and so much more! I'll restart the wedding recaps in a few days so stay tuned!

Our First Christmas

We were so excited to celebrate our first Christmas as a married couple and really enjoyed our time together starting what will be our family traditions. Here are a few pictures...

Our stockings were hung on the wall with care. Oh how we wish we had a fireplace!

And the gifts were all under the tree waiting to be opened.
How cool is it that our first Christmas was a WHITE Christmas!? We loved it and when all was said and done, we had 10" of snow! It was beautiful!!
The spread!

So a little info about our Christmas traditions...
Charles's family didn't have any traditions when it came to Christmas so we adopted a lot of traditions that my family had in place ever since I can remember. They are things I've always loved and I can't wait to share them with our children when that day comes.

- Christmas Eve growing up and all through the years, my brother and I were allowed to each open one gift...Charles and I continued this tradition as well and will when we have kids.
- Another tradition from my family: Christmas morning while breakfast is cooking, we open our stockings. Then when breakfast is done and the stockings are open we eat breakfast.
- Next we open the presents under the tree.
- For lunch and dinner Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I will not cook (just as my mom never did). I do not want to be in the kitchen away from my family during such a special time. So instead we have snack foods that can stay out all day long and when someone is hungry they can go help themselves.

The other tradition that we will have once we have kids is that on Christmas Eve once the kids are asleep in their beds we will place on gift at the foot of their bed that they can open immediately when they wake up in the morning.

The other thing Charles will do is sign the letter the kids leave for Santa with the cookies and milk. He will sign it "S.Claus" in red ink.

Daisy Gail

So this is late but due to the craziness of the holidays, I just wasn't able to get it posted sooner.

Daisy Gail was born on December 17th, 2010 at 12:24 AM. She weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. It was a very long night for us all but so worth it after seeing her beautiful face!

Congratulations to my baby brother and his wife on their little Christmas blessing baby!

Waiting for Daisy to arrive.

Daisy Gail looking up at her mommy.

My mom, Jessica, my brother Daniel and me holding Daisy!

She is seriously the most beautiful baby I've ever seen and I'm not just saying that because I'm her Aunt! :)

Bridal Show and the big 3-0!

Sunday my mom and I attended the Knoxville Premier Bride Bridal show and had a blast! We got to sit in a 1958 Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce and it was amazing! I felt like royalty! It is one of only 25 that were ever made. It would be a dream to drive away a married couple in that fabulous beauty!! Here are a few pictures I took of the car:

My beautiful mom with the beautiful Rolls-Royce! (Source: yours truly)
The unmistakable grill of the Rolls-Royce. (Source: yours truly)

We also took advantage of the use of a photo booth free of charge! I swear to you, if I had the budget for it I would soo have a photo booth at our wedding!

My incredible mom and me! (Source: Knoxville Photo Booth)

I also found an incredible company that preserves your bouquet along with lots of other keepsake items. I am definitely going to use this companies services because the results are amazing! Not only do they preserve your bouquet but they also preserve the grooms bout. Plus they can add your cake topper, garter, hairpiece, a copy of your invitation, the grooms tie, and anything else you want preserved. The frames they are placed have a domed cover that prevents everything from being smashed and give it all an overall incredible look! Check out their website to see their amazing work!

(Source: Flowers Forever)

During the David's Bridal fashion show that was held at the bridal show, mom and I saw a dress that caught our attention. It was a stunning silver dress that we both just LOVED for my mom. We're planning on making a trip to David's on Friday so she can try the dress on so more on that later.

Ok, now on to the big 3-0! I have finally reached 30 followers!!! I am so excited and can't believe you all find my ramblings interesting enough to follow along! I apologize that there hasn't been much blogging on my part and will try to get back into the swing of things. Honestly, I haven't done much of anything wedding related since I found out I was going to be temporarily laid off. But now that the inital shock of all that has for the most part passed, I'll get with the program. I terribly miss reading all of your lovely blogs. I seriously went through some withdrawl when I had to stop reading. My stupid dial-up interent just will not allow me to keep up with you all. Posting this blog is hard enough! I want to thank you all though for hanging in there with me while I go through this trying time. And as always, those of you who pray keep my job situation in your prayers please!