Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was a little different this year since we celebrated with our families earlier than normal. Ryan and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together watching movies, working on a puzzle and just hanging around the house. I ended up putting away all the Christmas decor on Christmas day - CRAZY! But I love that I have my house back and it feels so much less cluttered with all the decorations put away.

What's in store for the New Year? Well we have several things we either anticipate or hope for:

1) Promotions at work - Ryan actually just recently found out that March 1 he'll be promoted to a new position at Safeco. He'll be a manager and is excited about that. His other position was being eliminated so we are happy he was able to find another position within the company. I anticipate being promoted to Senior Manager at Crowe Horwath where I've been a Tax Manager for 3.5years. Senior Manager means I have to do more business development type work and try to grow the west coast tax exempt practice. I'm up for the challenge but it most likely will require more travel. We'll see how that goes.

2) Starting a family - we really hope this year will be our year to start a family. We have been trying for over a year.Though since I do travel often I feel that has been somewhat of a hinderance for us. We have been in prayer about it and hope that God will hear our prayers. If not, I pray that will be content with not having a family or seeking other options. It's ultimately His plan. Continue to pray...

3) Getting fit - I would like to do a few more 5ks this year. We did our first one a few months ago and I really enjoyed it. I'm not much of a running but I did the 5k in about 28minutes. I'm hoping to improve my time. Both Ryan and I would like to be more fit and inshape this next year. We have no excuse since we have a treadmill and an elliptical machine at home. We just need motivation!

I'm sure there is more I could write but it's early yet and I can't quite remember all the things I want to do or hope for this year :) I'll add to the list as I remember!

I'm so thankful for this year though. It's been great being back in Seattle - we have been home now 2 years after being in Chicago. We love being close to friends and family and really love our neighborhood. We couldn't have asked God to put us in a better place.

Happy New Year to all.

Cookie Party

I hosted a cookie exchange party last night and it was so much fun to have good friends and eat yummy food! I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of all the folks we had over here but I did get some good shots of the cookies I made and some of the kiddos that were running around hyped up on sugar!

Another Pinterest idea I found that turned out pretty good. Bake a hersey kiss on a pretzel for 3-4minutes and then push an M&M down on top after taking it out of the oven. Pretty yummy. I had a friend who did the Rolo and pecan version and I honestly liked that better so if you have a choice I would do that one :)

  

I also made sugar cookies and gluten free peanut butter cookies. I took a few photos of these as well. I wasn't that impressed with my sugar cookies and this will most likely be the last time I make those for awhile because they are so time consuming to decorate!

Does anyone else think this looks like a Christmas Tree? I tried but don't think I really accomplished what I wanted to with this.

Here is the table I set up along with the final outcome after all the cookies arrived. I think it turned out pretty fabulous!

Last put not least - here are some pictures of the kiddos running around the house. As you can tell each pic was blurry because they were too busy running around having fun!

Until next year....turned out to be a great party. Thanks for all those that brought appetizers, wine and cookies to share. I had a great time!

Christmas Decor

I love decorating my house this time of year. This is probably one of my favorite parts of Christmas outside of celebrating the birth of Jesus. I find Christmas shopping to be burden some and I always fine it a challenge to find the right gifts for my family. So decorating is one thing I can do to be creative and doesn't cause me heart burn :)

Here are some pics of what I've done so far. I've spent a lot of time on Pinterest these days to get ideas. I still have so many crafts and DIY projects I want to try but won't probably get to do many of them this year. The few I've done though I've enjoyed.

I posted this pic of our house last time but I just love how it turned out so I'm posting again. I love my new staple gun that allowed me to do the lights around the windows, garage and the wreaths and garland over the archway.

I found this "Merry" idea on Pinterest. I found these letters at Michaels - they didn't have enough in white or red to make a full word with all the same colors but I liked the idea of mixing up the white and red letters anyway.
                           

Our Christmas tree looks great this year. It seems to be the perfect shape for our room. I also linked the tree to the wreath and garland that I attached to the curtain rod. Looks great. Hard to tell since my flash didn't seem to make the pic come out that great.                                      
                                                                                                                                                                    
  

I strung some lights around our formal living area and hung some of our ball ornaments around. I really liked how it turned out.

This is in our family room. I've actually already changed up a few things and added more decor but love how it's turning out.

Thanksgiving

My official first blog!!

Thanksgiving turned out great this year, even though I had my doubts. I wasn't sure we could host such a house full but we did! We had 18 people are our house! It was so much fun. My brothers came and then we had a bunch of Ryan's aunts, uncles, cousins and immediate family over as well.

Looking at the ads for Blank Friday.

                             

A great pic of Tyler and Wilma!

We also had a nice Thanksgiving at my mom's house this year as well. That turned out great!

After Thanksgiving was over, I spent Sunday finalizing the outside lights on the house and decorating inside. I love the finish product. More pics to come of the inside but for now I'll post just the outside lights.

I'll continue to Blog now that I know how to do this (HAHA!) so keep your eyes peeled!