Christmas 2013 : events

Now that I've shared my spoils, here's more of a peek into the days surrounding Christmas, and beyond:

We each had assignments for Christmas eve so Mark and I brought individually sized cheese balls and some crispy asparagus. The cheese balls proved hard to transport over 50 miles to Arlington, but they made it and were intact upon arrival!

Audrey got a play phone that closely resembled an iPhone for Christmas. Noah promptly pretended to 'take photos' of me with her 'phone'. Kids these days...

Sweet girl! They played a little Leap Frog bingo before dinner.

LOTS of gifts under that tree! Noah and Audrey had to practice patience and waited until after dinner to tear into all of those. It must have been TORTURE!!! ;)

Sweeeet baby.

Somehow, we managed to break the ancient Nintendo out....

...and quickly discovered that the Duck Hunt gun doesn't work with modern technology. The TV wouldn't pick it up!

We switched to Super Mario Brothers, which worked JUST fine! It was so funny reliving those memories!

On Christmas morning Mark and I got up and opened gifts with each other and Motley. She got a new beaver toy, some bones, and a pretty new necklace! Mark has complained all year about her obnoxious sparkly pink collar, so we traded it out for reflective orange and silver with a bone motif and a blue flower. I think it's lovely!

I managed to skip over all of Christmas day and Thursday, but it was a great time spent with Mark's family and then shopping and friend time on Thursday!

I went early Friday to the eye doctor to hear the fate of my eyes...I started having trouble with my contacts back in April and after a misdiagnosis from the Target doctor (I had no insurance at the time), I found out in August that I was allergic to my contacts. UGH! So almost 6 full months later and after wearing glasses 100% of the time, I was given permission to get back into contacts!!! My eyes haven't fully healed, but they might never get better. As long as these new contacts don't bug me, I'm free to get back to glasses-free life. AND I GET TO WEAR SUNGLASSES!!!! (Imagine living on the surface of the sun without sunglasses - that's summer in Texas without sunglasses, it was miserable!)

I planned a surprise dinner for Mark's birthday on Friday night since all of his high school friends are in town for the holidays. As I was cleaning the bathroom, I put something away in the medicine cabinet above the sink in our main bathroom and Mark's cologne came barreling down towards the sink. Despite my best efforts to catch it, it hit the sink at an angle and managed to make a GIANT crack in the sink, which turned into a giant hole when Mark 'gently' touched it. Don't worry, the cologne bottle is fine. hmph.

We headed to dinner later that night and SURPRISE, Mark's friends were already there. We had a great time eating and then came back to our house to catch up more!

Mark's parents passed down their fire pit so we made a sad attempt at a bonfire. It was warm for a few minutes! Overall, I think Mark had a great time visiting with his friends, and we were glad to have them!

Saturday was spent in the Grapevine area at my sister's sister-in-law's wedding. Our family is kind of a huge web and we love it and we had a great time at her wedding catching up with friends and family.

After the wedding we drove back to my parent's house and gave my mom her birthday present (unlucky birthday!).

Sunday we went to my aunt's home in Fort Worth for a Bennett family Christmas with my dad's side of the family. Here is a smattering of cousins and spouses, many of which were missing! It is always a good time with the Bennett family!

I hope you all got to spend time with your families over the holidays as well! Stay safe tonight and Happy New Year!!!

Christmas 2013: gift recap

I hope everyone reading had a merry Christmas or some time off well spent with your families! 

Mark had all week off and I had to work only Monday, so we have been soaking up lots of time together and with our families, who both live close enough for day trips. We spent Christmas eve with my family in Arlington and had a yummy dinner of beef tenderloin and sides prepared by the women (me, my mom, and my sister). Wednesday we headed up to McKinney for Christmas with Mark's side of the family. We spent all day opening gifts, talking, napping (some of us) and then ended the evening with a delicious traditional turkey meal.

Since then, we've split our time between dinner with friends, surprise birthday dinners for Mark, family weddings, and my extended family Christmas on Sunday. All of the time off has been great, but it goes by so fast when we are so busy! I'm crossing my fingers for a somewhat slow week this week before we start going back to our normal lives. I'll be back later this week to blog more about the time off... 

First, I wanted to share the spoils of my holiday! Here are a few favorite gifts I received:

The elves paid attention this year and went to 'my wish list' board on Pinterest. Best idea I've ever had! ;)

Mark got me this cast metal jewelry tree (in gold, not finding it online) from West Elm. I've been asking for something of the sort for YEARS!

I have recently gotten more into wearing necklaces (I'm weird and not much of a jewelry person) and pined over the popular J. Crew necklaces for most of last year. My mom and sister each got me a necklace from my Pinterest. Not finding them there or online anymore, but they were from J. Crew Factory and I've already worn them both twice! :) Here is one that I wore at Stephanie's wedding on Saturday.

Mark's sister Andrea got me this cute burlap pillow with our name and wedding year on it. Love!

Mark got me the two bowls above from anthropologie for some added flair in our new kitchen. I just love little things like that!

Mark's mom put together a fun little gift basket that included this sweet owl mug from anthropologie. You can never have too many mugs, especially when they are this cute! ;)

Those are just a few fun things that I received. What did you get for Christmas?

Happy Monday! :)

Corgan's 75th anniversary and Christmas party

We attended Mark's company Christmas party on Friday night. It was a joint anniversary party because the firm (made up of architects and designers) is celebrating it's 75th year this year. It was held at the Frontiers of Flight museum at Love Field and had a great 30's theme! 

Here are some snapshots:

Happy Monday!

Christmas at our house 2013

It's finally Christmas at our house!

Here was the snippet I posted the other night:

And here is our beautiful REAL tree in all it's glory:

I really like the placement and the tree itself this year!

I finally joined the cool kids with 'christmas mesh' or whatever it's called and I like it! I am a major failure at making it look good, but I like it!

Mark put the star on the tree after chopping off the abnormally long tallest branch. 

Of course I'm already done with my shopping so the presents are tucked nicely in, hiding the fact that I don't have a tree skirt. Shh!!

Some of my favorite ornaments:

Our first ornaments as a married couple...his and hers!

Mark's soccer ball and baby me in the background (with major glare. Sorry!)

I have a BUNCH of dollar store ornaments so I just fill mason jars and random vases with them. It's easy and festive! This is the half wall behind the tree.

We also have our countdown sign and look, more ornaments! 

I found this sign and switched it out for the "B" on my wreath to make the complete transformation to a Christmas wreath.

I'm still missing a lot of decor that will go in the kitchen (can't wait to reveal that this week!!!) and also a bag of decor was left at my parent's house so that has yet to be set up. Cross your fingers we get our Christmas lights up this year! I can't believe we're so late to the game! I guess it's all worth it for a new kitchen, though. :)

Merry Christmas!

icemaggedon 2013

Happy Monday everyone!

If you live in north Texas or anywhere north or east of it, you might have experienced some winter weather this weekend. We had a huge cold front come in on Thursday night and from then on it was often referred to 'icemaggedon' or 'icepocalypse'. 

Texans tend to exaggerate the weather a bit, but this time the forecast was spot on. A LOT of freezing rain, sleet and minimal snow came down all through Friday morning and the temps hovered in the 20's. Parts of the area got 3+ inches of pure ice coating everything outdoors. 

Luckily our area was slightly spared and we only got about 1.5 inches, but it was enough to basically shut down the city and make driving a mess. Mark managed to catch a flight home from Las Vegas (he was there for Autodesk University) late Thursday right as the freeze started and we were holed up in our house after that. 

I worked from home on Friday and really enjoyed the zero-commute, work in leggings and a sweatshirt feel of it all. I was able to get way more done at work and around the house, too. Mark kept up the work on the kitchen and we're thiisss close to being able to reveal it!

Early in the day on Friday, I looked out the window and saw our beautiful tree's limbs resting oh so gently on our main power lines from the alley to the house. I immediately had visions of lost power and asked Mark wide-eyed to see if he could do anything about it. He put on his layers and went out to trim small limbs off the tree so the branch would raise up and not rest on our power lines. He was out there for a couple hours, at least! Yay for Mark and his chivalrous acts! ;) Luckily we had power throughout the whole storm, unlike many of our Dallas neighbors. 

Here are some images of our 3 day weekend at home:

8am : snow day!

(notice the limbs resting on the power lines!)

icy streets!

First winter weather in the new house!

Winter weather is my only excuse for wearing these knock-off Uggs. Otherwise, I just can't bring myself to do it! (Don't worry, Mark wouldn't allow me to, even if I wanted!)

On Saturday afternoon, we ventured out for some essentials and tested the roads a bit...

...Essentials were trim, paint, and other household items for the kitchen, of course! :)

Church services were cancelled on Sunday so we went back to Home Depot to get our Christmas tree!

It was Mark's first 'real' tree and we had fun picking out the best one.

Back home and ready to decorate for Christmas! But first, some homemade soup...

...mmmm!!! 

I really enjoyed the forced relaxation and got a lot of things done at home! I foresee a cold winter ahead for north Texas.

I hope all of my local friends stayed safe and warm!

Stay tuned this week for a Christmas decor post and the post we've all been waiting for....the kitchen reveal!

Have a great week!