Christmas Present to Myself

This past Christmas I saw a lego Beach House set that I really wanted. One of my favorite toys growing up was legos. Chad said he looked everywhere and had his family looking too and no one could find the Beach House for me for Christmas. But, after Christmas when the stores started restocking I finally found it and bought it for myself! Here's a picture of me working on it...

...and the finished house!

Helping Dad Move

Since my Dad got a job in Topsail Beach, NC we helped him move back to Wilmington over the Martin Luther King holiday. While I was packing some stuff Sandy decided to sit right by one of the bags. I think she wanted to try to sneak along on the trip!

Here is a picture of beautiful Wrightsville Beach! It was cold, but so pretty at the beach.

Here's a picture of me & Chad at the beach.

First snow of 2009

We had the first snow of 2009 on Jan. 20th, which was nice because it was the day after we came home from Wilmington so we had an extra day off! It didn't snow much only an inch or two at the most, but it was nice to have a snow day. Here's a picture of the front of our house...

...and the back "yard" too.

Superbowl 2009

We decided to have a few friends over to watch the Superbowl this year - even though the Panthers weren't in it. Here's Chad grilling the massive amount of hotdogs we had. Now keep in mind with this picture we only had 5 people eating - but everyone brought lots of hotdogs to share!


Here is everyone in our 3D glasses for the special 3D commercials (which were pretty lame I thought). From the left Dave, me, Melanie and Adam.

Soaking up the Sun

Cats typically love to find some sunlight to sleep in, but since it's been so cold recently Sandy and Roxy have been enjoying the few sunny days to try and soak up some sun. Here's Roxy in one of her favorite places - looking out the window upstairs.

Here's Sandy finding some sunlight to lounge in as well.

Top Ten Books of 2008

I've been keeping track of the books I read for the past few years and since I've started the blog I like to post my Top Ten Books for the year. This year I read 71 books! My Top Ten is not based on new books or anything like that - just my top picks from what I read this year and I will say that this year it was hard to actually narrow it down to just 10. Also, my lists are in alphabetical order by author (I am a Librarian after all) - here it is:

Fiction

The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum
Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos
Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
The Other by David Guterson
The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty

Non-Fiction

Farm Sanctuary by Gene Baur
Letters to a Young Evangelical by Tony Campolo
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn
Looking for Anne of Green Gables by Irene Gammel
A Rare Breed of Love by Jana Kohl

Sandy and the Extension Cord

Right after New Year's we had a problem with a transformer in our neighborhood and about half of the outlets in our house were not working. Before Duke Power came out to start working on it Chad had to use an extension cord to plug in our refridgerator so it would keep working. Sandy decided that the extension cord could be her new nest.

Our Christmas Tree

Here's a picture of our Christmas tree. Yes, it's a little blurry. I don't know if it's our camera or what, but we just couldn't get a picture of the tree that wasn't blurry - this was the best one. We might have to start saving for a new camera soon!

Here's a picture of me & Chad in front of the tree. Just ignore my evil red eyes!

Our Christmas Decorations

Here are some of our Christmas decorations.

This is our Christmas card tree.

Here are me & Chad's stockings.

Here are the cat's stockings and some other decorations.

New Stockings

This year I decided to make new Christmas stocking for me & Chad. I made us stockings the first year we were married, but I wanted to do something different now. I was VERY happy with how well both of the stockings turned out. Here's Chad's snowflake stocking:

Here is my Cardinal stocking - I sewed both of the birds on with my sewing machine (and was very impressed with myself) and hand sewed the names on.

Here's a close-up of one of the Cardinals.

Christmastime chilling

Sandy and Chad take advantage of the Christmas holidays to chill out on the couch together.

Christmas party with friends

Every year we have a Christmas party with some of our friends and do a Christmas ornament exchange. Here are Jackson & Braden attempting to play together at the party - Jackson didn't quite understand why Braden couldn't do much this year (Jackson is almost 2 and Braden is 5 months).

Here is another picture of Jackson & Braden in front of the Christmas tree.

More Christmas Party pictures

Here are the hosts of the party, Paul, Kelly & Jackson.

Here is Becca & Braden, unfortunately Jason was sick

with the flu and couldn't come to the party.

Even more Christmas Party pictures

Here is me & Chad at the party.

Here are Melanie & Dave at the party.

Christmas at our house

Somehow we didn't take any pictures of me & Chad opening our gifts to each other, but as always we have lots of pictures of the cats! Chad gave me clothes, Christmas ornaments and candy and I gave him clothes and my favorite gift to him was a calendar I created in iPhoto using pictures of us over the last few years. Here is Roxy checking out some of my gifts.

Here is Sandy hiding in some of the wrapping paper!

Here is Sandy hiding/lounging in some more wrapping paper.

The Cat's Gifts

Here are Sandy & Roxy checking out what they got in their stockings (new toys and treats).

I know this one is blurry, but that's because the cats were very excited about their new toys and were going crazy playing with them as soon as they "opened" them! Here is Roxy playing with one of her new toys.

Here is Sandy playing with one of her new Christmas toys.

Christmas with our Nieces

Here is our niece Karissa with one of the gifts we gave her.

Here is our niece Kathryn with one of the gifts we gave her.

Here is Karissa posing as one of the Christmas gifts.

Opening presents with Chad's Family

We had lunch with Chad's family on Christmas Day at his Grandmother's house. Here are Chad's parents and his Grandmother opening some of their gifts.

Here is Chad's Mom with one of the gifts we gave her

the book A Rare Breed of Love by Jana Kohl.

More pictures from Chad's family

Here is a picture that our niece Kathryn took of me & Chad.

Here are our nieces playing with some of their Christmas gifts.

Chad's whole family

Here is Chad's whole family at Christmas. Top row from left to right: Chad's Grandmother Ruby, Dad Eddie, Mom Brenda, Sister Amy and Kevin. Bottom row: Chad, me, Kathryn and Karissa.