More Biltmore pictures

Here are me & Chad in front of one of the lions at Biltmore's entrance.

Here are our friends Dave & Melanie who we went to Biltmore with.

Christmas at the Biltmore House

We went to see the Christmas decorations at the Biltmore House the weekend after Christmas. Of course it was beautiful, but you are no longer allowed to take pictures inside (when Chad and I went about 5 years ago you could).

Here's a view of the "backyard" of the Biltmore House.

Karissa's Critters

For her Christmas gift we gave Karissa a set of Calico Critters, which are very similar to some toys I had when I was a kid called Sylvanians. I loved those things and Karissa seems to love her Calico Critters just as much.

Our neices at Christmas

Here are our neices, Kathyrn & Karissa, with their mom Chad's sister Amy. Both of the girls got High School Musical blankets and new pajamas and robes for Christmas. So, this is them all piled up in some of their gifts.

Here is Kathryn & Karissa with uncle Chad.

Christmas dinner with Chad's family

Here is Chad's grandmother Ruby holding up the gift we gave her.

Here is Chad's mom Brenda holding up the gift we gave her - and one of our neices Kathryn is in the foreground.

More family pictures

Here are me & Chad on Christmas Day.

Here is my brother Fielding and his girlfriend Sky - Tom, a family friend, was also there for Christmas Day lunch with us, but he took all of these pictures so I don't have a picture of him to post!

Christmas with my family

Here is my Dad opening up his gift from me, Chad & Fielding.

Here is Chad, me, my Dad and my brother Fielding.

Christmas lunch

Here is our dining table all set for Christmas lunch with my family.

More of our Christmas decorations

Here are our Christmas stockings.

Here is our card tree and some other Christmas decorations.

Carolina Guy

Here is Chad, the ultimate Carolina Guy, in his new Panthers Jersey holding one of his Tarheels freezer mugs (both Christmas gifts from me).

Merry Christmas!

Here are Sandy and Roxy playing with one of their new Christmas toys.

Here is Sandy resting after playing with their new Christmas toys.

Future Christmas Card?

Here is a picture we took on Christmas Eve (thanks to a timer on our camera) of us and the cats in front of our Christmas tree. I was surprised at how easy it was to take this picture with both of the cats kindof looking toward the camera. This may be our Christmas card for next year - we always get the Christmas cards with pictures of our friends kids, but Sandy and Roxy are our "kids" so we want everyone to see them too!

Christmas cats

This picture is a little blurry for some reason, but I'm putting it up because it's the only picture I got of both the cats under the tree (Roxy is kindof behind the pole/trunk of the tree).

Here's a better picture of Roxy under the tree.

Roxy and the new bag

My friend Nicole gave me and Chad each a handmade bag for Christmas. Nicole has three cats and they were sitting on us and our gifts when we were at her house to exchange gifts. So, when I brought my bag home Roxy was almost inside it trying to check it out. Both of the cats have to meticulously check everything new that comes into the house, but I think Roxy was even more interested in these bags because she could smell Nicole's cats on it.

More pictures from the Christmas party

Here are our friends Becca & Jason.

Here are the hosts Paul & Kelly.

Pictures from the Christmas party

Here is me & Chad at the Christmas party.

Here is are our friends Melanie & Dave.

Jackson's first Christmas present

Chad & I got Jackson a Christmas gift and since he's only 9 months old he is not very familiar with opening gifts. It took him awhile and some help to get into his gift from us.

Here's Jackson checking out the gift.

Here is Jackson chewing on the wrapping paper while Kelly & I try to help him.

Here is Jackson finally playing with the opened toy aquarium!

Christmas party!

We've started a pretty cool Christmas tradition with some of our friends - we all get together at someone's house for a Christmas ornament exchange/party. This year it was at Paul & Kelly's house and we had breakfast food for our dinner. I think this ornament exchange is becoming one of my favorite ways to celebrate Christmas with our friends!

Here's the cake Kelly made and decorated for the party.

Here's Paul & Kelly's son Jackson with his Santa hat.

Semi-homemade gift

I really enjoy making homemade gifts for family and friends for Christmas, but I'm starting to get to the point where everyone has enough cross-stitched Christmas items and fleece blankets and scarves. So, for my grandmother I decided to go the semi-homemade route and paint a mug for her at a pottery painting place. I went with some friends to Pottery Place Studios near Concord Mills Mall and painted this mug. So, here are the pictures of the finished gift.

Sandy and the presents

Now that we have some presents under the tree Sandy isn't trying to get under the tree skirt anymore, but she still likes sitting under the tree with the presents.

Pumpkin pie from scratch!

I decided that I wanted to make Chad a pumpkin pie from scratch. When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver it inspired me to see if I could make a pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins, not canned pumpkin. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be. I ended up fighting more with the crust (also from scratch) than with the pumpkins. I don't know if I'll do the whole thing from scratch again, but it's nice to know I can. And Chad said it tastes great!

From these...

...to this!

Here's a nice slice with some whipped creme on top!

Sandy's new hiding place

After we finished decorating the Christmas tree I noticed that Sandy was hiding under the tree skirt! Last year she enjoyed hiding among the presents, but I guess since there aren't any presents under the tree yet she found a new place to "hide".

Here is how she was when we first saw her hiding - just her tail sticking out!

If you look closely you can see Sandy's face where I pulled up the tree skirt.

The cats' early Christmas present

We decided to give the cats one of their Christmas gifts early. Recently Roxy has been getting into trouble for scratching our leather chair. They have scratching mats, but they have been needing new ones for awhile. So, we got them a new scratching mat for Christmas and let them have it early. As you'll see from the picture they both love it and Roxy has greatly reduced her scratching of our chair too!

Sandy tries out the new mat.

Tandem scratching.

Trimming the tree

Here we both are putting ornaments on our Christmas tree.

Here's to decorating!

Here is Chad preparing for the holidays.

Here is Chad putting the star on our Christmas tree.

Decorating for Christmas

Here is Chad working on the lights outside.

Here's the finished product!

Eat Pray Love

I just finished reading "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Liz writes about her year long journey of self-discovery where she spent 4 months in Italy for "pleasure", 4 months in India at an ashram for "prayer" and 4 months in Indonesia to find "balance" between pleasure and spirituality. Overall the book was very interesting and extremely well-written. My favorite quote is when Liz is talking about when she was married and her husband wanted them to start a family and she just realized that she did not have the desire to have kids. Her sister, who had kids, told her "Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.(pg. 10)" So, I told Chad that that's what I'm going to tell people who ask me when/if we're going to have kids - I'm not at the "tattoo-on-your-face" committment level yet.