Move over, Clark Griswold!

My hubby’s on the move. He spent yesterday in the arctic blasts putting up our Christmas lights and the local kids’ favorite part—our inflatable helicopter. We have literally had requests from one of the mamas who takes her little boy to the day care down our block. He’s been expecting Santa’s arrival in the helicopter since we took down the Halloween decorations.

I think he did an awesome job. We have those huge old-fashioned C9 lights so they’re big and bright and chunky…just the way I like ‘em!

I also finally got around to making our new stockings. I am not thrilled with them, but I did it without a pattern or really any idea of what I was actually doing. We will try round #2 of homemade stocking making next year when our little one celebrates his or her first Christmas!

 

A Product Review on the Way

Y’all! I am so excited--I was approached to review a product by CSN Stores, which is home to over 200 sites including luggage stores, accent furniture, and (my personal favorite) cookware!

I’ve got big plans for this holiday season, including making lots of candy. Stay tuned and see what CSN has hooked me up with and see my true blue honest review of the process!

Babies all snuggled up

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Newest ornament

I STILL haven’t posted the picture of the cute snow-couple ornament my mama bought be with the baby bump on the snow-mama (I almost cried when I got it!), but here is a quick shot of my newest ornament I picked up at the Hallmark store this weekend.

Here’s a snapshot of our tree, complete with presents and the nice, cozy fire Justin built last night.

We had our hometown holiday festivities this weekend and I snapped this shot of Sandy-claws (just watched The Nightmare Before Christmas) admiring the big Christmas tree in the park. Thanks to my mama for recognizing what a fun shot it would be!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Here is our first little jump on Christmas—Justin let me talk him into getting a tree BEFORE December 1, which is like breaking a cardinal rule in the Cook house. We found the fattest Frasier Fir the tree farm had!

 

I got a mini tree last year during the after-Christmas sales at Wally World and my mama got me the cutest little kitchen utensil ornaments. My ultimate goal in life is to have a different themed tree for every room in the house.

Justin lit up my holiday wreath like Las Vegas with an ENTIRE string of blinking lights. It’s the coolest-themed piece of decoration we have in our house so far, if you ask me!

Christmas spirit

Friday, my family and I loaded up to check out the Fantasy in Lights show at Callaway Gardens. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out all the tricks to my new camera so I couldn’t snap any shots of the lights, but I have “borrowed” a few from my mama and my sister. I did, however, fall in love with my macro setting (thus explaining why I have so many darn ornament pics!).

  

            

We also stopped at the “Little White House” and toured downtown Warm Springs. It is a lovely little town just filled to the brim with gift shops.

   

I miss yo’ face!

I sure do miss these two! They go off to college and don’t want to have anything to do with their oldest sister back at home   They have, oh I don’t know, lives. I think that’s what it’s called. It’s not that bad—I get to see them both at Thanksgiving!

Annnddd, since my middle sister’s lame, she’s not going to see Harry Potter with us. But I’m so excited about getting to see it with my baby sister!

Have I mentioned…

…how great my family is? Not just my immediate family, my WHOLE family! I love them all. We’re all different in our own ways. My SIL is slightly (okay a lot) less tech savvy that I am but she’s so crafty she could make Martha Stewart jealous. I got some double yolk eggs from her last night and this is what they looked like:

This makes regular egg cartons at the store look frumpy and boring. I don’t want to have to buy them plain again!

A trip to the mountains

I know this is a bit delayed, but last week Justin and I had a quick four day weekend in the North Georgia mountains for a delayed anniversary trip. I had a conference in Dillard, GA for work, so Justin met me up there when it was almost over. We stayed at the acclaimed Dillard House and everything (EVERYTHING!) was wonderful. The views were awesome and the food was definitely worth travelling for if you weren’t already staying there! (The second two pictures are from the back of our hotel room.)

We put over 1,000 miles on my car this weekend and we saw a ton of stuff! We walked a ton of steps to the suspension bridge at Tallulah Gorge.

  

Justin wanted to walk down to the base of the Gorge, so I entertained myself while he was off on his adventure…I knew the 323 steps back up would be enough for me!

We went up to the top of Black Rock Mountain. If you look closely, you can see the snowflakes in front of my jacket—you can also see my flip flops…The climb up Tallulah Gorge wore blisters on my ankles!

   

This picture goes in my file if Justin’s ever being a “jerk.” I can pull out the photographic evidence!

 

We went to an awesome store called Goats on the Roof. They have real live goats on their roof that you can feed through a system of pulleys. They have stores in Helen and Rabun County.

We also went to the lovely Dahlonega. (What a beautiful town, Cherish!)

   

Bridal Veil Falls was really neat! The waterfall gushes out over the pull-over!  

We got to experience a little bit of snow—this little man was only about three or four inches high.

 

My favorite part of the trip? I got to go to my very first drive-in movie. We went to the double feature and saw Megamind and Red; both movies were great—even though I dozed off a few times during Red. I was warm and snuggly wrapped up in my blanket and reclined in my car!

 

Brasstwon Bald is the highest point in Georgia and it was beautiful!

 

I snapped a pic of this little buggie at Persimmon Creek Vineyards. I’ve never seen a lime green lady bug until now!

  

We saw a bit of Helen and made tracks back home. If you ever have a chance to tool around the North Georgia mountains, I sure hope check out some of these fun stops.