1st Married Christmas and Andrew Turns 25!

It sounds exciting right?! We're married, we're happy, we are celebrating firsts as a married couple. Well that was all well and good for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Christmas, not so much. The short version of it is I had a stomach bug over the Christmas break, then when that resolved itself I wound up with a nice little cold for New Years. Lovely!

Andrew and I exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve with the plan of heading to his mom's early Christmas morning. He got a new iPhone 5s and I got a Kindle Fire HD (tablet/e-reader). We knew the gifts ahead of time so we figured we would open presents Christmas Eve to have time to play with our goodies before doing family stuff all day on Christmas. Turns out that was a good plan.

We could only put a few presents under the tree immediately before opening them because Sidney and Rico kept trying to unwrap them for us. Sneaky little buggers.

Don't judge me Peggy. We ran out of Christmas wrapping paper. haha

Thanks Howard and Tammy!!

I stole them both. Actually the both went into the new car fund.

Totally wrong paper. I think he still liked the gift.

 He's finally joined the iphone community!

For my gift he took over photos, therefore I have only this one picture of opening my gift. It's the "Really? You're taking that many pictures?" face. I think he gets this look a lot actually. :)

Despite not having pictures of my new toy, the Kindle Fire HD has been an awesome gift so far. Apparently the reason for him getting it was so I had something to do while he played games on the Xbox, therefore I was unable to complain and he could play more xbox. (This strategy has actually worked). Wonderful reasoning, honey. haha.

As far as i can tell it's as good as an ipad. It runs off the Amazon marketplace, so the apps are a little different and it runs a little differently thank I'm used to. I've already read a couple of books on it and as a fan of 'real' books, this e-reader is working just fine. I'm getting used to it and am quite pleased! Well played Andrew.

Once we were all teched-out and living in the future with our new gadgets, Bill came over to do a little present exchange. By this point I was not feeling all that well. Nausea, headache, a general feeling of unease. I knew I didn't feel well and that it was more than just an everyday stomach ache. Remember that trip to visit Ashland and Harlee from the last post? Well a stomach bug had been going around their house for about a week before. I was worried I'd caught their bug, but was holding out hope it was a fluke.

Andrew bought Billy an Alabama Santa hat, and I had a framed picture for him from the Mumford and Sons concert. It was this one.

Bill's gift to us was awesome, but it almost gave me a heart attack. He bought us a movable fire pit and set it up on the back porch. We'll move it out to the yard once I've raked up all the leaves, but for fun he went ahead and got it going. While we were exchanging gifts I noticed flames through the back window and thought there was a fire in the yard. I jumped up, started scrambling and trying to get the guys to help, was about to grab the fire extinguisher and was ready to act! Bill is sitting there saying "I put that there. Open your present!" (he had wrapped the large box the fire pit came in). After the initial shock wore off we went outside and admired a very cool gift. It seriously scared me to death. We have a ton of leaves out back and since Andrew (unfortunately) smokes, I'm always slightly worried that an ember from the cigarette may catch fire. Thankfully that was not the case. But wow did it get my heart pumping!! Poor quality photos of the fire pit below.

After Bill left even Sidney got in on the action. Her plastic squeak toy last about 10 minutes.

By the time things had settled down and I'd gotten in bed I knew something was not right. Sure enough, about 3 am I was wide awake and hugging the toilet. Yay. Merry Christmas to me. The sun came up and when the alarms went off to start getting ready I told Andrew about my night of sickness (dude slept through me climbing in and out of bed all night for trips to be sick) and sadly admitted that I was not well enough to leave. I told him to go to his Mom's but he refused to leave me. He called and let them know that he would not leave me alone on Christmas. Through sickness and health badge earned. So while our families were eating, opening presents and celebrating together, I slept and he watched tv on the couch. Not the way I'd imagined our first married Christmas!

I made it through the day and Thursday felt a little better. I got out and did some family visits and spread some Christmas cheer, but by the end of the day I felt awful again. I'd worn myself out and set back recovery. 

That Friday (12/27) was Andrew's 25th birthday and I just had to feel better. I did not want to let him down and spend his big day the way we did Christmas. I was definitely not 100% and was coming down with a cold, but we made it to dinner with family and Bill and had a great Kobe dinner, complete with a funny guy hibachi chef. He opened presents and got some money, a shirt, undershirts and gym shorts, but Bill pulled away with the best gift award. He got Andrew a Florida State hat with his lucky number (52) and last name sewn into the side. Very cool and a perfect gift for my Florida State fan.

Sadly his actual gift from me was supposed to be an Otterbox for his new phone, but the one he wanted was not being sold just yet, so he is still waiting on that one. We decided to do the actual partying part of celebrating another night when I was feeling better and more of our friends were able to come. We had a few people who had to work so we'll catch up with them soon!

My handsome man! Happy Birthday babe!

Holidays with Nieces

Kids and Christmas are just fun. Particularly the age of about 2.5, which is approximately how old both of my nieces are - Harlee and Mabry. Both girls had some holiday events going on with dance and school, so Andrew and I made as many appearances as possible!

My dance studio, Southern Dance Arts, performs in Alabaster's Christmas parade every year. Although Harlee is taking class, her group was just a little too young to walk/dance in the parade. However, as pretty much the studio mascot, she was still going to be a part of it. She really wanted to be a mermaid, but settled on being Baby Bear to mine and Andrew's Mama & Papa Bear. She was SO excited for the parade because there is a lot of candy being thrown and she was all about it. However it was really cold, and very windy. Trying to explain to a 2.5 year old that they need to stay bundled in the blanket is just not acceptable when there is candy to catch and running to be done. Pre-parade she was super excited and all over the place. By the time we were joining the parade and actually moving she was on the tired side. About 15 minutes in and she had fallen asleep on Andrew's shoulder. She ended up sleeping in the car of one of our floats and Andrew and I were just two random bears. (Oh, guess it'd make sense to say our theme was Fairy Tale Characters). From then on she was in love. Since that day she talks (a lot!) about Andrew and 'her Andrew.' Good thing she's so cute because I seem to have some competition. :)

After the parade, smiling and cold! Check out those pink noses and cheeks.

My guy is such a good sport. He knew it would mean a lot to me if he participated in the parade, and I'm so thankful for him. The deal was I could not post any pictures on social media, but I think the blog deserves some pictures! There were other dads around that made comments about what a good sport he was. Their wives were very impressed. We left figuring there would be a few more men participating next year after the wives saw whatt a trooper my Drewbie was!!

 ======================================================================

Mabry had a dance recital and Christmas program at her school. I joined her 3 grandmother's and Shannon for this one. I actually was unable to see any of the show because there were a lot of parents in front of us and she is quite small. I'm sure it was cute. My sources tell me she didn't actually dance, but stood there looking overwhelmed. Sounds pretty common for her age. All those onlookers can be a little scary!!

After the program was finished we visited and took some pictures. After some tickling I was able to coax smiles out of her for the camera. (She loves to smile, but you know kids at this age. Getting them to do it for a camera is an entirely different story!)

======================================================================

The next weekend we had the studio's annual Christmas recital. Sadly I was not a performer this year since I took the fall off to take care of wedding stuff. I worked backstage and kept Harlee instead. It was great to spend so much time with Harlee, but a little sad that all of my dancer buddies were in performance mode and I was not.

When the time for dress rehearsal came Harlee beyond excited. She did SO well. We was obsessed with her sticker on stage to mark her place. She danced, smiled and hammed it up. She is definitely Ashland's daughter. Her love of performing, attention and dance is undeniable. It's an understatement to say she stole the show!

Her classmates. Their song was about wanting a Hippopotamus for Christmas haha

Love my blondies

Can we talk about how cute this is? She was so excited Andrew came to watch her

======================================================================

The Monday before Christmas Andrew was working late and I was bored, so I called Ashland to see if she had plans. She did not, so we made a sister/niece date night. I went and picked them up, we did a little shopping, then headed to my mom's to see Patsy! We had a great time running around, being crazy, looking for the cat, and even opened a few presents. Fun night and we got to surprise my mom with a visit.

Are you kidding me? Do kids come cuter than this?!? I would argue NO.

Big Smiles!

We love Patsy!!

After visiting with Mom we loaded up and started to head home. Harlee was having too good of a time and kept saying "Not JJ's house, Mommy." Not one to miss an opportunity to hang with my sister and Harlee, we decided to drive around and look at Christmas lights. Ashland and I are apparently professional lighting designers and critiqued the houses that had displays. It seemed like not as many people put up lights this year. After getting my December power bill, I see why. haha.

We loved the time spent with little ones this holiday season. The joy of Christmas is so much greater when you get to experience it with a child. Love my little girlies!!