Christmas Party #5, Christmas Cantata, and Nick turned 24...Oh MY!

Oh my, oh my.  We're getting ever closer to Christmas, and I couldn't be more excited.  Christmas is most definitely my favorite time of year.  All the Christmas music and the time spent with family.  It's such a joy.  :)

Saturday, December 17th, we had our fifth and final Christmas party (that I know of) of the season.  We had the ETMC Department Head Christmas Party over at Mitchell & Casey's house.  Lots of good food and fellowship.  No pictures.  Bad habit that needs to break.

Sunday, December 18th, our choir at church had our Christmas Cantata.  It went so well!  Everyone did an amazing job on their solos, and the instrumentalists were awesome.  I really enjoyed getting to sing with a great group of people.  I was asked to sing a solo, and was very excited to do so.  The song that was picked for me was called, "One King."  As Nick said, "It sounds like a princess song."  :)  I'll have to agree with him because the first time I listened to it, I thought of the movie Anastasia.  :)  I really enjoyed the song.  It was beautiful.  However, I did have to tell our music minister, Steve Sullivan, to never put me after Bill Gilbert again in a Cantata.  Bill did an AMAZING job on his song, and had the crowd completely engrossed.  It was a tough act to follow.  :)  I'm looking forward to next year's Christmas Cantata.  We had a big lunch afterwards catered by Big Kahunas.  I'm thoroughly enjoying BBQ now.  I was never much of a BBQ person when I was younger (ask my Dad), but now, I actually crave it occasionally.  Nick loves this new trend because he loves BBQ.   :)

Yesterday, December 19th, was my handsome husband's 24th birthday!  We celebrated in style...with Nick feeling under the weather.  :(  Poor guy, but he had an overall good day.  I woke-up early and made muffins for his birthday breakfast.  We both had to work, but he got to eat lunch with his parents, and a coworker of his made him a very yummy cake!  We then went to Catfish Village in Ore City for his birthday dinner.  Nick and I rode with Joe & Melanie and met my parents and sister there.  Our group can put away the fish!  I'm not a catfish eater, but the shrimp and hushpuppies were delectable.  :)  After we finished eating, Nick got to open his presents.  My sister got him the first four seasons of The Big Bang Theory and a "Bazinga" t-shirt.  Pretty awesome gift.  :)  And my parents and Nick's parents went in together and got us a combined birthday present.  We now have an awesome XBOX 360 with Kinect.  Nick set it up last night after we got home, and we played for about 30-45 minutes.  We had a blast.  The dogs were very confused, but it was a lot of fun.  :)  I took the camera, and forgot to take pictures...go figure!  But no worries, I'll try to take more pics of Christmas.  Thank you to our families for coming to celebrate with us!

Tonight, we are celebrating December/January birthdays with Nick's side of the family.  We are going to Country Tavern to eat ribs and BBQ.  I'll try to remember to take pictures, but I'm not positive that will happen.  We all know how consistent I am with pictures.  And by consistent, I mean completely inconsistent.  :)  Happy birthday (one day late) to an awesome husband!  I love you to the moon and back!

Thanksgiving, Christmas Parties, and Downtown Alive...Oh My!

Well, I'm getting better.  It wasn't 6 weeks this time. :)

For Thanksgiving, Nick and I went to Longview to spend the day with Nick's family.  Nick fried the turkey, and I made lots of yummy food.  All in attendance were Nick & I, Alan & Tovah, Owen, Joe & Melanie, and Erin & Kyle (some of Alan & Tovah's friends).  We ate till we almost couldn't move then sat on the couch and took naps and watched football.  We were present for Owen's first taste of "real" food (if you can call pureed squash "real").  He didn't much care for it, but he'll eat it like a champ now.  An overall very good holiday. :)

Aww...me and the pup.

The fry master himself, holding my puppy. :)

Mr. Owen smelling all the good food...too bad he had to eat nasty squash.

Making faces at Uncle Nick.

Satchel supporting the Pirates in his hoodie.

Let the carving begin.  It was so yummy.

The MIL watching the husband carve. :)

Satchel REALLY wanted what was on the table.

Owen eating his first "real" food.

"I'm scared Aunt De!"

"This is gross!"

"GET IT OUT OF MY MOUTH NOW!!"

We didn't partake in Black Friday shopping.  We did, however, go to B & S in Pittsburg and buy Christmas lights for the house.  Nick wants the bigger bulbs now, but I think he's going to wait for next year.  We also have a few things I've gotten at Canton that need to be put in the yard.

Love Christmas lights.

We also got our all of our Christmas decorations and got them all put out in the house.  We decorated the Christmas tree the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but I did have to work on the mantle, the "It's a Wonderful Life" village, and the kitchen as well.  But, we got it all done.

I love our tree.  And I've gotten lots of presents wrapped.

Mantle this year.  I've added red berries and gold pinecones to the garland.  I also added glittery initials for all of our stockings. :)

I did get to order mine and Nick's birthday/Christmas present.  We got rid of our old college furniture and bought a new couch.  We LOVE it!  It passed the test for sure when we fell asleep on it the first night it was at the house and slept until 2:30.  It was funny, but we try to fall asleep in our bed.  It doesn't lend for a good night's sleep when it is interrupted in the middle of the night.  We did have to rearrange the entire living room to get everything to fit, but it turned out well.  The dimensions on the website are the inside dimensions of the couch, not the outside.  So there was about and extra 20 inches we hadn't accounted for, but it all turned out.  We actually have more useable floor space with the set-up how it is now.  It's nice.

Yay for the new couch!

New arrangement of furniture and the Christmas tree.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Nick and I went to Annona to have Thanksgiving with my Mom's family.  Again, we ate lots of yummy food.  My young cousin, Kennedy, entertained us all.  And I got to see my Aunt from Mississippi.  I didn't get any pictures.  I'll have to get better at that.  :)  It was a lot of fun though.

On Tuesday, November 29th, I had my first Christmas party of the season.  It was our Ladie's Bible Study that meets every other Tuesday.  We had a blast and ate yummy food.  (I see a trend coming.)  We also did a gift exchange with $10 giftcards.  I won a Hobby Lobby giftcard.  A great card to aid in my Pinterest addiction.  I've so enjoyed getting to know that group of ladies and can't wait to resume meeting in January.

On Saturday, December 3rd, I went clothes shopping with Melanie. She was needing some fancy duds for a Christmas party, so we hit up Longview and got her some pretty clothes.  We also got to eat at Panda Express which had just opened.  I was so giddy when I realized it was open.  That made my day. Later, Nick and I went with the Mayben's and Jernigan's to Double C Steakhouse in Winsboro for dinner, then we all went to Purly, Texas, to visit "The North Pole of East Texas."  Kenlie and Keyton had so much fun!  Keyton made sure he got his candy (plus some) from Santa.  Kenlie enjoyed getting to ride the train and look at all the lights and the living manger scene.  She kept saying, "Look!  Baby Jesus!"  It was super cute.

Mitchell, Casey & Keyton on the train ride.

Kristen making sure Keyton doesn't jump out of the train.  We were in Santa's workshop.

Travis, Kristen, Kenlie and me riding the train.

Kenlie telling Santa she wants a Baby Alive for Christmas. :)

On Sunday, December 4th, Nick and I headed to Longview for Owen's Baby Dedication at church.  It was such a great experience to be there.  I pray that Owen will one day give his life over to the Lord and let Him guide his steps.  We love him so much!

This past Monday, Nick and I participated in our Sunday School class's Christmas party.  Yet again, we ate lots of good food, and then had a white elephant gift exchange.  Nick and I actually got pretty good gifts.  We enjoyed getting to visit with everyone and spend some time with new friends.  I didn't get any pictures of this event either. :(

Last Thursday, Nick played with "The John Borum Band" :) at Downtown Alive in Pittsburg.  They did an awesome job, but MAN was it cold!  Nick and I ate with Joe & Melanie and Cole afterwards at The Big Kahuna (formerly known as Fat Boy's) to warm up.

Part of "The John Borum Band" or "The Band Borum" or "The Christianeers"...whatever you want to call them. 

Chaynie & Charles

My handsome hubby playing drums.

John and Lonnie and a little bit of Donald's head.

Nick, Charles and Chaynie.

Friday night, Nick and I attended the ETMC employee Christmas party.  Yet again, yummy food and no pictures.  But Nick and I were able to dance to Koe & the Konvicts.  I had to tell Koe that Tarleton was treating him right, and I enjoyed hearing good Texas country again.  Nick and I left around 11:00, and I told Nick, "Wow, I feel like we're in Stephenville again.  Dancing until 11:00 and getting home late."  It's days like that when I miss the Ville.

Saturday was Pilgrim Bank's Christmas party.  Charlotte and I have been working very diligently since the 100th Anniversary Celebration to get everything together for the bank party.  I think everything turned out beautifully.  We had a few glitches occasionally, but in the end, it was awesome.  My hairdresser, Randa, so graciously opened up for me and Michelle on Saturday to fix our hair.  It was nice to be pampered.  I had many compliments.  Thanks Randa!  I was able to get a couple snap shots at this party. :)

Some of the LOVELY ladies I work with.  They make working here so much fun!

Nick & I at the party.  Props to Randa for my "Texas" hair.

Immediately following the Bank's party, Nick and I headed over to some friends' house for an Ugly Christmas Sweater party.  I intentionally didn't take any pics at this party.  I didn't want to offend anyone if their sweater happened to show up in a picture.  So, no pics of this party.  However, we had a lot of fun!

Last week was definitely a marathon of Christmas parties, but that knocked all but one out.  Nick and I have a party to attend on Saturday, but other than that, this week will be pretty smooth sailing.  I'm going to clean the house and wrap presents, watch Christmas movies, cook good food, and relax a bit this week.  Nick wants to go see the second "Sherlock Holmes" movie this weekend, and I know that will be awesome!  I can't believe Christmas is a mere 13 days away.  It feels like 2011 has absolutely FLOWN by.  However, this has been a great year.  I can't wait to see what 2012 will bring us!