Happy New Year!

After a fun filled holiday season, it was a nice change to stay home on New Year's Eve and celebrate, reflect on our blessings and prepare for what 2012 has in store with a low key dinner and night at home.  Poor Baby B had the honor of ringing in the new year  a few hours early and had to participate in a celebratory photo shoot (yes, these are the pics that he will hate when he gets older).

Come Sunday, we had a great time with friends and kicked off the new year right with a big traditional southern feast; complete with fab pork bbq (compliments of Dear Hubs and his new Green Egg), collard greens for wealth, hoppin john full of black eyed peas for good luck and tasty corn bread from my Nana's cast iron skillet.  I finally found a purpose for those push pop containers I've saved away and rounded out the meal with a fun dessert push pop treat! 

Cheers to 2012, may it be our best yet!

Cards, Cards, Cards

Every year, I squeal with delight as I open the mailbox from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  It's a fun time of the year and instead of the normal stack of junk mail, circulars and (cough cough) bills; we get the pleasure of opening a series of festive envelopes from friends and family.  Inside, the most creative cards, the most beautiful family portraits and the most adorable stories and letters recapping the year. 

Every year, I struggle with what to do with these adorable and sweet cards.  This year, I had a self proclaimed brilliant idea and ran a pretty ribbon down the fronts of my kitchen desk cabinetry.  On one ribbon, I hung our family card of years past.  On the other, I joyfully hung the pictures and cards of each and every one of our friends.  Simple, plain clothes pins did the trick and I just love the outcome.  I can't walk out of my house without passing this sweet display and just putting myself in a festive mood. 

So thank you dear friends ... we just love each and every one of your cards and appreciate you sharing the joy of your family with us!

xoxo!

Thanksgiving Tree

As part of our newfound Thanksgiving traditions, this year was the first time we created a chain of thankful thoughts.  This sweet project was explained in this previous posting.  I promised myself that the thanksgiving decor would be traded in for Christmas decor NO LATER than Decemberr 1.  Well, I just couldn't part with the thankful chain yet.  As I put up my Christmas decor, I had the idea to take this chain and use it to decorate a small tree in my dining room.  In addition to some beautiful white washed ornaments and leopard ribbon, the thankful chain was the perfect decoration.  Friends and family have had a good time reading the things Dear Hubs and I are thankful for, I think "Golden Girl reruns at 2am (when Baby B wakes up)" was especially a hit!

I just love the way this turned out!

Baby B's Tree

Being a bit of a Christmas decor enthusiast, it was only natural that we would highlight a new themed tree as part of this year's festive display.  That special tree would be one for our sweet, little Baby B.  It was decided (before he was even born) that we would give him an ornament every year so that he had a darling collection of his very own Christmas ornaments as he became an adult.  Each ornament would be special and tell a story of sorts as he grows.  Adding to this idea, the grandmothers joined in and decided to also give Baby B an ornament.  Each set of grand parents would provide an ornament that has special meaning to them and represents something of mine or Dear Hub's childhood.  It was very sweet that they wanted to participate and I know Baby B will have a HUGE collection in no time at this rate. 


We started our tree decorating with ribbon (of course) and topping the tree with a little Baby B sized star. 

Even without the ornaments, he was just captivated by the colored lights.  Yes, this tree has colored lights and it goes against my "exclusively white light" decor.  But, I'm filing this one away with the "things you do for kids" excuse and will permit the boy to have a fun, colorful tree!

As we opened the ornaments from the grandparents, we explained what they were and let Baby B hold his new treasures.  Dear Hub's parents sent down a cute little german shepherd dog ornament, because Dear Hub's fave pet growing up was his sweet shepherd named Hildy.

Zsa Zsa and my Dear Ole' Dad wrapped up a darling snow globe to explain to Baby B how much I loved the snow as a child.  And, they sent a second "bonus" ornament that was a football to represent the football ties that brought me and Dear Hubs together.  Well, while the football ornament sure was cute, it didn't last long.  With one 2 second grab, it was broken and on the floor!  Woopsie... we just learned a valuable lesson - no glass ornaments any time soon!

I'm already plotting what ornament we will add to the collection next year!

Breakfast with Santa



Baby B had the esteemed honor of meeting the jolly old man himself not once but TWICE this year!  It's shocking that the man in the red suit can make his way to two separate events JUST to see Baby B, but none the less we are ever appreciative and sure hope Baby B was on the "nice" list this year!

For our first visit, I was warned by my experienced mommy friends that I must get on the wait list, then get in the lottery, then get a reservation all to see the jolly old man at Phipps Plaza.  While that visit didn't dissappoint, we had an equally fab time at our breakfast with Santa at the golf club. 

Mrs. Clause sat and laughed with our little elf for a good long while.  Baby B was the most perfect companion for giggle time!  

After a short little wait, it was our turn to tell the big man what we wanted for Christmas.  Baby B just giggled and cooed for a good long while.  He was just smitten with Santa.  When it was time to have our brunch, Santa offered that Baby B was just so darling that he could come back anytime! 

We enjoyed a lovely brunch and Baby B kept trying to persuade us all to give him "just a bite" of the big boy food.  Sorry, not this year sweet boy!  After some fun, he was just tapped out and took a little snooze right there on Zsa Zsa's shoulder.  Awww, so sweet... and to all a good night!

Precious Piggy

While the holiday wind down is in progress, I'm only just now catching up on all the glorious activities we have done over the past few weeks.  Between parties, traditions, baby dedications, festive eatings, decoratings (shall I go on...) I'm just plain zonked this week.  It's been an absolutely perfect holiday season thus far and I've loved every minute of it.  After we shed our Christmas decor best yesterday, thanks to the help of my MIL and FIL before they left town, I sat for a moment only to find my head wandering about what fun we should plan and do next!  Oh lawzie ... give it a break already!

A few weeks back when our sweet friends the M family were in town, we made our way to the Pink Pig at Lenox.  For those in Atlanta, or around the south for that matter, you know this is an absolute must do.  There was just NO way that I was going to permit Baby B's first Christmas season to be complete without a trip to see this precious pig!

I have such vivid memories as a child of my sweet family making our way down to the Christmas parade in downtown Atlanta, dining on cheeseburgers at the famous Sundial restaurant (Zsa Zsa much would have preferred classier food options I'm sure ... but we were kids) and capping off the day with a ride of the Pink Pig when she was in her original location at the downtown Rich's building.  I'm happy to report that the train like car that is now commissioned is much more accessible for us adult type riders.  And while I'd have paid a large sum of money to see Dear Hubs and his bud R fold up their oversized 6 foot 5 inch frames into that little cart, I know we were all thrilled to see something more rider friendly!

My, My ...

Where does the time go?  I seriously feel like I say that on an hourly, daily and weekly basis these days!  We have been living large with parties for birthdays and holidays, crafting, decorating and enjoying every minute of the most wonderful (all be it stressful) time of the year.  As I promise to catch up on some fun little posts over the next (hopefully calmer) few days, I wanted to go ahead and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and lots of love and well wishes for a prosporous New Year. 

Here's a look at this year's family Christmas card.  Each year, I try my darnedest to come up with a sweet card that captures our cute diva dogs.  Well, this year it feels like it's time to expand the photo sessions to include the most darling baby on the planet, Baby B.  I just swoon over some of the creative things my talented besties and friends come up with when it comes to graphic design, but I must say I'm pretty pleased with how these cuties turned out, too!