Friday Favorites

For this first time in awhile I'm linking up for Friday Favorites! 

1. Excited I can finally share that my sister is pregnant and due in June! Bonnie has had a hard 18 months (really 2.5 years if you include all the time she went undiagnosed) and to be able to be pregnant is a pretty amazing thing. We can't wait to meet our new niece/nephew in June. Prayers are much appreciated for a smooth pregnancy.

2. I blogged about our visit to see Santa over the weekend. Emma surprised me by not screaming sitting on a strangers lap. She was rather confused and refused to smile but it made for a sweet picture of her gazing at the man with the white beard!

3. Last week Emma spent that night with my in-laws and their neighbor so graciously offered (she's a photographer) to take some Christmas pictures of Emma and she looks so cute! Definitely a favorite for sure! 

4. Blogged this week about our snow days here in Atlanta and it was so magical! 

5. I wanted a new outfit for Christmas Eve this year so stopped and bought THIS and THIS!

5. This is not really a favorite from the week but more a prayer request. My dog is not well and we have been back and forth from the vet. I hope his treatments today and tomorrow really kick in because the next step is just plain expensive. He is a favorite but seeing him sick is really hard. 

That's all I've got for this week. Happy Holidays! SOOOO close to Christmas and SOOOO close to a break from school (4 more days!)

Snow Storm and Santa

This past weekend Atlanta got hit with more snow than I've seen since I was little! It was magical and beautiful. It caused us to slow down and just enjoy time together. 

Friday was when the snow started and it came down at a much more rapid rate than expected and for much longer than expected. Fulton released schools in order of High, Middle and Elementary. Our last kiddos didn't leave the building until right at 3pm. To say I was starting to panic inside would be an understatement because of what happened in 2014. I was paranoid I wouldn't get home and worried Emma/Tommy would get stuck at his parents house. Emma had stayed the night at Tommy's parents Thursday night so we could go out for Tommy's work holiday party. Courtney had already taken Friday off to spend the day with Emma which was great in and of itself but also helped me stay more at ease because I wasn't trying to rush to pick her up from daycare. Tommy finished work at noon and headed right to his parents house. When I left it surprisingly only took me about 25 minutes to get home so once Tommy knew that he decided to pack Emma and Cooper up to head home. Only took him about 30 minutes to get home around 4pm from East Cobb. Definitely not the same as 2014!

We cozied up and enjoyed a relaxing night at home. We decorated cookies! Saturday morning we woke up to a LOT of snow. Some parts of our yard had 8 inches but I would say mostly around 6 inches throughout. The Willis ended up coming to our house for the day because their power went out in the morning and came back just around when Collier woke up from his nap. We enjoyed some time playing in the snow with the kiddos and relaxed with hot chocolate and brunswick stew at our house. 

We went with them and the Hartmans for dinner that night since the roads had melted quite a bit and we thought they may freeze over night. Well when we got home our heat was most definitely not working (whomp whomp). We put Emma to bed and Tommy tried to see what he could do to fix it. No such luck. So we loaded up our stuff and headed to my parents house to stay the night. We stayed until Tuesday once the part came in to fix it. 

We met Bonnie, Brett, and Collier on Sunday morning to see Santa at Lenox mall. We had to wait 2 hours (everyone else had the same idea) and got some cute pictures but we may try somewhere new next year. We had wanted to ride the pink pig as well but by the time we got our pictures it was a race against nap time to get home. 

Monday I got to enjoy another "snow day" from school because in many parts of the district the roads were not conducive to buses and teen drivers. I was able to run some much needed errands that weren't able to get done over the weekend and enjoyed some down time while Emma napped. A perk of not being in your own house during nap time is you don't find a whole slew of things to do around your house that suck up your free time. I just watched tv and enjoyed some peace and quiet. It was wonderful! 

 Looking forward to all the rest of December has to hold for us and celebrating the holidays. 

Life Lately

I haven't posted since Thanksgiving so here's a look at what we have been up to lately. Some good and some sick. We got our Christmas tree the day we got home from Thanksgiving because I was so excited to decorate!

I needed to get the house all decorated because last Friday night was my annual Favorite Things party that I host with Ansley. We have been hosting a Christmas party together now for 6 years. We started with a cookie exchange and then switched to do Favorite Things three years ago and it's one of my favorite nights of the year. We provide the wine and a few main food items then everyone brings an app/finger food/dessert to share along with their gifts. Every person brings three of the same item that is a favorite of theirs from the year. Everyone writes their name to go in a hat three times. Then each person takes a turn telling us about their favorite item and draws three names to go home with that item. By the end of the night you go home with 3 new things and lots of ideas of gifts for the other women in your life! The item has to be $10 or less. This year I think was our best year of gifts yet. The girls really get creative in what they bring and it's so fun to learn about different stuff. Some of them from this year were face halo, invisibobble, mascara, wet brush, The Nightingale, cell phone mount for the car, blanket scarf, trader joes candle, clear clutch, face mask, and a few other beauty products. 

The day after the party was the SEC championship (Auburn played Georgia!) so we decided to go down to tailgate with friends from both of our colleges. We had the best day! I had a few friends in town and it was so great to see them. Tommy went into the game and I went back to my parents to watch with them and my sister. We won! Go dawgs. Bring on playoffs!

That Sunday night we decided to go check out the Lights of Life at Life University and funny enough my sister and her family had decided to do the same so we met them there. We rode the train together then drove the lights on our own and headed home. We always went as kids so we both wanted to have our Little’s experience it too. The lights are great!

This girl loves looking around the Christmas tree. Christmas is such a special time of the year but experiencing it through the eyes of your child makes it that much more special! 

Oh man I forgot to also add that the week leading up to the football game I decided to pull a prank on tommy. I decided to dress Emma in red and black each day and see if he would notice (house divided. I had to!) and he didn’t pick up on it until Friday when I threw it in his face. Here are her outfits! He was so mad he didn’t pick up on it. 

And then last bit before my next post is the dreaded croup reared it’s ugly head again last week. I had to take a few days off and my mom helped too so she could get the rest she needed and I didn’t miss as much work. Cold season is no joke! Poor thing was pretty pitiful and that cough scares the heck out of me. 

Lots of snow and holiday cheer to come In my next post!