Christmas

Christmas this year was a blast!  We started off the celebration with family the Saturday before Christmas (Above:  Hannah, Brinley, and Mamaw).

When Chris and I got married, the thought of planning for the holidays was a little intimidating.  We now had to add more family to our already pretty full days.  Not to mention, we've both got stellar families and wanted to soak up every minute with each of them.

Two Christmas' later, it's turned out to not be that big of a deal.  We talk about it in advance and roll with the changes.  Christmas Eve is spent with in M'town with my family and Christmas Day is with my inherited fam.  Lots of uninterrupted time to be together.

And lots of time to eat.

And celebrate...

Case in point.  Christmas Eve in M'town at my parents' home.  My mother's side of the family gets together for lunch and we all give lots of attention to the babies of the family.

It's a little chaotic, but SUPER fun!

J. (5 years old), Addalee (2 years old), and River (just about 1!)

They are modeling one of this year's greatest toys - Bilibo  -  that Aunt Sonya got for them.

Beth is bringing in even more toys from the garage, where Nana and Dee hid them.

Hello, little Miss Couldn't Be CUTER!

The happy Cole family.

This was Riv's first Christmas!!

This photo of J. may be my favorite from that day...

Johnny took him away from his new train for about 4 seconds to take this photo.  It was obviously painful for the little man.  Addalee just enjoyed her cookie.

{J., Johnny, Jenny, and Addalee - Jen is pregnant with baby girl Cole!}



Our family exchange of presents...

Highlights:

1.  Ben wrapped his presents in newspaper.  He started out the gift giving with giving us a lighter for our firepit and Beth and Will a paintbrush to paint their new home with.  Neither of those were wrapped though.  He just took a piece of paper and taped it (with masking tape) to the object of choice.

2.  We surprised Beth and Will with a firepit.  (Mom and Dad got us one, which we knew of, and Beth thought she was in on a surprise for us...  Little did she know there was one for her!)

3.  Beth and I surprised Mom and Dad with a wedding album from each of our weddings.

4.  Beth has camera radar.  I don't think I had a single picture from this day of her not looking at the camera.

5.  We got a lot of awesome and thoughtful gifts!

After this, we loaded up our stuff and headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.  It was packed, but we squeezed in and sang all of those wonderful Christmas songs about the Savior together.

Being with family at church to celebrate Christmas is one of my favorite traditions.  It was definitely special.

After kissing my family goodbye, Chris and I set out on the road for Birmingham so we could spend Christmas Day with his family.

Normally, the family in Birmingham come up to Tennessee for Christmas.  Unfortunately, there were other family matters that kept them in B'ham.  They couldn't come to us, so we were going to them.  We didn't want to miss seeing them for the holiday!

We arrived late Christmas Eve night and were there on Christmas morning opening presents with the family:

We did the big Christmas exchange with his family that morning.

Highlights:

1.  Giving T. and Natalie the Disney vacation album we made for them.

2.  Opening each present one by one so we got to watch everyone and see what they got.  I loved this!  (It was a free-for-all at my family's so I may have to implement this next year...  It does take a little more time, so my patient family may not be able to do it.)  We loved watching everyone's reactions to the gifts!

3.  Chris' parents got us a treadmill for Christmas.  Obviously that can't be wrapped (nor hauled to Birmingham), so T. wrote down that we were getting a treadmill on a piece of paper and wrapped it up!  We should have known something was up with the gift that was super light.

4.  We got a lot of awesome and thoughtful gifts!

Christmas Day lunch with the rest of the family was at Rick and Suzanne's.

Katie holding baby Charley!

Charley, the first baby on this side of the family, is cute as a button!  Such big eyes and loves giving hugs.  We definitely don't mind giving hugs right on back his way...

{Me, Katie, Cousin Meredith, and Baby Charley}

After lunch Christmas celebrations in the sunroom.

Later, we had a rousing game of Cranium with the family!  This was Kate's idea, so she directed us.

Rick snored over in the big leather chair while the rest of us struggled to stay awake.

Chris blames the turkey.  I blame Suzanne's dressing.

Oh, and the next picture?

You're looking at the proud winners of the Crainium game.

Merry Christmas from the Connells!

Christmas at the Connell's

Oh, Christmas Tree!  Oh, Christmas Tree!

How lovely are your branches!

{via cell phone}

It's definitely up!  The Connell family Christmas tree.  Normally, we put our tree in front of a double window in our dining room.  This year, however, we put it in our living room.  We're in here way more often than the dining room and we can fully enjoy it this way.

Oh, and don't take notice to the sections missing lights...  It adds character!

When Chris and I got married, we started collecting Christmas ornaments for different places we visited.  It was a suggestion from my mother!  {Moms are so smart, right?  Especially mine.}

That's our Mickey ornament we got from our family vaca to Disney World.

This wooden rocker is from Nana's tree.  She says she's done putting up a big tree and offered them to us.  I snatched them up and got them home!

{Family - there's more to spare if you're interested!  I've actually got a few box saved for you.}

Here's our skiing moose from Utah.  We went with a group of friends and it was Chris' first time skiing.  So fun!

Our Wilderness at the Smokies ornament.

That's where Chris took me as my surprise birthday overnight!  We had to have an ornament to remember that awesome trip.

This birdie I just got this year on our Gatlinburg adventure.  It's not our official Gatlinburg ornament, but I loved her and thought she'd want to sing from our tree for a long time.

Jim Shore if you're wondering.

Of course we have to have Macy represented on the tree!  This is our shih-tzu ornament Chris' mother gave me for my birthday (two years ago?!).

Our first married Christmas ornament!  It's a picture of us last year.  So sorry for the darkness!  It's definitely special to us.  (Another gift from my sweet Mother in law!)

This was another off of Nana's tree...  I love her!

This was a really sweet gift to us, commemorating the day we got engaged!

Hello Mr. Drummer Boy!

Did anyone guess Nana's tree??

Our official ornament from our Gatlinburg trip!  I even wrote the details on the back of it (date, place, etc..).

A star from China!  My friend, Mary Lou, brought this back from her trip overseas.  It's always been a special one.

A pretty gift from my friend, Amy.  She just gave it to me this year!

{Santa's little helper and our first gift under the tree!}

While wrapping presents, Macy was my little shadow.  And by shadow, I mean stepping all over the wrapping paper, sitting in my lap, and wanting me to love on her the whole time.

I couldn't resist that fur ball face!

{Christmas at the Connells}

Our holiday decorating is meaningful to us.  Not fancy by any means, but fits us just right!

Chris and I are both off work for the rest of the week and I'm already planning to NOT plan anything!  Just enjoying the time with my Mr. Connell, getting a Christmas haircut, and maybe something from the second page of this.  (I'm not very good at not planning anything, am I?  It's a disease.  Someone help.)

Anyway, I assure you this week will be full of lots of love, laughter, and togetherness! 

Hope you're having a lovely holiday week as well...

xoxo!

Cookies!

Baking during the holidays is one of my favorite things!  It just brings home the warm fuzzy feelings.

For this month, my Bunco crowd hosted a cookie swap.  You each make 4 dozen cookies and then bring them to the swap to share.  You'll see how many cookies I came home with at the bottom!

My contribution to the group was Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.

Main ingredients (minus eggs)

1 box of chocolate cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 c vegetable oil

1/3 bag of chocolate chips (as much or as few as you want)

powdered sugar

(I doubled this recipe for 4 dozen cookies.)

Did I mention how easy these are?

Casey made the same ones I did.  I'm sure her recipe is better, but either way, you end up with a lot of yummy chocolate cookie with a warm inside.

Throw it all in a bowl together.

and mix 'er up!

Word of warning - this stuff is thick!  I'm pretty sure it tried to break my mixer.  Going forward, I would definitely only make one batch at a time, possibly not use the mixer, and save the chocolate chips for last.

Chill the dough for about 10 minutes.  It will make it easier to roll into balls.

Scoop into balls and roll around in powdered sugar.

Place powdered sugar covered dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 9-11 minutes.

Be sure not to overcook your cookies!  They will look a little doughy when they come out, but after they sit a bit, they'll harden up.

I love these cookies!

If you tend to like your cookies a little chewier than crispy, these are the cookies for you.

Cookies on display!

These cookies had to travel with me to work and then to the party.  I was so thankful for the oxo pop up container.  Especially when I had to slam on my breaks on the interstate.

Really, who breaks so fast going 70 mph?!?  All the cars around me locked up their breaks.

In the meantime, those darn cookies flew to the floor!

But not one of them was broken or came out of the container.  Thank goodness for the good lids!

These are the goods I came home with:

Lots of yummy stuff!

Rice Krispy wreaths, pumpkin cookies, red velvet cookies, haystacks, iced sugar cookies, caramel pecan goodness, etc...

Mexican wedding cookies, chocolate chip muffies, peppermint bark delight, coconut cookies...

I had so much fun at the cookie swap and I definitely go to one again.  Chris and I ate a ton of cookies and then I took a bunch to work.  When you've got stuff this good, you've gotta share!

Thanks to all the ladies who contributed!  I had a blast!

Bible Study Girls Overnight

For our annual Bible Study girls' overnight (overnights should be annual, if not more, right?),

we packed up our gear and headed up to the mountains the weekend after my birthday.

Allison, Annie, Emily C., and Laura

(Emily P. was in the back with me.  She opted to avoid the double chin lean in.  Lori wasn't able to join us.)

Annie's in laws own the awesome cabin we were able to stay at.  It was a night of good girl fellowship, the fun noun game EP taught us, and, as you can imagine, lots of talking!

Here we are = piled in front of the warm fire!

The Bible Study girls are such a blessing in my life.  There is nothing better than really digging in and doing life together.  I hope for many, many, many years of these Christian friendships.

Those girls were so thoughtful!  They smuggled a cake all the way there for Annie and me.  (For my birthday and Annie's PA graduation!)

Such love.

28

This birthday was definitely one of my favorites.

I turned 28 on Thursday and thought I might die Saturday night from all of the celebration love.  I pulled through though...  Christmas, of course, was right around the corner.

December is a good month for me.

The whole birthday week was perfect.  Chris' parents had us over Monday night for a special birthday dinner in my honor.  They even sang the happy birthday song to me over our yummy dessert.  So special!

Wednesday night, my small group had our Christmas party at Gondolier.  The girls surprised me with a big slice of chocolate cake at the end.  Everyone sang happy birthday and I'm sure my cheeks were red from all the attention.

Thursday morning at work I found these:

My sweet sister purchased these beautiful flowers and made me a cinnamon pound cake (to die for!) and muffins in honor of my birthday!  I just cherish my sister and not just because she does things like this for me (even though it would be a good reason!).

For lunch, Nana called to see if she could take Beth and I to lunch for our birthdays (Beth's was in November).  We had a special lunch on my birthday at Tara's Tea Room.

Thursday after returning from lunch these were waiting on me:

From my Mr. Connell.

Sigh!

On the birthday night, we headed out to meet my fam half-way. 

Puleo's was yummy, but the company even better.

I fell asleep that night a very happy 28 year old.

Oh, the celebration continued!

On Friday, Chris took me out to the undisclosed location - Foothills Milling Company.

Here we are with the Macy girl and our sweet Christmas tree...

At dinner:

Dinner was THE BEST!  I have a feeling it will not be the last time we go there.

My recommendation?  The cedar planked salmon.  I savored every bite.  It was the best salmon I've ever had!

Thank you to my sweet family and friends for making this such a special birthday.

Because of all the love I felt, I will not forget about it for a long, long time.