Our Thanksgiving Weekend - Part 3 - Tanglewood Festival of Lights

We go to Tanglewood every year and this year, we were so excited to go and try out the new camera. After decorating the house on Saturday, we went out for dinner and headed over to Tanglewood's Festival of Lights. We waited in line for about an hour, but were happy to sit in the car and sing along to Christmas tunes on the radio. :)

For those of you who are not in this area, Tanglewood is one of the largest light shows in the Southeast US. It is quite amazing to drive through and see all of the lights. Many of the displays are active - for example, there is one of a man hitting a golf ball and you see the ball go through the air. Get the idea?

Here are some of the pics we took this year:

This one is my favorite!

Loved all of the bells !

Troll Village always reminds me of when I was young - I used to love trolls!

Can you tell that the archways are my favorite? :)

What a perfect way to kick off the Christmas Season! We had such a fabulous time.

Our Thanksgiving Weekend - Part 2 - Decorating our Christmas Tree

On Saturday, we pulled out all of the Christmas decorations from the attic and went out to find the perfect tree. the tree lot that we normally go to was not up this year, so we found a new one with lots of beautiful trees. We strapped it on top of Josh's Honda Civic and brought it home! We got some pretty funny looks on the way home. :)

We decided to use only our "special" ornaments (post on those to follow) and then all red and white balls. I like the way it turned out. We also decided against a tree topper this year too.

Loving my new camera!!! :)

Dear Santa: Please fill this stocking with treats and toys. :)

Our Thanksgiving Weekend - Part 1

On Wednesday, Josh and I went out to puchase a new camera. We were so excited - we chose the Nikon D3000 and were able to get a few lenses for it too. We spent Wednesday night watching insturctional DVDs, reading the manual, and playing around with the new camera.

We went out for Mexican on Wedensday night. It was great until the waiter dumped my entire plate out all over the place! It didnt end up on my lap, so I wasnt too upset though. Waiting a few minutes for a new plate just made it taste even better when it finally got there. :)
I heart poinsettas! Costco has a great price on them this year too if you have one in your area. We got a HUGE one for only $16.99. It really makes our living room light up.

On Thursday we got up in time to go to Starbucks for breakfast. That was a special treat for Josh. Then we headed about 90 miles west to spend the day with Josh's family. We had a good meal and had a lot of fun chatting and of course - looking through the sale papers for Friday morning!

On Friday we were out of the bed by 3AM and standing in line at Target by 4:30AM! The line had nearly 2,000 people in it and we were about 3/4 back so I was worried all of the goodies on our list would be gone. The line moved fast though- the doors opened at 5 and we were inside the store by 5:07. We grabbed up what was on our list and moved on to the next store. We went to Target, Lifeway Christian, Sears, JCPenney, Costco, Best Buy, the mall and then back to Target again. We were completely finished with our Christmas shopping by 2pm on Friday! Woo Hoo!!!

We came home and played outside with Mollie for a while since she had been alone for a coupld of days.

And then, in true Black Friday fashion - we took a nice long nap! :)

...while Mollie played pulled out every single one of her toys.

I didn't waste any time getting all of our gifts wrapped. I put in our new Casting Crowns Christmas CD (doorbuster at Lifeway Christian that morning) and wrapped, wrapped, wrapped....

By Saturday we were ready to do our Christmas decorating. :) I have some pics of that too, but realize that this post is getting lengthy, so I will continue it tomorrow.

I hope that you had a fun and relaxing Thankgiving!

So Chic: Showcase

This pic is super blurry, but cant you just imagine it clear? :)

Showcase Album - continued

Registration & Bags!

Some more pages from my Showcase Album. I was able to complete these at my November Retreat.

Pizza Margherita

Tired of take out pizza? Think outside of pepperoni and cheese! This is one of Josh's favorites and has limited ingredients (read: super easy to make)

Just pizza dough, small amount of marinara sauce, fresh mozerrella cheese and fresh basil leaves.