Christmas at home

I love the holiday season. There's just something about driving home and spending time with family that is so incredibly special. Christmas Eve we all piled in the car and drove to Grey Gables, where Ginna is getting married in 3 months! Along the way we sang Christmas hymns and songs and drove merrily along.

We baked cookies! Look at that Ginna girl. So proud.

It was a white Christmas indeed.

Andrew came to spend the week with my family and we had a blast! I took him on a tour of Greensboro and introduced him to lots of friends.

We also went to the Duke game and witnessed history!! Congrats to Coach K for surpassing Dean Smith and becoming second place in all-time wins!

Andrew is becoming a Duke fan. :)

Here are the sisters. I can't remember the last time we've spent a solid week together at home. Oh how I love them.

*pictures taken on Lucy, Ginna & Carrie's phones.

It's the holiday season

For some reason this holiday season seems like it's been much busier than in recent years. Perhaps it's the 8 parties we had or being super busy with work, but I am very thankful for time to rest within the next few weeks.

It's been a really fun December with Andrew as we've enjoyed driving around looking at Christmas lights, going to see the Nutcracker, singing Christmas hymns (he brought over his guitar!), watching movies, reading Luke 2 and making dinners together. Not to mention attending a tacky Christmas sweater party. My camera hasn't been working, so thank you to my friend Michelle for the pictures below. Oh! This past Sunday I got in my car and something didn't seem right. Yep, flat tire. Of course I can be so dramatic about these things, but luckily the boyfriend saved the day and changed the whole thing! Ahh, it was awesome.

I'm leaving Charlotte tomorrow and can't wait to be at home with my family. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

Cookies!

I could not go to sleep without telling you about this amazing kitchen tool. I use it often when baking and it's such a lifesaver! Seriously, go get one of these and you'll have perfectly round cookies. I love it. I had to made cookies for a Christmas party tonight and they were so little and cute. If you need a good holiday cookie recipe (not that you do... there are so many!), try this one. We've had/have a total of 9 holiday parties. Whew. I've also been sick with a head cold but thankfully that's on its way out. I'm very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and relaxing this weekend after a busy, busy week.

I'll leave you with these verses that I love and I've been thinking about lately:

'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart.' -Jeremiah 29:11-13

Happy Birthday Michelle!!

Happy Birthday Malar! We've been friends since 7th grade and this picture was taken this past summer at one of our old stompin grounds: the Juice Shop at Friendly Center. Mich, you are one of my dearest friends and I hope you have a fabulous birthday!! :)

Happy Birthday Allison!!

It's my best friend's birthday! Yay! We've been friends for a long time:

This might be the oldest picture we have together.
About to leave for Jamaica where Al will meet Brian!

Many fun visits in NYC.

Happy Birthday, Al! Hope you have the best day! Thanks for being a wonderful friend!

Weekend Update

Wow, I had an awesome weekend! Andrew & I went down to Atlanta to visit with some of his family and for him to meet Allison & Brian! It was definitely a great way to start the holiday season. :)

Turkey Day

Another Thanksgiving goes by without actually eating turkey. Even when I made the turkey for our FG Thanksgiving Feast in New York I never tried it. I'm a strange bird, I know.

We had about 26 people over to my parent's house today. Most everyone brought something and I signed up to do an appetizer (thanks for the recipe, Al). It's so simple: brie with the top cut off, topped with cranberries, walnuts and thyme baked at 350 for 20 minutes or so. Go for it.

My Uncle Hunter grilled venison that he killed last weekend and I actually tried a small bite. I think I overheard my cousin say, "We go for Bambi" and I was done after that. Here are some of the men grilling:

Oh cousins!
How I love them!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm packing up and about to head home for Thanksgiving! This has to be one of my favorite weeks out of the year. I love hanging out with my family and us cousins can be kinda crazy so I'll leave you with this video from last Thanksgiving. Case in point...

All about the Mar

Last week I went to Mar's school for their Thanksgiving feast. I'm a little biased, but I think she is the cutest girl in the whole world.

I love this picture of her!

I would hate for you to think that I only post pictures of the children all calm and collected, so here's a little bit of real life for ya:

Home

It was a wonderful weekend. I took the boyfriend up to Oak Ridge to meet my sisters and soon-to-be brother-in-law. (He had already met my parents a month ago in Charlotte.) It was a perfect day. We watched football, went for a walk, ate yummy food, and just spent time together.

He also met Petals (the dog) and Zuzu (the cat).
And he puts up with my silliness. :)
There's Gin & Jeff. Oh! We also took a tour of Gray Gables, where they're getting married in the spring!

Ok, so, when bf picked me up on Saturday he told me to close my eyes and turn around. He then surprised me with Chucks! He has two pairs and I've been debating for months whether to get the black or grey. What a guy!!

Picture of the day

I love and miss my NYC family!

Weekend Update

I had such an amazing weekend. Actually a lot of it involved food, but that's ok because I love to cook & bake on "home days", as Margot calls them.

Friday night I picked up pizza for MK & myself. We each sat on a couch and found an endearing Hallmark movie to watch. By 10pm we were out. Lame? No, awesome! Sometimes I'm so exhausted on a Friday night that I just have to go to bed early.

We all got up on Saturday morning for pumpkin ebelskiver pancakes with pecans inside. Yum. It happens every two months or so that all three of us are home and we have a leisurely breakfast together. Afterwards, I sat on the couch reading and listening to Christmas music. :)

The boyfriend came over and we made this amazing homemade mac & cheese with bacon for an event we had later that night. Ohh it was so good. Then we went to his house and walked for 5 miles in his neighborhood. It was a perfect day for a walk as the trees in Charlotte are gorgeous! That night we went to our church for Operation Christmas Child box night, where you pack up boxes of treats, games and toys to send to kids all over the world. Cait and I made a little box for a baby girl and this is our friend Matt who did a box for a boy.


One of the best parts about the weekend was watching the Gamecock football game Saturday night. Bf went to grad school at USC and is a huge fan. I just knew they were going to win. He was sure they weren't. But I was right!

Sunday was church and then about 5 different friends stopped by later that afternoon to visit or just say hi. I love that! I love when friends come over! I made this cranberry lime muffin cake, thanks to Teaberries and then made a yummy linguine dish. Last night I went over to bf's and guess what we watched... the DUKE game!! Yeah, 'tis the season!

All in all, it was one of the best weekends I've had here this fall. Thanks for reading the play-by-play. Now, have a great week!

Oh, and this is us on the couch because our house is FREEZING!!

Me + kids + a mac = fun

City skyline

Since yesterday was Veterans Day, my bf (!) and I explored Uptown Charlotte since we had the morning free. We parked where he works and saw the view of Charlotte from the top of the parking garage. Beautiful! After living in NYC, I LOVE a good rooftop view. We walked to the Light Factory photography exhibit and then to Dean & Deluca for coffee. Walked some more and then headed to Metropolitan for really good sushi. It was definitely a wonderful city day.

Retreats, friends and bears, oh my!

This past weekend we had a women's retreat in the mountains of North Carolina, mainly Black Mountain. I had to work late, so I drove up on Friday night by myself. It was so dark outside and I was about a mile from the lodge when I saw a huge bear cross the street. It was enormous. I've never seen anything that big. Huge. Had I been 10 seconds sooner I would've hit it and the thing would've opened my car and eaten me somehow. I'm very thankful that was not the case. I might be talking about this bear for a while. I still can't get over it.

Ok, so not sure why I forgot to take more pictures than this one on the last day, but here are my friends Jenni, Misty and Jessica. We were on the planning committee and it was fun to spend time with them that weekend.


Actually one of my favorite things about the weekend was having coffee with my NYC friend Pam! She was home for the weekend so we met at a coffee shop to catch up, and for me to get my NYC "fix". I can't tell you how wonderful it is to catch up with good friends!!


I think I was talking to Al, so I was on the phone and driving when I took this picture. I didn't get as many of the fall colors as I'd liked, but this gives you an idea of my beautiful drive home.

Halloweekend

It was a great Halloween weekend! I helped the kids get ready, which meant I was both sewing costumes and fighting off the masses at Party City, a place I will now avoid at the end of October. Wil-man was a gangsta, which fit him! So cute!

I went to a Halloween party on Saturday night which was a lot of fun. It was one of the first "feels like NYC" parties I've been to here in Charlotte. I was a cat again. So boring, I know.
This is me & my friend Christine.

Here's our dear little Manor home. I love this tree, and the pumpkin & mums on the porch. It is a happy fall, indeed!