Happy New Year's Eve!

Thought I'd share some memories for my lovelies. NYE's through the ages of RCW and I.

NYE 2003 - The first NYE I knew RCW and we were attempting to kinda date, but in all honesty were more like friends with benefits, yea I know, but I really liked him and he didn't want a commitment! Anyway, RCW threw a party at his aunt and uncle's rental house. It was definitely a crazy party. We were both there, but no pictures exist of us together. But there are pictures of both of us with Shawna - she's my Big Sister from sorority and the person who introduced RCW and I.
And yes, that is a whole bottle of Sour Apple Puckers in my hand. Lets remember I had just turned 21 that year on Dec 20th. And yes, I had really blond highlight hair!
NYE 2004 - Sadly RCW and I were really just friends this NYE. Thus, we didn't spent the evening together. I was with some of my besties, including my Maid of Honor, barhopping around Richmond, VA. *Gasp* No pictures exist from that evening out. Weird, I know.

NYE 2005 - Our first official NYE together. We spent the night in at Shawna's boyfriend - now - husband's apartment in Washington D.C.
NYE 2006 - Our first in Indiana with our group of YR friends. Not a great pic, but the only one of us together. These parties always have themes, I thinking this one was Hollywood, but I'm not entirely sure.
NYE 2007 - Indiana party with YR friends - theme was North Pole.
NYE 2008 - Indiana YR party - theme was New York.
*PS. YR = Young Republicans. We moved to IN to work on a campaign*

I hope everyone has a fabulous NYE 2009! Have fun, but be safe!

The Little Moments

Sitting at the kitchen table this morning, I glanced out the back window to ensure no digging was happening. Instead of digging, I was greeted by this sight. Despite the fact that they pounced on me this morning to wake me up, now they're calm. Enjoying the 30 degree weather,watching the farm activities next door. The little things like this make me so happy.

What has made your morning happy so far today?

*PS. At the request of a loyal follower who reads on their iphone, I changed the font color to black. If you have trouble reading this now, let me know and we'll try something between white and black!*

Spoiling Mom & Dad

This Christmas Mom and Dad B. came out to us. It's so nice when family comes out our way, as its a long trip to VA. We had just been back for Thanksgiving and had decided we wouldn't be making that journey again in December. With an open invitation, Mom and Dad made the drive with their 3 labs out to us.

Mom and Dad have done SO much for us this year. They do much for us every year, but especially this year with our wedding and honeymoon so we wanted to get them really good gifts and spoil them a bit. I was so excited when they commented on all of the gifts under the tree and then gasped when they learned they were all for them!

I think RCW and I did our job well from the pictures below - lots of open mouths, looks of surprise and happiness came our way on Christmas night.

Each one had a personalized lab ornament/magnet in their stockings.
Mom's big gift - a new bread machine. You can see her process from what is it? to oh my gosh! to yay!
Dad wanted a snuggie...
We found him a UofL snuggie, which made him beyond excited!
Their BIGGEST gift. This gift has been in the works for 3 years. I found it from Danbury Mint back in 2006, when we first moved out here. It was too expensive and we couldn't justify buying it when I was out of a job that December. We put it on hold for the next Christmas. Well, Christmas 2007, it wasn't available anymore at Danbury Mint. What a bummer. Sometime in 2008, I started searching ebay for the coveted gift. In November 2008, we found one. RCW started bidding and watching and bidding, unfortunately, in the end we lost it. That brought us to 2009. All year long I watched ebay weekly, looking for this gem. As Christmas got closer, my hopes disappeared. Then, after Thanksgiving one popped up and it was super cheap too. RCW watched it and waited, no one was bidding on it. One early morning around 1am it was ending, we set our alarm and RCW bid on it and won! Yay! The gift was coming from California via USPS, by December 23 it hadn't arrived. We were bummed as we wanted to give this gift as the grand finale this year. Oh well, it could wait for next year, we thought. Christmas Eve we went to church, looked at lights and came home. When we arrived home a large brown box was on our door step, from California! It was here!! While I cooked dinner, RCW wrapped the gift. It was totally worth it - my parents loved this gift! It doesn't pay them back for all their money spent on our wedding and honeymoon, but we think it shows them how grateful we are for all of their love and support!
*The final gift was a Labrador Christmas Tree by Danbury Mint. It's about a foot tall with working lights and yellow, black and chocolate labs running all around it. It was a hit!*

We had so much fun spoiling Mom and Dad this Christmas. Mom wasn't too happy, as we had previously agreed to scale back on Christmas gifts this year. But RCW and I got so much out of finding fabulous presents for them and seeing them so happy - it must be what having Christmas morning with kids is like!

Do you spoil your parents with Christmas gifts? And let me give full disclosure, Mom and Dad totally spoiled us as well, as usual. Lots of gift cards and the always fabulous check, along with dvds too. We had a great Christmas and hope you did too!

No, We're Not

Pregnant. But just to show my case in one more instance. This was the picture that greeted me this afternoon as I caught up on my bloggity blogs...

One of my faves, Mrs. Eye Can See over at The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze is preggers. I'm so excited for her and her hubby and sent my congratulations already.

But, in my excitement and joy for her, the next thought that went through my head was "another friend pregnant."

As my previous posted stated, I am seriously surrounded by lovely pregnant ladies. I do love reading their stories and heeding their words of advice, but again, RCW and I can't help but wonder when will it be our turn? Hopefully 2010 will bring a baby our way. We know God will bless us when the time is right. In the mean time we'll just enjoy the practice makes perfect advice and continue to bask in the newlywed glow.

Merry Christmas From The Williamsons

1st Annual Williamson Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

I have been a fan of Ugly/Tacky Christmas Sweater parties for years - it seemed every year more and more Facebook friends would post pictures from said parties.

This year in our first home, I KNEW we had to throw one. It started off a simple dinner party with friends. When the dinner party wouldn't fit into everyone's schedules until Friday, December 4, it turned into the 1st Annual Williamson Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!

To help get everyone into the Christmas Eve spirit - please enjoy some fabulously tacky pictures.

Here are your boys...
Here are your girls...
Here are your Top 8 Ugly Sweaters!! (So You Think You Can Dance, anyone?!)
Even Dallas & Loucie got in on the ugly sweater action (Target for $9.99 each - the sweaters, not our babies)
Funny Couples poses in front of the fireplace
The trophy...who do you think you won???
To protect identities, I won't give his name, but Hubby from this lovely couple won with 6 out of 8 votes!
Do you have any holiday parties or have you ever gone to an Ugly Sweater Party?

Babies, Babies Everywhere

Everywhere I look I see cute little round bellies, newborns, toddlers, doting dads...

They're on tv (seriously, pregnancy scare for not 1, but 2 leads on Ugly Betty, my soaps (love me some Young and the Restless) and what about Accidentally on Purpose, Jenna Elfman's new sitcom which revolves around being pregnant), on my blogs (Mrs. Bee, The Roddy Bride, Kentucky Katie aka Alexander Adventures, That Wife, From Motherhood to Marriage), on Facebook (about 7 of my sorority sisters and high school friends all had babies in the past few weeks), in our family (our new nephew and Rick's cousin is expecting twins in spring 2010) and lets not forget in celebrity land (Tom & Giselle, Amy Adams, Kendra & Hank Baskett, Kourtney Kardashian). It seems I can't get away from the fact that everyone seems to be pregnant or just had babies.

Picture Source

Or is it simply, that with my raging baby fever I'm just noticing these adorable bellies and beautiful babies more now? Have there always been so many couples reproducing, but I'm just now taking note of it?

What do you think - was there some catalyst (snow storms in January, bad economy so people stayed home) for a surge in babies recently or are there always pregnant bellies and newborns around that I'm just now realizing it since we're talking about expanding our little family?

Happy Birthday to Me :)

Today, I'm 27. Where did the past few years go and how am I closer to 30 than I am to 20?! It's all good though. I'm blissfully happy with my hubby, have a job I love, amazing friends (online and in real life), an awesome family which includes the cutest little nephew anyone could ever want and I can not wait to see what the next year brings me!

This morning RCW woke up first and said he couldn't go back to sleep, but he'd come wake me up in a little bit. This is typical in our home, as RCW gets up super early, like 5am early. When the girls were ready to get up closer to 8, they gave me kisses and we went down the hallway where we were stopped by RCW running around a corner. I was instructed to go back to bed. I watched some trashy E! shows, folded some laundry and waited. Finally, around 9:30am, I was told I could come out.

This is what I was greeted with when I rounded the hallway corner...
Then in our kitchen was this display
And my birthday cake. This is BIG step, in years past I've had a the song, I've had a candle, but the 'cake' had been anything from a cheeseburger from Steak & Shake to a homemade cake ball I made for Christmas parties. Having my own birthday cake from RCW was quite the cause for excitement!
The gift on the counter, if you want to know, like my mom did, was The Proposal. An all time fave movie. My hubby did fabulous this year to make my day special. The cake and decorations were awesome. Thank you babe!

What does your hubby or SO do to celebrate your birthday?

When Gifts Attack

Remember my gorgeous Christmas table from a couple days ago? (Just scroll down a post, if you don't.)

Well, I am sad to report it's been taken over. Gone are the cute polka dot glasses, crafty red felt placemats and shiny new wedding silverware. Instead it now looks like this...


Yup - Grand Central Station for Christmas presents. You will find a wannabe snuggie with UofL's logo, a Bumbo seat and tray, coupons and receipts, candles, wrapping paper, ribbon, tape and scissors and what would Christmas gifts be without a bottle of wine and a stuffed animal wearing a Santa hat?!

I adore our kitchen table looking lovely and ready for it's Martha Stewart cover shoot *I wish*, and despite having 1,700 square feet of space (much larger than our 900 square foot apartment) the kitchen table is where life happens in our house. Wrapping presents, eating quick dinners, making shopping lists, plopping down the mail and newspaper, doing arts and crafts and even writing my bloggity blogs.

Once all the presents have been wrapped with love and care and gently placed under the Christmas tree, our kitchen table will once again become a magical wonderland of place settings in time for Mom and Dad Bs' arrival for Christmas dinner. But rest assured, I'm 99.9% positive within a couple days post Christmas dinner, some new project will take over our beloved table!

What about you - where does your life ever so lovingly clutter your home?

Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

I can't believe it's December 16th already - 1. where has the year gone? 2. where has the month of November gone?! Our home is decorated for the season - it was decorated before Thanksgiving due to our trip back to Virginia, but shopping hasn't been finished, presents haven't been wrapped and I can't believe we'll be seeing parents one week from today for the holiday!

This is the first year in our home - the first year RCW (my amazing hubby from here on out) has had a roof to climb and decorate, a garage to store items and a yard to fill. Don't let me fool you though, I was just as excited as he was to get the lights up and turned on! He guesses we have around 3,000 lights total - not quite the 50,000 we grew up with in Tacky Light Town aka Richmond, VA, but not shabby for our first year either.

Here's the inside tour - my domain.

Repurposed elephant from our wedding - love it. Of course it was RCW's idea to add the lights!

Adore this shot. Polka dot glasses and small plates $2 each at Wal-Mart. White dinner plates were Wal-Mart as well, some great deal like 4 for $10 or something. Napkin rings and placemats both came from Pier 1 - napkin rings were $2.65 and placemats around the same cost. Centerpiece wreath and placecard holders from Michael's - wreath was $14.99, but we bought on sale and with a coupon and placecard holders were $4.99 for 6. Silverware was a wedding gift from my aunt and uncle and candles were previously owned.

Make the wall art pop with Santa Hat gift tags from Target - 2. for $0.99.

Are you ready for the holidays at your home?! Send me your links, I wanna see the pictures and gain inspiration for next year!