WEEKEND RECAP | CHATTANOOGA + RETIREMENT PARTY

We drove down to Chattanooga after I got off last Friday afternoon to see my BIL and SIL. They moved into a new house a couple of months ago and our crazy schedules have kept us from going to see it. Their house is beautiful and in the cutest neighborhood. We got there late afternoon and ate dinner at their house. After dinner we watched Girls Trip. It was hilarious and definitely a good movie if you're looking for a good laugh.

Saturday we went to Tremont Tavern for lunch and it was such a fun atmosphere. I got the pimento cheeseburger and it was delicious.

After lunch we visited for a little bit longer before packing up and heading home. My best friend's family was throwing her dad a retirement party and we were excited to celebrate him!

The party was held at Carriage Lane Inn and it was truly a beautiful and fun night. I am so thankful for a best friend's family who is like my own.

My best friend's husband and his grandfather and brother played some bluegrass music for everyone. They were so good!

How cute is this picture of Matthew and sweet baby Millie?!?!?!? All the heart eyes.

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WEEKEND RECAP | CHATTANOOGA + RETIREMENT PARTY

CHRISTMAS | 2016

And just like that our second married Christmas is over! I am so sad to see it go but had the best time with my sweet husband, adorable puppy, and all of our family. This will be a picture heavy post, so get ready!

Christmas "break" started for me early Thursday afternoon once I turned my out of office on and darted out the door. I met my best friend at my house and we went for a Smoothie run and then finished up some Christmas shopping! After that Matthew and I grabbed dinner and then went shopping for our girl...we may have gone a little overboard, but it was her first Christmas!! Some of that stuff was for our other puppy friends, too ;)

Friday morning we woke up and did our Christmas together since we would be spending the rest of the weekend with family. It was the sweetest morning with the fire and Christmas music going. Reagan was our big Christmas present to each other this year, but we decided to do stocking stuffers and of course, we did a little extra. We just can't help it!! :) We let Reagan open her gifts first and it was just THE best. She was so excited and we could not stop laughing at her. We wrapped a couple and then left a couple in her stocking for her to pull out.

 Also, we have completely come to terms with how crazy we are about our girl...no shame!

 Safe to say, girly had a great first Christmas!! She was also spoiled by our families :)

After she opened her presents Matthew and I exchanged gifts. Matthew's stocking was filled with Pred's stuff, some new headphones and candy and my stocking was filled with hair stuff (he just GETS me and I love it!!), candy, and tickets to go see Sound of Music live in February!! Matthew knocked it out of the park again this year and I am so thankful for him. 

After we did our Christmas together I headed for the kitchen to make my cinnamon rolls. I made the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls this year for our neighbors and loved ones for Christmas, and REALLY enjoyed it.

 I made two batches and had soooo many pans! I definitely see this becoming a tradition. 

They took longer than I thought so I spent most of the day in the kitchen. I also made white chocolate cookie dough fudge and it was fantastic, but so very rich lol.

I had a sous-chef in the kitchen with me for a little bit, but she got sleepy very quickly!

Saturday morning, Christmas Eve, we woke up and finished wrapping the last of the presents and watched Santa Claus and then packed up and headed to my parents house for the day. 

Before we left for the weekend I had to snap a picture of our girl in her Christmas dress ;)

 We spent the day hanging out and cooking the last of everything. Mom had most of it done already. I made a cookie pie for dessert that night and my youngest sister helped me with it!

Matthew with the fur babies!

Christmas Eve with my loves!

After dinner that night we changed into our Christmas pj's my mom got us all and then opened gifts with the whole family. Our families were too sweet and gave us some really nice gifts! After most of my family left we did Christmas with my parents and sisters and it was so much fun!! We were so excited to give everyone their gifts. The best reaction was from my sisters, we made them open their presents at the same time and loved it. 

They loved their Patagonias!! 

My parents bought us a lot of cute coastal decor for our coastal themed guest bedroom and some other goodies. I also got stocked up on some clothes...woo hoo! My parents surprised Matthew with some tools and a huge flashlight that he loved lol.

Our matching Christmas pj's! Christmas traditions are my favorite!! Matthew and my dad also got matching Christmas pj's :) My dad finally has someone to have matching Christmas pj's with lol. Side note about the pj pants...I forgot mine at home so had to improvise with a pair of my dad's Christmas pj's from a few years ago...thankfully they were really similar to the other ones lol. We just didn't want to drive all the way back home for pj pants so those worked. My mom had us these adorable monogrammed shirts made to go with them. These are all iPhone pictures, maybe one day I'll remember my camera ;)

 Aunt Mady

 Crazy aunt Mady!

After we opened presents and made pictures we sat around talking and checking out our new gifts.

We headed to Matthew's parents house later and went to bed after we unpacked our stuff. We woke up early Sunday morning and did Christmas with his parents and brothers and SIL!  We loved giving everyone their gifts and enjoyed our time together.  Our families were too sweet and gave us some really nice gifts. We got the Amazon Echo Dot and are so pumped about it!! We actually got two which works out great because we can have one upstairs and one downstairs. Matthew's older brother got him a really cool gift. His parents have always had a carousel that went around the bottom of their tree and played Christmas music. Well it's a tradition to have it out at their house and the boys love it. They stopped making them the year Matthew was born and they are really hard to find now but his brother searched and searched and found the same exact ones. So now we have one for around our Christmas tree next year...so exciting!

I got an adorable Pandora charm of a puppy to add to my bracelet and some comfy pj's and a cute Vera Bradley bag! We also got some date nights from my BIL & SIL and my cousins!

After we opened presents we got ready and then headed to church. After church we snapped a quick family picture in our Christmas outfits before we changed into comfy clothes for the rest of the day!

my skirt can be found here, and they are sold out, but this shirt is somewhat similar.

We had Christmas lunch and then spent the afternoon hanging out and talking while snacking on tons of delicious desserts. We had the best time with everyone and Reagan loved playing with her cousin, Darcy! Sadly, I hardly took any pictures on Christmas Day. Later than night after everyone left we watched The Help with Matthew's immediate family. My SIL and I never watched The Help when it first came out so we all watched it that night and it was such a good movie!! After the movie was over we all headed to bed because we were just exhausted!

Monday we woke up and had brunch with Matthew's family and then loaded up the car and headed back to my parent's house to get some gifts we left because we didn't have room to load them before we left and to see what all my sister's got for Christmas. We hung out with them for a bit before we finally headed back to our house to unpack everything! Late Monday afternoon we headed to my mema's house for our third and final Christmas celebration. We had a delicious dinner and then gave everyone their gifts. We got them hand painted Christmas baskets while we were on our cruise in Cozumel, and they loved them!

Matthew and I both took Tuesday off to catch up on some rest because we knew we would be exhausted from the long holiday weekend. We had the best day together. We cleaned early that morning and then lounged around the rest of the afternoon watching Christmas movies and playing with our girl! We went to dinner with our best friends, Ethan and Rachel last night to Macaroni Grill, it was our first time trying it! And then did some shopping after since we were at the mall already.

I am holding on to Christmas for as long as I can...I'm still listening to Christmas music and enjoying our Christmas decorations until the end of this week! We'll take it all down by New Years Day. 

I planned on going out the day after Christmas to check out the sales but never made it. We stopped at Home Goods on the way to my mema's Monday afternoon and I found Spode Christmas dishes there for $7 and then they were 50% off!!!! You better believe I was freaking out and bought it all! I had been looking that morning online at the same exact dishes and just didn't want to pay $80 for 4 dinner plates. I am so excited and can't wait to use them next year on our farmhouse table that Matthew built us! I also found a white pre-lit Christmas tree at Wal-Mart and some silver and blue ornaments for 50% off for our coastal guest bedroom next year! 

 We are now at 5 Christmas trees (lol) and Matthew has officially banned me from buying anymore. I got the two main things I was looking for and could not be happier about them or what we spent on them. Talk about a deal!!

 This time of year is so fun, and I love being around everyone and spending tons of time with family. I am already looking forward to next year!

Christmas | 2015

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CHRISTMAS | 2016

MURDER MYSTERY DINNER | 2016

I'm breaking up my Hilton Head girls trip recaps to share with you about the murder mystery dinner party my in-laws hosted this past weekend. To read about day 1 & 2 of our girls trip go HERE.

My MIL found this website and then they chose which one they wanted to do. They chose the Bumped Off on Bourbon St. themed one. There are SO many different options and they all look really fun. They had been planning it for weeks and everything turned out so GREAT. From the food/drinks to the decorations and printables. It was all so well planned and was a lot of fun. Disclaimer: this is a picture heavy post!

We were welcomed by a small gift basket on our bed filled with all things "Cajun" since the theme was a New Orleans/Mardi Gras theme.

We started off with our round one card. There were prompts in there to tell you what to talk about and some told you who to talk to. I don't want to give too much information about everything in case anyone reading this wants to buy this kit....which I definitely recommend! 

 While reading round one we snacked on appetizers. We all made appetizers and my MIL made the main dish, drinks and desserts. Matthew and I made Cajun Candied Bacon, Andrew and Christina made Cajun Shrimp Dip, and Nathan and Jenny made a Cajun dip as well, I just can't find the recipe.

The drinks my MIL made were absolutely DELICIOUS. I literally could have had about 5 glasses of that sweet liquid gold. Thankfully she sent the recipe home with me! I'll share the recipes from our party soon. 

After our appetizers we played a game. We had to all make up a rap with our significant other. The rap had to be about Murphy, their pup! It was hilarious, and Matthew and I found out very quickly that we could never quit our day jobs to become rappers lol. 

After everyone performed their raps they split the girls and guys up and we played another game. Then it was time for dinner and round 2! I am a HUGE sucker for cute tablescapes. So when I saw how they decorated the table I was alllllll heart eyes (hence the amount of pictures I took of the table lol). So cute and went so well with our theme! They also had two photo areas set up for us.

For some odd reason I didn't get a picture of our meal. Probably because it was so delicious. During dinner the victim was "murdered" so that moved us along to round three!

After our dinner and round two we made our way back to the living room for round three and dessert. They had music that followed our theme playing in the background the whole time, it was the perfect touch!

Our next game we had to draw a piece of paper from a cup and on the pieces of paper were types of dances we had to do, with our significant other. Matthew and I drew the funky chicken LOL. Andrew and Christina drew the robot, Nathan and Jenny drew ballet, and My in-laws drew ballroom dancing. It was so funny watching everyone and trying to guess what each couple had. After round three we had dessert and then all wrote down our guesses and evidence as to "whodunit", aka who was the murderer. My MIL made a delicious white chocolate dessert...seriously anything white chocolate send my way. I was so full from our meal that I was only able to eat a little of it. Thankfully the rest of it got sent home with us!

YUM.YUM.YUM.YUM.

And here are some other pictures from our night!

Everyone digging into some appetizers.

Everything was decorated so cute. Even their coffee bar got some Mardi Gras beads!

 These were the two photo taking places. So cute!

The victim and the murderer

And a group picture. Everyone did so great with their costumes, but I have to say, I think my MIL won best dressed!! Tattoo sleeves and biker studded gloves and all!

Jenny was a marathon runner, Nathan was a referee, Matthew was a S.W.A.T team member, I was a spunky cheerleading coach, Andrew was a chef, Christina was a street performer, Judy was a biker chick, and Thom was a musician.

A huge thank you to my in-laws for all the hard work and time they put into hosting this crazy fun dinner party! We loved it and can't wait until we are all together again!!

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MURDER MYSTERY DINNER | 2016