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

CHRISTMAS WEEK FESTIVITIES

Whew! This week is flying by and I feel like we are packing as much in as we can. Sunday night after church, dinner and some shopping we came home and watched the movie, The Holiday. It's on of my favorites and Matthew has never seen it so it was a must.

Monday after work we met Ethan and Rachel at our house and then headed to dinner and to look at Christmas lights. Ethan had never had Amerigo's hot chicken pasta, which is one of Matthew's FAVORITE dishes, so obviously we had to go there so that he could try it ;) I always get their lasagna there because it's incredible. The best lasagna I have ever had was on our honeymoon and then I tried Amerigo's and it is almost just as good, but Rachel got a cheese tortellini dish that I tried and it was delicious so I'll probably get that next time!

After dinner we headed out to look at some Christmas lights in the Franklin area. Matthew had looked up a few popular places/houses that we could go to and they did not disappoint! We saw some incredible Christmas light shows and had the best time! The last place we went to was the place Matthew and I found last year, so I was really excited to go back and see it again this year. And this year we got our picture made with Santa ;)

Here's what it looks like when you're walking up to it. It's at the end of a cul-de-sac and most of the neighbors houses leading up to his have a lot of stuff in their yards, not as much, but still quite a bit. Kinda leading up to his lol. 

 and you get to walk through most of it. It's great!

Tuesday night we went over to my best friend's house for dinner and then to look at lights at another place. She made a delicious pot of white chicken chili and we stopped at Sonic before the lights for dessert! Also, our girls got to meet for the first time! Kathleen and her husband got a puppy right around Thanksgiving and we have been dying to meet Miss Molly every since. She is just the cutest thing and is so fun!

It was a drive through light show and there were so many lights!! Some serious work and dedication went into this, it was absolutely incredible!!

 We had the best time and enjoyed all the lights from inside the car with the heat on and our puppies!

Today is a half day at work and then I am free for a few days! I am meeting my best friend after work to do a little last minute Christmas shopping and then coming back home and wrapping presents and watching Christmas movies. Matthew and I are doing our Christmas tomorrow morning and I am so excited to give him his presents.

Also, I just can't end this post without sharing what happened two years ago today..

THE easiest and best yes!

 You can read all about our engagement story, here and our first engagement anniversary, here :)

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CHRISTMAS WEEK FESTIVITIES

2016 CHRISTMAS CARDS

I set a new record with our cards this year. In preparation for our trip, I got to work on them and had (most of) them in the mailbox before December 1st. I usually try to mail them off the first or second week of December, but this year I dropped them in the mailbox as we were leaving for our cruise, on November 28th. Now let's just see if I can keep that up every year ;)

I am excited to (virtually) send you all our 2016 family Christmas card this morning! This year our girl, #ReaganCoats stole the show! We were originally going to use a picture from our anniversary session we had made back in the summer, but then when we brought our girl home we just knew she had to be in our Christmas card picture. So that's when we decided to have a few fall pictures made and from that we had our new Christmas card picture. I decided to use Minted again, and was once again, very pleased. Their adorable designs, amazing customer service, and extremely fast shipping wins me over every time!

I left the back blank again this year so I could hand write a small personal message. Also, this year I used our address stamp that my BIL gifted me last year at Christmas!

I am so happy with how our Christmas cards turned out this year. You can find our (first) Christmas card from last year, here.

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2016 CHRISTMAS CARDS

#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR FRONT DOOR

When we moved into our home back in January we both agreed we didn't really care for the front door color. It was a dark gray but has faded over the years and there were scratches on it. It wasn't top priority but we knew it was something we wanted to complete sooner rather than later.

We thought about different colors over the past few months but never nailed anything down. I didn't really think Matthew would want to go for a bright or bold color, and I didn't really want anything too crazy either. We both wanted something simple and classy. I threw out the option of painting our door black. I looked at tons of black front doors and loved the simplicity of the color, and most wreaths would go with the color black...gotta think about these kinds of things! ;) Well Matthew wasn't too keen on the color black and knew that I liked some other colors as well so we kept looking at colors. Well when Blair posted the color that they painted their front door I loved it. Pretty, bright and classy! I casually showed Matthew the color one night after dinner, not thinking too much of it, and he loved it, and said that was the color for our front door. I'll admit, I was a little shocked, but excited he liked the color too and that we both agreed on it, so that was our color! We decided to paint our door over Labor Day Weekend.

We knew that taking our front door off would let in a lot of heat, obviously, so we started around 8 that morning in an attempt to try and beat the heat. Thankfully it was very sunny that morning so I painted in the open sun to dry the door quickly, and it worked! We decided to paint both sides of our door, and we are SO happy with it. We love being able to see the color on the inside as well. That pop of color in our entryway is so fun. After painting both sides, in total, we probably had our front door off for about 2 hours, not too bad!

Last year on Labor Day Weekend we gave our dining room table a makeover and this year we painted our front door...my inner Joanna Gaines is liking this tradition ;)

Before I stared painting I wiped down the entire door, both sides, with a damp rag. After it dried I sanded both sides lightly. I used a sanding sponge similar to these. I then wiped off both sides with a damp rag again, and then let it dry completely before I started painting.

I was very nervous for some reason when it came time to paint our door, I guess because I knew if I messed it up and it didn't turn out well then it would be the first thing everyone saw until we got a new front door...so just a little pressure! I looked up a ton of tutorials and YouTube videos, but really it wasn't hard at all. Once I got to painting it just kinda flowed and worked out great.

 I will say, one thing I learned, is to use a small roller on the detailed areas. I started out using a brush, but decided the small roller worked better. I used a small roller from Lowe's like this one. I used a regular sized roller on the rest of the door, and I think that helped with making sure it was all even and smooth looking! I did two coats on each side and I think that was plenty. 

I painted all sides of the door, except the top, since no one will see that area anyways! I used the small roller for the sides as well. Worked like a charm!

I know you can tape off your hardware (door handles) and such but since I despise taping anything we just took off our door handles until the paint was completely dry. It didn't take long and I didn't have to be extra careful in those area.

Our front door color is Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue, and we could not be happier with it!

To see other posts in #TheCoatsHome series click HERE.

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#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR FRONT DOOR

1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PICTURES

I love our anniversary pictures that we had taken a few weeks ago. Although, it was extremely hot that day we were able to still get some good ones! We actually had them made where we had some of our engagement pictures made at. The place is beautiful, shaded and free to the public! It is actually a walking trail but a lot of people use it for pictures. We also saw a lot of people playing Pokemon Go while we were there lol. I searched high and low for a new dress for our pictures, I knew I wanted a maxi dress, but I also knew I didn't want to pay an arm and leg for it. So when I found this one online at Charming Charlies I was thrilled. There is a Charming Charlies close to where we live so we stopped by there one night to see if they had it in store, and they had just a few left, and it was on sale!! Woo hoo! Matthew's outfit is my absolute favorite outfit on him. Navy, white and tan...that on him...swoon. He is just too handsome!! :)

And then Matthew was 200% over having our pictures taken...lol.

He was definitely a champ though, as he always is, and goes along with about 99% of my crazy ideas! A huge thank you to my sister, Mady, for standing out in the heat for over an hour to take our pictures. We love them & you!

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1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PICTURES