Christmas 2011

So now that it's January, I thought I'd finally get around to a Christmas post :)  We had the most amazing Christmas with my family here in Charlotte & then a late Christmas in Michigan with B's family!!  We are so, so blessed with such an amazing family & we had the best time celebrating and just being with everyone!  Are you ready for a picture overload!?

Friday night, all of my family had gotten in town so we gathered up at my brother & SIL's house and then went out for Mexican!  B got a great picture of the tree with all the loot!!

Merry Christmas Eve & Go Panthers!!!

Christmas Eve, Brandon and I went to cheer on the Panther's at their last home game of the season!

Sir Purr's red neck family

Next year, Cats!  Next Year!

Christmas Eve night, both of my brothers were at their in-laws having Christmas, my aunt and family were celebrating with their other side of the family, so it was just B & me, my parents & my grandmother.  We went to Outback for a delish dinner!!

Christmas morning, we woke up bright and early to head up to Rob & Gale's house for the day!

Santa Vinny!

Jude Leeland was SO proud of his new guitar!! 

Just before present chaos!

Hubs & I 

The kids drowning in their piles of gifts!!  Christmas is so much fun through the eyes of a child!  I love it :)

Jude would go give a hug each time he opened a gift!!  Hugging Gale - so precious!

My new pearl earrings!!

This was the first year my family did Secret Santa and drew names.  Our family is getting so big with spouses and grand babies these days so it was nice to pick a name and concentrate on finding a nice gift for that person!  My SIL Gale drew my name and got me the above gorgeous pearl earrings, some awesome Tart lip glosses & a new crockpot cook book!!  She really spoiled me!

Santa Vinny lounging with Rob!

Roen in her fun new dress up clothes!!

Jude wanted a nerf gun for Christmas!  He told my SIL he was going to ask everyone for a nerf gun and
that way he'd be sure to get one!!  Haha, smart kid!  He got 3 to be exact! :) 

The boys had LOTS of fun playing with the nerf guns all day!  We should've gotten each boy their own!

We were Roen's paparazzi :)  Her pom pom that came with her dress up clothes kind of exploded
so we just played in it instead! 

Wells had a blast playing, too!

Christmas night, my SIL's family came over for Christmas dinner and we had over 20 people in the house!!  Such a fun crowd!  We served a huge lasagna, made hot chocolate, and enjoyed being together!!  When Brandon and I got in the car that night to head home, we both had huge smiles on our faces and said, "That was just the best day!!"  And it really was!

The next morning, our alarms went off at 5 am for us to get up to make our flight to Michigan!!  Ughh, it was tough to get up, but we had a great week in Michigan celebrating with B's side of the fam!

My view out of the plane!

Sweet Jameson watching The Help

We stayed with Brandon's sister and BIL, Ashley & Casey.  They have lots of animals!  We enjoyed snuggling with their sweet pups!  Monday night Ashley and I made a big dinner and we did Christmas with Brandon's Mom, Ash & Casey.  We also watched The Help (finally!!!)  I was so excited to finally watch it!

Our gorgeous view when we woke up Tuesday morning!

Michigan is finally set to get some snow this week!  The little bit we saw was just a small dusting and was melted by that afternoon.  They've had pretty much no snow so far up there, which I know they're not complaining about!

Tuesday night, we went to see War Horse with B's family.  It was such a cool story, I really liked it!  Ashley and Brandon grew up with horses and Ashley still has 3 and gives riding lessons and what not.  Needless to say, Ashley and Joan shed a few tears while watching, but I only teared up a bit ;)

Wednesday night was Christmas with B's extended family on his Mom's side.  They were so sweet to wait for us to get to town...they put their normal Christmas Eve traditions on hold until Wednesday night.  We all went out to dinner and then over to Brandon's grandparent's house for dessert, Secret Santa, and the $10 gift exchange!

Me with sweet Biscuit

Grandpa opening his gift!

Ashley & Casey

Brandon & I with Grandma 

The traditional group picture!
Back row: Joan, Grandpa, Casey, Lucas, Uncle Bob, & Brandon
Front row: Ashley, Biscuit, Grandma, Aunt Marcia, Me

Thursday afternoon, Ashley, B and I went to visit their Grandma Shuck and see his Aunt Pat!  Aunt Pat was so sweet to drop off some molasses & sugar cookies as well as her famous noodles to Ashley's before we got there!  We were glad we got to see her to thank her in person!  That night, we all went out to dinner with Brandon's dad!  Sadly, no pics though, because the door that closes in our battery & memory card on our camera broke Wednesday night :(  Need to get that fixed asap!

We spent our last night in Michigan watching another movie and just hanging with Ashley & Casey!  Friday we grabbed brunch with B's mom and then began our trek back to Charlotte.  Going and coming, we actually had NO flying issues!!!  For once in our life!  It was a Christmas miracle!

Our second Christmas as a married couple was absolutely wonderful!!  We had the best time with our family and enjoyed so much time with each other.  I hope your Christmas was just a wonderful!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry, Merry Christmas!!!  

I hope your Christmas is filled with lots of love and all the ones you love!  May you know the real reason we celebrate and experience true joy this season!

O Holy Night

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother.

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Confession Friday: Christmas Edition

It's that time again friends....I have a few Christmas confessions to make so no better time than the present....

1. Brandon & I went ahead and opened our gifts to each other this morning!!!  Oops!  Hah, this is our 3rd Christmas together & we've yet to wait until Christmas to open our gifts with each other!

We'll be with ALL my family this Christmas and it just seems like a lot of pressure to open gifts from one another in front of a crowd.  We didn't get each other anything private, but wanted it to be special and just us.

Look what was hiding under our tree with my name on it!!!!!

Finally!!!  My KitchenAid mixer!!

If you remember this post, I've been wanting a mixer for a while!  Pretty sure I was squealing once I opened it :)

And the cake stand I've been wanting!!!

This was another gift on our registry we never got, but I had been wanting!  Santa did good this year don't ya think!?!

2. I made Mini Chocolate Chip & M&M cookies yesterday!  Don't they look great in the stand above?!?

Pretty sure I ate more of the dough than got cooked.  Soo good!

3. In the midst of all the Christmas shopping I did, I usually walked away with one or two things for myself in addition.  Big oops!!  This happened most recently on a trip to Target...

Exhibit A

And exhibit B

In my defense, it's nearly impossible to not browse the clothing section of Target upon entry.  And this sweater is cute!

4. Speaking of getting things for myself...

These beauties came from Crate & Barrel.  The pictures don't do them justice, but they're gorgeous!  I went in to purchase a gift card & noticed all the ornaments were on sale!  Who can resist a sale?  Not I!  So I nabbed all 3 of these for less than 8 bucks!  I don't know where you're from, but I call that a steal ;)

5. Speaking of our Christmas tree....I just love our Christmas Tree!  It's so pretty, twinkling and sparkling all lit up at night.  Even Benson enjoys it's beauty.

But I'd be a big fat liar if I said I'll be sad to see it go!  Only because the little monster pictured above thinks the tree, it's ornaments, and the presents & bows beneath are his play toys!!

It's like a game: Benson runs and plays in the presents/tree, we yell at/chase him away, Ben runs away, we sit down.  REPEAT!!!  I'm over it!

6. Our tree is looking a little bare underneath since we opened our gifts for each other already.  Guess the big boxes were ours!

7. We've yet to watch Elf this Christmas season.  I'm so sad about this!  I normally watch it about 3 or 12 times.  This will be changed by tomorrow, at the latest!

8. I look forward to seeing what's inside my stocking as much as I look forward to opening gifts!  The stocking is such a fun tease, too, because you can see your gifts peeking out!

9. We don't have children, obviously, but I know there's often a debate on no-Santa vs. Santa.  A friend tweeted this link the other day and I just loved this post!  So yes, we still believe and we will be having Santa in our house one day!

10. Most of my family is either already here or on the way and I'm so excited to see them!!!  They're really the best part of Christmas (well next to Jesus of course!)!!  The festivities begin this afternoon with a fun girly outing to get our nails painted and then dinner with the whole family!!

11. I hope you get to spend your Christmas with all of your loved ones!!  <----That wasn't really a confession, just going with the number thing!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve friends!!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Most of the presents are wrapped & when Benson's not being mischievous, all the bows stay attached!!  :)

We had a nice weekend over here!  Friday night was pretty low key.  After a workout, we got some take out & our night was spent with me sleeping & Brandon watching some TV on the couch!  That last week of school 'bout did me in, but I survived!

Saturday morning we slept in, then bravely stepped out to battle the crowds and finish most of our Christmas shopping!  The mall was pure holiday madness, as expected, but we got everyone checked off our list! (Besides the few little things I have left for B)  Afterwards, we came home to wrap.  It looked like Santa's workshop threw up in our living room, but the finished product was a success (see above picture :)!

Saturday night we had a fun little date night: dinner & a movie!  Here was my OOTN (Outfit of the Night)

Living downtown is so conducive to fun little date nights - so many different restaurants are within walking distance as well as the theater at the EpiCenter.  We're definitely spoiled & will miss that convenience whenever we move to suburbia-land!!

We ended up seeing The Sitter

Definitely funny!  Stupid funny, in typical Jonah Hill fashion, but still funny!  I would say rent it for a dollar when it's out at RedBox ;)

Sunday we ran a few errands and got a good workout in.  Then Sunday night I had the privilege to meet so many great blog/twitter friends!!

Photo courtesy of Melissa

Rachel hosted a wonderful Charlotte Bloggers/Twitter Ornament Exchange at her gorgeous home!  It was so, so fun to finally meet all these truly awesome women that I've been following and "talking to" for a while now!  A lot of these girls had met before, but it was my first time to meet everyone.  They are all seriously wonderful!!

We had such a great time eating, chatting, exchanging ornaments, eating :)  Thank you so much, Rachel, for putting it altogether & for including me!


Today, I tackled one teacher workday/inservice day & now all that is standing between me and Christmas break - days of sleeping in, family in town, a week in Michigan, gifts, celebrating, and lots of love galore - is 1. more. day.

I think I can....

Christmas Card Carousel 2011

Today, I'm linking up with Faith's blog for her 4th Annual Christmas Card Carousel!  Last night I shared a picture of our Christmas card holder (from Pier 1 for those that asked!) and its getting full!  I just love coming home to cards from family & friends each day and I was excited to send ours out :)

If you want to link up or check out all the cute cards, head on over to Faith's blog!  

So now, without further adieu....

Above is the front...

...and this was the back!  I loved that I was able to add more of an actual message to the back!  

I used Vistaprint for our cards this year & last year.  We also used them for our wedding save-the-dates, a wedding shower invite, and our rehearsal dinner & my bridesmaid's luncheon invites!  They use good heavy paper, which I like, so needless to say, we're Vistaprint fans!!

As soon as Brandon saw them he said, "Why didn't you include Benson's name!?" and a few other's have asked that, too!  I think I was afraid we'd be judged as the crazy cat family, haha.  (We do love our cat, but the Shucks love all animals!  We're not allowed to have dogs at our apartment - thus we got a cat first!)

Obviously our picture is not of professional quality (notice Benson's glowing eyes I could not correct!), rather more of the set-up-on-the-TV-and-use-the-timer variety :)  

Most likely our pictures continue to be of that variety until we either have a baby, acquire a better camera, better photography skills or friends with a better camera/photography skills!

I still love how it turned out & love the gray and red!

And because I didn't have the blog yet as of last Christmas, here is our 2010 card!  The Wedding edition!

Merry Christmas!!!  From The Shucks - Brandon, Michelle & Benson

Weekend Update & Counting Down

If you read my last post, you saw that I left in a whirlwind to head to the airport for Michigan!  Literally I pressed publish & linked up to Leslie's blog, grabbed my shoes and jacket and walked out the door - just to have our flight delayed.  Of course!!  But we made our connector & landed in Grand Rapids at about 10 pm.

We'd planned to stay with Brandon's sister & brother-in-law, but Ashley called Friday morning to inform him they had the stomach flu all last week, complete with 2 separate trips to the ER for some fluids!  No thanks - so we opted out of staying with them & stayed in downtown GR.

B texted his best friend from back home, Jordan, while on our layover just to see what he was up to.  Turns out he was headed out to grab a few drinks with friends at a bar very near our hotel.....so we decided to pop in & surprise him!!

I wish you could've seen the look on Jordo's face!  He said he kind of saw me from afar walking in and literally got his phone out to text Brandon "your wife's twin is here!"  And then he realized it was really us!

Surprises are fun!  We had a good time out and it was fun to see some of Brandon's friends while in town, since we didn't originally think we'd be able to!

Saturday morning we slept in and later met B's mom for lunch!  We had a great lunch catching up & then went to check our her new apartment!  Ashley & Casey (B's sis & BIL) recently bought Brandon's mom's house/barn so she's downsized a bit and I'm glad we finally got to see her place!

Afterwards we headed over to Ashley & Casey's to check out the renovations they've started on their house & to place a headstone where they buried Brandon & Ashley's sweet dog, Cody.  They had to put Cody down Thanksgiving day due to a tumor :(

It was super sad (on Thanksgiving no less!)!  Cody was 11 and is just irreplaceable!  He was a gentle giant and the sweetest BIG thing you'd ever meet!  He will definitely be missed!!

After a short visit with Ashley & Casey we were off to B's work Christmas party!  It was about an hour and half away at the Double JJ Ranch - where his company also had the summer party we went to!

This was our cute cabin for the night on the ranch!

All dressed up for the par-tay!

Some of the karaoke fun!

The party was lots of fun, B works with a lot of great people!!  They had fun little games planned as well as karaoke!  Each department had to sing a song decided for them.  The outside salesmen (B's group) & their significant others sang "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause".  Embarrassing & fun all wrapped into one :)

Sunday morning, we left bright and early to catch our flight.  As I mentioned before, we have the worst flying luck!!!

I posted about our flying woes this summer when coming back from the summer party (in the same link from above) and this trip back was no different!! At least Delta's consistent, right!?!

We were delayed, then re-routed due to the delay & the likelihood of missing our connector, and then finally home about 4 instead of 1!  Unfortunately our bags were not home :(  They got in about 9pm Sunday night so we made the second trip of the day to the airport to grab our bags.

Needless to say, it was a loooong day.  And before we knew it, it was Monday.  

Fortunately though - B was actually home last night :)  We worked out, cooked dinner together, watched some of our shows, & did laundry!  It was a lovely little week night!

This week is super exciting!!

It's the last full week of school before Christmas break!  I'm down to 3 days with the kiddos, Friday is pajama day, & 2 teacher workdays next week!

I'm also super excited for Sunday!  Rachel has put together a Charlotte/Charlotte area Blogger Ornament Exchange!  I can't wait to give & get a beautiful ornament and to meet some sweet bloggers in person!!  My first blogger meet up :)

And, just 12 days left until Christmas!!!!  Ahhh.....I must finish my shopping & all the dreaded wrapping this weekend!!  Or at least that's the goal, may not be truly finished til school's out ;)

Lastly, I leave you with all the wonderful Christmas cards we've received so far this year!  I just love them all!

Tomorrow I'll share ours :)