Christmas Time!

Christmas is by far my FAVORITE Holiday! Eric says I'm like a child when it comes to listening to the Christmas music, watching the millions of Christmas movies that come on tv, or even watching the ones I own over and over again. I believe I started watching my Santa Clause movies (1-3) back in November! Eric said I already made him sick of that movie haha, but he'll still watch it with me anyway :)

We put our tree up the week before Thanksgiving! It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL (but that's me being a little biased ha).

Another reason I love Christmas is all the baking that goes along with it! I have made pigs-in-blanket, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate pies, "puppy chow" yes I said "puppy chow" one of the guys at the station requested it and I had never heard of it so of course I look it up online and all it has in it is: chex mix, chocolate chips, vanilla, peanut butter, and powdered sugar..very yummy and SUPER easy and quick to make! I have also made cinnamon candy, and many more things! I LOVE baking. Some people have suggested I start a cooking blog, I've thought about it, it would be a good way to have my recipes saved but I know good and well I won't keep up with it like I would like to do. Maybe sometime down the road.

Christmas is also a great holiday because of family get together's, work Christmas parties, VACATION, Snow (if your lucky), Hot chocolate, Christmas lights, SANTA at the mall, traditions, wrapping presents, and lots of other great things.

Eric and I are unable to be home on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but I am very happy that my dad will be coming up to stay with us. This will be the first time in a LONG time that I've actually woke up on Christmas Day with my dad. So I'm VERY excited about that! We do plan on going home but it will be the week after Christmas and then we plan on spending New Years there as well. We are so lucky to have our family live close enough away where its a simple drive :)

Holiday Tradition: Every year (except this one) for as long as I could remember on Christmas morning I was always the first one to wake up and I would go down stairs to look at the presents then I would wake my sister up and drag her butt down stairs, which she would fall back asleep instantly on the couch. Then I would organize the presents: I would put mine on the left, Carly's on the right and everyone else's presents would go in the middle :) Then we would wake up everyone else in the house! It is something I always look forward to doing. I wonder if when Eric and I have kids if they will do funny things like that on Christmas morning. I remember always leaving cookies and milk out for Santa and food for the reindeer out on the back porch. Then when we would wake up the cookies would be almost gone, the milk always all gone and the reindeer food moved around on the porch. Its great how parents go through so much trouble at Christmas time but I for one appreciate it all. I'm still such a kid when it comes to the holidays and I think its mainly because I absolutely LOVED my childhood so much. My parents were such great parents and I appreciate everything they did for my sister and I, because if it weren't for them Carly and I wouldn't be who we are today and I think we turned out pretty great! :) So thank you mama and daddy for being you :) Love you both!

Please enjoy the photos of mine and Eric's decorated house for Christmas :)

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

I am Thankful for.........

.....FAMILY MOMENTS

Each family has moments,
Moments of happiness and emotion.
Moments that show love and kindness.
To each member of the family.

Some family moments are sad,
Some show hate that never lasts.
Then the truth shines and shows,
Each family moment is special after all.

Family moments may show happiness,
Happiness that lights up the earth.
Family Moments are amazing,
So don't forget your...
Family Moments.


I am thankful for every single person in my family! I have also been blessed with 2 wonderful photographer friends :) Who took photos of my family the first 2 weekends of this month.

Caroline Corwin Photography
http://carolinecorwin.com/

She took our photos the first weekend of November at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, Harkers Island, NC.





Amber Styron of Ambiance Photography
http://theambiancephotography.blogspot.com/

She took these photos the 2nd weekend of November at Fort Macon, Atlantic Beach, NC

I LOVE each photographer's photos they both captured something different in each session. I want to thank both of them so much for their talent and time :)

"Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter."-- Brad Henry

"Family faces are magic mirrors looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future."--Gail Lumet Buckley

Been awhile....

Well it has been awhile since I've updated my blog...sorry Jenny :) :) This is for you!

Eric and I got MARRIED June 27, 2009 at 7 p.m. at Camp Albemarle! It was such a great time! The rain held off long enough for the actual outdoor ceremony and then it started to rain right at the end but not bad enough where everyone had to take cover--the tree's were our cover for the light rain. We weren't able to do a lot of pictures after the ceremony like traditional shots with the family and stuff because it did start to rain pretty heavily. But they say its good luck for it to rain on your wedding day right?! I'm saying it is :) I married my best friend in the whole world and I think that is luck right there!

The reception was real nice too! Very busy with mingling and taking pictures with the family and with friends. Brides don't get that much time to relax and actually eat the food they took so long to plan all year long :) I did get a meatball and that was very yummy :) From what I hear the rest of the food was really good too, so that's all I wanted!

Mine and Eric's first dance was "Love You Till The End" by The Pogues. It is such a beautiful song but while we were dancing we realized we should of picked a shorter song or at least cut it shorter. We felt a little awkard out there dancing when everyone is just watching us haha. Eric and I aren't the greatest dancers or anything we didn't do one of those crazy dances where they are choreagraphed, which would of been pretty cool though :) We joked to each other while we were dancing that we felt like we were in middle school dancing cause we just swayed back and forth haha :)

My dad and I danced to "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright, III.
After all was said and done Eric's brother Aaron drove us to the Dock House where we continued to party the night away with everybody :) It was like a high school reunion there that night because we saw EVERYONE! Including other brides grooms. Then Aaron drove us to our hotel in Atlantic Beach.

The wedding was absolutely perfect I wouldn't of changed anything about it! It all went by soo fast though. They always say that it does, but you don't realize just how fast, fast realy is until its over.

We went to NY for our honeymoon, it was AWESOME! We were there from Monday until Thursday. We did the double-decker tour bus everyday, that way we could try to see as much as we could and get the tour guide to tell us this and that of what we were driving past. One night we went to see Shrek the musical on Broadway which was a lot of fun and pretty funny! I gave Eric the choice of either Shrek, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King or Mama Mia....no surprise why he chose Shrek I guess :) I want to go back and see more plays and of course more sights! You could visit NY for an entire Month and still not see or do everything!

Our hotel overlooking the Hudson River

Central Park

Us on our to see Shrek

I took a picture of the curtain at the musical...then I got yelled at by an usher

We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not after we went to the show and ate dinner :)

Yeah he picked up a woman while we were there :)

So I didn't have much time to really relax after the wedding and honeymoon because during the week of the wedding I called 32 attorneys offices to see if ANYONE was hiring! I had called so many offices saying the same thing "Hi, my name is Chelsea and I'm moving to the area and wanted to see if you were hiring?" Many said the same phrase back to "Not at this time" but I did get a few that said "Not at this time, but if you would like to send us your resume so we could keep it on file" which I did that, with no hopes. Well I get to "Mapp, Mapp & Klein" and the receptionist who answered the phone had said the same thing I had heard all day long "Not at this time, but if you would like to send us your resume so we could keep it on file" so I listened to her tell me the email address to send my resume and then got off the phone. I emailed my resume and didn't think anything of it. Well later on that night I had a 757 area code call me, I had missed the call, but luckily they left a voicemail. I listened to it and it was Mr. Klein--the actual Attorney who called me and said that his receptionist told him that I would be sending him my resume. I told him I had tried but the email I was given kept coming back. So he gave me a different email and told me to try again. I did and he emailed me back a few hours later asking me to call him the next day to set-up an interview! I told him on the phone that I was getting married that Saturday and we were going to NY for our honeymoon but I would be available to start working on July 6th! He asked me if there was anyway I could come up here for an interview. I said yes definitely. He knew I would be driving 5 hours one way to come for the interview. So the Tuesday before the wedding, Eric, myself, Karli, and Brandon drove up here just for the night so I could make it to my 10 a.m. interview on Wednesday. I got to the office had my interview and he hired me on the SPOT :) So that made the entire trip worth it! Not tooo many brides would throw in a job interview the week of their wedding! But I did it and I got it!

I have been working for Mr. Klein since July 6th Mon-Fri 8:30-5 as the Real Estate Closer/Bookkeeper :) Its been tough learning all the new things that I'm responsible for but its worth it! Its a small office, which is something I'm use to having worked at Mr. Thompson's office for 3 years. Mr. Klein is the only attorney, then there is Janie the receptionist/personal injury person, Mrs. Klein who comes in the beginning of the months to do the books and then me! We have just moved back into the old office because of a fire that happened here back in March. They have been remodeling it since then. So its their old office but new to me! I love my new/old office because I have 3 windows :) I'm not use to working with windows because at Mr. Thompson's office I had zero!

Mapp, Mapp & Klein

Me in my office :)

Janie at her desk

Mr. Klein at his desk

Mr. Klein in the TN hall--he's a huge TN fan and every picture on the walls have to deal with TN football or basketball :)

So overall my first 2 months of being Eric's wife have been GREAT! Everyone has asked me if I have learned things about him that I didn't know before and the truth is I guess after dating for over 7 years we basically know everything there is about it each other. So no I haven't found anything new about him that I didn't already know. :)

Also wanted to wish my HUSBAND a HAPPY BIRTHDAY today! I Love You and couldn't ask for a greater husband!