Christmas Traditions

I can't believe it's Christmas time. I think I say that every year, but seriously. Where does the time go? And where is my White Christmas?! I guess Tennessee always bypasses that memo because last week it was in the 70s. Bipolar weather.

Christmas is usually my favorite time of year. Although I do get stressed out and procrastinate entirely too much, I love it. I love the music, the movies, the family time, and the looks on my children's faces when Santa comes!

Here are a few of our family Christmas traditions!

1. Visit Santa at the Mall! Even though the cost for those pictures are ridiculous, you just can't beat Mall Santa. I love listening to the kids tell him what they want for Christmas!

2. Pick out a new ornament! I love this tradition. I love seeing what everyone picks out. This year, I couldn't find ANY that I just loved. Even Hobby Lobby let me down! We did find some at Wal-Mart though. Doug and Tucker picked trains, Kenzie picked a glitter snowman, and I picked a doughnut. 

3. Family time! I have a huge family and I love it. And since we have divorced families, we have a lot of split up gatherings. We have my Poppa's, my Mom's, my Gran's, my Nana's, and Doug's side of the family. Needless to say, there's a ton of traveling and a ton of good eating!

4. Christmas movies! Of course we watch almost every Christmas movie that comes on tv each year. And we all have our favorites. Mine is Muppet Christmas Carol (or any Christmas Carol, really); Doug's is The Christmas Story; The kids love The Grinch and pretty much anything that involves Santa.

5. Santa's Cookies! On Christmas Eve, Doug and I help the kids bake and decorate cookies for Santa! This year, we picked Gingerbread. I just know Santa will love those. *wink wink* 

6. New pajamas! On Christmas morning, we have brunch with Doug's family and we all wear our pajamas! It's so much fun. But this year I waited last minute (shocker, I know), and I couldn't find Holiday pajamas for the kids anywhere. So I just let them pick out "normal" pajamas. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. 

7. Elf on the Shelf! This is our second year with our elf. And I'm crazy because for some reason, I thought our Elf's name was Buddy.

Nope.

It's Happy. 

But we've been going along with "Buddy" and the kids haven't caught on yet. Well, Kenzie found the name "Happy" in the back of our Elf book but I closed it pretty quickly in hopes she wouldn't ask questions. ha!!

So those are our family traditions for Christmas! I would love to hear yours!

Family weekends are my favorite.

This weekend we surprised the kids and took them to the Memphis Zoo. It was their annual "Zooper Hero" weekend, where some pretty cool guys showed up.

 

The kids LOVED it. It was pretty cool, but my arms were DYING from having to hold Kenzie up for 30 minutes lol. Obviously, I need to start lifting weights.

 I love the zoo. Although we didn't get to see all of the animals, since it was so cold, we still had a blast! And we saw my favorites, the penguins and reindeer.

 I love family time. I love making memories with the kids. And I'm so thankful that we are blessed enough to be able to do these things with our children!

 

Anniversary Getaway

Doug and I celebrated our five year anniversary in Nashville this past weekend. It was a much needed getaway + alone time. We arrived at our hotel at around 8pm Friday night. We hadn't eaten dinner yet so obviously, we went to Doug's favorite place to eat...Chipotle.

Nashville is the closest Chipotle we have around us, so anytime we are near one, we HAVE to go. Their rice bowls + barbacoa are to DIE for. And don't even get me started on their guacamole. ohmygosh.

So being the big adventurers we are, after dinner, we went to back to our hotel room and went to bed. Yeah...we like to live life on the edge.

I got to sleep in until 8:30 Saturday morning. And for those of you who are giving me funny looks for "sleeping in" until 8:30am, obviously you do not have children lol. It was glorious. Plus, I got to lay in the bed for five minutes without someone telling me they were thirsty. 

I love my children dearly, but that quiet morning, was one that I will not take for granted lol.

So we headed to Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and breky.

I had the Pumpkin Iced Coffee. It was DELISH.

Then we headed out for the day. We decided to play tourist. Well, technically, we are tourists, but hey. Whatevs.

First stop: The Parthenon. 

 It was gorgeous. I'm not gonna lie...the museum part was pretty boring. The only awesome thing in there was Athena.

I, for one, was even more excited to see Athena, because of the Percy Jackson movie! So awesome.

After the Parthenon, we headed to Doug's choice of museum: The Johnny Cash Museum.

 It was really cool to see his whole life in this museum. Mr. Cash is the man. We rocked out to his songs, saw his fan mail (hello, groupies!), and watched him perform live (on tv, of course lol) with his love, Ms. June. It was amazing.

After we left the museum, we headed to Opry Mills Mall. Obviously! I forgot how big that mall was. My feet were killing me after we walked through the whole mall. We spent more money on the kids than we did ourselves...but that's usually how it goes ha! I wish we had a Carter's store closer to home! Or maybe not...my bank account probably wouldn't be to happy with me. I got some super cute clothes at Old Navy and Doug bought some new Converse.
After walking around the mall for literally 4 hours, we were starving. Doug and I had never been to the Rainforest Cafe so that's where we decided to go. The atmosphere was pretty cool, but mostly catered to kids lol. It was an experience though. The food was DELISH! I got a Cheetah-Rita, duh.

I even got to keep the cup! For $11 a drink, I BETTER had been able to keep the cup haha!

It was a fun weekend that was much needed for the both of us. I'm hoping we can do it again soon, but with the kids..I missed them too much!

Regret getting married so young?

The other day in class I was asked by a girl I barely know if I regretted getting married so young. Well my first thought was to tell her to mind her own business. But then I started to think. Did I regret getting married at 19?

Today is my five year anniversary with my one and only husband. I'm 24 years old, so yes, that puts me at becoming a wife at the ripe age of 19. 

And while some people may look upon this as "regretful", I do not. 

The way I look at it, I'm blessed to marry so young.

I get to live with my best friend longer than most people.

I appreciate everything we have, because we started with nothing.

I get to grow up with him AND grow old with him.

We get to be kids WITH our kids. We can laugh about silly stuff, dance around the house in a Hulk mask, and watch Disney movies without thinking twice about it.

I don't have to worry about impressing "some guy" anymore because I've found the one who loves me best in sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt.

Even though we started from the bottom, we are gradually making our way to the top with support from each other and hard work.

Since we got married young, we were able to grow from each other. We didn't have much time to ourselves so we never became selfish people. That made it easier to live with each other.

Although we did have a child together before marriage, being young makes a world of a difference when it comes to keeping up with kids. But that's a whole other blog post ;)

My husband is my best friend. I couldn't ask for better. He knows me better than I know myself. He always stands by my side and always has my back. We put each other first.

So to answer my first question: Did I regret getting married at 19? The answer is no. Forever no.

We've worked hard to become the people we are today, and I'm so blessed to spend the rest of my life with my husband and the father of my children.

Weekend Update.

We spent our last "summer" weekend at the river with my Papa. And of course, we all had a great time.

At first, we didn't think it was going to be so great because we woke up to a thunderstorm and heavy rain Sunday morning at the cabin.

But it really was relaxing to sit on the porch and drink coffee while listening to the rain.

Kenzie helped cook breakfast. This girl is a jack of all trades. I don't think there's anything she doesn't like doing! 

 After the rain cleared off, the hummingbirds started to flock in. I've never seen so many hummingbirds in one area before! It was amazing. They are one of my favorite birds.

The kids are water bugs. They would spend every minute in some sort of body of water if they could! I guess they get it honest though!