Uptown Festivities

Friday night Kevin and I went out.  But first, some pictures...

We met up with his brother and some of his friends at Brazwells, then went to Good Food on Montford for dinner, then went bowling at Park Lanes.

Way too much fun.  We didn't get home until after 1:30am!  

Saturday morning came EARLY but we got up and at it and went uptown to check out the festivities!  It's one of my favorite things to do since Kevin and I use to live up there and go check out all of this stuff all the time.  Very special getting to take Molly Anne.  First stop, valet parking at the Ritz...because I was not strolling that many blocks as cold as it was.  Plus they don't really charge you for parking, you just tip them so it's super easy!  

Anyway...this gingerbread house is handmade by the chefs at the Ritz.  Amazing!

I mean seriously!

Just a little girl hanging in the lobby of the Ritz SQUEALING with excitement at 9am on a Saturday morning.  Ha!

We walked through the buildings over to Founders Hall and had our picture taken in front of the tree there!  

This was last year in front of the same tree....2015

2016

Then we went and checked out the Bears singing!  This is such a sweet thing that is in Charlotte for the children and it's free!

Look at her up there wondering around!

So intrigued by them!

She's got her jingle bell in her hands!  Carrying it everywhere!  Ms. Becky gave that to her last week!

From the second floor...

On Saturday afternoon we went to Winn's First Birthday party!  It was so adorable!  My friend Katie had little tables all set up with gingerbread men to decorate!  Of course she didn't miss a detail having aprons for the children as well!  And they all wore pajamas which was cute!  Such a fun party!

















After Molly Anne went to bed, Kevin and I had Chinese take out for dinner and chilled.  We had a big day Sunday with some special visitors that came over.  Stay tuned...

Life Update

Honestly the last couple of weeks, most of my posts have been scheduled days ahead of time.  It's what I have to do to still blog even during the busy Christmas season.  It's all about time management these days!

Anyway, today I'm coming to you live!  We've been busy, busy but having a great time!  Seeing the Christmas spirit through Molly Anne's eyes has been the sweetest!

We chose to do the Holiday music session through Music Together here in Charlotte after we had so much fun during the Fall session.  We had to miss two classes so we had an extra couple this week.  We are officially in the holiday spirit after singing lots of Christmas carols!  I also have been singing them to her before bed every night.  We usually read three books then sing three songs before bed.  She loves it!

I haven't been cooking much lately because I was in Utah all of last week and this week I'm trying to wrap up Christmas shopping (which PS I've done mostly all online thanks to Amazon and Nordstrom) and Christmas wrapping (time consuming at nights!).  Literally I think I have an Amazon problem.  I'm at the point where I'm buying gifts cards to other places through Amazon.  I'm also attempting to buy Molly Anne socks on Amazon (which she wore for the first time this year today -- we don't like socks at our house).  The addiction is real and it's just too convenient and so much cheaper than other places. 

Moral of the story....I'm up on the Chopt app and it's SO easy to run in there, they hand me a bag of our salads and I walk out.  I pay on the app.  I can even take Molly Anne in there with me easily which I did not do when she was young.  So, the Chopt app and Zoes Kitchen app are basically saving me these days and giving us a decently healthy dinner for pretty reasonable.  

Wednesday night some of my neighbor friends got together for a gift swap at Michelle's house!  Everyone brought an appetizer and a gift to swap.  I gave a gold and white cosmetic bag and I received a blue wrap and yurman looking bracelet!  

Last night Kevin's parents came over for burgers and (burnt!) hot dogs and Skinny Taste potato salad.  We jumped in the car and drove to a nearby neighborhood to show Molly Anne these lights!  You can see her in the below picture pointing at them and she kept saying, "whoaaaa!!!!"  It was precious. I'm glad we got out to show them to her.  It was magical in her little world! 

Haha!  Imagine what this house's light bill is the month of December?!

This weekend we have a full schedule and some chill time as well!  It will be fun and festive!  Cheers friends!

Christmas Card 2016

Here is our Christmas card this year!  I mailed them on Monday so most people have probably received them by now.  We took the picture on my brother and sil's dock when we were down there for Thanksgiving.  The shadow bothers me but I just love the picture of our Molly Anne!

This is the back of the card.  We couldn't forget our Mills!

I always order from Minted.  Their service and quality of cards is hard to beat.  Also, I am not addressing 135 Christmas cards by hand and they save you the work and address them!  I use the same spreadsheet every year (and update it throughout the year) and upload it to their website.  

Hope to see all of your cards electronically as well!

Tree Clearing

Well, we got approval from the HOA on our house last Friday and that was a GOOD day.  I really didn't think we would get approved on the first round, let alone in three weeks but we did.  Whew!  

The next step was to flag trees we want to keep which we did Monday.  And put up silt fence which happened yesterday.  Then the HOA sends someone out to approve those two things.  

Then...

we can START CONSTRUCTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we are waiting on our approval for that then trees should be getting cleared by next week we hope!  Let the fun commence!

This piece of land will look mighty different in a few months!  And we can't wait!

Literally we've been working on this for a year.  Last December is when we decided to build and we've been going through the process ever since.  A special thank you to my friend Ashley who basically designed our house!!!  

Here we go!!!!!

Swim, Santa, Tree

Recap of the weekend!

After I picked Molly Anne up from Ms. Becky's on Friday afternoon, we headed to swim class.  We still have four make up sessions at Aqua Tots that we need to use.  She lovedddd being in the water.  

When we came home from swim, Kevin had set all of this out for me.  How sweet is that?!  He knows I love a rosemary tree around Christmas time!

We went to the clubhouse in our neighborhood for the children's Christmas party!

Sants!!!  That afternoon she had gone up to her crib sheets and pointed at Santa and said, "Sants!" Then a few hours later she got to see him in person.  Christmas is so magical in the eyes of children.

Cookie decorating.

Not really a fan again this week...

But some fruity, sugary drink and a half a sugar cookie will help!

Back home for bed and advent calendar reading!

Kevin and I hung out in the back yard for awhile and some of our neighbors came over.  Next thing we knew it was after midnight.  Ahhhh let's just say the next morning came early.

But we got right up and out the door so Molly Anne and I could run up to Lake Norman for a makeup music class.  

We came home for a nap then after she woke up, we went to Providence Produce to get our tree!  We decided to go a little smaller this year after the debacle last year.  7' tree it is!

We got it home, ordered Dominos as we were pulling in our driveway and the tree is still standing as I type this on Sunday afternoon.  Whoop whoop!  No buckled hardwoods or tree on the porch this year.  We learned a lot last year.  Eating pizza and decorating our tree may be a new tradition.  It made life so much easier and was fun!

First ornament on the tree!  A White House ornament.  Anyone else collect these every year?  Mom has given me one every year since 2004 I think!  The President picks out the ornament every year.  It's really cool.

We also got the lights in the window, spot lights on the house, boxwood wreath and huge red bow up.  Done.  I'm not even doing our lamppost this year.  I will probably do the mailbox with fresh greens as it gets closer to Christmas.  

Our tree.  I need to fix the star.  I cannot get it to stay straight.  We may go back to a bow.  All of the ornaments on our tree have meaning to us and we have gotten them along the way.  Both of our parents gave us some of our childhood ornaments so those are on there too.  We also try to pick one up on any vacation we go on.  It's always fun pulling these out.  We may not have the best color coordinated tree or perfect decor but it's special to us and we think that matters more!

Saturday late night I stuffed our 135 Christmas cards.  Ahhhhh.  

Sunday we went to Panera for breakfast, Cabelas where Molly Anne got to watch the fish get fed and look at all of the wildlife and Kevin got to look at boy stuff, then to the outlets to walk around and get a few things.   

After nap, we got the Little People nativity scene out and Kevin explained all of the pieces to her!

I love this little picture of her!  She's stacking the little people where the angel goes!

Utah

I was a little MIA last week.  I had scheduled most posts but was in Utah from really early Tuesday morning until midnight on Thursday night.  It was technically only two nights, three days but I didn't see Molly Anne from Monday night until Friday morning. 

We worked our little tails off covering a ton of ground.  Tuesday we flew four hours there and when we got there, we jumped in the car for 8 hours of touring the market, looking for new sites.  

It's so weird but when I go out there for these longer trips, I literally am in a different world.  I talk to Kevin via text and get pictures and videos of Molly Anne from him, but I can't usually FaceTime with them because of the time change.  It's okay though, I think it's really good for Kevin to have alone time with her.  ANYWAY!

We did have a really good time.  We had third row, center court tickets to the Jazz game on Tuesday night.  They included a dinner at the "VIP" club before the game started.  

I'm not sure who on earth would pay $795 for a seat to a game other than the Superbowl but whatever!  We had fun and we didn't pay $795 times 6.  Haha!

The second night we went to Market Street Grille (our favorite) for oysters, shrimp, Jack Daniels, clam chowder and the best Halibut Oscar.  YUM and such a treat.

Then our local contact took us on a ride and showed us a bunch of things.  This is THE temple.  We also went up in the neighborhood that's on the side of a mountain and had an amazing view of Salt Lake City.  

So that's that.  We landed after 11pm on Thursday night and I cruised on home.  Friday morning began with Molly Anne waking up at 7am and I was back to being Mama!

Plumbing Selections

We went to Ferguson last Wednesday and picked out some plumbing fixtures.  We chose tubs, toilets, faucets and sinks.  I'm not sure if we will end up with this exact stuff because the numbers came in over budget but we will see. 

Our kitchen sink....I love how it curves out.  

Our kitchen faucet

Bar sink faucet which is my favorite and we will have a hammered sink.

Bathroom faucets...

This will be in the Jack and Jill bath but will be chrome.

Shower stuff.

Definitely will have a rain shower head in our bathroom!