Year in Review: Adios 2011

It's my last day on the blog before the new year and you know what that means... the 2011 year in review! And boy what a year it was! Full of wedding planning, lots of fun parties, getting married and moving! Here we go... get ready for lots of pretty pictures :)

It all started in January when our Christmas tree was turned into a birthday tree and we celebrated my 24th birthday with the Canes.

There were funny balloon hats

 and so many good recipes like the delicious hodge podge cupcakes filled with all kinds of goodies

 On Valentine's Day I asked my lovely bridesmaids to be in our wedding :)

 We rolled out the red carpet for Lindsay at her Oscar's themed birthday party!

 

We registered for fun gifts (so exciting!)

 saw Jimmy Buffet

 and tie-dyed Easter eggs

 At the Triangle Beach Music Festival we got right up to the stage to see the Chairmen of the Board

 In the summer of 2011 we celebrated our engagement with family and friends

 And took beautiful engagement photos

 I had festive fingernails for the 4th of July

 And we celebrated John's birthday at the beach with peanut butter pie

 There were so many showers and parties!

 We took a super fun surprise bachelorette trip to Savannah, GA!

And before we knew it, it was time for our wedding!

There was a whole weekend full of fun, including a bridal luncheon...

rehearsal dinner with a saxaphone cake...

and of course the wedding! (with a whole week dedicated to wedding photos on the blog)

We honeymooned in Grenada and had the most fantastic time!

came back home

celebrated Halloween with fabulous carved pumpkins

met Grace Bonney from Design*Sponge

visited the waterfalls on our engagement anniversary

and celebrated our first Christmas together!

Wow! I knew it was true, but looking back only confirms that 2011 has seriously been one amazing year full of so many adventures. Here's to 2011, a year full of love and excitement and cheers to 2012... I can't wait to see what the new year brings. Thanks so much for visiting me here at my blog and letting me share so many photos with you! Talk to you next year!!

ps- here's the 2010 year in review

xoxo

Christmas 2011

 Christmas 2011 was a lot of fun... delicious food, pretty decorations, and mine and John's first Christmas morning together! Also the dogs and cats were cute as can be.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas! Can you believe 2012 is right around the corner? Wow!

12 Days of Christmas!

Beautiful Christmas lights from Stone Mountain. The partridge in a pear tree is actually the only one in the series that is from Callaway Gardens - another gorgeous light display, probably the most amazing I've ever seen. I'm hoping to share a video of those lights soon :)

Also, check out this awesome house I saw in Atlanta!

Only 2 days until Christmas!

diy: glitter clothes pins

Have you been getting lots of Christmas cards in the mail? We've received a few and it's so exciting (don't you love getting mail that's not a bill or an ad?). We just had them laying on the bar but I was dying to display them and thought about making some sort of card wreath but then I came up with this idea. Basically it's the easiest DIY of all time. We have a gold metal tree that is meant to hold plates of goodies, but since we eat all of our goodies instead of display them, it was empty. So I glittered some clothes pins and pinned our cards right on the tree.

 It turned out great. Plus, John loves it when I get glitter all over the table, the floor and the kitchen counters :)

ps - there's our Christmas card! I just LOVE it! We ordered them from Shutterfly and they turned out great. Don't you like the snowflakes and the hints of red in my bouquet and John's tie? It makes me happy every time I look at it :)

Stone Mountain Christmas

 Here we are at Stone Mountain Christmas! We watched a fun 4-d movie with scenes from The Polar Express and then bundled up to watch the parade. As day turned to night, the entire park turned into a Christmasville with lights everywhere and Christmas characters performing in the streets.

 Don't you just love those nutcrackers? And that red tree! All of the trees were beautiful...

 There were all kinds of Christmas shows. Our favorite was the Holly Jolly Cabaret. It was so funny and they were wonderful singers. And the best part of all... in the beginning of the show, they played this game where she played a chord on the piano and then people in the audience stood up to guess what Christmas song it was and if you got it right you won a funnel cake. Guess what? I won! The song was Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (although John swears I guessed a different song). And the funnel cake was amazing - topped with powdered sugar, strawberries and chocolate syrup! Also John met the robot from the other show - I love the picture of the 2 of them!

 While we were waiting on the fireworks we decided to play some mini golf. Brrrrr!

The fireworks show started out with the Snow Angel flying high above the crowds encouraging us to scream Let it snow! Let it snow! and then all of sudden snow started falling from the sky :) She looked just beautiful flying through the lights and snow. Then we finished off our Christmasy day with a ride on the Christmas train where we saw lights representing the 12 days of Christmas. I'll share those with you later!

Only 4 days until Christmas!

Stone Mountain Christmas: on the mountain

 

Happy Monday! Can you believe Christmas is in less than a week?! We're getting so excited!

This weekend we celebrated in style by checking out Stone Mountain Christmas. It was a ton of fun and super cold - probably the coldest day of the year here so far. The first thing we did when we got to the park was take the skylift up the mountain. 75 people fit in the skylift! It was crazy. And it went really fast! Once we got to the top, the views were incredible. We even saw Kennesaw Mountain where we love to hike. Remember when we saw the deer there?

 brrrrr... so cold! but look at that view!

I can't wait to share the rest of our pictures with you. The park turned into Christmasville at night with bright lights in every tree!
Only 5 days until Christmas!

the Christmas house

 Not too long ago, John and I were driving down a curvy back road on our way to the mountains singing Christmas carols and sipping on cider (ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration... I was probably the one doing most of the singing) when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, appeared a beautiful Christmas house full of colorful lights and sparkling decorations. Of course we stopped. We had to get our picture with the giant nutcrackers!

It was like Santa's workshop inside. Even the reindeer had lights on his antlers :) 

What are you up to this weekend? Can you believe we are only 1 week away from Christmas?? It's funny how you plan and prepare for at least a month and it still seems to sneak up on you. We are hoping to see some more pretty Christmas lights this weekend as we make the trek to Stone Mountain. See you Monday!

the reason for the season: live nativity

 We went to a live nativity! How cool is that? Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were there in the manger surrounded by angels and the 3 kings and shepherds with awesome animals. Of the animals, the llama was by far our favorite. And of course afterwards we wanted to pet them!

It was toss-up between the bunny and the llama for softest fur but I think the llama won because his fur was so thick and fluffy. Have you ever been to a live nativity?

it's Christmas at our place!

 It's definitely Christmas at our place! the Nativity, little elves, snowflakes, snowmen and Santa are all hanging out around our apartment. We filled the balcony with bright lights and at night you can see our tree shining through the window ♥

Every year I always pull out the festive cookie jars. Do you have a wreath on your door? Or candles in your windows? What are your holiday decorating traditions?

Christmas trees + mariachi bands

 Happy Monday friends! How was your weekend? We went to John's company Christmas party dressed head to toe in red and green. There was a mashed potato bar there and it was delicious. And we got the DJ to play Carolina Girls so we did a little dancing :)

And on Friday night we went to the Mexican restaurant nearby that is super cool inside and heard the mariachi band! It was fun! They all circled around our table and serenaded us and I may or may not be singing along during parts of this video :) enjoy!

our first Christmas tree!

 Merry Christmas! John and I put up our first beautiful Christmas tree (while wearing our Santa hats) and it was so exciting!

 We put the little birds from our wedding reception tables in the tree. They look perfect sitting on the branches.

 That little snowman right there is the first ornament John and I ever bought together. We got him at the fair in the pottery tent the day after our honeymoon. I just love snowmen. He's so cute and happy to be hanging on our tree.

Are you doing something fun this weekend? Something Christmasy and festive? John's company Christmas party is Saturday so I'm putting on my red dress and green shoes for the event!