Tour of my Tree

I love Christmas. Everything about it! The smells, decorations, shopping and getting to bring a tree into your living room to hang out for a month or so. Every year my favorite part about Christmas is getting my tree.

 

However, my MOST favorite part is getting out my box of ornaments to hang on said tree.

 

 

Unwrapping each ornament is like unwrapping a present. You have no idea which one you are opening. I like to take a moment when I open each one to think about the memories from when I purchased it. I buy a new ornament every time I go on vacation. I will nearly miss the boat because I'm still shopping for one. Once I had to end up buying a keychain to convert to an ornament because there was no time left to find one.

I like to keep the 'filler' ornaments on my tree to a minimum. If I only had my special ones hanging my tree would be pretty naked.

These are some of my most special ornaments hanging on my tree:

 

 

 

From Chelsea Market (home of Food Network Studios) in NYC

 

 

My first visit to St. Thomas in 2012

 

 

My first visit to the Cayman Islands, 2010

 

 

This is a friendship dove from the movie Home Alone. I gave the other one to my DEAR friend Stephanie. (Just FYI, there is a big difference in a dear friend and a dead friend. I'm very glad Stephanie is not dead, as I originally mentioned in this post. Major typo right there. She is very much alive!)

 

 

I've been to Atlantis in Nassau twice, and both times we were so rushed to get back to the ground transportation to return the ship. I missed out on my ornament twice! Thankfully Stephanie went back and snatched this guy (and three others) up for me.

 

 

Michael's first cruise, and my first visit to Jamaica; January 2013

 

I love pickles. Like the commercial for Pier 1, 'find what speaks to you.' Well, this guy in there spoke to me.

 

 

Boston trip for the Francis/Darcus wedding, November 2011. Enjoyed ourselves at the Sam Adams Brewery.

 

 

Self explanatory.

 

 

McGuire's, Pensacola.

 

 

New York City trip so long ago. 2006 maybe?

 

I am remaining a W last namer, but this guy has represented the Wilkins/Williams household for a few years. Next year it will just be Williams :)

 

 

Second visit to Grand Cayman.

 

 

I have one of each of these ships; the Oasis and the Allure of the Seas. Just like the ships, these ornaments are huge...and require a very sturdy branch to hang from.

 

 

This was my favorite ornament growing up. My mom gave him to me a few years ago to enjoy from my tree.

 

 

St. Maarten

 

Cozumel

 

Costa Maya, Mexico

Wordless Wednesday

Marathon Blogging

Ready. Set. Blog. 

In the two years since my last blog post  life has changed in oh so many ways!

The big news that is definitely the most exciting - Michael proposed! On July 11th, 2013 he finally worked up the courage to ask me.

I was totally surprised! Random Thursday night at home - just how I always wanted it. Unexpected! We're getting married this spring, so there will definitely be some updates to come on that.

In the meantime we're just getting ready for Christmas. I held my third-annual Christmas cookie exchange party Saturday night and it was a hit. Everyone always bakes the best cookies!

I made cranberry pistachio cookies. Way too good, I must say. 

Christmas shopping is almost wrapped up. Maybe two or three more things to pick up in the next week, but far more progress this year than previous years.

I will miss this guy hanging out in my living room once the new year rolls around. I'll just have to put it out in my backyard to enjoy for a bit longer :)

Love the holidays, not a fan of the cold temps. Leaving my house this week it looked like it had snowed. I got this picture as I drove away pretending it was snow.

We have two new (to the blog) cats (that's four total). Yes, we are the crazy cat people. All four have been homeless strays in our neighborhood that have latched on to us and our home. Here we have Mr. Black Cat. We have had him for about six months.

This is Neighbor. He acquired us about a year ago.

Here's to hoping it doesn't take me another two years to update this thing.

Holiday wrap up

As you can see, I have been a total slacker lately. Well, I have discovered how to load pictures through Picasa, which has made blogging way more easy!

I just selected a bunch of pictures from thumbnails in Picasa to load here to summarize how Michael and I spent the holidays. There will be more photos to come!

We went and hand picked our Christmas tree from Ramsay farms in Grand Bay. I loved how we got to search around for the perfect tree and someone there chopped it down for us. Please excuse the bow on the tree as it started falling and I wasn't tall enough to stick it back up there.

Also, we have since painted our living room - goodbye baby food peas green!

 

Penny and Holly, our sweet little elves. Michael got me a flash for my Nikon for Christmas! I am thrilled that I can get more details of Holly in my pictures now.

 

 

This is Michael's 'we're almost finished paiting the living room' move. We went with Woodrow Wilson Linen, which is very light compared to the pea green that was in there. I am still getting used to it...

 

On Christmas Eve Eve we went to celebrate Christmas at my parent's house. Penny sat here on my granny's lap most of the night.

 

We had a holiday potluck at work where we all ate way too much delicious food.

 

After our lunch some of the team at work participated in a gift-card exchange. Kenny was reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in a new, fun way for the exchange.

 

Before we headed to Dothan - the peanut capital of the world - to visit Michael's family for the weekend, I held a small cookie exchange party at our house with our 'crew' of friends. Once again, food and cookies that were wayyy too good.

 

Joe didn't make friends with his gingerbread man

 

I had planned to do some Christmas karaoke during the party, but that idea crashed and burned...then turned in to comedy night. Hilarious!

 

My longtime bestie, Jacky.

 

Starlyn and Deuce

 

Too many cameras going at one time

 

Here is Michael watching his video from Santa Claus. He made the naughty list, what a shame!

Also notice the new paint color? And naked walls??

 

We loaded up Michael's truck on Christmas Eve and headed to Dothan. The tree was exploding with gifts on Christmas morning!

 

If you know me, I'm ornament crazy. I don't keep a ton of ornaments on my tree only because I like to really just have meaningful ornaments hung, not a bunch of fillers. This was my favorite ornament on Michael's parent's tree. Michael's first Christmas. I can't wait to have some of my own ornaments like this one day!

 

Jana's boy, Toby, loves opening presents more than anyone. It was too funny to let him help you tear in to your gifts.

 

Michael got Jana a Promaster flash for Christmas. I can definitely see a trend for the Christmases to come with DSLR accessories for the both of us.

 

Lily enjoyed the present opening as more of a spectator sport up in the recliner with Mrs. Jane.

 

Michael

 

Jana's boyfriend David

 

We were very blessed this Christmas!

Posting trouble

Is anyone else having trouble posting pictures from computer (not cell)?

I'm alive

Wow, oh wow am I behind!

I am going to have one heck of a post for you all this weekend.  I'll be catching you all up on all of the fun fall festivities that have been going on - stay tuned!

What's in my makeup bag?

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading on The Small Things Blog and loved Kate's post about what kind of facial products she uses to get ready for the day.

Michael went out to a show tonight and I decided to stay in and give all of my jewelry and makeup a good cleanse. I like to give all of my makeup tubes, lids and containers a cleaning with a baby wipe every once and I while. I was then inspired to do a post of what's in my bag.

(Just a note that I don't wear all of this stuff at once.)

I start out with the Clinique 3-Step system.

After moisturizing with Cliniqe's Dramatically Different Gel Moisturizer, I have been enjoying this new liquid makeup by Clinique. I got this Even Better makeup with SPF 15 with their last free gift. Before I was using Clinique's Acne Solutions liquid makeup, but will be making the switch when the sample is gone - it's lasting forever!

The little grey tube is Mary-Kay's yellow concealer. I have used this stuff since about 9th grade and it is the ABSOLUTE best concealer I have ever used. It's very yellow, but only takes the smallest dab to help cover those pesky pimples.

Under my eyes I have always used Benefit's Lemon-Aide. It's in the little black flat compact. I have used this stuff since the first time I went to a Sephora in Atlanta probably 5 or 6 years ago. I used to stock up on my Atlanta and NYC trips to Sephora, but thankfully now it's conveniently located in JC Penney.

Since reading Kate's post on TSMB, I got curious about this M.A.C. under-eye concealer she said she used. I went and did some research and read some reviews and all were great. I tried it out and thought it worked great, so I bought some today. It's $3 cheaper than the Lemon-Aide so hopefully it will work just as good or better!

I then use some Clinique Perfectly Real compact makeup. I've used Clinique powder since about 8th grade and really used anything else. I did buy some Bare Minerals before, and think it's pretty good. I more or less just use that when I want more coverage for an 'evening' look.

I love the Bare Minerals brushes so much, I use them for my Clinique blush powder. I also got this in one of the recent free gifts and love the color - great fall color, "Sunset Glow."

For my eyes I use a cheap Cover Girl white eye shadow. It's very sheer and not that really white look that was cool in like 1999. I then put this Loreal gold dust on top. It says it's gold, but it's definitely white. I've had this stuff forever and am sad they no longer make it. It's the stuff in the little cylinder container next to the blush. I'm sure I can find a good replacement when this stuff is gone. After all these years I still have about a half of a container left!

For my eyeliner I start about 1/4 of the way from the inside of my eye and go out, thickening the line as I go. I have really small eyes (I think) and try to make them look as big as I can. Clinique's Dark Chocolate Quickliner is excellent and stays on all day. When I want a bolder look I will whip out the Almay liquid eyeliner. I recently decided to give liquid another go and am glad I did.

I got this crazy pink space-age looking eyelash curler from Target for just a few bucks and love it. It works way better than the $15 one I got from Sephora. I use that, then put on one coat of Neutrogena Healthy Lengths mascara.

Sometimes I'll wear a little lipstick. I usually go with Clinique's Tenderheart or Black Honey.

If you have any good products you would suggest - please let me know. I love trying new things!

And just a quick update...it has been one week since I last saw my super-sweet Ceecee. Thank you all for your prayers, calls, texts and messages to check in on his return. I will most definitely let all of you know when he comes home.