A New Year, A New Look!

Even though it's not quite 2009 yet I could not wait to unveil yet another new look for the blog! I am hoping this one lasts me longer than a week considering all the time I put into the various elements...!! I start all these new designs by finding background paper that catches my eye- either from online or from pictures I already have downloaded. There are some great scrapbooking sites you can use to download "freebies" to jazz up different parts of your blog.

After finding background paper I upload it into Photobucket and then use an easy to use program to design a header- incorporating new fancy fonts and pictures. It's kind of like Photoshop for dummies and allows me to layer different objects into one project, cut out designs from another, and add pictures, words, borders, and backgrounds. This is the first time I continued the design to include a signature and sidebar buttons. The fonts I used were also downloaded from free scrapbooking websites. All you do is save the files and install them into your Word font folder. It is so easy and so much more interesting than using Times New Roman for everything! A project like this only took me a few hours today. I already had an idea of where I wanted to go with it and the rest just followed after some tweaking here and there. I hope you enjoy the new look and if you're ever in need of some creative updates please let me know!

All I Want For Christmas...

...is for it to last all year long! I anxiously anticipate Christmas for 364 days and it comes and goes in a whirlwind of activities, food, and family. My vacation began on the 19th with a small holiday party at school and a very generous gift from my students. On Tuesday we hosted a small dinner party for my family at the house complete with festive table scape! Alex did most of the cooking while I cleaned the house from top to bottom (including washing the hard wood floors!) and we ate a delicious meal of strawberry salad, ravioli soup, and homemade cookies for dessert.

On Christmas Eve we packed up the pups and went to my parents house around lunchtime. We attended the afternoon service at church and came back home to eat dinner- our traditional Shrimp and Pesto Pasta. Mom pulled out the Christmas memories book and we discovered that we've been eating this same exact meal every Christmas Eve for the last 14 years! Our Christmas morning breakfast has remained unchanged for the last 20 years- egg souffle, blueberry muffins with crumblies on top, and sausage. What can I say, we Nathans like our traditions! We ended the night by opening some gifts from the family and tucking the pups into bed. Linc and I slept at our own house that night and opened gifts from each other in the morning.

My amazing husband surprised me with a beautiful diamond necklace before church on Wednesday and I also got a new navigation system for my car, some beautiful clothes, and a great new perfume! Linc had already gotten his present early (the new car) but I managed to sneak in a new pair of Oakley sunglasses and a video game for him. We were also very fortunate to receive some great tennis clothes and accessories from my family and an assortment of Wilton Armetale serving pieces for the house. I have been a bit under the weather so after the excitement of presents and stockings I curled up and took a nap while the rest of the family played tennis. The Trottas came over for another traditional Christmas meal (10 years of the most delicious steak stuffed with spinach and peppers) and hours of card games. We finished the night with a long game of Catchphrase and headed back home to rest up.

Friday morning we drove out to the farm in the middle of some ridiculous traffic and finally arrived after lunch. We hung out and watched a movie because the weather was not cooperating and then ate a low country boil for dinner. Saturday the Nashs came over, including my nephew Ethan, and we opened gifts and played around the farm. Sherry took my friend Daniele and I for a tour of the pastures while the boys played a Gladiator-inspired game of paintball. We ended the trip with some sniper shooting and testing out some new guns in target practice.

Thankfully there is still another week left of vacation but I cannot believe how fast it all flies by. My goal for the remainder of the break is to paint my tv room...any volunteers?! I hope you and your family enjoyed a very relaxing Christmas and remembered to give thanks for all the blessings that this holiday season brings. Merry Christmas! I look forward to an exciting and fun filled next few days counting down to the new year!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Last weekend Lincoln and I set out to find ourselves the perfect Christmas tree. This was a special mission because despite it being our third married Christmas this would be the very first tree we had together as a married couple! Our first year we were back and forth from California so we didn't decorate and our second year we had just purchased our house and moved in on the 26th so it didn't make sense to decorate after the fact!

Originally I had seen that the local high school baseball team was selling trees to raise money for their school so we went out on Saturday evening to pick one out. Unfortunately, as I drove to the school it looked extremely dark and I realized there were no trees there anymore! Thankfully I knew of a nursery nearby that I had driven past a few times admiring their selection. We headed down the road and pulled in. They had some amazing trees- some even 13 feet tall! We choose a nice 7 foot Frasier fir and had the guys load it up on the Jetta after we picked out a tree stand and paid for them inside. Some of my favorite memories growing up are of my family going to a farm to pick out the best tree. We would make a day of it and drink hot cider and cut it down ourselves. It always seemed to be the coldest day of the year! This year it was pretty warm and we had all the intention of going to a real tree farm, but somehow grownup life got in the way and suddenly it was the middle of the month! I still love our tree and I made sure to take lots of pictures because it will still be a very special memory as I grow up!

Once we got the tree home we had a little dinner and then Linc carried it into the house and set it up. We let it fall overnight because it had been in the net bag for a few hours but when the lights were finally put on it looked great! It took me another week before all the decorations were put on but it turned out better than I had imagined! I also had trouble finding an angel that didn't creep me out (they all seem to have really weird faces this seaon) so we went with a modern and stylish bow creation that a woman from the local Holiday Shop helped me design. It's definitely not your traditional tree topper, but it's growing on me! We are also waiting on a very special hand made tree skirt that my mom has been working on. It will incorporate all the colors of the balls we picked out to decorate the tree with- apple green, red, and blue. I absolutely love my house during the Christmas season and wish I could leave all the beautiful decorations up all year long! I hope you and your family have enjoyed preparing for the upcoming events that this season brings and take time to remember why we are celebrating! Merry Christmas!

I Repeat...No...

We are NOT pregnant. Sorry folks, still a few years away from that milestone but when I saw this website on my friend's blog I couldn't resist! It's called makemebabies.com. Their website says "MakeMeBabies' unique technology will show you exactly (well... almost exactly...) what your future child with another person will look like! We take both your photos, do some magic calculations, and congratulations! You have a new baby!"All you do is upload some photos of you and your significant other and voila- a creepy baby is born! I played around with some pictures of us and this is the only kid that didn't totally freak me out. Let's just say it got me a little curious to know what the real baby Hamilton will look like...when we have kids in ten years...or according to my husband "when the house is paid off."

Baby It's Cold Outside!

A lot has been happening as our family counts down the school days until Christmas vacation (only 6 more...you actually thought I was joking?!) Thanksgiving came and went in one big turkey coma and even though it was fun, December is my favorite time of all! I started decorating for Christmas a few days into the month as I accumulated more items from some amazing post Thanksgiving shopping deals and finally brought out the things I had been collecting since July! This is the first time since getting married that Linc and I have been "home" for the holidays and are able to decorate. We don't have a tree just yet, but I have tried to make every other part of our house as festive as possible! From the foyer all the way to the back door and around to the garage my house is now filled with treasures that I wish I could leave out all year round. I probably could, but I won't. Not yet anyway...

Other big news in the Hamilton household is that Lincoln started a new job this week and traded in his trusty BMW for a slightly cooler, more supped up Altima- complete with seat warmers and satellite radio. He definitely needs it though as his commute went from rolling out of bed and walking into the loft to now driving 80 miles round trip!!! Yikes!!! He is such a hard worker and so dedicated. The best part is that he also gets two weeks off for Christmas break so we get to be home together! He is also working side by side our good friend Mark who we know from California and we've been able to hang out with him and his wife Jane a lot more often. Another couple that we knew from sunny CA lives just down the road and sometimes we show up at their house unannounced to see what they'll feed us. Other times we're invited and just arrive fashionably late...like two hours into a birthday dinner...

Now that Linc isn't home during the day we set the pups up in the garage. We moved the living room rug in there (since I am pretty sure there is dog pee all over it anyway...thanks Tess) and bought them a nice cozy bed and dogloo. Tessa even wears a little fleece coat to help keep her a little extra toasty while they're hanging out. Christmas music plays softly in the background off their new clock radio and there's even a mini pee-pod in the corner for them to use! So far they seem to really enjoy it. The first time we left them alone in there we set up a doggie cam to check out what they would do. Both pups happily chewed on bones until we came back about ten minutes later! Better than leaving them cooped up in their cages all day!!

My other favorite thing that has happened so far this month is the love of my life and favorite twin sister came into town to do a little shopping and we met up for dinner to exchange gifts and catch up on life. After pigging out on lobster ravioli and pomegranate martinis (yes, we ordered the exact same thing. Great minds really do think alike!) we had a mini photo session and parted ways. We have been so lucky to see each other a lot more often in recent months and after all that I think I was able to convince her to come back for New Years and celebrate her anniversary at our house!! I know you're reading this Twinny...you're coming right?!

I am really excited to have two weeks off at home to relax, unwind, and spend time with my most favorite people in the world. I hope you are having a blessed holiday season so far and have lots to look forward too as well!

Christmas Pups

Linc and I had to leave the pups at my parent's house while we were at the farm for Thanksgiving Part II and I should have known the costumes would come out while we were away! My mom and sisters had fun dressing the pups up as Santa's little helpers even though the dogs did not want to pose for pictures! They look a little tormented (and dare I say a bit creepy) in these shots but I couldn't help but post them. Tessa looks like a little reindeer, although her antlers seem a bit heavy for her head! Haha!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I absolutely love the holidays. Not only do I get time off work but I am able to spend time with the people I love who I do not get to see nearly often enough. We just finished up Thanksgiving and it was a jam packed five days of celebrating beginning with dinner at my parents house on Tuesday and Wednesday and countless hours of playing sets and runs! We went to my aunt's house on Thursday for a delicious meal of fried and oven baked turkey and all the usual holiday favorites. I spent time with my family and watched a few football games and after dinner the Jacks came over and we played in the yard until it was too cold! Friday afternoon Linc and I headed down to Barnesville to spend the weekend at the farm. The weather wasn't great but we still had a lot of fun. Linc's brothers brought their new guns and we shot skeet and did some target practice. Boys being boys everything turned into a competition! You can see in the pictures of Linc and I that we are sporting fancy yellow glasses for eye protection and ear plugs! Safety first!

I hope to have another post soon with lots more photos, but I hadn't written anything in a while and was getting antsy! Hope your holiday was filled with lots of delicious food and fun family memories! Come back soon!

UPDATE- 12/02/08- My Thanksgiving in Pictures
(I am not sure why one collage turned out so tiny- but oh well!)

Thanksgiving Part I- Nathans and Trottas in Atlanta

Thanksgiving Part II- Hamiltons, Childs, and Nashs at the farm