New Year's Eve & Weekend

So, usually New Year's Eve is just not one of my favorite holidays. I feel like you have to put all your eggs in one basket for one night of fun, and I usually realize after the fact that my basket had a hole in it. Not to mention that there was a stretch of a few years there that we were pregnant during that time and trying desperately to keep the baby, so celebrating was the last thing on my mind. 

But this year, since New Year's Day fell on a Friday, Rob and several of his friends from high school decided to get together and plan a long weekend. We all live in different states, so they decided Nashville was the easiest to fly in & out of and was centrally located for those of us driving. So city was decided, then came where to stay.I assumed we'd get hotel rooms, but then one of the guys found a great deal on a weekend rental house. It was right downtown in the middle of everything. Basically the homeowners move out for the weekend and we live in their house. I wasn't initially too keen on it, but then I saw the house, met the owner and basically feel in love.

It was an old house that started as a 2 bed/1 bath house. The owners updated it and expanded it to a huge 4 bed/3 bath beautiful home. It was my dream house. It was old, had character, looked old, but everything was new (and in good working order). I honestly pretended it was my house all weekend, like I was the host and they were my guests and made everyone refer to it as "my" house. (I'm sure that never got old or annoying.) I happened to run into the owner and her daughter before we checked in. She showed me around the house. I fell in love (in a friendship way) with her. She was so cute, so friendly. Like I seriously want to be pen pals with her. I certainly didn't plan on meeting her, or thinking she was so awesome, so as soon as I did, I immediately regretted I didn't weigh 40 lbs less and wasn't wearing lululemon. And I might have left Jake's photo & bio behind when we checked out, trying to play matchmaker, so they could be my in-laws. But I digress. My long winded point is the house was amazing and the owner is my new, not in real life, best friend. 

I took a ton of photos, but I won't bore you. (And the camera phone photos don't do it justice.) 

Everyone got into town Thursday (12/31). We hung out, I showed them around my house. Then we went out for dinner.

L to R: Chris, Allie, Denise, Robbie Page, Zach, Kimberly, Robbie Bush & me
The Robbie's, Allie & Zach all went to high school together
(The boys went to McCallie [all boys school] and Allie went to GPS [all girls school]
Thankfully, they all married spouses that get along:)

After dinner, the plan was to go to the New Year's Eve Bash on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Hence, why I look like a snowman in the photo above. I'm wearing a thick sweater & wool coat. 

#itissohardtobewarmandcute

The Nashville NYE bash was downtown with the streets blocked off. It was free and they had live concerts and such. We were there for about an hour, and that is when I did something I've never done before.

I was the first to ask if anyone else thought we should head home.

I am NEVER the first to want to leave. I always want to stay way past the prime. But I just wasn't feeling it. It was cold. It was crowded. Alabama was playing in the playoff game and there were no TVs (not to sound like the annoying girl that HAS to watch a football game). I didn't like the music. You couldn't hardly hear it anyway. We were all just huddled together talking to each other anyway. Why not do that in our nice, warm, home with clean bathrooms? At first, only half were on board. But after about 30 more minutes, we were all ready and if someone wasn't, they didn't speak up loud enough. So home we headed. We were home by 11:00. 

Best.Warmest.Cleanest Decision

We certainly didn't go to bed once we got home! (We are not THAT old) We turned on some music and played games like Heads Up and Cards Against Humanity. We laughed. We celebrated new year's. We had a great time. And all from the comfort of our beautiful home. I can honestly say, it was one of my favorite new year's ever. 

Playing Heads Up

Guys vs. Girls

Ugh. I sound like such a lame dork. But I don't care. It really was fun.

Friday, the girls went shopping while the boys watched the football bowl games. That night, we all went out to dinner. One of my good friends and sorority sisters, Brooke, lives in Nashville now, so her & her husband joined us. We have had so many funny adventures together and so many good memories. I just love getting to catch up with her.

On Saturday, we all headed home. (To our real homes) It was nice, because we still have some time before getting back into the grind on Monday.

What were the munchkins doing while we were gone? They stayed with Mimi & Granddad. There was a lot of lego building, doll playing, movie watching going on. Plus, Jake used his new iPad to constantly facetime us. 

The kiddos NYE night

Good-bye 2015

Recap of previous years:
2008: Surprises
2009: Happiness
2010: Peace
2011: Change
2012: Hope
2013: Reflective
2014: New
2015: Fun

Okay, so I know just the word fun seems like of lame. But it truly did sum up the year. 2015 has been a really fun year for us.

We started off the year with fun at{Jake's birthday celebration} with friends at a local gym here in town. Jake also had his {6 year checkup}. In February, we took Jake to Disney!!! Definitely one of the highlights and funnest things of the year {day 1}{day 2}{day 3}{day 4}. Hollon had many firsts that were fun those first few months of 2015. Her first tooth, first time sitting up and first time playing peek-a-boo (which is still one of her favorites!) In March, Jake started {baseball} again for the second year and he against my will to his father's delight chopped his hair off. Robbie & I attended our good friend Kevin's {wedding} in Seagrove which was tons of fun. In April, we celebrated {Easter}, Jake went on {spring break} with his Bush cousins and Robbie & I celebrated our 7th wedding {anniversary}. During the spring, Hollon starting eating food and crawling.  In May, Jake graduated from {Kindergarten}, we spent a weekend at my sister's in {Atlanta}, and we celebrated {Mother's Day} (+ my mom's birthday). For Memorial Day, instead of going down to the beach with the Stricklands' for the weekend like we usually do, this time, we stayed almost a full week! {here} & {here} We had such a fun summer. Jake attended several YMCA camps, tennis camp and took swim lessons. In June we celebrated {Father's Day} and Jake went to the {beach} with his Hollon cousins. We spent the {4th of July} in Chattanooga, I enjoyed a {girls weekend} with my two best friends and we celebrated {Woody's birthday} in Atlanta. Over the summer, Hollon started taking her first few steps and talking. In August,  Jake had his {first day of school}, Hollon turned {one} & we celebrated Hollon's first birthday! {here} & {here} In September, Hollon started {Mother's Day Out} and we celebrated {September birthdays} (Maw-Maw's, Mimi's & Rob's). The fall brought a lot of football. Jake played {football} for the {Pelham Panthers} for a second year and we attended all of the Auburn home games {Jacksonville State, MS State, San Jose State, Ole Miss, Georgia & Alabama}. We went to the beach with some of my family for {fall break} and for {Halloween}, Jake went as Luke Skywalker & Hollon went as a strawberry. November brought illness after illness after illness (NOT FUN!). The bright side of November was {Thanksgiving}! In December, we got ready for Christmas and went on a visit to the {North Pole}. We celebrated Jake turning {SEVEN}, {Christmas Eve}, {Santa coming} and then Christmas with the {Bush's} and {Hollon's}.

2015 was a very fun year indeed.

Psalm 43:4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

Santa Picture & Christmas Card

Our visit to Santa. We went one Sunday after church. Who else goes to see Santa at 12:00 on a Sunday? Evidently enough people to make the line a one hour wait. We took turns one of us waiting in line with Jake while the other let Hollon walk around the mall. She was in a great mood. It's finally our turn to meet Santa. We put her in his lap, she looks at him, we backed away and then the floodgates opened. She screamed. I've always wanted a baby crying in Santa's lap photo. Jake was such an easygoing kid, I never got it with him. But I felt confident that drama queen would give me the reaction I was looking for, and she did not fail. 

My 6 previous attempts at a crying baby with Santa photo:

Our Christmas card. Note to self: hire a professional photographer next year. I'm not one of those people, that feel like they have to have professional photos of their kids every quarter. We've got a nice camera (that I don't know how to use), decent photo editing software (that I don't know how to use), and I take about five thousand photos of the kids throughout the year. Out of those 5,000, 100 are decent and that's okay with me. That's enough for me. It's not like I print any of them anyway. But our Christmas card, which is being printed on nice cardstock and mailed out to a large group of people, I should have invested the time and money and had someone who knows what they are doing take the photo. The lighting is bad, there are shadows on the kids faces, the photo looks dark. But this was our 2nd attempt already, Hollon was extremely uncooperative and Jake kept giving the goofiest smiles. So this one was the best out of all of them and I wasn't about to try for a 3rd time.  

Christmas with the Hollon's

Jake spent Christmas night over with the Bush's since cousin Jackson was in town. Saturday morning, we headed over to pick him up before heading down to Prattville to see the Hollon family.

Hollon had to get in a few more piano lessons.

Once we got to Nana & Gran's, all of the cousins came and we had a Hollon family birthday party for Jake.

You can never have enough lightsabers

Gaines really loved the lightsabers and had a great time slinging it (usually accidentally upside Hollon's head). 

Sister bear got in on the action

Jake showing Woody how to use the lightsaber

The party hasn't started until the grandkids all get to fight Gran.

These boys are crazy!

My dad found a lizard and all of the grandkids were scared to touch it except for Gaines.

Gaines hopped in the car first

And then we realized it was a wet mess from all the rain

Talent = pulling a kid in a wagon while fighting in a lightsaber match

Jake was captured

And thrown in the bush jail

I promise he is not saluting Hitler

Then Woody was captured. Jake was yelling at Woody to stab Gran in the neck with his lightsaber. Woody looked mortified. Sorry Aunt Lindsey for the bad things cousin Jake is teaching your son!

And then it was time for cake and presents

And birthday spankings

Gaines putting the Star Wars masks Nana bought on Uncle Billy

And then he put them on Hollon

A new Star Wars game!

And a 2nd birthday celebration is not complete without some zipline fun

After the zipline, all of the kids went to jump on the trampoline. Baby sister isn't quite old enough, so she stayed behind and played with her new baby doll and stroller.

It is her first stroller and she loves it!

That night, we had pizza, chicken nuggets & hot wings for dinner

And then it was time to open gifts!

Marrell & Maddox with their mom (my sister-in-law) Leigh Ann

Nana got Hollon some new red Toms. Of course she had to put them on right away.

And Aunt Lindsey got her new Hunter rain boots. Those of course had to be put on right away as well! They know the way to this girl's heart. Shoes!

Ready for bed, and still insisting that she wear shoes

Her Christmas pajamas Nana bought her

Gran was of course the best sport, and got the fun task of playing Jake's new Star Wars game with him.

Christmas morning, we all went to church

That afternoon, our extended family and grandmother came over for lunch and presents to/from Maw-Maw.

Maw-Maw has 9 grandchildren. And almost all of them share a birthday year.

Isabella & Maddox are both in 6th grade

Isabella & Maddox through the years at Christmas

Jake, Jackson & Marrell are all in the 1st grade

Gaines, Deacon & Hollon will all start school the same year too.
There was no way I was getting a picture of those 3 together.
Gaines was napping, then when he woke up, Hollon fell asleep and Deacon lost his shirt while eating.
So they just get a collage.

The 6 older kids jumping on the trampoline

Poor Gaines in the baby trampoline

Gaines & Maddox

Getting in a little more playtime before it is time for us all to leave

Nana & Gran's grandchildren

Jake & Marrell at Christmas through the years

The grandkids at Christmas through the years

And that is a Christmas wrap! It was an amazing Christmas. It was shared with family that we love, making new memories, and only slightly getting on each others nerves. But most importantly, it was spent celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

JOY

That will be for all people,

Today in the town of David

A Savior has been born to you,

He is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:10