Are you ready for some Christmas pictures?

I am usually a good picture taker and like to capture events that are taking place. But I've never been a good photographer at Christmas. I blame that mostly on the fact that I am a spoiled rotten little girl (I admit it) who spends most of Christmas opening presents and don't normally have the time to take the pictures myself. Now ~ that will all change next year as I'm sure I'll be snapping away as Lily Ann opens her presents. But I got to be the spoiled little girl for one last time this year. So mom had to send me all these pics she took from our Christmas events.

The 23rd

My mother's side of the family gathers every year on the 23rd for unbelievably good food and a fun game of (not too) dirty Santa.

Chaos at its best.

Watching people unwrap and steal presents from each other. Fun family times!

I'm pregnant. I finally get a chair!

Granddaddy (or I guess he is Papaw now but he'll always be my Granddaddy) enjoying the game while Jessica and Angie play with Karson

Lucas's drill bits that Dad won but Lucas eventually went home with.... in addition to the man purse. Dad, did you want the man purse?

Lily Ann's future playmates - Mimi, Will, and Karson

My grandmother's tree. I aspire to be her... mostly.

Christmas Morning

Every Christmas morning my Grandparents come over to my parent's house. We all open presents and then my dad makes the best pancakes ever. EVER. Seriously. Those are some good pancakes. I think they're even better on Christmas morning.... just because it's Christmas.

Digging through our stockings :)

Opening the rest of my stocking while wearing my cool new shades. I know. So attractive.

One of Lily's many presents... her bathtub! Yeah. It's super cool. You should get one... you know... if you have a baby. Thanks, Grandma and Granddaddy. :)

Daddy showing off his new Gargoyles... taking him back to his policing days.

One of my favorite presents for Lily Ann: a Cabbage Patch doll. Lily's Mamaw and Papaw 'adopted' her for Lily straight from the Cabbage Patch Hospital, one of our favorite places. Her name is Nicki Lynn (My granddaddy wanted to name me Nicki. Instead he got my middle name: Nicole. Lynn is my mother's middle name.) and she was 'born' on December 25, 2009!

My grandparents got me a Coach purse ~ yes, a real one!! I sort of, kind of already knew about it. But I also got a Coach change purse to go with it that was a complete surprise! I love my Coach purse! I haven't carried it yet, though. I am saving it as an extra special treat for myself once I become a Mommy. :)

A Flip camera from my parents! Believe me ~ once Lily Ann arrives, you will be seeing a lot of videos from this thing! P.S. We got my parents a Flip camera, too. Haha!


Christmas Night

Each year we celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family on Christmas night. This year, Lucas and I offered to host at our house. We grilled burgers, ate lots of cheese dip, and munched on some good desserts.

Some of the young ones. And an old one. Sorry, Dale.

Hiding Out Keeping Busy in the Kitchen

Darrell and his daughter, Kortney, playing shuffle board

The Hosts

Yep. That's my dog. I'm such a proud mom.

And yesterday I told you I didn't have a picture of the outside of my house. Well, turns out my mom took one. Not a very good one (sorry, Mom), but a picture none the less. You can see my awesome new reindeer ($5 from a yard sale) but can't really see my door garland, wreaths, or porch decorations. It is something, anyway. And like I said before - it is still up. Yes, now it is January 6th and the decorations are still up. Is it late enough that I can just leave them up until next year now? No? Well, that reasoning seems to work for some people.

SouthMeetsSouth @ Christmas

Remember when I showed you our pretty Christmas decorations this year? Oh.... I still haven't done that? Well, better late than never.

Welcome to our Christmas home -

And what's that in the bottom right corner, you ask?..........



That's just my husband (doing what he does best). Don't mind him!


You are welcome to gasp in awe of our beautiful new fireplace mantle! (Modest, aren't I?) I just love it! It still needs some decorative trim on the face and some stone or tile or something between the fireplace and mantle. It is a work in progress. And I'm not going to worry about those finishing touches for quite some time I can imagine. At least we are miles ahead of what was there before.


Thanks to Mom and her after Christmas bargain hunting last year, we got a brand new skinny tree for the family room!


It looks especially nice with all the goodies underneath!


Our front living room gets the big Santa treatment again this year!

They've been stored for two years since we spent Christmas in Colombia last year.

(Isn't a diaper cake part of everyone's Christmas decor?)

I decked out our Colombian chickens in poinsettias so they wouldn't feel left out of the holiday cheer.


And I just like these pictures of Lucas from Christmas Eve so I'm throwing them in here, too.


So excited about his Christmas PJ's


It's the little things.

From our house to yours.....


(I did decorate outside this year but didn't take any photos. I guess since they are all still up I can take pictures tonight. I know, I know. It's January 5th and the outside decorations are still up. I'm awful. But let me tell you ~ windchill this morning was 6 degrees! I'm not a cold weather person, so I'm just biding my time until I get a break from this hell..... or until my water breaks and I run into the lawn picking things up because I refuse to bring my daughter home to a house that still has Christmas decorations up. Yeah. Now that would be a good blog post.)

Happy Holidays from SouthMeetsSouth

See, honey.... It could be worse!

Hello, my name is Ashley and I am a Christmas fanatic!

I love decorating the tree[S] and house and listening to Christmas music while drinking hot cocoa and wrapping presents (which, unfortunately, I have still yet to buy for the most part)! So much fun! Lucas, on the other hand, is a little overwhelmed by my zest for the season. So during Babymoon '09, I knew just what he needed to get him in the Christmas spirit (and realize that my decorations pale in comparison to others).


Talk about intense! The Opryland Hotel is home to one of the South's most spectacular holiday displays! There are over 2 million Christmas lights adorning this huge mansion-esque hotel. Apparently, workers begin putting up the lights in July! Lucas wondered why they even bother taking them down. See ~ it could be worse, right? I could make him start adorning our house with Christmas lights in July! How fun would that be?!? Haha!!

We had a great time touring the grounds and are looking forward to bringing Lily Ann here in a few years. She is going to love it!

Some photos of us (and Lily Ann) enjoying the lights:

A Catch Up Day....

I've been blogging every day but I still feel like a few things have gotten lost in the shuffle. So today I want to go back and highlight some things you may have missed......

Christmas with our friends...

We had a belated Christmas party a few weeks back with our good (and we would soon learn.. pregnant) friends! Right off the bat they told us their good news so we had a great night!!! We exchanged presents then our 'children' exchanged presents. Of course, we have no pictures of us or our presents but lots of pictures of the dogs.

Rafa helping Rocky open his presents...

Rafa not cooperating during the present opening...


Yay! A new present!


Oh, but the little dog takes it away.


'My toy now, Rocky!'

Rafa got two stuffed animals of his own but he wanted the big dog's toy. Of course.


Rafa's 1st Birthday...

We celebrated Rafa's first birthday the next weekend. We let Rafa invite his good friend Rocky (and his parents) over to the house. We ate dinner then it was time to open presents.

Rafa hasn't quite got this opening presents thing down yet....
Rocky got Rafa a cute little shirt that said 'I still live with my parents.' Then he started laughing at the little dog who had to wear a shirt. Haha! We got Rafa a tire toy and some bones and greenies.

After presents it was time for cake! I made the adults some cupcakes then made some special little cupcakes for the boys!
Isn't it precious?!? I found the recipe here. This dog is spoiled.... made from scratch cupcakes with peanut butter, kibble, and a bone.

I gave a cupcake to Rafa and he thought it was contraband. He took it under the table to hide and eat it. Poor guy!


He's licking the floor. It must have been good.



Our 2nd Anniversary....

We didn't have big plans for our anniversary. We are planning to celebrate big in 18 days (in CABO!) and it fell on a Tuesday. So I sent Lucas to work with some leftovers for lunch but fully intended to set my plan in motion.

I called Dominos to order a large pepperoni pizza and requested that the pepperonis be placed in the shape of a heart. Look how good it turned out!!!


So I surprised Lucas at work with the heart pizza....


We went to a nearby community and parked in the driveway of a home that was for sale. We had a pretty nice view.


That night we got in our pajamas, ordered Chinese in, watched two movies (My Best Friend's Girl: actually pretty funny; Burn After Reading: interesting but weird), and ate ice cream to our heart's content.

Last year we were on our Caribbean cruise during our anniversary and celebrated big with the Super Bowl (yes, I'm that lucky), champagne, and a fun night on the boat. This year was much more low key but I would argue it rivaled the cruise ship. It was so nice to just relax and cuddle... not worry about dishes, laundry, cleaning, anything.... just enjoying the evening with each other. We need more nights like that (except maybe without the Chinese food and ice cream... Lord knows I don't need anymore of that).

Planet Beach....


Have you girls been here? I am trying to get a little color before we go to Cabo. I found this free coupon for three free sessions and I thought, 'Sweet! Three trips to the tanning bed and I won't have to pay!' So I present my coupon and the lady tells me that the coupon is for one each of their contempo spa sessions. Noooo! I wanted to tan three times! I listened to her pitch about their products and services, and she asked if I'd like to do the entire session. It takes an hour and a half and I had to get to my Wednesday night Mexican so I only did two of the three sessions.

The first session was at the Hydration Station. Listen up, ladies. This is heaven!! It gives you the same benefits of lying in a sauna for an hour but it only takes 20 minutes. I wish it would've lasted an hour! It was great! You lie in a tanning bed like contraption but the bed underneath you vibrates in little pulses while the bed heats up and mists steam and minerals over your body mixed with light radiated therapy. It is incredible!! It helps moisturize your skin, prepares your skin for tanning, and enhances your skin tone.

I'm telling you... if you have a Planet Beach in your area, take this coupon and please go try it out! Now I'm hooked and I want their monthly package. $80 for 4 hydration station uses, 4 mystic tans, and unlimited tanning. The down side is you have to sign a year long contract. They are very big on contracts. Yuck! For now, that is a little too much, too long. So I'm off to use my next coupon at another tanning bed in town!

Future Photo Session...

Our friend Melissa is starting up her own photography business and asked for children and pets to shoot. Obviously, we don't have children yet but you know I'd love professional photos of our little cutie. We are working on getting a session scheduled now. I'm so excited to show you how cute Rafa really is when a real photographer takes his photo!!!

If you live in the area and are interested visit her at www.melissahopper.com!