A Slow Start to a New Year

January turned into a nice, calm month for us.  It was an easy entry into the new year.

We've had several firepit nights which we enjoy.  We've just our family out there, the Pennington family came over, our small group enjoyed an evening together, and the high school girls ministry borrowed it too (though they actually ended up inside due to rain).  We are so thankful this can be a place for people to gather!

It was fun to stop in the upper school one morning to see the artwork that's going on.  Lily's is on the left; it's the rotating rectangles.  Such a creative group of kids!

Many months ago, we watched a Samantha Brown's Places to Love episode about Maine, and it featured Two Fat Cats bakery where they make delicious looking blueberry pies.  We got excited as we thought about visiting when our cruise up the eastern seaboard stopped in Maine.  Unfortunately, covid hit and cancelled that cruise.  Well, towards the end of last year, I discovered Goldbelly, and it's become my new favorite app.  It hooks you up with restaurants from all over the country, and you can have their specialties shipped right to you.  Well what do you know, but Two Fat Cats is there!  I surprised Ryan for our 19th anniversary with a delivery of this pie (totally for him...ha!).  It had the most beautiful colors, and it was absolutely delicious, especially with a side of vanilla ice cream.  What a fun treat!

On our actual anniversary, we went to Rathbun's for a fantastic dinner.  We started with the thick cut bacon appetizer, and then we both enjoyed spinalas (ribeye cap) which was the special of the evening.  It was outstanding!  There was a side of mashed potatoes and a side of lightly fried squash, zucchini, and okra which were wonderful.  We decided on a cheesecake for dessert that had some cherries in it, a pistachio glaze on top, muddled berries, and a chocolate chip ice cream on the side.  It was beautiful and very tasty, and they surprised us by putting it on the house!  What a wonderful evening to celebrate.  Hard to believe it's been 19 years!

Mia had the itching to make her specialty rainbow cake one day; it did not disappoint!  She's gotten really good at this vanilla cake with cream cheese icing!

Mia and I have enjoyed several evenings of just sitting in the quiet room by the fire and reading.  She has loved this "Double Daring Book for Girls" that Granna and Papa gave her for Christmas.  It has all sorts of fascinating things in it!

Lily and Ryan have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Stranger Things seasons together.  They mostly watch together on Saturday mornings while Mia and I enjoy sleeping in.  Lily's friend, Avery, had an outfit similar to Eleven that she gave to Lily.  Here she is wearing it before the season ending episode of season 3.  Now Lily, Ryan, and I are waiting (not so patiently) for season 4!

Yay that our newest niece arrived healthy on Jan 22.  Lucy is tiny and super precious!  We were thankful that Josh and Amy were comfortable with us coming over to visit a week later, so we could meet her and snuggle up with her for ourselves.

Like I said, it's been a nice, quiet, slow start to the year.  I'll take it!

2020 Year End Wrap Up

We finished up the year in a nice, relaxed fashion.  We enjoyed all the new gifts we had recently received.  We watched a lot of football.  We enjoyed reading a good bit too.  I truly enjoy reading by the fireplace; it's so cozy.  It's even better when one (or both!) of the girls comes and reads at the same time.  Even though we don't really do read aloud books anymore, I love simply having them nearby enjoying the simple pleasure of reading together.

Ryan took each girl out for a Daddy Daughter date one evening which I know they enjoyed.  He treated Mia to dinner at C Ellots at The Battery.  She enjoyed a delicious steak and mashed potatoes while Ryan tried and enjoyed the H&F Burger they serve.  They stopped at Antico for gelato afterwards.  Lily and I stayed home and made our awesome garlic shrimp, spinach, onion, and bacon spaghetti alfredo.  Yeah, it's really good.

A couple of days later, Ryan and Lily had fun at The Iberian Pig down in Decatur.  He and I have loved this restaurant for many years; we typically eat here before going to watch a concert at Eddie's Attic.  The fun tapas items here are so good! Afterwards, they enjoyed some ice cream from Jeni's next door which is always yummy.  Mia and I stayed home to make our favorite honey-lime salmon dish.  We all won at these meals!

We enjoyed spending New Year's Eve with the Pennington family at their home.  All the girls had a good time playing together, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Jeff and Ali.  They are some of our favorite people to hang out with, so we were very grateful for this opportunity.  It was a great way to wrap up the year.

What a year it was too!  It didn't go at all the way we expected as we rang in 2020 last December, but that's ok.  We slowed down a lot this year, and I have to say that overall, this was a great year for our family.  We had the first world issue of not traveling like we'd hoped, but we all stayed healthy, we have a super great home to live in, we were able to work and go to school, and we were given the gift of time to be together.  I hate the circumstances that caused this, but I will be forever grateful for this time and season of life.  We always, always, always have something to be grateful for.  Even as we made our "9 best of 2020" collages, it was hard to narrow it down to just nine pictures.  We are so blessed.

We have learned to hold tightly to our God, hold close our family and friends, and hold loosely to everything else.  We shall see what 2021 has in store, but we will move forward confidently that we're in it together as we honor and trust our God who is control of all things. 

Merry Christmas!

Finally, Christmas has arrived!  We went to bed with stockings stuffed, ready for a good night's sleep.

We all got up about 8, and the girls came out to see that Santa had given Lily a new full length mirror for her room, and Mia received a new X-Box (with a little help from Uncle John!).  There was also a family gift inside this Grinch bag.

Santa apparently stopped at Rocket Fizz and picked up this cute bag.  It's a grab bag, so you never know what will be inside.  The promise four drinks, their famous taffy, and several other surprise candies.  We were all surprised and pleased with all the fun goodies inside!  Santa might just make this a tradition!

Lily helped Decker open his stocking first.  He was super excited to receive a new football; he loves this toy!  He also received a red chewtoy, some bully sticks, peanut butter bite treats, and a blue gingham bow tie to make him an even more handsome boy.

The rest of us opened our stockings after this, and we all loved all the fun treats inside.  Its amazing how much fun stuff can come in small packages!

We took a quick little break to eat some Sister Schubert rolls for breakfast; we need our energy to keep opening presents!  After that, the girls opened their gifts from Randy and Georgia since we weren't able to have the big Brown family gathering to receive them then.  Lily loves her Jackie Robinson Equality shirt from Baseballism and the Chelsea Freeman designed denim jacket.  Mia was excited to receive the new authentic Braves' Nike jersey.  We're ready for next season!

Next up were gifts mailed up from Grandpops and Grandma Jan.  They had packed bags full for each of us.  We all loved the Corpus Christy baseball hats they sent each of us; they're the Hooks!  These bags were full of goodies as they are always so generous with their gift-giving.

Last up were gifts we purchased for each other.  I didn't take many pictures because I just wanted to enjoy the morning and see it for myself instead of through my camera.  That was definitely the right call.  I treasure this time with my family.  These are the only two pictures I snapped.

Ryan had ordered and shipped chocolates for me from the Captain Cook hotel where we stayed in Anchorage.  These little bit size chocolates are so delicious with lots of unique flavors.  They are also gorgeous; they look like little jewels!  This was such a fun surprise!

Both girls were excited to receive new bedding as one of their gifts this year.  Lily's is a beautiful ombre design; she received a gorgeous and soft new blanket too.  Mia loves her soft new Spiderman sheets and blue comforter; it fits right in with her Guardian of the Galaxy pictures that Bama gave her.  It seems both of these bedding sets fit our girls perfectly!

Later in the day, Granna and Papa came over to visit and see all the gifts.  Mia called Bama to talk with her for a bit.  We also got to FaceTime with Grandpops and Grandma Jan, Nick, Ali, and Brock; we wish we could have seen them this season.  It was a quiet and restful afternoon.  While we had fun opening lots of gifts this morning, we are reminded that the best gift is God's son, Jesus Christ.  We are most thankful for him and the ability to celebrate his birth.  What a wonderful Christmas we've enjoyed!

2020 Christmas Countdown

We all love our Christmas countdown tradition each year.  I added a new little calendar this year from Bonne Maman.  Each day I opened one of these cute little doors to reveal a new 2 ounce jam, preserve, or honey.  It was so fun! These were the perfect size for English muffin.  While these were all pretty tasty, I found a few that were especially delicious and will likely order larger sizes.  This was a neat treat!

From our regular countdown...

Day 1 - We bought four foot inflatables for the girls to enjoy during the season.  We put them on the back deck, so we could actually enjoy them.

Day 2 - We stuffed, sealed, and stamped our annual Christmas cards to send them out to lots of family and friends around the country.

Day 3 - We picked the girls up from school and headed up to Chattanooga.  We enjoyed dinner with Allison and Jason Sepulveda, and then the four of us went to Rock City for their Enchanted Garden Lights.  They were so pretty!  It was a beautiful evening, not too cool (though we were bundled up for it), and the lights looked so good.  This was such a fun evening!

Hot chocolate and apple cider for the win!

This part had lights dancing to music which was super cool to watch.  I think this was my favorite of all the areas.

Day 4 - AMC ran a promotion where you could rent out a theater, pick the movie to watch, and have up to 20 people join you.  How fun is that?!  We selected the movie Elf and then invited the Fox family, Corley family, and Miley family (plus Ethan Johnson since Hudson would have been the only boy otherwise!).  This was a really fun evening.

Day 5 - We had a gorgeous day to head to the Battery and meet Blooper Klaus.  When we got on to the field, they took our picture by the 2020 pennant.  It was really cool to be on the field!

Merry Christmas Blooper Klaus; bring us a Braves' win in the World Series!

Day 6 - Brunch at Canoe after church.  Absolute yum!

Day 7 - Granna and Papa treated our family and Wayne's family to dinner at Blue Ridge Grill.  It was so nice to have a whole dining area to ourselves.  We enjoyed the meal, but the best part was time together.  What a wonderful treat!

Day 8 - We decorated a few solo cups to look like cute little snowmen and then went bowling.  Ryan won the championship!

Day 9 - We watched The Grinch Muscial on NBC.  It was the London cast performing, and they were incredible.  This was a great show!

Day 10 - The girls looked through the Samaritan's Purse Christmas catalog and found projects they wanted to support with their own money.  Lily chose a program to provide hot meals to kids while Mia split her gift between giving sports equipment to kids and little lambs for kids in emergency situations.  This is a good way they can help kids around the world out of the abundance we have.

Day 11 - We drove to Birmingham after drama practice for a weekend with family.  On our way in, we stopped at Cookie Dough Magic near downtown.  It was delicious!  My favorite was the cookie dough mixed with Little Debbie tree cakes.

Day 12 - We enjoyed getting to spend time with family for Bama's Christmas party.  We are so thankful for our family!

Kendall made this beautiful piece of art for Ryan and me.  She took a picture from our Alaska trainride from 2010 and painted it on canvas.  Then she cut it out and put it down on this map.  I love that she took care to show Ambler and Kotzebue on the map.  She finished it with clouds and a frame.  It looks amazing.  I can't wait to get this put up in our home!

Day 13 - We enjoyed being at church to see The Light of Christmas program.  It was wonderful to be in community hearing songs of praise that celebrate Jesus' birth.

Day 14 - Grandpops and Grandma Jan sent us a package with our Christmas gifts, but it also included a few other fun goodies to enjoy, like a kit to have an indoor snowball fight.  We all laughed so hard; it was so much fun!

Day 15 - The girls got to be creative and paint any Christmas picture they wanted.  Mia made a cute Claus Among Us player!

Day 16 - We had family game night where we played a couple of rounds of Banagrams and Among Us.

Day 17 - The girls had these snowman mazes to figure out.  It was actually pretty difficult.  Mia eventually solved it, but I liked that Lily took a different path and made it a little prettier instead.

Day 18 - We had a darts tournament in our basement.

Day 19 - We had our friends, Jamey and Crystal Pullen, over for dinner and to watch The Star.  This is such a wonderful Christmas movie!

Day 20 - We enjoyed making campfire mountain pies and s'mores on a beautiful evening.

After the campfire, we watched the Straight No Chaser online Christmas concert.  We love this group!

Day 21 - We read The Crippled Lamb together.  This is such a sweet book by Max Lucado.

Day 22 - We did an at home escape room based on the Nativity story.  It included lots of puzzles and questions to answer.  We escaped with about 4 minutes remaining!

Day 23 - We enjoyed pizza and a Christmas movie night downstairs.  We picked Arthur Christmas because it's such a fun one!

Day 24 - We had Granna and Papa's Christmas party at our house on Christmas Eve.  We enjoyed our traditional brunch, opening presents, and spending time together.  What a great family!

Another great year for the Christmas countdown!