Christmas at our house!

Well, first things first, I am officially on winter break!!!!! Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe this time last year we were in the middle of a bidding war with the sellers for our house! Time flies and I have enjoyed decorating our house for Christmas this year!!! 

Here are some pics for you....sorry they had to be taken on the phone because my camera battery is still dead and I am too lazy to charge it haha...

{I'm not super excited about our mantle! I thought those berries would stand out more...I'll do something better next year!}

{I LOOOOVE getting Christmas cards! We've filled up almost every cabinet in the kitchen!}

{Hahaha Natalie and I got this tree when we were 22! I still have it...and it is sitting in my future little girl's room! HA!}

Ok, so I realize these are not the most elaborate Christmas decorations, but its only my first year doing this! I can't wait to buy more stuff on sale after Christmas so we can have lots more decorations next year!!! :)

I also decided to bake 298473272 Christmas cookies....

My kitchen was a HOT MESS for a whole day.

In other news, we got our wedding album!!! Just in time for Christmas!!

I am so obsessed with it!!! 

Have a wonderful, Merry Christmas!!! 

Blogger Day of Silence

Our Christmas Card!

It seems like everyone is sharing their Christmas cards today, so I thought I'd participate in a link up with Kristen from All In My Twenties to show you ours....

MARRIED CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! :)

...and here's the back...

I got them on Zazzle with a Groupon and was very happy with how they turned out!!! :)

PS--I just can't go without saying, as a teacher, how sad, sad, SAD I am about Friday's events. 

It makes me sick to my stomach, and hits home more than I want it to. I cannot even tell you how happy I was to see my 19 smiling, safe, alive second graders this morning. I never thought I would feel like that the Monday before Christmas break! 

Am I scared at school? YES. I locked my door and kept it closed all day. It's so sad and scary to think this could have happened anywhere. 

Please continue to pray for the community of Newtown, the families of the victims, and teachers throughout the country who recently added "security guard" to our already endless list of roles we take on each day. 

Travis' Work Christmas Party

Ok...so after our busy Saturday at the Biltmore, we hurried back to Charlotte to go to Travis' work Christmas party (annnnd omg sorry this post is like a week + late!)! I love going to these Christmas parties for many reasons, mostly because I can wear a pretty dress and drink free booze.

One of our first dates was actually to this Christmas party back in 2007....

{Sorry for the worst picture ever....Travis actually took it on his phone, printed it out to put up at work-awww-and obviously no longer has this phone...so this is a scanned version of the printed out copy!}

I wasn't able to go in 2008 or 2009 but here is us (me in a recycled bridesmaid's dress!) in 2010!

And then last year, they kept it super low key and had a lunch with no dates allowed. LAME.

Anyway, this year's party did not disappoint...it was at the Ritz Carlton Urban Garden, which if you're obsessed with weddings like I am, you know that it is a gorgeous wedding venue in uptown Charlotte!

See???

Oh, and BTW, it is Wednesday...so this totes counts as my "Wedding Wednesday" post, too! Ha!

ANYways....here are some of my very own, fabulous iPhone pics of the venue and party...

{You like my dress? It's a rental from Rent the Runway!}

{oh and YES...Nick Cannon was the DJ!! And he was baller! He played "Ni**as in Paris" and "California Love" which of course are my two staples at any party...so an A+ in my book. Mariah and the twins were not in attendance, sadly.}

Such a fun night!! :)

The Biltmore at Christmas!

Last Saturday, Travis and I drove to Asheville to visit the Biltmore! My sweet friend had bought us a gift card to use there as a wedding gift, since it is where we got engaged!

I really wanted to visit at Christmastime because they decorate it so beautifully, so that is what we did!!!

Annnnnnd of course, as soon as we arrived, I realized my camera battery was completely DEAD. Oops. So here are some lovely iPhone pictures...

The entrance!

{Please excuse my husband's squinty eyes and sour look in general}

{Christmas tree at the front door!}

So if you've never been to the Biltmore, the bad news is that they don't let you take pictures inside. Well, too bad! 

I was determined to sneak a gorgeous picture such as:

However, Travis convinced me that if I got caught, we were going to get thrown out and that there were security cameras everywhere to catch me....So I had to be extra-sneaky and took these two crap-tastic iPhone pics. Come arrest me. 

{this is supposed to be the winter garden...it was covered in pointsettias and was gorgeous. just not in this pic}

{blurry pic of the dining room, please note the HUGE tree on the left..it was seriously like 20+ feet}

After we toured the house (which after all of the beautiful decorations on the first floor, the rest of the tour was a little boring because we had already seen everything and the rest of the house was not very decorated...), we went up to OUR balcony (yes, we own it) where we got engaged!

Here is where I propped my camera to take the pic of Travis proposing: 

And here is the view from our balcony...

Ok, sorry...I overdid it a little bit with the balcony pictures. I got excited. Sorry, I'm not sorry.

I kinds wish we had gone at nighttime to see the big tree out front all lit up....next time???

After we left the house, we still had a little bit of $$$ left on the gift card, so we hit up the winery! We unfortunately didn't do a wine tasting (we had a Christmas party to attend that night and knew we'd have more than enough wine there!), but we did stock up on our Biltmore Christmas wine!

The winery also had this fabulous tree that made it snow!!! You can kinda see the {fake, duh} snow falling in the pic: 

I got a little excited about that! Haha.

Anyways, we would have stayed longer, but we had to get back to Charlotte to go to Travis' work Christmas party, which I will blog about soon (it was so eventful, it gets its own post! I know you are excited....)!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend...10 Days Later

Oh gosh...I can't believe I am just now getting around to writing about our Thanksgiving! I am so behind on life!!! We had a crazy weekend this past weekend....which I will write about at some point, but until then, here are some pics (and commentary) about our first married Thanksgiving!

We spent the holiday at Travis' parents in Chapel Hill. My parents were able to drive down from Virginia and be with us too! 

Travis' dad deep-fries the turkey every year and it.is.AMAZING! 

Seriously, if you've never had deep-fried turkey, you must try it ASAP!!

Also, fortunately for us, Travis' sister is a CHEF, so she basically made all of our food (minus the turkey)! The moms each made a side dish, but the rest was all Caitlin!!! Everything was SOOOOOOO delicious!!!

The next morning, my mom and I got up and did our annual Black Friday early morning trip to the mall! We are not as cray cray as some people, but we did get there about 6:30 AM. Unfortunately, I really did not find any deals. I think most good sales started Thanksgiving night, but I was too stuffed then to shop!

Saturday, we went to the last (THANK YOU JESUS) UNC football game of the season!!! It was sooooo freaking cold!!!! 

When we got home Sunday, it was time to decorate the house!!! 

I realize you can't see the candles in the bottom windows, but I have since fixed the problem :) 

Now, we are working on the tree....we got a real one this year and it is a MAJOR project!!! I don't think either of us has sworn so much in our lives at one object. HA! I'll post pics soon when it's done!!!

Until then, I'll just relax by my current favorite candle....:)