2009 in Review

I thought I would do a little "2009 Review"...

January:
Amos and Brad posed for a quick picture. I'm glad I got these two because Amos didn't stay that small for very long! Also in January, we got new king size mattresses at the furniture market. (We shared a full size bed for wayyyy too long.)

February:
My darling husband sent me flowers at work for Valentine's Day! Amos just had to pose with them. Of course, he tried to eat them so I had to find the best way to arrange this picture :) Ha!

March:
Brad and I celebrated our one year anniversary on March 1. It snowed that weekend! (Funny fact: it snowed the weekend after our wedding last year).

We had a piece of the top layer of our cake plus some punch from the wedding. Believe it or not, but it tasted pretty darn good!

April:
Brad turned 28 on April 9th. For his birthday he wanted me to go up with him in an airplane. He had been flying for a year at this point and it was his birthday wish so I felt like I needed to. However, I only took two pictures. I was entirely too sick and scared to take any while I was in the plane.

May:
On May 3rd, I turned 25! My mother, grandmother, sister and niece came over and we grilled hamburgers.

This one of Amos was in May also. Notice his extra "love handles" getting bigger??


June:
In June, we took a trip down to Panama City Beach, FL for a few days. It was so nice there!
Then when we got back, Chloe had her last tee-ball game of the season. I hope she plays next year. She was pretty good!

July:
Levi took his first trip up with Brad

August:
We celebrated mom and dad's anniversary on the 15th; mom's birthday on the 20th; and dad's birthday on the 21st. This was taken at mom and dad's little party we had. We just combined all three events into one. :)

For mom's birthday, Brad picked mom and Mama Lynn up and flew them around town. They both really enjoyed it!

September:
Back to the furniture market! This time for a new bedroom set! Try not to look at the blinding green grass! Not sure what happened!

Also in September, we bought an airplane!!! Yep, drove up north of Nashville and brought her home. HAAAA! I kindly named "her"-- Snoopy, but it wasn't man enough for Brad. He suggested White Lightening. Whatever... does the plane not look like Snoopy?

Then on the 27th, we celebrated Courtney's 27th birthday and on the 29th, it was Chloe's 4th birthday!

October:
Brad and I went to Iuka and watched our first Air Show (that I know of...).

Brad and I took our first official vacation together to the Smoky Mountains the second week of October! We shopped and ate and shopped and ate and rode the chair lift and went to an amusement park and ate some more... all in Pigeon Forge and Maggie Valley, NC. It was gorgeous and I can't wait to go back!

November:
Amos was helping me take down my fall things around the house at the end of November.

December:
My mom's immediate family took a weekend vacation to the Smoky Mountains the weekend before Christmas. It snowed on our way there and it was beautiful (minus the part about being stuck in a Cadillac for almost an hour stranded on the side of a mountain looking at a huge drop off!!).

Then it was Christmas time at the Taylor house. We had a great Christmas!!

If this post did anything at all, it showed me that I do not take enough pictures of the important things. Plus, I'm never in the pictures. I hope 2010 is different! I didn't get any pictures on New Years Eve or NYDay. I think I'll add that to my list of resolutions... speaking of... here they are!!

Take more pictures! I feel like pictures document our lives. We will always have the memories, but it's nice to have pictures to jog our memory, right?

Save more, spend less! Read this post again if you need any sort of description as to why I'm going with this idea. The only big bill we have is our mortgage (plus a small loan). We save money, but I think we should have a lot more stocked back than what we do right now. Of course, we have bought several big ticket items this year (with cash) and we don't have any credit card debt.

Make healthier decisions! I already park at the end of the parking lot when I'm out shopping, but I want to eat better, cook healthier, exercise more, etc... I would love to lose 5-10 pounds in the next month or two!

Read more! I used to read all the time when I was younger. Then came college and I was forced to read for school, so why put myself through more reading at home?? I want to pick the habit back up.

These are the only four I'm willing to publicly announce. That way you can't hold me accountable for every resolution I've made!!

I hate to see 2009 go; it was a great year, but I'm looking forward to what 2010 brings!

Happy New Year!!!

Dixon/Miles Family Christmas

Christmas Day about 5pm family started arriving at the house. About half of them had seen my house, and half hadn't so I became a quick tour guide. I was glad people finally came over. I've lived there for almost two years! Ha! Anyway, they came over and brought food! Brad cooked his famous chili (without all the hot/spicy seasoning), Shelly brought her baked potato soup and we had plenty of rotel and taco soup and dessert for about 20 more people. I was afraid my small kitchen wouldn't hold us all, but it did. I think we were almost comfortable too!

After we all ate it was time for gifts. All of the younger grandchildren (Mama Lynn has 5 grand ages 27, 25, 13, 10, 8 and 1 great-grand age 4) opened gifts {Courtney and I are no longer "grandchildren" when it comes to gift :(}. After they finished it was time for Dirty Santa. There were some good gifts and some were questionable (like the Obama puzzle someone brought. HA!)

The twins thought something was funny...
{Aunt Biggen and Mama Lynn with John Aaron and Savannah Grace}

Uncle Greg (my mom's brother) and Aunt Sonja

John Aaron and Uncle Mike

Savannah opening a gift...

Amos playing with his new toy... an octopus.

Not sure what was so funny, but everyone is smiling or laughing...

This was our last and final Christmas get-together... or so I thought. Stay tuned!!

Tennyson Family Christmas

I left Brad's parents and went to my grandparents' house. Every year we meet there at lunch to eat and visit. There are my grandparents, three children (plus two wives), 9 grandchildren (plus 4 spouses), and 6 great grandchildren plus one more on the way. Not everyone could make it this year but we still had a crowd. We ate some good food and chatted for a while. The great-grandchildren opened up gifts and then I was off to my house.

At this point it was 2pm (yes, this was my 3rd stop before 2pm) and I had people coming to my house at 5. I hurried home and Brad's parents, brother and sister pulled up right after I got there. His dad wanted to help us set up the new TV! They left shortly after and I went to work finishing up the house. Brad did a really good job working on things! He knew if he was going to miss my family dinner that he better make a big impact on the house cleaning. HA! We finished up right when one aunt and uncle and cousin came in!

*No pictures were taken at the Tennyson Christmas.*

Taylor Christmas Morning

Brad and I left my parents' house and headed for his parents' house. They had already had breakfast and were waiting on us to open gifts. Yep, more gifts to open! We walked in the door and were greeted by this... Obie dressed as Santa Claus/Santa Dog.

We had to wait on Clay, Brad's brother. He moves at his own pace. Anywho, then the gift opening started. First up was Obie. His "mom" got him a doggie Snuggie. He wasn't too fond of it at first, but I think he'll warm up to it... ha... I made a funny.

Next up was Clay. He'll be moving to Texas in the next few weeks. One of his gifts was a new TV! It's one I've never seen before... looks more like a Mac than a TV (white surround instead of black).

Mrs. Julia wanted to strike a pose with her little Santa Dog. He wasn't happy about the hat though. After the picture, he pawed it off of his head.

This picture just cracks me up. One of Mrs. Julia's gifts was a pasta maker. She plans on using it to roll out the fondant instead of kneading it by hand for so long. She was telling me how she plans on using it when Brad snapped this picture. It looks like she's giving me a "talking to" about something. Ha!

Mr. Joel was pretty excited about one of his gifts... a flying helicopter. He plans on flying it around the house. Let's see how long that lasts with Amos in the room!

See, I was there too. Brad snapped this one and gave me a little warning. See that "SONY" next to Clay's hand? That's our gift. His parents got us a super nice flat screen TV!!

After the unwrapping and clean up, Mrs. Julia wanted Obie to try on his new Snuggie. He wasn't really sure what to think about being snuggled!

Brad and I parted ways at this point. I went to the Tennysons Family Christmas Lunch and Brad stayed a little while longer at his parents then went home to finish the cleaning. Before you say "you made him clean again?!" let me tell you that I gave him two choices. One was going home and finishing up the house and the other was going with me to my dad's family's Christmas. Enough said.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Day started off pretty early at our house! We were up by 6:00am (correction: I was up then, it took Brad quite a big longer to get out of bed!). We got ready for the day and headed to Walnut, to my parents house. Mom cooked breakfast for us, but we were pretty stuffed from Christmas Eve! Courtney and Chloe came over and we opened gifts. Chloe was super excited about her gifts (a BB gun, an easel, and a few other things). Dad had two deer heads mounted for Brad for Christmas (EWW) and he got a couple of other gifts. I ended up with a nice coat and a digital camera plus a sweater! Courtney got a pink iPod, a sweater and a few other things. I didn't do a good job of keeping up with hers- I was too busy opening my own! Mom and dad didn't want us spending a lot of money on them this year, so I got mom a wallet and dad a new pair of house shoes and a DVD for his new DVD player mom bought him. Lightening struck their house a few months ago and it blew up the DVD player! We didn't get to stay long though!

Chloe playing with her new easel...

She said "look, I'm a reindeer!"

Opening her new BB gun.

Christmas Eve with Dixons and Taylors

Brad and I left our house about 4:00pm headed to my mom's church for our annual Dixon dinner (or as Brad likes to call it... our "family reunion"). We had a pretty good crowd this year and there was tons of food. I ate a little, but Brad didn't eat anything (more on that later). We had a good time talking and seeing family that I hardly ever see-- and picking on people! Ha! The weather was terrible though!! It was a rough drive to the church, but it was even worse when we left. Brad had to carry me to the car (the parking lot was under water!!). Then he drove like 40mph on our way to his parents' house. It was raining so hard that we could barely see the road. To make matters worse, we were in my car and not Brad's truck so we were getting blown around on the road.

Sorry for not having any pictures, but it was raining so hard when we got to the church that I didnt want to get the camera bag out!

We finally made it to Brad's parents and it wasn't raining as bad in town. Normally, Brad's grandparents host Christmas Dinner at their house and Brad's two uncles, two aunts and cousins come. This year was a little different. Brad's grandfather was admitted to the hospital the day before Christmas Eve with (what we think was) a sever case of the stomach virus. So, we spent the evening apart. Brad's mom cooked dinner for us and Brad's brother and sister. There was a ton of yummy food so Brad ate two plates and I might have had a little more. Don't worry, I did skip dessert

My mother-in-law, Mrs. Julia

My sister-in-law, Susan
My brother-in-law, Clay
My father-in-law, Mr. Joel

and their dog, Obie

and in case you need proof I was there....

Brad was the designated photographer for the night so that explains why he wasn't taking any with me in the picture! Ha! We normally open one gift on Christmas Eve with the Taylors, but we decided to wait until Christmas Day.