em.j

I'm taking a little break from my 'catching up' posts because I got some fun mail today and just have to blog about it :)

Last week I won a blog giveaway from em.j and my goodies were waiting for me when I got home from work. I won this adorable headband and necklace:

Emily has a new etsy store with other fabulous headbands and necklaces. I'm currently lusting after this beauty:

*Photo from the em.j Facebook fan page

I love it! It's been listed - and sold - twice while I decide if I need to add to my rarely worn jewelry collection. I think on payday I will reward myself for an extra long work week :)

PS - I hate how crappy (and small!) blogger makes photos look. Blah.

Catching up... again (December)

In December:

*I photographed my first birth experience. It was amazing! I have another one scheduled for the end of April and I can't wait. (The full slideshow of the birth is on our business Facebook page.)

*We took Maggie to get her picture taken with Santa at the Lexington Humane Society event called 'Santa Paws.' Unfortunately, when we got there they said pets were not allowed... which I'm still not sure I understand.

*I did a newborn session for Blake's newest nephew - which is the same baby from the birth session above

*I made some adorable birthday party invitations (If I do say so myself!)

*I packed for my month-long trip to TN/FL and took over our bed. Poor Blake.

*Celebrated Uncle Eddie's birthday in TN

*Mimi & Poppi took us to the Symphony

*We had to have our picture taken with Santa while we were there :)

*Visited Great Aunt Dot...

...and Mom's old friends from high school. Ruthie was with us via an iPhone photo :)

*Went to Granny's for Christmas Eve and played Scattergories with the cousins

*Got spoiled on Christmas morning, but we didn't take any photos all day :(

*Drove through downtown Chattanooga and looked at the cute window displays

*Spent a very long time in the car by myself

*Gave Sophie her Christmas presents

*I loved being there to help celebrate Sophie's 1st birthday!

*The Birthday Girl on her first morning as a 1 year old!

*Went shopping at International Mall with the bestie

*Spent quality time with the Baucoms :)

Catching up... again (November)

I've been told that I need to update the blog. This is just for you, Sara! Especially since I'm pretty sure you're the only person who reads this :) I was doing a good job of updating in November! Guess the holiday craziness got to me, then I was out of the habit. So much has happened since my last post that it would make this one WAY too long - so I will make a post for each month.

In November:

*My wrapping paper addiction was confirmed

*I did a little babysitting

*I colored my hair for the first time since college. And even in college, we just did a few 'streaks' - this was all over! I went darker and I loved it. Can't wait to get it re-done :)

*We drove to TN for Thanksgiving. Maggie was a trooper!

*Blake got to open his Christmas presents early because he was on call during Christmas and stayed in Kentucky

*We had our first Gigi's Cupcake - I'm in love! (And the new Gigi's in Lexington just opened! Yay!)

*It was Blake's first time having Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family in Chattanooga. It was also our first time having a deep fried turkey. The first photo is a temperature gun (or something like that) for the fryer. It says 346.4 degrees!!!

*Maggie was being extra cute on Thanksgiving day :)

*Lunch after church with my favorite cousin at my favorite pizza place, Lupi's

*We came back to Kentucky and played with Blake's Christmas presents

*And put up some Christmas decorations

Whew! That was a lot of work. Hopefully I will get around to posting December and January before summer time :)

At this moment 5 years ago...

...Blake was asking me to marry him after only dating for 6 months. We had talked for a while about getting married, and I knew he had already purchased my ring, but I was totally surprised the night he actually proposed! Here are a few photos from that day. (This was before we had a digital camera, so these were taken with a disposable camera and scanned into the computer - yuck!)

Re-enactment :) Boy were we skinny!

I have to explain the ridiculous outfit I was wearing: I was living with Blake's sister at the time, and her oldest son Will was about 4. I stopped at their house after work on my way to see Blake. It was raining when I left, so I borrowed Will's jacket... None of us realized I still had it on until AFTER we had taken all of these pictures! Haha.

Thanks to Channing for taking these for us!

Here are some of the professional engagement photos we had taken a few weeks later.

Can't believe it has been 5 years!

Haaaaave you met Swarley?

Remember Blake's flooded backseat from my previous post? Blake wasn't really happy with his car anyway so rather than dealing with getting it fixed, we got this on Friday:

(Photo from the dealership website)

A 2006 Equinox. Blake took my Malibu and I get the Equinox :) This is by far the brightest vehicle I have ever owned! Haha.

Blake decided we should name it Swarley because "It's a little bit classy and a little bit flashy."

(Any HIMYM fans out there?? I probably just butchered that quote.)

Today I...

-Made our ridiculously expensive car insurance payment. (Gotta love having 2 drivers that are under 25 and 2 wrecks in the past 2 1/2 years.)

-Stopped at a store that was going out of business and was disappointed that things were only 25% off.

-Visited my favorite little shop in downtown Georgetown - that recently opened an online store! - to spend a gift certificate I won. Got a certain sweet girl some presents for her 1st birthday which is approaching way too quickly. (Had to send a photo to her Mom for approval.)

-Made a return at Target

-Did a little shopping at Target and spent MUCH more than the amount I got back for making a return. But I got some really great stuff! :)

-Added my new Christmas wrapping supplies (from Target) to my already embarrassingly large stash

(In case you were wondering: I have over 30 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. I have another 10-15 rolls of paper to use for non-Christmas gifts. Yikes.)

-Made a return at American Eagle and didn't buy anything else. Does that make up for my Target splurge?

-Met Blake at Olive Garden for dinner. We've been doing so good about cooking/eating at home!

-Came home

-Went in the garage to see Blake's flooded backseat (Well, just the floorboard)

-Wrapped my first 3 Christmas presents of the year :)

The wait is over

In my post yesterday, I forgot to mention one tiny thing :) I've been waiting for over a year to get an iPhone, and I'm not a very patient person. My account was eligible for an upgrade on October 7th. I got paid for a week of babysitting on October 8th and promptly drove to BestBuy to pick up this beauty:

16GB iPhone 3Gs - I'm not sure how I survived without it! Blake is quite jealous, but I'm much better about sharing the computer now :)