January Birthdays

My last week off we celebrated some birthdays in our family.

First was dinner at Outback with my parents to celebrate my mom's birthday.

On Saturday night we celebrated our nephew's birthday. He turned the big 3-0!

Sunday afternoon we celebrated our niece's birthday with cookie cake.

Jason and his sister.

Happy Birthday Everyone!!

2013 Year in Review

2013 was certainly an eventful year!

January

We got to meet sweet Ruth.

And we went to Gatlinburg for a weekend getaway with friends.

February

Jason had his accident.

March

Jason and I went with my parents to Nashville to sight see and visit family.

And we got to meet Smokey X!

Jason turned 30, and I gave him a surprise birthday party!

April

We went to the Orange and White game in Knoxville.

May

We took a trip to the beach with my parents.

We celebrated 2 years of marriage!

June

Sweet Scarlett joined our family.

July

We celebrated my birthday with family.

August

Ramsey visited us from North Carolina, and Scarlett went to the lake for the first time.

My mom and I hosted a baby shower for MC.

September

We spent a week at Disney World with some of Jason's family!

October

Probably the most eventful month of the year!

We celebrated Charles's birthday and went to Tennessee for a family baby shower.

Jason performed the wedding ceremony for a cousin and his new bride.

We took a weekend trip to Pigeon Forge and while we were gone our nephew was born!

We also had our family photo for our Christmas card made.

November

We had a full house of friends visit for Thanksgiving and hosted Jason's family meal at our house.

We went to the Georgia vs Georgia Tech game.

December

We visited the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Brasstown Bald.

We celebrated Christmas with our families.

We are thankful for all the blessings of 2013 and look forward to what 2014 has in store!

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2013

This year I had Christmas week off.

We started the week off with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate MC's birthday.

Jason and Baby C, MC opening gifts, delicious cheesecake

On Christmas Eve I baked cookies and wrapped gifts while Jason worked on his truck. That evening we went to Jason's aunt's house for Christmas Eve dinner with family. 

Christmas morning Jason and I opened our gifts to each other before eating breakfast at my parent's house. After breakfast we got ready and went to Jason's parent's house for Christmas dinner.  We had a delicious dinner, played bingo, opened gifts, and exchanged white elephant gifts.

the tree

It's a tradition to take photos in front of the fireplace every year.

Jason's mom and dad, Sparky, and Bella

Us with our pups!

We had Christmas dinner with my family the day after Christmas. 

the tree

Stockings on the mantle

Baby C's first Christmas; He slept through opening the gifts

Hanging out with baby C

A little smile

Family photo- only missing Scarlett!

We had a chill weekend and I got a lot done around the house. Now we have a clean house and all of the Christmas decorations are put away until next year.  

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Family Photo

Jason and I had not had professional pictures made since our wedding, so we decided to have some made for our Christmas card picture this year. 

In October we met our photographer at a beautiful park to make some pictures. She didn't even mind that we wanted our dogs in the picture too. Trying to pose with the dogs was no easy task, especially with lots of people and other dogs around! There are definitely pictures where the dogs are not looking at the camera! But we had some really great ones also.

Here's the one we used for our Christmas card:

Merry Christmas from the Ellis family:

Jason, Kristen, Daisy Duke, and Scarlett

photo by Denise Jones Photography

Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Brasstown Bald

It's the start of another work week. Last week was a great week off though. It was definitely a busy one, but there was a lot of fun involved too!

Monday night our small group wrapped up for the semester. We really enjoyed hosting and making some new friends!

Tuesday, I spent the day with my mom. We finished up some Christmas shopping, had lunch, and went through some of Nana and Papa's Christmas ornaments. 

Wednesday was a beautiful day, so the pups and I enjoyed the sunshine with a nice, long walk through our neighborhood. Wednesday night Jason and I had date night in Atlanta. We had a delicious dinner at Mary Mac's Tea Room. Then we went the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights. We had never been before, and it was really cool!

Outside Mary Mac's, shrubbery sculpture of a woman with lights for hair, poinsettia tree, butterfly lights.

Thursday was a chill day. I did take the pups on another walk since the sun was out again. Jason had Christmas dinner with some friends. Our local Chili's was doing free dessert for father-daughter date night, so I had dinner with my parents and got a free chocolate molten cake. Yum!

Jason was able to take Friday off, so we went for a hike at Brasstown Bald where we got engaged four years ago. We saw some beautiful views of God's amazing creation.

Beautiful views, a picture in the same spot Jason asked me to marry him, and the Brasstown Bald sign.

Saturday night we went to a Christmas party at a friend's house. It's hard to believe Christmas is less than two weeks away!

Sunday, we went to church and had lunch with friends. We relaxed at the house this afternoon before taking the pups to Petsmart for new treats and a trip to get groceries for the week. 

That sums up our week. Here's to the start of a new week!

Thanksgiving 2013

Jason and I had a very busy Thanksgiving week!
Our friends from North Carolina were supposed to come down on Wednesday but bad weather in the forecast forced them to come down a little early. Ramsey arrived on Tuesday afternoon and was able to have dinner with us that night. Brandon and Jenny and the kids didn't arrive until late Tuesday night. On Wednesday we split up- the boys went to do their own thing and the girls did some shopping. We came back together for a lasagna dinner. 

This was our first Thanksgiving in our house, so we hosted Jason's family on Thanksgiving this year. Everyone came over around lunch time. We had all kinds of delicious food! We were all stuffed. Jason set up a hayride in our backyard for the kids which was a lot of fun. After a full day of family and friends, we got comfy and watched a movie. 

Snuggling pups!

On Friday we all did some shopping. We didn't get up really early or anything though. We got to Bass Pro Shops around 8 or 8:30. Then the boys and the girls split up again! The boys went to Harbor Freight and Northern Tool while the girls were at Target and Petsmart. We met back up for a pizza lunch. After lunch the girls headed back home to do cooking for the Kinamon Thanksgiving. Around four we all headed over to my parent's house to have Thanksgiving number two! We had more delicious food and ended up stuffed again. After dinner we all headed back to our house to make this year's family portrait. It took a few tries. We added two dogs and a baby since last year!

Family photo 2013

Saturday morning Brandon and Jenny and the kids headed home. That afternoon Jason, Ramsey, David, and I went to Atlanta for the the Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game. We tailgated with some friends before the game started and some of the band stopped by to play a song.

Ga Tech band

It was interesting to be back at my old stomping grounds and see how much the campus has changed in the last few years! The game was at 3:30, so we were able to see the sunset over Atlanta from our seats.

Sunset sky at half time

It ended up being a close game and going into overtime, but Georgia finally took the win!

Sunday morning we took Ramsey to Passion City Church in Atlanta. Jason's mom went with us too! Then after lunch we celebrated our niece's 14th birthday with cookie cake.

Batman cookie cake

And that was our Thanksgiving week. It was busy but fun. We are thankful to have spent so much time with our family and friends.

Disney: Magic Kingdom

I'm finally getting around to posting about our trip to Disney World in September. Jason and I took this trip with his family. Neither of us had been to Disney since we were kids, and we had never been to a couple of the parks.

Our first day was spent at the Magic Kingdom. 

We spent the day going through the entire park. We rode all the roller coasters and saw two parades! My favorite ride was the Big Thunder Mountain Coaster, and Jason liked Splash Mountain the best. We really enjoyed seeing Cinderella's castle and the electrical parade.

Cinderella's Castle

Mickey and Minnie

Princess float in the character parade

Electrical Parade

By the time the electrical parade finished up we were exhausted. It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun!

An Update

Well, it's been awhile. Unfortunately, being busy and having construction workers on our street knock out our cable/internet three times over the last couple of weeks have kept me from blogging.

My last off week we had a lot happening! 

It started off with a great small group on Monday night.

Tuesday, Jason and I took the pups on a long walk. We found a really nice trail near our house that follows a river.

Taking a break by the water

Tuesday night the family went out to dinner to celebrate Charles's birthday. We had a delicious dinner at Olive Garden and even got free dessert!

Singing "Happy Birthday"!

Wednesday was an around the house day. The bug man and the cable man both came by, so I had to be  at the house. I did get out for dinner with Jason and some of our friends at Outback.

Thursday was a really fun day. I got to have lunch with my dad and do a little shopping. I bought a few new fall things at the Loft and got some decorations for the house at Hobby Lobby. That evening after dinner, Jason and I went to a nearby fair. It was free admission night! We didn't ride any of the rides, but we did check out the horse show, petting zoo, tractor display, and have a funnel cake!

Friday was a chill day which was good. Saturday, we headed up to Chattanooga to meet some of my aunts and uncles and cousins for a surprise baby shower for MC. She was definitely surprised, and we all had a good time. 

Diaper Cake

Opening gifts- My aunt made this blanket for Baby C

My aunt also made this cake! It was delicious! All the baby shapes are pieces of chocolate.

Since we were already so close, Jason and I went with Mom and Dad up to their new property. We wanted to check it out! It was pretty grown up so we came prepared with boots, machetes, and a chainsaw attachment for Jason's weed eater. I'm glad we got to see where Mom and Dad will be building their house. It's definitely a nice piece of property in a nice area.

Daddy and I with our tools!

Sunday, we went to church and did our grocery shopping. Then we had some of our friends over for dinner. It was good to catch up with them! 

After dinner we headed over to do a physical assessment with our new personal trainer. She is a very close friend of ours who trains out of her basement. We're going to try to have sessions with her twice a week. I love working out, and I'm excited to be able to make it something Jason and I can do together. Our first official session was Monday afternoon, and it went really well. 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

I'm looking forward to the start of another off week, and hopefully finding some time to post about our Disney trip and the wedding we went to this weekend.

Blogtember: Life Lately

Monday, September 23: A "life lately" post. What you're up to, how you're feeling, how you're doing on your goals, etc.
Life lately has been very busy. Last week we were out of town- at Disney World! It was a great family vacation. We had a wonderful and exhausting time! I'm going to share the photo collages I made for each day, then next week I plan to share more pictures and more details.

Magic Kingdom: Cinderella's castle, afternoon parade, Electrical Parade

Hollywood Studios: Lightening McQueen and Tow-mater, main drag, Tower of Terror, main entrance

Downtown Disney: us at Rainforest Cafe, dragon made of Legos, sunset over the water, TRex Restaurant

Animal Kingdom: main entrance, giraffes, Tree of Life, elephant

Epcot: us at a show, France, the giant ball, main entrance

Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure: Transformers ride, pharmacy, main entrance

Tonight begins small group at our house. We decided to be a host home this time around, so Sunday we spent most of the day getting the house cleaned up and ready.

As far as goals go, in the spring I decided to start working out again. I have stuck with it, except for our vacations. Last week we walked a lot, but we didn't eat very well. This week I am looking forward to getting back on track with my workouts and eating better. Jason and I went grocery shopping and tried to stock up on lots of healthy items!

This week it's back to work. Hope everyone has a great week!