Our Housewarming Party

Well, we knew at some point we would want to have our closest friends and family over to see our new home. However, I also knew it would be a while, because I needed everything in place, hung on the walls and cleaned as best I could do. So, we decided the first weekend in June would be perfect. We set our housewarming party for June 2. We had so many people stop by. I was actually surprised at all the people who actually did. It meant so much to Eric and I and we felt so blessed by everyone. Not only did we have so many close friends and family come by, so many people gave us sweet gifts too. I was overwhelmed and completely in awe at the amazing people in our lives! The party wouldn't have been possible without the awesome help of my amazing mother and sister. They came over the night before and began helping me cook some of the food and helped clean and get the house in tip-top fashion. Not only their help, but my lovely husbands help as well. We were so glad we could have everyone over... it was so much fun!

The Food Table

My sweet hubby and I

Some of our sweet church friends

Eric's parents even came down--- Ryan too! :)

The sweet Reed family came to see us--- even before their BIG move to Chi-town... We felt so special that they took the time to come out and see us. Bitterswwet good-bye for sure :(

The sweet Howse Family came by and visited a while... they are such special people in our lives!

All of our sweet, beautiful gifts...they already have a perfect home

The cake pops my sweet friend Katie made for me to give our guests as favors. They were so yummy! And such a hit!

Catching up a bit.... A BIG bit

Well, 2012 started off quickly and hasn't slowed down much at all, considering in one more day it will be July and I Am just now posting from January. Wow! January... hmmm... Well, we started the new year off right. HOUSE HUNTING! The second week in January, my sister and I went looking at about 15 different houses in ONE DAY! I narrowed it down to about 4-5 that I really liked and the next day, Eric went back with me. We fell in love with one house. We wanted to think about it and pray about it before jumping in and making a big decision first. But after much thought, we made an offer! We went back and forth with counter offers, but about 2 weeks later, the offer was finalized and we would be homeowners soon! Wow! Then February came... we went and saw Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan in concert in Jonesboro with our brother and sister. That was part of Eric's birthday present. It was a lot of fun! Ryan got to come back to town with us and stayed the night and then we hung out the next day together. We celebrated our first Valentine's Day as a married couple... I made a sit-down dinner at home and we had a sweet, candle-lit dinner in our apartment. It was special. February flew on by, then came March. Busy, busy.... Eric did some traveling for work and for Brannon to make some extra money on top of our normal busy work schedules. We began moving March 9 and 10th. We would have never made it without the help of our friends and family! We were so thankful! We celebrated Mom's birthday at our house... it was our first time to have people over. We grilled out some steaks. It was a great way to start out the "get togethers." The very last day of March was our little Bella's 1st Birthday. We didn't celebrate until we were both off together and could get her a special treat. We did that on our anniversary... we went to Three Dog Bakery and got her a cake that had her name and a "1" on it. It was PB flavored. She LOVED IT. April came and we celebrated our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I can't believe it has already been a year... well now a year and 3 months... we celebrated by eating out at 'Flight.' It is a nice, upscale restraunt in downtown Memphis. It was soooo good and sooo worth going. We came back home and pulled out our wedding cake. It was ok and we were completely STUFFED from dinner but I think it probably didn't get wrapped good at the beach either. We took a few pics and I slipped back into my beautiful wedding gown! Made me feel good that I hadn't gained too much weight in a year :) I surprised Eric and walked up the stairs in my gown and sat on the couch with him and watched the NCAA championship game--- not too many wives would do something like that! April flew by and then came May and June... not too many exciting things happened. Some graduations, traveled to MO town for the day and Eric's parents came here for a weekend. We celebrated Mother's Day at Mom's house... it was a little difficult this year for me. (I will post about that in my next post, for you to read) We celebrated Memorial Day at the pool, like always. I will start fresh with June in a new post... for now, enjoy a few pics... :)

Concert in Jonesboro

Our Valentine's Day dinner

Us in front of our new home!

Mom's Birthday dinner

Bella Faye is 1!!!!

Anniversary dinner at Flight

Happy Mother's Day 2012

WAY Behind....Christmas 2011

Ok, so I am totally awful at this blogging thing... The only reason I can say I am doing it now is so I can print a blog book and have as a memory. I can't imagine how people with children and such busy lives even attempt, but here goes... Christmas this year, rather PAST year, was different... first, it was our first Christmas being MARRIED! Second, it will always be different because Eric's a cop and I'm a nurse. We will always have to work sometimes. We made a short trip up to Missouri to see his family and do a small Christmas get together, except the only days we were able to go up was during the week and his Dad wasn't even home. We had to come back to town, because I was suppose to work Christmas Eve. Luckily, I got LOW (lack of work), which I was very thankful for. One, because Eric was off, but had to work Christmas Day. And two, because I was beginning to get sick. Since I got to stay home, we did our Christmas together on Christmas Eve morning. We just hung out at the apartment most of the day and then went to the Christmas Eve service at church later that night. Then we headed to my parents house to celebrate my dads birthday that day and just hang out with the family a little. Mom made some yummu "finger-type" foods that we got to munch on throughout the night. The next day was Christmas Day... and I felt AWFUL! I slept probably half the day away, laid on the couch and watched TV all day and waited on Eric to get home from work so we could head back to my parents for Christmas dinner and time with them and my Granny. This is when we opened our gifts as well. Needless to say, it was a different Christmas for sure- but we made it through. Hopefully next year will be a little better- however, it doesn't really matter, because Jesus is the reason for the season afterall. Here are a few pics from our Christmas... Our first Christmas Tree together :) (I bought all new ornaments this year to do a red and green theme... I loved how it turned out!) Family time with my Dads brothers side of the family Our family's first Christmas 2011 All of our Christmas cards hanging... We are so loved! :)

Nashvegas Bound

Back in Decemeber, at the beginning of the month, we took just a quick 2 day trip to Nashville. We wanted to just get away for a couple days and this seemed to be all we could fit in our busy schedules. So we left on a Wednesday and came back the next night. The morning we got up to leave, we were a little surprised to white stuff on the ground. That's a pretty early snow for Memphis! We let Bella play for a bit, but we had to get ready to leave town and take Bella to her friends, The Howse's. We had a packed agenda once we made it. We went to see the ICE show with the Madagascar characters. That was an experience... we got dressed in the huge heavy coats and got to walk around and see all of the different ice sculptures. At the end, there was a slide made out of ice that you could slide down... it was so fun, so fun that I slid twice! Such a kid! :)





Later that evening, we went for our second General Jackson Showboat dinner cruise. Back when we first started dating, Eric surprised me with a quick Nashville get away and we went and did the dinner cruise then too. There is a full course meal served along with a singing and dancing show. I figured it would be memorable and what better time to go watch a show than Christmas!? It was fun and most definitely brought back sweet memories! Later that night, we came back to the hotel (we stayed at the Opryland). I had never been there at Christmas and so I wanted to see all the lights and glory! So we walked around the hotel for a while before coming back to the room.







The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel, just a small bistro type breakfast and then were on our way to shop and The Cheesecake Factory! Since the OpryMills mall was down from the flood last spring, we went on to the Greenhill Mall instead. And we didn't even buy a single thing! Since there wasn't much left to do in the time we had, we went ahead and ate lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. That was Eric's first time to have eaten there, but I'm sure it won't be his last! We were so stuffed from lunch, we had to bring our cheesecake home!
Here are a few pics of our getaway!

Work Christmas Party

My work Christmas party was on December 17. We had it for the second year at Amy O's. house... we didn't have as many this year as last, but it was still fun! We had some yummy finger foods and also did a dirty santa gift exchange. I actually went home with a decent gift this year, compared to last. I got a cinnamon candle and a Christmas towel/potholder set. Later on in the night, the girls ended up having some fun dancing in the living room... here are some pics!

Meet Chef Eric and Laci

Last Christmas, Mom got us Viking Cooking School gift certificates. We knew we were going to have to use them soon prior to the end of the year. So, we booked a romantic date night. We were a little "iffy" about going but once we got there and warmed up a little, we had fun! We made some different and unique things... including some type of sauteed mushroom appetizer, sweet potato crusted scallops (which I didn't like), a tossed mixture of greens with apples and a homemade vinaigrette dressing and a seared pork steak. For dessert we had some delicious chocolate covered crepes with strawberries.
It was something fun and something different for us to do together besides eating out.



Mom had gotten us these cute aprons last Christmas to go with our gift cards. We hadn't used them until now. Of course, Eric didn't really want to, he felt dumb but once we got there, they had aprons for us all to put on prior to beginning to cook. Once we found out we would be the styling chefs, it made it all the better! :)

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