Dear Secret Santa,

In my family we do a secret santa gift exchange every Christmas instead of buying gifts for everyone. This is the third year we're doing it... we draw names on Thanksgiving and reveal our gift recipients at Christmas. I blogged about it here.

We write our names and what we want on a piece of paper. I just want to help my secret santa out, so here are some more helpful hints:

I would love this necklace that Courtney Cox wears in every episode of Cougar Town.

Well not that actual one, because it retails for $3500. True story! But I've been coveting a similar version in silver since that show started. To help you out, I found a few replicas...

Like this one, from Etsy

And I love the length of this one even more

  

Kohls has one too

I also am very curious to read Kendra Wilkinson's new book, Sliding Into Home.

As for other gifts, the only other thing I can think of is a personalized "Our first married Christmas" ornament :)

Thanksgiving weekend recap

Such a fun weekend! I love hanging out with my family.

Wednesday: Chevy's happy hour after work with James, Mom, Dad & Rose. After that we went to Rose's house and started the first fire of the season.

& got a pic with her tree.

Thursday: We tried on our outfits for our ugly sweater party next weekend (& I didn't wear makeup :)

Cooking fest at my house & the most delicious meal ever with the whole fam (10 people + 1 dog)!

  

Friday: Family game day at our house.

Saturday: Wine tasting with Mom, Dad & Rose.

Sunday: Cleaning, relaxing, & getting ready for our tacky sweater party in just 5 days!

Our wedding day: Beach photoshoot

After our first look at the beach, we did a little bride & groom photoshoot where our photographers got some lovely shots!

I had to decide early on in the day that I couldn't care about getting my dress dirty. You'll see in coming posts that before the ceremony even started it was dirty, wet, sandy and greasy. But this was the only day I could wear it so I might as well wear it out!

They said the pictures would be good if we got closer to the water... at one point a wave came up and was thisclose to soaking my dress! I ran like the wind!

 

Up next: More bride & groom photos. Photos by Tammynize.

Our wedding day: First look

I'm sorry I've been slacking on getting these posted! There are just SO many pictures to go through. I'm going to try the pick up the wedding picture posting pace.

We arranged it so that when I arrived, James would be waiting for me at the beach.

You have to go down a flight of stairs to get there, and he wouldn't see me until I was at the bottom. One of the photographers went down to talk to James first, then called me down. I started crying as I was walking down to him!

My veil un-romantically got caught in the bushes here 

It was pretty funny because when I finally did get down to James and held his hand, he wouldn't turn around! I was like "Okay honey... turn around now!"

My groom looked so handsome! Up next: Beach pictures!