My quarter century birthday

Thursday was my big 2-5! I have a feeling I'm always still going to feel young for a long time, because I'm the youngest in my group of friends - not to mention that hubs is 7 years older than me. This week was tons of fun celebrating my quarter century of life.

Tuesday

My thoughtful hubby surprised me with these roses after work, because he knew I'd be busy the next two days.

Wednesday

We went to dinner at J's coworker's house. Thank you Kim for the delicious meal!

Thursday

My coworker and friend gave me with this wine glass gift - how perfect right?! Thanks Sabrina!!

"Hooray for Chardonnay!"

For lunch I went to Zen Sushi with my coworkers. Yum!




Kohaku Roll

Then after work several friends joined me for happy hour at Cafeteria. I think we had a good dozen people there and it was a lot of fun. We even somehow convinced J to go to Faces with us for a bit. That's one for the record books!

My older sister brought balloons and my younger sister gave me a beautiful framed collage of all my favorite wedding photos :)

Saturday
I did some shopping in the morning. Among several other things, I got this dress. It was originally $70, on sale for half off, plus I had a $10 off coupon. $25! I'll probably wear it to a wedding next weekend.

We had dinner at Chicago Fire (my fave) with my parents and sister, then headed to Raley Field for a River Cats game. My mom brought this beautiful bouquet of flowers from her yard when we met at our house beforehand.

Sadly, I forgot my camera that night. We witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets ever, and of course I always love going to the game on Saturday nights because they have fireworks afterwards! All the little kids around us cheering, screaming and jumping for joy at the fireworks display was hilarious!

Sunday
This wasn't for my birthday, but we went refrigerator shopping and then spontaneously decided to drop by a granite and tile warehouse to get ideas for our future kitchen and bathrooms :) It was sooo much fun and we came away from it with an agreement on colors and styles we like. I told J it was one of my favorite dates we've ever been on - I LOVE home decor/renovation stuff and I can't wait to get started!!

Overall, I really felt the love and was so honored that family and friends were sweet enough to give me a gift, a card, a text message or come spend time with me!

24 was a great year for me.

• The best thing that happened was that I married my husband. He's perfect for me!
• My parents also moved to this area, which I have loved loved loved.
• We hosted our first tacky holiday sweater party, a dream of mine for far too long!
• We started house hunting and while we're not quite there, we're in a good place when it comes to our future home.
• I had many great times with fabulous friends - most of which I didn't blog about, unfortunately.

As my 25th year begins, I have some great plans for it!

Christmas weekend recap

There's not much to say about Christmas 2010. Not that it wasn't great... it was just a low key holiday spent with family. James' parents came over on Christmas Eve for dinner. We gave his mom an album of our wedding that I made on Shutterfly (I'm planning to make a larger one for us that I'll share here). She gave me a super cute scarf that I love.

Early the next morning we set out for my parents' house where my whole immediate family plus grandma and my aunt and uncle joined for dinner.

We also did our secret santa gift exchange... James and I had each other and managed to keep that a secret for the past month! I got him a few t-shirts and DVDs he asked for - Avatar and the World Series 2010 8-disc set.

He got me just what I asked for - a long necklace and Sliding Into Home by Kendra Wilkinson (I already finished it!). Plus a cute little cheese server set.

I stayed at my parents' house until Monday to help them pack... they're moving closer to me! They've always lived about 100 miles away, and now they'll be just about 20. My dad has a great new job in this area. This weekend we'll be helping with the big move.

I don't care what your mama says, Christmas time is here!

Anyone familiar with this song? I woke up singing it this morning. So funny! (It doesn't start until :18 in)

Today I'm working a half day, then will be off for a whole week!! I'm so excited for this "Christmas break" - my first one since my last year of college three years ago!

Tonight we're having James' mom over for Christmas Eve dinner. It's a simple menu but it's going to be good! I'm making ham, caesar salad, and creme brulee for dessert (which I've never made before)! I also picked up some King's Hawaiian rolls :) I didn't want to go all out because it's only the three of us, and we'd be drowning in leftovers.

Rita's bringing Filipino food - I think fried rice and lumpia.

Tomorrow morning we're off to my parents' house! For the rest of the week I'm thrilled at the idea of relaxing and getting things done around the house. Happy holidays to you and yours!

Our first Christmas cards

Last week I sent the free Christmas cards that I blogged about last month. We did have to pay for shipping them to us, then postage to send them to our family and friends... but it's still a pretty good deal! The 50 that I received for free was the perfect amount.

I went with this style and chose 4 black and white photos from our wedding day. I think they're pretty cute and have received several compliments on them!

Tacky holiday sweater party!

On Friday James and I hosted a tacky holiday sweater party.

10 of our friends joined us... it was so much fun!

We had everyone vote for the tackiest male and female sweaters - the winners got an ornament and gift card to Old Navy. Dave (in the green above) and Megan (second from the left in white below) won... they both made their sweaters! Actually there were a lot of homemade ones, which was cool.

 Here's everyone!

We'll absolutely be doing this again next year!

I have a confession to make...

I started decorating out house for Christmas in early November. I couldn't help it - I love Christmas so much!

I didn't put up the tree at that time, but I did put up a few details. Nothing extravagent but I like coming home to it every night!

This pinecone garland from Michael's is over the kitchen window (and the snowflakes are in the window that I'll show you later):

Love the lighted garland over the dining room window (I can't get a good picture but you can see it here at our Thanksgiving dinner):

I made this "happy holidays" banner over the arch in the living room:

And a few more itmes were out early, like this basket of scented pinecones in the bathroom:

Our tree didn't go up immediately, but it was there over a week before Thanksgiving. I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think you have to enjoy it for that 4-day weekend!

We don't have a fireplace so I hung our stockings behind the tree.

I put snowflakes in the windows (that I mentioned previously). Those are hard to get a good picture of! This is at night, with flash:

And without flash:

I also put mistletoe over 3 archways throughout the living area.

I was driving with my family in the country after wine tasting, and my dad commented on how much mistletoe there was in the trees. He probably regretted that, because we insisted that he pull over so that we could collect some! We spotted a cluster low enough and I ran out in the rain to get it... totally worth it because it's adorable!

And the last touch that just went up on Tuesday was these fresh wreaths (from Trader Joe's) in the living room!

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!