What I'm Loving Wednesday

{one}

How amazing are these cookies??!! They are from Oh Sugar Events....maybe one day I will be that talented with icing!

{two}

I love this cute idea I saw on Pinterest. I will be doing this for my root beer loving hubby and dad!

{three}

LOVE these entryway staircases....one day I will have something similar.

{four}

Mmmmm....Biscoff. I love when they give you these cookies on Delta flights...I also bought some at Walgreens this week on sale.

{five}

Mama Mia's Pizza in Collierville. Have ya'll been there...so good!

{six}

I am loving all of the holiday movies that are on TV right now.

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge-Favorite Holiday Tradition

Today the topic is your Favorite Holiday Tradition. I loved the fact that when Joe and I got married, we got to start some new holiday traditions of our own. We always try to put the tree/decorations up by Dec. 1st. We do it while watching Elf or listening to Christmas music. Joe always puts the star on the top of the tree.

That night we usually go downtown to The Peabody and look at the big Christmas tree in the lobby....sometimes we do not make it the same night as putting up the tree, but we will make it down there at some point before Christmas.

Read about some more of our traditions here.

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge-Favorite Gift Received

Today I am linking up for Day #1 of Amber and Neely's Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge.

Today the topic is your favorite gift ever received....It's really hard for me to just pick one, so I am going to share my favorite gifts that I got as a child and my favorite grown up gifts.

I got the Samantha American Girl doll...my parents made a scavenger hunt for me to find her. I loved her!

A few years later I got a trampoline. My dad had set it up with a friend during Christmas Eve festivities. I had no idea it was in the backyard until I unwrapped a "No Trespassing" sign.

During our first married Christmas, Joe gave me two awesome gifts....Disney tickets!!

and REAL black Chanel sunglasses. Can you believe that it was almost 6 years ago and I still wear these almost everyday...awesome gift!!

Want to play along? Here are the topics:

Tuesday November 29th: Fave holiday tradition, new or old

Wednesday November 30th: Holiday decorations/decor

Thursday December 1st: Favorite Holiday movies/tv specials

Friday December 2nd: Ideal outfit for Christmas/NYE festivities

Monday December 5th: Christmas dessert/treat recipe
Tuesday December 6th: How do you celebrate the holidays? Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, etc.
Wednesday December 7th: Christmas wish list

Thursday December 8th: 2012 goals/resolutions

Friday December 9th: NYE memories/pictures

Weekend Wrap Up!!

What a nice LONG weekend. We headed to Minnesota on Wednesday afternoon and came back on Saturday morning. We had a great time visiting with family and I even did some shopping with the girls on Black Friday.

I wanted to show you a picture comparison...

Me at 7 weeks at the Minnesota airport (July)

Me at 27 weeks at the Minnesota airport....quite a difference huh?

Joe and I on Thanksgiving....gobble, gobble! I already blogged about it once, but the ladies in Joe's family had a surprise shower for me. Sally and I got some many cute things!!

On Friday, Peggy (Joe's mom) and I got up early and went shopping with Joe's brother's wife (also named Sarah) . We hit up Herberger's (dept. store up there), Old Navy, Target, Home Depot, Bath and Body Works, Khols, etc.

After some lunch we met up with Joe's cousin's wife and Joe's Aunt and went to IKEA.

I took some pictures to show you of all the things that I was loving at IKEA

Loved this kitchen.... white countertops, big white farm house sink, etc.

Cheap chairs!!

Here is a really cute chandelier...perfect for a baby's room....and only $39. This is the one that we were going to get before we found our current one.

I loved this industrial lighting!

Look!!! I found a mirror that would be perfect for the project like Joe and I did in Sally's room....we already had one though. But, if you like what we did and want to do it yourself.....they have perfect mirrors at IKEA...$29.99.

We had to get up SUPER early on Saturday morning in order to make our 6:50 am flight. We relaxed for several hours when we got home and worked in the nursery. In the afternoon we went to Itty Bitty Bella and got our car seat. I knew the one I wanted and I have had a hard time finding it in stock, so we went ahead and just bought it. Joe was so excited, he took it out of the box and installed it in his car right away.

We also registered. Joe was in charge of the gun and he picked out his "man" diaper bag.

We are registered at Amazon.com (Baby Registry),

Target,

and Babies R Us.

Feel free to check out our registries and let me know if I left off anything that I NEED to have. We stopped for dinner at Mama Mia's in Collierville. They have super yummy pizza and I had a Groupon thingy, so dinner was only $5 including tip.

On Sunday I went to the grocery store, worked in the nursery, and made chili and cowboy cookies.

Asheville Babymoon

I realized that I never posted about our Babymoon trip to Asheville, NC over Fall Break. We got there super late/early in the morning. Here is where we stayed. Asheville Swiss Chalets in the Alpine cabin. we loved these cabins and would for sure stay here again. They are really neat cabins nestled up on a mountain....and they are dog friendly. Yup, we brought hank on his first ever vacation. He thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Here is our cabin.

The kitchen

Dining Area

Bedroom

Living Room with fire place

Our Cabin

When we woke up the next morning we decided to explore the city. We stopped for breakfast at City Bakery Cafe. It was super yummy!

Joe had a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich

and I had a sticky pecan roll and juice.

Our first stop was the Tobacco Barn.

I had read about this place from several blogs and knew it would be right up our alley...boy, I was right. It's a good thing we did not bring the truck or we would have brought home a lot of neat furniture.

It's a HUGE place full of antiques...we loved this old card catalog.

This whole section was $100...pick anything for $100!!

There were some odd things there too...anyone need a picture backdrop?

Hank waited patiently in the car for us.

After our antique adventure, we decided to take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was beautiful with all of the leaves changing color. It was quite chilly outside so we did not do any hiking. We did take Hank for a few short walks.

He had a blast!

We also walked around downtown Asheville and made a stop at Mast General Store. We left with a super cute alligator rattle for Sally.

We decided to eat lunch at Mellow Mushroom of all places...yes, we have one in Memphis, but this was is really good. It did not disappoint. We had so much pizza left that we ate it for dinner that night at the cabin...yup..we were in bed and watching Dexter on the computer by 8 pm ;) Hey, this is a trip for relaxing, right?

In the mornings, it was so nice to just be able to let Hank out on the porch and in the attached dog run. I'm sure there were so many dog smells for him to explore.

We had breakfast the next morning at Tupelo Honey Cafe...very yummy!

Then we made the trek to The Biltmore. We spent all day there touring the house (no pictures were allowed to be taken inside), exploring the grounds, and visiting the winery.

For dinner Joe was really wanting a burger, so I did some research and found Burgermeisters. It was a little off the beaten path but hit the spot....once again, we went back to the cabin and relaxed after dinner.

Overall we had a very nice and relaxing trip. Hank loved going on vacation and we loved watching him explore.