married couples night.

last night jessie and kayci invited landon and i and aaron and jeanette over for dinner - they just got their grill set up. it was quite fun. the boys played madden, we stuffed ourselves with hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, chips and cookies. the boys left and we girls played dominos and watched madagascar - talking about who else but, the boys. it was good times. the dark-haired girl is jeanette. the other blond is aaron. the dark-haired guy is jessie (gotta get one of those chairs from ikea) and i didn't get a photo of kayci. she's been up on the blog before though. the one of me is courtesy of jessie and his forgetting to use the flash.

the tree is up.

though these photos only show its inbetween stages - our tree is a glorious thing to behold. i will have to take some "after" photos of it. not sure why i didn't think of that before now... anyway...i'm here, putting it up branch-by-branch, looking lovely in the photos taken from "underneath." right. and here's landon (and his booty) stringing the lights like a pro. they seriously look great. jeanette thought we bought it pre-lit. nosireebob. got my baby and his skillz to work it out for me. (sorry, i'm silly today.) you read earlier about how wonderful an experience it was. look back to the post on 11.25 for a reread. it was greatness.

tuna is better than turkey...but we got both.

unfortunate though we lost, it was a fun time. i seriously almost lost my voice from cheering, especially the newman interception. just a pointer for any of you who might ever go to a football game of any variety: no need to cheer during tv timeouts or when your team's offense is about to embark on a crucial play and they need to hear. just stick that away in your "knowledge to call upon later" stash. landon is hot. i love him at cowboys games -- in our season ticket seats nonetheless. there are photos of us, photos of cheering, players and a couple of the halftime show featuring sheryl crow. we MUST win on sunday! horray for the redskins and giants losses - both in OT. crazy NFC East.

thanksgiving photos, part III of III

finally...a rousing round of turkey races (peanuts for the betting), kids with root beer floats and sisters.

thanksgiving photos, part II of III

in these...a pretty mama, mom and grampa and i think kelly is trying to steal abby jane's food!

thanksgiving photos, part II of III

in these...a pretty mama, mom and grampa and i think kelly is trying to steal abby jane's food!

thanksgiving photos, part I of III

there are lots of lovely people in these. cousins, kelly (scott's girlfriend), a handsome husband and many others.

'twas the night before thanksgiving...

...and we ate mexican! it was a lovely time. everyone was there. landon and i spent the night at gramma's - along with 14 other folks - (they have a one-story, relatively small home in south dallas) and it was just so fun. a very traditional piland, gump, (and now) henry thanksgiving holiday. lovely photos for you to see. the first (starting at the top) includes (from l-r) mom, travis, gramma, george (uncle), andrea (aunt) and anna (cousin). the second: food! the third - landon and scott, looking thrilled to be here. the fourth includes mom, anna, george, andrea, gramma and scott's back. and fifth, scott and george.

words alone cannot describe...but i'll try.

there are a few things that need to be posted up here: wednesday night before thanksgiving dinner at gramma's, thanksgiving at gramma's, yesterday's cowboys game (...) and the events of last night.

however, the batteries in my camera are dead and unlike everyone else on the planet, i am at work today. and i didn't have time to go get more before i got here.

so...be in anticipation of those.

but about the events last night...i need to just try to tell you what it was like now. i can't wait until i get batteries.

we put up our christmas tree.

just landon and me. thanksgiving evening. with christmas carols playing. well...the third harry potter was on for awhile, but then it ended and then we had christmas carols.

anyway...you heard about our tree/ornament buying experience at target so i don't need to give you the run down of what we have. but i put up this tree, branch by branch. and then i watched landon wrap the lights perfectly around it. then we hung our sparkly red and gold ornaments all over it.

i felt like a little kid. i had a lump in my throat - a mix between awe, excitment and nostalgia. i remembered the 20-something times i've decorated a christmas tree before. with my family. and this was the first time to do it with my new family...landon.

i wanted to cry thinking of days in the future when our kids would be there. i actually imagined a tiny little person looking at the lower branches with lights twinkling and ornaments shining - eyes wide open with pleasure.

i am so incredibly blessed to have landon as my husband. everyday that i wake up to him i think..."what did i do to deserve such i gift?"

i didn't do anything. i just got lucky. and God must love me.

i can't wait to spend every christmas for the rest of my life with him. it was so special getting the season started with him last night. and even though we don't have much money to lavish presents on each other or anyone else -- i think this is going to be the best christmas on record.

i love you, baby!

it's beginning to look a lot (more) like christmas...

an early thanksgiving - two more photos.

an early thanksgiving.

yesterday evening we had an early thanksgiving dinner with my dad, scott, travis, landon and i. it was at our apartment. the food was magnificent - only the best from central market. there was sliced turkey (so so so so so so so good), yukon gold mashed potatoes (travis' favorite), wild rice/walnut/cranberry dressing (adventerous...), the ol' $.79 ocean spray jellied cranberry sauce, turkey giblet gravy (excellent), green bean casserole (a staple) and rolls. for dessert there was banana creme pie (dad's special request), homemade (like from scratch, the martha steward version) pumpkin pies and for me and t - root beer floats. fun was had by all. we watched monday night football and listened to charlie brown's christmas. also i got a chance to use my grandmother's china (given to me for a wedding present), my new tiffany pitcher (given to me by my lovely bridesmaid and best friend - beth) and a myriad of other beautiful wedding gifts. it was my first dinner party... besides the inordinante amount of dishes (china+diswasher=no good), it was nice. and scott helped with the dishes. thanks, dad for buying the yummy food. and thanks everyone else for coming. (there are photos continuing on the next entry. the last is a lovely shot by landon of me at the wal-mart self checkout while we were buying supplies for this gig.)

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas! (part II)

...and then me carrying the pretty red ornaments up the stairs. finally, i had to thread ornament hangers through all these pretty, little gold balls and here's the finished product. we're going to put everything up on thanksgiving. we're going to my gramma's for turkey dinner at noon, then the cowboys at 3:15 (i'm sitting with him in our season ticket seats...no working on thanksgiving!), then home to decorate the tree, drink hot chocolate and listen to christmas carols!!! i love it. maybe we can throw a little christmas lovin' in there too.... =)

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas! (part I)

so this past weekend...we bought our christmas tree! being the newly weds we are, we had to buy ornaments, too. landon was so cute, he thought we should have a red and gold theme. and he reminded me that we will be eliminating these ornaments in future years because we will be continuing the tradition of both of our families: random ornaments from over the years, tons made by the kids. sweet hubby. the first photo is of our shopping cart with all the goods. yes our tree was only $39.99 - we're poor! it's perfect. then next photo is of landon slightly distracted by the x-box 360 demo at the target. there were little kids standing around waiting for the 25-year-old, married man to rejoin his wife and the christmas shopping. next is landon loading the stuff into the red wagon. then there's landon unloading the car...

the sausage that saved his life.

this....is just hilarious. this is a summer sausage that landon wanted me to buy for him. well...i really didn't think there was such thing as a summer sausage, but i was proved wrong. so the other day i'm looking in the fridge, and i see the thing in this particularly injured state.

"what happened to the sausage babe?" (would have loved for someone to walk by and accidentally hear that...)

"oh...i took it to work and the other day i was walking up the stairs, you know those carpeted ones? well i was wearing flip-flops, it was a monday. and those stairs are really slippery. so i started to fall and..."

"the sausage broke your fall?!!?"

"yeah." (continuing to stare at the tv like this is not at all peculiar...)

wow...that is so freakin' funny i can't stand it.

ahh...the enlightening coversations of marriage.

our precious moms.

our amazing mothers cleaned our entire apartment and unpacked all our wedding gifts while we were away on our honeymoon. it was such a relief. seriously...the apartment was ridiculously messy - there was landury everywhere. i really think it took the whole week we were away to do it. and they left us this note on the white board in the laundry room. the other day i erased it so we could write our christmas lists on it (hehe), and so i thought i'd immortalize it with a photo and a blog entry. we love you, moms!!!!

it's been a few days... but cake today.

...and i have something to say here today. my birthday was nov. 8 and my coworker pete (great guy), his birthday is today. so...our lovely coworkers got us two cakes (mine was chocolate, pete's was carrot) and sang us happy birthday - for the november birthdays. wasn't that so sweet!? i didn't have a camera, unfortunately, but take my word for it. we were smiling and the cake was fab!

gobble, gobble.

as i mentioned in my post about my new camera, i attended a lovely event, aptly named turkey dinner, on sunday night. it's a long-running tradition with my mom's church (the church i grew up in), christ united methodist church. it's a very, very large potluck dinner held at southfork ranch (yes, where they filmed Dallas) and there is an inordinante amount of yummy food and super fun fellowship with new and old friends. there is also always fabulous entertainment. and this year, my handsome little brother, travis, was a part. check out the photos. he's the cute blond one making the silly face in one of them. the posed photo is my other handsome little brother, scott, and my pretty mom.