Our Christmas:)

Our Christmas this year was wonderful :) It was crazy busy, but great! We were able to spend time with just about all of our family, which is pretty huge considering all of my family is spread out everywhere!

Josh's granny had a dinner on the 23rd and that was fun. Josh's little cousins were there entertaining everyone singing Christmas songs like Happy Birthday Jesus!! Soo precious!!

Josh's granny and his little cousin, Mattie

Christmas Eve morning we traveled with my parents to Memphis to see my aunt, uncle, cousins, and my granny. It was so great to see everyone!! It was a short trip because we had to come back that same day but it was well worth it.

me and my granny :)

That night we went to Josh's brother & his wife's house to celebrate with Josh's dads side. We always play dirty santa and it was so funny! There are always some good gifts but there are always some crazy gifts also, Ha! Luckily, I ended up with a good one :) Josh, however, ended up with a hat with a pig on it! It was fun :) (I don't have any pics from that night bc my camera was dead!)

Christmas morning we woke up and did our Christmas together :) This year we just got a big gift for each other which was surround sound!! It is awesome! I also got something pretty cool :) More to come on that! But we did do stockings for each other and we also got a stocking for Kobe! He loved it! Our little reindeer in training :)

Later on, we went to Josh's parents house for breakfast. She always does a huge breakfast and it is sooo good! I could have went back to sleep after that :) We hung out there for a little while and spent time with everyone and opened presents. Us kids all went together and got Josh's mom this china set she has been wanting. She loved it! That afternoon we went to my parents for dinner! My mom always makes THE best Christmas dinner. This time she made ribs, steak, shrimp scampi and veggies :) Then we opened our presents. I got some cuuuutttee cowboy boots that I have been wanting! Of course we had to plan everything around the Titans game that was on that night.. too bad we lost.... but we did go see Sherlock Holmes late that night and it was actually really good!
We stayed the night with my parents that night because we had to get up early the next morning and drive to Alabama to see my aunt and uncle!! We met them at Cracker Barrel and had a good time! We did a little shopping afterwards and then came home..
Sooo talk about a BUSY Christmas! Ha! But it was great! We hope yall had a great one too!!

busyness and the smokies :-)

Oh my goodness, things have been SO busy around here! You can tell by just looking inside our house because it is a mess!! I feel bad but I really have had no time to clean. I have been extremely busy in the salon trying to fit everyone in before Christmas..because we all know we need to look pretty for the holidays :-) The only problem is that I can only fit so many clients in in one day and I have turned away close to 15 clients who need their hair done before Christmas :( I feel horrible but I seriously have squeezed in so many people that I have no more room to squeeze! And on top of it all, I have NO clue how I am going to finish up my Christmas shopping!!

We did get to get away last weekend though and it was so nice :-) We left Saturday when I got done working and went to Knoxville to stay with my cousin and her family. She just had a baby girl and she is so precious!! Her name is Sidney :-)
Sunday morning we got up and drove to Gatlinburg! It is absolutely beautiful this time of year. Everything is decorated for Christmas and the mountains are so pretty :-) We stayed the night there in a little cozy chalet and it was just perfect. We had to come home Monday morning but it was a great mini vacation- just what we needed!!

cravings

Ok yall. Before any rumors get started- No. I am not pregnant! (sorry mom & dad! lol)

BUT...

I have cravings all the time. I need to stop talking about food with my clients because I always end up craving what we talk about. For example, my client last night told me she was craving a Whitt's loaded baked potato and guess what I am craving now? :-) Last week, a client of mine told me she loved Stratton's fried chicken salads and I have had 2 since then. Well, about a month ago, one of my clients told me she loved jello with cool whip on top. First, let me say that I HATE jello. Its a consistency thing. But not anymore!! I love love love it! Here is a good recipe that I found. It is so yummy- trust me, I should know. I've made it twice in the past 3 weeks :-)

Strawberry Delight Squares (you can find this recipe on the cool whip container but I didn't add mandarin oranges that it calls for)

1 1/2 cups Honey Maid honey grahams finely crushed. about 20 squares.

1/2 cup sugar divided

6 tbsp. melted butter or margarine

1 1/2 package Cream Cheese

2 Tbsp. milk

1 cup thawed cool whip

2 cups boiling water

1 package (8 serving size) strawberry Jell-O

1 1/2 cups cold water

Mix graham crumbs, 1/4 cup of sugar and butter. Press firmly onto bottom of 13 by 9 inch baking pan. Set aside.

Beat cream cheese, remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and milk until smooth. Gently stir in whipped topping. Spread over crust. Refrigerate.

Meanwhile, stir boiling water into gelatin at least 2 min until completely dissolved. Stir in cold water. Refrigerate 1 1/2 hours or until slightly thickened. Spoon over cream cheese layer.

Refrigerate 2 hours or until firm. Cut into 20 squares. If desired, use additional whipped topping to garnish each serving (which I would SO recommend doing :))

Now would someone PLEASE come to my salon and talk about healthy food so I can start craving things that won't make me gain tons of weight!!

Rust-Oleum ReVamp!!

I remember the first time we saw our house when it was on the market. I thought "OH.MY.WORD." Especially when I saw this 70's kitchen. But luckily, I can see the beauty in things. I am sure you are wondering where the beauty is in this kitchen though, huh? :-)Our plan is to get new kitchen countertops and a new sink sometime within the next 6 months but there was NO way I could live with the the countertop that I had. As you can see in the picture below, it was hideous and spotted. Yuck. I remember seeing on someones blog about Rust-Oleum's countertop paint and at just $20 a can- I knew this was what I needed to hold me over until I get the countertops that I really want. I chose the taupe color.

To apply the paint, I used some thing my mom had. Its not a roller and not a paint brush- it worked really well.

Have I mentioned before that my mom was my LIFE SAVER during our home makeover and there is no way I could have done it without her ???!! :-) Here she is using a sponge thing on hard to get areas.

We did two coats of paint and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out!! What do you think?
I will say one thing though- this paint is definitely not the most durable stuff. There are already little scuffs & marks here and there....BUT it is definitely better than the spotted stuff I had before!!

Thanks for stopping by and if you want to see other makeovers using Rust-Oleum products, check out Shanty 2 Chic!!

imagine this.

It is a VERY COLD Saturday night- about 20 something degrees outside. My hunny and I are enjoying a wonderful evening in our warm home in our pajamas. I had just taken some chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and we are about to watch Four Christmases.

{the following can get kinda confusing so bear with me- if you want }

A client of mine calls me on my cell. She was just in the salon last week and we were both talking about how we want some Uggs really bad but was NOT about to pay that price. Well, she heard that Foot Locker in Clarksville had them on sale for $60 with an extra 25 percent off!!! That is super cheap for some Uggs and I was so excited. I hated to leave home since we were having such a good night but I just had to have them :-) Josh told me that was a great deal and to go on and get them so off I went. But 1st, I called to make sure they had my size. I asked the girl "Do you have brown Uggs in a size 5?" She checked and said "yes, we do."..... On the way there, I called a friend of mine to tell her about this great deal. She called her mom who was at Rivergate mall and she went into Foot Locker & they said they did not sell Uggs there. She texted me and told me that & I started to get a little suspicious. ANYWAY, long story short- I drove 35 minutes to get there and they did not even have them. They have LUGZ, not UGGS.

Can we say FURIOUS??? No, furious was not even the word.

But we did watch Four Christmases when I got home and it was a great movie! I would definitely recommend it :-)

So that was how I spent my Saturday evening....

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

I just love our tree this year! We were going to buy one on Black Friday but decided to just get another real tree and I am so glad we did. We got it at Wal Mart and it is so full and pretty :) We don't really have a "theme" and I kinda wish we did but oh well!
I got this white tree last year the day after Thanksgiving. Well, not sure I would call it a "tree" - just a cute fuzzy thing. My plan is to collect UT ornaments for it. Hubby really likes this one ;)

I also put a tree in my salon and I love it!! I got on Black Friday at Michael's pretty cheap and decorated it with glittery, red snowflakes and shatterproof silver ornaments. (shatterproof because I can see some little kid messing with it already on those concrete floors! Ha!) Instead of a skirt, I used some more leftover trimmings and pine cones from our tree and just spray painted them silver. I also had a berry garland that I added in with it.
I was not sure if I wanted to get another real tree this year because of our experience last year... If you do not remember then let's take a walk down memory lane! We cut this tree down ourselves- in the woods- behind the baseball field in Pulaski- pretty sure it was private property....ha! It didn't last long at all because it was obviously not a very sturdy tree!! Even though it was SO ugly, we absolutely loved it!! It was OUR tree, our first Christmas :-)

One thing I am not sure about when it comes to real trees is how you keep them alive? I have found out the hard way that you must water it every day but is there another trick out there? I really want our tree to last through Christmas and even through the New Year!! Please help!!

Thanks for stopping by & if you want to check out some other cute trees go to Kelly's Korner! Have a blessed Christmas :-)