December Pictures

I sat down to work on something as Carson finished up the vacuuming and thought my feet up would make a funny picture. We spent the day cleaning and making things Chrismassy.

A quick dinner of spinach ravioli, mushrooms and raspberries. 

The first time I was on my own drawer at work. I asked if I could take a picture of the screen because I was SO NERVOUS that I was going to be missing millions of dollars (note I have not and will never touch millions of dollars but I over think everything). I am really liking it still and I'm so glad I made the change. 

While Carson's been on break he's been driving me to work, picking me up to have lunch together, and picking me up at the end of the day. I work longer hours now but we are definitely seeing each other much more often now that I'm closer to the school.

We sometimes walk around Lake Ella on my lunch breaks since I work in Midtown. It looks fallish, doesn't it?!

We finished our Christmas shopping on Decemeber 5th (started in late September because I spotted the perfect thing for Dad and thought it would be a nice thing to not spend all our money at one time in December but rather spread it out just in case). We went to the mall to find a few last things for people that day and discovered that Bath and Body Works had three wick candles for $8.50 when they are usually $22.50. We love the mall at Christmas and didn't mind the long windy line in there to stock up on said candles. 

I made headbands for my nieces Christmas gifts this year! Although I did finish shopping in early December, it was a week or two later that I finished the gifts I made. I will have to start earlier next year. 

The ugly sweater I got for ugly sweater day at work. It's not the most ugly and is really just HUGE and not flattering and way too hot to actually wear. 

I sometimes make Carson brush my hair while we watch a movie. I had Christmas Eve-Eve (December 23rd) off work so we made that the day of our annual Christmas movie marathon and so I got my hair brushed a lot. 

Our Community Group Christmas party was fun! It was the night Carson's parents came into town. We had lots of tasty food, a white elephant gift exchanged, and played telephone pictionary. We've played a lot before but if you haven't the idea is that everyone has a stack of paper with as many sheets as there are people. On the first sheet, you write something down (I wrote "away in a manger", but people can do phrases or describe something or write someone's name), then you pass your stack of paper to the left with the sheet you wrote on top. Using whatever the person wrote, you draw a picture of whatever it is and put the thing they wrote on the bottom. Again, you pass to the left. You keep going alternating writing-drawing-writing-drawing trying to best describe or depict what you see or read. It goes around until everyone ends up with their original stack of paper and then you read them all aloud. For instance, mine that said "Away in a manger" started out with someone drawing a manger scene, someone writing "the first christmas", someone else drawing a manger scene... then it changed when someone wrote "the most wonderful time of the year". A huge football fanatic took that as a sign and drew a football stadium.  and then by the time it got back to me somehow there was a manger scene again. Some were hilarious and others stayed pretty true, but it's a pretty good group game. 

I drew the cow jumps over the moon here,  but I can't remember if the original one was indeed supposed to be a cow jumping over a moon.

And for the white elephant, I brought the armadillo purse I'd somehow received from someone one year. Yep, real armadillo. Yep, you can buy them on Ebay. Yep, it's a little scary and lived in the back of my closet until now. But someone stole this gift and was planning on giving it for someone as a real Christmas gift, so it went to a good home. 

Beaufort and Baby Showers

In case you missed my other post about it, Morgan is having a baby! This is cause for much celebration, and with babies, the best celebration is a baby shower. I offered to host her shower in Beaufort off-hand, and it became a plan, so at the end of June, we headed up to our hometown to shower that baby boy!

We were going to go on the Friday before the shower, but Morgan was off work and I got off work early, so we went on Thursday. That turned out to be a great idea because we got more time with Grandmama, and little did we know that we were going to need more time there. 

We arrived around dinnertime, and took an after dinner stroll out to the dock. Grandmama takes sunset pictures every night, and I take them every time I'm out there at sunset. It's captivating every time, even though it can't be captured fully, and especially not in an iPhone photo. 

It was getting dark, so the light was not great for pictures, but we took them anyway. Here's one of the "big two" with Grandmama. Sydney, Morgan's sister, was out there too, but none of my pictures with her in them turned out even remotely acceptable. Sorry, Syd! 

Speaking of, since Sydney was with us, and that never happens without the whole family there, Morgan's and my eyes were opened to the reality that we sit at the top of the grandchildren totem pole. Morgan, my sister Becca, and I are the three oldest grandchildren, and we spent lots of time at Grandmama's when we were younger. Then lots of grandchildren were born in short succession and time with those grandchildren (with the exception of my family, everyone else moved away) was shorter. So poor Sydney (grandchild number six) was very loved, but didn't get the perks we had. We realized that for the first time, oops. 

I went down the next morning to ask Granddaddy about getting a watermelon, so here's a picture of him working while I beg him for something. Definitely not the first time this scenario has occurred. 

We had crabs for lunch. The newspaper was from last July, so we read about the World Cup finals as we ate. (see our personalized cups as oldest grandchildren? Morgan, Becca and I each have one, and then there's one with everyone else's name on it - Sydney didn't want that one)

We spent Friday afternoon going through old books we loved as kids and making lists of the ones we wanted to look up to add to our collections. 

Morgan went to take Sydney to her other grandparents' house and the rest of us ate Grandmama's delicious spaghetti (my favorite) in the living room while watching Aerial America, Ohio.

When Morgan got back, we looked through old pictures and tried to figure out what Baby Colucci is going to look like. We're pretty sure he's going to look at least a little like Morgan. 

I got up early the next morning and went to my parents' house to help set up for the baby shower. 

We covered marshmallows in colored white chocolate and dipped in sprinkles. This Amazon box was our solution for drying them in the fridge. 

It was sort of a bow tie/little man theme. I didn't want to go too overboard, but I did want to use little bow ties in a banner. And that basket on the bench was for children's books. I had people bring a book instead of a card, and there were some really cute ones!

Mini and Oscar, the dogs, were not supposed to be invited, but they don't do well in a room alone (they cry) and we didn't think the goat pen was a good solution, so they were there. They were fairly well behaved, but Oscar kept sitting on the back of the chair. 

The shower was all family and long-time friends, so almost everyone knew each other already. After gifts were opened, people stayed for an hour and a half just talking. 

We played a game similar to the newlywed game where we asked Caleb questions about babies/being a dad and Morgan had to guess his answers. He was pretty accurate about most of them, but his answers still made us laugh. 

After the guests left, Dad and Scott came home and Jillian came over. In his excitement, Oscar sat on Mini to get to Dad. 

It was great hanging out with Jillian at my parents'. We stayed up until very late talking, laughing and crying. It was very like old times. 

The night was late, and circumstances made it seem longer. I stayed up very late and after church when Dad and I went back out to Grandmama's, I took a nap in the hammock. 

Granddaddy had the aforementioned watermelon waiting for us and it was delicious. 

Grandmama and I left shortly after to take a trip to Labor and Delivery. 

After the baby shower, Morgan had to go to the emergency room. They weren't sure if she and the baby were okay so they stayed until Monday morning. Since there was a chance Baby Colucci would arrive, Caleb, his mom, Uncle Mark and my cousin Stuart all came up from Ocala. The baby ended up being okay and they just put Morgan on bed rest until further notice, but since we didn't know anything for certain, Carson decided to come up as well to get me just in case my ride had a baby. 

I took another sunset picture when we got back.

Carson arrived at 1:30 in the morning. When he got up, there was quite the breakfast spread on the table.

Still tired, I took a nap after breakfast. When I woke up, plans had been made to go to Hilton Head and eat at a restaurant Granddaddy and Grandmama had told us about, The Skull Creek Boathouse. Carson and Grandmama had fish sandwiches and Granddaddy and I had shrimp baskets.

Then we tried to get a group picture.

Next, we went out to Harbour Town in Sea Pines. Even though I grew up near there, I've never been to Sea Pines or really explored Hilton Head at all. It's funny the things you miss when you live in a place (and a reason we made a bucket list in Cleveland - so we didn't miss as much).

We would have gone up in the lighthouse, but it was expensive, so we settled for a picture.

And here we are on the 18th hole of the golf course. Dad and Granddaddy have gone out there a lot for golf tournaments, but I hadn't, so we had to take a picture on the green.

Next, Granddaddy suggested we go to the Salty Dog Cafe. We didn't get food, but we did get T-shirts. I'm sure you've seen these shirts around. I've never seen so many as we did when we lived in Ohio. I think the entire state vacations in either Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head in the summer, and it cracks me up. 

We had a lighter dinner but a decent amount of dessert that night, and a big breakfast again in the morning. Carson and I met Mom at Alvin Ords, my favorite, for an early lunch before heading back to Tallahassee. 

Our weekend in Beaufort took an unexpected turn with Morgan, but I'm so glad she made it back to Ocala safe and sound with the baby still inside her. It would have been very exciting to say that she had a baby in South Carolina, but thankfully it didn't have to be! I had a great time with Morgan and then loved exploring with Granddaddy, Grandmama, and Carson.