Buchanans/Andersons in Fort Worth ~ some longer than others...

On Friday, the 19th, Julie and Janie (Dave's sister and mom) came in town. It was SUCH a treat and I know it meant the world to Dave to see them so close to Christmas ~ especially since this is the first time he would be away over the holidays.

We had a great time!! Lots of shopping and eating! We started off at Southlake Town Square after they landed. Mom came with us and we had a yummy dinner at Mi Cocina and then walked around checking out everything. We of course got a Starbucks and everyone was excited about their new 'short' size! (Thank you Jenn for telling me about those). If you haven't seen them, they are perfect for just a mini coffee morning or night...8 oz compared to the tall which has 12 oz. The cups are too cute!

Here is Julie and Dave...pregnant shot. ;-) Sweet Julie is due February 18th with Carter...so not far! In fact, this was the last weekend she was supposed to travel! We are SO excited for him to get here! She is such a cute pregnant woman as you can tell. She has only gained weight in her tummy and hardly any of that! I hope I am that lucky when the time comes!

So the Town Square must be where the high school kids like to hang out because we saw lots of them making out! It was kind of awkward to walk by...so what did we do? No! Not make out ourselves, but rather pretend for a funny photo op!

Here is a more appropriate, Dave and Kristen style pic. ;-)

The next day we got up early and headed to DSW (a Buchanan favorite!). We were very lucky with what we found there. We found everything from driving shoes (for the boys) to snake skin flats to black shoes in every style. We left very happy! Thank you so much Janie!!

Then, we met everyone including Mom and Marianne for lunch at the Lunch Box. It is one of our favorite spots! They have the best chicken salad EVER ~ even Janie, who doesn't care for chicken salad loves it. We had a great long lunch where we solved all of the world's problems as usual. ;-)

We continued to shop until we could barely walk anymore! Dave bailed early to catch the KU game. We found all sorts of goodies including Christmas gifts for each other. ;-) Again, thank you so much Janie for treating us to jewelry, shoes, etc! It was a wonderful day which included a little downtime at McKinley's for cookies and catching up (always my favorite times).

We met back up with the boys (being Dave, Dan and Aaron) for dinner at Ocean Rock. It was delicious and fun for the guys to catch up with Janie and Julie (which they have so much fun doing). They value Janie and Julie's opinions immensely on everything from houses to clothes to women. Then we got more coffee and drove around to view Christmas lights. Dave and I both LOVE looking at Christmas lights. You all know - there are some that are awesome, some that are great and some that make you just wonder. We cracked up looking at lights! A great cap to the evening.

On Sunday, we went to Church and lunch with Mom, Terry and Marianne. It was fun to UCC all decorated for Christmas. I hadn't been back since our wedding, so it brought back fond memories for all of us. ;-) Then, surprise appearance by Van and Brett! (Dave's dad and brother). Brett is moving down here and so they decided to bring a load. It was so funny because they showed up and then after 30-45 minutes of catching up, they said, alright, back on the road...and they left for Wichita! It was definitely too short of a visit, but again, special for David to see more family before Christmas.

Janie and Julie took off that night on a late flight back to Wichita. It was sad to see them all go! Mom kept trying to talk all of them into staying and having Jerry and Grayson drive down. Maybe some year we can work that out. But for now, we SO appreciated the visit! The holidays are so special and make us all long for family. It was a blessing to have those desires fulfilled and we look forward to the next visit!! Thank you all for coming down!

Curative Christmas Party

Doing a little catch up here...on Thursday, the 19th, we had our work Christmas party. We decided to break things down into teams ~ so Curative (my dept) celebrated separately and we had a blast!

Trevor, one of our agents, came up with the idea that we would draw names and then at our weekly meeting, each person would bring the outfit that their person was supposed to wear to the dinner at Cafe Aspen.

Here is Jenae and I. Jenae got a fancy hat to wear (with real divinity and fruitcake!) and I had a bedazzled number. Jenae drew me ~ not cool!

I had to wear the dress you see above, clip on earrings, red velvet scrunchie with white fur, jingle bell necklace and the best part: socks with individual slots for each toe. It was creepy ~ Dave was not liking it. ;-)

Trevor, Danielle and Caroline. I drew Danielle and I found a stunning red skirt suit at Goodwill with this fabulous blouse ~ all for $11.00! I didn't want her to look too good, so I got an elf's hat, earrings and a jingle bell necklace also. She was a great sport!

Here is Raley and she is over the entire Title Department. She had a beautiful t-shirt that lit up, snowflake earrings and a lovely tiara.

Here is most of our team. We had a hilarious night ~ laughed a lot! Thanks so much you all for making work such a fun place to be!

Christmas Questions

Okay, so I swiped this questionairre from Elizabeth...but thought it was a fun post!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I prefer wrapped, but it doesn't always work out that way.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real!
3. When do you put up the tree? As soon as possible after Thanksgiving!
4. When do you take the tree down? Around New Years.
5. Do you like eggnog? My dad makes a really yummy eggnog recipe - not sure I have tried anything else.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably a Nintendo or Mall Madness. (wow, I can't believe I remembered that)
7. Hardest person to buy for? David, because he doesn't want much.
8. Easiest person to buy for? Marianne, we have the same taste.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No and I want some badly!
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I am doing them this year for the first time...still need to be addressed, but be looking in the mail!
11.Worst Christmas gift you ever received? hmm...not sure...definitely have received some random trinkets.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Christmas Vacation/Love Actually
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? 2 weeks before?! I am horrible!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Nope!
15.Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Pigs in a blanket on Christmas morning ~ maybe with a Poinsetta ;-)
16. Lights on the tree? Yes! Lots of white lights.
17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night.
18.Travel at Christmas or stay home? I have either been in Lubbock or Fort Worth - but I am now adding Kansas to the mix!
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? hmm...Dasher, Dancer, Prancer ,Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph?! Not sure those are correct actually.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We are still acquiring decorations - but I did see a pretty star at Pottery Barn that matches our stuff...kind of waiting for the sale.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? My dad is a HUGE stickler for only opening Christmas morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? It just feels crowded everywhere.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I like gold and silver, sparkly!
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Tenderloin, salad, rolls with mom's homemade jam.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? $$ for a new washer and dryer.

favorite shopping websites...

okay, so every morning I wake up, look at my phone and see 5-6 emails from specific shopping websites. every morning I think, 'I need to unsubscribe,' but the thought of a deal coming along too amazingly good to pass up keeps me from doing so.

so I have decided I will try to get you all hooked on them too - then I will feel better about not unsubscribing. ;-) oh and please pass along your favorite sites! my husband is going to love this!

www.hautelook.com
-Every day they have different sales from different designers - like today is Laundry.

www.shopittome.com
- Again, every day they actually provide you with items (40-100) in an email that they think you might be interested in based on the questionairre you fill out when you join their mailing list. You can choose from stores, brands, styles, etc.

www.activeendeavors.com
- They have tons of trendy brands with everything from accessories to shoes to clothes. When you enter 'shop40', you get 40% off everything NEW until midnight tonight.

www.shopstyle.com
- Shows you the items from every store so you can compare prices, get the color and style to you like!

www.singer22.com
- I love this website because it shows you what the celebrities are wearing!

www.shopbop.com
- Every brand under the sun! Enter code SNOWDAY for 20% full priced items through tonight!

www.revolveclothing.com
- 30-80% off right now!

www.replacements.com
- For those of you missing pieces from your china, silver or crystal. They have replacement pieces. From what I have seen they are usually $5-10 cheaper.

happy shopping!

holiday deco

We have started decorating for the holidays....so fun!!

Here is Dave and Dan putting up our lights:

They turned out great! Although pics don't do it justice.

Then we started work on the inside...

We got our tree this week at Lowe's. It's fun to get a tree for the first time in a new house (well new to me). We had to figure out placement, size, etc. We wanted to put it in front of our big window...but our tree was too big. So here it is in the corner - which works great because you only have decorate about 1/2 of it really well!

I keep trying to take a pic of the ornaments and lights - but our ornaments are gold and silver. I guess they just don't show up when photographed very well. We tried day and night for pics.

Here are my favorite ornaments. Do you all have favorite ornaments on your tree?

Over Thanksgiving, we were in Wichita visiting Dave's family. It was so fun because we went shopping on Friday to one of my favorite shops - Trio's. Janie, Dave's mom, got this fun Christmas tree for us because we are a little low on Christmas deco (being that this is our first together). Thanks Janie!!

I love the holidays!!

Thanksgiving Practice Round

This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Dave's family in Wichita. We had SO much fun!! I must admit, I was quite nervous because everyone in Dave's family prepares a dish for the Thanksgiving dinner. Now, I have helped my mom cook before, but never have I really prepared dishes on my own without her help!

Thankfully, our friends Brooks and Maggie decided we should do a preThanksgiving dinner at their home on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It was so fun to celebrate with friends and practice our dishes!!

Dave was responsible for the turkey and I was responsible for sweet potatoes and green bean bundles. Dave did an AMAZING job! The turkey looked (and tasted) awesome! He used his dad's recipe which included stuffing it with apples, celery and onions. I think a little rosemary on the outside too! I borrowed my mom/sister's recipe for the green bean bundles and Lindsey's (bff) for the sweet potatoes. It all turned out yummy!

The results:

madrod?

Is anyone else completely weirded out by the matching of these two? Do you think they are really together?

verse of the week

Here is the verse David and I are focusing on this week...

Psalm 100

A psalm. For giving thanks.

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

oh so thankful!

Well I am going to copy my sister in law on a little post here...hopefully she won't mind. This week, like I am sure for many of you, has gotten me thinking about that for which I am thankful. I feel like we are so blessed in many different ways...so this may be rather random.

I am thankful for:

1. God's unfailing grace.

2. My sweet husband who continues to make life more fun.

3. My mom, dad and sister because they taught me that spending time with your family is more special than you know at the time.

4. My entire, enormous stepfamily because they don't have to treat me as their own and they do anyway.

5. My new family (the Buchanans) because their house already feels like home to me.

6. Coffee in the morning.

7. Steamy Texas summers and heaters in the winter.

8. Straightening irons for my not so curly, not so straight hair.

9. That all the men in my life taught me to love sports, even though it makes me a little crazy.

10. That as all of my girlfriends and I have changed and evolved over the years, we are now closer than ever.

11. That while I know it won't last forever, that Dave and I have had a period of time in our life where we worked together.

12. That an Anthropologie and J. Crew are opening by my house.

sports with the husband...

Today is a very big day for Red Raiders fans! Tonight we play the University of Oklahoma in football...a game that will determine the Big 12 South champions and bowl game opportunities! I can hardly wait!! It has been a blast of a season and it has gotten me thinking that I am SO lucky to have a husband who loves watching sports as much as I do! (well he probably does more). But I am so thankful he supports my team and I am loving supporting his team too! Here is a little look back at us and sports this past year....

This is us at the TTU/OU game last year - We Won!! Let's hope that is the case again tonight!

Sometimes we go to games we don't even care about...UT/TCU...still fun though because I have family who attended both...

Our pumpkin this year ;-)

We also went to Lawrence for the KU/TTU game this year. This is Brett, us and Claire (Brett's GF). We loved hanging out with them at The Wheel - after the mixed-review game. ;-)

Dan, one of David's best friends, was also in Lubbock for UT/TTU game this year. We had a great time at his family's tailgate before the game. He wouldn't talk to us after the game.

Us at the UT/TTU game this year! It was AWESOME - I nearly had a heart attack watching - but we were SO glad we went!

The BEST game of the year would most definitely have to be KU/Memphis in the National Championship Basketball game. KU won!! We had a blast in San Antonio with David's friends.

We love our Red Raiders...

and our Jayhawks!

honeymoon!

Well there are so many posts that need to be done - but I cannot begin to do those without first documenting one of the sweetest times in my life...our honeymoon. David and I left early Sunday morning after our wedding on our trip to Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

(Most people have never heard of it - but it is the same place where Andy and Red take off to in Shawshank Redemption or where Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia visit in When a Man Loves a Woman).


We had a wonderful time!! It was fun (and fitting) that we were assigned the Romance suite upon arrival. ;-)

We spent a lot of time at the pool! They had these beautiful pools that dropped off the cliffs...we took lots of pictures with the pools!

We had our own little pool - which Dave enjoyed doing cannon balls in!

And yummy dinners!!

Dave was sweet and took me into town one day - I needed something for our home that would be a sweet reminder of our honeymoon. We had some trouble as the town is not really that great for shopping - but I did find a pink pillow - maybe if we have a little girl one day, she can have it on her bed.

More pool time...

This is looking up at the main hotel from the pool.

Praise God for good weather! My smart husband would not let us go to the Caribbean because it was hurricane season...and as it turns out, there were 3 hurricanes there during our honeymoon! The Pacific was a better spot for us.

Sweet Dave.

The beach.

We had a lot of practice with the self timer on our camera and taking self portraits.


We were so bummed to leave - but also so excited to start our lives as husband and wife back in Fort Worth. It has been nothing short of amazing!

Quirks...

i have been tagged by my friend lindsey to list 5 of my quirks.

here goes...

1. apparently, i have a really sensitive nose. there is something about the smell of nine west leather pumps. i have no idea why, but for some reason, the leather smell from those shoes drives me crazy. any other shoes from nine west are fine - even leather sandals and boots! (i really like BCBGgirl black heels ;-))

2. going along with the sensitive senses, i hate our alarm when we are setting it before we leave. i try to time leaving our house so that after i push the buttons to set the alarm that i get out immediately so i don't have to hear the beeping...or go out the front door because the unit is quieter.

3. i love pizza, as do most people...but i really love it. last week alone, i had it for dinner tuesday night (fortuna), wednesday night (dominos), thursday night (winslows) and saturday lunch (dominos again). oh and pizza dip sunday night! i can't get enough of it and my particular drink of choice with it is a big coke.

4. i hate to admit this, but it is rather quirky. . .i have watched days of our lives for like 10 years. i completely admit the show is ridiculous and several characters have died and come back to life. but it is nice to know that i can go without watching it for months at a time and pick right back up with the next episode.

5. my car trunk is completely useless. it is full to the brim (and i make no exaggeration here) with i don't even know what. i don't remember the last time i even opened it. for the entire time i have known my husband, nothing has been added to or taken away from its contents. it is really quite ridiculous.

Although Dave thinks it might look more like this....a large sheep carcass.

Alright - those are my current quirks...I now tag:

David's Birthday ;-)

Happy Birthday to my Husband of 44 days!

I hope your day is wonderful and that more than anything, you know how much you are loved by those around you.

Here are just a few of the reasons why I love you:

* You make me laugh at any given moment in the day.

* You know the person I want to be and encourage me to be that person.

* You make me coffee before I even wake up.

* You love my family as much as I do.

* You hug me when I am happy and when I am sad.

* You secretly fill up my gas tank & wash my car.

* You love to have fun!

* You like my cooking, or at least pretend to ;-)

* You can be my much needed voice of reason.

* You are a good friend and support me in being one also.

* You make life much, much sweeter!

I cannot wait to celebrate this special day! I love you!

back to blogging ;-)

I am so excited to go home and blog tonight about some big things that have been happening lately!

For starters, we got married!! We had a wonderful supportive group of friends and family and could not have asked for a better time. We still feel extremely blessed!

I moved into Dave's home - now OUR home ;-) He keeps having to remind me. I have confirmed my initial suspicion that I am in fact, a pack rat. I keep everything! Dave is patiently trying to work with me on this. He was also quite wonderful when I cried moving out of my apt...not because I didn't want to move...but it was just kind of special place - where our relationship began (first date) and evolved (got ready there on my wedding day).

Addison, my niece, had her first birthday on September 20! I cannot believe she is already 1! We found out she prefers Baby Graduates yogurt drops to birthday cake, loves a good plastic kitchen to play with and literally cracks herself up all the time.

We went to Wichita for the first time since we are married. This was SO fun and special for us to spend time with Dave's family debriefing the wedding festivities and hearing all about Jerry and Julie's baby boy who is on the way (names, bedding, etc.).

Marianne, my sister, started a new job! She is working for Baylor in Rockwall as a speech pathologist. She has business cards, a work email and most important - several letters behind her name ;-)

Her boyfriend, Norm, passed the finance section of the CPA exam - we found out yesterday! This is so impressive as most people don't pass it on the first time and he did it with flying colors. We are SO proud!

Finally, we have been married 1 month today! I know that doesn't seem long to many of you - but it has been the best month of my life! I have the best husband who supports me in everything I do - whether it makes sense or not. I love just being with him and I couldn't be happier! I love you Dave!

Alright - I hope to add pictures to these brief topics tonight!! Hope everyone is having a beautiful day!

Fort Worth Couples Shower

During the last weekend in June, Dave and I had our Fort Worth Couples Shower. It was at Cafe Aspen and an absolute blast! We had a great time introducing Dad and Karol and the Buchanans to all of our Fort Worth friends. We started off Friday night with a dinner over at Mom's. It was delicious and special because we were able to celebrate Van and Janie's anniversary and Janie's birthday!

Here is Kim, me and Marianne Janie, Mom and Aunt Carol
All the guys!

Lexie is our flower girl and she loves Dave and Norm! Here she is showing him around the house!
We laugh because Norm, Marianne and Lexie all look just alike. Its like Lexie knows it too - she loves hanging with Norm.
One treat to the evening was that Dad gave me his mother's watch to wear during the wedding. I have always loved it and was so excited when he gave it to me!
Saturday morning, we ran errands - one of which was picking out tuxedos for the guys. Grayson was so sweet to hang out with us through all of the details!

Then, the party started! We had so much fun!! A big thanks goes to all of the hostesses! The food, flowers and atmosphere were all wonderful.

Here is the Tarbox side of the family...

and the Drennan side...

Ashley and Grayson were both so sweet to come in town for the party. She got the cutest haircut that morning! I love it and so badly want the same one as soon as we get home from the honeymoon!

Way fun girls...

Dave and I waited to open our gifts until the next morning.

Cheers! Only 27 more days!