Christmas Vacation

We've had a very relaxing break so far. It has included:

Lots of reading and couch time for me

Hours of happily working on building guitar amps for my husband

Lots of cooking - vegetable pot pie, mac & cheese, peanut butter blossoms

And lots of dishes...

We've also gone out to breakfast the past two mornings and I spent yesterday afternoon with my mom - we saw a great exhibit on quilts at the NH Historical Society Museum then we went out to lunch at The Barley House. In between these little outings, we've been happily hibernating in our apartment and just enjoying the time to do whatever we want. We're meeting my family for dinner tonight at Fratellos in Manchester, then Bob and I leave tomorrow morning for 3 days in Bar Harbor. We can't wait!

Hooray for Christmas vacation - much needed and much appreciated!!

2010 in Review

Its been quite a year for us and I thought it would be fun to look back through our pictures and document the past year in photos. You'll see that we had a busy summer with lots of traveling and adventures, so I had to include multiple pictures for the summer months. Its been an incredible year and I know we will always look back on it with joy as we remember the beginning of our love story. Here's to many wonderful years ahead with my love and a Happy 2011 to all of you!

Our First Married Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas together (we were dating last Christmas, but we'd only been together about a month and we spent the holiday apart), despite both of us feeling pretty lousy and valiantly fighting the flu.

We spent Christmas at my mom's house in Hillsboro, along with Marc, Erin, and Erin's kids Logan and Myley. Bob and I were actually the first ones up on Christmas morning, thanks to an uncomfortable mattress, so I headed downstairs around 6:30am to take some photos of the tree. Santa had definitely arrived and I couldn't wait for the kids to come down and see everything. Mom and Bob both came down soon after and we patiently waited until we heard little feet upstairs. Logan was the first one up and he and I went upstairs to get his mom, Marc and Myley.

It was insanely crazy once we started opening presents, but we loved every minute of it. Logan went to town on all his gifts, and helped the rest of us open ours as well. Myley camped out on the couch with Bob and I and happily opened her gifts one by one. She was much more interested in playing with them in between opening, so we actually had to keep her moving with the opening or we would have been there all day.

It is pretty amazing to think how much our family has changed in a year. Check out my old blog to see my post from last Christmas when Mom, Marc and I were in Quebec. We went from a family of three to a family of seven in 12 short months and we couldn't be happier!

Creativity

I've been in creative-mode lately. I'm working on some Christmas gifts and have been doing a lot of sewing, which I love. Amanda and I made plans to get together yesterday to craft, but I woke up wanting to cook and bake too.

I made this cake for Amanda to celebrate her birthday. I also made vegetable pot pie for lunch - so yummy!!

My finished holiday banner - I love it!!! Thanks to Amanda for teaching me how to do the stitching around the letter.

Our crafting day yesterday has inspired me to spend today sewing too - I'm working on a couple of quilts and an apron for Bob (a very manly apron, of course - the fabric actually has guitars on it and is really cool). And I'm going to cook - Tofurkey in the LeCreuset!