New Year, Just as Busy!

Times just keeps flying by and I the fact that life isn't slowing down just keeps me on my toes!

As when any New Years, resolutions were made!  In hopes of not totally jinxing myself I won't say what they are, but of course working out always has something to do with it.  Nick got me this shirt, that has kept me pretty motivated this year!  If only I didn't have to sweat, ugh.

In January I was on the phone with my best friend, Michelle, and she mentioned that she needed help decorating her nursery (baby girl due in April).  One nice thing about me living in Phoenix and she in Denver, is that you can always find cheap tickets on Southwest.  So sure enough, I looked and for $59 I was on my way the next day!  Can't beat that!  We shopped for baby girl and us of course (oops, that wasn't supposed to happen).  Always love spending time with her.

The biggest change came mid-month when I decided to chop my hair!  I was just sick of it.  It was dull and I felt too weighed down.  When I went in for my hair appointment and told her I wanted to cut it off, she didn't even hesitate (which I'm grateful for or I know I would have second guessed myself).  She took this before picture and I could not believe how long my hair was!!!!  How did that happen? All seeing that picture did was make me want to cut it even more.  So off it went, and even though I was in utter shock at the end, a few months later I'm loving it short.

 Sadly, a round brush has become my essential hair tool--and I still don't have it mastered!

As usual I was off to North Carolina for my visit in January.  I spend about half of the week just cooking, seriously.  The man has zero food whenever I get to town and then three stores later I can get it looking like this!  I try to cook about twenty freezer meals to get him by for a little while until my next visit.  Gotta keep him eating well, and we all know how he can eat :)

 Date night!  It is always fun to go to North Carolina and visit new places.  On the weekends when Nick has off we have really enjoyed exploring the area.  This time we went to Fort Fisher which is a site of a Civil War Battleground and visited the aquarium.

 Albino Alligator, don't see one of those everyday

Fort Fisher-so pretty

 I can't talk about the beginning of 2013 without talking about the Superbowl.  Oh Beyonce, how I love you!!  Seriously the reunion of Destiny's Child was all a girl like me needed!  It was great.  Loved spending the night talking with these two ladies and trying to do our own dance to the music!

Christmas 2012 to New Years 2013

This year we decided to meet in Kentucky for Christmas.  We both had the week off between Christmas and New Years (which never happens) so off to KY we went.  We had such a relaxing time.  It was great!  We ate well, shopped the sales, went to the movies, spent time with friends, and even had some snow!

My mom loves a decorated table

 A little Christmas Eve shopping at the Zappos Outlet.  Katherine was the winner with the best deals.  Nick was such a good sport because 2+ hours is a long time in one store :)

 Christmas morning is the time to go to the movies.  While everyone else is at home opening gifts we had the theater to ourselves.  I'm still not a fan of the 3D glasses.

 Nick was in charge of passing out the gifts

 Katherine modeling one of her gifts--cute scarf!

 The best ornament on the tree in my opinion

 Perfect ending to a great meal

With the Christmas holiday over, it was on to playing with some friends.  It is no secret how much we love our Louisville basketball (more on that in another post) so we had to all get together to watch the Louisville vs Kentucky basketball game.  We always have so much time getting friends together at my parents-it is just like old times!  And we beat KY to lots to smile about.

Matt and I--he is probably my favorite Louisville fan

THE ladies!  I love these two so much.  Tasha is moving to Missouri this summer and Becca lives in Florida.  Both places are too far away from me in AZ!  I'm thankfully we all call KY home so I can see these two when we are all visiting.

Date night to the temple--and we came out to snow!

 Loving all the white out the back window

 Burrr...it was cold!

 By the time New Year's eve rolled around Nick and I were the only two left in town.  A long tradition in our family is to go out for Chinese food on New Year's Eve, so of course we joined my parents.  It was such a funny night!  My parents both upgraded to the Iphone 5, so it was very comical to see them both playing on their phones at the dinner table.  I leaned over to Nick and said, wow-I feel like I'm the parent and my kids won't put their toys down!!  Who knows, maybe they were texting each other.  Just love those two!

 Happy 2013!

Off the Clock

For obvious reason my co-workers are my second family.  I spend more time with them than anyone else.  And thankfully for me, I love them all.  This year for our AFDC Christmas party we were spoiled royally with a night out to The Keg.  We had a lovely steak dinner and of course enjoy a hilarious gift exchange and a gift from our bosses to pamper ourselves with!  

'Tis the Season!

The AFDC Team

Seriously, these two keep me sane!  Best hygiene team around :)

Such a great gift from the docs!

And, nothing like a good ole' Pinterest craft night with the girls to get you in the holiday spirit!

The OFFICIAL Family Photo

So I'm back to blogging, finally!  I have to keep reminding myself that I will be glad I did this one day!

When we were in KY for Thanksgiving we took a family picture with all of my family.  My mom had a guy from their ward do them who is a nature photographer!  Well, lesson learned--he did not know how to take pictures of people.  Seriously, this is the only decent one and no one likes it.  Not sure, why I need it for memory sake if no one likes it buy none the less here we all are!

Kentucky Thanksgiving

As always my entire family heads to Kentucky for Thanksgiving.  It is the one time each year where my whole family can be together (even if it is only for 24 hours in some cases).  The weather was gorgeous, so much so that while the turkey was baking we were outside playing baseball!  I think that must be a Thanksgiving first!  The little boys couldn't get enough of uncle Nick and they wanted to be sure to sit by him at the table.  It was cute to see. 

We were able to go to a University of Louisville football game while we were in town, but despite it being sunny, there was a definite chill in the air that I was not used to!  It was an exciting game that went in to overtime, but sadly didn't end in our favor. 

We also had a new family picture taken.  I took a few with my camera, and we have gotten a few back from the photographer, but I'm hoping they look better than these!   Such a great Thanksgiving.  We have so much to be thankful for and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than with family.

Nick and Liam playing some Thanksgiving baseball!  I must document that it was 68 degrees and perfect outside!

 Nick and baby Tess taking a break from decorating my parents tree

Cousins-Tess and Henrik

Kevin's family:  Bennett, Rachel, Tess, Kevin, Liam

Kyle's family:  Kyle, Becky, Henrik

Us

I Love UofL

I was a cold but smiling fan

We fired up the pizza oven outdoors for a a delicious meal

Here is a group photo of everyone from the photographer

Our "professional" pic.  It was sure sunny outside, I needed some shades on.

Hopefully more family pics to come.  

Fall time and Friends

We had a busy fall this year spending time with some of our good friends.  I had so much girlfriend time in November and I loved it!!

I went to Time Out for Women in Phoenix this year for the first time with a few of my friends that live in West Phoenix, so I don't get together with them as often as I wish.  We had a great weekend listen to the speakers and the great music.  So much fun, love these ladies.

The same weekend a few of us wanted to help Brooke celebrate her upcoming wedding.  We had such a great time and stayed at a very nice resort in Scottsdale.

Brooke, the bride-to-be and me

Less than a week later we kept the celebration going by hosting a bridal shower for Brooke.

Haha, this picture makes me laugh.  Brooke had a photo booth at her wedding, and we were practicing our poses.  So glad Nick was in town for the occasion.

Our favorite couple the Badger's came to Arizona to play before Thanksgiving so we had such a great time as always.  So excited that they are having a baby in April!

The Ladies

 The Gentlemen

With all the craziness in our lives these days of living apart and bi-coastal, I've gotten to see this guy quite a bit the past two months! I'm going to be in some serious withdrawls once January comes.  Sure do love him and am so grateful for how hard he is working right now.

So much to be thankful for!

Now that we are almost caught up

In pictures here is what the month of October looked like!

I busted this handy machine out to fix a shirt that had gotten a rip in the side.  It may have taken 30 minutes just to thread the machine, but hey 2 hours later I fixed my shirt!  As much as I love my mom for getting me this machine for Christmas a few years ago, she should have also gotten me lessons :)

There have been some AMAZING Arizona sunsets

Nick came to AZ for a visit, and lucky for him we had even more great sunsets!

After much convincing, Nick finally agreed to braces now that invisalign is offered in my office!  Here he is loving the impressions.  He has them in now, and it is amazing how much I cannot even tell he is wearing them.

I've been in a total organizational mode lately.  I've been sorting through boxes of pictures and finally sent them to scanmyphotos.com.  I had bought a groupon awhile back and sent in a 1,000 pictures to be put on a digital cd.

Life is keeping us busy!