A Murphy's Law kind of Christmas

**Sorry I know it is almost mid-January and I'm just now getting around to posting about Christmas, but I'm still not sure I have recuperated fully from our holiday which I think you will understand after reading the next few posts

You know those days when nothing seems to go like you planned?  Well that was pretty much how our Christmas went. We had great, grand plans for this Christmas.  It was going to be busy and probably stressful, but we had a plan and it was going to be great!  And then....life happened.  I will spare you the gory, gross (and I mean gross) details but needless to say it was not a picturesque, perfect Christmas.  That all being said, however, I do think we were reminded of one very valuable lesson this year- Christmas is less about the where and the what and more about the who.  Regardless of all the things that went wrong we were blessed to be surrounded by wonderful family and in the end that is what was important.  Here are some pictures (from my brand new fancy pants camera that Nick gave me) Mostly just pictures of cute kids- I promise the grossness what not caught on camera:

Christmas with the McGeehons:

Christmas with the Leaders/Kingmas:

Somehow I missed pictures of Emily opening presents probably something to do with 15 people opening presents = chaos.

After Christmas was our big trip to Texas for Sara & Will's wedding and some adventures.  I am hoping to have a post about that early next week.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Well it is December and that can only mean one thing....Lots and Lots of Christmas decorations!  As always our house is done up from top to bottom in all things Christmas.  We have made a few new purchases and I think our decorations are finally starting to come together in a much more cohesive way.  You may also notice a few new pieces of furniture that I haven't blogged about yet.  I have been planning on doing a House post 1 year later but haven't had the time to get the pictures done and now that all the decorations are up- it isn't quite what our house looks like all the time so I promise after the holidays I will work hard on getting that post done.  So without further ado, our house in all its Christmas Glory:

1 year later...

Monday Nick and I celebrated our first anniversary.  It is hard to believe it has already been a year since the big day!  We decided to just get away for a short little trip over the long weekend.  So we booked a cabin overlooking the river in Grafton, IL.  We arrived late in the afternoon and got dressed up for drinks overlooking the river and a nice dinner.

On the deck of our cabin

After dinner we went to another restaurant on the river and just sat and watched the boats.  It was quite nice not to have anything we had to do for a couple of hours.  We spent the rest of the evening rereading all of our wedding cards.  We also brought along a bottle of pineapple wine that we brought home from our honeymoon.

We had decided we would save it for a special occasion, but I think we may have saved it a little too long because we both took one drink and decided that was enough and poured the rest down the drain...oops!

The next morning we slept in and then decided to have some wedding cake for breakfast.

Nick's reaction pretty much sums up how the cake was.  It wasn't terrible, (much better than the wine) just not as good as it was a year ago nor was it good enough to really want to eat more than a few bites.  Nonetheless, I'm glad we saved it; it was a fun little tradition. 

We spent the rest of the day exploring the stores in Grafton and the little towns around there before heading home.  

It wasn't an elaborate weekend, but it was nice to get away from home for a little while with no agenda and just enjoy our surroundings.  

28

Last week was my 28th Birthday.  Unfortunately I had to work.  Yes I recognize that most people have to work on their Birthdays but when you have a July Birthday and summers off you don't expect to work on your Birthday.  Luckily it wasn't too bad of day.  After work Nick and I went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Brio and it was quite delightful.  Prior to dinner, Nick came home with these beautiful flowers:

Saturday he also surprised me with a kayaking trip.  We have been talking about this for a while and it was a great surprise. It was a great 7 mile trip down the river.

Some highlights:

It was a pretty low key birthday but we had a great time and so far being 28 isn't so bad!

Derby Party: I'll Have Another

This weekend Nick and I threw our first Kentucky Derby party.  It was a great afternoon of wonderful friends, amazing food and some friendly betting on horses.  Nick as well as two of our friends were the lucky winners picking the horse named "I'll Have Another" who pulled ahead at the end and won the race.

Unfortunately my camera is still MIA but I did manage to remember to take a few pictures on my phone (please excuse the poor quality):

Waiting for the race to start-Amanda is sporting an awesome purple hat

watching some pre-race coverage

Nick and I all dressed up for the occasion

We also managed to squeeze in a little Cinco de Mayo celebration with some Mexican food for dinner with those that were still around.  It was a great day that we think we will have to make an annual McGeehon Tradition.

Happy Earth Day!

In celebration of Earth Day we decided to finally start our garden.  After spending most of the day Saturday watching the sun position we finally decided on the best location for the garden.  We decided on the back corner of our yard.

As you can see the corner of the yard already a little bit of landscaping and really is the only part of the yard that isn't really shady.  We decided to move some of the plants that were already back there and extend it out just a bit and put the garden there.  We planted tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, green beans, spinach, kale and onions.  I didn't get any in progress pictures but here is our final garden:

The pots to the side are the herbs I planted a couple weeks ago and referred to in this post. They have already started to sprout so hopefully we will have lots of fresh herbs soon.  

 We also re-potted this little plant.  A few years ago my mom gave me this plant and it was probably a quarter of this size. I have no idea what the plant is, but let me tell you this little guy is hardy.  I very rarely remembered to water it and really just left it alone and it seems to flourish- that is my kind of plant!  Yes those stones are a Cardinals stone and a Cubs stone. They were housewarming gifts from a good friend of ours.

The last thing we did yesterday was replant one of the plants we removed to plant the garden.  When we moved in there were 3 of these bushes along the back of the house They were still green then but looked like they might have been on their last leg and unfortunately they don't seem to be making a come back so we replaced one of them with a plant from the corner of the yard.  We hope to replace the other 2 soon, maybe with a flowering bush or two.

Hopefully that bush (We have no idea what it is) will make it and fill in that space nicely.  

There is still lots to do outside, but we feel pretty accomplished after this weekend!

Valentine's Day- McGeehon style

So I haven't gotten around to wrapping my head around all our honeymoon pictures so those posts haven't even been started.  I also have a few house related posts that I need to write I just keep forgetting- sorry.

Anyway given that yesterday was Valentine's Day and the first Valentine's Day we have celebrated as a married couple I thought I would share how Nick and I celebrate the day.

Neither of us are really big fans of the day so it passes with not a lot of "celebration".  In fact last year I recall going to a class at the gym at 6pm or so.  I did come home to take-out but gross sweaty me and take out really isn't the epitome of romantic.

This year we decided again to celebrate in much the same way.  Nick asked if I wanted flowers to which I responded that I did not. I much prefer that if he is going to spend money on flowers for me it is a) a just because surprise not because a valentine's day tradition tells him to and b) buys them on a day when they haven't been marked up to ridiculous prices.  Call me a curmudgeon....I'm ok with it :)

So what did we do.  Nick surprised me with a very nice letter on my night stand to wake up to and then once we both got home from work we spent the night eating this:

Pizza from our favorite pizza place, beer and banana cream pie (my favorite!).  Nick did consider getting a heart shaped pizza from Pappa Murphy's but they only came in pepperoni and since I don't like pepperoni he didn't think that would be a good idea.  We ate our dinner and spent the entire night on the couch watching "Big Bang Theory."

I know it isn't for everyone- but that my friends is my idea of the best way to spend Valentine's Day!  The only thing that would have been better would have been had I gotten a snow day, but Mother Nature has not been cooperating so no such luck.

Christmas and NYE

So it is January 19th and I'm just now getting around to posting about Christmas and New Year's Eve...oops.  Better late than never, right?

Our holiday week ended up being quite busy and nothing on my "break to do list" got accomplished, but despite that we had a wonderful time with family and friends.

We kicked off the celebrations with Nick's family on Christmas Eve.  Nick's brother was home from Germany so we got to spend the weekend with him and his daughter, Aubrey.  We had a wonderful lunch with Nick's Aunt Cathy and Uncle Dan at their house.  Then we went to Christmas Eve Service at Nick's dad's church.  After church some family and friends came over for some yummy snacks and hot chocolate before we all headed to bed.  Christmas day was packed with presents, church and more family time.  We had a great time with everyone before heading back to St. Louis that evening.  Here are some pictures from that trip:

Side note: Nick and i exchanged gifts on Friday before we left for our adventures and one of my gifts was a set of matching pjs for us for Christmas morning.  I had joked that I thought this would be a cute tradition not thinking Nick would ever go for it.  We will see if it actually turns into a tradition or not, but I think we look pretty cute in front of the tree :)

My family then came to St. Louis on Tuesday to see the house and celebrate Christmas.  I managed to only take 2 pictures while they were here (fail!)  one of my niece Emily and the other of the gingerbread house we made with Emily:

Emily showing off her new Cubs sweatshirt and Payton's new Sophie Giraffe 

Impressive I know!

While my family was here we also went to the Magic House (St. Louis's version of a children's museum) and did a little shopping.  It was a wonderful few days.  

After they left Nick and I packed up and headed to Chicago to spend NYE downtown with some friends.  It was a quick weekend low key weekend but we had a great time.  I again failed at taking enough pictures but here are a few

The tree in Daily Plaza

Nick once again sporting the bow tie  

Brandon and Katie

 So a little late but there is our Holiday season update!