A few of baby Jaleigh's newborn pics are posted on my photography blog!!

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So sis and I are sitting here at my house just chillin! The plan was to scrapbook and after a couple of hours we finally got around to it!
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We had all had a nice Christmas yesterday...First we did Christmas morning wth Lindsey & Jadyn and then with Matt's family...We had lunch at my parents and then did the family thing there too...

And now it's Friday evening and we have the whole weekend ahead of us...A whole weekend with no plans!! Whatever will we do??

Merry Christmas Eve!!

It's kinda been a crazy day, but a GOOD crazy day!

First off, this morning I went to Gibson to do some newborn pics of baby Jaleigh...She did SOOO great! (Here's one quick pic just to represent, but more to come tomorrow when I actually have some time to look through them!!)




Then back in town, I did a little last minute shopping, had a quick nap and headed out for the traditional Harrison family Chinese dinner!

We made a quick stop by my parents and are now home baking a cake and wrapping a few more presents...

Oh and my super good friend Lindsey brought me some of those very yummy cinnamon rolls featured on her blog last night!! (So here's a sweet pic of her a Jadyn all dressed up from the Christmas Eve service at church!)

So it's the day before Christmas Eve and guess who's sick?! Yep, I stayed home from work today when I woke up with a sore throat and achy ears...I actually slept until 2:30 this afternoon and then just layed around watching TV until Matt got home at 6...I totally felt like I'd wasted the day so since he's been gone all night (wrapping presents at Wal-Mart for the youth fundraiser) I've forced myself to do something somewhat productive. I've been sitting in here at the computer catching up on writing and printing out my journaling for my current year scrapbook! I've actually done really good...I'm all caught up except for one last one that I need to print out!

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Tomorrow morning I'm making a little trip to Gibson to do newborn pictures of Jason & Kacey's new baby girl, Jaleigh. (Here's a couple pics I took last week the day after she was born.)




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And then tomorrow night begins the Christmas festivities!! I'm looking forward to it all but really hoping that I don't get too sick so I can enjoy it all! (And the time off work!!)
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On a random note, Matt & I are planning on joining the Family Y after the holidays. Matt was originally going to join by himself so him and Steve could start working out in the mornings together, but ideally I'd like to be able to start working out again too. Back when we were engaged we both on a pretty steady workout routine, but that went down the crapper when I got sick for so long. Even though it's been five years since then, I just can't seem to get myself motivated to start back. My biggest concern is time! I mean, seriously, we usually have something going on AT LEAST three nights week! So I don't know...I think we're going to join and give it a shot for two months and see if we can actually get ourselves in a steady routine. Let's just hope I don't get too frustrated when I don't see results right away!
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Well Matt should be home soon so I'm gonna go kill a few minutes finishing up a Jon & Kate episode I started earlier!

Our trip to Birmingham with Steve & Sarah this past weekend was AWESOME!

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On our way we surprised Sarah with a trip to Archivers...(And yes, both husbands were good sports and didn't complain TOO much while feeling a little out of place!)

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Once we were back on the road Matt was the first to realize that we were about to be driving into another time zone...Yeah my heart kinda stopped for a couple quick seconds! We needed to get to B'ham about 4:30 so we could change and get to The Cheesecake Factory by 5:30 and somehow in all my planning I'd failed to remember that BIRMINGHAM is in another TIME ZONE! But lucky for us, this time change worked in our favor...And actually if I HAD thought of it earlier and factored it into our driving time we would've been late...Thank you Central Time Zone for giving us an extra hour and saving my tail!!

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As we got closer to the city I passed the directions up to Steve so that he could navigate for Matt...(But little did HE know there was no way I could relinquish TOTAL control - I kept my own directions in the back for me and Sarah to chime in whenever the need arose!) We checked into our hotel, change clothes and headed out for dinner!

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So we get to The Cheesecake Factory right at 5:30...Certainly it couldn't be TOO busy by then, right?? Uh yeah. Let's just say it was only a TWO HOUR wait! Fortunately for us though, I know a little secret and walked us straight to a table and sat down! We all thoroughly enjoyed our meal (once we made it through the 20 page menu!) and ordered up PLENTY of cheesecake to go for our after-concert snack!!

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Although it should have only been about a 15 minute drive from dinner to the concert we managed to turn it into quite an adventure. We needed to find gas somewhere, but finding ANYTHING in downtown B'ham is pretty near impossible. (Think, all streets with numbered names that have both a North & South version blocks away from each other. Oh and did I mention that they're all ONE WAY!?) Finally a cop directing traffic "pointed" us in the direction of a gas station. Yeah. Can we say sketchville?! I'm talking like the kind of place you think only exists in movies. And of course, you had to actually go INSIDE to pay! We got just enough gas to get us to another gas station and got the heck out of there!

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And then there's the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert- The whole reason for our trip! Unfortunately there's just really no way to describe their concerts...There's just no way possible to comprehend the musical drive and the mind-blowing lights/flames/fire until you've experienced it first-hand! Since this was our second concert we kept looking over at Steve and Sarah just to see their reaction and the look on their faces...So awesome!!

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Before heading home on Sunday we took a little detour up to Commerce (Georgia) to do a little shopping at the outlets. We ate, shopped, and ate some more before settling in for the last leg of our trip. In my pre-trip planning I had typed out directions to and between each of our stops and with the exception of a mysterious non-existent U-turn, they had proven flawless. So the question remains, why on earth did the guys decide it would be better just to follow little squiggly lines on a map than to actually use the line by line directions?? Honestly! I guess it's just that whole "adventure" thing that they crave!

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So anyways, after multiple U-turns, we all made it home safely. Of course we had a good trip, ate some great food and saw an awesome concert, but in the end we unanimously decided the best part of the entire weekend was definitely just getting to spend two uninterrupted days with amazing friends!

My Newfound Thoughts on Sweet Tea

Yes. An entire post about SWEET TEA b/c I've become totally obsessed with the very drink I've hated my entire life!!

It started back during the summer when I was really sick...Out of nowhere I started craving it and my first glass (at Sconyers) quickly turned into three glasses!! After that I ordered it every now at restaurants and and began frequenting Chick-Fil-A for half sweet tea half lemonade. At some point a couple of months ago I actually made a pitcher of it for party at our house one night (complete with sliced lemons of course!!) and now the rest is history. I've graduated from a medium to a large half and half at Chick-Fil-A and we've even started buying the "family size" box of teabags!

But the craziest part of it all is IN MY HEAD!! It has some sort of twisted placebo affect on me! Like in my mind I feel like I'm drinking some sort of alcholic drink!! Now of course I don't start walking into walls or slurring my speech, but I feel like I'm doing something wild and crazy!! Maybe it's the whole "caffeinated" thing b/c I hear people say "I better drink caffeine this late or I'll be up all night!" Maybe I think if I drink it during the day I'm going to start running around like the Energizer Bunny...Or maybe since I didn't grow up drinking it it's like an "adult beverage" to me! (I actually had the thought this morning as I was filling my Nalgene bottle that I better not drink it while driving!!)

So yeah. Mix me, sweet tea and lemon and all of sudden you get Super Hip, Super Edgy Jenn!

(Well, in my HEAD at least!)

Time for a friendly game of TAG!!
(Thanks, Lindsay J. for passing on the fun!)

Here's the rules:
1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag 4 people to do the same
NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

Here's my pic (and unfortunately it happens to be one that I JUST blogged about last week!!


It's STRETCH! Read the very funny story about WHY there might be a wooden CAT in my BED here!

Now, I'm tagging
Brandi
Stacey
Angela
Shannon

And on another note, I had a very awesome surprise waiting for me when I unlocked my office door this morning...While I was out Friday (vacation day) Brandi & Sharon decided to entertain themselves by decorating my office. It's SOOOO awesome!! There's Christmas lights all around my shelves on my back wall and huge snowflakes and big blue ornaments hanging from my ceiling!! It looks so so good! It makes me happy just to look around at it all! Definitely gonna have to take my camera tomorrow so I can post pics!!

Well, just got home from a Christmas party...Time to catch up on a little TV and get ready to for another day!!

Hope you have a good week!!

No, I did NOT convince my hubby that we NEEDED to open my nephew's Christmas present and try it out! Besides, why would two kid-free ADULTS ever want to sit around for an hour playing such a fun game?!?!




Oh and I most certainly did NOT have to explain to a room full of people at a Christmas party the meaning of "Not Me Monday" when I excitedly yelled it out in response to someone's "No, I did NOT" statement!

Nope. Not me!

It's been a whirlwind of a week/weekend!!

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Wednesday Night - Youth

Thursday Night - Youth Leadership Dinner

Friday - Day off of work. Hung out with sis and the boys. Kept boys while sis & bro-in-law attended a wedding and had Lindsay & Jadyn over to play!

Saturday - Christmas shopping in the AM. Nieces B-Day Parties, Friend's Christmas Party, Deacon & Elders Christmas Party (All between the hours of 2:30 and 6:30!)

Sunday - Church. Kept nephews (+ one!) after church. Grocery store. Nap!

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Now it's time for the week to get underway again!
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Monday Night - Small Group Christmas Party

Tuesday Night - Womens Ornament Exchange at Church

Wednesday Night - Youth Christmas Party

Thursday Night - Visiting Kacey, Jason & soon-to-be-born Baby Jaleigh

Friday Night - ??

Saturday through Sunday - Birmingham Trip w/the Whites for TSO Concert!

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Whew! See ya on the flipside!!





(Pics from the afternoon)

Tired Grey

Jackson being super sweet outside

Sweet Wilson playing "golf"

Mommy: "Sweet Little Chips, why do you look so concerned??"

Chips: "Oh, I don't know...Maybe because STRETCH is in the BED!!!"

HAHAHA! Matt and I just got home to discover a certain little Stickel boy had stopped by our house and decided that it was OBVIOUSLY time for Stretch (our tall, wooden decorative cat) to go night-night!!


Good times...

Sometimes a wonderful boost of confidence comes right out of nowhere when you least expect it!

And on that note, a random pic of our elf...(with his good buddies, Jingle Pals!)

Other than a family shoot this afternoon (see my Photography Blog), we've had a pretty relaxed weekend...Yesterday we decorated my parents' Christmas tree and then spent the evening hanging out and playing cards with Steve & Sarah...

So now the weekend is coming to an end! Another week at work...Not sure if I can take it!! Off to enjoy these next few hours before the craziness starts again!

Awesome Charity Raffle

What?! Two post in one night?! Insanity!!

But I just wanted to call your attention to the "Rebel for a Cause" button over on my sidebar...Clicking it will take you over to a blogger buddy's blog where she's hosting a raffle to raise money for three different charities...

So GO! NOW! And check it out! You'll flip when you see what she's raffling off! Even if you've already got one, I'm sure you have a friend that wouldn't mind a little love!! And besides, it's for some really awesome charities!

Sometimes you just need a break...And tonight is mine!! Sure I should be at youth right about now, but after working til 8 last night and 6 tonight, all I wanted to do was to come home and take a few minutes to breath!!

So I've caught up on all my blog reading and just took the time to snap of a few pics of our Christmas tree and other decorations!


Here's a peak at some of Matt's great finds at the after-Christmas sales...Several poinsettias and even a couple of deer!




And despite the fact that we don't usually get a tree until the the first weekend in December, we sorta broke down and got it a little early! (Yes, in the middle of last weekends flood!) Matt was a little concerned that none of the trees were tall enough, but as soon as he stood this one up in the garage he realized he'd be chopping a little off the top to fit it under our 10' ceilings!






And who do we have here?!?! It looks like The Elf on the Shelf has taken up residence in the Harrison household! (But shhh...Matt doesn't know yet! Our little elf is strategically hiding in the cabinet where I'm sure he'll go to fix a drink as soon as he gets home!)


I know it's silly, but I'm so excited about our Elf! I've been thinking about him for days and just finally got the chance to get him today. The girl packaging him up said, "Aww! Are you a teacher??" I told her I wasn't and the other lady said "Oh you're going to have so much fun taking him home and setting him up for your children!" - I just smiled. No need to tell her my little elf is just for me and my Christmas-loving hubby!