LeeRo's bday :)

Yesterday as you know was Lee's 26th birthday!! I woke him up and suprised him with breakfast and a gift! Last nite we met up with him mom and grandparents in Martinsville at a GREAT italian restaurant!! Lee had rack of lamb and I had shrimp Carbonara and it was AMAZING! His grandparents are headed off to Florida until February! I love them..I had a hard time saying goodbye..as usual :( Here are a few pictures from the festivities...please note our new table! yay!









sooooo MUCH FUN!!! I want to wish you all a happy new year! Be safe tonite at your NYE parties! My new year's resolution is to lose MORE weight..and continue NOT smoking..i still have my cravings but I'm not smoking at all and I feel great! See ya next year!! :)

countdown to 30!

Today is Lee's Birthday! Here are just a few (million) things I love about YOU, Lee!!

YOU in general
your eyes
your smile
how you always get excited to see me
YOUR patience with me and anyone else for that matter
your dumb habits..the way you talk to someone when you're nervous (the lean)haha
that you talk to your mom everyday (sometimes twice)
the relationship you have with your WHOLE family
the relationship you have with MY family
seeing you ride your motorcycle
the thrill of the hunt!
they way you put your hand on my lap when driving
cuddles on the couch
holding me under the covers when im cold
moving my car to the garage when its cold or rainy :)
your love of video games..even though i hate them
your kitty cats
spending an entire day with you
cooking together
traveling with you
sooooooo many things

Lee, you have changed my life for the better. Before I met you I hung out with the SAME people every single day and I was depressed and sooo over it!!! I never thought I'd just randomly meet you the way I did. I was so over being set up on blind dates or being the third or 5th wheel! You've made me so happy..and have been there for me through many things..when i was very hurt and betrayed by a best friend, starting back to school, stress issues related to work, so many MANY other things. Everyday I love you a little bit more and I cannot wait to be your wife and spend the rest of my life with you...(yeah you should get on that) :) Thank you for EVERYTHING you do...even though i KNOW i dont say it enough. I love and appreciate you...you're the best thing to happen to me..EVER! Happy 26th babe!!!!!!!! The countdown to 30 begins!!!

BUILDING our future..

Phew I'm pooped after this weekend! I told you previously that I came back Christmas night from Winston-Salem because I had to work Friday and Saturday! I am so happy to have Lee home with me now!! Yesterday was a fun-filled day of building, shopping, more building, and a birthday dinner for Lee! One of a few birthday dinners actually! Anyway..this is how our day went. Lee's mom had given us money for Christmas to buy the table we wanted from Target! We have not had a place to sit down and eat! We've been eating meals on our couch at our coffee table..and that was starting to get very old/messy. I didnt bring my table from the old apartment because it was way too big and ugly for this place...ick :) The new table is totally us..and the leafs of the table fold down in case we need to make more room. I would just like to say for the record..that if it wasnt for me..that table NEVER would've came to be! I was a complete and total badass when putting that thing together. I think Lee was impressed with my wood-working skills..it's ok, Lee. It's hard following those step by step directions sometimes! Next we tackled the lovely entertainment center that Dad and Tina bought us for Christmas! That one was a little harder to put together but I do think that we bonded a little over drills and camlocks and plastic bolt covers..im a DIY kinda girl so I'm hoping these building skills will come in handy soon! I think soon I might need my own toolbelt to go underneath my apron! After building the entertainment center and setting that up we decided to go shopping for some seat cushions for our table! We decided on some VERY Cute ones from Pier One as well as some fun placemats to match! here's a few pics.. I didnt have my camera when putting the furniture together but I'll be sure to take some more pics for those who are truly interested..haha



these lovely seat cushions really liven up our table!
and here are our placemats..only we purchased them in red :)



I love how one table and a few accessories can change an entire room!! After our quick trip to Pier one we went to Lee's favorite for dinner..Red Robin! Its such a fun place to eat and they are so nice there! We ordered nachos (WHICH WERE AMAZING BTW) as an appetizer and it was 9 dollars. They didnt get the appetizer out to us until our food was up so they gave us the nachos for free! Pretty good deal I'd say! Needless to say, I left our waitress a nice little tip! This was a little bday present from me..i cant afford much after the whopping christmas but im sure there may be another celebration or two..i think lee's mom and grandparents may be heading up here tomorrow for his birthday and dinner!!

After dinner we decided we needed a leather ottoman! Im sorry..its not real leather..but thats ok I like to find the cheap way around these things! We thought that our giant coffee table looked a little to large now that we have an actual table so we decided to get rid of it for good...as hard as that was for me being that my great grandfather built it! We both agreed that an ottoman would look a little better. We will in the near future also be purchasing a rug..I have one in mind..i hope it stays on sale! hahaha! I think new couches and bookshelves are most definetly in the future this year as well...we really want to turn the place around!

Hope everyone is getting ready for the New year..im excited to spend some time with my girls!! Have a great week..for most of you its short im sure! :)

There's somethin' about Christmastime!

I hope you ALL had a wonderful Christmas! I know I had a great Christmas! Especially this being the first one that Lee and i would spend together at home! There's nothing better than spending time with family...I know Lee and I were both looking for some quality family time :)
We both had to work on Christmas Eve and we were bummed. However, Lee got off at 10am! What?! why even go to work for 2 hours? I was supposed to leave at 330 but my boss let me go at noon! I was happy with that! I came home and Lee and I baked and decorated Christmas cookies!





..I think Im a TAD bit better at decorating than he is haha!
Later that night we headed over to Grandma Pat and Grandpa Frankie's house for Christmas Eve Dinner and presents! I had no idea how much Grandpa Frankie and Lee would bond! He jus LOVED Lee...of course..who doesnt? ha! They talked all nite long and he got the grand tour..it was great! The food was amazing..its just one of those meals you look forward to all year long. You have the same things every year..and its just not christmas without those things! My favorite thing is that punch that my grandma makes! I look forward to that punch every single Christmas Eve. We had yummy ham, shrimp cocktail, yams, rolls, mac and cheese, ...i cant remember it all but it was good! Strawberry shortcake for desert and white chocolate covered peanut butter ritz crackers...strange but a tradition! Grandma Pat and Grandpa Frankie are always so good to the people I bring over for Christmas. I've taken Hope a few times and she's walked away with lots of gifts and money every time. I know christmas isnt about gifts but it IS about giving and my grandparents are the most giving people on the planet. I'm so glad they love Lee..my whole family for that matter. They're all begging us to get married..even grandpa frankie told him he wanted to see a ring on my finger!...its starting to get a little crazy..I think Lee might explode! :)
Needless to say..we received many MANY gifts, gift cards, a lot of food, money..you name it. My dad and stepmom gave us a new entertainment center! WOW! AND longaberger from TINA! even a longaberger centerpiece for our table!!




I even had a suprise up my sleeve for Lee! He wanted an NC State umbrella soooo bad! I had to go incredible lengths to find this thing! After I wrapped it, I knew it was obvious what it was so I gave it to my dad to hold onto for me. Dad hid it behind the tree where no one could see it and after all the presents were opened he brought it to Lee. Lee was pleasantly suprised!



It even started to rain as we were leaving and he was happy to use it! hahaha! I had no idea but its a pretty decent umbrella..with wind guards and everything..crazy! We came home and decided to open a gift from each other.




I got a knitting kit from lee..hilarious..long story..Minnesota..another time folks! Lee got a shirt from me! He needed new clothes for work very badly.
Christmas morning I woke up early to make Cinnamon buns for Lee and casserole for our big Christmas breakfast! I was so happy to spend a quiet christmas in our new apartment together! We had sparkling apple cider in our new Christmas goblets (from my dad and stepmom) and ate cinnamon buns. We took our time..we didn't want christmas to pass by us..of course it does always..very fast. We opened our stockings first.




Thank you pottery barn! haha! I filled Lee with lots of his favorite things.. a hilarious chuck norris book, chocolate covered potato chips, and a world of warcraft desk calendar to name a few. I also got him oodles of clothes and candy! Lee got me the perfume that I wanted..yay!!



and my most favorite of everything..daddadadadada..my lime green cast iron pot form le creuset!!!!! wooohoooo! He did a good job! he did a GREAT job! LOVE him. We waited for the casserole to cool and headed over to my Aunt Jan's for dirty Santa and Christmas breakfast! It was yummy..we had a whole buffet of goodies..crackers, cheese, cheese balls, cookies, casserole, dips, sausage gravy, biscuits, sausage buttons..yummo!!




we played dirty santa..which was a little better this year than last year..the gifts were REALLY bobo last year! I was happy with mine! I got GREAT kitchen utensils from pampered chef that I didn't have and a woodwick candle! Love it! Lee got a gift card to Dicks that he was VERY pleased with and afraid someone would take it but no one did! After a great morning with my family we headed off to Winston-Salem to have Christmas Eve dinner with his mama! His grandparents were there from Minnesota..I LOVE THEM!!!!!!! And Loren and Lizzy came up from Raleigh..and Lizzy brought her parents who were absolutely wonderful! Lee's mom's boyfriend brought his daughter Katie who ironically lives in Roanoke!! and he also brought his sister and her husband. It was a full house! And of course..John was there too! yay :)
We litterally went from the cheese ball buffet to an elegant dinner..it was gorgeous!




And the food was like thanksgiving but better! My favorite was the corn souffle and of course the homemade eggnog!! and wine... MMMMMMMM...thank you Julie! :) After dinner we all listened to Lee's mom and brother play the harp and the oboe and we all sang christmas carols.



It was so much fun! We gave our gifts to everyone and I loved my gift from Lee's grandmother :) Lee's mom gave us enough money to buy the dining table that we wanted! BLESS HER..no more eating on the couch!! She also gave me a paula deen cookbook/calendar..one I actually didnt have! I love how different our families are. Its like night and day..but we also have two WONDERFUL families! I cannot wait to see them unite..its going to be hilarious. i cant wait to share all these great traditions with our kids someday. They will be some very lucky grandkids!



After a few hours with Lee's mom we headed over to Lee's dad's. We were waaaay too full to eat anything but we tried to swallow a little homemade Lefse and pecan pie. We received our gifts from lee's dad and then I had to hurry home. I didnt get home till around 1230..and i had to be at work at 730..i was exhausted! Lee stayed in Winston Salem and is hopefully coming home tonite so that we can go get our table and put our entertainment center together. I am truly the LUCKIEST girl. I can't imagine my life without Lee. He's changed me for the better.
In other news my sister had yet another baby...I'm an auntie again to little Jonah. My sister had a baby girl on Christmas Eve..last year and a baby boy on Christmas day this year..YIKES!!! P.S. she's 17. Im praying for my sister and mother and the babies..its been a hard couple of years for them.
Christmas was wonderful. I would've been satisfied just to be with my family but to have Lee and his family around me is a blessing. We are looking forward to New Years Eve with Hope and Jenna and Carolyn and their spouses/soon to be spouses! Im so greatful to have rekindled my friendships with all of them! I'm thankful to have such good friends all around me! I love you guys! Hope everyone has a safe and happy New year!!! :)

Christmas is a comin' :)

Hey everyone!! First of all I just want to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Its finally here...and we be gone before we know it!! Its such a wonderful time of year..and I hate to see it go! Congratulations to Hope and Chad!! I'm so happy for you guys!! Can't wait to come to the wedding! :)
And if you are reading this right now...be thankful for your life, your health, and that you are able to read this. Be thankful for family, friends and loved ones, jobs and the country that we live in. I love you all..Merry Christmas and Happy New Year...Or as I like to say..Merryhappychristmahanakwanzaka!! :)

Secret Santa slothfulness...

So I was curious as to how many of your families out there do Secret Santa instead of buying everyone gifts! Every year its becomes very daunting trying to buy presents for absolutely every relative..and then..what if you forget one? You run out and buy that last minute gift (ie whatever is left on that wal-mart shelf) and hurry to Christmas dinner?! What a nightmare!
My family starting doing "Dirty Santa" last year. We figured since all the kids are grown up (or at least until we have great grand-kids running around) that we would all just bring one gift...and if you didnt want to open a new gift you could take someone else's. It's kinda fun..but also sometimes kinda difficult trying to pick out a gift that everyone would enjoy! I finished all of my christmas shopping except for my dirty santa gift..and I knew I had to think of something unique..here's what I came up with!



I'd been seeing these all over the place and apparently they're flying off the shelves everywhere! I can't imagine their APEAL! (a peel, get it?) haha! Tadaaaa! bananagrams! These little things are filled with a little word game (similar to scrabble i think) and come in a cute little banana shaped bag! I know what you're thinking...LAAAAAME..so I knew I had to get something to go along with it! Hmmm what would go with Bananas? Bananas.....MONKEYS!! So I picked up this fun little container of Monkey Bread Mix to go with it!



How fun!? A Very Cheap and simple gift all for under 20 dollars!! With a 35 dollar limit, I did a pretty good job! I might even head down to the market and buy a loaf of homemade banana bread just kick it up a notch! happy hunting!
Just thought I'd share....I was excited about it!! :)
Merry Christmas.... 8 more days!!!!

Love
~Meg

Decking the Halls...is cheaper than you think!

So this year has been a bit of a money struggle with me..paying off those bills, and debts and going back to school..my wallet is feeling the strain of the economy! I love Christmas shopping and wrapping Christmas presents but this year I thought maybe I could do something a little different to give to people that wouldn't cost as much. I settled on making something for different gifts...but what? I do consider myself semi-crafty but I don't think I'll be deemed worthy by Martha Stewart anytime soon:) Lee and i decided to go to Michaels today and what we came up with! I got a few helpful ideas from a friend of mine ;)

I bought these clear glass ornaments for less than two dollars a package..and i bought a few packages!



I decided to fill them with a few white feathers! But after putting one feather in It thought it looked very beautiful just like that!! Then I tied some pretty ribbon through the whole...less that 2 dollars for a huge roll!! and Viola! There you have it..simply elegant! :) It's now one of my favorite ornaments on the tree!!



I took the other half of the ornaments and painted around the top with some craft glue and a small paint brush. Then, I poured a thick amount of sparkling bright white glitter on top..it looks like snow!! Pretty!!



I also tied the same ribbon to these and they were so beautiful! This whole project took less than 30 mins and was less than 8 dollars! I decided to give one of each ornament away to a few specific people on my list! here they are all beautifully packaged.



I've found that another way to make a gift seem more meaningful and exciting is to wrap in in pretty paper and add ribbons or fun gift tags or ornaments!

And here are just a few of our presents under the tree!! Still have several more to go though!!!



Bags are always a good idea if you have something big that you don't have a box for! I had a lovely present for Lee's mom that when wrapped is very obvious as to what it is..so I hand-wrapped in and then put it in that big beautiful bag! There are a lot of fun bags and gift wraps out there..thanks to chocolate paper!! Some are even musical! Have fun decking the halls and wrapping all your gifts!! :)

Here comes Santa Clause! :)

This weekend was so much fun! I got to spend lots of quality time with my wonderful man and spend lots of time doing Christmasy things! I feel like I'm a week behind, due to the fact that last weekend we were both so sick! I'm loving this whole spending our first Christmas together thing. We are having a ball..with all the traditions we are continuing and the ones we are starting! We were together this time last year..but we didn't actually spend the holidays together! This year it's a whole new ballgame! Tomorrow marks a year and a half for us and I'm more in love with Lee than ever! AND..our socks still don't match.. haha! :)
To start off our weekend on friday nite we decided to go downtown for Dickens of a Christmas! What a beautiful night! There were lots of stands selling wreaths, homeade ornaments and signs and Christmasy things!! ( I think I've officially made Christmasy a word!) We walked around looking at all the wonderful booths and smelling all the wonderful smells that filled the night. We saw fire breathers and jugglers, dancers, magicians, bands..pretty much anything you can think of! We even passed by some chestnuts roasting on an open fire! We decided that we both just had to try some because we recently saw something about them on Food Network. We weren't impressed...the whole idea of roasting chestnuts is great..but..no takers here :) We thought about going on a carriage ride but you've been on one carriage ride...you've been on them all. Especially if your last carriage ride happend to be through central park in NYC! Yeah..there's no comparison! :) Even though that was a long time ago..I feel sure we'll be doing that again soon! We stopped for a bit to view the live nativity and the stopped for a drink at one of the new bars downtown..the Market Street Pub! :) I saw two more bars on our walk around..Roanoke is really starting to come out of its shell! well..its trying :) Here are a couple of pics from Dickens of a Christmas..I wish we had taken more! Sorry! :( WE did take a few more but they didnt turn out as well!




After a quick drink he hurried on our merry way over to the Hotel Roanoke to see the festival of trees! The hotel Roanoke is a gorgeous place anyway..but add a whole bunch of beautifully decorated Christmas trees and you've got it made! We walked in and took a little tour all through the hotel and picked our favorites..I took a pictures of a few of them! Sorry the pictures are blurry....my camera was on the wrong setting all night!!












After the hotel Roanoke we snapped a few shots of ourselves as usual..I guess we were feeling pretty Jolly! We headed back to the apartment and watched one of my favorite Christmas movies...One Magic Christmas and nibbled on some banana bread we bought at Dickens of a Christmas :)

On Saturday, our goal was to knock out some of our Christmas shopping! The hard part was not the horrible traffic (which it was) but the fact that yes, we were buying gifts for others but we were ALSO buying gifts from each other so we were trying to split up and be sneaky..even though we KEPT ruuning into each other AND we kept running into my dad. It was hilarious..next year we're going shopping seperately!! I had done most of Lee's Christmas shopping back in September or October but I finished up yesterday! I didnt finish buying everyone else's though..still had a few more to go! After shopping for most of the day and fighting the crowds we headed to bedford for our annual Christmas dinner at Liberty Station! I used to go to Bedford every year as a child to eat at the train station and go see the Christmas lights at the Elk home! It has always been one of my favorite traditions. Last year Lee and i went, and decided to make it a yearly tradition..hopefully continuing until one day we can take our kids too! (that is, if we're still in Roanoke..but let's not get ahead of oursevlves) We invited my dad and stepmom, Tina, and my Uncle Ross to dinner! The food was of course DELICIOUS...especially the crab dip..stop it right now!! After dinner we decided to head over to the Elk's home..and there was a huge line of cars backed up all the way to the restaurant! Fortuneatly for us, Uncle Ross knew a back way and we went that way and didn't have to wait at ALL! Yes I'll admit that the Elks home is a little cheesy but it brings back memories from my childhood! They wtill have almost all of the original things they had when I was little!! Here are a few pictures!!








Lee and I felt like kids at christmas getting to ride in the backseat!!



Next we went to Liberty Lake park..a lot of these pictures were blurry..but I got one especially for Lee that DID actually turn out!




haha..lee loved that Harley Santa! :)

After some Christmas light hunting, dad dropped us off at the car and we went for one more stop before heading home :) Every year I got to the Timmerman house in Troutville..my dad's old boss's house! He goes crazy with those christmas lights. You can park across the street and roll down the windows and hear the Christmas music playing..if you're lucky you might catch Santa Clause patroling the grounds! Here's a shot! :)



Today we slept in and were going to go for a hike..and then realized we STILL hadn't finished our Christmas shopping!! We hurried off together to get a few remaining items! We stopped for a quick lunch and continued shopping...I was exhausted. We finally made it home and started wrapping presents! I was going to make cookies but before I knew it..it was dinner time and I made an awesome soup!! YUMMM! Ding..Bellie's full! :) It was a great weekend!!!! Merry Christmas everyone! :)