Be Thou a Knight: December 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

2010: A Year In Review...

As 2010 comes to a close, I wanted to share a few highlights (and low-lights) from the year.

In April, I met SEVERAL fellow bloggers at the Beth Moore, So Long Insecurity conference in Atlanta. It was a time I will never forget, filled with long lasting friendships and a great message from Beth.

My mom and I opened JillyBean's Doggie Boutique and I pray it continues to be a SUCCESS!!

My family lost a very important person in our family, my 102 year old great grandfather, Watty Watkins.

The hubby and I celebrated FIVE years of marriage.

The hubby and I both had surgeries this year...he had surgery on his foot and I had surgery to remove endometreosis. As we finish up on a few more things before trying IVF again this next year, we completed our homestudy for adoption in March and are officially able to adopt a baby!

The hubby began working part-time at Freedom Boat Club to help with our expenses.

We visited the hubby's aunt and uncle in South Carolina for a mini-vacation and LOVED every second of their hospitality and their gorgeous home.

The hubby and I took our annual vacation to Destin, Florida...and once again it did NOT disappoint.

We took a trip to Washington DC to see my brother-in-love, who is in the marines, perform in the Marine Corps Band.

We took our nephew to SeaWorld...even though it was FREEZING in Florida that weekend!

Overall, 2010 was a year of many memories, some good and some bad, but nonetheless, memories that I will cherish forever. I can only imagine what God has planned for us in 2011!!!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

2010 Knight Christmas...

We had a blessed 2010 Christmas!!!

Santa was really good to us this year...looking at all the gifts under our tree is pretty overwhelming, yet we are thankful for all the things we received and what we were able to do for others.

Christmas Day was a very busy one for us. We woke up on Christmas morning and had my parents over to exchange gifts and to eat breakfast.

It's a tradition for us to all wear Christmas pajamas...here are mom and dad with their cute pajamas on :)

Unfortunately, mom and I are addicted to Farmville (I'm not proud of that, but it is what it is). So we gave mom some Farmville Cash for Christmas. This picture cracks me up at how excited my mom is, yet how NOT excited my dad is...HA!!!

I got a kick out of this picture of me...it's the ONLY one of me on Christmas day (mainly because I'm the one taking the pics)...because I look like I am 10 years old tearing through my gifts!!

Mom's little baby was sitting in her lap and watching us open our gifts :)

David was SUPER excited about his gift...an iPad!!

I had to snap a picture of this little cutie...Maci belongs to my parents, but I LOVE her as if she was one of mine!!!

After breakfast, we headed over to see my nephew and to exchange gifts with my brother and sister-in-law...

I still can't get over the fact that Mikey would rather jump on the bubble wrap than play with his gifts...it's the small things.

He spent a good 10 minutes trying to open this gift...he just couldn't get the paper off!!!

We then headed to my mother-in-love's house to exchange gifts with her...

Guess what my mother-in-love got from us??? Farmville Cash...all three of us are ate up with it!!

The 2010 Knight Christmas was filled with family, friends, food, gifts, and love...what more could a girl ask for???

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas Eve 2010...

We did things a little different this year for Christmas Eve.

For the first time ever, we had Christmas Eve at our house. My mother-in-love and I spent quite a few days (maybe even weeks) planning out the menu and how we wanted to set up the tables full of food. After this Christmas Eve celebration, we decided that we needed to go into a party-planning business together :)

One of the centerpieces for our table would be a shrimp Christmas Tree!! This is how we made it...

We took a styrofoam cone and glued it to a ceramic tile and placed it on a decorative plate. I found an old gold Christmas ornament and stuck it in the top of the tree.

Next, we took toothpicks and covered it with lettuce.

We took some decorative toothpicks and stuck in the boiled shrimp, cherry tomoatoes, and olives.

Finally, we put some fresh strawberries on the bottom to cover up the tile...and voila!!!

Here is another table FULL of food...

We had a few unique dishes this year...one included fried kibbie (a middle eastern dish filled with steak and spices).

And these spicey cream cheese filled pinwheels.

Here are a few pics in front of the fireplace...

We had to take the traditional mom and me pic :)

And here is a pic with two of my FAVORITE ladies...mom and the mother-in-love.

Of COURSE I had to get a pic of this little cutie too!

Another thing we did this year that made our Christmas Eve different (yet special), was sponsor a family.

I met Shanita through our church and after hearing her story, knew she needed help. Shanita is a 22 year old mom to a 1.5 year old sweetie named Mya. She has lived in Jacksonville for only about two weeks and literally has NO ONE. After visiting with Shanita, I realized that she was in need of some basic items not only for her, but for Mya, and for her apartment. I set up a wish list through the Walmart site and sent out the registry to several family and friends. To my surprise, almost EVERY SINGLE item I registered for this family was purchased and delivered to my home, just in time for Christmas. My mom and I surprised Shanita on Christmas Eve morning with a car FULL of gifts. After watching her open several of her gifts, we invited Shanita over to celebrate the evening with our family.

Shanita and I...

Can't you see the sparkle in her eye???

This year was definitely not your tradtional Christmas, but overall,
we had a fabulous Christmas Eve 2010!!!!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas Flowers...

There is just something about fresh flowers that make me smile...but add Christmas to those flowers and I'm over the MOON!

I picked up this Christmas bouqet at the grocery today and it had enough foliage to create two different vases...

One for our guest bedroom...

And one for our guest bathroom.

I also added a few poinsettias to our backyard too...

We've only had one week of freezing temperatures and the majority of my plants died already, so these poinsettias gave life to our backyard..

Ahhhh, Christmas flowers.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

An EASY and CHEAP Christmas Gift...

I work with a LOT of great people and wanted to give each of them a little something for Christmas. But when you have so many people to buy for, it can get VERY expensive.

Last year I made some Christmas Jars filled with all the ingredients for Chocolate Snickerdoodles and all my co-workers loved them. So I wanted to do something similar, yet different.

I was looking online for some Christmas appetizers and came across these...

I thought they were cute and thought they would make the perfect Christmas gift without breaking the bank.

So I picked up one bag of the pretzels, a bag of almond bark, a pack of cellophane bags, and some pretty ribbon. Total cost of the supples...less than $10.

I melted the almond bark and dipped my pretzels into the bark and then set them on wax paper to dry. I then put a bundle of three pretzels in a cellophane bag and tied them up with a pretty Christmas ribbon. Here's how they turned out...

I think they turned out pretty cute!!

I plan on making some more this weekend for our guests to take home on Christmas Eve...and I am going to add either sprinkles, nuts, or red candies to make them even cuter!!!