2012 Holidays

Wow, it's 2013!  Seriously?! Casey and I have been married 8 months.  Seriously, where has the time gone?    I don't know where it went, I just know it went by very quickly.  The holidays at the Hixon house were wonderful!  It was first Christmas as husband and wife, and I would say it was a major success!  We stayed in town for Christmas, driving a few places between Houston and Katy to make sure we spent as much time with family as we could.  We celebrated Christmas with Casey's family the Saturday before Christmas because we thought his youngest brother was on call for his job as a nurse anesthetist in Corpus, but they decided to wait to tell him until Friday afternoon of that weekend that he had it off.  Oh well, we still had a lovely Christmas meal together and enjoyed opening presents from each other.  Along with my wonderful husband, he has an incredibly loving family that you can't help fall in love with too.  Probably one of my favorite gifts was an ornament my mother in-law gave me that had a picture of our house painted on it and on the back side had our names, "Our First Home", the year we bought our house, and our address.  Isn't that so creative and thoughtful?!  I LOVE IT!

No holiday is complete until we take a picture in front of the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve afternoon, we went over to my Uncle John and Aunt Regina's house to get together with my mom's side of the family! We draw names for this celebration and since my cousin Ryan had me and my Uncle John drew Casey's name, they both went in together to get us yard tools.  Thanks to them we are now the proud owners of a couple shovels, a rake, and hoe.  Way easier to do yard work when you have the proper tools!  After a few hours of snacking and opening presents, we were on to our next stop, which was Casey's parent's house for lasagna and banana splits. So much yummy food, I can only imagine how calories I consumed!  
  Next stop was back to our house for the night.  Every single Christmas until this year I had woken up at my parent's house, so I thought it might feel a little different not doing that for the first time, but I must say I enjoyed waking up next to my husband and spending the morning with him.  Being our first Christmas together in the same house, we tried to come up with some traditions we could start together.  We already went to a Christmas tree farm to get a tree (here is the link in cased you missed reading it http://thehixonhouse.blogspot.com/2012/11/christmas-tree-snobs.html).  I wanted us to have more than just one tradition.  Last year, Casey and I did an ornament exchange where we got each other an ornament we thought that represented the other.  I got him a Santa ornament in a sleigh that also had a fishing pole/fish on it since he loves to go fishing.  He bought me a beautiful angel ornament.  We decided to do that again this year.  It's fun to see what we get each other.  This year I got Casey a squirrel ornament since has developed quite an obsession with killing squirrels this year.  Very fitting I thought and he enjoyed it too.  Casey got me a "Gone with the Wind" ornament, and though I do love that classic movie where my mother received her name, his primary purpose in getting it for me was because the name of the ornament was "Scarlett has met her Match" and I had met mine. The boy can be very sweet and thoughtful!  I was definitely impressed!  All I ask is that he puts thought and effort into what he gives me, so it doesn't have to be expensive.  He has yet to give me something I don't like!  We also read the story together of Jesus's birth, which I thought would be good to remind us what Christmas is supposed to be about.
  For gifts I gave Casey a sand blaster he had requested and he gave me 5 gift cards to 5 of my favorite places: Whataburger, Yogurt Cup (a frozen yogurt place by our house we love to visit), Wings N' More, a mani/pedi at a nail salon, and a massage!  Boy did FANTASTIC!

Casey with his squirrel ornament

The proud owner of a sand blaster on Christmas morning

S'more ingredients for my fire pit
I got Christmas Eve from one of my brother in-laws

Christmas morning was nice, and then it was onto my parent's house to do lunch and gifts there!  My mom made my grandmother's dressing which is so tasty and makes me think of her even more along with delicious sweet potato casserole, honey baked ham, turkey, green bean casserole, and many other yummy dishes.
Here are some pixs from the afternoon:

Duck Dynasty T-Shirts!  We are hap-pay, hap-pay,
hap-pay people!

Who doesn't need a pooping reindeer?

Pretty new shirt Andrea got

Casey is beyond thrilled I have another
pair of shoes for our closet!

U of H BBQ spatula.  He LOVED it!

Giving money in an envelope is a dead give away for what's inside,
 so I wrapped it around a can of green beans to keep the
girl guessing what it was!  

This boy loves watching movies!!

His other Aggie hat has seen better
days,so my Mom got him a new
one and the old one has been retired.

My Mom enjoying some new clothes!

Christmas Day 2012

Thankfully Casey and I had the whole week of Christmas off and didn't have to go to work till Jan. 2nd!  That Saturday, we packed up the SUV and were off to Marble Falls to stay with Casey's grandfather.  Casey's cousin Misty and her husband Raoul happened to be visiting then too, so the 5 of us enjoyed spending a few days together.  We didn't do much, which was nice to finally be able to do that.  Sunday, Casey and I drove to Fredericksburg to eat at a restaurant where his cousin Cory is a manager.  Must say the food was wonderful, so if you're ever in that area be sure to eat at The Auslander.  Managed to stay up till midnight and start off 2013 together.  New Year's Day involved sleeping in late and then driving back to Houston.  I'll leave you with our New Year's picture and hope that you had a lovely holiday season with your friends and loved ones.  Until the next post...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men." John 1:1-4