What did 2011 bring?

It's amazing to think back through your year and relive some of the moments that defined what is 2011 for me. I'll give it a whirl, month by month.

January

We rang in the new year on a Cruise ship for our belated honeymoon. Quite and amazing experience.

We got our first fur baby, Bella, who has absolutely rocked our world. We love her so much!

This was right after we got her and were in the car on the way home! She weighed in at about 1.25 lbs and was such a ball of fun! Now she ways 5.5lbs and plays ALLLLL the time!

January - February

We received A LOT of snow! So much that we had to take an inservice day away to be with the kids, rather than making up an extra day. I'll take the compromise any day!

Also in February there we plenty of Tigers games, that leads us to March...which begins March Maddness!

March

The Tigers walked away with a conference championship that led them to the big dance. Unfortunately we didn't make it far, but we were there to welcome the boys home!

April

Bella got her first big girl hair cut.

I ran in my first 5k in 32 minutes, and by some miraculous miracle I got first place in my age group!

I got my very first Pandora bracelet for my 27th birthday. I love getting new charms to add to it!

May

We purchased a fancy (new to us) explorer!

I completed my first school year at St. Georges!

June

The painting party obsession began. This was my first painting!


Chris and I went to the Miss Tennessee pageant to see my SIL compete.


July

We went to the beach!

Chris celebrated his birthday at the beach!


August

Poor Bella got spayed. :(


School started back again!

September

Bella went to another doggie friends 1st birthday, and fell in love with 3 dog bakery cake!



Another painting party! So far this is my favorite painting!


October

Chris got a new truck!


We celebrated being married for 1 year! Enjoyed a yummy cake topper and a dinner at Texas de Brazil



Bella made Halloween look GOOD!


November

I ran my 3rd 5k and cut my time to 30:04! Race for Grace with Jessica!


We had our pictures made with Kristin Irby Photography!

My uncle came to do his very last demo at my school before he retired from MPD.

I decorated for Christmas!


December

December was full of family, food, and lots of time together. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures like I should have!!! But trust that we had a wonderful time.

I went to my first ever cookie swap.




And tonight...on New Years Eve, me and the hubs took in a Tigers game. We walked away with a win too!


I wish the very best new year to you and yours. It was a blast looking back through 2011. Here is to an amazing 2012!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Katie

Five on Friday!

These are by no means official resolutions, just a list of five things that I'd like to do a better job of in 2012.

1. Take more pictures.

2. Stop stressing about the scale.

3. Stop stressing out.....

4. Live life more

5. Laugh a whole lot

Happy new year y'all!

Thankful Thursday

Can ya believe I posted 2 days in a row? What am I thankful for this Thursday? Or just thankful for in general?

1. My husband. My best friend, hero, and my rock.

2. My mom. Her sweet way of comforting me in no way anyone else can.

3. My sweet pup. She's been quite the little snuggler during this break from school. As I type this she's laying on my lap.

4. My girl group. These girls crack me up with our string of multiple emails each day. I love how we celebrate birthdays, holidays, and girls night outs on a regular basis.

5. The relaxing feeling after a great run and a hot shower.

6. Pedicures

7. Diet coke

8. Pandora radio

9. My brother and sister in law coming in town this weekend.

10. Hope Church

That's all for today folks. Happy Thursday!

Katie

The Blogging Hiatus is Over!

I went to the movies over my Christmas break and saw this cute little commercial about a dad who created an e-mail account for his baby daughter. He wrote her e-mails frequently about the major events in her life and ended each e-mail with, "I can't wait until you are old enough to read all these."

No, I'm not pregnant lol. However seeing that commercial reminded me that I do have a blog that is really fun to go back and read, when it's updated... Mine definitely has seen it's better days. I am surrounded by technology! Home laptop, work laptop, iPhone, and now a snazzy iPad (thanks to Santa). All that being said, I really do need to do a better job of blogging. I mean it wouldn't take as long if I updated regularly. Also, I have a nice camera, and another thing that I am going to work hard to do a better job of is take more pictures to remember so many special memories that I have.

So, I will start with just a brief update of our Christmas this year. It was a busy season for me. It's funny how teachers seem to have absolutely no time to Christmas shop before our Christmas break begins. Between Christmas programs, parties, and festivities there are very little evenings left to shop. So the hustle and bustle for the Burleson family began on December 16th at 12:30 as I rolled out of school to begin a much needed break. Saturday, the 17th, we went over to my friend, Stephanie's new house in Southaven for our annual Christmas/thanksgiving with friends. Sunday, the 18th, Chris and I did Christmas with my dad. Monday, the 19th we took our nephew to the tigers game against lipscomb. I think he really enjoyed it. Tuesday, I enjoyed baking several dozen cookies and then headed over to my friend Katie's for a cookie swap. It was also the night that our girl group exchanged gifts. :) Wednesday, the 21st my mother and sister in law came over for a baking day. Thursday and Friday were filled with finishing up Christmas shopping and wrapping and getting ready for having Chris's side of the family over for Christmas eve. It went very well and I was very pleased with how everything turned out. I only wish that in my hustle and bustle that I would have taken the time to take some pictures :(. On the evening of Christmas eve we spent it with my family playing our annual game of dirty Santa. Interesting as always! Christmas day was wonderful. We woke up about 9 and exchanged gifts at home together first then headed to my mom's. She had a wonderful breakfast casserole for us as well as our traditional sausage balls for breakfast. We exchanged gifts, then hung out for awhile before heading home to get ready to go be with the rest of my family that evening.

This Christmas has been the best so far in my memory. It wasn't about the gifts, it was about the time together. I have so enjoyed this break. Last year this time, we were on a cruise ship headed to the Bahamas, but even still this year is better.

So as the new year approaches, I am going to do better about documenting my life. Just because it is so neat to go back and read.

I hope your Christmas was just as blessed as mine.

Katie

The Tale of a "Cone Head"

...sigh

Poor Bella.

So, on Monday, August 1 I said a tearful goodbye to my fur baby pup as my husband took her to the vet to be spayed. I was so sad! I guess mostly because she went to the vet completely fine! Happy! Hungry! Then we make her go through surgery...

It's healthier for a dog to be spayed, I know, but I was still sad. So we spent Monday and Monday night without the dog. She made it through the surgery just fine. We picked her up on Tuesday morning. Wanna hear the sad part? I made Chris stay home from work with me because I was worried about being alone with a dog that had just had surgery! How will I ever have a real baby??

She did fine on Tuesday, the vet said she wouldn't need a cone around her neck because 99% of dogs don't mess with their incisions.

Tuesday night. Every 30 minutes. Woken up. Bella licking incision.

It was bleeding a bit on Wednesday morning so we took her to the vet as he instructed us to do if we saw bleeding. So he decided she needed to wear a cone and be on antibiotics just incase there is any infection from her licking it so much.

So I go buy the cone, and my mom helped me put it on. She's taking it really well! She eats, drinks, plays, and sleeps with it on. Acts like it doesn't bother her. Here's to her being the 1% of the dog population that has to wear the collar!

She has her energy back completely now. In fact we are still trying to keep her not quite as active just in case. In one more week we can have the stitches come out and we can take this cone off for good.

God bless her for being such a good sport. It can't be any fun wearing that collar!

Please pray that she continues to heal as nicely as she has so far.

Oh and by the way...summer ends tonight. Bummer. But I'm excited for a new year!

Mrs. KB

BEACH!

I haven't had a beach vacation since....well December for our honeymoon. But that doesn't count. It was SO cold.

So let me begin again, I haven't had a beach vacation in 2 years! We went with my family in 2009, but skipped 2010 because we were saving for the wedding. We opted to not go with the family because we didn't think we could afford it, because we were still recouping from the wedding. However, my husband made it happen!! We went for a week! July 16-23.

We stayed at the Phoenix East tower in Orange Beach, AL. It was very nice. We had a one bedroom, one bathroom condo (which was the perfect size for just us.)

When we arrived on the 16th, we unpacked, did some shopping, and ate at a little Mexican restaurant. We went to bed ready to hit the beach the next day....

...not. It was rainy! BUMMER. We went down anyway to put our toes in the sand and waters, but it was not a day to lay there. So, we decided to go ahead and get the shopping part of our trip done. I love going to Gulf Shores because it is so close to Foley. Foley has an amazing Outlet mall called Tanger Outlet. I had good luck in stores like Gap, Ann Taylor Loft, Rack Room, and COACH. We shopped until about 6, went back to the hotel and changed and went to dinner at the Original Oyster House. They had yummy food, including their famous cheesy grits. Yup, grits with dinner! Here is Chris and I after dinner...

So on Monday, the weather cleared and we had our first full day at the beach. It was nice. Not too hot and breezy. Here was my view for the day...
Monday was also Chris's birthday. He enjoyed the day relaxing on the beach with me and then we went for a nice dinner at Lu Lu's. It's Lucy Buffet's (Jimmy Buffet's sister) restaurant. Such a great atmosphere. Of course I'd leave my camera at the condo on this night. I did get a few pictures with my iPhone though!

Lu Lu's

A prize for my mom in this bag...

Chris's birthday brownie....yummmm

Tuesday was a sunny day as well. Chris and I were a little red in areas so we were careful in the sun. However we still got plenty of it! We spent the morning looking at the beach...

The middle building is our condo.


The water was so clear!


Sportin' the tankini to cover up the burnt tummy!

We spent the rest of the day Tuesday jet skiing! I don't have any pictures because....well the camera would get wet! It was a blast though!! That night we went to Tacky Jacks for dinner. It was a really cool atmosphere too. It's right on the water and they also had a really neat pier to check out while you wait.


Wednesday was another beautiful sunny day. We spent the morning at the beach.

Isn't that a great panoramic shot? I love this function on my camera! After the beach, we went on a dolphin cruise on a glass bottom boat! It was fun, and we saw lots of dolphins!

Chris and I waiting for the ride.


This was another boat identical to ours in the water with us.


We saw lots of dolphins! You can really see it in this picture.

Our boat driver took us to Bret Farve's house. It is amazing! It's a trillion dollar home. He had to buy four houses just to tear down to build his. If you look in the picture, the house to the left is a two story house...look at the difference!

That night we ate at a cute little place called Gulf Island Grill. Great food!

Thursday...another great day at the beach. We spent ALL day there. I got sun, read a book, and just soaked it all in! That night we went to Lambert's. It's famous for throwing rolls. We waited for almost 2 hours! It was worth it, and was fun...but geeze!!!

That night we also met up with Mandy, Tim and Houston. They just so happened to be in Gulf Shores the same week we were. So neat!



So great to see them!

Well, I didn't know Thursday would be my last day at the beach, but it was....bummer. It rained again. But actually, it turned out to be a really fun day! Chris and I went down to the Wharf and shopped and even took in a movie. We saw Friends with Benefits. IT WAS HILARIOUS. You have to go see it. So we did our last minute shopping, ate at a little Italian grill and headed back to our condo to pack up. Perfect ending to our trip.

But I have to say...I'm already thinking about when I'll be doing this again.........

Time to get back to work! Hope everyone's summer was great!

Mrs. KB