Christmas Parties!!

This week was so much fun!! Sara hosted a Girls Christmas Party at her house this past Wednesday and she did a fantastic job. The food was excellent and I had about 5 chocolate cookies..yum yum. It's always nice to get in a little girl time to catch up and just be silly. We did a Christmas ornament exchange and it turned out that everyone ended up with the ornament they brought except for me, Tracy and Blair. I love the little Santa ornament I ended up with...he's so cute and I hung him front and center on my tree!!

The Girls!!


My work Christmas party was this past weekend at our GM's beautiful home in Dallas. They had great food and plenty to drink of course. I ended up getting a little more toasty than I planned but thankfully Brent was there to lend me a helping hand. I can't believe Christmas is this week and then the start of 2010!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

The new 3 Amigos (Heather, Ashley and me)

Good wine :)

MillerCoors gift exchange

December Celebrations

December has been a busy but wonderful month so far. Vicki and Dave both celebrate their birthdays in December so Brent and I threw them a duel birthday party at our place. We asked Grams, Peeps and Brad to join the party and we had a great time. Brent grilled up some tasty steaks and I made salad, cream corn, 2 types of potatoes and my famous honey-cream cheese bread!! I found this good-looking potato recipe in my crock-pot cookbook so I decided to try it out. The recipe said to cook on high for 5-7 hrs so I of course planned accordingly. About 2.5 hrs into the cooking process, the potatoes were done. It made me nervous that they wouldn't be very good by the time everyone got to the party so I decided last minute to make backup mashed potatoes. My original potatoes came out great, so I didn't need my backup potatoes but oh well; you can never have too many potatoes, right? After dinner, the birthday boy and girl open their presents while we chowed down on Grams' awesome strawberry cake. We ended the night with a fun game of Catch Phrase!!

The Birthday Couple

Strawberry cake...yum yum

Make a wish

Birthday Picture

What is it, what is it!!!!

Awww, good picture of Grams and Vicki

Let the games begin...Catch Phrase, my favorite

Hurry before the time runs out

Good times!!!


Vicki and Dave so kindly invited Brent and I and my family over for a Christmas dinner this weekend at their house. My parents, Grandma and Leon were so excited to spend time with Brent's side of the family. We had a wonderful dinner, shared stories and jokes and finished the night off with a good game of Joker.

Christmas pic

Love my daddy

Brent trimming the meat with an electric knife for the first time, so funny

The boys talking it up

Love my momma

Our awesome grandparents

I still can't believe Dave won at Joker

It's SNOWING!!!!

This morning I was awakened, more light frightened by Brent's frantic plea for me to wake up and look outside. "It's SNOWING" he said with a huge smile on his face!!! I looked outside and couldn't believe it really was snowing, then a huge smile came upon my face!! The next words out of his mouth were, "do you think I have to go to work, it looks a little dangerous out there?", wink wink. He of course had to go to work, but at least we got to enjoy a beautiful snowing morning together!!

Its so beautiful


Brent off to work in the snow

Yay for Christmas!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I love the holidays and I'm so glad Brent and I are blessed to have such wonderful families to spend the holidays with!! Last year, Brent and I were on our honeymoon during Thanksgiving so I considered this year to be our first official Thanksgiving as a married couple!!

This year sparked a season of new traditions for Brent's Mom side of the family. For the past 30+ years, Vicki and her family have always had Thanksgiving in Tulsa at Grams and Peeps house but this past year Grams and Peeps sold their Tulsa home and moved to Dallas to be closer to their family. I'm so thankful that I got to experience Thanksgiving in Tulsa in 2007 before that chapter came to a close. Grams and Peeps lived in a cozy neighborhood tucked away with trees filling the whole neighborhood. It was absolutely beautiful. Every year, everyone from out of town would drive up and stay at Grams and Peeps all the way through the weekend. They had a really big house, so there was plenty of room for everyone! The best part about Thanksgiving in Tulsa besides Thanksgiving dinner was going to Coney Island the day after to eat their world famous hot dogs. I'm not a big hot dog fan but I have to say, Coney Island hot dogs are the best I have ever had and I still find myself craving them from time to time. The whole family would load up and drive to the original one downtown, get at least 3-4 dogs each and take a family photo inside Coney Island. On the way home, we would drive by and reminisce about the Dry Cleaner's shop Grams and Peeps ran for many many years downtown. So much history and I love hearing the stories everytime!

Grams & Peeps House in Tulsa (2007)

Grams, Peeps, Brent and I (2007)

My first Coney Island experience (2007)


This year, Vicki hosted Thanksgiving at her house for everyone and it turned out great. We all stuffed ourselves full of great food and the most amazing macaroni and cheese ever made on this earth, watched the Cowboys claim another victory and played a wild game of Uno. I won the turkey prize and help provide the half time entertainment during the Cowboy's game. I'm so thankful I married into a welcoming and warm family!!

Happy Thanksgiving B-rent

Brent's Mom's side of the family: Justin, Peeps, Steve, Mel and Sheila

Vicki and her boys and even Low

We love you Grams!!!

Passing the time with a good game of ping pong

Get out of the food B-rent

Time for our Thanksgiving feast!! Whoo hoo

Looks yummy

Cowboys half-time performers (Vicki, me, Jill and Lauren)


The next day, we continued our Coney Island tradition by fixing hot dogs over at Mel and Justin's house. Grams made her yummy chilly and we had all the fixings to go with it. I think we all missed having a warm and juicy hot dog from Coney Island but we were all together and that is what meant the most!!

Our new "Coney Island" tradition

The family over at Mel and Justin's

Dave & Vicki munching on their hot dogs

Family Photo


The fun didn't stop there!! That evening Brent and I spent time with his dad, Kathy, Brad and Kathy's family for a fajitas style Thanksgiving. I wasn't sure if I could stuff anymore food in my belly but after seeing how good all the food looked, I had to have at least one fajitas. Brent had 4 and I have no idea how he ate that much. It was fun getting to see them for the holidays and it was a perfect close to a wonderful first Thanksgiving as Mrs. Porter!!!

One Year Wedding Anniversary!!

Brent and I celebrated our One-Year Wedding Anniversary this past weekend on November 22nd!! I absolutely can not believe it has already been a year. Crazy!! So our anniversary celebration had its ups and downs on Sunday but all in all it turned our pretty well. Brent cooked me breakfast which was a very nice surprise and it was really good. Then I had a melt down because I thought I had lost all my christmas tree ornaments but my mom ended up finding them in the very back of their attic...thank goodness!! Brent then surprised me with his very thoughtful and really cool anniversary present, I knew he was up to something but I wasn't for sure what he had gotten me. He surprised me with a really cool canvas pop art piece that had our photobooth pictures on it from our wedding. We hung it in our stairway and I love looking at it every time I pass by. Good job B-Rent!! We wanted to save eating the top layer of our wedding cake till after dinner but neither of us could wait. So after opening presents we went straight for the cake. It still smelt pretty good but the cake was pretty dry. It still brought back wonderful memories. Brent then decided he wanted to take me to an IMAX movie so we headed to the theater and saw "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D. It was awesome!! I have never seen a movie in 3-D and it really does seem like the characters are coming straight at you! By this time we were really hungry so we both agreed Pei Wei sounded good. We filled our bellies then went straight to bed. That marked our first year of marriage and even though there have been some tough times, I wouldn't change any of it for the world. Happy Anniversary B-Rent!! Love you!!

What could it be....

I love it, thank you B-Rent!!

awww our wedding cake

Brent's ready to take a big bite

we are soo cool in our 3-D glasses