December was busier than usual! Ryan walked in the graduation ceremony to celebrate his August graduation!
The event started bright and early on a Sunday morning December 15th.
He invited seven guests to witness the monumental moment!
Proud Grandparents
Proud Aunt and Uncle
Proud Girlfriend
Proud Graduate!
Afterwards, we went over to my parent's clubhouse and took some Christmas pictures since we were all dressed up (and matching!) This picture will definitely be appearing on next year's Christmas Card!
This was this year's card
This year's ornament(s) all celebrated the graduation. I found an artist that makes personalized ornaments by hand - I LOVE how this turned out!
I also purchased a Hallmark ornament to place a picture of the graduate in!
Here they are on our tree.
This year I ordered vinyl names to place on plastic Starbucks cups. They turned out so cute and everyone seemed to like their gifts!
I made personalized gift bags from items I found in the dollar section at Target to place them in:
After weeks of wrapping and months of purchasing gifts.....this is how everything looked after it was wrapped. They were stored in an extra bedroom at my brother and sister-in-law's house until they were ready to be placed under the trees.
Because I can't get a single picture with all the gifts - here's a video to show the finished piles:
This is our home Christmas Eve. (These are just Bill, Ryan and my gifts).
Side note: This is the last year for this Christmas Tree! We purchased a new one for next year!
Sure hope it is as full as this tree!
After the gifts were opened:
Our annual Christmas picture before we go over to celebrate as a family with my parents, brothers and sisters-in-laws and nephew.
These are some of my favorite Christmas gifts that I received!
The sign says it all!
My beloved gift cards! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
I LOVE this HOME sign that has an interchangable "O" for each season of the year!
I used a couple gift cards to purchase the following wall decor for the Kitchen and the Boy's Bathroom:
Bill has had a short period of time off of work, so he's painted the kitchen for me!
I started collecting Rae Dunn items for my home!
Since the bathrooms were just redone, I decided to buy several of the bathroom pieces to add the finishing touches.
The collection has now spilled over to most areas of the house!
This is next to our bed.
The entryway:
Bill is #1, Me #2 and Ryan #3
Bill keeps his wallet in his cube!
Little area in the living room:
Valentine's decoration by Television:
I could do an entire post on my kitchen collection! I started a Pinterest board to document all the pieces I have! Similar to the Skechers board to ensure I don't buy a duplicate in error!!!
We purchased a new artificial Christmas Tree from At Home for next year. Although I was hoping to find a smaller/thinner tree we all voted that this one was the best looking. Our current tree was going on six years old and the needles were starting to fall off and two branches were broken. The tree is 7.5 feet and has 1000 lights. We were fortunate to be able to see it on display. It looks full and the lights appear bright. I can't wait to see what it looks like next year!
(The bottom rows of lights were unplugged)
Now that reality has set in and it's time to return to work (school), I made these cute snowmen out of Trident White gum! I saw the idea on Pinterest and took it a little further and made a background to attach them to. You'll see he's holding a sign that says " PROUD SNOW DAY SUPPORTER"!
As always, here are the latest Skechers purchases:
Happy New Year and New Decade!!!!!
