Did Ya Miss Me?!

Follow my blog with BloglovinThat was a rhetorical question, but anyway, I'm back!!! After almost a 4 month hiatus I've decided to get back to this little ol' blog. See there was a really good reason why I haven't blogged since Thanksgiving...the hubby came home from Afghanistan!!!!! Yup, that's right, he came home a month and a half early and just in time for Christmas.

  Momma B and Carley were able to make it to the welcome home ceremony!

 

Found all these goodies waiting for us when we got home...Thanks Ben & Steph!

 

I think Kaiser was more excited than anyone else was

 

(If you couldn't tell this is going to be a picture heavy post so I hope you're ready.)

 

Well, Matt went back to work 24 hours later, and two weeks after that we were on the road to Chicago for Christmas. Now I don't know how many of you know this but I absolutely LOVE Christmas. It isn't about all the gift giving and receiving (even though it's kind of fun to get new things), but I love the fact that family comes together from near and far to celebrate. I also love, love, love opening my mailbox and getting all those Christmas cards in the mail. It makes me feel special that people are thinking of Matt and I during this great season. Speaking of Christmas cards, here is ours from this year...

Creative right? I thought of it all on my own!

 

I wasn't a very good blogger over the holidays and forgot to take pictures, but the here are some of the pictures I did take: (most of them are from Instagram)

 

After all of our visits with family and friends we headed back to Clarksvegas for our New Year's Eve extravaganza with a great bunch of people. See, it isn't often that Army friends are close enough in proximity to spend holidays together, so when the rare occurrence happens you jump all over it.

 

Since we were hosting the New Year's Eve extravaganza I came up with a great "theme"...Pajama Party! I mean seriously, who doesn't like a pajama party?! For one, pajamas are super comfy and no one has to worried about getting dressed up just to hang out at home, and two, you can eat and drink as much as you want an not worry about being uncomfortable in what you're wearing.

 Some of our wonderful guests hanging in their pajamas.

Usually Matt and I don't make it to midnight to ring in the new year, but I was determined to make this the year we did. Boy was I wrong! Matt fell asleep at about 9:30pm so what does any good wife do...she parties on! After midnight we lost about half of the party to sleep. For those of us still determined to make this the best start of the new year, we continued the party outside. We opened the garage door, popped open the trunk of the Santa Fe, and didn't stop the party....

 The party doesn't end till the sun rises!

 

We had such a great weekend that we didn't want it to end, but eventually everyone has to go back to work; not Matt and I. We were still on post deployment leave and had reservations for a cabin in The Great Smoky Mountains. This was our first visit to Gatlinburg and it certainly won't be our last! We did some...

 beer and wine tasting,

 

 hiking,

and a whole lot of relaxing!

 

Well now that you are all caught up on what we've been up to I guess it's time for me to end this very looooooong post. I promise I won't take anymore blog breaks like this last one, but it was a much needed break!

 

 

**Side Note: If you notice my pictures all have watermarks on them now. Why you ask? With a lot of picture "borrowing" going on I have decided to use the watermarks to claim my pictures as my own. Please do not use any pictures on this blog (bigapplegirl-windycityguy.blogspot.com) without permission. Thank you!**