Memphis Bound

Today Bobby and I head to Memphis, TN for the New Year and the Liberty Bowl. This year UGA plays UCF (University of Central Florida) in the Auto zone Liberty Bowl and we decided since Bobby's never been to Memphis and because this will be one of the last weekends we have with each other before we're married that we'd make the trip. Memphis is where I was born and I've been back a few times and love it, but this will be Bobby's first time. We have plans to stay on Beale Street, eat lots of BBQ, see the dawgs play and ring in the New Year in style!! HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

White Christmas

"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'"
-Luke 2:10

Christmas has come and gone, but our Savior will always remain. The verse above was part of the Christmas Eve service at church and I realized that I don't think about the verses we cover in church as much as I should. The "reason for the season" as they say, is what is important. Often we all get too busy to even notice that Christmas is celebrated to celebrate and honor the birth of our Savior and his life of sacrifice for us.

This Christmas was my last as Single Sam... kind of scary! But, it was a great Christmas filled with family, friends, joy and SNOW! It was a white Christmas for the first time in Atlanta since 1882. It was beautiful and memorable for us for sure. We of course split our time between the Johnsons and the Phillips Families and were able to get around to see everyone on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Bobby and I are lucky to have everyone within a 30 mile radius. Some of the highlights of the Holiday season for us were Cobb Christmas, Reading as Santa, Christmas Cocktails with the Lawrences, White Elephants @ the Pridgen's, the Teddy Bear collection for the local Fire fighters and the joy of our nieces getting gifts from Santa. This year we also realized how much we all get caught up in what we get for Christmas. We're getting married in a few days (19!!) and wanted our families to not get us gifts. Christmas was just as great without gifts and at the end of the day we are most grateful for our families and not the gifts they give.

The pups like playing in the snow, but don't like the cold. They are like their mom :)

Anna Kate's First Christmas. She just woke up from her Christmas day nap.

Santa Baby

This past Friday Bobby and I went to Ms. Benson's class (K4 as we found out) to read to the kids and to let them meet "Santa" AKA Bobby. We started this tradition about 3 years ago and Bobby and I really enjoy it. This year I opted to not be Mrs.Claus but just Santa's helper. Its always hard to work 1/2 day, rush home and change and get back to the school in time for the kids to see Santa. And last year there were a few roaming hands, not that little kindergartners meant anything by it, but it weirded me out. This year we read Olivia Claus (for those not familiar, Olivia is a little pig who has an entire line of books about her). The kids love it. Audrey let each child come up and tell Santa what they wanted and we took their pictures. It was a great time as usual.

Married in a Month

One month from today, January 15, 2011 I will be getting married! "FMJ," short for "Future Mrs.Johnson" will be no more, I will be MJ, Mrs. Johnson. Scary, but fabulous at the same time. Over the next month we have Christmas, Liberty Bowl, New Years, Susan & Greg's Wedding & then finally OUR WEDDING!!! Happy Holidays and Happy "Sam & Bobby's Wedding."

Last Minute Christmas Cards

Somehow in the craziness of planning our wedding I forgot that I needed to order Christmas cards. ooops! And I am usually the one that has them ready to mail 2 days after Thanksgiving. This year, not so much. After trying to get the pups to sit for a picture for about an hour I gave up and decided to sort through the pictures we had from our engagement session. That's when I realized we tried to get a few with our babies. There was 1, yes only 1, where Bobby and I were both looking at the camera and so were the pups (sorta). See the card we did below (the screen shot of it at least). And please don't be upset if you don't get a card, I only ordered 80 and I really should have gotten 40 more. sorry! Merry Christmas to everyone card or no card.

Deck The Halls...

This weekend we finally had time to get out the Christmas decorations and get the season started. Not that December 5th is running behind, but we were starting to look like the Grinch on our street with the Martin's decorated and the Pooles. We can see the lights on either side in our house at night and felt bad we weren't contributing. Bobby even got fresh wreaths for the front of the house. He did it to surprise me while I was working the Tour of Homes Saturday morning which was so sweet. He was excited and I don't think I was as excited as he about the wrested but they do look really nice on the house and it was sweet of him to think of me and try to do something for Christmas! Its a big step for him for sure, specially since when we first started dating he had a wreath on the door and that was it, and that's ALL he would let me put up. Now we have wreaths, lights, garlin, bows, a tree and a holiday decorated table. The pups even helped this year.

We have a small tree again this year, but its our first tree (the same one from last year) and it works for the space. One day we'll do a real tree and it will be BIG!
This year I also go a tree skirt. I did a lot of Christmas decoration shopping last year after Christmas, this skirt was one of my purchases.
We had enough UGA ornaments for an entire tree. We'll have to have a Georgia Tree at some point.

One of the ornaments we received at our "Christmas" themed shower!

Pictures from this Weekend

Katherine sent me a few more pictures from this weekend that I wanted to share. Little Emily is just so adorable! Be mindful the first few were taken at the Travillians the day after our bachelor /bachelorette parties...