JLNWA Winter Dreams 2009

Looking for a fun activing to do on Sunday, Dec. 6? I have just the thing for you!

The Junior League of Northwest Arkansas presents the 11th Annual Winter Dreams Tour of Homes.

Eleven houses in Washington and Benton County will be on display for all to see. The homes have been decorated for the holidays and will be full of great ideas for your own holiday decorationg. Each home will be open to all ticket holders to enter and explore. Tickets are only $20 and all of the proceeds will benefit the mission and projects of the NWA Junior League including providing special Chrismtas wishes to local children.

Below is a list of the 11 homes on this year's tour:

• Underwood Plaza
• Mardis Home
• Blowers Home
• Smiley Home
• Bogel Home
• Givers Home
• Hicks Home
• Meier Home
• Nicklau Home
• Russell Home
• Eaton Home

I will be working at the Blower's home in Washington County from 10:30-2:30 so come by and see me. I will be your lovely tour guide. For all of those who know Kirsten Blowers, this is her parents' house. Kirsten is an interior designer and owns her own home store in Fayetteville, Riffraff. Visit her blog to get sneak peaks of her parents' house.

If you are intersted in tickets you can either purchase them online here or contact me and I can get you tickets.

Hope to see everybody there!!

My Thankful List

Every year around this time, like most people, I start thinking about the things I am truely grateful for. Here is what I have come up with:

• That I have parents who have always supported, loved and encouraged me my entire life
• For my brothers who I am luckily very close with and can call my best friends- its amazing what growing up will do to siblings' relationships
• That I found the one person who loves me unconditionally and is a true friend - Ryan
• Having a large extended family whom I am very close with and that live close enough so I can see them pretty regularly
• Coming home to a guy that all he wants to do is lick my face and play with me and is always happy to see me - Tackle :)
• My other best friends - I might just be a crazy person if I didn't have the girlfriends that I do. They know me too well
• My education and my job - I am lucking enough to have afforded a higher education that provided me a job that I absolutley love. And I am especially thankful that I don't dread going to work everyday
• My country and the people that protect it - I am so thankful that I am free and can do what I please, worship how I please and work where I please and even more grateful for those that sacrifice so that those things aren't compromised.
• My house and my heat - I am lucky to go home at night to a toasty house which provides a roof over my heat
• And most importantly, my God who has given all of the above mentioned to me. God is Good!

Happy Turkey Day to All!

Gobble Gobble

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings

Last weekend Ryan and I went to another wedding in Little Rock. It was for Ben Kent and Ev Gillian. Ryan grew up with Ben and I was a Tri Delt with Ev so we both knew people at this wedding. On the way home, I started thinking.....How many weddings have Ryan and I been to together in the almost 2 years we have been together. So we counted. The total came out to 7 weddings together and 6 others without one another (2 of which were on the same day, each of us in one). We are both at that age when most of our friends are getting married but I think we are above average for most couples. I am heading back down to Little Rock this weekend for Megan's wedding and there are already 4 weddings on our calendar for next year and we are expecting at least 1 more to be planned. Whew! Eventually, all of our friends will be married but I'm not sure when that will be :) Here are some pics from last weekend.

Ryan and his Momma. Love her!

Me and my man. Dress courtesy of Collin. I brought 2 different dresses as options to wear that night and I still ended up wearing one of hers. Old habits die hard :) Thanks friend.

Thanksgiving Eve 1888

On Thanksgiving Eve in 1888 Sarah Ida Shaw and Eleanor Dorcus Pond founded Delta Delta Delta. Every year, the collegiates and alumna celebrate our founding with a dinner. As the NWA alumnae chapter president I am in charge of planning our dinner. So my officers and I have been planning it for the past 3 months, trying to make it the best one yet. I think we succeeded! There were 21 alumnae present and we were able to have it at the Delta Shelta. It was perfect because the house was decorated for Christmas and it looked beautiful. We had the traditional candle-lighting ceremony and munched on some YUMMY Noodles while some of the in-house girls served us. Overall it we had a great time and I am so glad it turned out so well. I am looking forward to next year.

Half the group eating dinner
All around the Christmas Tree in the foyer

And we had to get the traditional staircase pic. The painting on the wall is a picture of my mother walking down the steps from the house and was given to the house by her pledge class in memory of her. It has been hanging in the house since the earlier 90s. Very cool.

The Playoffs

Farmington has made it to the playoffs and the first-round game is tonight.

Farmington Cardinals (6-3-1) vs. Ashdown Panthers (9-1)

vs.

Yes that's right, we have to trave TO Ashdown. And for all my girls, yes I have already asked Collin to come to the game with me :) Collin is a former Ashdown High School Cheerleader. The drive will be about 4.5 hours and after the game, Ryan and I are driving up to Little Rock to stay with Collin because one of Ryan's friend is getting marreid on Saturday.

On to the game preview....

The team left yesterday to travel to Ashdown so they didn't have to worry about being on a bus all day before they had to play tonight. Farmington is coming off a not-so-surprising defeat to Shiloh Christian last week. I will spare everybody my rant and rave about Shiloh's "non-recruiting" practices. The one good thing that came out of that game is that it prepared the Cards to play Ashdown this week. Shiloh and Ashdown have a similar offense but, sad to say, Ashdown is 10 times faster than Shiloh. That will be the key to the game tonight: not letting the Panthers get an open field. Any one of their players will be able to out run any one of the Cards so we need to confuse them on defense and pressure the QB so he makes inaccurate throws. The Cards are ready for the first round of players and are anxious to eat some panther for dinner.

GO CARDS!!!

To the Veterans I Love

To all the Veterans in our country I wanted to wish you a Happy Veteran's Day. I want to especially thank the Veterans in my family and my friends who have or are currently serving our country.

• My Grandfather - Bob Brewer - served in WWII
• Ryan's Dad - Jerry Pettigrew - served in Vietnam
• My Cousin - Jared Smith - served in Afghanistan
• My Friend - Chris Petrancosta - graduated from West Point and is currently awaiting deployment

Thank you for your sacrifice, your service and your willingness. Today I honor you. I love you all!

Obnoxious

If you know me at all, you know I love taking pictures. I am pretty sure I get that from the Smith side of my family. I love taking pictures so much I carry my camera around in my purse just in case the occasion calls for a photo opp. My mental checklist before I leave the house everyday is wallet (check), cell phone (check), camera (check). Seriously!

Welll my sweet boyfriend has come to adore (hint of sarcasim) this quirk of mine. Most of the time he agrees to be in the pictures for me. He knows this make me happy. The poor thing hates digital cameras though because he knows one picture will turn into 5 if I don't like what I see on the first take.

Notice I said he will oblige and take the picture with me most of the time. Some times he just doesn't want to do it and starts acting obnoxious about it. Last saturday at tailgating was an example of that obnoxiousness. After three takes of trying to get a decent picture of us, I gave up. Below is what I was left with.

Shopping Extravaganza

Sunday was a day dedicated to shopping, shopping and more shopping. Me, mom, my four aunts, their three cousins and my cousin Amy all decided to spend all day in Tulsa shopping until we dropped. We arrived around 10 a.m. and didn't leave until 9:30 p.m.

Shopping with my aunts is always an adventure and we always come out with many funny stories. Before we even left for Tulsa, we were printing off coupons all week to all the different places we wanted to hit up. We were a sight digging through the millions of coupons to find the one for that particular store we were in.

First we started off at Gordman's. There we each had to make multiple purchases because they only took one coupon per transaction. After Gordman's we went to lunch at Ron's all had the best chilli cheese burgers in town. After we were refueld, we head off to Stein Mart. There I got a couple of Christmas gifts and a Christmas gift for myself - a leopard trench coat on 75% off sale. Merry Christmas to me!

The Woodland Hills mall was next. The funny thing there happened when Susan freaked out because she thought she lost a bag when in actuality she was holding it in her hand. We were all rolling with laughter. After about 4 hours in the mall we headed to one of my favorite stores Garden Ridge where I purchased a ton of cheap Christmas gifts. I am super excited abot decorating a WHOLE house for Christmas.

All that shopping took a toll on us so of course we had to get some Mexican for dinner. Here we are ending our day at Abuelos.

Below is the trunk of one of three cars we were in. I should have counted how many bags we had all together. It would have been a rather large number

I can't believe it...

Wow! I can't believe Bekah is going to be a mommy. Actually, scratch that, I can belive it I just can't believe I've come to that point in my life. The time when my friends are starting to have babies. I felt like it was just yesterday when 3 of my best friends all got married within 8 weeks of each other.

We always knew Bekah was going to be the first to get married and the first to have a baby - she is a kindergarten teacher for crying out loud! When she called me and I heard her say -"Guess what Mer? I am 8 weeks pregnant!" it was one of the most exciting things to hear and one of the the weirdest too. At that moment I felt like I officially had entered that next stage of life. It also made me feel like I have no control of my own life anymore :) I am growing up even if I don't want to.

I can't imagine two people that will make better parents than Bekah and Dallas. I can't wait to watch her tummy grow and to plan a baby shower (yikes I've moved from wedding showers to baby showers already?!?).

Oh and by the way, thanks for giving me a life-check moment Bek! I will never forget that moment :)

I love you Hoppers. Congrats Mom-to-Be!