Sugar's Favorite Ornament

So we put up our tree this weekend. Let me just say that I'm normally opposed to decorating before Thanksgiving weekend but Lee forced me. So we currently have a fall pumpkins out and our Christmas tree up. Whatever.

Anyway, we have this fluffy feather ornament we hang on our tree and Sugar's always been a bit obsessed with it. When I pulled it out of the box this year she went nuts. By the time I pulled my phone out, she was more interested in the phone at first than the ornament but you get the drift:

I made sure to hang it low on the tree where she can get to it. She likes to go up and nuzzle it every now and then. I think she wants it to be her friend.

Either that, or she wants to pluck it and eat it.

Tampa Birthday Surprise

Chrissy and Mike moved to Tampa this summer and we've been talking about getting down there to visit them ever since.

It started with a conversation between Sara and I on when we could visit and turned into "would it be crazy if we flew down for Chrissy's birthday and tried to surprise her?" Mike loved the idea and we convinced Steph to join us as well (with her flying in from Charlotte).

Mike managed to keep our secret (it was easy for Sara, Steph and I since we only talk to Chrissy every few weeks, but Mike had to live with the secret for two months!) and although she knew Mike had something up his sleeve I think she was truly surprised.

We flew in Friday morning and Mike picked us up at the airport while Chrissy was at work. We hit up the grocery store for some snacks, birthday cake ingredients and booze and then set to work making their living room a bit festive.

(Notice Ali in her banana Halloween costume):

Steph preparing the cake:

When Chrissy walked in, Sara greeted her as Steph and I hid in the kitchen. Lots of screaming and hugging ensued.

I came out next and stood behind Chrissy while she was talking to Sara and overcoming her shock. I finally had to tap her on the shoulder, and she whirled around and the screaming started all over again.

We all chatted a bit and then took her over to look at her cake, where Steph was hiding behind the counter. It's safe to say she officially lost it at this point. It took us all a good 10 minutes to stop shaking, we were so wound up. I've never done anything quite like that before and it was so exciting! The anticipation, the planning and then actually pulling it off -- pure awesomeness.

We popped some bubbly, devoured some homemade guac and cheese and crackers and spent the afternoon catching up.

Then we got ready for dinner and hit up Ella's, an awesome restaurant Chrissy and Mike have found that was absolutely delicious and had a really fun atmosphere.

Before dinner:

And a silly shot:

Saturday was spent exploring Tampa, seeing Chrissy's hospital and the beautiful Davis Islands:

Then mimosas and yummy salads at Cafe Dufrain on the waterfront:

Followed by wings and nachos at PJ Dolan's while watching the UNC/NSCU football game.

The game didn't go our way but birthday shots made it better!

And finally, grilling out at Chrissy and Mike's (yes, we ate about ten different times on Saturday), a rousing game of Cranium and birthday cake.

It was an awesome weekend full of talking, eating, drinking, exploring, more talking and enjoying the gorgeous weather of the Sunshine State. I so enjoyed being able to spend the weekend gabbing with my girls and can't wait to do it again.

Thanks Mike for helping us pull it off (and for being a devoted blog reader!) and Chrissy for being such a good host and allowing us to crash your birthday. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

P.S. - I've changed the commenting system on the blog, so hopefully it will be easier for you to leave me some bloggy love. I know it was a bit confusing before if you didn't have a Google account, but now you should be able to sign in using Twitter, Facebook or just put in your email address and name. Try it out and let me know what you think. If it still sucks, I'll change it up again. Because y'all, comments really make my skirt fly up.

Maia & Kelli

Wendy wanted to get a picture of her girls for their Christmas cards this year, so we did some quick shots after church last Sunday.

It was chilly and windy but the girls were troopers and I think we got some good shots. I'm not going to post the winning picture so I don't spoil it for those receiving a card but here are some other pics from our shoot.

Keiley

She might not have any front teeth, but girlfriend knows how to strike a pose.

Something I've Been Thinking About...

The posts that I most enjoy sharing with you are the ones where I've photographed people. Like Brevyn, or Leah, or Brevyn again.

I love taking the pictures, I love editing them (because let's face it, you need good photography but it's the Photoshop love that takes a picture across the finish line) and I love sharing them with you guys on here and on Facebook and getting feedback.

I'd love to get more practice with portrait photography, so if you'd be a willing subject, let me know. Free of charge, no obligations on either part. In the end, hopefully I get some good practice with shooting and editing and you get a few nice pictures for free. A win-win for both parties.

I'd love to do children, senior pics, families (maybe you need a good Christmas card picture?), but if you have other ideas I'd be open to that too. I'm not trying to make a career out of this, and I do have a full-time job, so if for some reason there's a ton of interest I may not be able to get around to everyone.

Obviously anything in the Holly Springs/Raleigh/Durham area is game, but if you live in La Grange or Kinston I'm there about twice a month (even more around the holidays) so that would work as well.

If you're interested, leave me a comment here or email me at megancdawson {at} gmail {dot} com.

Fall Decorating

I had way too much fun this weekend getting our house spruced up for fall.

For me, it's always a little hard to know when exactly to decorate for fall. The end of September seems fall-ish but if you buy pumpkins then, they'll barely make it to Halloween, let alone Thanksgiving. Case in point -- my mom bought me a mum for my birthday and by the beginning of October it was dead as a doornail. (Ok, that might have more to do with my lack of gardening skills than the plant being purchased too early, but whatever.)

I had scoped out the pumpkin options at WalMart but decided to wait until after our Mexico trip to make my purchases. But instead of WalMart, we found a cute little pop-up pumpkin patch in the parking lot of our local Harris Teeter. It wasn't exactly a trip to the country, but I still felt better about buying locally and supporting this family-run business (the teenager manning the stand was super friendly and helpful). And even though I expected the prices to be a bit higher than WalMart, they were actually matched pretty much dollar-for-dollar.

Plus, I got the deal of the century on a new mum. I wasn't planning on buying another mum, seeing as I'd already killed one. But as we were leaving the guy said "oh and all of our mums are on sale for $5." I said "all of them?" He said yep. "Even this huge one on display out front (that's twice as big as all of the other ones and is actually probably worth more like $20)?" I had him then. He said yeah sure, why not. I told Lee to pay the man before he changed his mind and he said "yeah you really are getting a good deal on that mum."

So here's what our front porch looks like these days:

And our dining room centerpiece:

I also decided to get my craft on after some inspiration from Pinterest. I came up with this fall picture frame wreath (and bucket-o-twigs) for our hallway:

The frame is a cheap $5 WalMart frame (ideally I would have had one lying around to reuse, but I didn't). It was black, so I primed it with white spray paint primer before painting it orange (with cheap craft paint and a paintbrush).

I scavenged pinecones from the backyard (Sugar chewed up the first round of pinecones I had found and carelessly laid on the patio table, so I was NOT a happy camper to have to go back into the woods again. Lee did find it amusing though that I was actually out-of-doors.) The pumpkins are real ones. And the W is a wooden letter from AC Moore painted with craft paint and hot-glued onto the frame.

This was easy-peasy but I so enjoyed getting to flex my crafting muscle a little bit and finding a way to make it all come together nicely. And we never got around to hanging anything above this hallway table after we bought it so I like that that area has a little more going on now. Now I'll have to figure out something to put there for Christmas and then something permanent for the rest of the year.

So what do you think? And when IS the right time to decorate for fall? (I saw whenever you feel like it!)

Adventures in Babysitting

My sister and I got to babysit this little turkey nugget this weekend:

We had tons of fun going to dinner, shoe shopping at Target, applying lots of Chap-Stick, reading books and naming all of our body parts. You know, all of the things that cousins do when they hang out.

And I like to call this series "what Brevyn does as Megan tries to get ready for church":

Can't wait until the next time I get to snuggle her!