Ready for Christmas...

oh, hello Pinky

Merry Christmas!

Catching Up

This year, I've had some big changes in my life and blogging has been pushed to the back burner. 

I haven't gotten my Nikon out nearly as often as I would like, but it's been the season for iphone photos instead. The quality might not be nearly as good, but the convenience and accessibility is great.

In April, we moved from the only house I've ever lived in, to a house across town.

It's exciting to have a new space to decorate and play around with. It's a lot smaller than my old room and I had to put a lot of my things in storage for the future, but my new space is so cozy. (The only downside is not having all my books but they are all down in the basement in rubbermaid boxes so I'm able to get to them easily when I need one.)

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In June, I decided to leave Chick-fil-A after being there for a year-and-a-half. With the extra time I gained, I picked up a few more hours at my home health care job and I took an online class in Medical Terminology. 

Sadly, about a month after I left Chick-fil-A, the patient I was taking care of passed away leaving me without a job. With my new certificate in Medical Terminology in hand, I applied to several different places and got two job offers. I chose the full-time position at an orthopedic doctors office. (The same office I went to back in March when I sprained my hand.) It was a big change going from taking care of an individual patient to bringing between 30-70 patients back to exam rooms in a day, but I'm learning a lot. 

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The changes haven't been all big, though. I bought a kayak and went kayaking with friends multiple times over the summer. 

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And of course, plenty of time spent with family.

Taking walks...

Playing at the beach...

Going to a water park...

Having fun at the county fair...

Taking funny face selfies with my nieces and nephews...

And how can this little baby be so old already?!

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I can't promise that I'll be back to blogging as often as I was before, but I hope that it won't be quite as long in between posts. 

Scrabble Night

Scrabble is one of my favorite games. My sister-in-law, Sarah, is one of the best players I've seen and over the years, I've picked up a few tips from her. I'm usually playing at least one game of Scrabble with facebook friends. 

I've talked to several people over the past year or so who enjoy playing Scrabble so I invited a few good friends over for a Scrabble night.

Sarah loaned me her Scrabble board and Scrabble dictionary to go along with my Scrabble board and Bananagrams

I had to have fun with the snacks so I made Scrabble brownies from an idea I saw on Pinterest. I also had a bowl of Scrabble cheez-its. 

Since there were six of us, we were divided into two groups of three with two games going on at the same time.

After our games were over, we played Bananagrams for quite a long time! We all had a wonderful time playing and spending time together!

Me, John, Aspen, Casey, and Amber. Unfortunately, Jeff had to leave before we took the picture. 

Meet Macie Violet

I have a new niece! Little Macie was born one month ago on January 10. She's a sweetie pie!

I was able to take some pictures of her when she was just a few days old. She wasn't sure what to think of picture taking at first but with a full tummy and some snuggles, she decided it wasn't so bad after all.

I made a video of some of the pictures I took. She is so adorable, it was hard to chose which ones to use!

Macie with her mama

Alaine loves being a big sister and has taken on the role as the little mother

We are all so happy about this sweetest new addition to our family!