President's Day weekend with Dad & Mom!

Good morning! I hope you are all having a good Wednesday so far! Halfway through the work week- yay!

As promised, here some of the highlights from our recent visit with Mom & Dad Butler that I wanted to share. We had such a wonderful time together and wish we could see each other more often.

Dad, Mom, and Buddy arrived on Saturday afternoon and we had a fun time catching up. After a bit we decided to venture out and show them some of our favorite places in Birmingham. As you might guess, the first stop was the library! I love that place. Yes, I'm a dork I guess. It is such an awesome library with tons of great resources. We had fun showing them around and ended up checking out some DVD's that we could watch in the evening.

Next, we drove over to 2nd and Charles, a large used bookstore. Daniel had some books to sell and we all had fun looking through the many, many various books they have. Mom & I wanted to walk around JoAnn's so we left the guys at the bookstore and headed a few doors down to JoAnn's.

Outside of 2nd & Charles

Inside of 2nd & Charles (how cool is that book display??)

Mom & I had a blast looking through the material and all of the other sewing supplies. Mom is a veteran seamstress and is amazing at sewing (among other things!). I have a little bit of experience with sewing, but I am still learning. Mom gave me a sewing lesson while she was visiting and I learned how to thread the machine, thread and install a bobbin, and change out the needle. Up until now I could use the machine, but if the thread or bobbin came undone it was all over- I had no idea how to fix it! Recently I was working on sewing a table cloth when the bobbin came undone.. I ended up finishing the tablecloth by hand (not ideal). So this was a fun learning experience for me! I loved walking around JoAnn's with Mom & learning more about something she is so good at. Mom bought some material to make a new skirt for her skirt purse and I bought some material to try to make a small banner for our front door. I also bought some scrap booking paper to make a banner which I'll show in a later post.

After satisfying our JoAnn's sweet tooth, we headed to Jim'n'Nicks for some good old bbq! Jim'n'Nicks really does have some amazing food and we all ate well that night.

Dad & Mom in our booth at Jim'n'Nicks

Daniel & I in our booth at Jim'n'Nicks

On Sunday we got up and went to church and enjoyed a lovely service. It was the first Sunday of Lent and the church service was a beautiful reflection and challenge as we enter this season. After church we stayed for fellowship and had fun introducing Mom & Dad to some of our church family.
After church we went home and had some Skinnytaste Chicken Parmesan. I am a big fan of Gina's Skinnytaste recipes. All of the ones I've tried have turned out to be delicious and fairly simple to create. I paired the chicken parmesan with roasted broccoli, cheesy garlic bread, and pears and we were all set! After much needed naps we headed back over to the library to take a walk on their nature trail. I think little Buddy enjoyed it the most, but he was pretty tired out afterwards!

Sweet Buddy

On Sunday night we had Community Group (our small group from church) and were excited for Dad & Mom to get to join us. It was a sweet time of fellowship and was special to share that with my parents. After Community Group we came home to watch Downton Abbey.. I had heard what was going to happen, but I was still so sad. I won't say anymore in case someone reading this has not yet watched it. Let's just say we had to watch something a little happier afterwards because we were so bummed! I hope next season will be a little happier. I thought the picture below was hilarious! That is kind of how I felt when PBS put the donation phone number at the bottom of the screen before the episode was even over.

Right?

On Monday morning we got up and had some cinnamon rolls and got ready to go visit the Lakeshore Foundation facilities. I had never visited and my parents were interested in taking a tour since it is an Olympic and Paralympic training facility. We really enjoyed taking a tour and seeing all of the wonderful resources they provide. After our tour we ate lunch at Panera Bread, headed home for Mom & Dad to pack, and said our goodbyes. We were so sad to see them leave, but were thankful for the wonderful weekend we had together! Thanks for making the trip and sleeping on an air mattress, Dad & Mom! Love you guys!

So, that about covers the highlights of our weekend. Did you do anything special this President's Day weekend?

Love,
Laura

Holiday Greetings!

So, I am incredibly late in posting this (better late than never, right??), but I wanted to share some pictures and memories from our 2012 Holiday Season!

We began the season by traveling to Troy for Thanksgiving. We were so thankful for the long visit we got to have there with Dad, Mom, my sisters, brother in law, and Meemaw. It was such a special few days together. As you can see from the picture below we did a lot of eating! It was so good!

Our delicious Thanksgiving feast at Mom & Dad's house

On one of our last days there we went to see the new James Bond movie, "Skyfall". I found out that this was Meemaw's first James Bond movie!

We were sad to leave, but took comfort in the fact that we'd all be seeing each other again soon for Christmas.

Daniel enjoying reading with Gracie on Mom & Dad's porch

Daniel survived his finals and came out of the semester with all A's! I was one proud wife. He is such a disciplined person and I couldn't be more proud of him. Amidst his finals and papers he took a break to take me on a Christmas Tree date! We went out to eat at a place called Newk's and enjoyed a yummy supper, then we headed over to where the Boy Scouts were selling Christmas trees.

 It was a lot of fun to look through the trees and pick out which one we wanted. The Boy Scouts were so cute and were trying so hard to be "big boys" by carrying our tree around for us. It was pretty adorable.

Selection of trees

Boy Scout Tree Sale

After we found just the right tree we took it home and enjoyed having a real tree fill our apartment with that wonderful tree smell during the Christmas season. Here was our final product:

Our 3rd Logan Christmas Tree

The Nativity

The Night Before Christmas (one of my favorite Christmas traditions!)

Some yummy scents to warm up our apartment

We also had an Advent Tree this year which was special. During college I bought a purple tree to have in my room and as it worked out that was kind of perfect for our Advent Tree. My sweet Mom cross-stitched several Advent themed ornaments for us to add to our own Advent Tree. I wasn't sure how it would work with my old purple tree, but as Daniel pointed out purple was just the right color for Advent! So, thanks again, Mom! :)

Our Advent Tree

Close up of the ornaments

Just a few weeks later it was time to celebrate Christ's birth! We traveled to LaGrange first to visit with the Logan side of the family. It was a great visit, but we definitely missed Andrew! During one of the days we were there we drove to visit Aunt Cathy. Going to Aunt Cathy's house is like a little slice of heaven. She lives in the Logan family home and has done such a wonderful job of keeping the family memory alive in her preciously decorated home. Her house is perfectly nestled in a tiny little town and it really feels like you're going into a story book or something when you visit there.

View through the front window

Aunt Cathy also has a sweet dog named Diogi (D-O-G). If you know me you know I'm a huge dog fan so I always enjoy getting to keep company with a sweet pup.

Sweet Diogi trying to take a nap

Diogi and I holding hands :)

Aunt Cathy & Diogi

We had a great meal, enjoyed visiting, took a walk around town, then watched "The Polar Express" together. One cool thing Aunt Cathy showed us were these neat figures she got while she was overseas awhile back. You light incense (I believe) and it caused the figures to look like they have smoke coming out of their mouths (see below). They were so cute!

And here is one last picture from Aunt Cathy's house to show you just how magical it is:

Told ya.


So after our wonderful time with the Logan side of the family we drove to Troy to see the Butler side of the family. It was a short, but truly sweet time together. We arrived on time to go to the Christmas Eve service with the family, then returned home to make Christmas cookies and have a visit together.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

On Christmas morning we got up and Sarah & Chase drove over to spend the day with us, too. We had so much fun giving each other gifts, listening to Christmas music, and celebrating the birth of Christ. 

We had quite a few laughs at the expense of the poor pups, Buddy and Gracie.

My darling Buddy

I love this picture of Gracie- caught her mid blink!

For the first time in his life Buddy complied with wearing a jacket of some sort and looked awfully cute in his Christmas sweater. I guess in his old age his isn't as concerned with fashion as he is with warmth and actually kept his sweater on for most of the visit. Gracie got a rain jacket (just for fun), but it actually came in handy when it was raining on Christmas night. She normally won't go outside when it rains, but once her hood was up she went along with it. Hilarious!

After such a fun Christmas we reluctantly headed back to the real world to get back to work and other commitments. We are so blessed! I thank God for our precious family, sweet friends, and most importantly the gift of our salvation which is found in Christ. What a special season!

So grateful for all of our sweet friends & family who sent us Christmas cards! We loved having them up.

Can't wait for the next holiday season, but first cheers to a Happy 2013!