Christmas Sock Exchange!

Christmas time can be hard when it comes to gifts and your wallet is tight, especially amongst a big group of friends...

The girls from my freshman hall are all coming over to my apartment Wednesday night for a Christmas party and we're going to do a Christmas sock exchange. We used to do this in Anchor Club when I was in high school, you get a pair of cute Christmas socks stuff them full of little goodies, and then tie a bow around them.

We would sit in a circle and then one of the girls would read a Christmas story about Santa Claus traveling in his sleigh, each time you hear left or right mentioned in the story you would pass the pair of socks in that direction. At the end of the story you keep the socks that are in your hand. It was always SO much fun, and I love Christmas socks (I tend to wear them year round) so I thought I'd share with ya'll the sock I made for tomorrow nights game! :)

My sock with all of the goodies to fill it with!

The final product!

Now I'm about to head to my last 2 classes for the semester! I cannot BELIEVE how quickly the semester has gone by. The rest of my week is going to be spent studying for my finals.. but in the meantime I'm loving everyone's blog posts with their Christmas decor!

What kind of gift exchanges do ya'll do with friends?

Christmas mood!

I am in the Christmas mood BIG time.

Possibly because:

1. I will be out for Christmas Break in 8 Days!!!
2. We went Christmas shopping Saturday and got a ton of gifts! I always get so excited about picking stuff out for people AND when Macy's is decorated for Christmas with Christmas music playing it always puts me in the Christmas mood.
3. Wednesday I'm hosting a Christmas party with all my friends from my freshmen hall.. I'm pumped about all the good food. and the Christmas sock exchange we're doing!
4. I keep listening to GLEE Christmas music and it is amazing.
5. Everytime I go in the kitchen I see my new super cute Christmas towels I got last week at TJ Maxx!

And now some pics of our Christmas tree! I love a lit up Christmas Tree.. it just completes the living room!

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Black Friday!

Today was my first black friday experience, and let me just say.. it was a BLAST.

Yesterday I was on my way to Thanksgiving dinner and I had this sudden urge to do something adventurous.. so me and my little sis decided we should do Black Friday. Neither of us had ever done it before.. and we thought, "hey! why not!" Well then Ally texted me asking what I was up to, I told her our gameplan and she decided to join the fun. So around 11:30 last night, after perusing the sale ads and scoping out the things we wanted we headed over to Target to scope out the lines. We were not game on camping outside the store for 5 hours, and the line wasn't insane so we hit up IHOP to kill some time.

After we fueled up on a short stack and bacon we headed back to Target and chilled in the car.. these 2 napped but I couldn't fall asleep because I enjoy people watching WAY too much!

Then 3:30 rolled around and we headed out to get in line, Ally was still a little disoriented putting her boots on and realized after getting out of the car they were on the wrong feet! haha

Waiting in line..

When we finally made it in the store we were amazed at how calm it was.. you always see people sprinting through aisles in news footage, but it was nothing like that.

We managed to get everything we wanted in 5 minutes.. and then just perused Target for 15 minutes seeing what else they had. (let me just say, I'm mad they didn't put their Merona turtlenecks on sale because those are my favorite and I was banking on them being 1/2 price) Then we hit up the checkout line and we were literally out of the store in less than 30 minutes, and back asleep by 5!

Black Friday was a SUCCESS!! and everything I bought was for myself.. but hey! I got a cute houndstooth blanket and some great movie deals! Anyone else join in for the madness?!

p.s. I redid the blog today! Thanks to my sweet daddy for taking me a holiday shoe pic! Hope ya'll like the new holiday look!

my life lately..

I've been slacking with blogging, this time of the school year gets too hectic for anything! So here's the lowdown on my life lately..

Monday night Phi Mu hosted the annual Christmas Karaoke and we all got dressed up in tacky Christmas attire! Here's some pictures.. we had a blast!

Tuesday I waited around for my afternoon classes and then headed home for a MUCH needed break from school, and to spend time with my loving family for Thanksgiving Break. :)

Wednesday night we took our family Christmas card picture.. which I will post a little closer to Christmas. My parents are professional photographers so when it comes to our Christmas card we like to come up with funny ideas instead of the typical family portrait. Every year it gets better and better.. and this year's is going to be epic.

Today we had Thanksgiving at my great-grandmother's house on my dad's side of the family, and I ate a little too much as always! Mama made some of these delicious mini pumpkin pies from picky palate. If you like pumpkin pie, cheescake, and streusel these are for you!

Now we're renting Toy Story 3 to watch.. which I've been DYING to see since summer! And then afterwards Ally is coming over to plan out our black friday shopping! I've never been so I am PUMPED. We're getting up at like 3am to head to Target.. even though I have zero money to be spending.. it's going to be a wonderful adventure! A blogpost will definitely be following! Hope everyone has had a wonderful thanksgiving with their loved ones!

Quote for the day

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

— Mother Teresa

Blog Award!

Tasha @ Everything Happens for A Reason gave me this sweet blog award! Check out her blog because it is absolutely ADORABLE! Thanks for the award Tasha!!

Here are the rules:

*to thank the person that gave you the award....check

*to tell you 7 facts about me :)...

*give the award to 7 wonderful bloggers that I just love

*leave a comment and tell the 7 bloggers that I am giving them an award

Be Forewarned: Some of these facts are repeats. I'm terrible at coming up with random stuff.. but last time I did this was early summer.. so forgive me! :)

1. I make my bed every morning. The rooms in our apartment are like shoeboxes.. without the bed made the entire room looks too messy for my taste!
2. I love baking. And eating. Desserts are my weakness.. and one day Ally and I dream of opening our own bakery. It will happen. :)
3. I love to read. When I have the chance.. lately I haven't had time to. Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. And I've said before swaptree.com is the best website ever if you enjoy reading as much as me and my family. You can swap books with other people and all you pay is shipping. check it out!
4. I yawn a lot when I get nervous. Super weird. When I was growing up and had piano recitals I would yawn 50,000 times before playing.. and just typing about it makes me yawn haha
5. I'm pretty bad at procrastinating.. but who isn't?
6. It takes me a while to open up to people.. I've always wished I was one of those people who can just strike up conversation with a wall.
7. I'm a dog person. I love my sweet puppy dog to pieces! Here she is on Halloween:

Now I pass this award on to these lovely ladies!

1. Carie @ The Life of Carie

2. Morgan @ Maybe it's Called Ambition

3. Suze @ Just Sayin'

and the rest of you loyal followers! Anyone who wants to play along please do!

Gettin in the Christmas Spirit!

Last night we put up our christmas tree in our apartment. We figured since we get out of school the first week of december.. might as well start celebrating early! And after engaging in a medley of christmas carols last thursday with Ally, we were definitely in the Christmas mood. After throwing up the tree we started the self-timer pictures. Self-timer pictures are a) Hilarious, because they never turn out good. so they're super candid and b) addicting. We just kept pressing the button for more.. and ended up with like 150 pictures. Ridiculous. But they're really great.. so here's some for you to enjoy!

Needless to say, we have a lot of fun in our apartment! Today is Ally's Birthday and we have a lot of tricks up our sleeves ;) so tomorrow should be a fun post!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Link up with Jamie @ This Kind of Love for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

1. I'm loving this beautiful weather.. it makes it hard to go to class it's just so wonderful outside!

2. I'm loving that we are DONE with chemistry labs for the semester. Such a relief!

3. I'm loving that it's already wednesday! This week is flying by.. and I'm so ready for the weekend. :)

4. I'm loving that tonight is TACO night in the apartment.. and I've been craving tacos for weeks.

5. I'm loving last night's GLEE episode. The music was excellent, and I finally was able to watch it in real time, not catching up on tivo!

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful wednesday!!

On the Road Again..

I never got the chance to blog about this.. but about 2 weeks ago.. on a Thursday afternoon I went to get in my car and go to Walmart. Well, my car decided she didn't wanna crank. She cranked up but then kept immediately dying. And I know NOTHING about cars.. but daddy said to look under the hood and make sure everything is attached properly. To which I said.. "are you kidding? How am I supposed to know?"

Well Ally and I ventured out to look under the hood.. and lo and behold some tube that comes out of the engine was broken in half.

So I had to call a mechanic, describe the problem, and then he referred me to a tow truck service. And if you know anything about me, I HATE calling people. I never know what to say.. and particularly when it comes to mechanics. Car issues are a BOY job. That's mine and mama's policy. But I survived. And had to camp out in the parking lot to wait on the tow truck to arrive and tow my sweet Betsy away. So Ally took tons of photos to document:

It got a little emotional watching her be driven away! haha

Well FINALLY today they called and my car was fixed and ready to be picked up! Betsy is running smooth as EVER and I'm pumped to finally not have to rely on Ally to be my personal chauffeur. I promised her I'd drive her everywhere for 2 weeks! ;)