radvent, day 10

radvent, day 10: family

i have kind of already discussed the importance of my family during day 1. i think, in part, falling in love with austin and us creating our own little family (of the two of us, haha) has shown me how much i love my family, too. especially my sister. the two of us have grown so much in the last couple of years, and our relationship has shown the growth. she's one of my best friends, and i would've never thought that was going to happen five years ago. our friendship has been one of the most important to me for the last year or so. i'm so excited that we've regrown our bond.

christmas is all around us

i don't think i've ever been this excited for thanksgiving and christmas in my entire life. this past weekend, austin and i upgraded our past 2 foot tall christmas tree to a 4.5 foot one and picked up our stockings!! we haven't had any since we moved out of our parents' houses, and decided that this was the year. i have to be honest, i just don't really like christmas decor.. so for me to love some cheap little tj maxx stockings and this baby christmas tree is a huge deal. i think it really shows how into the holidays i am all of a sudden. i've been shopping since september (and actually prematurely gave out some of the presents already..), so i wanted to display some of the christmas presents i've wrapped under the tree, too. we've never been able to do that before!

this thanksgiving, austin and i will be making three stops. we're so lucky that none of our family events have overlapped (yet). i can't wait to see everybody all in one day! i've had my outfit picked out for weeks. ;)

then, after a day of eating and relaxing with three families, i get to work my favorite day of the year: black friday! ae is doing 40% off the entire store (i'm allowed to say since they've already announced it, haha) and i. can't. wait. at all! customers on black friday are always really fun, and i think the horror stories actually only apply to department stores and walmarts. ;)

basically, being excited is a lot of fun. <3

family

these past couple of weeks, i've been sooo busy. lots of work, lots of family, lots of quick dates with austin, and lots of christmas shopping/wrapping. stuff gets so hectic this time of year, especially working in retail. especially working in the best store in the mall. ;)

i wanted to share a couple of pictures that my sister spliced together that make me really happy.

the top photo was taken in 2010, and the bottom a couple of weeks ago. i love looking at all of our differences! austin said none of us even look like the same people. and i love the little addition to the left side of the bottom picture. ;)

i love my family. <3

my pop

this time of year is sometimes pretty rough for my family. i try pretty hard not to pay attention to the dates, but i think i just usually feel it in my bones. i used to skip class, take the day off of work, bury myself in blankets, and sleep it off. but today, i'm starting a new job, and tomorrow, i'm celebrating an anniversary. i think he'd want me to focus on those things, rather than hide from life.

death is something that didn't touch my life until my pop passed away, and it hit us all HARD. it still does.

that's me with the laugh and the bowl cut, my cousin whitney with the huge collar, and my pop looking awesome

i was pop's first grandkid, and i like to think that we had a special bond, even though i know all of his grandkids feel the same way. ;) but he was my #1 guy. my first tattoo (and the one that i told everyone was going to be my ONLY tattoo.. hahaaa) is for him. i think he'd be cool with it, probably. maybe. sometimes i get really, really unbearably sad that austin and avery will never get to meet him. fortunately, i think kendall and i have stories for months about how awesome he was. <3

some old pictures of him were uploaded recently, and i wanted to share them. mostly out of selfishness, but also because they're so cute! i'm thinking if austin's down with it, i might get an old picture of my grandparents blown up and printed poster size like this - they're so adorable! i had a bunch of the two of them saved on my old laptop, but since it died, i'm not sure when they'll see the light of day again, unfortunately. til then, i'll just hold on to these really tight:

grandma's cuffed jeans and visible socks remind me a lot of my current style preferences ;)
AND LOOK AT THAT MUSTACHE.

man, i miss him. <3

dressed up for dairy queen

last weekend, my mom got married. it was really sweet and low-key. i decided not to share any pictures of that (mostly because i don't have any, haha), but i did want to share a goofy little moment beforehand.

my sister and i were mom's non-traditional version of bridesmaids, and that meant that mama basically got to dress us. which then meant that i had some ridiculous pent-up dress up frustrations. who doesn't want to plan their own fancy outfit for a wedding?! (disclaimer: i totally loved what my mom picked, i'm just a brat and had dreams of wearing one of the vintage party dresses from the button factory inventory.) because of those frustrations, i think i went a little overboard in dressing austin for the wedding.

the only picture taken of us (i think), via kendall's cell phone

thankfully, he was a really good sport and looked super handsome and got a million compliments. even now i can't stop thinking about how cute he was! eep.

anyway, we were super hungry before we met up with my sister to head to the church, so we decided to stop and get something to eat. austin thought it would be hilarious to eat fast food in our fancy get-ups and really.. it was.

i guess because it was a friday night in the summertime, dairy queen was packed with families. we got lots of stares and i covered myself in napkins to make sure that none of my chili cheese hot dog spilled on my dress (i'm nothing if not classy). it was cute. i'm glad to have this extra memory from my mom's wedding day. :)

and, just in case you were wondering:
austin's shirt and tie: american eagle
austin's chinos: pacsun
my dress: modcloth

<3