Favorite 10 of 2011.

#10. Our Martin family beach trip in June. It was so great to have everyone come and go and spend some time together after a busy spring!

#9. Starting my job at Pinnacle Bank. What a blessing it's been to actually have a job that I enjoy.

#8. All the fun of the pre wedding festivities! Showers, bachelorette weekend, and Bridesmaids luncheon! It was a wonderful wonderful time that made me feel so blessed!

#7. Our family continues to grow! This year Matthew joined in, also we enjoyed Tatum's first birthday party and finding out that Blake and Katherine are expecting a little one in June!

#6. Our big move to Birmingham! We loved beginning a new phase of our life!

#5. On August 6th our Auburn family went full circle. Matthew graduated in the college of business with his accounting degree! I'm so proud and happy to have us done with our college years!

#4. In July we went on the Disney Dream a part of the Disney Cruise line. Nan and Daddy Butch took the whole Palmer clan in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary! We stopped in the Bahamas and Castaway Cay (Disney's own private island)! It was a blast!!

#3. For our honeymoon we went to Hawaii! It was the trip of a lifetime to say the least. We soaked up the wonderful weather, cuisine, and beautiful scenery! We enjoyed hiking Diamond Head, laying out in Waikiki beach, going to the Dole Pineapple Plantation, and visiting Pearl Harbor (and thats just a few highlights!).

#2. Auburn becoming the National Champions! On January 10th we gathered around Mammaw's tv to watch Auburn defeat the Oregon Ducks! Soon after we all headed to Toomer's Corner to celebrate with all of our Auburn family. It was madness downtown with so many happy people! War Eagle!

#1. Becoming Mrs. Matthew Ryan Watford on May 7th! It was a wonderful day that we were so blessed to celebrate with our family and friends.

It's been a wonderful year full of happy, happy times and so many blessings! We have been so completely blessed in the love and wisdom that the Lord has poured out to our life and family! We are beyond excited to see what He has in store for us as we head into 2012!

Christmas #2.

We left Auburn on Christmas Eve and headed to Birmingham. We spent some time catching up at the Watford's house then headed to the Palmers!

We had Christmas Eve dinner, the Christmas story, and presents! We play dirty santa with the older girls and then the older boys. I stole an infinity scarf and bracelets from Meredith which retired with my ownership. I love it!

After we headed to the Watford's to do presents. It was the year of boots:

Me, Mere, and Mace got boots... and Mike got two pair of boots. I LOVE them and am so excited to have my first pair of real cowboy boots. I also got an adorable picture frame and scarf. Later we played MadGab and the girls dominated on the boys! It was a blast!

Me and Matthew went home to sleep in our own bed! And woke up before church to do our own little Christmas! Matthew got me a great Francesca's dress and a tripod for my camera! I got him an office calendar and tickets for an Atlanta Hawks basketball game!

We went to church after and then to the Watfords for lunch with the family! Later a few of us headed to the movie theater to watch Tin Tin... definitely not my favorite movie, but fun none the less!

SO, Christmas number two is complete and next week we'll head to Huntsville to finish it all up!

Christmas #1.

Being married makes for a year with multiple Christmas'...

Round one was us heading out from Birmingham after work on Thursday and going to Wetumpka to visit my great grandfather Pop! Then we went to Montgomery to see my Mimmie! Last stop was Auburn to spend some time with Dustin and April, Grandmother and Grandaddy, and some of the Thaxton clan.

We did a little shopping and enjoyed playing some games with the family. We had our "Christmas Eve" dinner and had some delicious beef and dumpling soup (and my favorite fresh green beans)! We did our presents from Mammaw and played some more games.

Then, odd enough we now are all watching the Auburn basketball team play against Long Beach State in Hawaii. Matthew was absolutely convinced that we should have planned to honeymoon there this time of year so we could go to the games. (haha!)

So, War Eagle and Merry Christmas from the Watford family!

(I'll be back with Round 2 and 3 at some point... and the long awaited top 10 of 2011!)

Oh so thankful.

All I can think of as I sit here on my Mammaw's couch is how so thankful I am. Thankful for my loving husband sitting next to me, a silly brother, uncle and cousins to laugh with, and my wonderful aunt snoozing on the love seat. I can't help but smile! Not to mention the rest of my fabulous family I get to soak up some quality time with tomorrow!

I can't help but be pumped for tomorrow and all the yummy foods we get to be thankful for :)

I'm preparing a fun thankful game for tomorrow! Hope the fam enjoys it! I hope to update tomorrow with some of that fun stuff!! (I'm soaking up all of Mammaw's internet!)

Again.

Yes. Here we go again. We got rid of our cable and internet, again.

That is my excuse for being a horrible blogger.

Not much has changed since I last updated. Me and Matthew are just going through life as usual.

We did have the pleasure of going to Secret Church last Friday with Rusty and April at The Church of Brookhills. Let me be honest and tell you that I was not excited about going and sitting for 6 hours listening to teaching. Well, I was terribly wrong. It was wonderful! We didn't get out till 12:45am and we left excited about all we had learned. Also my girls bible study started last night with the girls from our sunday school class. We are going through the book Experiencing God and its great to hear and share our hearts. Its so great to finally get to know some girls here in Birmingham too! What a blessing it is for God to affirm us joining Shades and getting involved.

Work has been going nice and steady for the two of us. But we sure do enjoy the weekends. We have enjoyed having relaxing Saturdays since we are not going back to Auburn till Thanksgiving/Iron Bowl.

Obviously I don't have much to update on. Whew, what a bore! I'll update with something more exciting next time!

Tatum's first birthday.

My little niece, Tatum Michelle just celebrated her first birthday!

Tuesday the 18th was her actual big day but when Saturday came around we were ready to party it up :) Amy had planned a bug themed party for our favorite TatumBug! How fun!!

So lots of family drove into town all through Friday and Saturday morning. By party time we had me, Liz, (and Rye), Gmother, Gdaddy, Blake, Katherine, Mammaw, Diane, and Robyn! What a group- all there to celebrate one year of life a little girl that we love so dearly!

I think Amy enjoyed all the presents more than Tatum did. However, Tatum did enjoy the owl purse that me and Matthew gave her! (You know, we are her favorite Aunt and Uncle! haha) But, it was such a fun afternoon of enjoying family and quality Tatum time! We had fun getting to watch Tatum have a bath and giving her a bottle before bed!

After the party mom actually had to do breakfast for sunday school the next morning so we headed to Target for supplies. Me and Robyn took on the task of making Pumpkin Muffins (courtesy of Pinterest!) They were SO yummy. Instead of just doing cream cheese icing with them I found a apple cider glaze... omg, to die for. Let's just say their aren't any left and they are coming to our tailgate this next weekend in Auburn!

The weekend was wonderful but I did miss my Matthew. (He is a leader for a 7th grade guys d-group at Shades and had a d-group weekend!) It was very unfortunate for sure!

Forgetful.

I am sooo forgetful. I forgot to do my Friday's Favorite Five again!! Ugh, I worked that morning and then I had to pack and straighten up before leaving town... that will be my excuse!

I'm not doing a re-do... so forget about that. BUT, we did head to Auburn this past weekend and enjoyed a fun weekend of soaking up some great family time! Friday when we got there we headed to the Arena to check out the end of the men's basketball "Madness" opener event. I'm not going to lie, it was slightly disappointing. Whoever plans those things needs to get it together! But our team did look quite a bit more promising than last year. Exciting!! I'm sure we will be heading down to AU quite a bit once the bball begins!

After leaving there we headed to Mammaw's to hang with the fam! I got to catch up with Robyn and browse through some wedding dresses online. Last weekend she asked me to be her Matron of Honor for her and Greg's wedding in August! I'm beyond thrilled and excited!! Me and Matthew stayed at Grandmother and Grandaddy's (even though they are in Colorado) house to stay with Jeanna because she is staying there keeping the dogs! Me and Jean stayed up till about 1 gabbing and catching up. I love sweet times with friends!

SO Saturday we ended up leaving and heading to the tailgate around 10:30. It made for quite a long day but it was such a beautiful day. The company and food was great! So was the game :) War Eagle! What a crazy year this has been!!

The Birmingham Zoo.

I told you I was looking forward to this weekend- it didn't disappoint.

We got up early on Saturday morning to meet Wade/Amy/Tatum, Mom/Dad, and Blake/Katherine at the Birmingham Zoo. We were so excited for the fam to be coming to our town to enjoy each others company :) There's just about a billion pictures I wanted to post.

I enjoyed some wonderful quality time with the TatumTot!

And that's our group. While walking around the zoo I thought... how funny we are, a big group of adults and one little kid at the zoo. Haha, we sure do love that little girl. It is extremely fun to take pictures of a precious little girl. I could just eat her up.

If Amy would let me... I would just take her home with me! She just loved Matthew.While walking through the monkey exhibits I decided to let Matthew have a turn holding the Tatum girl. Well this picture makes it seem like she wasn't too sure about it... but after she got used to him she was in love. (We decided to test a theory. Wade kept saying, "Oh I had on a orange shirt yesterday and she loved it so that's why." Well we made him take off the orange shirt and all the boys sat on the couch [pappy, Blake, Wade, and Matthew] and I sat Tatum down across the room. She walked straight to Matthew. Sooo funny!!)

Well I was able to snap one quick photo of an animal. See, we were at the zoo :)

So after the zoo we went to lunch and then came to our apartment to show it to Wade and Amy. After a while they headed home but everyone else stayed to watch the Auburn football game. Well that was a disaster, but we did enjoy the company! (We did miss Elizabeth though!) Looking forward to another great week ahead.

Ff5.

{Friday's Favorite Five}

I feel like this week has passed sooo slowly. Probably because I'm anticipating the weekend!

5. I finally got to pretend to be photographer again. Wednesday morning I met up with Michael and Stacy to take their engagement pictures. It was fun to do it again :) Here's a preview:

(I always love a good ring shot!)

4. Wednesday night a special came on ESPN about Auburns quarterbacks this season. It was excellent. We kind of watched it with a heavy heart knowing that Trotter hasn't quite performed as awesome as we would have liked. But still it was still so great, War Eagle!

3. We got our own internet!! We have been borrowing someones internet (we could only pick it up in our bedroom) since we moved in to the apartment. And even in the trailer we may have borrowed it from one of our neighbors. So having our own is really great.

2. We had a family dinner night on Monday at the Watfords. Michael and Stacy were in town and Nan and Daddy Butch came over. We were celebrating Daddy Butch's birthday. I love soaking up some time with the fam.

1. I started my job! Thursday I drove to Jasper to fill out paper work and observe the tellers there. Today I went to my actual branch and worked. It will take me some time to figure everything out... but I think it will be good :)

SO, why am I anticipating the weekend you ask?! WELL, Tatum and family are coming to Birmingham tomorrow for a visit! We are going to the zoo! I'm beyond excited!! Then mom, dad, Blake and Katherine are staying to watch the game with us! It will be great!!

McDonalds, internet cafe.

I'm so sorry that I missed my FF5 this past Friday. We have been "borrowing" internet since we moved into our apartment in Birmingham and our secret friends must have moved away. The free internet has disappeared. It was a sad day in the Watford household. So instead I'll just give you a few highlights from this past week. I had my interview on Monday which I felt went pretty well- haven't heard anything back though. BUT I did hear back from the bank I interviewed with last week and they would like to hire me on as a part time teller. I would work from 10:30 to 2:30 Monday through Friday. Hellooooo, I can handle that :) So I will give them my answer tomorrow (which I may wait till the afternoon in hopes of hearing back from the full time job at the dermatology office)!

Friday was great... me and Matthew went on a date and enjoyed some food court Chinese food. Since we're unable to eat out all that much it's a treat to have some chinese! After that we did a little shopping at Target (where I bought a new workout dvd... here's to hoping it works and staying committed!) Well after that we went to see the movie Courageous. Let me just say, stop whatever you're doing and go see it! Take every man and unbeliever you know. The Gospel is spelled out word for word. I cried, a lot and loved every minute. How thankful am I to have a man of courage and one that I know will seek God every step of the way :) #blessed.

Saturday was spent relaxing and enjoying my sweet husband. We enjoyed a wonderful victory for our Auburn Tigers over the #10 South Carolina Gamecocks! It was a great game and just what our team needed... maybe some confidence?

This morning we joined Shades Mountain Baptist Church and are excited to see how God can have us serve there. Matthew is already leading a d-group for some 7th grade guys. I'm excited to get really plugged in! I also got to meet up with Gigi and Pappy and Liz to eat an early birthday dinner for Elizabeth's bday. Happy day tomorrow girl. You are so stinkin' old!

AND NOW, I am sitting here in a booth at McDonalds blogging to the world. Ugh, this is crazy crazy. I don't want this to make my posts far and few between. I'm too addicted for that :) I'll do my best!! (also, no internet puts an extreme downer on couponing! I'm so upset!!)

Girl's night.

9 girls + 1 chocolate fountain + 8 delicious dippers = A GREAT NIGHT.

Matthew left the apartment so that I could have all the Palmer (side) girls over for a fun night of desserts! I was so excited to use all my new platters and fun party type dishes that I got from the wedding! I think a table cloth would have made it that much better-- mental note for my next get together :) I love to host! It's so fun to have people come and enjoy your space with you! And even better that all these girls are my new family :)

The whole group (Stacy came a little later!)

So our apartment is officially broken in! So bring on the parties and get togethers! Maybe an Auburn get together in the near future... where we may enjoy the food and company more than the game! War Eagle, hey!

Ff5.

Friday's favorite five:

1. Tuesday night basketball.

Matthew plays in a church league on Tuesday nights at Dawson. This week they only had five players so they had to play the whole game. And not only that... but they went to over time. Of course the one time they can't sub out they have to play even longer. But it was totally worth it because they came out with a victory!

2. Television.

How sad it is that we get so excited about the new "fall shows" coming out. We loaded up just to see what we would enjoy this season. The Office didn't disappoint which I was slightly surprised about!

3. Dinner.

I know this hasn't happened yet, but it's tonight... so I think its okay. We're going to dinner with my cousin Ryan and his wife Aubrey. We live literally 5 minutes from each other but haven't seen each other since we've moved! We're going to Iguana's Grill (my favorite Mexican!) so that will be delish too!

4. Interview.

On Monday afternoon I got a call from a bank I applied at to come in for an interview on Tuesday. I was thrilled to actually even have an interview :) It went well, and we shall see what happens.

5. Another interview.

I got a call this morning (Friday!) from a dermatology office asking if I could come in for an interview on Monday. This is just such an encouragement because when I applied to SO many jobs in Auburn last year I only had one interview (out of about a billion applications!) Prayers for this interview are greatly appreciated :)

Looking forward to a wonderful weekend with lots of family time! Meaghan is coming in town, so it will be great to catch up with her! AND I'm having a girls sleepover Saturday night!! Can't wait!!

Streak: broken.

We all knew it had to come to an end at some point. Auburn's 17-0 undefeated streak came to an end this past Saturday. It was sad, but we sure will survive. The weekend was still quite wonderful.

So Friday Elizabeth came into town to check out our apartment and head out of town to Spartanburg, South Carolina where Matthew's aunt and uncle live. They were gracious enough to let us, along with many others, stay at our house! Me and Liz rode in her convertible to her lake house. We left that fun car there to hop in with Matthew to go on our long trip up North :)

So we spent some time Friday night hanging and enjoying the family. Which led to waking up way too early! We got to Clemson University around 9:20 am for a 12 o'clock kick. That's a lot of time when you don't have a tailgate to go to. So we walked around and took in the sites:

Clemson is known as "Auburn on a lake" but I kinda disagree. The do have a building that is similar to Samford... but besides that, not too much. For one thing, their campus is VERY hilly (reminded us more of Tennessee actually). But we thought it was nice and pretty overall. We decided to head to Tiger Walk. We had heard that the buses were going to drive straight into the stadium- eliminating any Tiger Walk at all. But we lucked out! Nan and Daddy Butch got us front row spots so I gave tons of high-fives and lots of "Let's go boys!" hahahaha, I soo enjoyed it.

{My favorite Lutzi and Trotter!}

After Tiger Walk we got to meet up with the Palmer clan! It was so much fun enjoying our Auburn family on gameday :)

So then it was time for the game. We we're high, like on row double I... yes, that high! Well they we're slightly delusional about their "The most exciting 25 seconds in college football" Yeah, they were talking about them touching their rock and running down a grass hill: disappointment. But anyways, we played a good first quarter and it was down hill from there. The sun came out just to make watching that game slightly more unbearable! Ugh, we were happy to dismiss our self from "death valley"

After gathering everyone riding home with us... We headed back to Spartanburg. We ate some yummy food, celebrated Will's 11th birthday, watched football, and just enjoyed being with a huge chunk of the family! Sunday we woke up and headed home too early.

Who ever thought an away game road trip could be SO fun. Oh pick me! I'm used to losing on the road... but its the people I go with and the memories I make that I take with me long after I forget about our loss.

So, War Eagle anyways!

Friday's favorite five.

(Ff5)

I saw this on a blog this morning, and I've wanted to find something I could consistently blog on each week. So here it is, some of my highlights from the week.

1. Ready to move on.

Finally coming to the point where I'm ready to get a job. I've definitely enjoyed my time off but I am more than ready to find somewhere to work now!

2. Thursday night football.

It seems like the past two weeks Thur night football didn't at all appeal to me. The games were boring and I didn't care who was playing. Last night LSU played at Miss State. Yay, a SEC match up. And I went against everything I know and went for LSU. They won, so I was happy.

3. Lunch with mom and Elizabeth.

On Thursday I got to meet up with Liz and mom for lunch and a little shopping. I enjoy any quick visits from the fam... one of the many reasons that Birmingham is the perfect place for us.

4. Lunch with mom.

On Tuesday we met up in Cullman for some lunch and quality time. I so enjoy meeting up with my mom and getting to share my heart with here. After some shopping down town we hit up Cracker Barrel... then went for a walk at a baseball park so we could, in good conscious, go back to CB for some CocaCola Cake. Yum!

5. My time with the Lord.

Me and Matthew have been going through chapters of scripture separately every day. At night when we get in bed we talk about anything that stuck out to us or really convicted us. I've enjoyed is so much, and also just enjoyed having scripture on my mind through the day.

So that's my 5 for the week... it was kind of a low key week, but still great. War Eagle! We are off to Spartanberg tonight to go to Clemson on Saturday!!

Cool weather.

Some cool weather came in this past week. I pulled out my jeans for the first time in a long time. Fall is near :) I'm pretty sure tons of Labor Day pool parties were cancelled last Monday. It rained ALL day, with lots of wind. We planned to grill steaks at the Watford's house but when we got over there the power got knocked out.

So we ended up just going out to McCalisters... but with a promise of grilling steaks on Thursday night. Me and Matthew both thought, "Sweet, two meals in one week!"

Seems we had a regular busy week. I don't ever understand how we get so busy... it should be that we have Matthew's basketball game on Tuesday night (they won by the way!) and thats it. Nope, stuff ALWAYS comes up. My biggest thing this week though was that my car battery died and it took a while to get a new one. We went to WalMart and they didn't have it so then we had to wait till the next day. That made for a LONG week!

Of course all week though I got to look forward to Saturday. We headed to Auburn Saturday morning (after getting some free Chickfila breakfast! Yum!) with Mike, Meredith and Nan and Daddy Butch! I was really excited to see how are team improved in one weeks time and see if we were capable of taking out a SEC team. We were :) It was a good game.

War Eagle! We're off to Clemson this weekend to watch our Tigers play! :)

All in.

War Eagle!

Mom and Dad picked us up on Friday afternoon and we were off to the loveliest village on the plains. You wouldn't believe how excited me and Matthew were for this day to finally arrive! I guess winning the championship last year left a wonderful taste in our mouth :)

So the game was anything but boring. It was steamy hot and incredibly nerve-racking! In the last 5 minutes I went from having the thoughts of losing to "Yayyyy, we win!!!" I'm usually pretty tolerant to bamers and their comments... but Saturday was ridiculous. I couldn't believe everything I read on facebook through the day. All I know is that we have 365 days to live up our win from them last year and that time is not up! 28-27!!

Okay an exciting announcement! My cousin Robyn is engaged!! Greg asked her on Friday night and we all could not be more excited :) Can't wait for August 4th! (Girl, you better get on writing a post about this!!)

Congrats you two! Me and Matthew are SO SO SO excited for this exciting time in yalls life!

Three days.

Best Auburn Highlight Video - Sadler Evans from Steve Braswell on Vimeo.

It's almost here!!! SOO ready :)

More projects.

It seems the latest fad is chicken wire! So once I found a perfect frame (for a great price!) at one of my new favorite antique stores I was ready to make my Chicken Wire Frame! I got my dad to help me cut the wire while I was home this past week. (He's so great!)

Then we worked together to hot glue it down. We are all about some hot glue at the Thaxton house (and for the future the Watford house!)

So instead of hanging it like a normal frame I decided to add little bit of color with a ribbon! Leftover from my project for asking my bridesmaids to be a part of my wedding back last summer!

I just love how it turned out! Now I just need to get some of those cute little clothes pins to hang more stuff on it!

So, next project: My new vanity chair for my bathroom! I got it at my favorite antique shop in Homewood! For only $10 at that! I sanded it down and spray painted it black :) love.love.love.

And now my Auburn wreath all hung up and ready to bring in some AU football this Saturday! Now our apartment really feels like home. War Eagle :)