oh, christmas tree

It was an especially cold day so we thought it would be fun to go by a local pastry shop to get some hot cocoa and then go pick out a Christmas tree. Doesn't that just sound like a quaint family movie? Emmy, however, doesn't respond to sugar bribes yet and she had two meltdowns before we left the house so we decided to make the trip as fast as possible and cut out the cocoa. 

 
Emmy also recently graduated to the "wait for no-one stage" where she runs off in the direction of whatever her heart desires. Everyone says she's so cute, giggling and laughing down the aisles. They aren't the ones chasing her. 

We always go to Home Depot for our trees. My brother-in-law is kind of  a connoisseur of Christmas trees and converted me and my sister from fake trees to real ones. He recommended Home Depot for price, quality and service and they have always been amazing for us. Their employees are cheerful and our trees last over a month and are beautiful.

Emmy didn't like them climbing all over our car to get the tree secure. The two guys who helped us tried to make her laugh but it didn't work. 

When we got home we searched all over the house and couldn't find any lights. I vaguely remembered tossing all of them out last year because so many had burned out. Joe wasn't thrilled but he went back to Home Depot.

While he was gone, I pulled out the box of ornaments and Emmy immediately smashed 2 of them. If I looked away for one second, she had her sticky fingers on something fragile. It's like the Christmas tree turned her into a naughty little gnome; sneaking ornaments and throwing them on the ground as hard as possible then running off giggling. I made her some hot chocolate and she chugged it, downing that full cup of sugar in 5 seconds. 
Joe got home with the lights only to realize that we had totally underestimated the size of our tree. He bought 700 lights but headed back out to Home Depot for 600 more. I wanted to mix colored lights and white lights and you know, you can't just mix in any box of colored lights - they have to be consistent. Home Depot was sold out of the exact lights he had just bought. So, he headed to target, carrying a picture of the correct box with him and possibly grumbling a bit but definitely not offering to stay with Emmy.  
Emmy's sugar wore off by 6 and after an epic whine/sobfest, I took her to bed.  Even though we knew she would wake up at night starved and hangry, we let her sleep so we could get this d*mn tree finished. I'm not sure that anyone really enjoys putting up their tree, it's a lot of work and it's dusty and prickly and sappy. 

Like how evenly the colored lights and white lights are mixed? Yeah, we really needed another strand of white but this was just going to have to suffice.  

Still, look at how good all these pictures came out and you know, we definitely made memories that we can laugh about later. And every morning when Emmy wakes up she runs straight to the tree to ooh and aww over the lights.   Yeah, she usually promptly hulk smashes an ornament but hey, I put all of my favorites on the top and everyone in the Henson house is happy. 

a tale of three thanksgivings

Before Emmy was born, Joe and I decided to stop going to every family Thanksgiving we were invited to. We wanted to be able to stay in one place long enough to really enjoy the family time and not travel so much that we feel exhausted at the end of the vacation. 
This year, we decided that we wouldn't make any decisions about our Thanksgiving traditions and we would just see as many people as possible. My family lives in Birmingham and Joe's family lives in Huntsville and northeast of Gadsden. Each Thanksgiving trip is 4 hours of travel and 3-4 hours of family time. It can be exhausting, Emmy's schedule gets completely off and it's hard to adjust back to our schedules in time for work. 
When it's all said and done though, I am so thankful for our families. We are so loved and it is so fun to make memories together. I also appreciate my dad who said we could just do lunch sometime so we didn't have a 4th Thanksgiving!
THE SHUFFLE:
On Sunday, we had our first Thanksgiving at my mom's house. We always dress up a little, eat at the dining table with the fancy china and drink sangria. It's calm, we have Christmas music in the background and we take turns talking about all the reasons we have to be thankful.
 This is the Thanksgiving that most resembles how I grew up and I love the food and I love the tradition. 

Next up, we spent Thanksgiving day at Joe's maternal grandparent's house. They live on a lake and are just the sweetest grandparents anyone could ever have. Joe loves his Nanny & Papa Bill and we are so grateful for all that they have done for Joe.
 It's a completely different style of Thanksgiving. There are maybe 25-30 people (all family!) and a TON of food. Everyone brings food so there is an abundance of options and unique family recipes. We all grab paper plates and reverse fight for seats (that's where everyone argues trying to give up their seats for each other). It is much more laid back and people usually come and go quickly. We stayed late this year to soak up the time with Joe's Nanny and Papa to make the trip count. Emmy started to have her tired-baby meltdown and we headed home. 

On Friday morning, I had some of my girls come over for mimosas so we could all catch up and make plans for the Christmas parties.  On Saturday we hosted friends for the Iron Bowl. We had 6 people over so in all we had 6 Alabama fans, 1 Auburn fan and 1 neutral party. It was such an intense, incredible and terrible game. Joe still hasn't fully recovered. I don't think he will until we beat them next year. Lucky for me, my awesome brother-in-law stayed late to help Joe fix our sink. Poor Aunt Yellie (Danielle) had to wait on him so I convinced her to get cozy on the couch and Rufus helped her out. 

On Sunday we headed up to Huntsville for our last Thanksgiving. I was really excited about this one because there are actually kids. LOTS OF KIDS. Joe's cousin has 3 children, aged 6,5 and 3 and all of them are ridiculously cute. Emmy was shy for about 15 minutes and then started following around the older kids as if she were as big as they are.  Joe's paternal grandparents have a little farm; they grow their own vegetables and it makes for such a fun space for the kids. We were lucky it wasn't too cold and they were able to play outside. Everyone ended up coming out and I was so proud of Emmy laughing and playing and just being herself around people she doesn't know all that well. 
Sometimes you know that you are making memories that will stay in your mind forever. This day was one of those days. 

Emmy is so adored by her whole family, especially all the men in her life.  She is one lucky girl. 

Meet the Hensons

greeting in the vineyards
Ozan Winery, Calera, AL

To start off, you should know a few things about me and my husband, Joe (you know, just to make things less awkward when I assume you are reading this because you know me but, of course, this is the internet and you don't):

1. We met at Birmingham-Southern College, moved in together after 4 years of dating, bought a house together and got married 2 years after that. We really like each other and have the same sense of nerdy, awkward humor. I can't imagine being more myself with anyone else.

one of our first dates- at a karaoke bar!

2. We (I) planned a budget DIY wedding and got married in a southern vineyard with 100 of our closet friends and family. The parts I am most proud of were the location (which was beautiful and breezy for a typically HOT Alabama summer day), the awesome Scottish Bagpiper, the wedding cake my friend's mom made, and our friend Matt DJ'ing and playing the best songs so I danced the WHOLE time. Literally, I felt bad at the end because I couldn't remember anything after the vows except the dancing.

3. Our honeymoon was honestly my dream. Joe had never left the country so I knew we had to go somewhere fairly far away so we spent nearly 2 weeks touring London, Oxford, and Edinburgh and all sorts of places in between. I probably should have started the blog then, we were pretty interesting people and I learned a lot about traveling as a young adult. Also, I should say: I'm an anglophile: completely obsessed with British history and culture.

walking along the thames
seriously guys, this was the LAST picture i took before i got pregnant

4. We brought more than the Queen's teacups back as a souvenir: on father's day we found out that I was pregnant. We weren't completely surprised- we knew the night, we knew what we had done. Our baby was conceived on the last night we were in London so she got the nickname "Baby London".

emmy, one week old
(taken by my sister who happens to be an excellent photographer)

5. We have AMAZING friends and family. I will probably talk about them a lot. Joe and I are really happy and I attribute much of that to how we feel when we are together and with our friends and the support they give us.

Now you're caught up. I will eventually go back and elaborate on these events and such but for now, you know us.