Penny's First Photo Shoot

When Penny was just 11 weeks old, we decided to let her have her first photo shoot! We asked our best friends Greyson & Adam to come over and be our photographers (so nice of them!).

head tilt

The water bowl we had made for Penny

She's already a Braves fan!!

She hadn't exactly learned the "sit" command yet

romping in the flowers

Penny with her Lovey... she sleeps with it every night now :)

our little Puggle

Our little family :)

New Dining Room

Our friends Stacy & Travis sold us their antique dining table and chairs at the end of 2009. They fit perfectly in our dining room. The china cabinet is Brian's great grandfather's and it is actually a bookcase, we are just using it for a china cabinet. And the curtains came with the house...

The 2 of us painted this room together. We recovered the chairs, bought some artwork, had curtains made, and spray painted the chandelier. Ellen LOVES before & after pics. LOVES them.

Bringing Home Baby

Isn't that the name of a tv show? Maybe? Well, we got to bring home OUR baby and it was such a great moment in our lives. Ellen finished her student teaching (in a 2nd grade classroom) on a Friday in April and that night we drove to TN. We stayed with our fabulous friends Matt & Aubrey and the next day drove to the breeder's to pick up our baby and BRING HER HOME!!!!

Penny instantly loved us. No joke, she warmed right up and was not sad about leaving the breeder, which made us feel really good inside.

She is bound to be a model, she posed for every picture.

Penny weighed about 4 pounds when we brought her home on Saturday, April 3, 2010.

She did OKAY in the car. It was a 5.5 hour drive from the breeder's house in TN to our house in Atlanta and it ended up taking a good 7+ hours. Sweet Penny threw up 4 times within the first 30 minutes. It was a mix of emotions, new people, car sickness, and anxiety. Poor baby. And it was VERY difficult to find "clean" places for her to potty on the way home since she wasn't supposed to touch public surfaces until she had received all her shots. It was a ROUGH car ride home, but once we finally got her to sleep in our arms, it was smooth sailing. Needless to say, we don't think we'll be doing any long car trips with Penny anytime soon...

We got home and introduced her to our backyard. She LOVED it. And we are SO glad we have a fenced in yard for her to play in and not have to watch her every move.

It was a LOOOOONG day for Penny (and us!) and she was tuckered out. We tried to introduce her to the crate and instead she climbed up on Brian's back and fell asleep snuggled up with him. So sweet.

Sophie's Choice

The puppies were born Jan 17, 2010. Puggles have a mommy Beagle and a daddy Pug. Such an odd combination, but such a beautiful baby creation.

Here is the entire litter. Our breeder lives in TN so we drove up when the puppies were a few weeks old to pick which one we wanted. We stayed with our good friends Aubrey & Matt on a Friday and then drove to Westmoreland, TN the next morning to meet the breeder and our future pup.

The mommy had 7 puppies total in her litter but only 2 were female. They were SO tiny, only 0.5 pounds each! It was like Sophie's Choice trying to decide...

After a long discussion on which puppy was best for us, we chose this little munchkin. Brian was in love with her from the first minute.

I, too, was instantly obsessed.

Such a cuddlebug

Time to say goodbye. We put Penny back in the crate with her sister. The sister was crying when she was alone in the crate so as soon as we put Penny in with her, she crawled over to her and snuggled on top of her to comfort her. Tell me that's not so adorable?!? We will be back in April to pick our precious puppy up and bring her home :)

1.5 Years and Counting...

We are so random. Like I mentioned in a previous blog, we like to celebrate our love anytime we can. We decided to take a trip to celebrate our 1.5 Year Wedding Anniversary. We stayed at a Dreams Resort in Punta Cana. The weather was BEAUTIFUL almost every single day. We were there for 4 nights, 5 days. If someone asked us to rate the food overall we would give it a 7 out of 10... not the best, but not the worst. Although we went to some restaurants that were a definite 10. It's sad, but we really do rate all of our food, whether we cook it here at home or are out at a restaurant. It just helps us keep up with our likes and dislikes. This resort was really fun and I think it would have been great for a big group of girls, like a fun Bachelorette party or something. It was a little too "wild" for us. Ask us that about 4-5 years ago and we would say differently. But I dunno, something about once you get married, you just settle down a little more. It's nice to be on this side of things though. We had tons of fun just us. We ate a different restaurant for every meal every day. We hung out on the beach, reading magazines or just talking. We spent time at the swim-up bar in the pool ordering different tropical drinks. We even got to play with a monkey. It was SO fun and the monkey was adorable (see pics below). It's hard to go on a trip like this after our A+ honeymoon in St. Lucia, because I think we will forever be comparing EVERY trip from here on out to that. St. Lucia was a 10 out of 10. Punta Cana was an 8 out of 10. We had a wonderful time, don't get me wrong! It is always nice to get away, not have to work, and not have to worry about anything. And of course, just be together...

our fantastic resort - Dreams Punta Cana

hanging out on the beautiful beaches of Punta Cana

dinner at Bordeaux, a French restaurant

Paradise... we spent a lot of time here. Either sitting pool side or at the wonderful swim-up bar.

taking some photos before dinner at Himitsu (hibachi grill)

My dream officially came true... I got to play with a monkey. I mean I've only asked for one EVERY Christmas since about age 5.His name was JJ and he was SO darn cute! We tried to sneak him back in our pocket but apparently that is frowned upon.

Our last night in Punta Cana... eating dinner at Portofino

25 was a BIG deal at our house!

We both loooooove to celebrate birthdays. We both threw surprise parties for each other for our 25th birthdays. Neither of us saw it coming! First came my birthday weekend...

We went out for a family birthday dinner at Seasons 52. After we (mom, dad, sister, Brian, and me) sat down at our table, my cousin Anna (white wrap sweater) walked up to our table to surprise me! She drove in from Augusta just for my birthday weekend to surprise me. Little did I know it was for Friday AND Saturday...

Brian had been planning a surprise party for me (for Jan 31st, my actual bday) since early December. To throw me off track, he had my friend Chelsea plan me a non-surprise party for February 7th. So for those two months, I was thinking that my bday party was going to be on Feb 7th. Brian told me that HE was going to take me out, just the 2 of us, for my bday, on Jan 31st. On the way to dinner, Brian told me that it was a surprise where we going to eat. So the whole drive there, I was asking questions, trying to figure out which restaurant we were going to. We arrived at Portofino and walked inside... and about 25-30 of my best friends were there snapping pictures and yelling "SURPRISE!" I was confused and shocked and very surprised. Most of you know that it is near impossible to surprise me.

college friends who drove in from out of town for the party

friends from our couples small group

best friends :)

girls pic outside the restaurant after dinner

my sweet hubby who planned all of this for me :) Brian even got up in the middle of dinner and gave me a toast!

Next came Brian's birthday weekend extravaganza. First, we had our typical family birthday celebration...

We ate dinner at Relish in Roswell with the fam

and then came back to our house for chocolate chip cake (YUM!) and presents

(this is Brian writing) May 1, 2009... a day/weekend that I will not soon forget! A little background first... Ellen, my amazingly sneaky and sweet wife invited a couple of my closest friends to celebrate my birthday a little early. So she had the whole weekend planned out for us and even gave us boys the house while she stayed at her parents house! It was such an amazing surprise!

The big surprise! I was in complete shock mode, I couldn't believe it!

The surprises kept coming. Ellen bought us all Braves tickets for the next day and even got me a cake from my favorite place, Kelly's Kakes. She had them create a tennis cake for me.

amazing friends

We all grilled out on Friday night and then went out on the town. Saturday we went to the Braves game and sat third row behind the dugout. Awesome seats. All in all, this was a great birthday weekend and I love all my friends and my beautiful wife!

Party, Party, Party

We are VERY into parties. Especially me (Ellen). And especially when we get to host these parties. So any holiday or random reason I can think of to throw a party, I do...

We threw a neighborhood block party and invited everyone who lived in our "part" of the neighborhood. We are so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful neighbors who are about our same age (late 20s-early 30s) and in the same stage of life. About 35 people showed up, so it was definitely a huge success!

Brian thought it was super cheesy that I made everyone wear nametags.

We hosted New Years Eve at our house... this is our group of besties... Adam and Greyson (left couple) are great friends of ours and live about 8 minutes away. Greyson and Ellen have been friends since 7th grade. Stacy and Travis (middle couple) are also great friends of ours but live about 45 minutes away. Stacy and Ellen have been friends since age 2.

Once we were completely settled in our new home, we threw ourselves a Housewarming Party. It was fabulous. Friends and family attended and we were able to "show off" our house and give tours and tell what we had redone or changed.

Ellen's parents (and sister, not pictured) came to the party too

YUM

and YUM

The hostess and host :)