Welcome Home, Maggie Belle Martin!

Look at what we just brought home!

Maggie Belle Martin was born on December 1st and we just brought her home last night. She's a little wiggleworm, and we are spoiling her rotten as fast as we can.

She loves hanging out in her "redneck condo"

And she loves playing with Mary in the snow!

She even digs riding in Mary's sweet sled! Thanks for the ride, Mary!

Stay tuned for more cute pics! You know I'll be snapping pictures until I completely KILL this camera battery!

The Cutest Little Girls in the Whole Wide World!

We are truly blessed with great friends who all have great kids - and sometimes, they even get brave enough to let us watch those kids!!

Here's some pictures of some of the cutest little girls in the whole wide world! I swear, their daddies better get ready, these girls are gonna be heartbreakers one day!

Here's Mary, she looks just like a little doll. We watched Mary one night while her parents went to the movies. I think she may have been a little traumatized by the fact that the Beaudog was barking his head off, I burned dinner, and the smoke alarm started going off and wouldn't stop for about 10 minutes. This child was probably soooo ready to get back to her own house!

The very next day, I babysat all day for Michael's goddaughter, Trinity. She is such a cutie pie, and I spent the first couple hours of the day walking her around the house and propping her up for pictures everywhere. She would just grin and laugh, but as soon as I snapped a picture, she would stop smiling and look at me like I was crazy. I love this little Christmas outfit!

The funniest part about me babysitting for her was that all day long, I had put her diaper on backwards. Her poor Mom had to pull me aside and let me know that the tabs go in the front, not in the back. I was so freaking embarrassed. Clearly, I have no business having a child of my own. I don't even know how to work a diaper!! I bet all day, that poor baby was like - "Dude! I'm so uncomfortable!!! Can you please get my drawers on right??!?"

Oh well, doesn't look like my lack of parenting skills kept her from snoozing the day away - look how SWEET!!!

And here's our newest little neighbor, Reese. So sweet, and she doesn't even mind if Michael holds her!

Absolutely PRECIOUS!! I can't wait for us to have a house full of our own!

Christmas in the 'Hood!

Michael and I volunteered to be one of the host houses for our Neighborhood Progressive Christmas Party on Saturday, and it was AWESOME! It also gave us a really good excuse to get our house cleaned up and all our Christmas decorating done!

Here are some pics of the decorations! And let me disclaim this post by saying I did all this decorating myself. (I know, usually I'm a hawt mess, but I feel like it looked somewhat pretty! Not Pottery Barn or Metropolitan Home pretty, but pretty nonetheless!) Dang, Martha Stewart doesn't have anything on the Martins!

The outside view from the street... Sorry, this is really hard to see, and my camera is pretty crappy, and the picture taker is questionable as well.

The front door. That tree to the left is pissing me off because one strand of lights is burned out. Why does that always happen?

My grandmother had a nativity scene when I was little, and I used to love that thing. Michael's mom got us this one for Christmas a couple of years ago. I can never quite get the hang of how to position the playas so that it doesn't look like everyone is checking out the camel instead of baby Jesus.

I love this little piece of furniture. It belonged to my Mom and Dad way back in the day, and I think it even belonged to my grandparents before that. So anyway, it was in my parents basement, (those of you that have seen that basement know how scary that is...) and my mom had it refinished in this cool red color. I think it's my favorite piece of furniture in the house!

I think we did a really good job with the tree this year. No comment about the lack of presents under said tree...

Okay, heres my favorite part. I saw this picture in Southern Living Magazine where someone had pulled off a bunch of magnolia leaves and put them on their mantle with all different sizes of candles and I thought it was gorgeous! Bentley didn't think there was any way that I could pull this off with my hot mess decorating skills. I'm thinking it looks pretty good. PS- Thanks Michael for stealing all those leaves off our neighbors magnolia tree. I knew there was a good reason that I married you!

I think it came together pretty nicely, right?

Okay, so enough of that. Let's move on to the PARTY!

There were three host houses in the neighborhood, and then at the end of the night, everyone went to one house for dessert and champagne! The problem with this type of party is that if you've got a good first house, nobody wants to leave to go to the next house! I must say, I think we had a pretty fun first house!

Even Beaudog and Reese got in on the fun! Here's Beaudog telling Reese that he thinks its an awesome idea that shes using a dinner napkin for a blanket!

I must admit, Beaudog and Reese were at the late night party after the dessert party. You know how they like to roll.

So, that's the extent of our Christmas decorating and neighborhood party. I'm pretty pleased! But, now since I've put all this work into it, I'm wanting to host another party! Oh, well, next weekend is right around the corner!

Deck the Halls, Ya'll!

Michael, Beaudog and I went Christmas Tree Shopping on Saturday, and I think we picked a perfect tree! (Beaudog is not as excited about the tree as he looks...he was really checking out all the other doggies at the tree lot.) Stay tuned for more posts and pics as we get the house decorated - we're in a mad dash because we're hosting our neighborhood Christmas Party at the house in a couple of weeks!

All My Single Ladies!!!

Okay, so we're not really single, but we are ladies, and we love a good girls night out on the town!
So Saturday night; Leigh, Lisa and I ventured out on the scene while Michael hosted a poker game for the boys. We had such a fun, fun, fun time!

We started out with some cocktails, makeup, and hairstyling at the house - clearly, we thought we were going to the prom. (Old married ladies don't get out much) While we were getting ready, we had a dance party featuring Sasha Fierce, thus the title of this post. Watch out ya'll... we are so learning those moves and we will be breaking them out at the next event we are all at. If you're not familiar - I urge you to check Beyonce and her badness out via this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g

We started out the evening at The Rockford. Dang, I always forget about that place, and every time I go, it is always soooooo good! And soooooo cheap for such good eats! I had the grilled pimento cheese sammie with mashed potatoes as my side item. Highly recommended to all of you next time you're there.

The pretty ladies at dinner!

The pretty ladies at The Hibernian. This is where a little bit of Sasha Fierce comes out in all of us and we are starting the rally cry for "All The Single Ladies"


Here we are drinking down some red bulls and throwing up our gang sign. Some may call this a different sign, we're just idiots and that's the only sign we all knew. Shocker. HAHAHA!

Our honorary "Single Lady" - Brad! Where is Leigh-bo? Oop! There she is!


I love how excited Brad looks to be hanging with us. Maybe that's why he wouldn't let us come back to his house for late night! Whats up with that, Brad!? I think he had clearly had enough of those red-bull drinking "single ladies"...

A Trendy New Look for Hickory Holler?

So, I was bored with the way the blog was looking. It was kinda sad and didn't have much Pizazz (insert jazz hands here)

Any thoughts or feedback on the new look? I'm digging it....

Blue Monday...

Why so blue? Cause my dang husband is in VEGAS, and I'm in Raleigh!! Yes, I know he's there for work, but still! What kind of "business trip" is a 7 day trip to Las Vegas?

Watch out, Vegas... cause next year Mr. Martin's "assistant" is going too!