Happy Birthday Maggie!!

Happy 5th Birthday to Maggie Kathryn Trammell!! My words cannot express how much I have enjoyed the past three years of being in this little girl's life, I started working for the Trammells when Maggie was 18 months old (the same age as Elizabeth right now) which is SO CRAZY to think about!! I could not imagine life without sweet Maggie...she is so different from both of her sisters and I love it. She is quite possibly the sweetest, kindest, and most caring little girl I have ever been around. She has such a heart for her family and friends, often premature worry wart but that comes from her personality. She is also just so smart, which can be good and bad, you definitely have to watch what you are saying and talking about around her, she picks up on everything, says words and sentences that most 5 year olds don't know. On a fun note, she can also be so silly at times that you just look at that sweet face and laugh.









Maggie at her first ballet recital last May

sorry couldn't get this picture to turn around, but this is one of my favorite pictures of Maggie with one of her daddy's scrub caps on, for those who don't know her daddy is a very talented neurosurgeon.

LOVE this picture...this picture has Maggie's sweet, little personality all over! This was taken in the spring of 2008 she was 2 years old her, cannot believe how big she has gotten!

This was also taken spring/summer 2008 when she was 2

This was probably taken spring 2009, maggie was 2, Claire was almost 1.

Here are some of Maggie's favorite things:

favorite food: lasagna & pizza, any carbs, this girl loves her some bread

favorite color:pink

She loves school like no other kid I have ever known, definitely alot more than I ever did as a child or adult.

Maggie is having her first big girl birthday party, with only girls, it is going to be a fancy nancy birthday party, these girls love fancy nancy and secretly so do I haha. I cannot wait to see all the sweet little fancy girls all dressed up. I definitely hope to take some pictures and write about her cute party on Saturday. I hope she enjoys her 5th year of life and has many more to celebrate. I cannot wait to see the places she will go and the person she will become. I love you Mags!!

looking back on 2010

Just wanted to look back on 2010 with a few pictures...this is all blogger would let me upload, unfortunate, since there isn't even a wedding picture on here...but it has been acting really weird for me lately, but what can you do... Anyways I know I am a little late on this, but it has been a busy start to the new year 2011 for us, so enjoy!





In may my sweet mom got the teacher of the year award at the middle school she teaches at here in Abilene. Each elementary, middle school, and high school has one teacher that receives the teacher of the year award and she was awarded it for Craig Middle School!

Our awesome honeymoon cruise at the end of March for 7 days in the Carribean to Jamaica, Grand Cayman Islands, and Cozumel, Mexico. It was so wonderful and we cannot wait to go on another sometime in the near future.

John Mayer Concert in March before our wedding, it was like my bachelorette party, but WAY BETTER, my mom, monica, sister, cousin rachel, & I all went to see John Mayer in houston after the weekend of my bridal shower in Beaumont, to say it was AMAZING does not even cut it!

sweet baby Elizabeth turning one at the end of August...loving her birthday cake!

getting our sweet Boston Terrier, Emmitt in August.

So here is the run down of 2010:

January- finished wedding plans and had my awesome bridal portraits taken

February-had my first bridal shower in Abilene, given by sweet boss, Sara & celebrated Jake's 22nd birthday.

March-beginning of the month had my 2nd bridal shower in Beaumont with all my extended family and close Beaumont friends, bachelorette concert to see John Mayer, GOT MARRIED on the 20th, and went on an amazing carribean cruise for 7 days

April-celebrated dad & Jenna's birthday & easter

May-celebrated and went to cousin Bubba & Autumn's wedding in Beaumont, Maggie had her first ballet recital & was adorable

June-went on my first vacation with my work family I nanny for to Telluride, Colorado for a week, celebrated my brother, nana, and cousin's birthdays, and celebrated the birth of precious Adley Ann.

July-celebrated independence day with family & moved into our second apartment as a couple.

August-got our first puppy as a family, the sweetest boston terrier, Emmitt, fits in perfect with our family and we love him so much, also went and celebrated Andrea & Stephen's wedding day in Dallas for the weekend, Maggie started big Prek at Abilene Christian, everyone went back to school & work.

September-celebrated cousins rachel & alexandrah's birthday, & brother in law josh's birthday.

October-Took a birthday celebration trip for my birthday and also for my aunt's 50th surprise party, celebrated Halloween with the precious girls who were the Wizard of Oz family, Glenda, Dorothy, and the lion.

Novemeber-celebrated mom & mother in law's birthdays, enjoyed our first Ellison thanksgiving in Abilene with my sister & brother in law coming up here for the holiday week along with Jake & I hosting the first Nassar thanksgiving at our apartment, fun holiday times!

December-enjoyed lots of festive Christmas time with family and friends, enjoyed Nassar christmas before christmas this year, enjoyed getting to go to Houston/Beaumont for Christmas Eve & Day to spend with my family, got lots of christmas goodies, enjoyed new years eve with jake's family & new years day with my parents.

All in all it was such a wonderful first year together, so so hard to believe before we know it we will be celebrating our first year anniversary, so exciting!! We have learned so much through this first year of being married and we will never forget it! We have so much to look forward to this coming year and cannot wait to see where God takes us. Although we do have so many decisions to come to this year, I know it is going to be such an awesome journey for us. We have already made alot of positive goals for this year and so far we are working really hard at achieving them, I love such wonderful, positive starts to the new year! Happy new year (a little late) haha...

favorite gifts of Christmas 2010

All in all Jake & I had a fabulous Christmas, we got SO many fun goodies that we love so much, but here are the top 4 items we received from Christmas 2010 that I thought I would share with ya'll...


Jake got this awesome new gas grill from my parents for Christmas, we are loving it for sure...we have already grilled steaks, italian sausage, & the little baby steaks wrapped in bacon. It is really helping us eat healthier and really cook our food in a healthier way! Thank you so much Mom & Dad...we are both really enjoying it!!

This awesome new mixer we got from Jake's dad, I love it so much, we had registered for one of these for our wedding, but never got it so it was so great to get one for Christmas this year! It is actually a much better one than the one we had registered for, it is the professional version, instead of the artisan or classic version. It also has a much bigger motor and all the tools/attachments it comes with are all metal instead of plastic. I would say it is definitely safe to say that we are loving it...a few weeks ago I made a delicious batch of my mom's famous ranger cookies, which were thoroughly enjoyed!

Here is another item that is going to have great benefit on helping me be healthier and in better shape in this new year. Jake got me the Reebok Easytone tennis shoes in a cool gray & turquoise color combination, they look a little different than the ones in the picture above, but that was the closest I could find online. I have been wearing them whenever I can and love them, I love that they are helping my legs, butt, and back get toned up...trust me every little bit helps haha. They have made my leg and back muscles a little sore, but I know they will just take a little getting used to.

And here is the last top item of the year, this is a necklace I got from Sara & the girls that I am nanny for and I absolutely LOVE it! The necklace is from a company called Stella & Dot, they sell gorgeous jewelry, it's a great place if you like giving great quality jewelry as gifts. Anyways, back in September a friend of Sara's, who works for Stella & Dot was having a jewelry party at Sara's house which I attended to help out at and ended up trying on and modeling this exact necklace for the party and was loving it that night, but completely forgot about it. But come to find out when the girls & I exchanged our Christmas gifts, Sara saw how much I liked this necklace and how much it looked like me and bought it that night of the jewelry party at her house and I had absolutely no idea, haha I was very surprised to open up the necklace and definitely recognized it in a good way!

It was definitely a great Christmas for us whether we got these items or not, but we are loving all of our Christmas goodies and are so thankful for our generous families. There were many other great items, but these were the ones that I got pictures of. I hope everyone else had such a merry christmas & happy new year!!

Happy New Year 2011!!!

I can hardly believe that it is already the beginning of another new year...it really seems like this year literally flew by, I can remember this time last year finishing wedding planning and doing bridal showers and lots of fun wedding stuff. It's so weird to me to think about that Jake & I are getting ready to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in just a couple months, but it is also so so exciting for us! We have both had such a wonderful first year together and cannot believe that we are already about to begin our second year married together, we cannot wait to see what 2011 holds for the two of us and even more curious as to what God has in store for us this coming year.

This year to celebrate ringing in the new year we had a yummy dinner with Jake's mom, brother, and his brother's fiance at Outback, which was absolutely delicious. After eating a great dinner we headed back to our house to hang out, have homemade ice cream cake for dessert, play wii, and watch the ball drop in NYC from our television. We had alot of fun playing games, hanging out, and drinking some great champagne (only the best part of New year's eve). New year's day Jake worked so I spent the day hanging out at home, trying to clean and organize the house after the holidays. We went for New year's Day dinner at my parent's house for yummy grilled pork chops, roasted potatoes, salad, green beans, and the lucky black eyed peas. We stayed to hang out and watch the Oklahoma vs. UConn game, my mom & I brainstormed on some planning for a bridal shower my sister, mom, & I are planning this spring for one of my cousins. All in all it was a great new years celebration and we are off to a great new year so far at least, Jake & I have some great new years goals/resolutions that we are really working towards
so we are both being super optimistic about that!


Sorry for the lack of pictures, we didn't get any really good pictures from New years this year...

Merry Christmas 2010!!

Christmas 2010 started out a little stressful, but in the end it was so great. We started celebrating Christmas a little early to get everyone in, which actually made it alot more fun because it was like we had a few mini christmases since we LOVE to CELEBRATE! So we started out celebrating with Jake's family on December 19th at our house with his mom, dad, brother, & his brother's fiance. Jake & I worked on a mexican themed meal and it turned out so delicious...we served king ranch casserole(a family recipe & favorite), tamales, homemade spanish rice, chips & queso, and it all turned out so delicous! We all received some great gifts and played some really fun games along with a great Sopapilla Cheesecake for dessert that Jake made. It was a great Christmas celebration with everyone on Jake's side of the family.


This year we decided to go down to Houston/Beaumont for Christmas with my family so we left early Christmas Eve morning and flew from Abilene to Dallas to Houston. Once we got to Houston we got our from the rental place in the airport and went for some yummy lunch at Pei Wei (a.k.a. Jake's favorite) and then a few last Christmas stops at the mall and Target. After we finished out last Christmas errands we headed to my sister & brother in law's house to hang out until we headed to my cousin's house for Christmas Eve dinner and hang out. We got to eat my favorite italian, Carrabba's Italian Grill for dinner and a delicious homemade ice cream cake for dessert all thanks to Jeffrey & Alison :) Once getting home from dinner we did our last bit of wrapping gifts, stuffing the stockings, and getting everything set out for Santa :) Christmas morning was great with just our little family of now 7 and everyone loved all their goodies that Santa left them. After cleaning up from our Santa and getting dressed for the rest of Christmas Day we all headed to Nana & Papa's house for the rest of the day to celebrate with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and whoever else was there. This year instead of drawing names and everyone just pretty much buying everyone a gift we decided to do a fun white elephant this year and all had such a fun time, it was definitely a good laugh for all!

Once we got back to Houston to my sister & brother in law's house we all hung out and relaxed until we headed to bed, which was pretty early for Jake & I since we had to wake up at 4 am to get ready to leave for the airport to catch our plane back to Abilene. The morning came very early, but really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, we headed to the airport, returned our rental car, checked in & boarded our plane, then sat down for a few minutes to eat Mcdonalds for breakfast before flying off to Dallas. Once we got to Dallas we had a little delay, but not too bad at all, once we were finally home in Abilene Jake had to head off to work while I came home and started unpacking some of our stuff. Then it was early to bed for us that night...like 8:30 early something we have never done! But all in all Christmas was wonderful, we definitely were so blessed to get to go home and spend it with all my family and had such a special first Christmas together.




Christmas morning 2010 at Matt & Jenna's house

Our front door area outside our apartment decorated for Christmas

Our first Christmas tree together

sweet baby Adley Ann on her first Christmas