I know it is after Christmas, but I have a few posts left about both Christmas 2011 and Christmas 2012. Then I plan on working on some new stuff!

Last year, Josh and I visited my parents in Houston. We spent about two weeks in Texas and did a bunch of really fun stuff. We saw an exhibit of Egyptian treasures at the art museum, we toured the Shiner brewery, did a barbeque tour of Lockhart, TX, went to Space Center Houston, and saw Penn State play in the 2012 TicketCity Bowl on our way home! Whew!

We didn’t take a ton of pictures (this was pre-blog of course!) but I have a few pictures of general Christmas decorations that I thought I would share!

I had gone back and forth on getting a Christmas tree because I was worried about Pepper. If you remember, this is how she handled my little Christmas tree.

Pepper loves to try to eat this mini tree and all the ornaments on it!

Last year, I put up my little Christmas tree but inside a bookcase with a glass door to keep her out! I got this little Christmas tree when I was in college and it was the perfect size for a dorm room. I got it from the American Girl company on sale in a post Christmas sale!

Most of the ornament were made by hand. There are pipe cleaner candy canes and little paper fans.

The glass door kept Pepper out…most of the time!

One of the perks of getting the tree on sale was that it came with an extra kit of perfectly sized packages for under the Christmas tree!

At my parent’s house in Texas, the tree was already decorated. In the past we have done the Christmas tree in a couple of ways. Last year they only put up the tree in the foyer. This tree is color coordinated. All of the ornaments are silver and crystal, though I think Mom has started adding some pops of red here and there.

One of the most exciting things about Christmas last year was that Mom and Barbara made Josh a stocking so he fit into the family!

I didn’t get a close up, but his is the one in the middle with the red and yellow stripes. The fabric has Peanuts characters on it because Josh loves Snoopy. It was perfect! Santa cam and filled out stockings with lots of goodies which Josh thought was fab!

This is my stocking. it has candy canes and mints. I made the buttons myself!

We had a delicious roast beef dinner with spinach salad and Yorkshire pudding. And for dessert, we had a very controversial German chocolate cake.

Finally, some last pictures from Christmas last year. Pepper was left behind in Arkansas, but she helped me with all of the gift wrapping before I left!