quick recap...

Clearly I haven't gotten around to posting about the holidays yet.

We thoroughly enjoyed our nearly 2 weeks of time away from home with friends and family, yet it's been a bit hectic getting settled in again (only further compounded by snow-AGAIN!)

We had a wonderful Christmas.

This is the first Christmas since we graduated, married, & started our jobs that our work has allowed us to be home for more than a few consecutive days at the holidays.

Let's just say that I have quickly become spoiled to the academic calendar!

We were blessed in so many ways beyond gifts, but we did get some pretty awesome gifts too! Here's just a quick recap of some of my favorites...

*I am now the proud owner of Amazon's newest edition 3G & Wi-Fi Kindle...I L-O-V-E being able to have books with me wherever I go!

*a new pizza stone

*a full-size dressing mirror

*an i-Pod docking station for the kitchen so I can rock out while cooking (could be a dangerous combination, I'm not sure just yet!)

*new clothes

*a donut maker (yes, friends there is an appliance that makes 5 delicious non-fried donuts in 6 minutes...dangerous!)

*awesome new black boots...my dear husband did a wonderful job picking them out!

*cash money to aid in the purchase of a new mattress...we bought it at Macy's this past Saturday-looking forward to sleeping on it soon!

And, here are a few pictures to further recap our holidays.

my all-time favorite Christmas decoration...

our sort-of crooked, little Christmas tree (it was not perfect, but was definitely my favorite Christmas tree we've ever had!) Sadie checking out some of her new stuff on Christmas morning...she's spoiled, bet you couldn't tell!

My dad gave us each a "Christmas Story hat"...it sure has come in handy for walking Sadie in the 20-30 degree weather!

It started snowing on Christmas night...it took 27 years to see my 1st White Christmas!

Operation Christmas Child

Back in November we participated in Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child.

It has become a tradition that we fill shoeboxes each year. As our family grows, we hope to continue to make it a part of our holiday season.

I also had the amazing opportunity this year to volunteer with our chuch which was a local donation drop-off center. We received boxes, packaged them into larger crates, and prayed over them we sent over 1,500 shoeboxes to a larger processing center in Charlotte, NC. It was such a blessing!

This year we filled 2 boxes, 1 for a boy & 1 for a girl.

We placed tracking labels on each so we could find out their final destination.

Just 2 days before Christmas we received an e-mail that our boxes had arrived in Zimbabwe...how exciting!!!

Praying that this small gesture of love will touch children & families in Zimbabwe.

donate your Christmas cards...

Have lots of Christmas cards lying around?
If you're like me & can't stand the clutter of papers & stuff, do something positive with those cards by mailing them to St. Jude's Ranch Recycled Card Program.

Send just the front of your cards (but no Hallmark, Disney, or American Greetings cards) and the children there will turn them into new cards!

It helps you get rid of your clutter, gives the kids something good to do, & is certainly more 'green' than tossing them all in the trash.

Mail them to:
St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Recycled Card Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

P.S. You can send any cards, not just Christmas cards, and they accept cards year-round. Their website says they currently have a need for Birthday & Thank You cards.)

2010.

It's so hard for me to believe that 2010 is coming to an end.

It's been quite a year for us. It's been...
challenging,
full of change,
filled with uncertainty,
loaded with new blessings,
fun,
trying at times,
amusing,
and in the end, we can look back and say it truly has been a great year!

To summarize our year:
*I went skiing for the 1st time when we travelled with Uncle Sam, Aunt Lisa & family to Copper Mountain, Colorado. It was an awesome experience & thankfully we all survived with no injuries! I can cross snow-skiing off of my bucket list.

*We put our house in Durham up for sale in early February. We feel blessed that we finally sold it in July. The waiting, and ups & downs tested our patience, our faith, and left us questioning our future.

*I graduated from Duke in May with my Master's of Science in Nursing Education. Now, I'm Sarah Tarr, RN, MSN, OCN!

*Chris graduated from UNC the following weekend with his PhD in Organic Chemistry. He's now, Dr. James Christopher Tarr!!!

*We made 2 quick trips to Nashville in the spring searching for places to live in Nashville. With the help of Craigslist, we later found our tiny little Nashville home!

*In July, we loaded up 3 cars & trucks + 1 very large moving truck and headed 8 hours west to our new home city of Nashville.

*On July 30th, we celebrated 5 wonderful year of marriage!

*Chris & I both started our new jobs in August. Chris as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Organic Chemistry at Vanderbilt & me as Full-time Adjunct Faculty in the School of Nursing at Belmont University. We both love our jobs!

*Sadly, we lost Chris' grandpa, Pa Tarr, in August. He was a wonderful man and is, and will continue to be, missed greatly by us all.

*We took a quick weekend trip to St. Louis. I crossed a visit to another baseball stadium off of my bucket list.

*I took a job as an author for a chapter of a McGraw-Hill Medical-Surgical Nursing textbook.

*For the 1st time since graduating from college & being married, we had the opportunity to spend almost two weeks at the holidays in GA with our families. It's been a great way to close out the year!

Again, it's been quite a year!!! We're looking forward to 2011!

what more could I want?

Since I was a child I thought I wanted to be a teacher...
I played "school" with my dolls & my sisters,
I made "lesson plans" and put grades in my "grade book",
I took my "class" on field trips and gave them spelling tests.

Sometime in high school, I decided that I wanted to be a nurse...
I loved nurturing people in their time of need,
I loved the example of nursing that my mom had established for me,
I wanted to join the ranks of the proud profession of nursing.
And that I did!...
I feel so blessed to have found a career that is so rewarding!

I have always loved books and loved to read...
My love for reading has always left me with the desire to be a writer.
I have been given a fabulous opportunity through McGraw-Hill and am now authoring a chapter for a Medical-Surgical nursing textbook!!!
I am soooo excited about this opportunity and the chance to be a part of such a wonderful publishing company.

I have been so blessed by the opportunities to be not only a nurse, but a teacher, and an author!
What more could I want???

where i've been...

(obviously not blogging!)

busy, busy times...

getting Christmas cards designed & printed,
addressing & sending 40 Christmas cards,
packing Operation Christmas Child boxes,
sorting Operation Christmas Child boxes with WBC,
writing & sending Christmas cards to soldiers in Iraq,
Christmas shopping in stores,
Christmas shopping online,
making a few handmade Christmas gifts,
decorating the house for Christmas,
wrapping Christmas gifts,
shipping Christmas gifts
baking Christmas treats,
checking out Franklin, TN's Charles Dicken's Christmas festival,
practicing my piano prelude music for Belmont's pinning ceremony,
grading last minute assignments,
entering final grades,
making preparations for my trip to Durham in less than 1 week!!!,
ETC...

This is such a busy time of the year, and I've tried more than ever to not get too caught up in the stress of the season.

I've been reading my daily Advent lessons and trying to focus on what this season is truly about. It probably sounds cliche, but I do mean it.
Belmont's Advent theme this year is centered around the hymn "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus". I've never paid much attention to it's powerful words...

Come thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
Israel's strength and consolation,
hope of all thy earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thy own eternal spirit,
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.

It's been busy, but I'm loving this Advent season...

Y-U-M-M-Y

***WARNING: These delicious treats are habit forming!***

Oreo Truffles

1 block of cream cheese, softened
1 package of Oreos, crushed finely
16 oz. Baker's white chocolate, melted
decorative sugars or sprinkles

Prepare a large baking sheet with wax paper.
Crush Oreos in a gallon-size ziplock bag with a rolling pin. Mix oreos and softened cream cheese until well blended. Form into 1-inch balls.

Dip into melted white chocolate allowing excess to drip off. Place on baking sheet and sprinkle with colored sugars or sprinkles.

Makes approximately 36-40.
Recipe from Kraft Foods.

We are in love with these yummy treats!!!

why i heart CVS

Got this...

Paid...$6.61 & got $2 Extra Care bucks back!!!
Love it!

thankful hearts.

My heart is overwhelmed with thankfulness...
so many things to be thankful for, so many of which I take for granted every day.

More than in years before, I am especially grateful for the wonderful people in my life...
my family,
my friends,
my church family,
my co-workers,
my neighbors...

I pray that I never take the people in my life for granted.

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

meatless meal update.

I have been neglecting to update you all on our meatless meal venture.

Lately we've kept it very simple with vegetable soup and baked sweet potatoes with some combination of vegetables.

Several weeks ago we did try Kraft Food's recipe for Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas.
We, especially Chris, were a little afraid of how they might turn out but they were absolutely delicious!

Here's the recipe:

2 red bell peppers
2 small zuchinni, coarsely chopped

1 eggplant, coarsely chopped

1 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 cup of Zesty Italian dressing

1 1/2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup of water

12 corn tortillas

chopped cilantro

Heat the oven to 425.

Cover a baking sheet with foil sprayed lightly with cooking spray. Toss vegetables and garlic in dressing. Spread into one layer on baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, turning after 10 minutes. Remove from oven & cool.

Combine 2 cups of the chopped vegetables and 1/2 cup of cheese and set aside.

Remove skin and seeds from peppers and coarsely chop. Add peppers to blender with water, garlic, cilantro, and remaining roasted vegetables. Blend until smooth.

Reduce oven temperature to 350. Pour 1 cup of vegetable puree onto bottom of greased 9x13 baking dish. Top each tortillas with 3 tablespoons of roasted vegetables and roll up. Place seam-side down in baking dish and top with remaining vegetable puree and cheese.

Cover and bake about 25 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted. Garnish with cilantro.

*I halved the recipe and it worked well too.

Hope you enjoy as much as we did!

ribbon wreath

I have seen ribbon wreaths all over the blog world lately.

A friend at work is expecting a sweet baby girl, Autum in January and we are throwing a shower at work=perfect time to try making a ribbon wreath.

I used this tutorial but opted to use straight pins to secure the ribbons rather than hot glue because I hate dealing with hot glue strings.

I'm so happy with how it turned out!
I'll definitely be linking it up to some weekend parties...

coffee table

We bought a new coffee table at the market last month when my parents were visiting.

Chris actually spotted it and asked me if I like it.

I definitely loved it but was afraid it might be a bit too big.

We walked around & thought about it before deciding to buy it.

My dad came along & negotiated the price down for us so we got a super deal.

I absolutely love how it looks in our living room (so much better than what we had)!

The size is absolutely perfect...like it was made for our space!

cupcakes!

I recently had fun making these cute cupcakes (strawberry with cream cheese frosting)!

Chris' boss has 3 precious children. Unfortunately, his youngest daughter, Paige was diagnosed in September with a malignant form of neuroblastoma. She is only 18 months old. Her prognosis is very good and she has so far tolerated chemotherapy very well.

In addition to praying and supporting their family emotionally, the lab and family friends have really rallied around their family providing them with meals every day of the week for the past few months.

We had the opportunity to make dinner for their family a few weeks ago.

We tried to create a kid-friendly meal so we made meatball sub casserole, a salad (with adult & kid toppings & dressings), and the cupcakes.

I stamped each of their names on one cupcake topper and stamped "Go Paige" on all the other toppers. I was happy with how they turned out & as we were catching up on their CaringBridge journal last night, we saw that they had posted a picture of our "inspiring" cupcakes.

So happy we could do some that seems so small to help others.

Go Paige!!!

food fairies.

Recently we were incredibly spoiled by the food fairies.

You see, when my parents came to visit they made the trip with a cooler packed full of delicious food from home...
potato soup, chicken tortilla soup, pork chops, macaroni & cheese, lima beans, homemade beans & franks, sweet potato pie, pecan bars.

It was such a wonderful treat as we didn't have to cook all week and we got to enjoy yummy food from home.

Thanks again to the food fairies!

catching up...

The past few weeks have been very busy for both of us with work and visits from family.

First, Abbey came for a visit over her Fall Break.

We had a great time shopping, eating, hanging out, doing a little line dancing & enjoying some great music at the Wildhorse, and playing a little Sunday afternoon football on a gorgeous fall day in the park.

The following weekend, my parents came for their first visit to Nashville.

Since they had never been to Nashville before, we felt obliged to show them the 'classic' sights.
We enjoyed eating at the Loveless Cafe on Friday night, spending much of the day Saturday at the antique market at the fairgrounds. (where we bought a coffee table that I fell in love with...pics to come!) Saturday night we saw Blake Shelton be inducted into the Grand Ol Opry hall of fame by Trace Adkins. Lots of good music and fun!

Here are few pictures of our time together...

Thankful for the time we had to enjoy family...