christmas!

christmas 2008

we celebrated christmas with my family on christmas eve as is our tradition (and since a few of us had to work on christmas night). we started out with a barbecue dinner, then went to the candlelight service at church. we headed home for family pictures at the christmas tree and then got a surprise visit from santa claus himself! after that, we opened gifts in our usual order, youngest to oldest. the little ones went to bed and the adults stayed up to finish opening gifts from each other before we had a chinese gift exchange that ended up having very little stealing and swapping. it was a very merry christmas, and i hope yours was too!

merry christmas from the kings!!!

early christmas and more

a busy sunday

while matt's family was in town for the graduation ceremony and festivities, we took advantage of the time we had together, having something scheduled nearly every day they were here. matt's mom pat, step-dad david, sister heather and nephew miah drove in from ohio and arrived on thursday evening. his dad steven and his dad's fiance jacquie flew in and arrived on friday just in time for the hooding ceremony (there were some delays at the airport that morning!). here's a smal breakdown of the activites:
thursday: dinner with pat, david, heather & miah
friday: hooding ceremony, free time with both sets of parents, some shopping, and then dinner at carrabbas
saturday: an early lunch, presents, graduation, graduation party
sunday: christmas with steven & jacquie before they headed back to the airport, then a trip to the 6th floor museum with pat, david, heather & miah before celebrating christmas with them
monday: matt went to visit his mom, david, heather & miah before they drove out (i didn't go because i was already getting sickly...in the days to follow nearly everyone in *both* our immediate families would end up getting sick!)

the previous posts, of course, have the graduation pics, this post has pics from that last sunday we spent together including both christmases & a few pics around the 6th floor museum in downtown dallas (anyone who's been can tell you that you aren't allowed to take *any* pictures inside) :(

graduation!

on december 20th, at 3:00pm in the UTD activities center the kings, childers, millers, richards, and proctors celebrated the graduation of our very own TWO PhD's, dr. childers and dr. king. our family cheered wildly, much to the amusement of the spectators around us, as first matt, then shari received their much-deserved degrees.
before the party, we celebrated with a light lunch and some gift opening with the immediate family. once commencement was over, we all headed back to the miller's house for a party with food, more gifts, and some really tasty chocolate cake!

Congratulations Dr. Childers!
Congratulations Dr. King!

and in the poetic words of my father (see the pics in the link):
"congrats on your akkomplishment from those of us who can only gaze upon what yew have dunn -- and wunder why you did it!! with much love and mirth from your family"

PhD graduation

PhD hooding ceremony

on december 19th at 1:00pm the family headed to the UTD conference center to see both shari and matt receive their doctoral hoods in a special ceremony. My entire family was able to make it, minus only the proctors, and matt's sister, nephew and both sets of parents were able to come in from ohio for the special occasion. we watched the ceremony then enjoyed the reception afterward before taking a *ton* of pictures with the family, only some of which are posted in the link below! a few hours later, we all met up at carrabba's italian restaurant to celebrate the momentous occasion, because both my sister and my husband were now *officially* PhD's!

Congratulations to you both!

for more of the pictures, follow the picture link below:

hooding ceremony 12/19/08

cookie fest 2008

on wednesday my family got together for our annual cookie fest. we made snickerdoodles, sugar and m&m cookies, toffee and toasted pecans. we finished baking all the cookies by the evening and enjoyed a family dinner together. i hope you are enjoying all the holiday festivities as well!

cookie fest 2008

here's a video of liv getting in on the festivities by singing "rudolf, the red-nosed reindeer," well, her version :)

our anniversary

matt surprised me this week by planning for us to celebrate our anniversary for nearly an entire week!we both worked on our actual anniversary date, the 1st, so we celebrated on the 3, 4, and 5th (wednesday - friday) instead. here's the breakdown...
wednesday: matt went to the store, then made dinner for me (something he's been promising to do since our first date!) we also got to enjoy some of our *very* yummy wedding cake!
thursday: a lazy day by choice. we ate dinner at home, and spent the rest of the night watching movies and not worrying about anything else in the world.
friday: we went and got haircuts (i know, romantic!), then got a couple's massage. we had dinner at uncle julio's then headed to fort worth to go see an improv comedy show at four day weekend (which we highly recommend). we, of course, also hit up a bookstore and had some coffee from starbucks!

1st anniversary

thanks for a wonderful anniversary, and a great first year, honey! xoxo!

ONE year!

a year ago today....




i take you as my friend,
beside me and apart from me,
in laughter and in tears,
in conflict and in tranquility,
in sickness and in health,
asking that you be only yourself,
loving what i know of you,
trusting what i do not yet know,
in all the ways that life may find us.

the first year has been wonderful, honey, and i'm looking forward to all the years to come! thanks for being my dream come true, i love you! happy anniversary!