Girls Night - Bachelor Style

So every Monday night, my girlfriends and I get together for two hours of the best train wreck on television ever...The Bachelor (or Bachelorette). We take turns hosting and cooking dinner; the guest bring wine; and we spend those two hours judging :)

This week was my friend's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY MURPHY!) so I created a specialty cocktail for the night...drumroll...the "Will You Accept This Rose" Martini! So good!

As this was a made up recipe, I'm not too sure about the actual amounts but it went something like this:

1/2 part Rose Vodka -this is key, of course ;)

1/2 part Pomegranate Juice

***shaken***

Then top it off with a Rosé sparkling wine

Add rose petal and pass them out to every hot girl in the room ;)

New Years Eve 2011

How were we going to top New Years Eve in New York? By having the most fabulous, sleek New Years party ever! M'lynn, who lives in our building, and I got together and planned a fantastic New Years party for our nearest and dearest :) Her condo is a spacious, modern unit with huge windows overlooking downtown, the Capitol and the UT Tower. We decorated with flashy 2011 stuff and bought enough food and drink for all. It was truly a blast to be with all of our friends and not have to leave our building!

Meghan (in from New York!), me and Andrea at dinner

Me and Andrea

Clint, trying to pull off a trick that M'lynn's dad showed us in Steamboat

Clint, Morgan, Bryan and Chris

Meghan (5 months preggo!), me and Theresa...the Sabine girls!

So glad she came from NYC!

Me, Bri, Mary Jane, M'lynn, Andrea and Megan

Colin and Megan

Megan, me and Bri

Love her!

M'lynn and Matt!

Morgan and Andrea

Me and Clint....love how his shirt coordinated with my skirt; that's love :)

And for the parents reading this post, you can now put some faces with the names of friends we have been talking about for months :)

Merry Christmas to Us!

Clint and I aren't very "by-the-book"; we look to create our own traditions and do things that better represent us. One of these traditions has been planning events instead of giving gifts; this way we get to do something together instead of giving things that we may not need or may take up space. With that in mind, our Christmas present to each other was a trip to Steamboat Springs to go SKIING!! Woohoo! I love skiing, well snowboarding, I love to snowboard. Clint also boarded so that he wasn't flying by me since he is such a good skier. We had a blast shredding the gnarly pow-pow ;) Here are some fun pictures!

Arriving in Steamboat; I am always so intrigued by the tiny airport where you exit the plane outside.

M'lynn, me and Clint at the Parra House

How expert does that look?!

We found longhorns! And had to represent!

Michelle and Mike Parra, me and M'lynn geared up to ski in a slight snow storm

Me and Clint at the base

Waiting to get on the lift!

Clint's frozen hair; we went to the hot springs and even though the water is fabulous and warm, everything the steam touches will ice over.

At the top of the mountain!

Christmastime with family and friends

So Christmastime for the Millers is pretty action packed. Clint's birthday is December 17th so we start our holiday off with celebrating Clint :) We already had plans to be in Dallas for family Christmas that weekend so, along with the help of Clint's best man John Cook, we pulled off a birthday surprise for Clint! The night started with all of Clint's best friends meeting at Primos in Uptown for dinner; he hadn't seen some of these guys in years! After dinner, I met up with the group for a bit then whisked Clint away to his next surprise where we stayed at the Stoneleigh Hotel...so amazing!! We had breakfast in bed were able to relax for what turned out to be an amazing birthday weekend. Happy 33rd to my love!

A Christmas dinner with Stephanie, Micki and Mackenzie

Saturday, we had some time to kill so we made a trip to Northpark and thankfully got there early enough to avoid the parking chaos, and then we walked Highland Park Village...so pretty!

The Christmas tree at Highland Park Village

Christmas at Mimi and Papaw's; this kid doesn't need any more toys so I gave him a polo :)

Davis as Santa :)

On Sunday, we went to church with Clint's family in Nevada and had the treat of Muna (Clint's mom) and Trent (Clint's nephew) having their musical debut. Muna played the recorder, amazing! And Trent played his trombone. It was so great!

Clint and I at his parents' for Christmas.

Merry Christmas...to me!

I had to lead off with my visit to our wedding site, Cop Cot :)

Being the luckiest wife in the entire world, I was able to visit friends in New York over the Christmas holiday. A friend of mine was going to be out of town so she invited a couple of us girls to stay at her place while she was gone...so began Amanda and Lacey take Manhattan!

I flew in on Thursday and immediately had dinner with my fav New Yorker, Meghan Dempsey! I spent Friday walking around with some of the greatest wedding guest we had, Matt Nance and Nathan Holder. We stopped by Trump Towers to rest our feet and to taste a $15 martini...no difference, Donald.

By Friday evening, Amanda was in town and we were ready to have dinner at one of the most amazing places in Manhattan, Blue Water Grill! From there, we went out to some of our favorite neighborhood bars, some newly opened, trendy clubs and the all-time favorite, Patriot Bar. We ate amazing Italian food, partook in the New York ritual of brunch and shopped, shopped, shopped!

It was an amazing trip and was just long enough for me to get my New York fix; thank you, Clint for the amazing gift!!

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Nance, Pat, me and Nathan...we just needed Bryan and Jon to complete this wedding reunion!

The tree at Trump Tower

Isn't that the most beautiful Christmas star?! Hanging near Fifth Avenue

Bergdorf :)

Amanda, me and Amanda's friend who has a beautiful Greek name that I could never spell.

Our Home

So I've been decorating and adding some more personal touches to our house...a.k.a I have discovered how amazing Hobby Lobby is!

Our Christmas Tree!! I wanted something different, just not too keen on the whole tree thing. So I got a clear floor vase, wrapped it with red ribbon like a candy cane, with one strand of green sequin ribbon and found some great decorative sticks that were strong enough to hold Christmas lights; I wrapped 5 sticks with lights and 2 with green sequin ribbon then added out 4 ornaments...perfect :)

The shadow box with my wedding invitation; thank you Kacie Whigham for saving, in such great condition, my wedding invitation and getting all the pieces for me to put together. I love it!

The start of one wall, in the bedroom

Wall in the entry-way

Lacey Goes Hunting...kind of

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

This past weekend Clint and I spent Thanksgiving with his family at their ranch in San Angelo. Clint grew up hunting; they all did, even his 12-year-old nephew got a deer (pictures below). Well this was my first experience "hunting". Clint's family had a wonderful house at the ranch that was burned in a wildfire about 2 years ago so they are rebuilding...which means we slept in portable Morgan building and ate meals in the cook-shack. Now the cook-shack was awesome; it was a perfect kitchen and best of all, it was INSULATED!! The bunk-houses were not but never fear, Clint radiates heat so I slept surprisingly well and toasty :)

We had Thanksgiving dinner on Friday afternoon and did afternoon hunts every day...I can not do the morning hunt at 5am when it's 25 degrees outside; baby steps people.

We took some amazing pictures but when I was finally comfortable enough to let Clint actually shoot a deer, we didn't see anything; boo.

The last two pictures are from Millersview...that's right, Clint's great-grandfather donated land and help founded a town. Take that Ivanka Trump ;)

McManus! This is a family name and Clint's middle name.

Longhorns...if you can see it, the black one in front is angry; he thought we pulled up to feed him, not just photograph him.

Warm and ready to hunt...in style ;)

Momma doe and her yearlings...I wasn't okay blatantly shooting a momma!

Can you guess the fate of this little guy? Mean sucker.

BEAUTIFUL sunset

This buck hung out with us for about 30 minutes but we wanted a doe, better meat.

Clint's nephew got a doe and she helped secure Muna's (Clint's mom) toiletry bag :)

Going to Millersview!

Edward D. Miller, Clint's great-grandfather
(his name is at the very top)