Christmas time…was here…

First of all, I want to say that I hope all of you had a great Christmas and that I missed all of you very much during our crazy Christmas spectacular.

Hi, we're newlyweds. It's our first Christmas! Ok, so I'm a bit over excited...still.

I apologize for my lack of blogging, but as we were traveling for five days to celebrate seven Christmases, I hope you’ll forgive me and promise to still come back often and read now that things are more settled down at home.

Also, since I have so much to share with all of you, I’ve decided to offer you a highlight reel, of sorts, of our first newlywed Christmas. But since I’m so much of a Christmas carol nut, why not offer it to you in a 12 days of Christmas style “song?”

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I can’t think of a reason not to, so here I go:

For the first part of Christmas, my true love (that’s Hubs), gave to me…

…ok, I won’t sing the whole thing to you, but you get the idea, right?

A brand new Honda window. Remember when Wyatt’s car was broken into. I wrote about it here. Well, we got it fixed on Friday while we were in Sedalia. It was an expensive little extra pit stop to our Christmas weekend, but we’re happy to no longer have plastic taped to our car, and to no longer have to worry about glass chunks getting into everything back there.

2 spare bedrooms: We have the blessing of having a nice place to stay at both of our parents’ houses when we visit. It’s not always easy to divide time evenly between both houses, but we love visiting each place and appreciate having a little room to be our “home away from home.”

3 graham cracker houses. On Friday night, we spent the night at my parents’ house with my little cousins getting ready for Christmas at my grandparents’ the next day. What better way to spend Christmas Eve Eve than making these cute little creations?

Much easier and smaller than traditional gingerbread. And just as fun!

4 nights away: We love our apartment and our bed here. It’s not that we don’t appreciate having family and friends to visit, but we also love being home. When we got home yesterday at 1:00, and I had to be at work at 2:00, I asked Hubs, will you please lay down with me for twenty minutes until I need to get ready for work? He gladly obliged and we took a short nap. Or rather, I took a short nap, and he slept 2 hours or so after I got up and dressed and off to work.

5 slight mishaps: 1. A dead poinsettia. It might have made it to Christmas with one red lead still on, but since we weren’t here, we’ll never know. I’ll go ahead and admit to killing it, although I don’t know why since I don’t usually have such bad luck with my greenish thumb.

Dead. Very dead. Oops. Sorry, little guy.

2. Wyatt found a present I was going to put in his stocking, so he was down one gift and up one surprise a few days early. No harm done, it was still a great stocking, if I do say so myself.

3. We left a pile of clean laundry on the floor when we left because we didn’t get time to fold it. Now it’s a pile of clean, wrinkled laundry. Oh well.

May have to rewash these...oops. Ah well, it's not a big deal. I have a mountain of new dirty laundry anyway.

4. We ended up staying an extra night in Sedalia because of a forgotten car inspection that we had to reschedule for the morning of the 27th. In the end, it turned out just fine, but we had to wait an extra day to open our presents at our apartment.

5. We lost the list of who owes us money for presents we purchased for them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not worried about the money, but it would be nice to find the list so we could let people know.

6 filled stockings: We had plenty of fun with these small-sized gifts. I think they’re super fun to fill and open! It was my first time filling a stocking for anyone. (I made Hub’s stocking) and loved finding small things he would love to fill it up. You know what they say, “Good things come in small packages!”

7 celebrations. We are so blessed to have so many people to celebrate with and visit. I love being home for the holidays and exchanging gifts with those we love. While seven different Christmas celebrations may seem a bit overwhelming, and at first it was daunting, we really enjoyed our time at each place. And while Hubs was tired of driving by the end of our long weekend, we really did enjoy our time in the car with each other. We don’t have a radio, remember? So we had plenty of time for talking. Hubs will roll his eyes at that, but if he’s honest, as he always is, he’ll admit that he enjoyed the car time just as much as me, I’m sure.

8 amazing “meals.” Sharing food with loved ones is an important part of any holiday, at least to us. And we certainly didn’t miss out on any great food this weekend. From breakfasts, brunches, lunches, and dinners, as well as snacks in between and even a meal out with just Hubs and I before all the festivities began, we were certainly spoiled this weekend, and ready to enjoy some leftovers this week!

9 kinds of chocolate: Enough said. I have lots of eating to do. And lots of candy to fill my candy-eating needs. I’m off to a good start though. I’ve already eaten half the bag of the peppermint bark with dark chocolate…oh…my…goodness…yum.

10 Christmas cards. I was shocked by how many people remembered to send us some holiday mail in our first Christmas as a married couple on our own! There’s some others up there, including some festive part invites that were too pretty to not pin up!

See yours? If not, send us one next year! We'll send you one, back! (I didn't get enough this year, but next year, I'll be prepared!) Oh, and there may be some that we haven't opened yet. There's a stack of mail to go through...so don't worry if yours isn't counted yet!

11 bags of paper...ok, I’m not sure how many trash bags full of ripped-up tissue paper and wrapping paper and bows and bags were gone through this weekend, but it was a lot. And there’s nothing like watching little ones tear open gifts, or tears in the eyes of an adult whose heart has truly been touched by the simple thoughtfulness of a gift from the heart. I love the simple joy of a present and was blessed by seeing so many opened this weekend, both by us and from us, and from others to others! To me, there’s nothing unhappy about a present, both wrapped and unwrapped!

See, my beautiful mom is excited about her gift!

And dad liked his gift. I bet you can't guess what it was...

12 favorite gifts. Please don’t think I’m bragging about all we got, I’m bragging on the wonderful family members who blessed us so much this year! And they’re listed in the order I’m seeing them as I glance around our messy living room, not the order we got them or based on how much I love them. We both love them all!

1. An extra mixer bowl for my beautiful yellow kitchenaid mixer. It will mean less washing and more baking per every recipe!

2. An 8 pound Oreck vaccuum. I LOVE it. Our old, smelly clunker that makes more noise than it sucks up stuff into the bag is going into the garbage. Soon.

3. Ornaments for our tree. Here’s a few I love. We got several great ones though!

From Hubs. He did a good job picking this out. It was JUST what I wanted.

From me to Hubs.

More for next year!

4. Sporting KC season tickets for Hubs. He can share with me sometimes, or buy me a ticket to some games when I want to come along, and next year, we might invest in one for me as well, but so far for this year, he’s ready for March! (I am, too!)

5. A cookbook filled with recipes from both Wyatt’s family and mine. I can’t wait to cook and bake my way through this much-appreciated blessing, and add more recipes as we find other family favorites! What a great surprise that everyone was working on for so long as a surprise!

6. Two Christmas books to add to my collection. Yes, I collect Christmas books and put them in a basket next to our couch to read and re-read each year. It’s my favorite Christmas tradition I think, and I love that when I get one as a gift from a loved one, I have that extra-special connection to that story every year afterwards.

7. A bird figurine from my Grandma’s collection. Your all know about our love dove bird I found at a garage sale, and the bird-themed artwork in our bedroom. For some reason, lately, I love birds. I’m a picky collector, though, because I don’t want to cross over the line to a crazy bird lady. A little bird (or birds) goes a long way, in my opinion. It’s sort of a “one great bird on the shelf is worth 10 not so great ones all over my house” sort of situation, if you know what I mean.

8. An 18 quart Brita pitcher thing that will hopefully not fight me as much as our little pitcher does. For those that don’t know how much I love/hate that thing, read this post.

9. Cooling racks, serving utensils, a gravy strainer, a tiny crock pot, medium-sized roaster pan, meatloaf dish, and eggies, aprons, grill pan, champagne glasses, icing gun, and more! I love my kitchen! And those that know me, know that! I’m stoked to use all my new kitchen goodies!

10. A homemade recipe book from my best friend, Liz, who printed out and decorated the cutest little scrapbook you’ll ever see with recipes from my blog. Love it! What a fun keepsake from our first year of marriage!

11. An old-fashioned little donut cutter from my Grandma Lois. Hubs loves to make homemade donuts with her and now we have the recipe and a cutter and can make them ourselves. Though I don’t know if we’ll ever get it exactly like she does!

Making donuts is becoming a Christmas tradition as well!

Yum. Ready to fry.

The boys love to do this part.

12. EVERYTHING ELSE I DIDN’T GET TO MENTION. We really did get endless awesome gifts. Our families really blessed us this year. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to share everything we received because it seems like WAY too much! But I know that giving presents is a big part of our family’s traditions and I’m so excited to find places for all of our new goodies in our apartment, and I’m more excited to use and enjoy all the wonderful things we were given.

Hubs and I opened our gifts last night after I got home from work. Finally! I was so excited from waiting so long!

Excited newlyweds!

I know Christmas isn’t about the gifts and people complain, rightly so, about how materialistic the holiday can become, but for me, I LOVE the way that giving someone a gift, even something small or homemade can really bring them joy, in a simple, small way. Giving someone a gift shows you care about them, you pay attention to their desires and needs, know what they like, and want to share in the happiness they experience when surprised with something special. Our cups are certainly overflowing with blessings this week. Our apartment is overflowing as well!

Yes, it's a mess. I'll get it picked up eventually. I've had long work hours yesterday and am soon headed out again today. I thought it was more important to write to you guys, right?

But when we think back to the basics of it all, Christmas is ALL about gifts. A gift of a baby, a Savior, and the forgiveness and everlasting life he gives. After all, we love because he loved us, and forgive because he forgave us. So, we take time and offer our resources at this time of year to give to others because he gave to us.

The lights my family has put up on the farm every year since I can remember. Another favorite tradition of mine.

No, it’s not the same kind of gift, and yes, it’s easy to go overboard and spend too much. But we were careful to budget our spending and careful to pick out things people would love and use without spending a fortune, and I’m thankful our families are all able to do the same.

We LOVED our first Christmas. What about you?

So, there’s our 12 “things” of Christmas. Clearly, we had a fabulous weekend and were very, very, VERY blessed! What about you? Is your cup running over as well? I’d love to hear about it! Please share!

Our stockings are hung…by the kitchen with care…

It’s Christmastime here in our tiny apartment. I’m used to having a whole big farmhouse all decorated in greenery and snowmen. But here, we have neither greenery nor snowmen.

What we do have is Christmas spirit! Or rather, I have that and Hubs just plays along to make me happy. Don’t get me wrong, he had fun decorating our tree, but he certainly wouldn’t have fretted too much if we had decided we didn’t have room for a tree.

But…never fear, because Christmas is here!

Ta-da!

Yup, that’s our first Christmas tree, folks. I’m proud we decorated frugally, so I’ll share what we learned in this adventure.

First of all, make stuff yourself! Like these trees! (That I’ll post about later!)

Yup, I like paper crafts. And pine cones, from my parents' yard at home, in our fruit bowl.

It’s part of the little scene on top of bookshelf #1

Candles are from my mom's unused decor box. They're several years old, but certainly still look pretty.

And the nativity set? Another tip, “re-use.”

I bought this YEARS ago during a sale of wood-carved products from Bethlehem at my church. It's all we have for now.

I also have a tree like that on the shelf in our living room.

I got the idea from here.

With our "love dove," candlestick, and our freshly printed free subway art, of course, see how we re-purpose?.

The print is from here.

And I HAVE to show you the adorable place mats my mother-in-law made for me. How adorable are they?

Sooooo cute!

And our second kind of paper trees, the folded ones I made, and I’ll post about, with our growing collection of Christmas cards.

It's a wintery forest in our pass-through! Oh, and there's the poinsettia that may or may not make it until Christmas...

I got the ideas for the trees from the mothership, Martha, of course.

And we also have stockings! But as the title of this post suggests, we had a bit of a dilemma when deciding where to hang them, as we have no fireplace.

But we got a shelf from my parents’ basement. (It’s a wonderland of usable stuff down there, though my mother’s probably horrified I’m admitting how much is down there. Sorry, Mom!)

Hubs painted it white, and I sanded it down to give it that vintage look I like. It’s old enough to really be vintage, it just needed a little love.

The stockings we made for each other. He made mine several years ago. I made his a few weeks ago.

See, we can even make our own stockings! His is made from an old pair of jeans. And since we don’t have a sewing machine and Hubs would have FREAKED if I’d tried to smuggle it home, I had to sew it by hand, which took…awhile.

Here’s the whole look that greets you when you come in our front door by the kitchen now:

Decorated with candles and a free picture frame (from the church) to which I added a cute Christmas scrap-booking paper I already had, and a framed, free Christmas printable.

Print from tatertots and jello.

Closer look at the frame. Love it!

Cute!

There, our stockings are all ready to be filled up with fun little gifts.

And in the spirit of giving, I’m going to GIVE you all a little tour of our tree.

Here's our initial ornaments. I can't remember where or why we have these, if they're from you, thanks!

Here we go, a cute little “S” I got from the church I volunteer at.

You'll also see the red swirl ornaments Hubs picked out for us to buy, and a preview of the paper hearts I made. And the craft ribbon I had that we used as a garland.

Here’s one I made last year at school.

It's glow in the dark!

And the ornaments from my childhood that I collected as a kid but that haven’t been hanging on our family tree in a long time:

I have the whole series of these little books. They open and close and have such cute little scenes in them.

Oh, and you want to see the ornaments I made?

My paper hearts! I love how they turned out. I'll post instructions soon.

Here’s some more…

I bought this one ($2) because it reminded me of "happy wife, happy life." Or a happy hubs... (It went with a matching Merry Christmas one, but I liked this message even better than just wishing a Merry Christmas. I'm wishing y'all a Happy Everything!)

Oh and just to make sure I represent,

Am I happy Pujols left? Nope. But can he do what he wants? Yup. Besides, my man Molina is still there! And that's all I'm going to say about it. Oh, and don't forget the edible decorations, the candy canes!

It makes my heart happy to have our tree up and looking so festive. Who cares if our ornaments and decorations are a bit skimpy and we only spent 5 bucks on our tree. I say it’s beautiful!

Happy home.

A birthday weekend…

First of all, Hubs turned 24 this weekend on Saturday. (Happy birthday, hubs!) He doesn’t love to celebrate his birthday as much as I love to celebrate mine…but we did the best we could. Here’s how it went down and what I learned this weekend.

1. Friday night we went to a friend’s house and just chilled with some trivia, some Boulevard Wheat, and some conversation. Before this we went to Wendy’s for dinner. (I know, I know…we were going to go to an actual restaurant but the wait was for more than 30 minutes for the two of us…and it wasn’t even that nice of a restaurant!)

2. Saturday morning I got up and made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Then we chilled on the couch and got ready to head to Warrensburg for lunch. Wyatt requested New China Buffet since we were going to the Burg for a wedding reception that afternoon anyway. The in-laws and brother-in-law met us there, and we all enjoyed a grease-filled, overly filling buffet. (Wyatt enjoyed it the most I think, but we all went along with it. It was his birthday after all.) Then we went to the reception, had a good time, and saw a bunch of friends. Then it was time for dinner out as a group. (This weekend recap revolves around a lot of food…hmmm)

3. Sunday I had to work from 9-3ish. Hubs slept in and had leftover B’s and G’s, then went Christmas shopping for me! (He’s pretty pleased with his shopping so far, which makes me excited, and makes me need to go shopping!) When I got home, I started his birthday dinner, one of his favorites: my blue cheese butter and bacon burgers and fried potatoes.

Looks good, right?

It turned out great and was delicious. Then I gave Hubs his present from me. Spoiler alert, he LOVED it.

Here's Hubs with his new Turtle Beach headphones. (No, the flowers are not growing out of his head...)

Now, here’s the info: they’re the cheap ones. Still name brand, (and according to Hubs, AWESOME), but they are the (I assume) older model and certainly not the crazy $300 ones. But, he likes them, so I’m happy.

I’m also happy because they make it quiet in here when he wants to play video games and I don’t want to watch (which is usually).

So he played for awhile and then we did this:

See that big tree? See that tiny box of ornaments? There's a disconnect going on here...

And then we decided we’d done enough for one night and we ate some cake and headed to bed. I was planning to make some delicious-looking cookies and cream cupcakes for Hubs’s birthday cake, but we got a cake from the in-laws and certainly don’t need 2 cakes at once, so those will wait for some other occasion. I’ll leave you on the edge of your seats waiting to hear how they turn out.

Yes, he's cutting his cake with the biggest knife we own...a cleaver. He loves those knives, and goodness knows I love him.

Here’s what I learned in the process of all this madness.

1. Starting a new job isn’t always fun. Training and scheduling and meeting a bunch of new managers, etc. isn’t always easy…and Friday afternoon at work just wasn’t great. And I was all out of sorts when I got home. Somehow, though, Hubs managed to get me up and out of the house and even though we didn’t end up eating what or where I’d sort of wanted, and even though I didn’t really feel like chilling with the guys that night, it was exactly what I needed. And somehow, I got home that night feeling much better about life and work and all that jazz. Hubs really does know best sometimes.

2. Seeing friends only every couple of weeks (or longer) is a totally different world than when you see them all the time in college. It’s sad and good at the same time. Sad because we have to grow up and get jobs, and move away. But good because those are all good things…it’s just a bummer to be away from those you enjoy. Everyone understands that, I’m sure. I don’t need to get into it more.

3. This morning when I crawled out of bed a little before 8:00 (I stayed in bed after Hubs got up today. I was tired for some reason, and he got to sleep in yesterday and the day before…), I looked around the corner and saw this:

We didn't go to sleep with these lights on...

Reason # 106 that Husband roommates are the best. He knows me, and knows how to make me happy with the most simple of things. He knows how much I love Christmas lights and turned the tree on so I’d see it when I got up. It made me smile, made me feel festive, made me more optimistic about the day, and made me fall even more in love all over again. Isn’t it amazing how one small act (it took him a few seconds to plug in the tree) made a huge difference in my day? That was an excellent way for him to pursue me without even speaking. Actions really do speak louder than words, people. It’s cheesy, but it’s true.

4. Giving gifts is a great way to tell someone you were paying attention to them. I’m so happy he loved the birthday gift so much. I debated buying them because they weren’t the ‘top of the line” (we can’t justify that much on something we don’t NEED) and I didn’t know if they’d be worth the money they did cost. After all, I know pretty much nothing about video games. But, Hubs LOVES them, and his eyes were shining bright when he opened them, shining bright when he hooked them up, and practically glowing when he was trying them out the first time. In fact, his “too-loud-because-he’s-wearing-noise-canceling-headphones” comments of how awesome they were told me he really did think they were the “best gift he’d gotten in a long time.” Historically, he doesn’t always love the gifts I give him because he says he doesn’t NEED anything and he’s kinda picky and hard to shop for. (Ok, I added that last part, but it’s true sometimes!) So, I’m super excited he loved this one. It makes me feel both nervous and extra-excited for him to open the Christmas gifts I still need to buy.

5. As we decorate our apartment, I realize just how symbolic our minimal decor is of our little family. We don’t have a lot, and what we have is often hand-me-down or thrifty finds, and yet, as it comes together, it still makes me happy, still makes me feel warm and cozy inside. Hubs and I are new at this marriage thing. We’re not struggling to get by, but we certainly don’t have a lot, and we’re thankful for all the help we’ve gotten from our families. But we’re our own little family now, making it work together. And actually, we make me smile every day. I’m constantly surprised by how much more I love him. I’m constantly amazed by how awesome it is to be married to my best friend.

We've both had a birthday since we've been married now...Hubs is 24!

Advice from you: Christmas Shopping

Lately, Hubs and I have had a lot of discussions revolving around Christmas shopping. I love to give and get gifts. He doesn’t care that much for either. Still, he respects and enjoys sharing in my joy at this part of the holidays even if he doesn’t understand why I love it so much. But we have lots of unanswered questions…

1. How do we decide how much to spend on gifts for each other? Should we set an amount limit and divide it up into gifts how we each please? What if 1 person uses all the money on one nice gift and the other buys 10 little ones? Is it better to not worry about the cost and get the same amount of presents to unwrap? We’ve decided on a combination of both I think, but are still considering the money limit. After all, we’re newlyweds and trying to save as much money as possible.

Wyatt likes to wrap gifts in newsprint. I appreciate that about him. These are his gifts to me a couple years ago. And one from me.

2. How do we decide how much to spend on gifts for others? Same system? Another way?

3. When do we open our presents for each other since we’ll be traveling for the holidays? We want to start our own family traditions but aren’t sure when is the best time.

4. How do we (I) decorate without spending a lot on Christmas?

5. How do we fit a tree in our tiny apartment?

I love the Christmas season and I love thinking about the idea that we’re our own family now, and we’ll have our own traditions and ways to decorate, celebrate, and make it through this holiday, but there’s bound to be some growing pains as we both adjust.

I don’t think gift giving should be about the money or even about matching giving levels, but it’s hard to find the right balance the first time around. How do we figure out a good system without everything feeling too planned or too fussy?

Help!