newlywed Christmas

We knew there would be many "firsts" in our newlywed months. First house guests, first celebration, etc. Who knew that we would have our first sicknesses AND first holidays in the same week though!?

Cody was feeling down for about a week with a nasty cough and cold. Then I got it... thought it was strep throat.. turned fever... turn (suspectedly) the flu. wah wah.

Meanwhile, while sniffling and blowing our noses all week we celebrated Christmas! I absolutely love this holiday and the purpose of it. I very much wish that I could've enjoyed it more (by simply breathing better!), but it was great overall. Cody and I were given the opportunity to serve in our church on Christmas Eve by lighting the Advent candle and lighting everyone else's candles for the service. My husband has done a great job of speaking about the true meaning of Christmas this season and constantly reminding me. 

Since we knew we would be traveling early Christmas morning to his parents house, we did our personal Christmas the night before. 

We made breakfast burritos on Christmas Eve to be prepared for our early trip the next morning... in our Christmas jammies.. (anyone..?)

^^look at this Santa beard sucker I found at Hobby Lobby!

 We had a great time celebrating with Codys family. No pictures to show though. I was definitely getting the worst of illness at that point of the holidays, yuck!

 It was time to add another set of "Stephanie" and "Cody" stockings to the mix ;)

I love being home, I so wish we could've taken advantage of the pool but we'll save that for the next season!

We took a few family pictures in the park before heading back west

Happy New Years!

a graduate and light up sweaters

My husband graduated this past weekend! I am sooooo relieved and proud for him!! Being a full time student with a heavy load, working full time, and planning a wedding/getting married made for a very difficult and stressful semester. Now that he's a full time pastor it's amazing how he's already so much more invested in his job. I love it! I am so proud of him for finishing this chapter in his life so that we can move on to the next. Now to look into seminaries....

His graduation was last Friday and his parents and grandparents came into town. It was great to have a few days to just hang out with family and eat really well ;). We also conquered most of our christmas shopping on Saturday. 

On Sunday after the family had left town, we had our youth Christmas party... with tacky sweaters of course ;) I made a few Christmasy snacks and thankfully, some of the moms brought snacks as well! Cody and I wore our sweaters that I made to the party. We also had some props laying around like holiday hats, elf ears, etc. It was so much fun! We had a white elephant gift exchange so the kids brought silly gifts. Codys gift was a George Washington picture that he was SO excited about. I had a "bring on the ugly (sweater)" coffee mug at one point before it got stolen :( Other gifts people were not too excited about... fish bait. haha!

happy 6 days until Christmas!!

glitter everywhere

 We've been so busy getting ready for the holidays expect actual gift shopping, oops! I can't believe Christmas is in 13 days!!!! 

I had a white Christmas tree that I'd had for years and loved. But, the lights went out the night I wanted to decorate. We decided this was a good opportunity to get a big, green, mature tree ;) So the white tree got turned into a photobooth prop (see below).

Cody fluffed our new tree for me and i decorated. I love how Christmas-y it turned out!!

We're having a Tacky Christmas Sweater for our Youth group this upcoming Sunday so I've slowly been working on Cody and I's matching sweaters :) Cody is so excited about them ;) 

I bought red shirts from Target, some small ornaments and bells, ornament hooks, green felt, and light packs ($1.99) all from Hobby Lobby.

 First thing I did was hot glue down the felt triangle for the tree base. Then I glued the pipe cleaners on as "garland"

 Then I poked holes on the sides of the "tree" for the light bulbs. The string of lights came with 15 lights, so I planned it so the top of the tree would have a light and each side would have 7 each. Then I turned the shirt inside out and poked the light bulbs through then taped the string of lights in place.

 After the lights were in place, I turned the shirt back around and started gluing on the ornaments/bells to the tree.

 The final touch was cutting small green felt pieces with little fringe and gluing it on to cover up the hot glue dots

 now all we need are some batteries for our lights and ta-da! Stay tuned for the final result ;)

we hoted a small christmas party for a few of our closest friends the other day at our house. I made the usual Christmas party treat, sausage balls and white chocolate covered pretzels. I also made crockpot hot chocolate that was so good. It was a pinterest recipe (of course) with 6 cups milk, 2 cups milk chocolate chips, 2 cups heavy cream, 1 can heavy and condensed eagle's brand milk, vanilla, and cinammon. Yum!

 I also made this yummy, easy punch. Just 1 Liter Sprite and 1 Jug Cranberry Juice! I froze the cranberries before adding them to keep the punch cold without watering it down. I added some oranges just for looks!

I made the photo backdrop with some black butcher paper that I taped from the ceiling, and then strung cotton balls onto thread and taped that onto the ceiling as well. 

My sweet friend Ashley just got engaged! so excited for her and Aaron!

Yay! 2 Fiance's and a wife! Can't wait for next summer for these girls!

Happy Holidays!!