FIRST MARRIED CHRISTMAS

And just like that our first married Christmas is over and it was one for the books! It was the sweetest few days and I am so sad it is already over. I don't like to pack up the Christmas stuff right away so I'm going to enjoy the lights and Christmas pj's through the end of this week....or until the storage totes we ordered deliver (they are supposed to deliver this Wednesday!) I'm a firm believer in enjoying Christmas decorations even after Christmas is over just as long as they are down by New Years Day. I'll probably start taking them down Wednesday night, and everything will be packed away by early Thursday afternoon. 

On to our Christmas celebrations...

I got off early Wednesday and we met my best friend, Sarah, for dinner. If you haven't been on social media this past week or have watched the news then you missed "spring" happening here in the south and along the east coast. Wednesday night a lot of strong storms moved through, there were multiple tornado touchdowns and even more on Christmas day in the south. Temperatures have been in the low to mid 70's and we've had our air running for over a week. It's crazy! I was sweating in my Christmas attire on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...how's that for trying to look cute on Christmas lol.

We woke up on Christmas Eve morning and ate breakfast with his parents and then headed to my parents house for the day. We decided to spend Christmas Eve (day) with my family and Christmas Day with his family. For both of our families it works out perfectly! We spent Christmas Eve (day) watching Christmas movies, cooking, making pictures, eating, spending time with family, and swapping presents. After my extended family left Matthew and I did Christmas with my parents and sisters. I'm going to be so honest, it was weird giving my parents and opening their presents on Christmas Eve, I've done "Christmas" with them on Christmas Day morning for 22 years. 

This is one of the presents we gave my parents.

I made a chalkboard sign that said "forever you little girl" and gave this picture to them, they loved it!

 My parents got Matthew a ladder...woo hoo! (Sorry, this is terrible iPhone quality)

We loaded up our car and headed back to our apartment for Christmas Eve. We decided to stay at our place for Christmas Eve so we could wake up Christmas morning and do our Christmas together.
Waking up beside my husband Christmas morning was something I have always been excited about.

Christmas morning I woke up early and turned on our Christmas lights and Christmas music. Matthew woke up shortly after and we opened our stockings and gifts. It was such an exciting time. I was even able to surprise him with a few presents. It's hard to surprise each other when you live together and share the same bank account! I had to get creative and sneaky this year and it was fun lol. Matthew even managed to surprise me big time, more on that later. We made monkey bread and sausage balls after that and they were delicious.

So fun starting new little family traditions together.

My heart is so full that I have a husband and home to love on this year. Our first married Christmas was so special and I will always remember these sweet moments we share together. Being married has been such a sweet thing to me, I can't wait for, Lord Willing, many many more Christmases shared together.

After we ate breakfast we lounged around until it was time to get ready and head to Matthew's parents house. We loaded up the car with presents and our bags, we stayed the night with them.

Soon after we got to Matthew's parents house Matthew gave me my last present...my sweet, sweet husband surprised me SO good y'all! Remember in this post where I found my dream desk?

This desk...

Well Matthew went back the very next day and bought it for me. He has been hiding it at his parents house this whole time. Y'all, I am SOOOOO excited about this beautiful desk! Matthew is THE best!

We spent Christmas day spending time with family, eating delicious food, taking pictures, playing games, swapping gifts, looking at Christmas lights, and watching Christmas movies. Such a fun day!

Feeling so blessed to have doubled the size of my family this year!

Such a fun Christmas!

We all three showed up in similar green shirts...not planned, but made for a fun picture!

Again, sorry for the awful iPhone quality. I need to remember my camera!!

Jenny and I got cute pj's from Matthew's parents and we put them on early that afternoon because we were stuffed and they were so comfy! We all loaded up and went and looked at Christmas lights and then came back to his parents house and watched Christmas With The Kranks. We love that movie!

We woke up the day after Christmas and had breakfast with everyone and then headed to my mema's house for Christmas #3, and out last Christmas celebration! It was good to see everyone and eat more delicious food! My aunt and uncle gifted us this beautiful Lenox tree platter with our last name on it.

Can we just do it all again?? This time of year is so fun, and I love being around everyone and spending tons of time with family. 

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FIRST MARRIED CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS CARDS DISPLAY 2015

Growing up my mom always hung each Christmas card up as they came in the mail. They hung on our door frame in the kitchen leading into the living room, it was the first thing you saw when you walked in our back door and I loved it, and still do!

This was our first year sending our Christmas cards and I spent a lot of time picking out the design, the pictures to put on it and handwriting a little note on the back of them, So I know just how much time people put into their Christmas cards. 

I know not everyone puts as much time into them but they are still special! So I wanted to hang them up to display them somehow. We had this blank wall in our dining room and it was the perfect place to hang them up. I love how it turned out, and it was pretty simple! 

I just bought some red and white twine from Hobby Lobby and pinned it on our wall and I used these clothespins that were left over from our wedding reception. This display cost less than $4 for us!

 I decorated our console table a little with stuff I already had, and picked up a couple of cute items. That "oh deer" piece is from Target's dollar section. I loved the Christmas plaid on the deer and it ended up matching my ribbon that I used for the bows on the lanterns!

These clear glass lanterns are left over from our wedding. I LOVE them and LOVE decorating with them. We have about 10 and I am putting them to good use each season. For Christmas I just bought some cheap (AMAZINGLY scented) pine cones and stuffed in there. I found this ribbon for our wreath and made bows for both lanterns. My bows are lacking a little but they'll do for this year lol.

My favorite milk glass dish, ever! I just placed some extra pine cones in it.

 I am going to be so sad seeing these go next week. I really wish Christmas decorations stayed up longer!

Christmas card season is the sweetest of all!

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CHRISTMAS CARDS DISPLAY 2015

THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 4 & 5

I completely skipped right over Marriage Diaries Vol. 4 last month, so I decided to combine them into one post. So here we are...Month 4 and 5! Y'all, I still can't believe our wedding has already come and gone, let alone almost 6 months of marriage under our belt! Tomorrow marks a year ago that Matthew got down on one knee and asked me to take his last name. So much has happened since that perfect night, and I just love this journey we're on together.

Marriage is so fun. And as always, I am so grateful for this beautiful gift, even through the disagreements, happy times, miscommunication, and compromises- I'm thankful. I didn't think our relationship would change when we got married, we had been together over 5 years so what really could change? I was wrong. So much has changed (all in positive ways) and I am still learning SO much. I must be intentional. I must be intentional even when it's hard. I must respect my husband. I must respect my husband even when we have a disagreement. I must choose communication. I must choose communication even when it's hard. What a joy it is knowing we are working on these things together every single day, and sometimes we don't even realize it.

Lately, especially these past couple of weeks before Christmas, I've felt that I need to be more intentional with my husband. I need to be more intentional with our time together. Less time watching T.V, less time on social media and more time in conversation, more time just doing what we love, more time talking about our future and what all it holds. I just want to soak up every second of our first married Christmas season together.

These past two months we've done a lot, and I feel as if everything is happening so quickly yet so slowly. There were a couple of nights where we just sat there and talked about everything- finances, where we're going to live, plans for the holidays, planning events for 2016 and it hit me one night as Matthew was talking. I completely zoned out of our serious conversation (sorry, babe!) and realized how much I trusted him. When you sit back and think about just how much you trust your spouse it's the best feeling. Knowing that no matter what happens in the future you completely and wholeheartedly trust your husband. It's a huge weight off your chest! I'm not saying that I didn't trust Matthew before, because I completely trusted him pretty much from day one of our friendship, but you get so busy and life happens and don't really think of these things. It's nice to sit back and take it all in.

We've made some pretty big adult decisions in the past few weeks (more on that later!) and I know without a doubt that Matthew has done plenty of research and put in so much prayer, thought, and time into it all. We've prayed together, been disappointed, celebrated, researched stuff together, and have been just beyond excited. And I honest to goodness can't think of anyone else I would rather experience life's ups and downs with. 

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THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 4 & 5

CHRISTMAS TABLESCAPE 2015

In the past couple of years I have really enjoyed decorating my table for every season. It's so fun and I love trying to come up with different ways to use things I already have. I also love adding a little bit of decor throughout our apartment. So here is our Christmas tablescape! I had so much fun putting this together...and Matthew even helped a little!

I mentioned in this post, that I got a really good deal on the placemats and napkin rings. I'm telling you, shopping after Christmas for Christmas decorations is THE best way to go! Stores are already marking a few things down so it's will be marked down even more the day after Christmas. 

The plates are a beautiful cream with gold detailing around the edges. I absolutely LOVE them. I scored a deal on these, too! A guy I used to work with in Cookeville had bought a storage unit and there was still a ton of stuff the other people just left so they were selling everything. He had about 50 antique plates and some beautiful platters. Well at the time I was collecting antique plates for our wedding so I bought all of them from him, and in those were these beautiful dinner plates as well as the salad plates. There is also a matching platter that comes in use all the time when having company over!

Aren't those napkin rings adorable?! And how fun is it that they match the gold detailing on the plates already?

We bought these napkins off of Amazon for Friendsgiving. I love the size and they are so easy to clean, just throw them in the washer and wash on delicate, perfect! 

And that's our Christmas tablescape! Since the placemats are so big I decided not to add a centerpiece. 

I love our table and decorating it for each season, and I absolutely can't wait to have a big farmhouse table one day to set!! 

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CHRISTMAS TABLESCAPE 2015

CHRISTMAS PICTURES

This weekend was so good and so refreshing. We didn't have any plans or anywhere to be, the weather was absolutely perfect, our apartment is clean, we went to sleep on clean and crisp sheets last night, we had our windows raised most of the weekend, a new Christmas candle was burning most of the weekend, we had a lot of quality time, and we had some Christmas pictures made.

If you remember our deal, the ultimate compromise, then you know that Matthew held up his end of the deal this past weekend and we had our Christmas pictures made. My awesome sister agreed to make pictures of us at a Christmas tree farm and they turned out great! I absolutely love them.

 We received this ornament as a wedding gift and we absolutely love it!

Because I love our first Christmas card.

And that's about it! We were so lucky with the weather, I still can't believe it...low 70's and partly cloudy. The Christmas tree farms wasn't busy at all so we pretty much had the whole area to ourselves. We did end up buying a small fresh wreath that Matthew picked out! I'm going to try and make a small bow to go on it sometime this week.

I am SO excited for my first Christmas as Matthew's wife.

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CHRISTMAS PICTURES

2015 CHRISTMAS CARDS

As I mentioned before, I have been looking forward to sending out Christmas cards for as long as I can remember. Minted had so many options to look through, and I enjoyed seeing all of the different layout they offered on each card. I love that there were so many gold foil options, but in the end I chose to go with a card that didn't have the gold foil. Maybe next year!

I may have jumped the gun a little on these bad boys, but I couldn't help myself. These delivered at the end of October and I had them ready to go by the end of November. I wanted to mail them off by December 1st and surprisingly I accomplished that. I ran over to the post office on my lunch break last Tuesday and happily mailed them off. 

Without further ado, I present to you...our first Christmas card!

(front)

I left the back blank, because I wanted to add a special handwritten note to each one. 2015 was a BIG year for us and all of our family and friends celebrated us, supported us, and encouraged us through it all. So I wanted to make sure there was a small note thanking them, and wishing them the best for 2016. It took some time to hand write a note on each one, but I love adding that little bit of extra love to them.

(back)

I also spent a good bit of time addressing them with my favorite red ink. I usually only pull this red ink out at Christmas time. It's a beautiful color and I love the way it pops against the white envelopes!

I did have our address added by Minted on the back of the envelopes, and really loved the way it looked!

I am so happy with how they turned out and really enjoyed creating them! 

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2015 CHRISTMAS CARDS

COZY CHRISTMAS SATURDAY

Still catching up from taking a week off from blogging...I wanted to share about our cozy Christmas Saturday. We had planned on decorating the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and thankfully everything went as planned! It was the perfect day to just lounge around after the holidays. We got home at a reasonable time on Friday so I made sure to have all of our fall decorations up by that night and our whole apartment cleaned!

 I woke up early and started the hot chocolate and sausage balls, and then started pulling Christmas decorations out of boxes. It is just so exciting going through all of our Christmas decorations and finding a few pieces I had forgotten about lol.

So here's the deal with our fireplace. We have a gorgeous white mantel, but a wood burning fireplace. 1. We didn't want to spend money on fire logs, ash bucket, and the fireplace tool set. 2. We have heard they are very messy and we didn't want to get stains on the carpet around the fireplace...hello deposit money lol. So we put the "crackling fire" from Netflix on TV and put candles in the fireplace. We used leftover pillar candles from our wedding so it didn't cost us a thing and still looked great. Plus it was not cold enough for a fire, it was around 65 that day! I really, really love our white mantel!

Matthew played some Xbox while I sorted through all of our decorations. We ended up throwing away a good bit. Some stuff had been broken and some were really cheap pieces I had bought for my college apartment and we both didn't really like them. We kept the perfect amount and I've been picking up a small piece here or there when I see a good deal (aka Target dollar section. It's on point this year with their Christmas decorations) 

I really wanted something for our mantel. Whether it be long garland draping off the sides or a bigger piece in the middle. I looked all over, but just wasn't willing to drop some serious cash on anything this year (I'll check back when it's on sale after Christmas!) So I looked through our stuff and decided to use what we had. The garland is just two really thin pieces of tree garland I had bought for something a couple of years ago and ended up not using it. I twisted them together and the wrapped a string of lights we already had around them. I thought about adding some ornaments to it, but really just loved the way it looked without them. 

The gold trees are beautiful! This picture doesn't do them justice. My mema bought them at Hobby Lobby a few months ago and then decided she didn't have room for them so she just gave them to us. I saw them last time we were there and they retail for $40 a piece!!!!! I about died.

The red and white presents I found at Hobby Lobby last year a couple of weeks after Christmas for about $5 a piece! They are metal and I think they look so good against the white!

We are using my 6ft Christmas tree that I used in my college apartment. It's small, but the perfect size for us this year! We did by new ornaments so that they would all match lol. We found them at Target. The lights we put on our tree are also from my mema. She didn't need them anymore since she bought a pre-lit tree last year and she was just going to throw them away, so I happily took them off her hands ;) Our tree skirt we found at Kirklands! I was really wanting a red plaid one and they had one and it was on sale...score! We also bought our stockings there for a really good price!

I found these placemats at Essex's last year on sale. Something about that Christmas plaid just gets me every.single.time. I love it!! The napkins rings I found at Belk last year after Christmas for .50 a piece! I bought 6 because I had no idea where we would be living or what kind of table we would have. I like to have extra than not enough, and they were so cheap lol. 

I love our little apartment and I LOVE it decorated for Christmas. So cozy and relaxing. I absolutely love coming home and plugging the tree and mantel as soon as I walk in the door. I just love Christmas time. 

We spent the day listening to Christmas music and decorating, watching Christmas movies, napping, snacking on sausage balls, Matthew played some Xbox while I finished addressing Christmas cards, then we made his favorite Hot Chicken Pasta for dinner, watched some of the Egg Bowl and Preds game and went to bed pretty early. It was the perfect, perfect day. 

Let our first married Christmas begin! 

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COZY CHRISTMAS SATURDAY

THE SATURDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING

We have blocked off on our calendars, because we already have some plans. Big plans. Exciting plans. Plans that I have been look forward to for years. We are decorating our first place together for our first married Christmas. Growing up we never decorated before Thanksgiving, we always decorated the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was an all day event for my family as we had as we decorated the whole house. We started downstairs and then finished up that afternoon with all putting the tree up and decorating it. Then me and my sisters would put up our small tree in our bedrooms and decorate our bedrooms. My mom would make sausage balls and we would jam out to Christmas music all day while the fire was going. I remember growing up thinking how I couldn't wait to do this one day with my husband and eventually my family. Well the time has finally come to decorate for Christmas with my HUSBAND!! This is a tradition I want to start and carry on when we have children one day.

Since it won't take ALL day to decorate, since we live in a one bedroom apartment, we decided to stretch it out as much as possible with a few Christmas movies to make it an all day event. I am going to wake up early and get the sausage balls and hot chocolate going. We'll snack on sausage balls all morning and into the early afternoon while decorating and listening to Christmas music and Christmas movies.

Once everything is decorated I'll start dinner. I told Matthew I wanted to have a meal that we both like, and that I can cook every year on our decorating day, and of course his first response was Nashville's Hot Chicken Pasta. I'm not a fan of the hot chicken part, but I am more than okay with the fettuccine Alfredo part so I agreed! Matthew's mom found a copy cat recipe so we are going to use that! We already have some cookie dough so we'll have some warm chocolate chip cookies to eat later that night for dessert.

That night we'll alternate between the Egg Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Ole Miss) and the Predators game by our Christmas tree. To say I am excited would be an understatement. This is my favorite Saturday of the year, and I am so excited to finally share it with my sweet husband. I think traditions are so important, especially the ones your create in your first few years of marriage.

Do you and your husband have any Christmas traditions? If so, I would love to hear them!

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THE SATURDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING