November, December

Well, in 7 days my sweet hubby and I will be married 6 months -- and boy has that time FLOWN by!  Between the craziness of the final semester of my undergraduate, packing moving, holidays, going from three callings as a couple to two for myself, and being the wife of a seminary teacher I almost don't even know what happened!

As I near the end of my journey at this precious little Cal State, with only a week left of finals and papers, why do I blog now?  Of course, for no other reason than procrastination!  But seriously, I just need a break from theories, statistics, and papers.

So to lift my spirits as I wait for some lovely dough to rise, I present you with Thanksgiving and the beginnings of Christmas:

My darling husband and I took a quick trip to see our families for Turkey Day.  Luckily this time we were graced with the benefits of flying (1 hour vs. 6 by car).  Here is a little photo-documentary of our trip.

One of my favorite parts of going home, are the cute little pups I get to play with.  My parent's black lab, is always so difficult to get pictures of, but this little guy refuses to leave my side.  He even waits outside the bathroom door the entire time I shower!  What a sweetie-pie

But nothing is really better than hanging out with the nieces and nephews on my Mr.'s side of the family.  I get to see my precious little ones once, maybe twice a year if I'm lucky, so I've grown very close with his nieces and nephews during the 4.5 years we've been together.

On Thanksgiving we went to his dad's uncle's house an hour and a half north of my hometown, which was surprisingly an easy drive with the Thanksgiving traffic!  Aside from the delicious dinner that I was too hungry to even try snapping a picture of, the best part of that trip was playing with the kids and riding around on a super sweet red Vespa!


 Don't let this picture fool you, I was too much of a sissy to drive it myself!

* * * Disclaimer * * * 

You've made it this far, so I only feel it's fair to warn you - this is going to be a long post!!  But as long as your here, I have some more to tell you :)

Well anyway.  We got back from a lovely trip and immediately I turned Southern California into a Christmassy Winter Wonderland!  So what if I can't have actual cold or snow, it's like on of Dom's favorite Christmas Songs goes:

"Some folks say it doesn't feel like Christmas

If you can't look outside and see some snow

But I don't recall that it was snowing

In Bethlehem two thousand years ago"

Besides, who needs the bitter cold when you can create snowcapped cupcakes, hang wreaths, and put up a real Christmas Tree (none of that fake nonsense)?!

 

Of course Christmas baking is fattening amazing -- but I think one of my favorite parts of commercialized Christmas is the tree.  Between the beautiful lights, the sweet smell, and the decorating traditions I couldn't be happier!!

We went to pick out our Christmas Tree, per my request, the Monday we got home from our Thanksgiving travels.  I know, I'm ridiculous, but hey!  This is my first Christmas as a wife and nothing sounds more exciting to me than baking, decorating, and stringing pretty lights everywhere :)

Anyway -  We went down to the beautiful chop-your-own fields of the Home Depot parking lot.

 The lucky tree that now calls our apartment home is a beautiful Noble Fir that was taller than me, again per my request.  My sweet husband, despite knowing it would be way too big for our tiny little apartment, appeased me and got us a tree just shy of hitting the ceiling.  And boy I could not have been happier that night!

But the best part is decorating the tree!  I love that my mom sent us a cute Christmas package filled with holiday pillows, blankets, ornaments, and kitchen accessories.

This one has always been a favorite of mine, even before I understood what Christmas was really about or what the nativity really was.  I think I liked it at first because it has a little spot at the bottom you can stick a light in that brightens up the background illuminating the star behind baby Jesus.  I love that my mom sent me this ornament.  Not only because I used to fight to put it on the tree every year . . . but more importantly because it brings the birth of Christ into the trivial wintertime activities.

My second favorite ornament is one that my middle brother claims is "his."  But just because he was born eight years before me does not me he gets claim on the gem! Oh man.  This is one of the glories of the Christmas tree! So you can guess how delighted I was when I opened the box and the ornament I begged my mom to put in the package was sitting right on top!  Oh man.  The picture to the left is the one I texted him as soon as I hung it on the tree.  The response back made my week.

But what makes everything even better, is that I decided to go on a hunt.  My brother got this beauty of an ornament before I was born and I was determined to find it's soul mate via the internet.  I'm not going to show you everything I got . . . But I'll give you a preview of the package . . . 

Christmas is just the best :)