A yuletide bash

We had a Christmas gathering at our home this past weekend. At one point there were 18 adults, 6 children under the age of 2, and 3 babes in the womb. Goodness! If you've ever been in our humble abode, you know that this means we were quite snug.

I bought some fabric at Ikea and asked my mom to make us some stockings. She's amazing! They turned out awesome!

My dad even helped by taking the little magnetic letters that cover our fridge back home and tracing them onto the felt. It truly was a team effort. :)

And now on to the party:

 If you haven't ever had eggnog covered almonds, you're missing out!! So good!

I know this might sound silly, but I was SO excited to use these napkins. :)

 White elephant gift exchange. We had some of the oddest gifts!

 This was one of the odd gifts. :)

Overall it was enjoyable and a real hit. But man, we were tired! Planning get togethers are hard work!

Toasty

I would like to introduce you to someone very special to me.

His name is Earl. Earl the owl.

And he's a hot water bottle. He keeps my aches and pains away and warms up my bed before I hop into it. I never knew how much of a wuss I was when it comes to the cold until this winter. Little comforts like Earl the owl make everything a little more bearable.

Things have been good out here in Minnesota. Every day we move one step closer to our big move out east (in case you didn't know, we're moving to Pennsylvania the first week in January). We're excited and expectant and ready to put down some roots. This coming weekend we're hosting a big Christmas party for a bunch of our friends and I'm really looking forward to it. The only problem is that it makes me aware of all the sad goodbyes we'll have to say. We're getting pretty used to transitioning so often, but it doesn't make it much easier. We're also facing some new areas where we'll need to really trust God in. We're once again praying for a place to live, jobs, and possibly a car. Does this sound familiar? We love new opportunities to have our faith tested. It's awesome to see God move in amazing and unexpected ways. Until then, we'll just keep praying and looking on Craigslist.

So this is Christmas

This year marks my first ever Christmas as a married woman. For the past week or so we've been taking small steps to make our house ready for a proper Yuletide celebration. We had our lovely friends the Beilers help us with lights

 And, you can't decorate without some tasty treats to go along with it. How about some peanut butter milk shakes.

Then on Saturday Jake and I headed over to his parents house and made Christmas cookies with his mama. They were delicious and really fun to make.

After that, we were inspired by all the white flakes falling from the sky to buy ourselves our first Christmas tree!

The star on the top I made and I also turned the little yellow crocheted circles from my wedding into ornaments. Then, Jake had all of the ornaments that his mom had bought for him every year at Christmas to add to the tree. My favorite one is a disco ball that if you spin it just right all the lights from the tree dance all over the walls and ceiling. I'm excited to spend this time with Jake as a family and feel blessed to also be apart of his family's traditions. This time of year I'm really in the mood to take lots of pictures so I'm sure I'll be posting more.