stockings hung by the radiator with care...

I had the best of intentions to make stockings for us this year... Sadly. I never got to it.  Mostly because I don't have the sewing machine or the confidence.  But I have serious aspirations come next year. 

(Isn't my socking cute? My Mom made it for me when I was a wee babe.) 

  This year we're staying in Connecticut for Christmas, and even though we'll be missing family, we're excited to have our first Christmas just the two of us.  I just thought his wrapping job was too cute to not take a picture of.  He's really good at drawing hearts, better than most men I'd say.

 Our presents from the Craven side came today, along with a second box of goodies.  Mostly, the cedar chest stuff she saved for me for "when you get married".   

At our wedding, instead of having guests sign a guest book, we had them sign fabric swatches & my Mom pieced a quilt together for us. I loved it even more than I anticipated. 

 Mckay's favorite square, it's from his nephew Dallas, he's 11. "Good luck Mac daddy!" :)

 I love that we can keep the sweet words and thoughts as part of our decor all year round! 

 My favorite thing she sent me?  My blessing dress.  I've always been so in love with it, but this time, peeling back the tissue paper was a little more sentimental and emotional for me.  My Grandma McAffee (who died two weeks before we were married) made it for me and my Great Grandmother made me the booties.  Now that she is gone, I have a whole new level of gratitude and love for this tiny dress.  When I hold it, I think of her & I love that when we bless our daughters in it, a little piece of Shirley McAffee will be there.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Our bedroom got a facelift.

holiday party.

Last weekend was Portfolio Advisors' annual end of the year holiday party!  It's always held in this beautiful mansion in the park, which is one of the reasons I like to go.  It was a little magical to watch the snow softly falling through gorgeous (almost) 100 year old windows.

Last year, on December 11th we went together, I was so elated to be going to a fancy Christmas party.  I maybe bought a whole new outfit from JCrew just for the occasion. It was one of our first big dates.

2009:

& this year: (we had to do an after the party car picture again... & my camera is stuck/broken on 1.5zoom, awesome!)

Last year I went as the girlfriend and this year I went as the wife. What a year.   

Thanksgiving & after

-Thanksgiving was a hit this year.  We quite enjoyed our turkey, rolls, and coconut cream pie.

-We counted our blessings for sure. I am grateful to be married to my love, a perfect feeling.

-We saw The Next Three Days with Russel Crowe and really liked it.

-Mckay pulled his hamstring playing football the morning of, I cooked all day & tried to stay calm in the kitchen.

-We both came through alright.

Why I love December:

our tree in our bedroom
handmade popcorn strands to decorate said tree

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning
shopping
holiday parties
Christmas cd's

stockings

a real, delicious tree

crackling fires in the fireplace (one day)

old movies
homemade caramel
Christmas hymns on Sunday
mistletoe
candles

decorating
celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ

Why I don't love December:

hate the snow (lucky it hasn't come yet)

budgets

it's FREEZING

when the tree dries and needles make a mess

too much sugar/too much food

Our Project.

When we moved into our apartment we had nothing, not a thing.  I had been living in my employers house for a year, so I had my clothes and an old chair I'd picked up off the streets in NYC.  Mckay had a little more than what I did, but I had a "no bachelor" rule.  Meaning, the old black lacquer IKEA dresser had to go (replaced with an antique 1960's mahogany dresser, Criagslist find!).

So we had nothing.

I was looking on Freecycle for a desk and came across a broken-down, rained on, falling-apart beauty.  Only the picture was tiny so I couldn't really get a feel for the condition it was in, but asked for it anyway.  On a Saturday Mckay and a friend went to pick it up and came home with quite the piece of junk.  "What have I done?" (my thought).

But Mckay said, "Let's make it our project!", and so we did! And I am so thrilled with the end result.

 First, we cleaned.  We wore down two sponges until they were garbage worthy.  Yes, Mckay pulled out his headlamp, which was both cute and funny, but also practical.  {See, we didn't have a light source in our living room until we'd been living in our apartment for a month and I finally went and bought us a lamp.} 

 Then we stripped.

The stain that is, we stripped the stain off, with very strong chemicals that burned my skin when the breezy November morning blew it up into my face.  It was a gooey mess, but so worth it, the wood was completely untreated by the time we finished that part.

 Then he sanded the body and I sanded the drawers.  That took us hours, it was great, noisy, messy fun.

 I was so stumped on how to get rid of all the sawdust, we had serious amounts of it everywhere.  Then I had a brilliant, resourceful idea & brought out my hairdryer (good thing it is so powerful) and got rid of the first layer quite easily.  After that we had to wipe it down many, many times.

 Next, my man put nails and screws all over it to make it strong again. We accidentally let the top of the desk sit between two chairs for a few days and it caused some warping of the wood, so he had to fix that for us. 

The last step, paint.  Bavarian creme.  1 pint.  4 coats.  A light sand.  Knobs.

VOILA!

It's love.

He's kookoo for kimchi

-We've been quite sick around here. Last week I was bed/couch ridden for two days feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. Mckay nursed me back to health, then he got sick, but with somewhat different symptoms, and then I re-got sick. Now we both have matching nasty, gross colds. Cute.

-I have a pet now. It's a little darling bunny. Okay, it's not really my pet. "No pets!!!" is actually the text I got from Mckay when I told him I had a pet bunny. That was before I clarified that it was an outside bunny-now he's cool with it. So really there is just this bunny that hangs around our yard and I like to pretend it's because she loves me. I did give her three carrots today to buy her love. And named her Rosie the {my} bunny. I chose that name because M has vowed to veto "Rosie" when/if we have a girl babe, sad.

-On Sunday Mckay made me dinner. It was the very first time he's ever cooked for me. (He counts last December when he made french toast for my family while we were visiting Logan, I don't.)  He decided to make Korean food (he served his mission in Korea) and enlisted the help of our good friend Jong Seung.  So I relaxed while they steamed up my kitchen.

Ever heard of kimchi (it's the red, wilted veggies in the pan above)? It's basically fermented cabbage and other vegetables. Korean people LOVE it. More than love, they're a little obsessed.  They cannot live without it. I was listening to NPR a few weeks ago and the price of cabbage had spiked for a few weeks and people were paying $10.00/cabbage. If you live in Korea you eat kimchi every single day (!!!???).  Not kidding.

Our finished product.  Here we have Mckay's favorite Korean dish, kimchi bokumbop or kimchi fried rice if you will. It was a fantastic dinner.  I was hesitant and worried that I wouldn't like any of it, but I actually ate everything off my plate. The meat was my favorite, it was incredible. The rice was good, minus the kimchi was a little strong, but it's an acquired taste, so they tell me.  The pancake looking thing is a potato smashed and fried with green onions, yum! Also some pot sticker type thing. Impressed? I was.

It was fun to learn so much about Korea and hear a few of Mckay's mission stories.  The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the smell of fried, fermented cabbage that filled our home for a few days. Next time we'll cook at JS's house. Yep.

-Lastly, I came home to an Autumn themed package from my Mama. It was so wonderful, totally brightened my day.  She sent us a jar of her canned peaches (a fave), apricot jam, fall colored dish towels, microwave pop-corn on the cob (cute!), and some pumpkins for decorations. She's the sweetest.

reception.

 so. much. fun.

the happy dance?

yes.

temple.

they arrived. i got home from work super late and i was totally drained. i checked my email, hoping for a pick me up and VOILA, there they were. so many of happy feelings & 700 pictures to look through. i sat on my couch way too late into the night clicking through each one of the proofs.

they were divided into two catagories, temple & reception-