Christmas Part 2: Dave's Family.

After a week in Wichita with my family we headed through KC to spend a few hours with my good friends there and then drove through the night to Tennessee. It's been a whirlwind ever since of family and good food. We just adore getting to spend time with Dave's siblings and our two sweet nephews (and everyone else of course).

I have a lot of pics from our time here for the holidays (my first TN Christmas), so enjoy...

Christmas Part 1: My family

I was so thankful we got to spend a week with my family before heading out East to celebrate Christmas with Dave's family. This was my first Christmas away from my family so it meant a lot to me that Dave planned lots of time for us to be together when he mapped out the trip. We had a fabulous time decorating candy, watching our favorite holiday movies, and exchanging gifts with one another.

Dave also played a show and did a TV interview and they both were a lot of fun. He played at The Artichoke again, which some of you know is one of our favorite places. Pictures from the interview are coming soon, maybe just on the facebook page, I haven't decided.

Oh and apparently my favorite thing to photograph at my Mom's house is her chihuahua, but she's just so dang cute!

...I just love that little peanut! How cute was she in that Santa hat? She hated us. 

We have fun every year trying to get a good Christmas picture of us all at my Mom's house, there's way too much giggling involved by all. This was what came out this year, sorry John that your eyes are closed, hehe. 

What are some traditions that you all have with your family that get everyone laughing up a storm every year?

 

Joy.

Merry Christmas Eve!!! My heart is full of joy and thankfulness this year. I hope you all have a few moments in between the hustle to remember the reason we're celebrating.

Had a very blessed holiday loves! Love you all, Mal and Dave.

Christmas.

We are so blessed. Hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!

The Christmas Story.

Ok, so I meant for that last post to be for yesterday and today, but they played this video at church yesterday and I just had to share! It is too cute...enjoy!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!

We will be spending today going to brunch with my Mom and (step) Dad. Later tonight we'll be going to Christmas eve service and then heading to Grandma and Grandpa's house to hang out with family, play white elephant (our first year!), and eating our pizza :)

Tomorrow morning we'll stop by my Mom's house for our stockings and to pick up my brother before heading to my Dad's house for all of Christmas day. It will be a day full of presents, food, and going to see a movie...and probably The Christmas Story on TV.

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 

Remember to take some time to appreciate the reason we celebrate this time and give each other gifts. He is so good to us year round and Dave and I are so thankful to know we are in His hands...

Christmas DIY

I found this cute idea on Pinterest. Since Dave's favorite beer is Guinness I've had this pinned for months to remind me to try it as a Christmas present. Last night I let him open these reindeer beer as an early gift, he loved them! Dave said his Guinness never tasted so good :)

To make them I pulled off the Guinness label. Hot glued two eyes and a fuzzy nose. For the antlers I wraped one brown pipe cleaner around the top and twisted it in back until it stayed. Then I cut another brown pipe cleaner into thirds and used two of those pieces to wrap around each side. 

So easy and ridiculously cute!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Charlie Brown Christmas...

This year, to cut down on costs, we decided not to get a real tree like we did last year. Instead we're using the little tree we normally put in our bedroom. At first we weren't so sure about it, but once we got it all decorated and put lights on the mantle our living room was quite homey...

Hope you all are enjoying December as much as we are so far. We've watched a Christmas movie nearly every night by the fire. We even woke up to our first snow on the ground this morning :)

...just remember to stop and take a moment to remember what this holiday season is really about.

Christmas fun...

Ok so since our move back to Wichita I've reverted back to my bad habit of not blogging...until now :) Since my last post Dave completed his Kickstarter campaign and raised the funds he needed to record his album (YAY!!!) I am so excited for him to finally be able to get in the studio and record the songs the way he wants them done...he will be recording the album at Brick House Studios here in Wichita. We have the studio booked for 2 straight weeks in January! But for now we are just enjoying the Christmas season...watching Christmas movies, making Christmas candy, decorating our new place...last year we didn't get to put up a Christmas tree since we were in the process of moving so this was our first year picking out/cutting down/decorating our own Christmas tree! It was actually my first time ever to go chop down a tree...we had so much fun :)

Every year for Christmas my Mom has gotten my brother and I a Christmas ornament for our own little trees we had in our rooms...now since I'm married (and my ornaments dominate the tree) I thought I'd start the tradition for Dave and get him an ornament. I found some musical note ornaments that I thought were perfect and I surprised him with them on the 3 year anniversary of the day we first met :)

Every year my Mom and I make Christmas candy, this year we spiced things up from our typical candies by adding some sprinkles and also making cake balls this year, they turned out delicious, if I do say so myself...

We had to celebrate Christmas a little differently this year since my step-sis is a nurse who works on the weekends and Christmas Eve/day fell on Friday and Saturday, we celebrated with her and her husband on Wed. night, instead of on Christmas Eve...it was also different this year because instead of going out to eat my parents decided to do a Christmas lights tour in a limo (my Mom has wanted to do this for a long time.) So we ordered some pizza and brought some wine and had a great time going around Wichita as a family...

Christmas Eve we had brunch at Good Egg with my parents (all 3 of them) and my brother, went to church, and opened gifts at my Grandparents house. Christmas morning we spent opening presents with my Dad, brother, cousin Jenny, and Grandma Gerry. We spent the rest of the day at my Dad's relaxing and later went to a movie and on the way home picked up some sushi for dinner...it was a wonderful Christmas spent with family and remembering the reason for it all...

Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas! Love you all ~Mal