Deja Vu

I've been experiencing a lot of deja vu lately- taking me back to undergrad and thus far, it's not been fun. I forgot what it was like to have a week of finals and I'm pretty sure I intentionally blocked it out of my mind. We've been living off of pizza and cold sandwiches (terrible!) and our house looks like.... not our house (I'm very anal about keeping it clean). And... I apologize to those of you who have called and I haven't gotten back to you. I'm sure you now understand why. However, it will all be over soon! We don't have many fun pictures, but I did want to post a picture of the great gift we got from my aunt Holly:

It's a real wreath: it has made the house smell great and it fits nicely around all of our Christmas cards... which we love getting! It's a daily race to the mail box!

Finals life- our poor puppy loves having us home, but didn't realize how boring we could be- this makes typing a bit difficult for Jon. :)
Don't mind the messy background or un-groomed man on the couch
My parents get in on Friday and we cannot wait!! We are praying for good weather and safe travels for them and for Jon's parents getting back from Florida (lucky). Posts will be few between now and Christmas but I know I will have lots of pictures soon (Izzie's coming!!)

Love,

J&H

Our Christmas Party

Jon and I had our very first Christmas party in our new house last night and it turned out just perfect. Us being being the worry warts that we are were so afraid we wouldn't get time to visit with everyone or see everyone, but we did, and we think everyone had a good time (we know at least 9 of the people did since they stayed with us until midnight- it was great!). We felt so blessed to have our home to fellowship with all of these people and to have such great friends and family.

We started the day by cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. I'm so thankful to have a husband that helps me! Once that was finished, we made party favors from an idea my aunt and my mom gave us. It was fun and they turned out pretty cute:

First you take the mallow

Then you dip them in bakers chocolate

Jon got side tracked

Then once the chocolate has hardened, you can drizzle colored chocolate and add sprinkles

Ta Da!

Jon side tracked again

And the party begins! We don't have pictures of everyone of course. By mom mother in law was kind enough to be the photographer, so she got a bunch of good pics. I think we ended up having about 30 people (small group, school, and church friends):

This was the VIP of the party... Mr. Aiden. He got into the banana creme pie:

Our friends from small group (Shawn and Jessica and Leslie) and then Joey (she's due on Christmas day) and her husband. I ride to school with her.

Jon's dad and then some friends from law school

The dessert table- Mmmmm!!

The collection of shoes...

Our friends the Powers... this is Aiden's mom and dad

Then the games came out. We had a wild game of Quelf. In this picture, we were instructed to sit on Leslie's lap (the girl at the bottom) and tell her what we wanted for Christmas. 

Kristi had to spend one round under the table

Marcus and Jennifer came (from my school as well) and he had to wear a home made mask (made out of a napkin)

And my handsome husband breaking it down White Boy Style

We had such a great time and were so thankful to everyone that came! Most of you who read this blog couldn't come but know that it just wasn't the same without you!!

LOVE,

J&H

A Happy Thanksgiving

We finally managed to get all of our pictures from the weekend uploaded. We had a really fun Thanksgiving with Jon's family and lots of great food. I'm pretty sure we don't need to eat at all this week! Here are some pics from the day:

Jon and his Mom

Aunt Sis, Dale (Jon's mom), Shirley (Jon's grandma) and Jon getting ready for a game of "Apples to Apples"

A sleepy puppy

Thursday evening we left for our trip to Tennessee. Andy and Megan were having a family reunion in the Smokey Mountains and they invited us to come crash their party for a few days to see them and officially meet Hadley. Here are a few pictures of all the fun:

We started the trip at Dollywood (a theme park in the Smokeys)

We waited in line for over 2 hours for the Polar Express ride (which was NOT worth it) but I wasn't complaining because I got some much needed Hadley time!

We took a ride on a coal train that takes you through the property- it was so pretty- some of the trees still had fall leaves on them!

This is for anyone that lived in the Flint house:

I caught up with Jon in time to get a picture of him riding the wooden coaster (one of his favs) He's right in the middle in the gray coat:

They also had an eagle preserve on the property which was pretty cool, especially for Jon as he is quite fond of them

Beautiful little Hadley all bundled up

A classic sign for Tennessee: I'm pretty sure this is where we stood for 30 minutes watching people walk through a puddle of washed up vomit. It was disgusting and terrible but hilarious at the same time!

The cute family

Andy and Megan's new house :)

This is where everyone stayed. I think they said there were 9 bathrooms!

Jon and Hadley- she looks pretty impressed with him here

Aw!

Hadley wasn't so found of the flash here! Ha!

She is so darn cute!

We're so thankful we got to spend this time with them! We miss you guys already! There's just never enough time. 

Jon starts finals next week and I start in 2 so prayers for that would be much appreciated! We hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!!

Love You All,

J&H

A bit more Christmas decor

So we had yet another uneventful weekend that consisted mostly of homework but we took a few hours yesterday to put up our outside lights!! I love outside lights! I think my dad will be proud when he sees these as it has kinda been our tradition to do the lights together every year. Jon and I had a lot of fun together and only had a few unkind words! :)

A few more decorations

This was our craft of the day- we wanted to make a wreath, so we found one for $2 and added our own decor!

We just put these little gold leaves and hollies on it. It was very Martha Stewartish!

And last but not least our laughter for the week- We don't have cable and just get a few channels from our makeshift bunny ears. Well....one of my favorite shows was on and it kept going fuzzy. I went downstairs b/c it was a better signal down there and when I came back up, I found a foil alien attached to the back of our tv. 

It went from this.....

To this! Ha! We had a good laugh.... and I'll only mention for a second that we still have a fuzzy t.v.!! Ha! Oh.... I love my husband! :)

We're going to be spending Thanksgiving day with Jon's family and then heading to the Smokey Mountains for the weekend where we'll meet Andy and Megan. We are getting to meet Hadley for the first time too! Hopefully we'll have lots of fun pictures to post next week. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love,

J&H