3 more days!

This is where I'll be in 3 days.

With these characters...

And these....

And these (minus Carla...:( she's a busy girl!)

Merry Christmas!

Are you doing anything different for Christmas this year?

Have Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

After Jonathan and I got moved in to our new home (and by moved in I mean our boxes were there), I told him that it would be ok if we didn't really do Christmas decoration and that I doubted I'd even want to with all the other decorating we had to do.

HA!!! Yeah right. I fooled myself even.

Needless to say that thought didn't last very long and we now have a few Christmas decorations.

My parents gave us a tree that was my grandmother Dixie's. It is old and on a wooden stand but very sturdy, and quite real looking actually. It's the perfect size and looks wonderful in our living room.

Upon hearing that we may not be decorating for Christmas, Stephanie said that was nonsense and that when she and David came down to visit she would help me decorate. So, naturally I had to go buy Christmas ornaments for the tree I now had so that we could indeed decorate. I decided to do sort of traditional colors, but use silver instead of gold since that is what the metal in our house is mostly. So...here is the tree!

This is the amazing, beautiful tree topping bow that Stephanie handmade!! She is incredible.

These little white birds are just beautiful and were also my grandmother Dixie's. There are probably 20 or so of them and they look so sweet on our tree.

Then here are the ornaments we were given for our wedding.

This is the one little souvenir I bought in Hawaii. I Kissing Hula Couple!

Our stockings

Decorations elsewhere in the house.

Our Simple Christmas Bedding. Our normal bedding is a busy brown and ivory paisley print, so for Christmas I changed it to a clean white with the softest brown fur throw from my mother and a simple red pillow that I added some ribbon and berries to.

Little bit of Christmas, little bit more Birthday

To start my Christmas decor blogging (which really won't be that long), I must show my other birthday present from Jonathan's parents and grandparents. My mom had started me on traditional Spode Christmas dishes and for my birthday the Theilig's wanted to give me some more. I'm just so excited to have another set of dishes, especially ones that have a sentimental value for me. So, here are my new Christmas Spode dishes. More on those to come!

I'm In My Mid-Twenties

My most recent birthday was this past Saturday, December 5. And now, I am officially in my mid-twenties. 24 years ago I was born. That makes it sound much older than it is, but everytime I think of how old I am that's the first thing that comes to mind. But that's neither here nor there...onto the celebration!

It began on Wednesday, sort of by accident. Well actually there was an accident. It was raining and I drove home from work headed to the grocery when I changed lanes and bumped another car. Long story short...everyone is ok, it was VERY minor, but I was not in a great mood when I got home. So I opened my gift from my parent's for my birthday! It is the larger vase of the 2. I had bought the one on the left for our house because I just fell in love with it. And my mom decided to get me the bigger one which I REALLY love for my birthday. Thanks Momma and Daddy!



Then on Thursday Jonathan decided to give me my birthday present early. He is terrible (in a good way) about keeping surprises for gifts. If he has the gift in his possession, he has never once that I can think of, waited until the actual event to give it to me.

So, we were on our way to dinner, getting into the car and Jonathan asked me to put the papers that were on the front seat into the trunk. I got the papers and opened the trunk, put them away, and came back to get buckled in. When I sat down he just looked at me and didn't back out. I said, "what?". He said go back there again. So I went and he got out too, and when I opened the trunk, he pulled out my gift! I had completely not seen it.

He got me an art easel. I had tried painting some art for fun that turned into art for our home (not sure if I think its good yet but he likes it...that's another story) and I did it on the hardwood floor in our house. I know, I know...not good. But anyway, he thought an art easel would be a much better solution. So thoughtful! I just love it. What a perfect gift for me when I truly have everything I need, so this is something I can enjoy and sort of take up a new hobby. I love my husband!

The next part of the birthday celebration was the entire weekend. Our best friends, David and Stephanie, came down to be our first house guests this weekend. They arrived Friday night and we had pizza and just enjoyed catching up since the wedding.

Then Saturday (my actual birthday), we woke up to J Dub's freshly baked cinnamon rolls. He brought me cinnamon rolls and coffee in bed! Then we watched Four Christmases, my gift from David and Steph, and had Mimosas.

Next was on to lunch at one of our favorite Houston restaurants, Little Bigs for some sliders. mmm soo good.

Then we came back and decorated for Christmas. Pictures on that to follow.

Then, we popped open our wedding gift from David and Steph. A bottle of Robert Craig Cabernet that they had signed.

Cheese and Salami on an Arthur Court cheese set we got for our wedding.

Baked Brie on my Dad's Aunt Julia's crystal cheese server that Aunt Karen gave me at Thanksgiving.

After wine and cheese we got ready and went out to dinner at a local Mexican food restaurant we found near our house called Terilingua. If you know me well, you know I LOVE mexican food. What a wonderful birthday!

Wedding Dishes

This post is a little later than I wanted to put it up but I thought I would anyway.

I love dishes! I really do, and I like mixing it up and using different sets and different glasses all the time. Therefore I have already used my china and crystal a couple times as well as our everyday dishes. I am not one to save china for super special occasions. I probably will change my mind when I have kids, but handwashing to place settings is not that bad.

For our china, we picked out the Ralph Lauren Hewitt Platinum collection and for crystal we chose Waterford Marquis Allegra Platinum. The china is white with a hammered platinum band around the edge. It is classic yet a little modern and was the first thing for our registry that we unequivocally agreed on. The crystal also mixes classic with modern by having the beautiful waterford signature cut crystal in the stem, but then has a sleek to part (don't know what you call that technically) with a platinum rim at the top to match the dishes.

This is the first meal Jonathan and I ate with our china on. It was pepper steak, courtesy of the huge boxes full of steaks my mom sent us, and my homemade green bean casserole (A favorite for us both).

My green bean casserole recipe is probably standard but I prefer it over any other I've ever had. The thing I may do differently than your average one is I DON'T follow the recipe on the french fried onion can that adds milk and seasoning, and mixed onions in with the casserole before baking. Here's what I do:

Ingredients:
2 regular size cans french cut green beans (don't get low sodium or else you will just be adding salt to yours later and its never enough)
1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 can French's French Fried Onions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drain the green beans and put them and the cream of mushroom soup into a pyrex dish. Mix it all together. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. At 25 minutes, open the oven and sprinkle the french fried onions on top. Bake for another 5 minutes or until the onions are brown.

Enjoy!

Our next set of dishes is our everyday. We chose the latest design from Fiesta which is the square dishes. We picked out four colors to start, although I'd like to have all the colors eventually. :) To start we got the ivory, peacock blue, emerald green, and sunflower yellow. For most of the serving pieces we chose ivory so that we could always use it no matter what color we were setting out.

One of the meals I attempted to cook was a pork loin recipe from my coworkers in Dallas. Supposed to be done in a crockpot, but we couldn't find ours so I did it in the oven. Big mistake...and it took like 3 hours to cook from the time I got home from work. When I do it again with a crockpot I'll put the recipe on here. I won't now because it didn't turn out just wonderfully in texture although the flavor was awesome.

I also have Christmas dishes now, but I'll save that post for Christmas decor ones soon to come. :)

Spelling correction :) oops

scratch that last website for the pictures....Jenny is only with 2 n's not 3. Imagine that? Silly me

www.jennymartellphotography.com/darkroom/share

Wedding Pictures Are Up!

The first glimpse of wedding pictures are up on the online gallery from my photographer, Jenny Martell. Go to: www.jennnymartellphotography.com/darkroom/share

type in melissajonathanwedding

Enjoy!

New Post coming soon

I will have a new post soon. Just been busy with the house, and Jonathan is feeling under the weather so been taking care of him. Included in upcoming posts....A rockets game, my birthday, and CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!! Lots of thanks to Steph for helping out with those and my parent's for giving us our first Christmas tree.

Oh and I have a promise from my wedding photographer that pictures will be available today online so in the next couple weeks I should have the CD and have those uploaded as well. Maybe I'll be able to get a sneak peek on here.

Communication is Key

Only a little over 2 weeks into marriage and I'm learning even more how communication is the key. Now deep communication of course is key, but today I'm talking about basic human needs communication.

Take this for example...

Last week I was at dinner with my husband and his mother after helping her put up some Christmas decorations and I just mentioned that we had a lot to do around the house including laundry. Immediately the first thing out of Jonathan's mouth is, "yeah we do need to do laundry because I've been wearing my boxers over again."

What? Really? He didn't tell me he needed laundry done. Not that he can't do it himself...but still. I want to be good at this housekeeping thing. Not to mention that he tells me this in front of my mother in law who is a wonderful housekeeper along with my mother. I have a lot to live up to, but also good examples of how its supposed to be done. Maybe a maid is in our future. :)

Needless to say, I've done laundry now and he has clean clothes and undergarments. Hopefully we'll be better about this going forward.

Honeymoon in Paradise

I posted our Honeymoon pictures on facebook which I think anyone who reads this has seen, but for the sake of keeping my blog up to date. I'll post some of my favorites here. :)

This was the prettiest sunset we saw while in Maui. This picture was taken at dinner our second night at the Grand Wailea.

This is at dinner that same night. Note the bottle of champagne...complimentary from the hotel. We also got another one at the Westin. Neither of which were expected. It was very beneficial we found out to tell eveyone we were on our honeymoon.

On the first hole at the Wailea Emerald Course. Pretty much every hole on this golf course has an ocean view. This is the best view though of all.

I really like this picture. Just serene and the way the sunlight is coming through the clouds.

These two are from my favorite day in Maui. The day we had a poolside/oceanside private cabana the entire day! We had breakfast, lunch, and a sunset in that cabana. I wore my favorite pink sparkly swim suit, and more importantly we just got to literally relax, swim, talk and read all day long together. It was perfect.

As for the rest of the pictures you can see them on facebook if you would like. :)

Settling Into Life as a Wife

Jonathan and I are back from our Honeymoon and working on getting life organized here in Houston. Literally...I mean life. Not just our home. Its such an adjustment, but a fun one. We went grocery shopping yesterday evening after I finally made it home an hour after leaving the office because I got seriously lost since I had left my GPS at home for my first day of work. A drive that should have taken 15 minutes tops...took an hour. Soooo....when my directionally challenged self finally made it home, we went to the Grocery around 6:30, which meant we didn't get back and have our first homecooked (well browning the meat for Hamburger Helper has got to count for now as homecooked) meal until around 8:30 or 9. It was so much fun though cooking in OUR kitchen, sitting at OUR dining room table to eat together without the TV on, and just enjoying conversation face to face. Its the little things I love right now after being long distance so long.

Another example of how I mean we are adjusting to life in general...Yesterday morning I woke up at 7 and cooked cinnamon rolls and made coffee for my husband. Very fun! I felt so proud to kiss him goodbye in the garage and send him off to work with food and beverage! I went back upstairs to finish getting myself ready when not a minute later Jonathan walks back in the door and says, "You have jumper cables right?".....His car was dead.

So, we jumped that and he started off to work again. This is real life I suppose, and it is quite fitting. I have some preconceived expectations really of what married life is supposed to be, all perfect etc....but this reminded me that by letting go of those I can really see the joy of overcoming even little challenges together as we start our marriage. Day 1 of married life in our home is over and was absolutely wonderful in everyway!

I hope to have pictures up of everything....honeymoon, wedding, house....at some point relatively soon....so stay tuned.

10 Days

There are now only 10 days until I become Mrs. Dub! I'm giddy with excitement. These next few days are going to fly by I think.

I am wrapping up work in Dallas (as you can tell I do not have a whole lot to do since I am posting this during the day). I will sincerely miss everyone in the Dallas EY office. They have welcomed me here, and made it a place I love to go each day. I am hopeful for my new work location in Houston. I know a couple of people there, and don't usually have a problem making friends so I am confidant that the Lord has sent me there for a purpose. Houston get ready for Pollyanna, as they call me at this office because of my continuous positivity. I think I like the title, and will take it with me. :)

This weekend is my Bachelorette Weekend, and I am looking forward to some fun girl time! Stephanie has me very excited about a surprise outing on Saturday, so we will see what that could be. I know it will all be in good fun! As my friend Kate once said, "Time to get our party pants on!".

Then next week I will be heading to Houston for the first part of the week to set up our home! Jonathan stayed there for the first time last night. He said it was very weird. So I'm going to make it homey just as soon as possible!

Then I come back to Dallas, decorate the church on Thursday, and the festivities begin on Friday! Seriously, this is all happening so soon!!

House Closing and Baylor Homecoming

This past weekend was very eventful! Jonathan and I closed on our very first home together after a long process of house searching with many speed bumps along the way. I have to say though, it was all worth it! We learned so much about the home buying process and a lot about ourselves. We work well together at making decisions and didn't let each other settle in the end. We absolutely love the home we bought. It is a 4 story condo in the heart of downtown Houston. It is right between The Heights and Midtown, both very young, urban, popular areas to live in. Ours is the third one from the left. The first level has a garage and coat closet, the second has a main living/dining area with a beautiful modern kitchen and half bath, the third level is the master bedroom and guest room each with a full bath, and then there is a fun fourth level with a wet bar and huge rooftop deck that is all ours with a sweeping view of Downtown Houston! 

Here we are the closing that only took about an hour. I didn't think that all the signing was that intimidating actually. It was so fun! Then here are just a couple of pictures of us in our new home for the first time. 

After we closed and went over to the condo, we ate lunch at the Freebird's Burrito that is walking distance from our home (I'm beyond thrilled!!), and then Jonathan went to work like a good husband should, and I promptly went and bought a new stainless steel refrigerator and a washer and dryer like a good wife should. :) We are really adults now I suppose. 

Jonathan and his parents took all of his things over there Sunday afternoon, and he will start living there this week I think. Next week I will go and get as much set up as I can before the wedding. What a blessing it is to be able to have this home. Thank you Lord for the way you work things out for those that trust You!! 

The rest of the weekend we spent at Baylor Homecoming! It was a refreshing time to see Baylor friends and be back on campus with the most beautiful weather we could possibly ask for! Here are a few pictures of the weekend.

 Jonathan and I at the Parade.

Mom and I at the game.

Jonathan, me, David and Stephanie at the Parade.

The Theilig Family (well I'm Almost there!)

Steph, me, and Lindsey at George's tent.

My freshman and sophomore college roommates Shannan and Alexis.

"Almost Mrs. Dub, and Almost Mrs. Thompson"

Steph and I at the SAE alumni dinner.