Getting Our Christmas Tree

I love having a real Christmas tree. Our first Christmas together as a married couple, I made sure that we got a real tree! We went to a little tree farm & picked one out. It was so fun! Growing up, we always had a fake tree & I always sort of envied my friends who had real trees. It just seemed so romantic to me-like the movies. :) Our next Christmas as a married couple we moved to Korea & then China, and have had a fake tree the past 4 years, so I was EXCITED to get a real tree now that we were back in the U.S. Ideally, in my dreams, I dreamt of sawing down our own tree, but in reality, the first week of December was closing in quick & I wanted a tree! So, we went to the tree lot at Home Depot. Which was still filled with tons of real trees. :) :) 

 

We picked one out for a great price & they wrapped it up for us. It wasn't until we got home, unwrapped it & set it up  that we saw how beautiful it was! Nearly perfect. :) I've loved looking at it & smelling that "real Christmas tree" smell filling out house this past month! :) I'll post pictures of our tree all put together soon. :)

 

What about you? Do you do a real tree or fake tree for Christmas?

Harvest Party & Soup Contest

  To carry on the tradition of our church in Qingdao, Laoshan New Spring, we had a Soup Fellowship this year with our new church, The Church at Round Rock. We were so excited to share this event with our new church family & actual family. I love soup parties. I think they're such a good idea & fun all the time, any season. If you have never hosted one, you should! It's super easy to host, especially since the bulk of your menu is brought by others.      As tradition, we as a church provided the plates & bowls, utensils, drinks, breads and the decorations. We then told everyone at church to bring a dessert & their best homemade soup.      Zachary made a delicious Lobster Bisque & I skipped out on soup making this year & instead made a Turtle Pumpkin Cheesecake to share. Both were delicious!  We also made fun flyers so that everyone could invite their friends & neighbors & asked each guest to bring a soup, too.
We rented out our apartment's club house which turned out to be the perfect space. We had 13 soups & around 40+ people. It was a fantastic evening & there was lots of room & food for everybody! We enjoyed the night of soup tasting & chatting.  

    The winning soups were #1 Lentil Soup #2 Italian Wedding Soup #3 White Chili   Zachary's Lobster Bisque came in at #5. Great job Z! For the winners, we made sure to provide fun prizes (gift cards, because who doesn't love those) before they left! :)

Lauren's Bachelorette Party

At the end of September, I had the honor or throwing my sister in law's Bachelorette party. It was a great night filled with fun games, snacks & celebrating Lauren. The party started at our house where I prepared a few fun desserts like oreo balls & red velvet cake balls, some savory snacks like cheese & crackers & drinks. I made sure to print out some cute pictures of Jacob & Lauren for decorations.

*These pictures are terrible, I know. The fluorescent lights in our house basically make all of our in home photos yellow. 

For drinks, I made sure to have lots of variety & mixers but provided two pre-mixed drinks that the girl's seemed to love.

 

 

For our main game of the night, I met with Jacob, my brother, a few days before & asked him several questions while video taping him. To play the game, we let the video run for the question & paused it before Jacob's answer. Lauren had to guess what Jacob said. It was the highlight of the night! Here's the video. If you know these two, you'll get a kick out of it. He's adorable. 

Every time Lauren got an answer wrong, she had to take a drink. Poor girl got lots of answers wrong! Her & Jacob did a great job answering I just hadn't realized how many questions I asked! I wish I would have recorded her response to his questions! It was hilarious. 

After the game, we moved on to presents. Lauren got tons of amazing things! She probably went home with around 10 new pieces of lingerie & some other gifties, as well. 

After we had drinks & played games at our house we headed to Hula Hut. Hula Hut is a great place to celebrate because of it's fun atmosphere & Lake Austin views. 

At the table while waiting for our food we played a few games to stay entertained. I made cards with wedding words on them & the girls would have to describe the word without saying it.

 

Overall it was a great night & Lauren had a blast, which was the goal of the evening! Stay tuned for pictures from their wedding! :) Lauren is now officially a Hazel. :)