Christmas Goodies

 Every year at Christmas, my mom, Granny, and I get together and make homemade Christmas goodies.  We eat these goodies from a few days before Christmas until they are GONE which is normally after New Years.  We definitely have our family favorites.  We enjoy orange balls, peanut brittle, peanut butter squares, spoon dipped chocolate fudge, peanut butter pinwheels, and many others!  I love this time that I get to spend with my mom and granny!  Family traditions are so much fun and one of my favorite things about the holidays!

 Pouring the chocolate to make the peanut butter squares

 Granny is rolling up the peanut butter pinwheels, and I am smoothing out the chocolate on top of the peanut butter squares

  Licking spatulas! Does this ever get old??

We had such a fun time together!  Already looking forward to next year!

Christmas Dishes

Growing up, starting the day after Thanksgiving we put our regular dishes away and started using our Christmas dishes for a month!  I could not WAIT to bring OUR Christmas dishes out and use them for the first time!  My dishes are special to be because my Granny has given me something for my kitchen every year since I was born.  I have had my Christmas dishes since I was in 6th grade and have never used them!   

 First dishwasher load of Christmas Dishes

Our first meal on our Christmas dishes!  Naturally it would be left over Ham from Thanksgiving!! 

I really look forward to using these all year round and for many years to come!

Our First Tree!!!

Oh the anticipation of decorating our first tree together!  Celebrating Christmas together is one of the things I looked forward to the most after getting married.  I have been buying Christmas decorations for about four years after Christmas so we would be ready to decorate our first place together.  We decided to keep some of both of our families traditions while decorating.  We had Chili for dinner, goodies while we decorated, played Christmas music, hung ornaments that were special to jake and me, and enjoyed time together!  

First we had to pick out our tree!  We chose to go to a small Christmas tree lot near our apartment and we had so much fun trying to decided which tree would fit best in the space we had picked out!

 Chili is our Christmas Bowls

 Christmas Goodies:  Christmas M&Ms (Peanut and Plain), Marshmallows, peanuts, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Rolls, Mellow Yellow, and Cherry Pepsi.  

 My handsome husband putting on the lights

 Finally time to decorate!! I really had fun decorating our first tree together in our PJs!  Oh how I love Christmas traditions we are creating together! 

The finished product!!!  I love the way our first tree turned out!!! 

November Birthdays

As our family grows, it is getting harder and harder to celebrate everyone's individual birthday.  We have started having one celebration for that Month.  This time it was November birthdays.  Granny and Janessa share a birthday on November 8th and my Birthday is November 20th.  We had such a great time with family!! It was fun to spend the evening with family!  

The Birthday Girls

 Janessa opening one of her presents 

 Janessa helping granny open her presents

 Janessa helping Aunt Lucy open presents

 Our Cake!! 

 Birthday girls blowing out candles

 Licking the candles is one of the best parts!!!

 Janessa turned 3!! (Notice the 3 Candle)

Granny and Me

This was such a fun way to celebrate our birthday!! I am so thankful for family and how much fun we have spending time together!!  I am so glad I share a birthday with my Granny and my Niece! 

Granny's Soup

My Granny makes the best vegetable soup I have ever had!  I do not enjoy many vegetables and Jake likes more than I do, but neither one of us like a huge variety of vegetables. We both enjoy green beans and corn and Jake will eat some okra and broccoli.  Vegetables are not our favorite.  So it is a little ironic that my favorite soup is my Granny's vegetable soup!  There are peas, butter beans, corn, onions, and a few other vegetables I'm sure.  To say that Jake and I both love this soup is an understatement!  We like to wait until it gets cold to start eating soup and I just couldn't wait any longer!  This is definitely a Faison favorite!! When we go over to Granny's to celebrate Christmas this is our meal of choice.  We have Granny's soup and hot ham and cheese!  Oh how I love family traditions!