Christmas at the Payne's

Decorating for Christmas has been especially fun this year since we are in our new house. :-) I thought I would share some pictures of our Christmas decor. We haven't decorated a whole lot, but I figure we can add a little each year!

Our Christmas mantle!

Frame: Michael's ; Wooden Star: World Market ; Silver Tree: Hobby Lobby ; Stocking Hooks: Target

I am in love with this sign! We found it at jane.com. If you have never heard of it, go there now!

Basket and Pine Cones: Michael's ; White Christmas Tree: Target ; Wood Snowflake Block: Michael's ; Garland: Michael's

This was one of the first things I bought this season. I found it at Home Goods and immediately fell in love!

Jeremy's grandma collects nativities and passed one down to us!

Oh Christmas tree!

We are wanting to start collecting ornaments when we travel. This was the first one we bought together while we were on our ski trip this time last year with my family!

I found this First Home Ornament on Etsy!

Another tradition I am starting is getting a frame ornament every year. I think it will be a fun way to watch our family grow! I want our Christmas Tree to have a story behind it.

My Alcatraz ornament!

My San Fran ornament. I was so excited to hang these on our tree this year!

I love willow tree! This 2014 ornament was too cute to pass up :-)

Jeremy and I have been doing an advent devotional together and have been meditating on the wonderful meaning of Christmas. God loves us so much that he sent His son to earth so that he may eventually die to save us all. I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a great start to the new year!

San Francisco Fun

Two week ago, me and four of my friends hopped on a plane and headed to beautiful San Francisco. We have been friends since high school and finally planned a girls trip. It was about time! 

Three of us landed on Thursday night, took the BART and checked into our hotel at The Hilton on Union Square. We kept laughing because people could tell right away that we were new to the city. The other two girls got in that night around 2:30. Poor girls only got about 3 hours of sleep because we were up early the next morning to take on the city!

We started with taking the bus to Pier 39. There, we watched the seals and grabbed some Boudin's for breakfast. I had a cinnamon roll made like a croissant. Heaven.

Seal watching on Friday morning.

Croissant cinnamon roll = heaven.

Walking around Pier 39 before our Alcatraz tour.

Next, we walked down to Pier 33 where we boarded our ferry for Alcatraz. It was so interesting. I didn't realize that it started as a military base. They had cannons lined up on the island that were ready to protect the city in case anything happened. We did the self-guided audio tour and made our way through most of it.

After we made it back to the city, we walked back to Pier 39 and had lunch at Chowder's. San Fran is famous for their clam chowder sourdough bread bowls. Unfortunately, I am not a seafood fan so a few of the girls tried that while I had chicken tenders. Lame, I know. After filling our bellies, we grabbed some coffee and headed down to Ghirardelli Square. That is my kind of place! I LOVE the caramel squares. So good. We grabbed some chocolate and decided to walk up to Lombard Street. After all, it was only a few blocks... that were straight uphill. Worst decision of the trip! We were definitely feeling it in our quads. May have shed some sweat too. But we finally made it. And it was a beautiful sight! I guess I never realized how hilly San Fran is. 

See how steep this is? We started at the bottom and walked uphill several blocks to Lombard Street.

The windiest street in the world!

Once we saw Lombard Street, our feet were killing us and so Uber became our transportation for the rest of the evening. They picked us up and took us to The Painted Ladies. There is a park right across the street from these called Alamo Square Park. This was probably one of my favorite memories from the trip because we were able to rest and goof around. I feel like we were just feeding off of each other's laughter the whole trip. After a ton of pictures, we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We just hopped out of the car for a few minutes. Enough to get a couple of pictures. Then on we went to the town of Sausalito. Sausalito is a charming town on the other side of the golden gate bridge. We walked around for a little while and then found a restaurant with a patio on the water to have a drink. It was beautiful because you could see the entire town of San Francisco just across the water. After we finished our drink, we headed back to San Fran's Fisherman's Wharf for dinner at Cioppino's. We indulged ourselves in great pasta and delicious sangria! After dinner, we took our first cable car back to the hotel. It was a long, but fun, day!

The ladies hanging out in front of the Painted Ladies.

The sweet little town of Sausalito! The bay is directly to the right of this picture.

Our first cable car ride!

Saturday was our wine day. We tried out a local breakfast place right around the corner from the Hilton called Taylor Street Cafe. It was great! After we ate, we headed back to the hotel to wait on our driver. We opted for the tour of Sonoma/Napa Valley so that we wouldn't have to worry about driving. We went to Sonoma first where we visited Jacuzzi's and Larson Family Winery for tastings. It was beautiful there! Then we had lunch in Sonoma and headed to Napa for a champagne tour and tasting at Domaine Chandon. It was fun to learn about the difference between the making of wine and sparkling wine. I would love to take Jeremy back to the wine country. The wineries were beautiful and there were quite a few bed and breakfast's out in this area. It would be a fun little getaway!

After we made it back to San Francisco, we tried out Buena Vista Cafe for dinner. Everyone told us that we had to try the Irish Coffee, so we did. Definitely NOT my thing. I cringed at my first sip. Yuck! Luckily, it was right next to Ghirardelli Square so we hopped over there for some dessert afterwards and then took the trolley back to the hotel. We had to wake up at 4 AM the next morning so we spent the rest of the night packing and trying to get to bed early.

This was the Irish Coffee...gross!

It was an amazing trip and I got to knock a destination off of my bucket list. I'm blessed for the wonderful time I got to spend with my sweet friends!

Penne Pasta Bake

I want to share one of my go-to meals with y'all. It is easy and so good! It also makes quite a bit which means lots of leftovers for the two of us. Good leftovers just make life a little easier.

Here is everything you need:

1 package of penne pasta
1 jar of marinara sauce (whatever kind you like)
1 jar of alfredo sauce (whatever kind you like)
1 cup shredded cheese
Parmesan cheese (to sprinkle on top)

Directions:
1. Cook pasta according to package instructions.
2. Mix alfredo and marinara together. Add pasta.
3. Mix 1 cup of shredded cheese.
4. Sprinkle parmesan on top.
5. Cook for 20 minutes at 350.

I hope y'all enjoy!

This was right before it went in the oven. I forgot to take an after...oops!

Homemade Cookie Cake

I love making homemade cookie cakes! They are so easy and inexpensive. They taste just like the ones you would buy, too! The hardest part is the decorating. The more you make them the better you will get, I promise. 

If you try it out, let me know how it goes! I would love to see pictures :-)

Ingredients
Cookie cake
- tube of refrigerated cookie dough (I use Nestle)
- parchment paper
- pizza pan

Buttercream Icing
- 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter, room temperature
- 3 cups of powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Decorating
- ziploc bags (or icing bags)
- piping heads

Directions
Cookie Cake
1. Cover a pizza pan in parchment paper.
2. Roll the cookie dough onto the parchment paper. I normally use my hands to press it down first and then use a rolling pin. I also use my hands to shape the cookie into a circle.

3. Bake at 350 for 15(ish) minutes. Watch it. You want the edges to brown a little.

Mine was actually a little browner than I like

Buttercream Icing
1. Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth.

Decorating
1. If you are wanting different colors, separate some icing into different bowls and add food coloring. Wilson has some great colors (you can find them at Hobby Lobby).

2. If you don't have icing bags, use a ziploc bag. Cut the corner off and stick a piping head in the bag. Then load it up with icing.

3. Decorate!

I usually do one color at a time and guess on the space between. If it is a tad too much room, just squeeze a little more icing out when you are filling in the gap.

A Dream Come True

It was four years ago TODAY that Jeremy and I started dating. So crazy!

I thought it would be fun to share my very first Christmas gift to him. I was trying to think of something original and decided to make a book about how we met and started dating. I didn't want it to be too serious so my thought process was to make it so corny that it was funny. It was perfect! He opened it in front of his family and we were all laughing while he read through it. It is also a great memory book. We talk about how we'll have it 50 years from now. All I had to do was come up with the wording for each page and do some major facebook picture creeping. That's how I got all of our shots. It made a great (and cheap) gift!

I hope y'all enjoy!

Jeremy is very sarcastic so we did a lot of picking on each other at T-Camp...

This is A&M lingo. Humping it just means bending (like above) while you do yells.

We were walking around playing the question game when Jeremy asked me what my favorite number was. Once I answered, I asked him and he said 24. He used that as a lead into asking me to be his girlfriend!

Jeremy's words were, "Will you make me the happiest boy in the world and be my girlfriend?"