Our 5 Christmases

We concluded our tour of Arkansas this past Tuesday. We had 5 different Christmas' this year.

1. We had Christmas with Marc's mom and stepdad

2. Then Marc and I had our own Christmas with each other

 3. We headed to piggott to see Marc's dad, stepmom, and siblings

 4. We celebrated Christmas eve in Little Rock at my grandmothers.

5. Last but not least we celebrated Christmas morning with my parents at their lake house in Greers Ferry

 Marc and I made the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls.

 which were a lot of work but super yummy!

 Marc gets excited about every present he opens!



All in all we had 5 great Christmases. It was a lot of traveling but worth it to be able to see all of our families. Thankfully the past few days we have been able to be home and rest a little. Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Merry Christmas

From our house to yours!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas...

Love,

The Younts

My Christmas Gift

Wondering why I already have my Christmas present...
Well you may remember this little story. Hint, Hint... it involves the e.r. and my wedding ring. You can read about it HERE and HERE.
Anyways, that happened back in July, and it is now December. Since there was so much damage to the ring, they were going to have to completely re-make the setting. Since it was our 5 year anniversary back in August, we just decided to to get a new(er) setting. I looked at tons of different ones, and I knew exactly what I wanted. Since we were still using my diamond, I had to find a setting that it would fit in which was way more difficult than I thought it would be. I found a couple I really liked at Kay Jewelers, but Marc didn't really love them. So we decided to use my parents jeweler that they have used for over 20 years. He is wholesale so we got a great price. With that great price came great drama. I will save you all the long details, but in short a ring was made that looked like nothing I had seen or had in mind, so I had to send it back and have it re-done AGAIN. Basically it just took a really, ridiculously long time to finally get one.
6 Months later, Ta-da!

 Here it is!

 and i love it!

Well there you have it. My wonderful birthdat/anniversary/Christmas present! 

I don't plan on picking anymore cuticles. Or having this one cut off EVER.

Thanks Marc for my beautiful new setting! Merry Christmas to me!



Christmas with a mission...Party

We had Marc's work Christmas party last week and it was such a blast. Their annual Christmas party is called, "Christmas with a Mission" because they invite all their ministry partners to come. Marc's company graciously supports several missionaries and local organizations. They give out presents to only the ministry partners and make it super fun for them. Here are few pics from this years party. This was our 5th one to attend. They had a "big band" and a swing dance instructor. 

 the office was decorated gorgeous!

 missionaries getting their gifts... they had to do a dance off to get a gift

It was a blast. Unfortunately, I don't love dancing and Marc does. I tried it for about a second, but after missing the first 3 steps, I opted out of learning the rest. Oh well, sorry honey, maybe next time.

Hope you all are having a blast at all of your Holiday parties! I know we have been.

Special Tree

This special tree is one of my most prized possessions that I have in my house. It is definitely my favorite Christmas decoration that I have.
My grandfather hand made this many, many years ago. It is made from my grandmothers jewelry. Lots of her jewelry came from overseas from when he was in the war. Each piece is so unique and vintage. This is the only thing I have left from them. My grandfather passed away when I was 3 and my grandmother passed away when I was in 3rd grade. I was very close to them as was my father. The awesome thing is, he made 2, so my parents have one as well. I'm so thankful to have this special heirloom so we can think about them during the Holiday season.

Dip Recipe

Are you needing a good, easy dip recipe to take to a Holiday party or for a dinner party? I have the perfect one. A few years ago I had this at a community group get together and have loved it ever since. The amazing Chelsea Sloneker gave me this recipe several years ago (and probably doesn't even remember because it has been that long). This dip is so easy, but looks like you have spent hours on it. Any man will love this as well... your hips will not so much. But who really cares, because it's the Holidays and a great reason to be exempt from any diet!

Bacon Cheddar Dip8oz Cream Cheese
8oz Sour Cream
1 Pkg of "Real Bacon" (its a yellow package of Oscar Mayer that says
"Real Bacon" on it...its by the salad dressing at Wal-Mart)
1 bag of cheddar Cheese
1 loaf of Hawaiian Kings Bread (just cut out the center..not to deep)

Mix softened cream cheese and sour cream together
Add Bacon and 3/4 bag of cheese
Put in Kings bread loaf
Put remaining 1/4 bag of cheese on top.
Cover with foil so bread doesn't burn. (you can remove the foil about 5-10 min till its finished.)
Bake @ 350 for 30-45 min in the King bread Loaf on a cookie sheet
I like to serve this with wheat thins or tostitos mini rounds tortilla chips.
Enjoy!

Christmas Tour

So this is what my house looks like for Christmas. Unfortunately, we are never home to enjoy it or to do any entertaining, but at least it is done!

The mantle

 Table... I love orange way too much.

 Pottery Barn reindeer plates...I have a slight obsession with plates!

 Wollow Tree Nativity is one of my favorite things. I started collecting it when we got married and my MiL helped complte it for me. I love it.

My tree!

 

My mom taught me all i know about decorating.

Merry Christmas!

love languages

I'm sure some of you have heard about "The 5 Love Languages" book by Gary Chapman. He wrote the book several years ago. I remember reading it either before or right after we got married. If you haven't ever found out what your love language is, you really should. It doesn't matter if you are married, single, a daughter or son, it applies to everyone.They had us take the short assessment at work to see what we would be. A few years ago when I took it, I was mostly quality time. The most interesting thing is that when I recently re-took it, it's now Gifts. It doesn't surprise me that much, because I feel like over the past 5 years my whole personality has changed.
Knowing your love language can help you and a spouse, friend or parent better communicate. Imagine if all the people you were close to knew exactly what you needed and vice versa.
On the website you can take a new assessment of yourself. There is also a fun new one about Apology.

Here were my reults:

APOLOGY Scores

9	Expressing Regret
11	Accepting Responsibility
0	Making Restitution
0	Genuinely Repenting
0	Requesting Apology

Accepting Responsibility

You have chosen Accepting Responsibility as your primary Apology Language. What you are looking for in an apology is maturity. You most want to hear the offending party say, I was wrong and I take responsibility for my actions.

Love Language Scores: 3 Words of Affirmation 5 Quality Time 9 Receiving Gifts 8 Acts of Service 5 Physical Touch and this is what it said...

Receiving Gifts Don't mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous--so would the absence of everyday gestures.

Apparently I heart gifts! I mean I did always love surprises growing up. It is so interesting to me, because I really do put so much time and effort into giving a gift and even a card (most times...) I always want it to be the perfect thing for that specific person. If you are wanting to take the assessment and see if you have changed or take it for the first time, go HERE. It really is fun and a great tool for understanding yourself and someone else. Enjoy.

ENGAGE...

Engage is a new ministry my hubby has been actively developing over the past several months. He has been working alongside the "WorkMatters" team. The concept of this ministry is to get young professionals in the workplace to live out their faith and become spiritual leaders in their work place. Engage is a monthly meeting to help encourage, equip, influence, and support those that seek to live out their faith 24/7.
They had a big kick off meeting a few weeks ago that I unfortunately was not able to attend, but the lovely Kristin-J took some fabulous photos of the meeting in action. You can see them on her site at http://kristin-j.com/blog/?p=438. You can also see the infamous Marc Yount in action!
I'm so proud of him and his heart behind this ministry.

Christmas gift idea...

Need a creative gift idea, stocking stuffer, or white elephant gift...
I mean who wouldn't want this?




This might be on the tad side of inappropriate, but it was too funny not to post. I mean these things are really for sale. Hilarious. Who thinks of thee things?

Sneak peak

Of Christmas decor at my house!



We got back from thanksgiving on Sunday after a wonderful time down south. Around 9:00pm we started pulling stuff down from our storage room upstairs and then began the chaos of going trough the "way too many" storage bins of Christmas decor.
By 1 am this is what I had. I'm still working on finishing up the rest of the house, but hopefully will finish soon! And when I do, I will take pics with my new, fancy camera that I don't use near enough and post them for all to see!

This makes me laugh

I'm having a pretty terrible day today, but on a brighter note, I did win a fun giveaway from Keeping up with the Joneses! I'm so pumped, I get a one year subscription to Southern Living. Yay for that.

And to brighten everyone else's day, I thougt I would post this hillarious video that I saw the other day. If anyone watches the Ellen show, you will love this.



I mean seriously, this makes me cry from laughing so hard.
Happy Monday.

Chi-town Vacay

Sorry for the delay in post, I went on a mini vacation to Chicago. My mom and I planned this trip back in the summer because we knew our "men" would be gone on opening weekend for deer season.
We had never been to Chi-town and we loved it! We packed as much in as we could.

blue man group was amazing

 gospel brunch at house of blues was awesome

 john hancock tower

 millenium park



We also did a ton of shopping too. I would highly suggest visiting. A little less crowded NYC, and still tons to do. 

It was so great to get away for a awhile and spend some time with my mom and my friend, Louise.

Clenching Fists

Last week at our staff chapel, Chip J. was speaking to our staff. {side note, I'm blessed to work at a place that allows us to have a time of worship and encouragement once a month.} So since this was our meeting for November, it was all about Thankfulness.
I feel like its kind of cliche to have an attitude of thankfulnesss just for the month of November. Chip had a great point, he said that whenever we are in a yucky situation or a not-so-fun season of life, to just stop, clinch your fist, and start counting 10 things you are immediately thankful for. This is a great concept for when you are having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, or month or year.

So here are my 10 things that right now I am grateful for:
1. Marc (especially thankful he made it back from India safely)
2. My family, (on both sides)
3. Vacation (that I get to go on soon w/ my mom!)
4. My job
5. Marc's job
6. food & water
7. my amazing friends
8. my community group
9. my church and community
10. heat!


So what are you thankful for these days?

Dad's can make a Difference

A girl I work with showed me this video at work. It's sending a message to all father's out there that the little things they do in their child's life can really make a huge difference.
I love this video! It's hilarious...




You can learn more about the fatherhood project at:
http://fatherhood.gov/

Happy Tuesday!

Great outdoors

Great outdoors was a function we had in college. It was always Halloween weekend. 7 years ago this weekend was the first function I ever asked marc too. I was terrified to ask him because it just felt weird being the one asking. Anyways, I had the best time ever. We went to a cabin with several of our good friends and watched all the old Halloween movies.
I was immediately obsessed with Marc after this function. And all the rest is history! Ha!


Gotta love the old function t-shirts and memories!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Craft night

A few nights ago I had some girls over for a fun night of painting pumpkins. We all got a couple pumpkins a piece and then I pulled out the trusty ole chalkboard paint. I had a few skeptics about this project once we began painting, but in the end it turned out good and they were happy with the end result!

 

Rachael is a little unsure about the black pumpkins

monogrammed with chalk for Marc and Michelle..awww

 this one Louise did with paint pens for her and Ben

my finished products!

We also made yummy caramel apples! This was a caramel apple kit. It came with the caramel, parchment paper, and sticks. The caramel was so yummy and draped perfectly over the apple.

unfortunaltely we cut them before I snapped a pic

they were still yummy though!

This was such a fun and easy fall craft. It would be fun for kids too, especially since chalk is easy to erase. It is pretty cheap as well. I bought my chalkbaord paint at Lowes a few months ago to make my framed chalkboard if you remember. It cost about $12 and then throw in a couple of $2-3 pumpkins makes for a fun, cheap craft! I still have a ton of paint left over, so it goes a long way.