The year 2012 has been a year of “firsts” for us.

As most of you know, we were married on March 3rd of this year and are blessed to report that each new day just gets better and better.  🙂  As a result of our wedding came many “firsts” — such as our first kiss, our first trip with just the two of us, and our first home.

God has blessed us with a beautiful and spacious apartment in a quiet part of Darien, IL, just minutes from work, church, and Aldi — our favorite place to shop.  The neighbors are quiet and friendly and the view is lovely.  We even have a nice park in our “backyard” which is nice when little friends come to visit.

During our engagement, the Lord provided us with our first few pieces of furniture through friends at church and local Craigslist listings.  The Lord even provided us with a really nice mattress for our bed at an incredible discount!  So, as a result, we started our home with a couch, a desk, a bed, and a dining room set as our first pieces of furniture.  Over the last nine months, the Lord has seen fit to fill in the “missing pieces” and our home is now fully furnished and ready for visitors like you…even on short notice.  🙂

Our first trip as a married couple (after our honeymoon, of course) was to Wisconsin for the wedding of Valerie’s younger brother.  It has been a busy year of weddings for us as we have attended well over half a dozen of them together, including the weddings of three of our own siblings.  It has been neat to hear the stories of so many other young couples and how God has brought them together.

This summer, we enjoyed having our first overnight guests and have truly enjoyed opening our home to family and friends and sharing the gift of hospitality.

Also this summer, Valerie enjoyed her first opportunity to visit the Waller farms as well as her first Waller family reunion (well, technically it was a Perhai family reunion but that’s part of the Waller extended family).

In September, Adam had his first business trip after the wedding…and Valerie was privileged to get to go along too!  🙂

This fall, we have even been able to work on our first web development project together which has been a lot of fun.  It has been so neat to see how much our interests overlap and yet our personal areas of gifting complement each other’s weaknesses!

We just finished celebrating our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple and are greatly looking forward to our first Christmas together as well.  We have been truly blessed in this our first year of marriage.  While we don’t know exactly what this next year holds, we look forward to it in eager anticipation, knowing that our loving Heavenly Father delights to give us His best.

Even as we look back on that first Christmas night, we see God giving mankind the gift of His very best when He sent His very own Son — His only Son — to come to this earth to live, to die, and to rise again so that our sins could be eternally forgiven and we could live with Him in heaven as His adopted children.

Whether this next year is a year of “firsts” or “lasts” or just the normal “status quo” for you, God’s gift is still available to you for He longs to receive you as His child and pour out His blessings upon you as well.

As we exchange gifts with one another and engage in the many holiday festivities, may we be ever mindful of God’s greatest gift to us — His Son, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas and God bless you in the coming year!

~ Adam & Valerie Waller

It was the big night, the one for which they (well, Valerie anyway) had been waiting for several weeks.  Work was done for the day, dinner had been eaten and cleaned up, and the calendar had been kept clear.  With a batch of fresh gingersnaps just out of the oven and some music of the season playing in the background, it was time to begin.

“Begin what?” you say?  I guess I did leave out that important detail, didn’t I?  🙂

It was time to decorate the apartment for Christmas…their first Christmas together as a married couple in their own home.  🙂  While Valerie has helped to decorate the family home for years, she was really looking forward to decorating her little apartment this year and making special memories with her wonderful husband, Adam.

Out came the boxes with the Christmas decorations and the fun began.  They knew they didn’t have a lot to work with but the didn’t really know what exactly they did have.  They opened the boxes and began discovering together some old things made new by their new position in life and some new things received last year to be used for their first Christmas together.

One thing they had realized ahead of time was that, though they had a handful of ornaments, they didn’t have a Christmas tree.  They had done some looking but most of the trees were too big for their little apartment and even the little ones were so expensive.  They were still hoping for a tree of some sort but nothing had seemed just right yet.  Then, as Adam was pulling things out of the boxes, inspiration struck.

“Honey, did you already have something in mind for this piece of garland here?” he asked.

“No,” said Valerie, “I hadn’t really thought about it yet.”

“Would you mind if I used it for something then?”

“Go ahead.” she replied.  “What did you have in mind?”

With a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, Adam replied, “A Christmas tree!”  He showed Valerie a very quick sample of what he had in mind and then got right to work.

Meanwhile, Valerie continued pulling out the few other little things she had stored away, including the ornaments that would now have a place to hang.

The one thing Valerie wasn’t so sure about was the wreath on their door.  It was so summery but she didn’t really have anything to replace it with…or so she thought.  As she rummaged through her boxes looking for something else, she was reminded that she had an old straw base for making a wreath.  With some extra tulle and flowers from their wedding, she got to work on making a new wreath while Adam finished working on making their tree.

Both finished about the same time and stood back to admire each other’s new “masterpieces”.  They pulled out a string of lights and then added their handful of ornaments…just exactly the right amount for their little tree.

Remember those special memories Valerie was looking forward to making that night?  Well, that little tree will always be one of them.  🙂