Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, we woke up at 7:30. The kids got their stockings/gifts first. The cats got a laser pointer, toy mice, a feather toy, some snacks, and a couple other little things. The dog got a "lobster dinner" of chew toys and some treats.



Then Joe and I opened our stockings from each other. I got Joe a bunch of fun little things like play doh, legos, and a 20 questions game. He got me a movie I wanted, U earrings, a stuffed hamster, and an UNO game.



On to the gifts under the tree! Our midnight presents had been a U hoodie for Joe and an adorable woolen doll for me. Christmas morning, Joe opened his Mets watch and I got a sapphire bracelet, a back massager, and an aromatherapy pillow.


Our tree


Lit up


Christmas morning chaos

After Christmas morning at our house, we headed to my parents house. We walked in to a huge pile of gifts under the tree and full stockings. Ethan, Jessica, and James came over and opened stockings and gifts before having our annual breakfast of Christmas casserole, fruit, and croissants.

I got many wonderful gifts. I got a foot spa, a gift certificate for a pedicure, nail polish (see the theme?), perfume, some Harry Potter cookbooks, the AG snowcone stand, Glee karaoke revolution for wii, a red toaster, cookie cutters (from Joe's mom) and some other fun things.



Joe got a really nice acoustic guitar, a sweater, and some Nightmare before Christmas figures.



We also got a date night from Ethan and Jessica which included a gift card for dinner at a great restaurant, a gift card for dessert, and a gorgeous lantern for our new house.

We lounged for the rest of the day playing with our new things and then Ethan, Jessica, and James came back over for Christmas dinner of ham, salads, and rolls. I tried to make my eggnog cheesecake again, but it didn't work out as well.

Great Christmases this year. I was sad to have them all end.

Christmas 1 and Christmas Eve

This year Christmas was extra special because Joe and I got to have two complete Christmas days. Joe's family came to visit Utah the week before Christmas and we had a lot of fun. Joe's sister, mom, and I had luxurious pedicures and I got a silver gel manicure on my fingernails. We had a tasty "Christmas Eve" dinner of Osso Buco and eggnog for dessert. The next morning, Joe's brother and his wife had arrived and Christmas 1 began. I wish I had remembered my camera that morning because the tree and the presents were so wonderful and I didn't get any pictures of present opening.

Joe and I got very spoiled. I got the Keurig coffee maker I had been wanting, some beautiful gloves, socks, a scarf, 2 cookbooks, and more. Joe got an electric razor, a new TV, and lots of books. There were also some really fun stocking stuffers.

We had breakfast of eggs, waffles, and orange juice. The rest of the day was spent playing games and lounging around watching football. Dinner was squash soup, lamb, salmon, sweet potatoes, asparagus. We drank champagne and opened a Hanukkah gift: Joe's mom had donated in all of our names to help kids get medical care. It was so thoughtful :) For dessert, Joe and I made eggnog cheesecake. It was a wonderful day.


Christmas Tree


Joe's sister and her dog, Edward


Joe's brother and sister-in-law


Eggnog Cheesecake

On Christmas Eve, Joe and I stuck with our tradition of a fancy fish dinner. We had Crab stuffed mushrooms, squash salad with spinach and pine nuts, pasta salad with crab and peas in a sour cream sauce, lobster pot pie, and cherry cobbler. We watched It's a Wonderful Life and each opened one gift at midnight. I love our Christmas Eve traditions.


This was so good!


Yummy dinner

Christmas Quiz

25 Christmas questions {a quiz}

I got this from Jessica

Want to play along? Leave a comment that you did the quiz and I'll make sure to read each of them.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? I love them both! But for Christmas, egg nog.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps most of the presents, but he will leave some out to be seen right away (like a doll or something). Special "Santa" wrapping paper is a must.

3. Colored lights or white on the tree? What about on the house? Usually, colored on both. This year we'll have colored on our apartment tree and we have white on our townhome tree.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? This year, I got some really pretty "mistletoe" to hang in the kitchen doorway.



5. When do you put up your decorations? Most decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving, but we get a real tree so that happens later (hopefully tomorrow!)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I really like the sweet potato casserole from Honey Baked Ham. And homemade sugar cookies. And Divinity. Do those count?

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Camping out! My brothers and I used to camp out in one bedroom on Christmas Eve. We had stations to keep us busy because we couldn't sleep: reading station, video game station, etc. Every sound was Santa's reindeer on the roof.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember how old I was. It was in elementary school. I believed for a long time, but one day I asked my mom and she told me.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We were always allowed to pick one present that was already out to open. Now, Joe and I each open one present at midnight Christmas Eve/Christmas morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? The townhome tree is themey- red and gold ornaments. Our big tree is a big jumble of different ornaments that we have collected over time.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Dread it for the most part, love it on/around Christmas. I hope we get some this year.

12. Can you ice skate? Not well, but I do have my own skates and I like to go once or twice a year.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I've gotten a lot of wonderful gifts. One thing that comes to mind is my Tiffany bean necklace. That little blue box was so pretty under the tree and I thought it was so neat to get something from Tiffany!

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Traditions, old and new.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Oh, I used these up already. Sugar cookies and divinity. I've also developed a true love for fudge recently.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? There are so many! I love stockings. My mom always has stockings for everyone- totally filled with candy, nuts, fruit, and presents. Last year, Joe and I started doing stockings for each other. We each took $20 and filled the other person's stocking with fun little things.

17. What tops your tree? Townhouse: red and gold star. Big tree: a teddy bear.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Both! But I can't shop too early because I hate keeping secrets.

19. Candy canes: yuck or yum? Peppermint- yuck. Fruity- yum.

20. Favorite Christmas movie? It's a tie between It's a Wonderful Life and Muppet's Christmas Carol.

21. Saddest Christmas song? Christmas shoes.

22. What is your favorite Christmas song? I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas!!!

23. What is your favorite Christmas memory as an adult? Last Christmas Eve. Joe made a huge Italian feast and we had a fire in the fireplace and watched It's a Wonderful Life. It was perfect!


24. Describe your perfect Christmas morning? Waking up early, turning on the tree, opening stockings and presents with my husband and kids (pets currently). Then going to my parent's house for breakfast, more stockings, and more presents.

25. Can you fall asleep on Christmas Eve? It still takes me a little while to fall asleep. I get too excited for the next day!

Thanksgiving

I'm taking a break from studying for my finals to blog about Thanksgiving before I start my Christmas posts. Our Thanksgiving started with traditional Tuesday night Thanksgiving. We made a turkey breast, potatoes and gravy, stuffing stuffed acorn squash, and green beans and mushrooms. We had rolls and a nice bordeaux. This meal is almost exactly the same every year, we just change up the veggies. I love it. I love cooking the turkey. This year, everything was timed perfectly and all the food was ready and hot at the same time. It only took 3 years of practice!







On Thanksgiving day, we went to my parent's house early so that Joe could watch football. My mom cooked a huge turkey that got done a little sooner than expected. Ethan, Jessica, and James (who turned 2 on Thanksgiving) arrived and we sat down to a delicious feast of traditional food: turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce, cheese stuffed celery, corn and warm rolls. We had E and J's famous bourbon pecan pies for dessert. After dinner, Joe and my dad watched some more football while my mom, David, and I looked through the Black Friday ads.

Around 9:00, Joe, David, and I left to stand in line at Old Navy: they were giving out a very limited number of waterproof digital cameras. We got in line at about 9:30 and waited outside in the cold until midnight, but we got 3 of the 40 cameras! We also picked up some pj pants, shirts, and David got a new coat. It was a really fun day.


Mom's table with the beautiful centerpiece that Joe's family sent










James blowing out his birthday candle

Birthday Party!

I turned 25 on the 23rd, but the Sunday before, my wonderful husband threw me a birthday party. It was princess themed (lots of pink and I wore a tiara). Joe was so sweet. He planned the whole thing and made all of the yummy food. At 3:00, guests started to arrive and we had a great time chatting, joking around, and eating. We ate: raspberry tartlets, smoked salmon pasta salad, caprese, white bean chicken chili, raspberry duet salad, butterfly cookies with chocolate cherry ice cream, and birthday cake from Granite Bakery (James helped me blow out the candles). It was such a great day :)


Some of the yummy food


My hubband


Birthday cake! White with strawberry filling

Halloween 11

Joe and I really like to do couple costumes for Halloween and I really loved what we did this year. I dressed up as a raccoon and Joe put together an animal control costume. The Saturday before Halloween, our neighbors hosted their annual Halloween party which is always fun. On Halloween, we did our normal thing: pumpkin pizza from Papa Murphy's, ghost pumpkins (citrus vodka, orange juice, and sierra mist), and handing out candy to cute trick or treaters. I also played around with some baking stuff and made some fun cupcakes. They were "blood" filled chocolate and I topped them with orange frosting (using my "gun" that I got at our wedding shower to make them look pretty). Then, Joe and I settled in with some Vampire wine and watched Paranormal Activity 2. I love Halloween! :)




My tail


I didn't wear my mask, but I had fun with fake eyelashes


The host of the Halloween party gave all the adults candy cigarettes




Close up of Joe's awesome castle






The "blood" is cherry pie filling

House in the fall

Joe and I are on fall break at our school. We decided to spend some of it at our house and some of it in St. George. We headed up to our house on Friday afternoon and it was so pretty! All the leaves have changed. We bought a pumpkin for our stairs and some Halloween clings for the windows.

When we got there, we noticed that the furnace wasn't working, but it was too late to call anyone. It was really cold that night and we didn't want to leave so we made a little nest next to the fireplace and slept on the floor (we turned the fire off before we went to sleep). The next day, we spent a lot of time trying to fix the furnace before finally figuring out that we just needed to turn on the gas! Oops! The rest of the weekend was much more pleasant and we cooked a nice dinner of salmon, mushroom ravioli, green beans, and wine- the first real dinner in our house.


Can you see our little pumpkin?


The leaves outside our bedroom- pretty reds and golds


Spiders and skulls


Dinner on our new dining room table!

Boys

Last week, Joe and I met my mom, David, Jessica, and James at the zoo. I got this picture of Joe helping James "climb" a tree. I love the way James is looking at his uncle. Joe is going to be a great dad. :) (Nope, not pregnant!)

Our House :)

I wanted to post some pictures of our cute townhome. We aren't officially moving in until May or June (after graduation), but we are planning to spend a lot of time between now and then on little projects to get the house exactly how we want it.

The house is about an hourish away from where we are now and it will kind of change our "goals" a little because neither of us want to commute to SL. But, I think things are actually going to work out really well. Maybe even better! We are both really, really excited. :)


Super cute outside


Living room/dining room area


Love the big, bright windows


Kitchen (with a dishwasher!)


The guest bathroom. There is also a full master bath and a small bathroom on the main floor. I am so excited for the bathtubs!


The view out of our office


We would like this room to be our future nursery


Back patio- the gate opens up to a big, grassy field shared by the community.

I don't have any good pictures of the master bedroom, but it's big and bright and has a huge double closet! There is also a laundry room and some good closets for coats and linens. We also have access to a club house, indoor pool, and hot tub!

It's pretty much all Joe and I talk about these days. Can't wait to move in!

Then and now

I am borrowing the idea of then and now from Jessica. The first picture is from April 25, 2009- the day we got engaged. This was our dinner at Fresco. The second picture is from August 14, 2011- the day we went on our wonderful river dinner cruise in Paris. The pictures look similar and are both from special and delicious dinners with my Joe.





I'll get back to Paris day by day soon. I just got the pictures on my new computer!