Christmas Time Was Here...

We started our Christmas celebrating on Christmas Eve by heading over to Nick's Grandma's house for dinner. We had a great time playing a game, eating good food, catching up with each other, and exchanging gifts. Braelynn, our niece, made out like a bandit but I think that she may have enjoyed the paper and boxes more than her presents. It so fun to see how big she's getting. My favorite part of the night is a tie between Nick and his brother discussing what Barbie's little sister was named and Nick putting together all of Braelynn's new toys including her bike.

On Christmas morning Nick and I woke up and looked through our stockings and opened the few presents we had under the tree. Nick indulged me this year and filled my stocking with tons of silly things including a back massager and three Tim Burton movies...I was wonderfuly spoiled. We started a tradition on our first Christmas that I buy Nick a Christmas book each year. This year I was excited to buy a children's book. We are now the proud owners of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and I think next year I might go for the Polar Express. After we opened everything we headed over to my parent's for breakfast and more gift opening...seriously spoiled. Dad then took us to the movie's followed by challenging us to some Wii bowling. We had a great dinner with most of my family and then headed home to end the night with The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We had a great christmas this year and can't wait for the new year. We hope that you are having an equally great holiday season.

My Tim Burton Christmas

I not so secretly love Tim Burton. Nick would tell you it's because I like strange, weird, or unusual things and that's mostly true. I think it's amazing that someone's mind is that creative no matter how crazy it is. My mom, knowing this, bought Nick a ornament this year of the Corpse Bride and my little sister bought me the coolest mugs EVER of Jack Skellington. The odd thing is that as much as I enjoy the weirdness I didn't actually own any of the movies. However, on Friday my head teacher bought me the Nightmare Before Christmas for Christmas and then I came home to a disappointed husband who informed me that he had also purchased it for my stocking. Luckily, my head teacher kept the receipt so now I can return one and maybe get The Corpse Bride too. Best Christmas ever so far...

Oh, and not having to do with Tim Burton....my husband is awesome and bought me two new pairs of shoes yesterday, which if you've seen my shoes lately you'd know it was long overdue.... I am eternally grateful.

O Christmas Tree

The tradition continued this year, busted knee and all, to take the trip down to Apple Hill and find this year's Christmas tree. My dad started the tradition a couple of years ago and now every year I look forward to the first Saturday in December for breakfast and the tree hunt. The place that we usually go to for breakfast was closed this year so we went down the street a little bit and found Kathee's Cafe which was just as good and I personally think had better service. Nick loved the "Jeet Yet" sign and laughed because it reminded him of the south. Also the picture of Nick below was taken by Jill...not too bad.

After breakfast we headed down to the Christmas tree farm and took some pictures of the families. Unfortunately the crazy man that took our family picture cut out Mom and most of Dad on my camera.

After the pictures we all went our separate ways to find the perfect tree for each household. Nick and I didn't get a tree here but it was still fun to help everyone else find theirs. Below is some of my FAVORITE pictures from the trip.

We had so much fun spending time with the family. It wore Nick out a little but that just meant to that we got to take a nap when we got home. :)

Starting the Holidays...

Nick and I had a great Thanksgiving this year. We started off the day by going to Nick's grandma's house and having lunch with his family. There was delicious meatballs, appetizers, and even cheese fondue. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures mostly because my niece wasn't really feeling the whole picture taking thing. She was great entertainment for us though and is getting so big.

After visiting with the Hudson's we headed off to the Esslinger's for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Andi went crazy this year coming up with great ideas to keep the kids busy and allow the adults to actually relax a little. Even she got to sit down for a minute while they watched Mickey Mouse on the projector screen...Uncle Brian is so cool. My favorite activity was going on a leaf walk with all the kids after dinner so that the dishes could get done and the kids could make a placemat with their leaves after. Here's a few pictures that I got from Andi of our leaf walk and Nick taking it easy watching football.


The next day Andi invited all the sisters over to her house to make these cool advent calenders that she found on a blog. At first it was overwhelming to have to create 24 cute little squares but once I got started I had way too much fun being crafty. Everyone's calender turned out super cute and fit their personalities. Here's a picture of mine:

I hope that everyone else had a great start to the holiday season and ate just as much as we did.

Part Wolverine

It's been a week since Nick's surgery so it was time for his first post-op appointment and apparently my husband might be part Wolverine. It went so well! The doctor said that he was amazed at how well his knee was healing and how little swelling there was. He can already straighten it which I'm told can take some people a couple of weeks. He also has excellent range of motion (can bend his knee 90 degrees) and was told that he could probably start driving and working out with the stationary bike by next week. My husband is pretty much amazing.

Knee BEFORE the surgery

Some AFTER pictures
(one week after surgery)

Prepping For Surgery

In preparation for Nick's knee surgery tomorrow morning I did the thing that ever wife does before their husband is going to be incapicated for a while: made Chex muddy buddys! He's been wanting them for awhile and I thought that since he wasn't going to have much mobility it would be nice to have something delicious easily at hand...and I don't hate having them readily available for me either.

Also a couple weeks ago Nick went and bought us a bedroom set! He practically picked it out all by himself. I didn't actually see it in person before he purchased it so I was excited to finally see it and be sure that it actually fit into our apartment. Lucky for us it fits, it's beautiful and it came just in time for Nick and Chad to put it together tonight. Chad brought Bri over with him so we played in all the boxes and with the styrofoam while the boys worked hard putting everything together...who needs real toys when you have styrofoam and boxes? Bonus: Now Nick has an awesome new grown up bed to rest in!

Styrofoam Stairs

Working Hard

Almost finished project (the dresser didn't have the hardware yet, but it's still beautiful)

Hopefully everything goes smoothly tomorrow and Nick can start healing and begin working toward the CHP again. Wish us luck!

All Things Halloween...

We started preparing for Halloween on Monday by carving pumpkins with our friends for family home evening. With a pumpkin for everyone it looked like a small pumpkin patch in Erin's kitchen. We had a lot of fun taking out the pumpkin guts and then later Erin cooked up the seeds for everyone to enjoy. The best part of the night though was when we decided to take pictures with our pumpkins and Nick actually put pumpkin guts in his mouth to match his pumpkin. It was gross and awesome. Erin took the picture so if you want to see it check out her blog.

On Friday was the Fall Festival at my work where we all dress up including the kids and just do a lot of different fun activities (making lollipop ghost, frankenstein cards, etc...) Here some silly pictures of me and the awesome ladies I work with.

Unfortunately Friday after work was the end of celebrating for me. I spent most of Halloween in bed with strep throat...so not cool. I'm feeling a little better now but I'm sad that I missed all the cuteness of seeing my nephews and niece dressed up. I did get to see my niece Braelynn on TV that morning on Good Day Sacramento though and that was awesome. I hope everyone else had a great halloween.