Our First Christmas

December 30, 2006

"The weekend after Thanksgiving we bought our first Christmas tree from Jana and set it up in our living room. We put our names on our stockings and hung them on the wall with some holly berries, and I think it turned out pretty cute!"

"We've been playing Christmas music for the past few days while the weather maintains it's 70 degree temperature, so it really hasn't felt like the holiday season I'm used to, until now. John and I sat under the tree and talked about our favorite Christmas memories, and now we get to look forward to making new ones. In fact, this week John decided to share "The Forgotten Carol's" story with me for the first time. During the last three or four nights we would cuddle up on the couch and he would read a chapter or two and play the song from the CD that went along with each chapter. I felt like a little kid anticipating a favorite bedtime story! John made it so special for me, and the music was beautiful. I want to make it a new family tradition!"

"John is such a wonderful husband. Not only did he help me highlight my hair this week, but he surprised me with the best early Christmas present I've ever received! I came home from work and found all the lights had been turned off inside the house. I found candles leading through the kitchen into the living room, so I called out John's name to see where he was. He answered from the front room behind the closed french doors, so I couldn't see what he was up to. As I opened the doors he smiled, and standing next to him was a DIGITAL MINI BABY GRAND PIANO with a big red bow on it!"

"I screamed and hugged him as tight as I could, and for the next hour and a half I sat and played to my heart's delight. Everything about it was beautiful, and it looks perfect in our little living room." 

"Our home is really coming together. We even scored a nice dining room table at a yard sale a few months ago for only $100!"

"I love my country girl sunflower kitchen."

"We ate an early Christmas dinner with Jana's family at Jody's house and opened our gifts that she bought for us in Mexico. It was fun spending time together."

"We flew to Idaho on the 23rd and spent Christmas with my family. One night before bed we decided to pull out some old home videos of past Christmases and watch them together. I thought I had seen them enough times to prevent John from seeing anything too embarrassing, but he ended up getting a good laugh out of watching me pick a wedgie out of my 6-year-old bum right in front of the camera!"
"After we opened presents on Christmas morning, the boys took John with them to go shoot targets with their new rifles."

"We had made plans to drive over to Eastern Idaho, but the roads were too dangerous because of the weather. So Dad talked us into going for a ride on his new boat up at Lucky Peak."

"The next morning we took mom with us to do a session at the temple, and it was nice being able to spend some quality time with her before we leave. I've missed her so much!"

"We had fun playing board games with John's family this week too. Instead of playing at Brian and Angie's house, we decided to meet at a local coffee shop and basically monopolized a bunch of their tables and had a great time! Their hot chocolate was really good."
"There wasn't much to do while everyone was at work, so John and I tried to keep ourselves entertained at home as best we could. My youngest brothers were out of school, so John ended up playing a LOT of video games with them, which really started to get on my nerves. I think that was one of our very first 'arguments' as a married couple (it was really just a serious discussion, but that was the first time I ever felt really upset at John)."
"I didn't think I'd be ready to go back to Arizona when the week was over, but after living in a guest room out of a suitcase and trying to entertain ourselves while everyone was at work, I started to miss my own home. Who knew it would only take me six months to start calling Arizona 'My Home'."