It's the Holiday Season

What a day it has been! Uriah woke up at 6:30 to have a bottle and the weather outside was absolutely frightful! I checked the 511 and interstates all over are closed: to Utah, to Rupert, to Idaho Falls, to almost anywhere! The snow is piled up right to our door and we have a huge awning over our door and snow never gets up to it! Our car is parked under an awning and it is completely covered in snow. It is 11:30 and it is still snowing! It has been a wonderful way to start Uriah's first Christmas. At 8:30 we finally got up to feed Uriah breakfast (Rice cereal and pears) and then we started opening presents. Uriah loves to rip the paper off of the presents. He got a box of cereal, two blankets, two outfits, a Dr. Seuss book, some toy links, and a Little People Aeroplane! It is so cute. Jared got some body wash, a big jar of Jelly Bellys, a Philadelphia Eagles blanket, a new white shirt and tie, and The Battle for Middle Earth computer game anthology. Jared got me the Twilight book series in hardback, the first book is the special collector's edition with the author's signature on the front page. Jared's parents got me some makeup and The Tales of Beetle the Bard. I also got some warm vanilla sugar soap and lotion from my mom and dad and the 9th season of Frasier (my favorite TV show!) We have had a wonderful morning and we hope that everyone else has an awesome Christmas. If anyone travels, we hope you are all safe. A white Christmas is lovely, but it's not always the safest (^_^) Happy Christmas!

Bushel of Birthdays

What a weekend we had. Friday night we babysatt Miranda and then Jared's uncle and aunt made him a cheesecake for his birthday. It was very delicious. Saturday morning we went and did some shopping for a family we know who is in need and then we grabbed some presents for their kids (with a little help from a family in our ward) and we took all the stuff over to them Saturday afternoon. They were so grateful. I had a hard time not getting teary-eyed because I know what it is like to be in need, and to know that we provided Christmas for their children made me feel really happy.

So since Jared's birthday was Sunday I had decided we were going to celebrate on Saturday. After we delivered our secret santa stuff I took Jared roller blading at Deleta. It was a BLAST! It took us a while to get balanced because it has been at least 10 years for each of us since we've been skating at all, and Jared biffed it once, but it was a lot of fun. It really made me feel like a kid again, and roller blading is so much fun anyway. Then after that we got a Papa Murpheys pizza and took it home and watched a movie.

Then at 6:30 saturday we went to my nephews birthday party. He was born on Jared's birthday one year ago. His name is Phoenix, and he's a cutie. Anyway, we watched him eat his first cake and open his first presents. Jared got to open his birthday presents too. He got a box of chocolates from my sister, a box of chocolate covered cherries from me, a Philadelphia Eagles tie from me, and a collection of Christmas cartoons (also from me).

On Sunday I made Jared a special dinner of lasagna, garlic bread and veggies, with leftover cheesecake, and we watched some of the Christmas cartoons he got the day earlier. He said he had a great birthday, and I am glad that he did. His happiness means everything to me!

So then I get up this morning to go to work, and I'm calf-deep in snow and brushing snow off my car with my broom....crazy! I did not see this much snow coming at all! Besides that, it has been snowing almost all day long, and I am really hoping they cancel work for the rest of the week, but we will have to see (^_^) I would really love to just stay home to get some rest and recover from these sniffles I haven't been able to get rid of, but oh well. Only 3 more days until Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

A Slightly Early Christmas

This last week we went to Jared's parents to spend some early Christmas time with them because we won't get to see them on Christmas day. It was also my family's big yearly Christmas party where we take things to auction off for the family mission fund. That is always a blast and there is always a ton of good food. After the party Uriah went to great grandma's house and had a great time talking to her. She doesn't get to see him very often so she really enjoyed his company. Uriah also got to have his first up close and personal meeting with a dog. He liked the dog a lot, and would pull on his lips and his ears, but the puppy didn't mind. We just made sure to wash Uriah's hands after that, cuz the doggy was kinda smelly :) Before we came home grandma let Uriah open his very first Christmas present. I helped him get a good grip on the paper and then he just let-r-rip! And what did he find? An adorable snowman stocking cap that grandma had made for him. It's so cute and has little jingle bells on it. Grandma also made him his very first Christmas stocking that has a toy train on it. It's so cute. I'll have to post pictures of it some time. While we were driving home the roads weren't the best, but we made it safely and are happy to be home.
This week is finals week and I have two on Monday and Jared has one on Tuesday and one on Thursday, and then we are done for 3 weeks! And then after that, just one more semester for me. I am very excited and I will feel relieved when I'm done.
Kudos to Crystal for being so close to finishing too!

'Tis the Season

So, ever since we have been married we have had a potted Christmas tree. This is the first Christmas tree we ever had as a couple. It's potted, but at least it was real. We never had the money to go and buy a big one and my husband always insisted on real ones over fake ones, so we would just get potted ones and buy small decorations for them. There was nothing wrong with a potted tree, and I didn't mind having them, but they somehow died before Christmas came, and they were a mess to clean up...needles all over the place and what not. Christmas trees of '05, '06, and '07 basically all looked the same as the above pictures. Well, now that we have a baby, I told my husband that there was no way our little guy was going to be opening his Christmas presents sitting next to a potted tree. So this year I asked my dad to help us buy a tree. We were getting ready to go pick one out when my husband decided he didn't want to have to deal with the mess of a real one and that it would be best to get a fake one, even if they didn't smell as nice as real ones. So we made a mental u-turn and went to Wal Mart and got a nice one for only $40 and some decorations. Jared put the tree together and I decorated it. Here is our beautiful, long waited for Christmas tree.

I personally think it looks excellent!

One thing that I love most about Christmas is being able to put up Christmas lights. When I was growing up, my parents always strung Christmas lights across the whole living room ceiling and across the archway to the living room. I loved it so much at night when all the lights in the house were off and all you could see were the Christmas lights, bright and glowing and all different colors, especially the ones on the tree. This year the lights on our Christmas tree slowly fade in and out one at a time. I don't like it when lights blink really fast, but this fade setting has one color fade at a time, so our tree never looks like there aren't any lights on it, and that is especially fun to watch at night time. So, because I loved lights so much as a child, I decided to get a few boxes of $2 lights and put them up around my house. And this year I bought a wreath for our door because we had never had one before. It is so much fun to have a Christmasy house!

We are trying to teach Uriah how to sit up. He is doing very well at getting on his hands and knees or on his hands and tip-toes, so we thought we'd help him practice sitting up. He does great if he sits oriented by the middle of his body, but if he tries to lean one way or the other, he just keeps going and falls over. I tried to take a picture of him by his first Christmas tree, but he would only stay sitting up for about 5 seconds because he was being a stinker, so the pictures turned out blurry because he would start to sway just as I clicked the button.

Here are a few more pictures of other decorations I have up around the house. The paper ones are heirlooms from my family decorations when I was young, and the nativity was given to me by my ma-in-law.

Santa ALWAYS comes to my house, and with all 9 reindeer. Rudolph looks special because...well, he's special!

This is my snowman nativity. Cute, huh?

Well, I've got to get off to bed. I've got an awful headache and it has just been one of those typical Mondays when you are just so thankful to get back into bed.