Had A Holly Jolly Christmas this (last) year

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! That's right I am really slow at blogging and now it is a new year....oops... hello 2013! To recap we had a wonderful holiday with family and friends. We put up all our Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving. This is definitely our favorite holiday of the year. We could be considered the "Griswolds" of our apartment complex. Nathan placed LED lights and garland around our door and all down the railing onto the landing below us. It really was festive and so easy to give people directions to our apartment, because all we had to say was "we're in the back and the only ones with Christmas lights." They were pretty bright too! Thanks again to our wonderful neighbors for putting up with us and our decorations.....We Love You Justin and Melissa! :) Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of our great light display, but I made sure to take a few of the inside decorations. My parents finally bought a new tree and decided that we could have their old one. Nathan and my dad carried it up to our apartment up on the third floor (whenever we decide to move it will be the death of us!) I put all the sections together and after a few technical difficulties we had a beautifully decorated tree. The downside is that we lost even more of the tiny space separating the living room from the kitchen that we had to begin with. Oh well it was totally worth it! A few more things I placed out including my Willow Tree Nativity set and I hung our stockings on our book shelf. Simple but we felt the Christmas spirit all December long.

I Love Christmas.

This year we decided to take a trip down to SLC for some shopping, eating, and visiting Temple Square. We headed down on a Friday listening to "The Hunger Games" audio book on our way. We stopped off at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, so we would have breakfast the next morning, before heading to the Gateway mall for last minute shopping. As we were crossing the street down there we found an iphone in the middle of the road. We took it with us and charged it in our car, then we called the owners and told them we found their phone and that they could come pick it up at the front desk of our hotel. They were so happy! On their phone we left a picture of us and a message from their iphone rescuers :) We headed to the City Creek mall after the Gateway. Before we could do any shopping we had to meet with a man who purchased our ipod touches on KSL. I felt really awkward waiting to exchange our goods for cash, but the  man was really nice and planned to give them to his kids for Christmas. Then it was my turn to spend the money!!! I went on a huge shopping spree at H&M. Thanks Nathan, I LOVE YOU! Later we met up with Nolan and Kori for dinner at the Macaroni Grill, then we headed to see the lights. It was beautiful and we had a great time walking the square and admiring the sight, its truly a magical one. We spent the night at the Little America and then Saturday we met up with Nolan, Kori, Jared, and Miles to see "The Hobbit". I really liked the movie and I think everyone else was impressed with it as well. After the movie, we hit up an Olive Garden before heading back to Pocatello.

At Temple Square with my Love.

Also to celebrate the time of year we had to watch all the favorite holiday movies. We started the bunch off with "Elf" with Justin, Melissa, Will, and Ali. The list continued with "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "White Christmas", " Rudolph", "The Grinch", and more. One movie that I made certain we watched was "A Christmas Story". Nathan had never actually seen this movie before!?!?!? Cray! So since he had to work on Christmas Eve, I spent the day with him at the office and together we watched "A Christmas Story" on his computer. He loved it and now he gets all the references from the show like "FRAGILE" haha!

For Christmas, we try to evenly split the holiday time with each of our families. So we woke up really early that day to open our gifts to each other and to see what Santa brought! We both were very surprised this year. Nathan received a universal remote from me, along with a few smaller items like a "Hobbit" calendar, "The Dark Knight Rises", and a game "Lego Lord of the Rings" (this one made me giggle, but it actually is pretty cool and it is one that I can play too). He loved all of the gifts and has been getting good use out of them. As for me, Nathan gave me the shopping trip to SLC where I spent most of my time (and money) in the H&M store. He spoiled me rotten! I also received the movie "Pitch Perfect" and books 9-12 of the "Pretty Little Liars" (I read the first 8 so fast!!! It was killing me to not have the other books). Then we went to the Newsom's house to open some presents with Ryan and Morgan. We had fun and some good laughs opening our gifts and enjoying breakfast. We then met up with the Stokes side to open gifts with them. Then we finished the day off at Auntie M's house for dinner....wow we sure ate a lot that day. Our most exciting gift this year is the iphone 5 we got one for each of us! We love them and are still learning new things on them (or at least I am).

My mom and dad loved their gifts! Made with love. <3

Ryan and miss Daisy in their Christmas PJ's. How cute are they?

Overall......this year's Christmas was Wonderful! Now Nathan and I are looking forward to a new and exciting year. We are TOTALLY STOKED for 2013!