Christmas Eve Antics

It's become a tradition in my family to get new pajamas on Christmas Eve. And since Tori has started picking them out we've been getting cute animal print pajamas. This year she's on a huge leopard kick, so they were leopard. And the guys in the family got A Christmas Story "You'll shoot your eyes out" pajama pants, they were pretty hilarious.

And then commenced the Nerf gun war, a tradition just started last year. Someone decided to let Aleksa choose the teams, and guess who she picked? Certainly not mom and dad, she went with the cool aunt and new uncle-- yep me and Eric. Armed with Nerf guns and extra Nerf bullets, we shot at the opposing team over sofas, ping/pong table, and other furniture. If you were lucky you got a safe position behind a large piece of furniture. If you're unlucky--me--you get stuck behind a chair and a very unhelpful pillow, I got pummeled with darts in the head and shoulders. The rule was no darts to the head, but since most of us were too chicken or too clever to expose anything put our heads, heads were the target. My shining moment was when I accidentally shot Cam in the eye, and the dart stuck to his eyelid! I was pretty impressed with my previously hidden talent. Cam said he couldn't get mad because he knew coming from me it was just a lucky accident, because we all know that if I had been aiming for his eyelid, I would have hit the wall instead.

The only true casualty was Eric's toenail. Somehow it got snagged on the carpet, and he didn't even feel it or notice it until we decided to investigate some suspicious looking red fuzz that was everywhere! We took a small time out to clean up the blood and get Eric a band-aid. And shortly we recommenced shooting. We went until we were all too tired to continue.

It may not be the most normal way to spend Christmas Eve, but we enjoy it. Besides maybe it burns off some of those calories from those cheese balls... maybe.

Though, one of the best parts of the evening was watching Aleksa running around telling everyone to go to bed so Santa could come.

Christmas and All the Trimings

I've been dreaming about our first Christmas together since we first got engaged. And especially after having him gone last year, this Christmas was really special, and I couldn't wait to do all the fun Christmas time things together. The first thing we did together was cut down this beautiful Christmas tree, which you can read about in one our previous posts. We couldn't wait to decorate the tree. Luckily we had a lot of hand me down ornaments from my parents to keep the tree from looking too much like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Besides the lights and balls, almost all the ornaments were homemade, I loved the feel/theme it gave it.

One of Eric's favorite things to do growing up is lie on a blanket under the tree and gaze at the tree in all its splendor. Definitely a new favorite thing to do, it was so peaceful and gave us a moment to just lie their and think about all of our blessings. We looked at several stores and could never find a star that we liked well enough, and decided to just wait until next year to find one.

I made a beautiful red and beige stripped ruffle tree skirt, but somehow we never got a picture of the tree and skirt combined :(

It wouldn't be the holidays without crafts. I saw this idea on Pinterest, and just had to do it. We went to Porter's one night to find supplies and low and behold they had the whole idea in a neat little kit, blocks of wood and all. So we caved because it was so convenient. It was really quick and easy to put together, however the little kits kind of take away the creative aspect, but it was still fun.

My little French nativity is my favorite souvenir that I brought home from my mission. The French believe that everyone would come to see and worship the baby Jesus, so their nativity depicts just that, everyone coming to worship, not just the kings and shepherds, but the baker, the farmer, the maid, everyone. So real French nativities have 40, 60, sometimes hundreds of characters! I could only purchase the essential characters, but want to keep adding to my nativity throughout the years.

Eric bought this Poinsettia for me after a hard day, he's so thoughtful, and it really added  a nice pop of color to the apartment.

My mom made this nativity years ago, and she graciously passed it on to me. It was nice to have plenty of decorations even though we are newlyweds, especially because I LOVE decorating!

When I worked at Bath & Body Works last winter, I snagged this cute candle Christmas house when it was on clearance.

So even though we are newlyweds and didn't have much space to decorate, I loved how our little house looked during Christmas it was so much fun! Now I have to make more decorations for other holidays, so our apartment doesn't feel so bare. 

My First Haircutting Experience

 So, Eric wanted me to give him a haircut. I've helped him before, but I've never had full reign of the trimmers before, and let me tell you it was nerve wracking. I was too scared I was going to take too much off that I didn't take off enough, and you can see the result for yourselves...

 I didn't step back to look at it fully, and didn't realize I'd given Eric a really ugly bowl cut, until he looked in the mirror and tried to tell me really politely without hurting my feelings that it looked bad. Though he needn't have worried, because when he came out of the bathroom and saw him, I burst out laughing.

Don't worry, I didn't let him go like that, with Eric's help I redid it with less trepidation, and it ended up fine. I won't be opening a hair salon anytime soon, but it'll do.