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.

Gingerbread House of Epic Proportions

This Christmas my sister Tori and I decided while admiring all the gingerbread houses on display in Midway for a children's benefit, that we were going to make an epic gingerbread house this Christmas. We really wanted to make one of those Victorian style gingerbread houses that just leave people in awe. So we started with some pictures online and just started designing, and eventually it took shape. Though we decided that next year we will definitely plan ahead. 

I love this picture because it shows everyone in the family working on the gingerbread house. You can't see Eric because he's taking the picture, you only see my arm, and Aleksa is hidden, but it was a true family effort. I think we may have started a family tradition. In the past our gingerbread house attempts consisted of    of small cardboard milk cartons covered in 5 graham crackers, and eating more candy than was actually used for the house, I think we definitely took our gingerbread house making to a whole new level.

You can see the many, different sides of our gingerbread house, and you can see the lack of conformity. The problem was that even though my mom bought hoards of candy, we didn't have enough of any one thing, so each side ended having it's own theme. We think that next year (at Thanksgiving because my parents have Thanksgiving next year) we will make a village of houses that are about a third of this size and come prepared with our house design and candy decoration plan. It was a huge task to build it from cardboard, cover it in graham crackers, and decorate it. The whole project took us 2 days.

A Cornucopia of Thanksgiving

One of my worries about getting married and becoming our own separate family unit was how to appease both families as we split up the holidays. Since Eric was gone all last year in Iraq, naturally his family wanted him home for Christmas, but since this is Heather & Cam's year for Christmas with my family, Eric and I agreed that it would be best to be on the same rotation. So that meant that Eric's family got us for Thanksgiving.

It was my first break from work since the Honeymoon, and it was MUCH needed. I always looked forward to the weekend and holidays before we got married, but not nearly as much as I do now! I just want to spend all my time with Eric, so I count the hours everyday until I get to see Eric again. 

I got work off Thursday and Friday, so we headed to Nampa, Idaho on Wednesday afternoon. We left early so I could get my military spouse ID card in Pocatello. But just our luck, their machine had broken so they left early. I was so mad that I left work early and not get my ID card. Oh well, at least Pocatello was on our way and we got a head start. We got such a good head start that we were hopeful of getting to Nampa in good time. But alas we had quite the frustrating hour, when we got stuck in stop and go traffic a 1/2 hour out of Boise, all because of a lane change... At long last, we made it Nampa.

That evening, we just chatted and hung out with the fam, Grandma Andrus, Tiffany, and Kim and her kids who were also there. 

The next day we slept in :) and got ready for a day of delicious food! Sadly, we didn't think to take any pictures of Thanksgiving day! The food was awesome, and later that night more of Eric's aunts, uncles cousins, and Grandma Rose came over for pie. 

The next day, Black Friday, Eric and slept in and then decided to hit the stores. Surprisingly there was a lot left, and it wasn't that crazy. But then, we didn't really want anything that was a high profile item... thank goodness! We spent a few hours shopping and finally found a down duvet at a good price. The duvet cover I wanted was online, but we wanted to get a good price on the duvet. (I'll post pictures when we the get the duvet cover and the rest of the bedroom looking good.)

We finally made it out of the stores in time to go shooting with Eric's dad, Ben, Andrew, one of Eric's uncles and some cousins. Though we were quickly running out of daylight, we had fun, and Eric and I both got to wear our capotes!

Andrew, fired off his rounds pretty quickly! We were all pretty surprised because he's only 14. Though I suppose no one should be that surprised, there is a reason everyone calls Andrew, Little Eric. But for myself, I can only shoot 3 or 4 shots before I'm done, though I'm getting better at not freaking out when the gun kicks. 

Later that night we had been told that if we wanted we could have the air mattress over the futon. Eric and I jumped at the chance, but we had to take it up with Annie, who had slept on it the night before. Annie said she would wrestle Eric for it, well we all know who won ;) Here's proof.

On Saturday we went bowling. Surprisingly, it was our first time bowling together, though we definitely know who is the bowler in our family, NOT me! Eric scored above 100 in both games, and nearly doubled my score! Oh well, I never aspired to be a good bowler. 

Later that night we decorated the gingerbread house, always one of my favorite activities, though tiring after awhile. (Though I'll have to get more endurance for it because Tori and I are endeavoring to decorate an intense victorianish gingerbread house this Christmas.) It was really fun because it was a real gingerbread house, which I've never had. 

Eric's dad saved the turkey wish bone for us to pull on our "first" Thanksgiving together. We pulled hard, and the top broke off and spun into the air, so no one got their wish, though Eric aptly replied, "No, this means we both get our wishes." How appropriate :)

It was a great Thanksgiving, it's fun getting to know my "new" family members, I know have 4 sisters and 6 brothers, whereas before I had 2 sisters and 1 brother (in-law).

White Christmas

About a month ago I found out that the Playmill Theatre company was playing Irving Berlin's White Christmas at the Colonial Theatre in Idaho Falls. I've seen the movie several times and has been a favorite but I'd never seen it on stage, so Eric and I decided to go see it. Monday night was the only night we could make it because of Thanksgiving in Nampa and Yellow Ribbon in Park City next weekend.

We made a date night out of it and went to dinner to Olive Garden with some gift cards and stuffed ourselves silly with broschetta, breadsticks, salad, beef gorgonzala, and white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Yum it was delicious, then we somehow managed to roll ourselves over to the Colonial Theatre.

I was quite impressed with Playmill's company, for being a small company from West Yellowstone they were quite good. And funnily enough the four main characters looked a lot like the actors from the movie, especially the girl who played Judy Haynes, it was almost uncanny.

The show was a little cheesy, more so than the movie, I think Eric had a hard time swallowing it, and truthfully even I did.

My favorite part of the whole show was at the very end when it starts to "snow", it actually started to snow foam bubbles that looked a lot like snowflakes from the ceiling. At that moment I wished I was sitting smack dab in the middle of the theatre and could be covered in foam bubbles from head to foot. With the "snowflakes" floating down it looked truly magical.

But the funniest part of the whole evening happened when we were walking out of the theatre. An older woman had walked out of the theatre ahead of her husband, while he stayed behind to hold the door open for us. Well, this woman didn't realize that her husband had stayed behind to hold the door open, and when Eric walked by her, so reached her hand out to him and almost grabbed his hand before she realized that Eric was already holding hands with me and was definitely not her husband. Eric then heard the woman tell the story to her husband and laugh, while all this time I was completely oblivious to what was going on. Once we were well past them, Eric recounted what happened and we chuckled pretty hard.

Though it was a late night, it was a great night.

Here's a little clip from the movie version:

Oh Christmas Tree

So, in the spirit of trying to create our own traditions as our own family unit, and doing things that we've always wanted to do, we decided to drive out into the mountains and chop down our first Christmas tree. Yes, we did this all the weekend before Thanksgiving, but in our defense between Thanksgiving and an army mandatory yellow ribbon weekend, this was our only chance before halfway through December, and we wanted to enjoy our Christmas tree for longer than 2 weeks.

So during the week we went to Cal Ranch and bought our Christmas tree permit and hand saw and Saturday morning we woke up and got ready for our trip up to the Mesa Falls area to find our "perfect" Christmas tree. We packed our coats, snow/hiking boots, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cameras and hit the road. The drive there was pretty and quite uneventful, though we had no idea that Ashton has seen so much snow already.

We parked because I said I thought I saw a few good trees, and hiking up the bank to check out the trees. The ones I saw actually turned out to be pretty thin and sparse, not great for decorating, so we wandered a bit farther and bam, there it was, our Christmas tree. At first we were afraid that it would be over the 12 feet limit (our permit only was good for up to 12 feet), but after comparing it to Eric's height, we decided that we were good.

Here are some pictures and a video of how it went down.

Shaking the extra snow off the tree so he wouldn't get doused when he cut it down.

Glad I didn't have to help with this part, I'm too short :)

Look Eric's capote and the wool blanket we used to cover the tree match!

Eric wrapping lights around our tree.

It was a great day so much fun cutting down our own tree and decorating it, and we only got the car stuck in the snow three times :) We were grateful that Eric decided to buy that shovel you see in the first picture, and for 4-wheel drive.