Christmas

Our Christmas was fantabulous this year. We were able to spend time with both of our families and got really spoiled. Ridiculously, ridiculously spoiled. (Thanks, parents.) We spent Christmas Eve delivering neighbor gifts in the morning, watching A Christmas Story (LOVE that movie) in the afternoon, and going to dinner with my parents, Jason and my Aunt Lorraine that night. We had our own little Christmas the next morning, then headed over to my parent's for more food and presents, then headed on up to Logan to see John's family. It was a good day and it was so fun to spend time with everyone.

Some holiday highlights:

• Me getting sentimental while opening a gift from John, only to see what it really was and say (out loud, of all things!), "Oh, I thought this was something else!" Ha. How's that for a buzz kill? But I still love it anyway, promise.

• Stuffed cream cheese French toast and bacon for breakfast Christmas morning. Even better? John made it while I sat on the couch with my feet up. Happy Christmas to me!

• Finding the perfect gift for my mom and making her cry. (Just to clarify, tears of joy. Because of the perfectness of the gift. I am quite good at giving good presents, if I do say so myself.)
  

• The rousing game of Quibbler we played with John's family Christmas night. I lost (which I am NOT happy about) but John tied for first, so either way I count it as a win for us.
  

• The best nap of ALL TIME that we took on Sunday afternoon. There is literally nothing better than snuggling up under the covers with my Johnny and sleeping for hours on end.
  

• Pretty sure John was most excited about getting this set up:
  

This was our main gift to each other this year, and because I am a mean old witch I wouldn't let John take it out of the box until Christmas. Also, we are heathens because this is for our bedroom. We just so happen to thoroughly enjoy a good dose of 30 Rock or Arrested Development before drifting off to sleep. So sue us.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, from our little family to yours.

Basketball John

John called me about a week ago and said this: "So, I got an interesting call from the credit union today..." My immediate reaction was to think the worst, that someone had stolen all of the money out of our accounts and we wouldn't be able to get it back and then we'd be left penniless and would lose our house and then both somehow lose our jobs and it would just be AWFUL.

What they ACTUALLY were calling about was to inform John that his name had been drawn to "Shoot for Loot" at the next Utah basketball game (last Friday night). A little backstory. We have season tickets to Utah basketball, and they do the Shoot for Loot thing at every game. Whoever is Shooting for Loot (I'm just going to keep saying that because it's fun) has 30 seconds to make a layup, free-throw and three-pointer for $300 and then a chance to make $300 more if they make a half-court shot. Not a bad deal, eh?

John was pretty nervous because he's never played basketball in front of that many people before (the Huntsman Center had more than its usual 2,000 fans, oh miracle of miracles), but he came through like a champ. Good thing, too, because my brothers would never have let him live it down if he would have missed everything. Ha. All except for the elusive half-court shot. But that's OK, we'll take the $300. And he just looked so darn cute down there. Hooray for free money!

Things I've learned this week

1. DVRs can overheat. And do so at the most inopportune times, like right when they’re about to announce the winner of The Biggest Loser.

2. DVRs do not, in fact, continue to magically record all of your precious shows when they are UNPLUGGED FROM THE WALL on account of their annoying tendency to overheat.*

3. I could never live in L.A. Driving home from work on the freeway yesterday, something I normally avoid like the Plague, made me all kinds of angry. (And as a side note, people that do not know how to properly merge should have their licenses revoked. Or never receive them at all.) Speaking of bad drivers…four words. The mall parking lot. Wow. Also, I need to remind myself to never, ever, EVER attempt to go the mall a week before Christmas again. Or maybe ever again for the rest of eternity, lest my rage boil over and I make the evening news.

4. If I am ever to in actuality have a baby, I need to refrain from reading blog posts from new mothers about the wonders of labor/delivery and breastfeeding. The horror.

5. The escalator scene from Elf is never not funny.

*Yes, friends, this sadly enough had to be brought to my attention. I am not blonde, I swear…although technically my hair color is ‘strawberry blonde,’ so do with that what you will. Lucky that John married me for my looks rather than my brain, huh?

Christmas, Christmas time is near

As hard as it is for me to believe, Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. Holy cannoli. It has totally sneaked up on me this year. But at least I have a cute, festive house to come home to after a long day sitting in front of a computer with a right hand that’s permanently frozen because my space heater was on the fritz back in August and I had to throw it away. Curse me and my bad circulation.

But now, back to our cute festive house. Neither of us are fans of house fires, so we invested in a nice pre-lit artificial tree this year and love it (now that John, being the superhero he is, found the one light bulb that was only halfway in and therefore causing an entire section to turn itself off and on randomly). I also got all crazy and bought a new tree skirt that matches our Christmas stockings, even though there was NOTHING WRONG with the one we already had. Eesh. Spending money so frivolously these days, I tell you what.

And to add to the festiveness and excitement of the countdown to Christmas, my cute mom gave us these puppies in time for December 1st, continuing a Christmas tradition that has been ongoing since I was a wee little girl.

A daily dose of chocolate does a body good, right? Or, if you’re my nephew Jake, sometimes it’s more fun to eat all 24 pieces in one sitting. I like the way he thinks.

Last week was the Week of Parties. We had John's work party on Tuesday, my work party on Thursday and a family party with my mom's side on Saturday. Whew. (We didn't have anything on Friday night, and I was more than content to just stay at home. I may even have put my pajamas on at 6 p.m. Don't judge me.) This year, we bucked tradition by actually winning prizes at our work parties! It was a thing of miracles, I tell you. Although technically, we didn't in actuality win anything at John's party...it was given to us by default after a guy at our table's raffle ticket was drawn twice for the same gift and he didn't want it. So we came home with a cute apron, a mixing bowl, some cookie sheets and a cake and brownie mix...and I had flashbacks to my bridal showers. But hooray for coming home with something. The win at my work party, however, was too legit to quit. I've worked at my company for a little over five years and have never won anything...so hip hip hooray when they read my name and handed me a $50 gift certificate to Market Street. Aww yeah. Free date night for us!

This year for the Austin Family Christmas Party, besides the mainstay White Elephant gift exchange, we had ourselves a pinewood derby, Christmas-style. Sounds a bit weird, eh? Good thing everybody on the Austin side is RIDICULOUSLY competitive so we all got really into it. There were some great cars...the infamous leg lamp from A Christmas Story, the Grinch's sleigh and the Griswold family Christmas tree strapped to the top of the car were a few of my favorites.

John and I stretched the theme a little bit and decorated our car in honor of my very favorite Jazz player (and pretend boyfriend) Paul Millsap. Because sometimes all a girl wants is Paul Millsap wrapped up under her Christmas tree. Unfortunately, we learned that Paul does better on the basketball court than he does in a derby race, but he still gave a valiant effort and for that he has my eternal devotion. Love you, Millie.