A Very Merry Christmas

This whole month has been full of Christmas parties, good food, lights at Temple Square, and a Jon Schmidt piano concert. It was a great holiday season. We had a nice Christmas Day full of family, food, and relaxation. On Christmas Eve we opened gifts with Mitch's family and had dinner. On Christmas morning Mitch and I opened our gifts to each other and I made German pancakes (Mitch had never had them before. He liked them). Then we made the rounds to grandparents and my parents. I was so glad the weather was great for driving and we were able to see everyone so it turned out nice! It's so much easier when the weather cooperates.

We were definitely spoiled this year. I gave Mitch some new running shoes, a U of U hoodie, and the 2nd Transformers movie. He gave me some pieces to my nativity scene, the game Scrabble (which I just beat him at!), and some super cool Fairy Tale books for me and Baby. He knows me so well. Mitch also got a nice tool chest for the garage, a racing car jack that he thinks is super cool because it's blue and silver like his car, some more DVDs, some work clothes, another U of U hoodie (he wore them both this weekend and loves them both), and some gift cards. I also got a sewing machine that I am so excited to use, lots of cute shoes, pjs, gift cards (here I come Barnes and Noble!), Skookie pans to bake giant, gooey cookies, which we used last night with Kevin and Nicole and we all agreed that they were amazing, an awesome scarf, a much needed new wallet, and a few other trinkets. It was lovely. We are so spoiled.

The best part was the gift we gave ourselves. While we were in London we bought a 2010 London calendar to give ourselves for Christmas. Sort of dorky, I know. We wrapped it about 3 weeks ago and wrote "To: Us, From: Us" on the package. We completely forgot about it after that. On Christmas morning we were opening gifts and Mitch said, "Oh, here's one to us, from us." And I said, "Mitch, what did you do?," thinking he had bought us something that I didn't know about. Needless to say we were both genuinely surprised when we opened the gift and realized we had completely forgot about the calendar. Ha, ha. It was pretty funny.

And unborn Baby even got a few gifts of her own. She got two shirts that say, "I want a pony" (thanks Nicole and Katie!) and one other shirt with a horse on it (thanks Gma and Gpa Bott!). So cute. Every little girl needs a pony ... Too bad Mitch is allergic to hay!!! Maybe she can convince her Grandpa Miles to have a horse (or two) again. Or she might just have to take horse riding lessons for a few summers and have that suffice. Anyways, she is spoiled already and she's not even here yet. I can only imagine what her Christmas will be like next year ...

I love Christmas time. It was three years ago on Christmas when Mitch proposed to me. That was such a great day, second only to our wedding day. I'm so glad we've been able to spend the last 3 Christmases together. I am also thankful for this time to reflect on the birth of our Savior and what that means to me. I have so much to be grateful for! Merry Christmas!!!