We Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas has been gone for weeks, but Roy and I are still singing carols all the time.  You know, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the snow because it usually starts out with, "Baby it's Cold Outside" as we're running from the warmth of our car to our apartment.
We really did have ourselves a merry little Christmas!

 The trip to Tucson went smoothly.  Alexa finished up her first semester in Idaho and spent the night at our apartment to make her trip home 3.5 hours less painful.  But she didn't get in until a ridiculous hour and so waking up early in the morning for the trip was difficult.  As we planned to caravan down, I told Alexa I would drive for her whenever she got too tired.
That time came around five o'clock, when we still had a few hours to go.  We spent those hours making up our own lyrics to every song that popped up on her iPod.  The only rules were that the word hamburger had to be in the chorus.  So we switched off singing verses and then laughing our heads off.

So that's when I freaked out,

Couldn't get my burger down,

I'm ch-ch-choking and 

You're asking what I'm thinkin' bout.

Felt like I couldn't breath

You ask what's wrong with me

My best friend Leslie says

She's just having heart burn

You know, the Miley Cyrus Song?  Um... you had to be there.  And you also had to be stuck in a car for 10 hours.
Being in Tucson was nice.  It was good to shed the boots, coats, and extra layers for a while.  Roy and I had a week to relax (aka work on his personal statement and school applications) and get ready for Christmas.  And, of course, get ready for his birthday.
Decorating the tree is always fun :-)

 A tradition Mom has always kept up has been to get us each ornaments for every year.  It's fun to look back on those, which usually represented what we were into at the time.  I had lots of cats.
The hand made ornaments are always a riot too.  We all put up our own and then put up Mason's for him too.  We missed him!

 In everything we did that week, Zac was usually with us.  Poor kid has been living as an only child for so long, he kept following us around like we might disappear if he let us out of his sight- haha!  The three of us quoted the show The Office frequently.  We're all very into it right now-- only like four years behind the rest of the world.  One of Zac's favorite characters is Kevin.

{Kevin}

So I suggested Zac try out the Kevin look.  Roy was all-too-willing to help out.  They went outside and gave Zac a little hair cut.  When Dad came home, Zac wore a hat until the opportune moment, which came while we were at a Christmas play.

Dad did a double-take.  I was waiting for lightening to strike, but all Dad said was, "Knucklehead," and that was the end of it.  Pretty funny!  And that play was really good.  Roy bought tickets for the family as a Christmas gift, and we all went to Phoenix to watch it.  It's called The Forgotten Carols.  I liked it because it blended the modern commercial Christmas with the traditional Christ centered holiday.  

Christmas eve we did all of the traditions: Had our grandparents over for a nice dinner, read the nativity story from the Bible, got in our matching P.J.s from Mom, and watched The Grinch with Jim Carrey. 

Christmas morning Roy and I ran around waking everyone up.  We jumped on Zac's bed, then Alexa's bed, then Mom's bed.  Then we all started shredding wrapping paper.

 

Notice Zac had to lose his tufts.

 We got lots of games this year!  LoVe

 Yes, I got Roy a plunger.  Mostly just because I wanted to wrap a plunger.  Also, we didn't have one.

 This is one of my favorite pictures ever.  I'm going to send it to Mason because I think it'll make him laugh.

We got to talk to our missionary bro on the phone!  He called around 2:30 and we talked to him for an hour about everything we could think of.  If I had to use one word to describe him right now... happy.  I've never heard Mason so plain happy with life.  It was really good to hear from him.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas dinner.  I can't imagine what Christmas would be like without Grandma's homemade Mexican food!  MMMMMM!!!!

We all exchanged homemade gifts, which is always really funny.  Or really impressive!  We've got a talented family.  For the most part.  ;-p

And as soon as we got home from that it was birthday time!  

 Roy's birthday party!  I made him go upstairs and pack our bags while I decorated and Mom made him peach cobbler. 

 Lynnie was there for the party.  Roy LOVES socks.  He couldn't have been happier.

I already wrote my birthday dedication to my hubby, so I won't do it again.  But I do love this guy.  And I loved our matching P.J.s this year too.  Everything was perfect.

Except for the part where we had to drive back to Utah the next morning.  

But I was excited to get back to our crazy tree and decorate it properly.  I know, Christmas was over, but I thought we could still keep the tree up for a week or two.  You saw it before, all shoved up against the ceiling, right?  Well, we had shortened it and I had bought some candy canes to hang on it, but that was really all we had.  At Grandma and Grandpa's house, after exchanging homemade gifts, my Aunt Debbie gave me a box of Christmas ornaments!!!!!

I also received a few from Mom, and I was so excited to have real decorations-- and ones that mean something too!  Mom got us a beautiful glass wedding cake that had "Our First Christmas" on it with the date.  The London ornaments represented the time when Roy came out to visit me, and I knew I wanted to be with him always, and we went and bought a ring.  There is a bride and groom, a 2010 {for our wedding year}, and pine cones to represent getting married in beautiful Oregon.

 Ta-da!  How great does that tree look? 

Today we stripped the ornaments off, which was kind of sad.  Now we're trying to make some room in this apartment.  Anybody want a free tree?