Christmas at Last

We finally made it to Christmas. Rick and I had so much fun this year buying gift for Madi. We took her to the store with us and walked down the isles with her. When she saw something she liked she pointed to it. Rick worked until 7am Christmas morning and when he got home he helped me finish wrapping Madi's gifts. After that we woke Madi up and showed her all her presents. She was so excited but wasn't sure what to think of them all. But then we showed her what to do and she got really excited.


She didn't like the fact that she had to finish up with one toy and move on to opening another o fast. She liked taking her time with each new toy and figuring out how each of them worked before she moved on. But we helped her move on at a little faster of a pace because otherwise we never would have made it through in one day. She had so much fun with all her new toys. We let her play for a little while and then we packed a few of her favorites and then headed up to Pennsylvania for the rest of the weekend.

This is me on Christmas. I don't have a picture of it on here, but Rick got me a really nice sewing table for Christmas. I had been using the kitchen table since we got married to sew on so it has been really nice to have my own place to sew and keep my things. Now we can actually have dinner there which hasn't really happened since we were married, so we are still trying to get used to it. Usually we eat floor or couch style.

And here is Rick after his 10 hour all night shift. What a trooper! He even stayed up to drive up to Pennsylvania that day and have lunch with the family. He finally couldn't stand it any longer by mid-afternoon so he crashed. I was able to get him his very first RC boat for Christmas. He was so excited. The only problem is all the places that he could drive it are frozen over right now so he can't use it and so he is going crazy with it sitting in the box. But he will have fun when the spring comes around.

Christmas from Pennsylvania

A few weeks ago, Rick and I received our Christmas package from his family out it Pennsylvania. It was a little bit of an adventure to get the package from UPS because they didn't leave a notice on our door but they said the package went out for delivery that day. So we went over the the place the trucks go at the end of the night to drop everything off to check and see if it was there. The lady that helped us was so nice but she didn't think that the truck was back yet but she would go and check. About 25 minutes later she came back with our package. She said the truck just pulled in when she went back there so she dug through the entire truck until she found our package. It was so nice of her to do that for us because we were really excited to get our package and we really wanted it that night. (But if we had to I guess we would have waited, I'm just glad we didn't have to) :)

It was so much fun to call our family in Pennsylvania and open the package with them listening since we weren't able to go out there this year for Christmas. They gave us so many nice things and also a lot of fun things. We got several DVD, beautiful ornaments, pictures, a nutcracker, and several other things. We also really enjoyed getting presents from our niece and nephew, Christopher and Emily. Christopher gave Rick a really nice Eagles hat and Emily gave us little snowman angels with our names on them. It was so sweet of them. Our families have done so much for us and we love them so much! Thanks for everything!

The Best Gingerbread House

It is tradition in our family to make a Gingerbread house every year for Christmas. We all put on different parts of it so it was a mixture of all of our ideas. We had a pond in the back of the house with horses around it, there was a rock candy path and a wood pill. My sister Sarah took a garlic press and pressed green gum drops in it to make all the bushes along the path. We also had a fence made of pretzels, and the finishing touch was the roof made with Neccos. It was fun to see everyone's ideas come together to make a very unique gingerbread house.

Our First Christmas

This year, Rick and I had Christmas at the Gudmundson's house. We left the Saturday before Christmas and then came back to Provo the Wednesday night after Christmas. On Friday night before we left to go up to Mendon, Rick and I had our own little Christmas. Rick got me a really nice sewing machine and a blue bathrobe with matching slippers. He also got me a lot of smelly good things from Bath and Body Works and a Zip Zap RC car. I got Rick and new boat motor, walkie talkies, and (with the help of his parents and grandparents) and new gun that his has wanted for about 5 years. It's a Springfield Armory XD 45 ACP. We both had a great Christmas together and it was also fun to be able to spend some time with my family. Although, we did miss seeing Rick's family too, we were able to talk to them over the phone and wish them a Merry Christmas.

Lights at Temple Square

This past weekend Rick and I met my parents and sisters up in Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. The lights were so pretty, but the temple was the most beautiful thing there. While we were up there, we also had the chance to see Savior of the World. It was such a wonderful experience to be up there with the Gudmundson family and to also feel the spirit. We are so grateful that we live so close to be able to go to Temple Square every year for Christmas.

Decorating for Christmas

After we got home on Thanksgiving, Rick and I put up our 6 foot, $20 tree from Dollar General. You'd think that the tree would look like a Charlie Brown tree but it actually looks really good considering where we got it from and how much we paid for it. When we first put it up we only had the lights and two ornaments on it, but a few days ago we got the rest of the ornaments for it. Our ornaments are the standard red and silver glass balls and then we also bought nature ornaments. So we have fish, bears, eagles, and quail on our tree along with a few other "traditional" Christmas ornaments. But my favorite one is this ornament that has the year that our little family started.