Our first married Christmas

I really have been awful at blogging. But, you can look forward to weekly blog posts now because I have a project for the whole semester and I chose to blog. I just want you to be aware that I will try to be posting those blog posts on every Friday. I am learning about the family unit and each week there will things that I have learned and ways to apply them to our own lives. Hopefully each week I will be posting a challenge and I encourage you to do them with me. I will give you a little spill on how I did the next week!

Anyways... Let's not talk about school right now.

December flew by. January flew by. Time really does just get faster and faster. December was fun and filled with family time.
We had our first Christmas together!! It was fun to decorate our little apartment. My parents got a new Christmas tree and let us use their old one. While I was in Colorado, Hobby Lobby had an awesome sale on ornaments and so I got some royal purple and gold ornaments. I used burlap ribbon to make some bows to put on the tree as well. Our tree is going to have a few more additions next year and I am excited to work on those this year. I just didn't have time this time around.

 I made this stocking last year because I was so excited to be wifey and have our own Christmas... Well.. I still haven't finished mine. This year it will get done!

 Logan's awesome African nativity fit perfectly on this shelf!

 Trent and Lindsey gave this little tree to us for Christmas! It lights up too!

 Boy do I have a story for you about how we got this snowman. I love snowmen for Christmas decor. Logan and I had a gift card from our wedding to a home decor store, the only catch was that we couldn't get anything on sale with it. Anything we bought had to be bought at regular price... I was so sick of having this gift card that one day when we went in, I was determined to not leave until we had used it all. I wasn't super interested in anything except a $120 lamp and this snowman. Any guesses on how much he was? It was $40!!!! He is kind of tall and cute, but not $40 cute. But we got him and the lamp (it was a good amount on the gift card). Thankfully that gift card is used up and I probably won't ever go back to that store. But we got a cute snowman.. for free!

 Logan finished his semester of school really well and I'm always so proud of him and how hard he worked. Because he was in school, he had a teacher that would not let him take a final early so he could shoot a Salt Lake wedding with me. That made me really sad because not only was he missing a wedding, but it was our friends wedding. Cody and Kinzie were going to be home in Idaho when I was going to go down and I asked them to go spend the night in Utah with me and drive back home so I didn't have to go alone. Well, I'm a wimp when it comes to driving in the snow and the day I was supposed to drive down, it was a CRAZY storm in Utah (the bride's family was from WA and had to drive because their flight was cancelled). I didn't feel super great about going and neither did Kinzie. I cried and cried not knowing what to do (I'm an emotional person, have you figured that out yet?). I called other photographers in Utah to see if they could cover it for me because I didn't think I would make it down; Jessica (the bride) called and told me they had some friends going down the next morning and I could just ride down and back with them. Hallelujah! A solution I felt good about.
The next morning I went down with their friends and was able to go into Ryan and Jessica's sealing. It was a beautiful sealing and that was my first time in the Salt Lake temple other than for baptisms.
Their wedding day was BEAUTIFUL!!

On Christmas Adam (does anyone else call it that?) we were with Logan's fam and we did our sibling present swap via facetime with Rachael and Davis. I got a super cute slouchy beanie and Big and Sxy hairspray! Logan got a video game, so of course he was happy! For Christmas we were with my family and it was great. Everyone was there on Christmas except the Colorado Fowler family, they came a few days later. We were spoiled for Christmas and are so thankful for everything we were given. On the Fowler side sibling gifts, Trent and Lindsey gave us some awesome Christmas stuff! They gave us our present in the beginning of December so we could use it throughout the season. They gave us Elf, a Christmas tree scent wall flower plug in and the cutest Christmas decoration.
Thanks everyone for everything!
On Christmas evening Logan's fam always goes out to a movie and this year we went to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was really good and was super good for the creative side of me.
Two days after Christmas, Trent and Lindsey had their second little boy. His name is Carter Richard and he is adorable. So sleepy and cute! Logan (not my hubby) loves his baby brother.

Honestly, I was terrible at taking pictures over the break. I was just happy to be with everyone and to have everyone home. Cody and Kinzie were home from PA, Troy's fam came up from CO and we were all there together. It was so great to play games for hours and eat way too much food. One night we played Mario Party 9 on the Wii and I have to write it down that on the football mini game I made it past both Cody and Jared to score, twice!!! It felt great! We played a lot of Cover your Assets (get this game, it's awesome) and Tenzi (get this one too!). Logan and I only came home for a few hours to go to church and that was about it. We stayed out of Rexburg for most of the break. It was a nice break!
For New Years Eve we were with my family and Katelyn and Kylie were pumped about staying up until midnight... until they got tired. They didn't make it to midnight, so before the kiddos were falling asleep we lit off a couple big fireworks and let them pull the balloon drop that we made. If you watch the video watch Troy's face during the balloon drop, he was a little confused!
It was a great holiday season filled with gifts and fun things, but I'm most grateful for the reason for the season. Our Savior Jesus Christ was born in a lowly manger so he could understand all of our hardships in this life. He suffered, bled, and died for us. I know that the Christmas season is to celebrate him, and I'm so grateful for that chance. I love my Savior!

I was terrible with pictures, but I did get enough video footage to make a cute little video of our holidays. You can watch it here!

Oh and that super awesome blog post that I was going to write that was on my mind for a really long time, well it might be coming up next week!! Check back soon for my class blog posts!