Griswalds

We're not the Griswalds. Far from it actually.
But for our very first (officially married)Christmas together we at least have some decorations up! It took us a while to get it all together, but hey we did it! Which is an awesome feat. :]

So these are almost all of the nativities I have. Tacky I know since they're all clustered over the TV, but with limited space this was what had to work. Then there are two on our bookcase, the top one is one that Becky has given  me pieces of over time, and the bottom one is a wood puzzle we won at our ward party. We were pretty stoked about that. :]

This is our tree. Oh the tree. This tree gave us stress, moreover it gave Troy stress. We bought our first real tree this year. I thought people who did fake were crazy and taking away from the entire experience of Christmas. I will not be surprised if we do fake next year. :] So we got the tree. Brought it home and got it in our stand. After about an hour of working and working the tree wouldn't stand up straight in the stand. It kept leaning back towards the wall. We finally just gave up, and started doing the lights. The first round of lights we bought didn't connect to one another (why would you need that?!?!) so Troy made a trip to Home Depot and got us some heavy duty super awesome Christmas lights. After we got all the lights on, we realized we needed one more strand to finish off the top. The next night we went back to Home Depot to find some. They had none. Both the Wal-Marts in Logan had none. Kmart had none. Lowes had none. There were no lights to be found in Cache Valley. We finally found some at Walgreen's (thank goodness!) We got home, finished putting up the lights and then had to face the leaning problem (yes we still had a crooked tree.) Troy struggled with it for another hour and eventually came to the conclusion it would not stand up on it's own. He took a small easel I had holding up a decoration and leaned it against the bottom of the tree. Ghetto. But hey, now our tree stands up super straight! Then we turned on Christmas music and put all our ornaments from years past on our tree. It was really fun and we both were laughing about the weird ornaments we had received. My mom had written out why I had gotten each one so we could easily remember what everything meant to me way back when. :] In the end our tree had a happy ending. And I'm glad to stay it is still alive and well, even though it's not a Nordman from Glover Nursery. :]

We're excited to get to spend Christmas at home with our families, and are really hoping to get some snow soon because this is just shameful. We live in Logan and usually don't get blue sky from October to March, and we have had nothing but lately! It's been pretty ridiculous.

We have also been keeping up on a tradition my family started a long time ago, the Jesus Stocking. Our's is a wicker Jesus Gift, and we have index cards that we write things that we are thankful for and then put them in the gift. It has been fun having it just being me and Troy, and he has gotten really into it. I'm excited to get to read them in a few days!

Even more excited to get to spend next year's Christmas with an extra addition!

Night Flight and Heart Beats

Some cool things have been happening lately.

To be warned, I have no pictures for this post. Sorry, but I haven't been super into blogger mode.

Yesterday we went on our first flight together! Troy, me, Zak (his instructor) and Kim (Zak's wife) all loaded into the little plane in negative degree weather and flew down to Salt Lake for dinner.

It was so cool! It was Troy's first time flying to that large of an airport, where the tower talks to you from Ogden on. This was a big deal because it's hard to keep track of where exactly they tell you to fly, because there are planes everywhere! Plus it was his first time flying at night. He did an awesome job! I wasn't even scared. When we were taking off I was a little freaked out, and flying up over Sardine Canyon was a little scary, but I kept my eyes open and was even looking down at the lights the whole time! It was such a fun experience and I'm so glad we get to do things like that. It really was a total blast! We froze, but it was awesome!!

Then earlier this afternoon we had an appointment with our midwife. We did the regular blood stuff and all that jazz, but then we got to hear the babies heart beat! It was the first time we got to hear it, and it was so cool!! It was funny because she struggled to find it at first, then when she did I laughed and the baby jumped out of the way. So she spent another five minutes trying to find it again, and after about 20 seconds the baby jumped out of the way again (this time on its own). This continued about 3 more times. Our baby did not want to be found. It was really funny. She was struggling hard. One of the times she got it, and then we heard this weird louder noise and she told us that was a kick, and then the baby took off again. It didn't like being put on the spot, and it sure didn't like her prodding around it's space! It was so cool and it made us both so much more excited. Plus, it reassured me that I am not making this all up and there really is something inside of me. :]

Stay tuned, we are going to show off our Christmas decorations this weekend! :]