Christmas and New Years

Well we had a great first Christmas and New Year's together. I of course could not choose just a couple pics to post so there are a lot, but because of that I will try to keep the writing to a minimum. Here are some of the things we did together during the Holidays:

Decorated our first tree together (black Friday Christmas tree, dollar store tree skirt, and borrowed decorations from my mom). :)

Received LOTS of treats from family and friends!
Hung our stockings by the fireplace with care...
Won a free Willow Tree Nativity from Hallmark!
Got lots of Christmas cards (we actually ended up with lots more that this by the end!)
Watched the Boise State game in the whatever bowl they played in (I'm not the one who is into football, as you can tell) but I did sport BSU gear which I never thought I would do. My pj's even say Boise State. It's true. Look close.
Made lots of treats with Chris' mom and sisters and sisters-in-law!
...and a Gingerbread House with his niece and nephews
which they loved helping with!
Listened to Chris read the Christmas story at his Aunt's house on Christmas Eve
While the kids acted it out (imagine these two pics in reverse order. )
Opened presents Christmas morning at my mom's with my brother Brock and his little family there all the way from Wyoming!
Watched my mom be soo excited about her new compute!
and Chris be so excited about his new pillow! (everyone knows how much I love my pillow...well Chris decided he kind of likes it too, so I got him one. Mostly so I don't ever have to share. j/k!) and don't worry, that's not all I got him. He picked himself out a great tool set from Lowe's.
And I opened a new Cricut Cutter! I was totally surprised and spoiled! Chris remembered me mentioning it a time or two that it would be fun to have, and he logged that away in that amazing husband memory of his! I think I'll keep him. (pics to come of my wonderful Cricut and crafting projects!)
Some of us got a little upset when it wasn't our turn to open a present...poor Halli.
We opened presents the day after Christmas at my Dad's.
And the day after that at my mom's...who gave Chris and I the "game invented on the seat of a tractor." The Farming Game, one of our favorites. If you ever want to have a night of being $500,000 in debt and upset that you can't harvest your cherries, and your cows all died, let us know. :)
We got new Hoodies as well
The night before New Year's Eve we spent with a BUNCH of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc together playing games and such.
We had a grand ole' time.
New Year's Eve we spent at Chris' dad's with some of his siblings and played a fun card game that we had never played, but I think I will be teaching to my family. I forgot to load the pic of us raising our glasses in a toast. :( You can find it on facebook.

New Year's Day we had dinner at Chris' mom's. All in all we had a blast with our families and with each other. I would say it was a wonderful end to a wonderful year together and we can't wait for many more to come!

Up on the Housetop

A week before Christmas my sister called me up and asked me if I would be interested in playing a duet on the piano with my 10 year old nephew Kade at his piano recital. She said he was really nervous and didn't want to do it with his teacher because, he said, "she messed him up." She gave him the idea to ask me and he got really excited. My sister said that the teacher likes the students to do it with other people anyway.

We were already planning on going to dinner at their house and then to the recital that night, so I told her I would try, but I wasn't making any promises. I was pretty nervous because I was never any good at duets, plus I always found reading the music for the teacher's part confusing. The song was Up on the Housetop. First I played with it by myself for a few minutes, and I was actually able to figure it out. When I thought I got the hang of it I tried it with Kade and he told me I was too slow and that he would rather do it with his teacher. :( I was actually fine with that and felt if I did it we'd mess up and embarrass ourselves anyway. So we ate dinner, but then after dinner I decided to try it out again. I practiced it faster for a few minutes and then asked Kade if he wanted to try again. We actually sounded pretty good and after a few tries we got to where we could actually end at the same time and it was pretty fun. Kade changed his mind and wanted to do it with me. :) Here is the end result...we get a little off in the middle, but it's not bad for throwing it together right before the recital! Thanks Kade for letting me do that with you. I had fun!

p.s. please don't judge my bad posture. :)