A Playmobil Christmas...

So before I get started I just wanted to finish up with "our first married Christmas". Day 11 was "On our next married Christmas how different life will be, We'll have dippers to be wiping." 

So For our 12 day I was going to do something with Drum Sticks, but KFC closed early and I could't find the ice creme dumb sticks at the grocery stor. So i decided to work off of 11 and point toward the future. So i went with 12 months of memories and let him open his big present early. We got a camera to capture all   the memories between now and next Christmas. 

Tiered as he was when I gave it to him, he was very excited. 

And speaking of memorable things, one of my favorite memories of this Christmas is that Joseph and I both bought each other playmobils. I collect Nativities and earlier this year Joseph gave me a Nativity he had brought from Guatemala for Christmas. Which I loved. But then when out Christmas shopping I saw a playmobil nativity. I immediately came home and told Joseph about how amazing it was. Playmobil's were a big part of his child hood, he and his brothers had huge sets of them. And I had played with my older brothers as well. He just kind of brushed it off and said that's nice and I thought that was the end of it. I had already bought the Noah's ark set for Joseph (and eventually the baby). Ok so it was mostly for the  baby but I knew Joseph would love it. (And he does!!) Anyway back to my shopping trip, the reason I had talked myself out of the Playmobil Nativity was it was the ONLY playmobil set not on sale, and Joseph had given me the one from Guatemala already. 

Here is the crazy coincidence of it all, Joseph had gone shopping just a few days before me at the same store and bought the playmobil Nativity which was not supposed to be on sale, but since it was on the same shelf with some others he talked them into giving it to him for 50% off. Thus when I went shopping two days later, everything was labeled very clearly "All Playmobils 50%off EXCEPT the nativity."...I just thought it was funny. 

We have lots of great pictures on our new camera from Christmas in Tooele...but I can't post them just yet as I do not yet know how to work the camera...I'll get some posted later. 

Our First Married Christmas Continued...

For day Five of our First married Christmas I have Joseph "Lord of the Rings" in place of Five Golden Rings...as an added bonus we also went to see the Hobbit with our friends Collin and Johnita and Michelle and Keven. All and all day five was pretty amazing. 

Day 6 has defiantly been Joseph's favorite. In place of 6 Geese a laying I did "6 Eggs with Bacon". I got up really early to make him breakfast. It could have been a Bacon commercial  I timed it out so that I was just finishing breakfast right when our alarm would be going off. So just as it started beeping I crawled back into bed to pretend I had been there all along. Joseph rolled over and told me...'wow, you smell amazing,' then his eyes popped wide open and he exclaimed, "like BACON!". 

This is our little pond of "Little Baby Bath Toys" in place of Seven Swans A Swimming"

I uses Swiss Miss for Milk Maids and just to make it extra special I used the left over Hot Chocolate from our wedding as Christmas time is also our anniversary time. 

"9 Peeps for Roasting" is kind of an inside thing....

Day 10 was on e of the most difficult. Originally I planed on making a cd of 10 songs that meant something special to Joseph and I and use the picture of us dancing aka 'leaping' as the cover. Only Joseph and I don't even have 'a song' let along 10 songs, so that turned out not to work so well. Then I thought i'd just use the picture, but I was out of time to find a frame. So I had a pack of snicker nutcracker 'lords' I had meant for stocking stufer. In the end the addition of the two pictures of my handsome dancing husband the 8 chocolate lords a leaping made 10. 

And that is the days of our First Married Christmas so far. It has been so much fun! I love seeing how excited Jospeh gets to see the gift of the day. And especially how much he loves the little notes I leave with each of them. Day 7 was one of the first I didn't have ready when I left for work in the morning and Joseph called me at lunch as said, "You forgot my day for Christmas." it was adorable. 

Also here are some more adventures in Christmas Cookie decorating for the neighbors. I am particularly fond of Joseph's method of cookie decorating. Not a single cookie looked the same, it was fun to watch him work!

Also for those of you who are not familiar with the infamous man mug mentioned in the last post, here is a picture with the giant cookie. The normal size plastic cup is their for scale. 

12 Days of "Our First Married Christmas"

So for Christmas this year I wanted to do something special for Joseph as it is our very first married Christmas, and we won't be spending as much time with either of our families as we are used to doing because we have grown up jobs now. So I decided to do our "First Married Christmas"....Here's what I've got so far. 

 "For our First Married Christmas my true love gave to me..."

"A puppy in a lime green tree"

Joseph really wants a dog, and he isn't the biggest fan our my little tree as it is so girly, but hey. You work with what you've got. 

The second day was "Two chocolate Doves" ...and a bag of candy for your pregnant wife.

Today was "Three Aggie Fans" because Joseph went to the Potato Bowl with two of his brothers and a little nephew. I gave him an inflatable Aggie thingy to use the technical term...kind of cheap of me because we already had it, but Joseph appreciated it. Go Aggies! I'm so proud of them, they won their first bowl game ever today...but moving on. 

Tomorrow will be day 4. So it will be "Foreign calling cards!" Instead of four calling birds...this is one of the more clever I thought. I was very glad to have come up with it. I write a little note with each of them as well, telling Joseph one thing I have learned to appreciate about him in our first year of marriage. It has been very fun to do. 

And continuing on in the Christmas Spirit. I had a Christmas Cookie explosion at my house today. 

Here is just a small sampling of the many varieties of sugar cookies I made. I used grandma's recipe with the Almond frosting. I love the smell of Almond extract, it makes me think of my Grandma Payne! Making her cookies really made me homesick, but I'm glad I am continuing the tradition for my own family. I tried to make her peppermint cookies too....I shall have to try again another day though... I failed rather badly at them this time. 

Sarah and Nathan came over and helped me decorate the cookies. Sarah is amazing with a zip lock back and food coloring, she is responsible for all the fine detailing on the cookies.  Nathan also contributed by eating damaged cookies and taking a very long and well timed nap! Thank you Mr. Chubs!

With the last bid of left over dough I made Joseph a giant man cookie so he can dip it in his giant man mug he is so in love with. Its our little family!

And this picture didn't work out, but its the only recent picture I have our little family and out tree...you can kind of see the baby bump growing...kind of...anywho...Merry Christmas! I'll up date our 12 days after a few more days have gone by.