Christmas Rewind

Squash. On the ceiling. We didn't discover it until AFTER dinner too. 

I finally got around to uploading my pictures from Christmas. This isn't all of them, just the ones I took after Christmas morning with my brand spankin new Nikon d50 camera that I'm slightly in love with. And by slightly, I mean Todd might have a little competition now. ;) kidding! 

A Christmas Preview With Out of Order Photos :)

For the love of all things holy I can't get these photos in the right order. Blogger...you suck. :) No Mac plus uploading photos from Blogger's iPhone app + a girl that has to get up in 5 hours to catch a flight = one impatiently thrown together blog post. 

Sorry darlings. :) 

Christmas Eve started out with a flight from Salt Lake to Detroit. 

This is Detroit: 

This was Salt Lake: (Pretend they're in reverse order.)

I kicked off my four day stay at home with a little B&E bonding time with Kelly. Mom was next door...impressing the neighbor's parents who were in from out of town. She'll forever be known as the crazy lady who had an emergency while her house was locked and she didn't have a key. Typical. 

Kelly is climbing INTO the house. (pretend the photos are reversed here too. Darn iPhone) 

Then my dad pretended he was gangster. 

Then Todd & I got some pretty sweet Tigers shirts. We're going to sport them together. In Utah. Yep, we're cool. 

The puppy snuggles

This was while my dad was being gangster. Kelly got an ugly sweater. She asked for an ugly Christmas sweater. No joke. 

My fav present is currently stashed away in my bag and I'm too lazy to go and get it and take a picture and upload it and mess up the formatting and blah blah. But, I got the DSLR camera I've been wishing, hoping, praying, begging for! SO EXCITED! 

(insert picture of Nikon D50 aka the best Christmas present ever) 

Sigh. That is pretty much the definition of my trip home. Lots of food, family, laughing, more food, more laughing and a dash more food. I have more photos on both my old and new camera that, like I said, am far too lazy to upload. I will when I get home though.  

For now, this girl is off to bed to catch some ZZZs before her 810am flight back to Utah 

:)

Almost Christmas!

It's almost Christmas! I'd like it a whole lot better if there was snow on the ground...but alas, there isn't. :( 

Anyways, last night Todd came up for church and then we had a deeeeeeelicious dinner of pork tenderloin, roasted red potatoes, and green beans. I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. My only regret is not taking any pictures of this wonderful meal! Oh well!

After dinner, we opened our scriptures and read the story of Christ's birth in Matthew, Luke, and 3 Nephi. It was nice to cuddle up on the couch, read the story, and think about how blessed we are to have the Savoir come to atone for our sins. Without this season, this birth, His life, we'd be lost. It's because of this birth that we have the opportunity to celebrate and live eternally. 

After we read our scriptures, we exchanged presents. Since I'm going home on Saturday for Christmas and I'm working nearly every single day until I leave on Saturday, we decided to have our own little Christmas tonight. Hence, the nice dinner, the Christmas story, and the present exchange. 

Afterwards, it looked like Christmas exploded in my living room:

The best present? My lemon tea pot that I pointed out months ago that I liked at the mall. How adorbs?! :) 

I've already had a great start to the Christmas season. We've started new traditions that Todd and I are going to carry into our new family and new life after we're married. I can't wait to go home and be with my family for the rest of the Christmas season. 

What's your favorite part of Christmas?

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

(Todd...you have the better version of this picture...I know you're reading this! Send me that picture! please. :) love you!)

I'm not really sure how this keeps happening, but I keep getting lucky. First, we got last minute tickets to General Conference in October and then we got tickets to the First Presidency Devotional (you can watch the whole thing here) that was last weekend. But I'm not complaining. :) 

Every time I go downtown and just sit in the presence of this Temple is so overwhelming. It's one of those places that no matter what, you can always feel the spirit. And the Christmas lights make it even more amazing. 

Anyways, the devotional was exactly what I needed to really get me into the Christmas spirit. President Monson talked about how we need to not forget the true meaning of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus the Christ and not to let it turn into a commercialized holiday. I've made an effort to do that this year. The reason we get to celebrate is because Christ chose to come to earth, knowing he'd have to die for all of us. THAT is the true meaning of Christmas. 

Festival of Trees

Fudge Bar? Count me in! 

Warm carmel + apples = a very happy Jacky (even if I did eat most of them and didn't share with Todd. oopsie) 

I have a quilt that has these exact same girls. It was my dad's baby blanket and I have it now. It's my favorite. 

It's no secret that I adore Christmas. I love it. I love the lights, the trees, the food, the time I get to spend with my family and most of all, I love that it reminds me that Christ was born to save me. He was born to save you too. He was born to save everyone that came before him, were there with him, and were to come after him. THAT is the true meaning of Christmas. 

But, I digress. This weekend was the 41st Annual Festival of Trees. This event is done every year to benefit Primary Children's hospital here in Salt Lake. Every single penny raised during the three days that this event goes on goes straight to help the hospital. Pretty cool, right? Right. 

I wasn't sure if we'd be able to go because I've been working a lot of evening shifts but someone needed their morning shift covered today so I switched and got to go! After ridiculous traffic issues and walking about 10,000 miles (okay, maybe it was like not even .25 miles. It might have actually been just across the street...shhh) in the bitter cold, we finally got there. 

It. Was. Packed. 

But, it was fun too. 

They not only had Christmas Trees (like 10,000 of them) that were all amazingly decorated, they had wreaths, quilts, and a bunch of other cool Christmas themed things. The Tangled gingerbread house was pretty cool. So was the UP! tree. 

If you missed it this year, you should totally try to make it down there next year! It's one of those cool Utah events that make me love this place even more.