.christmas 2009.

Today I will share with you the story of Kenny and Kristin's First Christmas. Our celebrations began on the 23rd with just the two of us opening our presents to each other. We pretended like it was really Christmas and had a sleepover in the living room and opened presents first thing in the morning.

Kenny was excited:

And he thought it was funny when he opened his first present and found a Transformers toy:

He also got the one thing he REALLY wanted: a really nerdy really cool game from his awesome wife:

Kristin was also excited.

And was so happy to find that her husband is really good at picking out clothes for her. She also got this necklace that she really really wanted:

For our next celebration we went to Hoytsville, where our Christmas Eve activity was bundling up and sledding down the giant hill behind their house and sleigh-riding with their horses. It was all very picturesque... yet I seem to have forgotten to photograph that part. I do have this very unflattering photo of me on the sleigh with Kenny and Kelsi though:

These are the Browns' gigantic stockings (the green one is for the dog and is regular-sized to show you just how big the others are).

And this is what the present sitation looked like for a family of nine people:

Christmas morning we woke up EARLY and opened presents with Kenny's family and then headed to my parents' cabin in Heber to open presents with my family.

(as you look at these pictures coming up, please try to ignore the not very good quality of the photos I took this weekend--some things seemed more important than making pretty pictures, I guess. :))

(oh and also... be prepared for a lot of Jack...)

(he is laying on the floor with the dog here, if you can't tell):

(and I'm not sure what these next two are about, but they are just funny):

We spent Christmas day and the day after at the cabin and then headed back home to Logan for early church the next morning. This was a great day because I got to wear some of my fancy new clothes my mom gave me:

And Kenny got to play with his new juicer. We made LOTS of juice that day.

OH AND! Yesterday we went to the mall to exchange some shirts I got Kenny (my mom and I got Kenny the exact same sweater at American Eagle...) and I left with this CUTE new coat from Aeropostale. It was 70% off $119.50, which as my human calculator of a husband informed me was only $35 or something. You can't really tell, but it's a navy blue peacoat with a hood. And I loooove it.

Okay so maybe I also got a new purse too. But it was 70% off too, so it's okay, right?

So that concludes the saga of our Christmas. One more holiday to go before facing the bleak month of January, so let's enjoy it, okay? Okay.

.oh baby.

Last week at a ward activity, Kenny held a really cute three month old baby. And after a minute of bouncing and staring into his big beautiful eyes, he looked at me and uttered these words:

"I want one."

I gasped. "OKAY!"

"But not right now," Kenny hastened to add.

"I know...." I replied grudgingly.

The second half of that conversation is one we have had numerous times, me mentioning my itch for mothering and Kenny reminding me that we can barely feed and clothe ourselves right now, let alone a baby. Plus the fact that when we do have a baby I'll quit my job, which is the source of most of our income. :) I do agree with the logic, but when confronted with cute babies and toddlers, I can't help but get excited for when that time comes....

So no baby for a while yet. But in the meantime, I get to enjoy cuties like this:

.this weekend.

My weekend included:

• two days taking care of Kenny's four-year-old brother and eight-year-old sister
• about six too many Disney movies (totally should have seen that coming)
• a slumber party in the living room
• Kenny teaching them early the evils of card games

• making glittery Christmas cards

Ellie made this one for her puppy Marley. CUTE huh?

 (p.s. do you like our teeny tree??)

Also...

• a jillion emails from Amazon, where most of my Christmas shopping has been done
• seeing The Princess and the Frog (ummm... I LOVED IT)
• a Christmas bonus from work
• a drive to Salt Lake to return the children
• and a surprise visit to see my parents in Centerville

Basically, it was a good weekend.

And now there are only three and a half days until Christmas!!

.katrina & jeff.

Remember how I got a cool new camera? And then how I had a contest for a free session so I could test it out on some people? Well these guys were the winners. We did their session at the Salt Lake library, which I LOVE. Even though it was FREEEEEZING cold, they were tough and we did most of it outside.

Meet Katrina and Jeff. They are so cute together. And they have the cutest engagement story. It involves him surprising her by whisking her away to California for a day and proposing on a pier and then going to Disneyland. AND they're going back to San Diego for the wedding. Ahhhh California... Kenny's love for it has SO rubbed off on me....

Anyway. This session was a really really good one for me. I think possibly a turning point in my photographic career?? I don't know. I just felt really good about it and had SUCH fun editing the photos. Some of my new all-time favorites came from this. So here they are... hopefully I didn't talk them up too much....

:)

a favorite:

while in the library, I found this book to be quite appropriate:

I don't know which of the following two I like better, so you get to see both. I really love them, I think because they're somewhat reminiscent of the proposal on a pier and all... I don't know.... :)

and here you go, an all-time favorite favorite favorite:

p.s. the photos look better in person than on dumb old blogger. just so you know.

.a word.

My brain has been a jumbly mess of thoughts and frustrations lately, especially yesterday and today. So because I can't make my own words out of all that jumbliness, today I'm giving you someone else's words that I need to hear.

"Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down."

-Marvin J. Ashton

.today's project.

Here is what I've been working on today. This was one of my favorite sessions so far. :)

p.s. for katrina: they will be done in the next couple days. :)

.the tree.

Since the day after Thanksgiving, I was pining (get it??) for a Christmas tree for our little apartment. Kenny didn't quite understand this need of mine, but I really felt like we needed one for our first married Christmas. So I persuaded Kenny into the deal that if we could find one for under $20, we could justify buying it.

So we began our search. And what we learned from this experience is that the price of a tree is in direct proportion to the number of branches on the tree. The bushier it is, the more it will cost you.

Our tree was ten dollars.

After much indecision, the tree we settled on was a sparse one that I felt sort of bad for. I knew I could make it beautiful though and this is what we now have in our living room:

Yay! It's white and silver and wonderful. I still don't have a star for the top, but that is because all the stars I've seen are ugly. This is my first time having a real tree. I really like it, except I'm paranoid it's going to go up in flames one of these days. So I keep it very hydrated. I like that real trees are all different though. My favorite part of our tree is the bald spot towards the bottom.

I love Christmas.