Yay Christmas!!

I know it's not much, but we've put up our Christmas decor. This is our very first Christmas tree, and I really like it- but boy is it a pain to put lights on a tree. I arranged and then re-arranged them like 4 times. It took forever!

We even have a fireplace for our stockings! Spencer and I bought 2 when we were out shopping, and then I found my old one in my ornament box. So I just figured I might as well hang them all, couldn't hurt to have a little extra color.

The Nativity.
My Mother-in-law gets me a new addition to the Willow Tree Nativity for Christmas every year. Such a great gift!

New Additions

This is our loot from the day after Thanksgiving. And thanks to Spencer's gift cards at Best Buy and Target, we only spent $10.

Here are some other purchases we recently made that are unrelated to the sales on Friday (but I am just as excited about):

A baking rack for the kitchen...

and a console table for the living room.

We even ordered a real dining table! So come Dec. 28, we'll finally be saying "goodbye" to our ghetto card table and folding chairs. Hallelujah.

The Black Eye Story

Well, as it turns out, the story of how I got my black eye is not all that exciting. Katrina and Ashlee's guesses were the closest, but thanks for humoring me with all of your other scenarios.

So here's how it happened- Spencer and I play volleyball in a league with some people from our ward/dental school. We had a game on Tuesday night, and I was playing middle hitter. This guy and I went up to block a hit from the other team, and when he brought his arms down his elbow knocked me in the face (which I suppose is less embarrassing than getting hit in the face with a ball). It didn't hurt that bad, but I couldn't see at first because my contact was all messed up in that eye. Then it fell out completely, and Spencer found it on the ground. So we called a quick time out, I went to the bathroom to put my contact back in, and we played 2 more games.

Over the past few days it has been really interesting to run errands with Spencer, because after people look at me, they almost always glance at Spencer with an assuming look in their eyes. And that just makes me mad.

Happy Thanksgiving

This year we went to my Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving. It was the first time I'd been there since high school, and boy was it good to go back! My aunts' sure do make a mean Thanksgiving dinner.

Don't be fooled by the almost-empty table. This is after the full meal, winding down with some of Jacque's yummy pie.

When we got home, we started making plans for our early morning shopping tomorrow. And so far it just sounds... early.

Just in Time for the Holidays

Tonight I got my first black eye since I was 5 years old.

I've been trying to think of a cool story to tell people about how I got it, since I will inevitably get lots of questions on Thanksgiving Day, at church, etc. How do you think it happened?

We're Looking Forward To...

• Spencer being done with his finals tomorrow!
• A week off for Thanksgiving break, with the day-of feast taking place at my Grandpa's house.
• Day after Thanksgiving shopping. We were sold last year when we got some sweet movie deals in the wee hours of the morn. Spencer has been saving a $25 Target gift card since last December for this very day.
• Escaping Ohio's cold December weather for a week long cruise visiting:

herehere

hereand here.

It will be our first cruising experience, so any advice from you seasoned cruisers would be much appreciated. I've already told Spencer that I'm determined to do some karaoke on the ship since I was too chicken to do it at the resort we stayed at on our honeymoon.

Happy Halloveen

In true cheap-people fashion, we recycled our Halloween costumes from last year. Unfortunately, we had to go fang-less this time because I procrastinated the whole "buying makeup and fangs" thing until the day of. Apparently stores (Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS Pharmacy, Family Dollar- I tried so hard!!) were cleaned out long before Halloween day. Imagine that.

Despite that minor difficulty, we had a good time celebrating with some friends from our ward.

The Cook's were cooks.

The Beacham's were ninjas, and the Carr's were a dental student and a pregnant wife.

We played the toilet paper mummy game- I was pretty slow at wrapping Spencer, and as you can tell, I didn't do a very good job. But I thought this picture was pretty creepy, especially because of the red eyes. Lookin' good Recneps.