The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

A lot has happened here recently! The biggest highlights were:

• For Thanksgiving, we went down to Provo and spent Thanksgiving with the Bells and Jordan at Nick's sister, Katie's house. It was so nice of them to have us! The food was incredible, and we all had a great time hanging out together.
• 2 days after Thanksgiving, we went to Josh's sister, Jilleena's wedding. She married Chris Meredith in the Salt Lake City temple. The wedding was so beautiful!
• At this reception, I lost my camera, which was a bummer. But, what goes around comes back around. At work, some one also left their camera at a reception and it went unclaimed for months. Because no one claimed it, my boss said that I could have it. So, fortunately, I had a camera to document our first Christmas together! We had Christmas here in Utah this year. Since we were spending Christmas out here, we made sure that our apartment was very festive.

Along with all the dozens of other traits I've inherited from my mom, one of them was a driving need to make the Christmas tree match our apartment. So we decorated it all in chocolate brown and gold.

My parents gave us this adorable angel ornament that has our names, 2009, and "First Christmas" engraved on it. We also got a 2009 ornament.

Every year the Bensons have a gingerbread house building night, and that's where me and Josh made this train. Recently, we also got a new couch and entertainment center, and they've made such a big difference in our apartment.

A few days before Christmas, Josh and I went over to the Bell's. Neither Lindsey or I went to South Carolina for Christmas, so we decided to do our own little get together before she, Nick, and Makenzie left for Oregon. We did our Brown Family traditions: Lindsey made potato soup, and then we all watched The Grinch. We had a great time!

Josh and I had a great Christmas Eve together. I got a roast cooking, and then we left to go see a movie at the dollar theatre. We ended up seeing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I was excited to see it, because I loved that book when I was younger.

After the movie, we headed back to our apartment. It was so nice to walk in to the smell of roast, carrots, potatoes, and onions cooking! Then, once we were back, it was time to start cooking the rest of the dinner: mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, and rolls (but the rolls were easy, because all I had to do was take them out of the bag...).

Josh found a way to keep himself entertained while I cooked (don't worry, he definitely offered to help).

After the dinner was cooked, he himself, The Grinch, carved the roast beast.

Then we enjoyed a delicious meal. We were so full for hours afterward, that we couldn't even eat the cheesecake I had made!

After dinner, we each got to open 1 present. Apparently, Josh and I think A LOT alike, because we both got each other the game "Clue." But one was Harry Potter clue, so I guess they're a little different...
After that, we watched It's a Wonderful Life. That's a Brown family favorite Christmas movie, and Christmas wouldn't have been complete with out watching it. This was Josh's first time seeing it, but he really liked it! Which is good, because he'll be watching it every year for the rest of eternity... On Christmas morning, Josh and I slept-in a little bit and then opened our presents and stockings! Josh had us wear matching pajama pants, because that's what his family did growing up! We also got him a Santa hat.

Here's the carnage... We made a good haul this year!

Once we were done, I called home and talked to my family while Josh made a huge Christmas breakfast! Belgain waffles with Strawberry topping and whipped cream (his topping was even homemade!), eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls!

We made a cookie-brownie dessert for the Benson Family Christmas Dinner and headed down to Provo! We had a big dinnner and spent a lot of time with all of the Benson's, and then had a Christmas present exchange. It was so fun to have everyone together! I need to get pictures of everything from one of Josh's siblings. (I'm so bad about taking pictures when there's other people doing it, because I always figure I can get them from someone else later...)

So, all in all, our first Christmas together was amazing! I can't believe it's already over. And now I have to start thinking about taking down Christmas decorations...