'Married' Christmas and a Happy 'Newlywed' Year!

To say that life has been pretty hectic is a serious understatement. That being said, I'd like to apologize in advance for the length of this post but let's face it, I have a lot to catch up on.

First things first..... WE MOVED INTO OUR OWN APARTMENT!!!!!! I can't even describe my happiness to be settled down in our own place. Of course we still have a lot of things to still get for it (mainly a washer and dryer) but Spencer and I have decided that we will not go crazy and spend a bunch of money we don't have in things for our apartment. The plan is to focus on one room a month all while saving up for the washer and dryer. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess I should start out by saying that we moved to Spanish Fork. We are about 5 minutes away from the Keeles and about 7 minutes away from the Titas. What does that mean for us? Well... it means that we can always go have Sunday dinner with one of the families and then return to the comfort of our home...ALONE!. It is really the most wonderful thing. You probably want to see pictures don't you? Well, I have decided to call these the "before" pictures. That way when we finish the rooms I can post about them individuality. Silly, I know, but hey... it's our first apartment

This is the outside of our house (the numbers have been blocked out.... this is the Internet after all)

This is the first view you have when you come into our apartment...and.... 

.... if you look to the right.....and...

....and the left.

This is our living room. The space on that wall is specifically designated for a picture of our wedding. We even have the frame for it already, we are just waiting to get our pictures

The front door

The kitchen....PS did you notice my KitchenAid mixer? That's right ;) 

The Hall (obviously) and the first door on the left....

Our computer/music/storage room. We are still deciding how to best arrange this room. You can't see it in the picture, but there is another chair in the corner, we want to try to put them together.

Second door on the left... The "Family room" 

Spencer loves those dragons.... That's all I'm going to say on the matter

This is the hall that leads to our bedroom and the bathroom 

This is our room... In case you are wondering, yes, the bed is in fact the  wrong way. The problem is that Spencer gets headaches from sleeping under the cold window so we are sleeping this way until we get curtains for it (probably the end of February)

The bathroom :) sorry about the angel, I was kind of lazy when I was taking these pictures

This is the view you get as soon as you come out the backdoor. We have a pretty big parking lot for tenants (not pictured) and that little grassy area on the left.

And that's our back door

I am over the moon with our apartment... I love it So Much!

That concludes our tour.

So a very belated Merry Christmas to every one and a Happy New Year! We had so much fun over the Holidays. I almost feel weird writing about it now because it seems like they were so long ago (just like our wedding seems ages ago even though it was only two months). So we spent Christmas Eve with the Keeles at the Swenson party. It was so much fun. They have a lot of different traditions that they do including (but not excluded to) eating until you pass out, Candy Christmas Tress, Minute-to-win-it games, White Elephant gift exchange, and a Nativity. The only bummer of the night... my camera was out of battery! I wasn't able to take a single picture Christmas (or Christmas Day for that matter). Luckily, my mother-in-law took pictures and I was able to download them from her Facebook page.

This is us decorating ice cream cones with frosting so they look like Christmas Trees and then preceding to put candy all over them. Technically it was only for the little kids but I got in with the pretense of helping little darling Darcy with hers.

In the minute-to-win-it games, it came down to Spencer, Eric, and Jacob in an epic battle of seeing who could build the tallest tower of whipped cream. Eric won which was funny because technically he was the underdog. 

We then moved to the Nativity. Mark read the passage from the bible while my siblings-in-law were part of it (Julianna was an angel, Adam was a shepherd, and Nate was Joseph). The funniest part of the whole thing was when Ally's baby, Brody, was chosen to to play the very important part of baby Jesus, something he must have taken to heart because after they laid him down on the floor he just stayed there. The ENTIRE time. Just laid there looking at the kids in the different rolls coming to sit around him.

Everyone was very impressed with him. Of course, it did make it harder for us to concentrate on  anything else and just laughed the whole time. 

 The closing of the night was a White Elephant gift exchange in which I walked out with a book called "You are Special", a small notebook, and "The Blind Side" of DVD. Spencer, on the other hand, walked out with a very nice collection of Disney Princesses' Lip Balm in the scents of: Fairest Apple (Snow White), Watermelon (Ariel), Grape (Tiana), Blueberry (Cinderella), and Strawberry (Sleeping Beauty). So far I have only used Snow White and let me teel you it is just about the greatest lip balm ever. My lips feel great.

Christmas Day we woke up to a very nice surprise, Santa had come to our house. He had even eaten the cookies I had made for him the night before and drunken the eggnog. We got so many wonderful things (but I'm not going to reveal them... I don't want to brag). Although I will say this, Santa has incredible taste. 

We then went over to the Keele house to exchange the presents we had gotten for the name drawing (I got Nate and Spencer got Julianna). 

Opening the present from Julie (lots of candy, and "The Help")

Then, we went over to my parents house for breakfast and, after coming back from Sacrament Meeting, spend the rest of the day with my family. My mom made some delicious milanesas for dinner (my dad's favorite she makes them every year) and we played Mario Kart to our hearts delight. I know how or when it happened but at one point, everyone went to bed and left Spencer and I on the couch in the family room. That suited Spencer just fine, he got to watch the basketball games on TV and I got to cuddle up and take a nap in his arms.

It was an extremely wonderful Christmas. 

New Year's Eve we spent the entire day cleaning the house and putting things away. We had already decided to just stay at home by ourselves so we just worked all day until about a quarter to midnight when we stopped and made some resolutions with just enough time to toast with our brand new wineglasses (a present from Santa... oops). It was a lovely evening. We were able to raise the blinds, sit at the table in the kitchen and see the fireworks. 

I guess that finally catches us up to today. We are currently staying at my in-laws house. They are all on a cruise (what Santa brought them for Christmas) and Spencer and I agree to house sit and, most importantly dog-sit.  It's been pretty fun staying here. They have a huge TV, and Tivo. Best of all, we were able to hook up the HDMI cable for our Bluray player and have been able to enjoy movies like never before (although it did make me realize that we might as well have been watching movies through murky water with our TVs at home. It's going to be hard to go back).

A highlight of staying here is that since everyone is the cruise, Spencer and I got to 'represent' and Kate (Spencer's cousin) and Taylor wedding last Saturday, and that included sealing as well. It  was awesome and Spencer and I went back after lunch and did sealing for the dead. (of course I have no pictures, even though we spent all day having adventures at Temple Square....silly me)

All and all, it has been an extremely good couple of weeks. I promise to start being better at taking pictures from now on... promise.

PS did you notice the college at the top? They are some of the "sneak-peak" pictures that were posted on Facebook