A very Merry and Urple Christmas!
First things first - must update this blog!
Thanksgiving
It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving was a month ago already! It was a little different for us this year, but still a good time. First, we couldn't decide whose house to go to and when. Both of our families normally do a dinner on the day, but this year my mom decided not to invite all of the extended family in case they wanted to do their own thing. My two older brothers and their families were also doing separate things, as was my younger brother, so it was just going to be my mom and dad cooking dinner for themselves (and us).
On the other side, Dan's family always gets together on the day and the day after, and it would be a full house there. We first threw out the idea of having dinner at our new apartment and inviting everyone over. That way my mom and dad would have somewhere to go instead of cooking dinner just for the four of us (even though that would've been nice and small), and we wouldn't have to worry about being in two places at once. Of course, there is the fact that Dan's family has two days of dinners while my family only has one day, which could make things a lot easier, but that's a whole different story!
Anyway, we were all prepared to do the dinner at our place and have everyone over, but that idea fell through at the last minute because of extra family on Dan's side. We didn't think that our apartment could hold everyone. We ended up with Dan's parents hosting everything at their house and invited my parents there instead. It was somewhat weird at first, even though our parents had met before, but things went well and dinner was good.
I don't know if we'll do it the same next year or not. If we tried to invite more of my family along with the same family members that are normally at Dan's holidays, then there's no way we're going to fit everyone in one place. It seems easier just to have two separate parties/days.
Tree-trimming party
Ever since we moved we've wanted to have a housewarming party, but the time never seemed right. We were either busy unpacking, or Dan was in South Africa, or something else was going on. The weekend after Thanksgiving, though, seemed like the perfect time to have one. And since we got a new tree and didn't have any decorations for it, we deemed our party a tree-trimming house-warming party! Of course, a week before the party we wanted to get ribbon and beads for the tree, and ended up buying some bulb ornaments anyway, but those are just details!
Somehow we fit about 30 people into our place and had quite a successful party! We had an assortment of food trays, dips, snacks, and desserts, and received a ton of cute ornaments and other great housewarming gifts! Sure, the red and gold glitter bulbs were great on our tree with ribbon and beads, but the ornaments from our friends and family just made the tree so much more personal. That's exactly what I wanted.
Christmas
Christmas has come and gone so quickly! I really wasn't ready for it, and now it's over!
One thing we did get to do was invite the families to a Christmas show at our church called Imagine. I think we all really enjoyed it (especially the free hot chocolate, coffee, and sodas...but free coffee and sodas are nothing new at our church, hehe. I made sure to stuff my hot chocolate with as many marshmallows as I could!) Both families enjoyed our church in general, so we're hoping that some of them will check it out more in the future. We also got a decent picture before we left. I took out most of the red eyes (especially my demon eyes), printed out the pictures for both families, and framed them as gifts! Wa-la! Click to enlarge.
L to R: my brother, my dad, Dan's grandma, Dan's grandpa, my mom, Dan's two brothers, Dan's dad, Dan's mom, Dan, me.
Christmas was a little easier to handle than Thanksgiving, since my parents normally do the Eve thing, but his also do the Eve thing along with Christmas day. We also needed to fit in a trip to visit my older brothers and their families for a mini Christmas. In the end, we went to visit my parents and younger brother around 2:00 on the Eve, went with them to visit the older brothers at 5:30, and Dan's parents agreed to come to our place for their festivities around 8:30 so we wouldn't have to drive to a third place. Christmas day was spent sleeping in and spending the rest of it at Dan's parents' house. Whew! My parents were invited to visit Dan's parents on Christmas day, but they just wanted to relax at home. Now I know where I get it from!
As for the gifts, I didn't ask for much this year because I wasn't sure what I wanted! Everything I see is something that could go on our registry, or it's something I'd rather pick out myself, so it was hard. I ended up with some great things, though. Dan ended up with pretty much everything he asked for. Of course he wanted a Nintendo Wii (bah-humbug), but they were nowhere to be found a long time ago. He did get a widescreen monitor like mine for his laptop, so we are widescreen twins!
Computer-wise for me, Dan got me a Wacom tablet! I've wanted one for a while so I could draw or write on my layouts, and he even got a widescreen one! I was going to try to write out a blog with it, but I'm not that good with it yet.
AND...speaking of widescreen twins, we also have some other "twins" in the house! When Dan's parents came over on Christmas Eve, Dan told me to sit down so I could open my gifts first. I was NOT happy because I wanted to save our gifts until Christmas morning. After refusing several times, I finally plopped down on the couch. Then, he placed in front of me a wrapped cage with the front open and two little kitties inside. How could I be mad after that? He adopted two little sisters about 5 months old!
We've been throwing around names for them, and one is definite so far. They came with red and purple collars, and we were thinking of going with something Christmas-y...so we thought Merrybell/Meribelle for the red and Noel/Nelly for the purple. Then, I was calling the purple one Purple Urpel, and the Urpel kind of stuck. For the red, we thought we could do the same like Red Ed and call her Edna. I'm not sure if I can say Edna yet without thinking of an old lady, so her name might be some variation of Merrybell. Either way, here are some pictures of my "twins," since they follow each other around and do the same things. Although, the red one has a slightly smaller head than the purple one and has been squeezing herself under our couch to hide since yesterday.
Dan with our little red girl
Dan with our little purple girl
Aren't they precious?!
If you've made it this far without skimming I'm thoroughly impressed since this post was the most boring ever! I was tagged by Stephanie with Christmas questions, but I think those would get lost at the bottom of this post. I'll make sure to do them soon! ;)
I'm going to try to get at least ONE layout done tonight! It's been a while, I may have forgotten how to scrap!
OH, and P.S. - Five more months until the wedding!
Thanksgiving
It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving was a month ago already! It was a little different for us this year, but still a good time. First, we couldn't decide whose house to go to and when. Both of our families normally do a dinner on the day, but this year my mom decided not to invite all of the extended family in case they wanted to do their own thing. My two older brothers and their families were also doing separate things, as was my younger brother, so it was just going to be my mom and dad cooking dinner for themselves (and us).
On the other side, Dan's family always gets together on the day and the day after, and it would be a full house there. We first threw out the idea of having dinner at our new apartment and inviting everyone over. That way my mom and dad would have somewhere to go instead of cooking dinner just for the four of us (even though that would've been nice and small), and we wouldn't have to worry about being in two places at once. Of course, there is the fact that Dan's family has two days of dinners while my family only has one day, which could make things a lot easier, but that's a whole different story!
Anyway, we were all prepared to do the dinner at our place and have everyone over, but that idea fell through at the last minute because of extra family on Dan's side. We didn't think that our apartment could hold everyone. We ended up with Dan's parents hosting everything at their house and invited my parents there instead. It was somewhat weird at first, even though our parents had met before, but things went well and dinner was good.
I don't know if we'll do it the same next year or not. If we tried to invite more of my family along with the same family members that are normally at Dan's holidays, then there's no way we're going to fit everyone in one place. It seems easier just to have two separate parties/days.
Tree-trimming party
Ever since we moved we've wanted to have a housewarming party, but the time never seemed right. We were either busy unpacking, or Dan was in South Africa, or something else was going on. The weekend after Thanksgiving, though, seemed like the perfect time to have one. And since we got a new tree and didn't have any decorations for it, we deemed our party a tree-trimming house-warming party! Of course, a week before the party we wanted to get ribbon and beads for the tree, and ended up buying some bulb ornaments anyway, but those are just details!
Somehow we fit about 30 people into our place and had quite a successful party! We had an assortment of food trays, dips, snacks, and desserts, and received a ton of cute ornaments and other great housewarming gifts! Sure, the red and gold glitter bulbs were great on our tree with ribbon and beads, but the ornaments from our friends and family just made the tree so much more personal. That's exactly what I wanted.
Christmas
Christmas has come and gone so quickly! I really wasn't ready for it, and now it's over!
One thing we did get to do was invite the families to a Christmas show at our church called Imagine. I think we all really enjoyed it (especially the free hot chocolate, coffee, and sodas...but free coffee and sodas are nothing new at our church, hehe. I made sure to stuff my hot chocolate with as many marshmallows as I could!) Both families enjoyed our church in general, so we're hoping that some of them will check it out more in the future. We also got a decent picture before we left. I took out most of the red eyes (especially my demon eyes), printed out the pictures for both families, and framed them as gifts! Wa-la! Click to enlarge.
L to R: my brother, my dad, Dan's grandma, Dan's grandpa, my mom, Dan's two brothers, Dan's dad, Dan's mom, Dan, me.
Christmas was a little easier to handle than Thanksgiving, since my parents normally do the Eve thing, but his also do the Eve thing along with Christmas day. We also needed to fit in a trip to visit my older brothers and their families for a mini Christmas. In the end, we went to visit my parents and younger brother around 2:00 on the Eve, went with them to visit the older brothers at 5:30, and Dan's parents agreed to come to our place for their festivities around 8:30 so we wouldn't have to drive to a third place. Christmas day was spent sleeping in and spending the rest of it at Dan's parents' house. Whew! My parents were invited to visit Dan's parents on Christmas day, but they just wanted to relax at home. Now I know where I get it from!
As for the gifts, I didn't ask for much this year because I wasn't sure what I wanted! Everything I see is something that could go on our registry, or it's something I'd rather pick out myself, so it was hard. I ended up with some great things, though. Dan ended up with pretty much everything he asked for. Of course he wanted a Nintendo Wii (bah-humbug), but they were nowhere to be found a long time ago. He did get a widescreen monitor like mine for his laptop, so we are widescreen twins!
Computer-wise for me, Dan got me a Wacom tablet! I've wanted one for a while so I could draw or write on my layouts, and he even got a widescreen one! I was going to try to write out a blog with it, but I'm not that good with it yet.
AND...speaking of widescreen twins, we also have some other "twins" in the house! When Dan's parents came over on Christmas Eve, Dan told me to sit down so I could open my gifts first. I was NOT happy because I wanted to save our gifts until Christmas morning. After refusing several times, I finally plopped down on the couch. Then, he placed in front of me a wrapped cage with the front open and two little kitties inside. How could I be mad after that? He adopted two little sisters about 5 months old!
We've been throwing around names for them, and one is definite so far. They came with red and purple collars, and we were thinking of going with something Christmas-y...so we thought Merrybell/Meribelle for the red and Noel/Nelly for the purple. Then, I was calling the purple one Purple Urpel, and the Urpel kind of stuck. For the red, we thought we could do the same like Red Ed and call her Edna. I'm not sure if I can say Edna yet without thinking of an old lady, so her name might be some variation of Merrybell. Either way, here are some pictures of my "twins," since they follow each other around and do the same things. Although, the red one has a slightly smaller head than the purple one and has been squeezing herself under our couch to hide since yesterday.
Dan with our little red girl
Dan with our little purple girl
Aren't they precious?!
If you've made it this far without skimming I'm thoroughly impressed since this post was the most boring ever! I was tagged by Stephanie with Christmas questions, but I think those would get lost at the bottom of this post. I'll make sure to do them soon! ;)
I'm going to try to get at least ONE layout done tonight! It's been a while, I may have forgotten how to scrap!
OH, and P.S. - Five more months until the wedding!
