My Family Has Turned On Me

So this Christmas was my first not spending Christmas Eve with my Mom and the Italian family. It was kinda weird not being there, but cool to be a part of Jake's family's celebration. Two days later Jake and I got together with Mom and the gang to exchange gifts. As I was washing a dish after our traditional Cinnabon breakfast, a notepad by the phone caught my eye. What was written down perked my interested because it didn't make sense like, "Pick up milk at the store" or "Call your mother back". I kept reading it over and over trying to figure out what the writer had jotted down, until it hit me...

I took the pic with my camera phone so it's kinda fuzzy but I wanted to document this betrayal (jk). Here's what it says line by line...

Chris by Christmas 2009
Ken (my uncle) - January 2010
Nancy - May 2010

Ummm yeah... While I was at Jake's family's Christmas, MY family was making bets with each other about when I will have a baby. And this wasn't just a nonchalant conversation over dinner... they had it written down and everything! Sheesh, you get married and people are on to expecting what's next! I am however willing (for a generous fee) to help tip the scales if anyone's interested. LOL JK

A Jake & Bri Christmas!

I can officially say without a doubt this year's Christmas has been the best and most relaxing Jake and I have had in about 5 years. How come? Well, because Jake has a job where I see him nights and weekends now. It's incredible. We definitely took advantage of the time together and got "Christmasy".

Jake put lights on the house... (we've never done that before) We bought those old-fashioned large bulbs. Aren't they cute? We keep getting compliments. The rest of the house was too high for Jake to get to and we ran out of lights, so that's why it might look half done. Hey, it's our first time. :)



Every year we buy a Christmas ornament that represents the year together. How apropos is this?

Then, with all of the extra time on my hands from having my husband around I decided to re-live my childhood and bake and decorate cookies. I didn't realize that this really wasn't Jake's thing, so I ended up decorating about 4 dozen cookies. Whoops. :) It still was pretty fun, but after a while I felt like I Love Lucy in the candy shop, "Speeder up!" Jake and I adopted a family this Christmas so I gave them some cookies and I also brought some to 2 different Christmas parties. They were a hit!

Oh yeah, and then there was Elf Night... the youth group's annual party event where we get all of the kids together for a nightly showing of the movie "Elf". We have hot chocolate and cookies and everyone dresses up. It was actually pretty fun. The kids LOVED Jake. This picture was taken by my mother-in-law Shari - her and her friends stayed over for a conference in Phoenix and they arrived just as we were out the door. So embarrassing but pretty funny!

And that's it! We'll be back in SoCal on Christmas Eve and have 4 family Christmas parties to attend. We're really excited to see everyone. Hopefully we can get together with friends too.