It's all about giving, right?

Merry late Christmas, everyone!

How did you enjoy your Christmas? Mine? It was legit. BEYOND legit.

The only thing that I have asked for since me and my husband have been married, is a dehydrator. I registered for one. I've attempted to buy one, but didn't. I almost bought one with my Christmas work party money. But the whole time, John has constantly repeated "That is the BIGGEST waste of money. We will never buy one. You will use it for two weeks, then it will sit there and collect dust. My mom had one and she never used it. We are not buying one." And for the longest time, I thought he was just saying that because he got me one for Christmas and just wanted to surprise me. But my husband was VERY convincing. I really gave up on believing that he got me one because he was just so negative about it. Come Christmas day, I still had no idea what he had gotten me. We were opening gifts and mine was a HUGE box. Inside, there was a really nice wooden cutting board that I had wanted. Alongside that, there was another big box inSIDE the big box. So I pull that out and open it up. Low and behold, a food dehydrator was inside. I was so mad at John for making me believe that he didn't get me one! Long story short, my husband is very good at surprising me. And I love him with all of my heart.

For John, Christmas was extra special this year. A few months ago, we brought over some boxes from his old apartment that we needed to go through. Most of it was random junk collected over the years. Among the junk filled boxes, there was a box with all of the letters and little things from his mission that he served over 10 years ago. Going through it, I thought, "Why on earth do you still have all of this stuff? Why didn't you just through it away?" Then it hit me. Make a scrapbook for Christmas! So off I went. I gathered up a nice big book, lots of clear inserts, and cute paper. It took me about 2 weeks working on it at night while John was at work to finish it. I was so excited for him to see it, that I almost told him about it before Christmas. For a while, I was nervous that he wouldn't like; that it would just be an "Ehh" gift. After talking to my mom and showing my coworkers the book, my thoughts had changed. I was SOO excited to show him! So he first opened up a watch that I bought for him, a sweater, and some LEGOs. Then it was time for the book. I told him to open it very carefully because the front and back cover kept shifting because it was so thick. He took the wrapping paper off, and opened the cover. The front page was a little hand sewn picture from a family in his mission. He didn't quite get what it was until he turned the page. Since I couldn't find his mission call, the next best thing was an announcement of his mission call in the newspaper that he had kept. Next to that sat his mission tags. "Called to Serve. Australia, Sydney North Mission. 2001-2003" was written right in the middle. On the next page, there was some Australian dollar bills (which are plastic and part of it is see-through. Very weird.) and coins, along with his plane ticket to Sydney. As I look over at John, his lip started to quiver and tears started to drop. "SCORE!" And of course, that automatically made me cry as well. John's nephew, who is 8, said, "Caren, are you crying too? Gosh. What a bunch of cry babies." I couldn't help but laugh because he didn't understand the seriousness of this. I'm just glad that my husband enjoyed it as much as he did. (Side note: I love the fact that my husband does cry occasionally. Not very often, but when something means a lot, he is not afraid to show his emotions)

This year, my family drew names for Christmas. I drew my mom's name, and John drew my older sister's name, Dawna. I had a few ideas for both, but then I saw this website where you can turn Instagram photos into a book. I knew that I wanted to make a book of "Tatum's First Year in Instagram". I then made John trade names with me. (So when I accidentally texted you Dawna, I really was asking for John even though I meant to text mom.) The only problem with switching names, is what the heck is John going to get his new mother-in-law who he has only known for a short time. Oops... I walked into work one day and the CEO had his little side business out in the conference room. QR Cuties. What is a QR Cutie you ask? Well it is a really cute necklace, with a QR code on the back. You can attach a video, a slideshow, ANYTHING to the QR code. And you can change it as many times as you want. So essentially, it's a modern day locket. I knew this would be PERFECT to give to my mom from John.

When John and I were in Salt Lake at the temple lights with some family, we recorded a video for her and uploaded it to the QR code. I was so excited to see her reaction.

Christmas came and my dad recorded her reaction to the necklace. And just as I had suspected, knowing my mom, she cried. I thought to myself, "SCORE!" Now it was Dawna's turn to open her gift. Unfortunately, the video didn't get saved properly. But my grandpa did get a few good pictures of when she was reading through it. Low and behold, tears fell from her face. "SCORE!" I was on a roll. John says that I was a bully this Christmas because I made everyone cry. What can I say :) I love my family and I love giving them things that they can cherish.

I would rather give 20 gifts that mean something rather than receive something. Seeing reactions to gifts is so much more meaningful and enjoyable than anything that I could receive. Granted, I am pretty dang excited about my dehydrator.

Lastly, just because I've never done this before and I figure, what the heck. There is an awesome giveaway by Very Jane and I WANT TO WIN SO BAD!! You shouldn't enter so that I have a better chance of winning ;) Okay, I'm just playing. You can enter. I guess. But go check them out! Here is where you can check out the details about the giveaway.

What was your favorite part about Christmas?

'Tis the Season

Holy crap. I haven't posted in almost a month! I am so sorry...

Truth is, life is pretty boring around these parts of town. But seeing as it is the holiday season, there have been more things that come up.

For example. Last Thursday, December 20th, I had my company party. It was a blast! Over the previous 2 weeks, 4 people would go out to lunch each day, at random, with a gift card to a certain restaurant provided by the big guys. When it was your turn to go to lunch, you received a huge stack of fake money that you would have to count out and divide it by 40 (the number of employees in the company). Upon your return back to work, you would then have to pass out the money to each employee. The amount of money ranged from $8 to $50 each day. Come the day of the Christmas party, everyone had gone to lunch and we had a nice stack of money. Nobody knew what we were going to do for the party, because the owners like to keep it a secret. I, for one, HATE surprises when I know there is going to be one. If someone says, "I have a surprise for you!" and then proceeds to not tell me, it drives me bonkers! Now, if I don't know that there is a surprise, and I am just surprised right then and there, then I don't mind it. I just hate the anticipation of not knowing something. So the whole two weeks that we were going to lunch and receiving CirclePix bucks, I think my department thought up at least 10 different possibilities of what we could be doing.

So the night of the party came, and we all met at the office. A few jokes were told, and some robot dances were danced. "Where can you buy a hand dipped ice cream cone?", the CEO asked. "Costco!" was the answer most employees gave. "Okay! We'll see you there in ten minutes!" So off we went. Still not knowing, but having a good idea, of what we were going to be doing. We arrive to Costco and wait inside until everyone was there. "How much CirclePix bucks do you all have? You will now have that much to spend on whatever you would like here. Meet back here in an hour!" And off we went! We could buy whatever we wanted! Cameras. Watches. Camping gear. Books. Cooking appliances. Vacuums. ANYTHING. We ended up getting some baking stuff, tupperware, a beard trimmer for John, and some crafty stuff for myself. Then we went to dinner at Magleby's, which was really good! While eating dinner, we got to watch a compilation video of the past year at CirclePix. There were pictures, videos of pranks or funny things, Halloween costumes, embarrassing moments, etc. At the end of the night, I was very glad that I work for such a good company. And I wouldn't change a thing.

December 21st came, and the world did not end.

December 22nd came, and I turned 21!!! Yay, I'm officially 100% legal now! Granted, the only thing that this really changes is my driver's license. Anywho, I was still excited :) When John and I woke up, he made me breakfast and we spent the morning watching The Great Mouse Detective on Netflix. After the movie, it was off to Salt Lake! I love Salt Lake and wish I could live there. We met up with John's sister and brother in law and their four adorable boys and John's younger brother. Lots of shopping commenced shortly thereafter. After we had our fill of shopping, we went to the movies and saw The Rise of the Guardians, which I thought was a very cute movie. Sadly, I have the Allred Girls' Curse. I did fall asleep in the movie for 10-15 minutes. {Side story. When I was in Junior High and my older sister was in High School, anytime we went to the movies as a family, our mom would make us pay for the movie. If we stayed awake, they would pay us back. But that didn't happen very often because we almost always fell asleep. And there are very few movies that I watch with my husband that I am actually awake the entire time for...}

Now you should know that my husband HATES seafood. And I LOVE it! If I could afford it, I would eat sushi all the days of my life. But alas, money does not grow on trees. Considering it was my birthday, John put his hatred for fish aside and let us go to Red Lobster for dinner. I proceeded to pound down a pound and a half of the best King Crap Legs I have ever eaten. Oh boy was it delicious!! John, on the other hand, had a nice medium rare steak. We were both very happy with our choices.

Since we are not going to Arizona for Christmas, and we are newlyweds with no pets (and sadly no Christmas tree) we are going to John's sister's house for Christmas Eve and spending the night to spend Christmas day with them. I am very excited to be around such a loving family. And I am so very excited for John to open one of his Christmas presents from me. I can't quite say what it is because he can read this, but I'll mention it in my next post. I worked very long and hard on it and have been wanting to just show it to him the past few weeks.

Overall, I might dislike (strongly) that my birthday is so close to Christmas sometimes (especially when my husband wraps my birthday present in Christmas wrapping paper and gets it mixed up with the other Christmas presents) but I am glad that I get to spend this time of year with so much family. I love winter and wish that it could just be winter all year long. And one of these days I will be buying a Mickey Mouse waffle iron to carry on the tradition that my grandma started and having Mickey Mouse [sourdough] waffles on Christmas morning.

What is your favorite part of this time of year? Do share!