Brandon and Caitlin: Finals week. Finally.

Guys. Where did this semester even go? Seriously, we just got back from Florida like 3 weeks ago, I'm pretty sure of it. Now Christmas is in 25 days? Brandon and I are so confused about where all of our time went. I didn't work nights, neither of us worked weekends, and we really did spend a lot of time at home together, so why did it go so fast? Not that we are complaining, because now we have a three week break, but if time keeps moving faster and faster then that means eventually (soon) we will be grown ups. And that does not sound fun.

This semester finals won't be too bad really. Brandon has one final this afternoon, and only one tomorrow at 11:30. He was supposed to have a final at 7:30 tomorrow morning but his professor cancelled it! I have one final on Wednesday at 9:30, and then an easy paper due Wednesday night by midnight. I had a 5 page Spanish paper due today, but I worked extra hard on it last week and turned it in Friday so I wouldn't have to worry about it over the weekend. The best part of this whole week is the fact that we don't have anywhere to be on Tuesday and Thursday until 9:15, so we get to sleep in!!! Friday neither of us are working because we are getting up early and heading to Boise!!

Let me tell you about the past two weekends. Since it is now December, I have been in full on Christmas-spirit mode. The first weekend in December we decorated for Christmas and made cookies. That Saturday we had Brandon's family over for hot chocolate and cookies and we watched Christmas With the Kranks! That was a pretty good weekend, but honestly nothing can compare to this past weekend!

Friday night we babysat Brandon's four little cousins. I absolutely adore them, and they pretty much worship me too, so we have a really good relationship. While we were waiting for Brandon to get off work we started watching Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. When Brandon got there we made Christmas shaped sugar cookies and let them decorate them. It was messy!! Ruby is 4, the youngest, and her cookies were just a mess of frosting and sprinkles. They didn't look very tasty, but at least it was fun! After the kids went to bed Brandon and I sat in front of the fireplace, and I fell asleep for a little bit, until their parents got home. We didn't get home until after midnight and ended up sleeping in until 10:30 Saturday morning. It was super nice though, since I got kinda sick again last week. When we finally crawled out of bed, we had a tasty breakfast, then went to buy a tree skirt and a Christmas tree!! We didn't ever buy a tree skirt last year, so I was pretty excited to finally buy one. Last year we also bought our tree from Walmart and it died real quick, so this year we went to a tree lot and it made me a happy girl! Granted, it was freezing outside, but I do love going to the lots. Except this place didn't give us mini candy canes, so that was a bummer. We went home and set up our tree, had some hot chocolate, then took the truck back up to Brandon's parents. They lent us the truck to go get the tree, and they also are letting us borrow their tree stand. Brandon and I bought one of the metal kind that are a huge pain to set up (mom you know exactly what I am talking about) but his parents had one of the bigger plastic kind and that was way easier to use! After we dropped off the truck, we came home and put on Elf and started to put lights on the tree. We decided that two strands of lights wasn't enough, so we paused the movie and ran to Shopko to get some more lights.

Sidenote: we love Shopko. Like we go there at least once a week just to walk around. It was so busy on Saturday!! And their Christmas aisles were cleaned out. All their Christmas stuff was half off, and there were maybe fifteen boxes of lights left, so we got lucky.

Anyways, we got back home and finished decorating our tree, and finished watching Elf. It had started to snow when we got home, so it was perfect tree decorating weather! Luckily the snow held off until after we got out tree picked out. So we finished watching Elf, and around 5:00 decided that we should maybe get our butts off the couch and go do something. We went to Costa Vida for dinner, which was my second time that week. I guess I can go without it for so long but once I get back to it, I can't stop! After dinner we decided to go back to Shopko (told you we love it). Brandon and I have been talking a lot since Thanksgiving about how to do Christmas for each other this year. We feel like when we need or want something, we just buy it, and that last year for Christmas we bought each other things just to buy them. This year we decided to take the money we would have spent and put it towards gifts for children in need. At Shopko they have an Angel Tree, like sub for Santa, so we went and chose an Angel off the tree and shopped for a little 4 year old girl. It was so fun to be able to buy things and know that this girl is going to have a better Christmas because of it. It made me really grateful for my parents and how hard they have worked my whole life to be able to provide a good life for me and my brothers. Brandon's brother James only tells us that he wants world peace for Christmas, so we decided to do another angel but in his name. And I had so much fun doing the first one that I didn't want to put off doing the second one. This round we chose an 8 year old boy. He needed underwear and wanted anything Hulk, so we looked for Hulk underwear, but couldn't find any. That was sad for us. Anyway, what started out as just dinner to get out of the house turned into a 4 and a half hour trip out of the house. It was really nice though. Those of you who know me well know that I cry at the drop of a hat, but I had a mini cryfest because I was so happy. Christmas is my favorite time of the year because of all the happiness, and I feel like every few weeks or so lately I realize how much I have to be grateful for, and how nice it is to actually be happy.

But enough cheezyness!! After our shopping venture we went home and made brownies and watched Santa Clause, my second favorite Christmas movie! Then we fell asleep around 11. Yesterday morning we got up at the crack of dawn (7:30) to go to a missionary homecoming. We got home around 10:30, made muffins, finished Santa Clause, then took a 3 hour nap. I love naps. I can't tell you the last time I had a good, solid, nap. Man. What a good weekend!

So Brandon has his final today and I am working from 7:00 to 5:00, then I have a study session at 5:30. My professor offered to come to the study session if people provided him with pizza, so it's going to be a party! After that I have to wrap Christmas presents. It really needs to be done. Thursday we are going to a Christmas play with Brandon's family, then Friday morning we will be on our way to Boise! Brandon is going to the Potato Bowl with his family, and I get to watch Adrian wrestle for the first time in ever! I am really excited actually. Except not about the spandex. I can never get over how awkward that is.

I am going to try and post some pictures on here. I just got a new phone (smartphone!) so now I am cool and can take really good pictures. I just need to try and figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer....

Figured it out!! Okay here you go!