www.TheWeekendB4Christmas.com

Thursday night I took Mariah shopping for all the presents she needed to get (step-sister, mom, step-dad, grandma). Friday Night I slept over at her house. We worked on the gifts she was making pretty much all night long!

Saturday, after waking up and having breakfast with her and Rebecca and Dan, I came home showered, and Nick and I took off for our relaxing Christmas day of fun! 

We started off by doing my job. Ha. We went to Cost-co to pick up stuff for the coffee bar, then dropped it off and put it all away at church. I bought enough to not have to shop again next week!  Then we went to the mall to people watch, shop for our yearly Christmas E Ornament and browse for a few other gifts.

 We found this guy at JC Penney, the first place we looked and snatched it right up! We were feeling pretty productive so far, so we took a break! We stopped in at the pet store to pet all the puppies that were hoping to be put in a box (with air holes) and opened up on Christmas morning!



We shopped around a bit more, and then thought we deserved a treat, but Cinnabon had gone out of business in the mall. :(.  So we left the mall, telling ourselves we'd go to Einstein Bagels after we shopped at Gordmans. We picked up a few things there, and waited in the longest line ever not on Black Friday, and headed out for the Bagels but decided to go to Applebee's instead and use a gift card we'd forgotten we still had!  So Cinnabon to Applebee's - nice trade!!




Before we went to Applebee's though we went to the dollar store, each with $10 to spend on each other's stockings!!

We got home, put in Les Mis, started a fire and snuggled in for a long winter's nap!!


Sunday I wrapped up the gifts and I got one too! I showed Caitlyn the finished product of the surprise we were working on for her mom, read more about that here! and wrapped it up too in this pretty paper:

Mariah gave me her gift and I was sooo excited to see what she created for me, I ripped it open so fast it's amazing I even took a picture of it first!

 Then I had fun taking these pictures around the apartment!

 Nick finally got around to decorating his Grandma's tree... he put butterflies all down one side!

 P.S This is what my presents look like again this year!

Also this week there was a lot of un-rest in South Sudan and I learned that one of my friends from College was stuck there. Read more about that story here but know that he got out safely yesterday!!!  It was sooo cool to see how everyone I'm friends with on facebook who went to SAU, students, staff, professors were all asking for prayer to get Jacob out safely!! It worked! God is Great!


The radio this morning told all the important news:
1. Claire died :( the girl from the shooting)
2. Peyten Manning broke some big record....
3. 15 American's got out of South Sudan....

.......through my tears I was yelling at the radio "I know one of them!"