Christmas at the Rawlings

I'm writing this with Mark's arm draped over me, nestled up to him with my head on his chest and a cozy blanket over us, next to his parents' breathtakingly beautiful Christmas tree and surrounded by three Nativities, garland and Christmas lights everywhere with soft harp Christmas music playing in the background! I treasure moments like these...

Christmas at the Rawlings was pretty different but just as awesome as Christmas at my house. They have such cool traditions and it's really fun to have so many people there on Christmas morning and to have SOOO many presents to open! His whole family wasn't even here but there were still 16 of us! There was Remi and Chip (Mark's parents), his brother Birk and wife Al with their two kids Jake and baby Sam (barely a month old!), his sister Esther and her husband Jacob, his other sisters Marja and Charity, his brother Duncan and his roommates Yosh and Brycen (crazy bunch), Aunt Merla (Remi's sister) and Mark and I. We were missing his brother John and his family with our two beautiful, precious nieces, Faye and Norah and his sister Emily and her husband Bryan.

One of the Rawlings family traditions is that every Christmas Eve they act out the Nativity. This year Mark and I were angels.

His dad narrates the story and everyone else plays a part. This year Duncan was the King and he was hilarious! A lot of people memorize their parts so it's pretty cool (and really funny) how into it everyone gets.

The best part of Christmas was watching 2 year old Jake open his mountain of presents from all of us. He is precious! Also, I'm pretty sure he loved ours the most because when he was done opening all of them that's the one he wanted to play with! We have the advantage of living practically next door to him so we knew exactly what to get him, a Thomas the train book complete with a playmat of the train station and a bunch of little Thomas & Friends trains! He loved them!!! :D

Mark and I were pretty spoiled by his family. We got hot cocoa from Duncan, along with a book for Mark of 1,000 Things to Do in Los Angeles and a desk calendar for me of the most powerful women in the world (like Catherine the Great). Charity spoiled me rotten with a combination of both birthday and Christmas presents. She got me a beautiful multi-colored scarf, a gorgeous beaded turquoise headband, skin care products (she's an esthetician), a head towel wrap, eyeshadow, an eyelash dying kit, and my favorite Jane Iredale lip stain! I loved it all!!! Remi made me an apron and it is so lovely!!! It looks just like this one from Anthropologie I wanted but couldn't afford!

I don't feel like going upstairs and taking a picture of mine but basically it looks exactly like that! Remi is a Wonder Woman and does everything in life perfectly (no joke) but sewing is her expertise!! She made two of my sister-in-law's wedding dresses and would have made mine if she hadn't been in Finland. Anyway, so she can sew anything your heart desires and I love my apron so much!!!

Mark's dad got us a book by his friend, Elder Holland, with tales of comfort. Excited to read that one together.

Marja made everyone a book of Rawlings family memories with all kinds of cool stories about their ancestors and hilarious stories about all of the kids. Marja is sick and so she is in bed a lot and spends so much time doing family history work and genealogy that this gift was right up her alley!

Esther had everyone send her funny face pictures and made everyone a Funny Face calendar. It's awesome and hilarious! Each month is a different couple or sibling's funny faces and all our birthdays have our picture on them! So thoughtful and cool.

Al made me an emerald and gold necklace and Birk gave Mark a Monty Python card game. I didn't play it but I witnessed all the boys speaking in accents during the whole game (part of the rules) so that was pretty awesome. Mark's English accent is pretty terrible, love him to pieces. Haha

Normally, I get post-Christmas depression but this year I didn't. Maybe it's because we had three of them, haha or because I already have the best present I could ever ask for and I get to keep him all year round :)

I'm excited for the New Year and a new start for 2015! It's going to be a great one!

Christmas in California

This year Mark and I had our first Christmas where we exchanged gifts by ourselves in our own home. We opened them on Christmas Eve morning since we were going to his parents later that day and staying there through Christmas.  The morning felt so magical, just like Christmas at my house feels! I could imagine our own little family traditions being born and can't wait until we have kids!

We gave each other some pretty awesome gifts! The best ones were all homemade, of course. I made Mark a mug with the lyrics to our wedding song.

I also made him a date night jar! He actually helped me paint the sticks but didn't know what they were for!

They are color coded, silver sticks are free dates, gold sticks are moderately expensive and black sticks are big and elaborate dates. There are 130 dates total!

Some of my favorite dates for each color are:

Silver - Picnic in a meadow, Explore a nearby forest, Eat a dinner consisting of only free samples, Build a fort and play games inside, Visit an animal shelter, Go to Hollywood and people watch, Have a Disney movie marathon & work on a puzzle, and Make s'mores on the beach!

Gold - Go on a food crawl (that's where you go to different restaurants for an appetizer, entree, and dessert!), Take the bus and get off at a random stop and explore, Go to Michael's and pick a craft to do, DISNEYLAND (which is not black because we will have annual passes! It's not silver though because of gas), Go to a movie screening in the park, Make and fly a kite, Go get ice-cream & pick each other's flavors & toppings, and Play laser tag!

Black - Go to a ballet, Take a road trip to Hearst castle, Go to the San Diego Zoo, Spend the night in Catalina, Rent a sports car for the day, Go to a professional sporting event, Go scuba diving, and my very favorite, Go to the airport and select a destination!! Then play everything by ear when you get there :)

I also made Mark a bucket list for our life! This was homemade because I painted the frame gold. This was an all-day project, let me tell you. Never again!! But I'm really happy with the list :)

Mark made me the best gift of all! He drew me a picture of where he proposed to me!!! I cried when I saw it! Isn't he the sweetest???

He wrote me a very sweet letter on the back that made me melt. This boy is seriously so romantic and I love it.

We also got each other clothes, he got me lots of parenting books, and I got him Vans and new running shoes (much needed). OH and he got me the most adorable ring ever!!! I squealed like 10 times!

Oh and another awesome present he got me was a Day Designer!!! It is an organizer's dream!!! The best planner on the market.

The beginning has a bunch of worksheets to fill out about your dreams, goals in a bunch of categories (family, financial, career, spiritual, and personal), values, passions and strengths. After you fill them out, you have to prioritize and choose the top 5 of each of them and input them into a Venn diagram to figure out your mission statement and purpose in life, which helps you make your yearly and monthly goals fit around your main purpose and the things that are most important to you.

The daily planning pages look like this:

I LOVE the layout!  I am a person who plans out my day from start to finish so the time slots are a necessity and then I love the side where you can just put all your important things to do, your top three to do's, and all the other little boxes. The Download section is for any thoughts you have floating around in your head that you need to put down on paper so you can sleep better. And I love the Daily Gratitude!

Well, this entry is so long I will write about  Christmas at the Rawlings in another entry! Almost as good as our own :)

Christmas in Texas

Mark and I had two Christmases this year!  Last year we went home to my house in Texas for Christmas because Mark's parents were still serving their mission in Finland but this year they came back so for the first time in my entire life I wasn't at home on Christmas Day!  BUT Mark is the sweetest husband ever and he knew I would be homesick and miss my family if I didn't have Christmas with them so he surprised me for my birthday and took me home for a week to have an early Christmas!  My parents knew (so they could have presents for us ready) but my siblings were surprised!

Wish we had a picture of Steph's face.  My mom told her the missionaries were coming for dinner (even though it was 9 and I'm pretty sure that's their bedtime but Steph didn't seem to notice) and she told her it was one of the missionaries' birthday because she had bought birthday balloons and confetti!  Hahaha, my sister didn't even second guess it.  But like most teenage girls (or maybe just in our family) entertaining the missionaries by yourself while mom gets dinner ready is pretty awkward so when we got there, mom said the missionaries were here and Steph grabbed a slice of pizza and beelined for her room.  What she didn't know is Mark and I were hiding at the end of the hallway before you get to the stairs and when she walked by we both jumped out and screamed.  She shrieked, nearly dropping her pizza and then started laughing saying, "OMG I thought you were the missionaries scaring me!"  Hahahaha, we should have gone with our original plan and hidden in her closet wearing a clown costume! Or I was going to knock on the door with a ski mask on and a fake gun...okay that one might have been a little extreme but I LOVE scaring people!!  One of my simple pleasures in life...

We had a great time at home, did lots of shopping, went to a gourmet Chinese restaurant for my birthday dinner, watched horror movies and Christmas movies, I forced everyone to play games with me (no one in my family likes games for some reason!  Well they do, but they never feel like getting up to play one but once I finally convince them all to or just bring the game wherever they all are sitting on the couch on their phones, then everyone has a good time), and Mark and I took sweet Xela on lots of walks and she LOVED it!  She got so spoiled she began demanding walks by the end of our stay and hanging outside our bedroom door every morning before we got up, ready for her walk.

For Christmas my parents got us so much stuff but our biggest gift was money towards Annual Disneyland Passports!!!  We are soooo excited!!!  I can't believe I've lived in southern California for over 4 years without one!  I love that place so much.  Mark and I have only ever been to Disney World together, not Disneyland so I'm super excited to go with him!!!  My sister is coming to stay with us for two weeks in early January while my father travels to South America and my mother goes to Guatemala to visit her family for the first time in 25 years!  So we are taking Steph to Disneyland and it's going to be so fun!!!

Steph wants to be a photographer and she's really good!  She took Christmas pictures for Mark and me and they turned out so beautiful!  She is so talented and I am so lucky that I have my very own family photographer! :)

I will blog about Christmas in California in another post.  Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!

One Year Anniversary!

Over the weekend Mark and I celebrated our one year anniversary!  Neither of us can believe we've already been married a year.  Are all the years going to fly by as fast as this one?  I hope not!  Although people have been telling us they only go faster the older you get...I remember on our drive up to our honeymoon I told Mark, "People say you grow to love each other more and more every year of your marriage but I don't think I could possibly ever love you more than I do today."  Well, I was wrong.  Mark and I both agreed that we have grown more and more in love every day of this past year.  I can't imagine how much I'll love him on our 50th anniversary!

To celebrate our first anniversary, Mark took me back to the Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast where we went on our honeymoon.  This place brought back so many beautiful memories.  I cried when we walked into the exact honeymoon suite where we stayed a year ago and remembered walking in there the first time, freezing in my wedding dress.

Mark's favorite picture of this creepy old man with children

Last year, we carved our names and wedding date into a tree near the lodge, down by the river bank.

 I cried when I saw the tree again, just like we had been there yesterday. (Yes, I cry a lot.)

My favorite part about the Whispering Pines lodge is their BREAKFAST.  I'm telling you, I remember on our honeymoon going on and on about how they had the best breakfast I had ever eaten in my whole life.  I was a little worried that maybe it was also the excitement of our honeymoon and being so in love that everything tasted better but going back now I know it truly was just the delicious breakfast!!

First of all, they have EVERYTHING anyone could ever want to eat for breakfast...cold cereal, english muffins, bagels, toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, cheesy potatoes, two kinds of quiche, biscuits and gravy, pastries, fresh fruit, banana bread, pumpkin bread, LEMON SQUARES (my favorite) and all kinds of juices, milk, and hot cocoa.  Second of all, everything is the best [insert food item here] you've ever tasted!  Thinking back now, I realize they don't have pancakes.  But I don't like pancakes, ha, so oh well.

Day 1

Day 2

After breakfast, we went on a little adventure in the forest.  We hiked up near this stream, only I wasn't aware we were going on a hike so I had my Dr. Martens on and I kept sliding and was so scared I was going to fall into the river.  I was half laughing, half terrified and when we finally got to the top I told Mark we would have to find another way back.  Then we found a convenient staircase that led all the way up to where we had just roughed it over the dirt and spiderwebs.  I was only a little ticked off.

After our hike, we went into town and looked in all the antique shops.  We were wanting to do some Christmas shopping but everything looked like it belonged in my grandma's house so we didn't have much luck. But I did have fun pretending to be a reindeer in this beanie...

I forgot to mention that Mark was SICK on this trip!  So after window shopping, we went back to the lodge so he could rest up and I watched You've Got Mail.  :)  Then we went to Cheryl's Diner for dinner.  Pretty good, but when you're from LA it's kinda hard to find anything better than what you could find there...and it definitely didn't have nothin' on our favorite diner, Cafe 50's!  Although the pie was good...

Apple pie a la mode for moi

Banana Cream for Mark (his was better)

Then Saturday night we came back home and went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner!  My favorite, although the place was packed.  Thanks for the gift card mom!

Mark's cheesecake: Toasted Marshmallow S'mores Galore

Banana Cream for me (mine was better!)

After dinner, we came home and wrapped each other's presents and wrote in our cards.  I was so giddy!!!  Mark gave me the most adorable card ever, which made me cry and I suddenly realized I'm turning into my mom!

Then, when I thought he couldn't possibly top that, I opened my present.

This is the best gift anyone has ever given me.  First of all, how did he think of this??  I mean, come on, he is a guy!!!  Second, it's EXACTLY my taste!!! I couldn't have picked a better necklace if I had researched myself for hours (which, let's face it, I probably would have if he had let me).  It has our initials with a heart and then our wedding date with a forever sign!  AHHH so in love, so in love...

I got Mark a pretty lame gift in comparison.  I finally got around to making our wedding album and we got to look through it together for the first time.  It was pretty beautiful but he definitely beat me in the gifts department (hey, I'm not complaining...)

To finish the perfect night, we moved the TV into our bedroom and fell asleep to "While You Were Sleeping".  It was so cozy and relaxing and perfect.

Happy Anniversary to us :)

Mid-Week Date Night!

Tonight Mark and I are having a mid-week date night! Even though it's technically not even the middle of the week yet, we never pass up an opportunity for an extra date night!

So, today is my sister-in-law Allison's birthday and her husband wants to take her out to dinner. They live walking distance from us so we are their on-call baby-sitters! Now, you might think that baby-sitting our little nephew doesn't count as date night but oh, it does! So Al puts Jake to sleep before they leave and that's the only time we ever see him the whole night. Then they let us order dinner and we watch a movie on their big-screen TV in their gorgeous house and feel like parents for a night :) parents on a date that is! Haha okay so I guess we can't have it both ways...when it's our own kids upstairs sleeping in our house maybe it won't be that exciting but for some reason it is so fun to go over to their house and pretend we live there!

Today was a long day. Mark said it was supposed to be the hottest day of the year. And I was very very busy on this hot day! This morning I went to an open call for Disneyland to be in one of their shows this season! There were so many people there and it was kind of nerve wracking but overall a really good experience. I felt really proud of myself and know I did my best so now it's just about what types of roles they have available. It would be kind of a crazy commute for rehearsals in Anaheim but I would do it in a heart beat!  Being in a show at Disneyland would be a dream come true!

After the audition I picked up my little girl Lilly from school.

 (Okay she's not mine but I like to pretend). Lilly and her sister Sophia just got a new puppy, Smorgie. So now part of my job includes potty training the puppy! Fun. So far no accidents.

This is my first time blogging from my phone so I don't know how to caption the photos but Lilly is in the fruit jammies and Sophia is on her tiptoes! Both are obsessed with the dog.

Date night is in less than 2 hours!! A much needed end to this long hot day.