Annual Christmas Baking/Shopping

Every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we bake Christmas cookies, make fudge and other cutesy Christmas food to give to friends and neighbors.  Last year I ruined that tradition since we needed about 1000 sugar cookies made for the wedding that was 5 days away......oops. HA!

This year, we made Hot Cocoa Balls, Chocolate Sugar Cookies (NOT recommended, they are gross), and regular sugar cookies.  I'm hoping to do some chocolate dipped pretzels with cute Christmas sprinkles too, but we'll see if I get around to that.......

We baked most of the day, from noon to about 9pm.  I thrououghly enjoyed it, obviously, since I was the only one around still decorating the cookies by the time they were done.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we always take a shopping trip to get some Christmas shopping done.  The stores are generally empty on this day, because all the fools who were out for black friday are still sleeping.  And there are still some really great deals if you are willing to drive to a few stores.  There is nothing on the planet of earth that I need bad enough to wait in lines at midnight or to save $40 on....I think Black Friday is absolutely the dumbest thing on planet earth.  But whatever.  I officially wait until this day to break out any cheesy holiday tees.  I chose the Happy Who-lidays with Cindy Lou Who from the original Grinch by Dr. Seuss.  Hopefully I will find some more to add to my collection this year.

Our shopping trip was very much successful, I am waiting on 3 online orders and I want to pick up a 5 more small items when I have an evening off to get to the store and then we are completely DONE. YAY!  I've started wrapping gifts so there is something besides empty space under the tree.  I just love having the presents wrapped up and looking pretty well ahead of time!

Also, for the 2 people who read this......I'm trying to start a collection of Nativity themed ornaments.  They don't need to be overly expensive, I just want each one to be different.  If you are out doing Christmas shopping and happen upon some that look cute and aren't 15 dollars a piece, let me know please so I can travel to this establishment and buy them!

The countdown to anniversary is on!  Just 4 more days til I get a quiet weekend away!  Hopefully the Husband's present will get here in the mail before then and hopefully I'll have some inspiration for the poem to go with that just doesn't seem to be coming to me...

To squash a rumor

Well, the happy of thanksgiving is over.  Apparently after I left to head to my inlaws, my cousins had an argument about how PREGNANT i must be........REALLY COOL GUYS.  SO MATURE OF YOU.  Thankfully, my Grandmother has some class and said, "If she was pregnant enough to be showing, I would have known long before you.  And since I don't, I say she is not, so you can drop it."

So for anyone who was wondering if the 20 pounds I've gained since marriage is baby weight, it is NOT.

For anyone wondering if my distended bloated belly is baby growth, it is NOT.  If it was, believe me, I would have already told you.

I would not have wandered around pregnant enough to be showing without actually telling someone.

Idiots.

I'm 22

I turned 22 yesterday.......Doesn't really feel very exciting gotta tell ya!  I went to work for a half day and then spent the rest of my afternoon cleaning my Mom's house for Thanksgiving and baking rolls for like 17 hours...not really but I was up til 2am doing that....

The hubs bought me a winter jacket that counted as my anniversary present!  It's super nice, and it will be perfect for super cold and snowy weather.  I do not have any great winter coats.......I live in the desert, so this is a special treat.

He also got me a bunch of gift cards to go on dates and things at Hobby Lobby and Home Depot.  He loves me a lot.  He cutely painted, worte, drew, crafted, on the outside of each gift card.  He painted the envelope of the one for Home Depot, because he bought it so I could buy the paint I wanted.  He drew my name in chilies on the envelope for a date night to Chili's.  He's super cute!

He also took me out to dinner to Macayo's.  It is definitely one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, mostly because the Baja sauce is AMAZING.  Seriously, it is so good on everything.  I love that man.

I am anxiously awaiting our anniversary getaway.  I have ordered his gift, I'm just waiting for the pieces to come in.  I'm crossing my fingers they make it before we leave.  Can't wait to tell you about it when we get back.  I also have almost ALL of the Christmas shopping done.  I decorated the house for Christmas on the 17th.  I'm a little excited.  That, and I declared war on the crap month that it has been in November.

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Ours was the same as always, just in a smaller number this year.  We only had 29 instead of like the normal 50.  We will hopefully do some annual cookie baking tomorrow and the rest of our Christmas shopping Saturday.  I'll keep you posted......hopefully.

When life decides to take a crap on you

I was hoping that I would have many happy things to update about here in the month of November........but this month decided to just take a crap on all of us in the Zahn-Hall family.  My sister moved out on her 18th birthday, in the middle of the day, completely unexpectedly, with no warning.  I work with my parents, so I see them every single day.  I will let you guess where she moved.  It's been really hard and heartbreaking, especially to see my parents a complete wreck like they are.  My dad crashed his new car that he bought 3 months prior.....they deemed it totaled.  Business is slower than we would hope for, and we all know what kind of stress that brings.  And to top all of it off, I have had massive nausea for 3 weeks.  Don't get excited, it's not THAT kind of nausea.  The smell of food makes my stomach turn......like it did 3 years ago.......i get like 4 bites into my dinner and it acts like it wants to come back up.......like it did 3 years ago.......I've lost 7 pounds in the last 3 weeks, but my belly is increasingly bloated.  Anyone else having Mono flashbacks yet?  I am more than not pleased.  I can't believe that I could possibly have to endure that again.  Definitely not cool.  I cannot 100% guarantee that this is exactly what's happening.....but I lived through it once so I'm pretty sure.  A blood test will definitely confirm both non functioning liver and an active mono virus floating around............and yippee I get to do that soon.  I am actually really excited about getting that started.  If you have never heard of Dr. Greg Allen at Deseret Aesthetics, you are missing out on a really cool Doc, and a really great thing for your body.  They have a really great natural hormone therapy program.  Everyone is lacking in hormones and other vitamin crap your body needs, but it's hard to get it in the foods we eat etc.  His pills, creams, etc are all natural so I'm game for that.  I was seeing a naturopath last year and it helped some, but never very much.  We also never did a hormone test, her first concern was to make sure I didn't end up with that nasty acid rash again with all the stress leading up to the wedding.  I didn't have one so yay there, but my body is just completely destroyed from mono.  I've had endometriosis since I started being a female......so cool beans, but Mono made it SIGNIFICANTLY worse.  I can sit still in my chair, or lay in bed, and my cramps are so intense I can black out without moving.  It's a serious talent.  My hair, my nails, my skin, my metabolism, my energy, my everything has pretty much 100% sucked since Mono.  I hate it, but I've just learned to live with it.  My hormones are most definitely whack, I've had issues with cysts on and off this year and the worsened endometriosis is also a clue.  The cysts and endometriosis by themselves would make it hard enough to have kids when we can finally afford to do so.......I would have been pregnant ages ago, but even if we were in a position to afford it, it could take months or even years of trying.  I was more than disappointed to learn THAT. lemme just tell ya.  Seriously bummed.  I've been trying to come to terms with that and deal with it, but it just bums me out, so I'm not really dealing with  it.  It is the goal with the new hormone program that we could reverse the effects of endometriosis and eventually eliminate it completely.  With the right amount of hormones, etc., my body would function properly and there would be no endometriosis problem because there would be no hormone problem.  This would also help reduce some risk of miscarriage once I could actually get pregnant.  Hopefully it really will work.  I would be super even more bummed if it took years to get pregnant.  I can't wait for the day that we can finally be at the point where we can really say it's time.  Financially, I think we won't be....which sucks, but it is what it is.  I get really tired of people telling me that we should wait for years and spend time as a couple.  That's not what WE want, and WE are the bosses, we just can't afford to be the bosses of that right now.  Oh well, all in due time I guess.