Well Sure

If you follow me on instagram you've already seen that we got a Christmas Card from the First Fam this week. No big deal.

Although I may be closer to my goal of becoming friends with Michelle, vis-à-vis Oprah, than I thought! 

If nothing else it will be a fun keepsake to show our kiddies someday of our adventures in DC :)  The other picture is of our cute little table-top tree.  We're so close now!

Low Maintenance

I'll be honest... I wasn't exactly on top of the Christmas cards this year.  All of the sudden it was December and I didn't have a good picture of Brody & I.  Oops.

So the Sunday before last we busted out the tripod, walked around the corner (literally), waited for the pedestrians to pass, and four self-timed pictures later--we were done.  We're pretty high maintenance I know...

But the best part were the test shots I took.  The first was in the apartment just to make sure the camera was working (when there were only 3 minutes left in the 49ers game, notice the textbook propped on desk.) The second shot was to test the timer and determine where we should stand in relation to the tripod for the composition of the photo.

Let's just go ahead and zoom right in on Brody's expression on that second one (which was purely candid)

A clear and resounding kill me now :)

It was too good not to share.  That's the beauty of marrying someone who isn't remotely vain and lets me post these on our blog. I love him, he's such a good sport.  But in my defense, we were so quick taking our pictures we got back in time for the last minute and a half of the game.

The Home Stretch

We can see a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel...sure, it's stuck behind a 16-page paper and a big, fat, test but it's there.  Thank goodness.  Poor Brody has been studying ridiculous amounts of hours every day, I don't know how he does it, but I'm so impressed/proud/grateful for him and all that he puts into school.

We're in the single digits of how many days until we go home for Christmas and can't wait! Even though the amount of stuff we have to get done before we leave is completely stressing me out, but hey, it just wouldn't be the holiday season without a little stress.  The whole thing has completely snuck up on us this year and I am sad to admit that yesterday was the first time I had listened to any Christmas music or watched any Christmas movies.  When you never drive, you just don't get the christmas music like I used to with my FM100 and KOZY.  So I made up for it with a little Home Alone and A Christmas Story, (which is just so ridiculously good I had to compile some of my favorite quotes below) and I capped the night off with my Pandora Christmas station playing while I wrapped presents (all the while Brody was working on his paper at school, poor little lamb).

"We plunged into the cornucopia quivering with desire and the ecstasy of unbridled avarice."

"Aunt Clara had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl."

"Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man."

"In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."

"I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master."

I'm sorry but there is just so much to love about that movie, the language of the narrator is just too good!

Love One Another

A positive step: http://www.mormonsandgays.org/

"As a church, nobody should be more loving and compassionate. Let us be at the forefront in terms of expressing love, compassion and outreach. Let’s not have families exclude or be disrespectful of those who choose a different lifestyle as a result of their feelings about their own gender."
                                                                                         -Elder Quentin L Cook

This is such an exciting step for the church!  A friend of mine helped author a response to the Church's new site on Affirmation.  Here is a little snippet of that response:

"This website will do much to help families love their children or spouses who come out instead of rejecting them. Research has shown that rejection leads to an 800% increase in the likelihood of suicide.

We pray that this initiative will continue to encourage members of the Church to take the message of loving the LGBT Mormons in their lives to heart and continue to engage in authentic conversations with us. We are ready and open to talking about our lives and struggles as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

A Little Dose of Christmas Cheer

Love the kazoo.  This makes me want to watch Love Acutally!  And makes me like Mariah Carrey a little

Getting Handy

Brody has been in the throws of studying for finals, so naturally he's been studying 10+ hours a day, (poor little lamb).  So I've done my best to stay busy in the meantime.  Over the Thanksgiving break, in addition to cooking our own little feast, I got handy and cleaned and re-stained our bathroom grout, then removed and replaced the caulk around the tub. I felt very Ron Swanson, but coming from a family with no brothers and a very meat-and-potatoes Mr. Fix-it father, it was only a matter of time before those genes kicked in. It was actually kind of fun and a lot easier than I'd thought. Normally, we would have just asked our Landlord to take care of it, but since they didn't raise our rent at the one-year mark, we didn't want to give them any reason to--so we went the DIY route.  Here is the before and after:

I've put up our two Christmas decorations; our cute little tabletop tree and homemade advent calendar (that is a total homage to my childhood).  I love it.   And we are just counting down the days until finals are done and we get to fly home for the holidays--only a few weeks!

I hope you're enjoying the snow :)