Dates and Christmas. :)

Merry Christmas!  I wasn't sure how this year would turn out, but it ended up being totally wonderful and completely amazing!

 john...I think I just took this picture cuz he looked cute and was gnawing on his blanket haha.

our Christmas tree this year. :)  videos to come of John batting at the lower ornaments. :P

Before we start on actual Christmas, I'll begin with Albert and I's extremely fun date. :)
So, the 22nd of December marked Albert and I's 2 year anniversary of married happiness.  yep!  hard to believe all that time has flown by.  Anyways, we convinced my older sister (Andrea/Ange) and her husband to babysit John for us.  Albert and I both took off work and we dropped John off at Ange's house and then rushed over to Olive Garden to make our reservation that Albert had set up (I know you don't HAVE to...but it meant we didn't have to wait 15-30 mins just to get a seat...plus it made the date feel all that more special) anyways, so we got our DELICIOUS food (fact, Italian food is probably my third favorite type of food...my first and second are American (I'm a hamburger girl haha) and junk (I also really like chips and dip and chocolate haha)) then we high-tailed it over to Nickle City (the arcade just down the road from Andrea's house).  We'd gone to Nickle City a bunch of times before and hadn't used our tickets on anything so we got to save them.  By the end of the night of fun (meaning by like 7:45 when we had reached the end of our budget haha), we had a total of 13,500 ish tickets (including the ones from before (we are REALLY lucky and do REALLY well in the wheel of fortune game)).  When we were there before, we couldn't really see anything that we particularly wanted to get (thus the reason we didn't use our tickets)  but this time, we saw some really cute/awesome kiddie games and toys.  we hadn't really gotten very much for Johnathan for Christmas :(  so we decided "Hey some of these would be perfect!" so we got him this ball game and a toy truck for Christmas...and some building blocks for his birthday (yeah, it's 6 months away, but we figured we might as well be on top of stuff)...then we got Monopoly (one of Albert's favorite games ever) and some candy. :)  we gave the rest of our points to a little girl who happened to be up at the desk at the time.
We then went to the Mexican store right by Ange and Thad's house to try to find panatone...only they didn't have "the right kind"...ah well.  and that was our date. :)  lots of fun and adventure and winning and joy and excitement. :)
So Christmas.  I wasn't sure what to "get" albert...soooooo I surfed the web for potential gifts for him...and found this pillow:

It was PERFECT!!  Practical AND something he'd use very often...and save a lot of frustration (he's ALWAYS losing the remotes haha)
and I WAS going to make it...then decided not to...instead I made this:

which ended up being much easier...I think.  Whether it was easy or not, I was quite proud of the fact that I was able to sew it myself and that it didn't turn out half bad and the pockets were good and Albert loved it. :)
Anyways, so Christmas Eve we went up to Albert's parents' house for dinner and ate yummy food.

Albert also slept haha.

Christmas morning (really...it was 3am... (john decided he wanted to eat in the middle of the night)) I took this picture of our simple stockings:

and our tree with presents:

In the "actual morning" (meaning after 6am) we took these pictures of our festivities:

 that's the truck we got him at Nickle City. :)  he loved it.

 opening the shiny present from my parents haha.

 chew toy!...only not.

he LOVED the shiny paper

After going to church, we went up to Albert's parents' house again for breakfast.

Albert and his 'accessory' as his family started calling Johnathan (Albert had a tendency to not let anyone hold our child)

 Happy boys.

Dad H.  haha!  whether his hand is there or not, it's still a picture of him...and he HATES me taking pictures of him...

After a bit, we went to Uncle Mark and Aunt Sonia's house for more opening of presents and food. :)
Albert opened one of presents from his aunt and uncle...and gave one of the best smiles I've seen in a while.

yes, that's a iPhone 4S...and unlike the previous touch screen apple products we have owned before, I have yet to been allowed to touch it for more than a minute haha!  Albert's family was quite thrilled at his reaction to his new toy...he fussed with it for 3 hours and didn't worry about Johnathan the whole time haha.  some pictures taken during the time of non-worry:

 mom and Sonia playing "baby Jesus" :) so cute!

All in all it was a WONDERFUL Christmas!  :)  yay!  can't wait until next year when John can understand a little bit more about the joys of Christmas time. :)