can christmas stay?

oops. i'm sorry that christmas morning hasn't left my house yet.  we just loved you so much! but hopefully you get tackled before the new year.

yes. this was taken today. 

my apartment really does look like this.

christmas 2011

oh how you came and went. we loved our little morning christmas with just us two! we enjoy you very much. and we can't wait to see you next year!

GOOD MORNING

this year we celebrated christmas with the monson family on christmas eve. it was so much fun! we had a little program put on by the babies with a beautiful flute to sing-a-long with. followed by presents!

it was a successful christmas! jeff's momma, vera was pleased as can be {visually observed below}to be welcomed to the apple family with an iPad. pure joy.

on christmas day, we had our own little christmas and then visited church. all was lovely. i have really come a long way because when i was little i did like christmas and sunday to EVER fall on the same day, but this year i did. there is something special about beginning your christmas day at church and reflecting on christ's life throughout the entire day. it is where our thoughts are supposed to be anyways.

christmas award goes to me and my gift to my parents. it was the one that brought out the tears. from both of them. a picture book from our hawaii trip over thanksgiving. later that day we were lucky enough to have a private yo-yo show from my dad, the SL boy who won a trip to disneyland when he was 10, and went on to take second place. oh the glory days.

and of course we lounged in our christmas eve pajamas. i would get these. and i would wear them too.

getting together with our family is a favorite tradition on christmas day. it is so fun to visit with these cousins who we don't see all that often.

we are grateful for many things this christmas and are looking forward to another great year! we hope everyone had a wonderful christmas day and felt loved and blessed!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

friendly get together.. get it?

get it?

cause they're our friends...? so it's a friendly get-together.

i have been quite the party panner this christmas season.

we hosted jeff's friend party.

we {i} planned jeff's family christmas party, which was a success, of course.

and then the next day i had my friend christmas party, which was also a success. of course.

do you expect anything less of me? 

no, you don't. cause i kick a..

we have loved this holiday season because of all the fun things we get to do and all the visits we get to make! we feel so lucky to live so close to our family and friends that not only do we get to see them at christmas but throughout the year.

many thanks to all of you for making our spirits bright!

some of the nights highlights were

the guesstures game that kept getting passed around

skate or die sweatshirt

the unwanted cake bites

the eternal marriage talks on tape.

ali and jeff vs. lauren and tony... and their idea of a wrapped present

annie almost snipping raymo's fingers off. ouch.

and the wrap-off. emmy and josh vs. brooke and jake.

the singing reindeer that brooke and jake won for their sweet wrapping skills.

thanks to everyone for your delicious eats and your good company!

fun friend dinner parties

every year jeff's friends have a christmas party up in midway. it has become a christmas staple.

the gifts are kind of the best part.

jeff and i got uber lucky and walked away with $10 to the dodo and $10 to jamba juice.

it's all about strategy.

yes i stole the same thing the same person 3 times... i'm gonna be ruthless.

make sure to take a close look at my pasta i had for a little bit...

happy christmas party going!

monson family christmas party

this year jeff and i were in charge of planning the monson family christmas party.

it was a difficult task, since years previous have been such great parties. 

but i think we pulled off a pretty sweet party!

we decided to go traditional and make gingerbread houses, wear ugly sweaters

and play a christmas game.

jeff's brother michael and his family live in american somoa. we were sad that they were unable to make it, but wanted them to be apart of our night in some way. if there was no prize for making the best gingerbread house then no one would care to make theirs at all. thanks to the handy internet, we were able to make our gingers and send them off to be judged. 

1. jeff and eliza 2. gerry and vera 3. erik and sara 4. ryan and emily

and surprisingly we didn't win either contest, ugly sweater or ginger

let the parties begin!

 you guys the cc dinner is a highlight to my christmas season. 

on friday night i got sick, and the only thing i was worried about was not being better by the cc dinner.

it is that good.

i just love food, and i love multiple helpings, and unlimited dessert.

 and santa comes, and it's super sad that i'm too old
and can't participate in sitting on his lap and getting a present.

but my cutest nephews ever can and boy, do they love it!

pure joy on his face right there!

the other one doesn't really know what's going on..

and here's my gq of a brother.

look at the suave hair.

errybody

gingerbread house making

 the other night we had our annual birthday party and gingerbread contest.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLIE!

the theme of the night was 12 days of christmas.

we chose five golden rings.

this was not our house...

but this was.

and this is our "creative team"

i was working with the little, winston and blake. who were ever so helpful, and kept saying "uh-oh" holding up their hand with frosting on it. and i just kept telling them to eat it, it tastes super good. 

{sorry parents for the sugar high}

and this was the result.

and we did not win. shocker..... but the birthday girl did! the schneider house won.

their theme was also five golden rings, and they did the olympics!

 and then there's the song competition. which was so funny, as always.

schneiders "happy birthday to allie"

mulcocks/barkers "on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me, a house in sun valley"

leichman's "mama papa, i love you" jing-a-ling-a-ling-a-jing-a-ling"

and then will thought he was skinnier than he really is and tried to fit between two columns.

i look forward to this party all year long! it has been a part of my christmas for as long as i can remember. 

it is so fun to catch up with friends and make new memories.

christmas is the best time of the year and i think its because we get to visit with so many wonderful people

who wants a christmas card?

it's that time of year where christmas cards are sent out.

although jeff and i are a family in the making... sort of {there's only two of us, for now. and for awhile}.

now that finals are almost over :) we will be getting out christmas on. hard. 

so give me your info and check your mail! cause our card is in the making. 

{last years christmas card!}

see. we're cute.

love you!

message me at elizajanemonson{at}gmail.com

children ornaments

aren't you so glad that you made these every year for a christmas present?

they are so fun!

look at jeff's smirk.

and yes. i am wearing a bolo tie.

robinson farms

last year our christmas tree struggled. it was like the little engine that.. couldn't.

i swear we bought it dead.

it was one of those little three footers and we put it on a stool to make it taller.
we probably won't go to smiths again for out christmas tree.

so we went to robinsons

and fell in love with their montana wild trees

and then we found baby montana!

and now christmas has officially begun!

christmas morning

On Christmas morning Jeff and I decided to have our own Christmas together in our apartment! It was so much fun and after we had a big Christmas morning breakfast. Here is our little Christmas!

this picture is awful but it is our first Christmas morning picture so I had to right?!

And of course the best part: our Christmas breakfast! We had waffles, bacon, and eggs! DELISH!



After our little Christmas together we headed over to the Richards Christmas. And of course we all had to wear our gear of Christmas. And we sang Jingle Bells into the living room!


After we headed over to Jeff's house for Christmas. There are so many nieces and nephews in his family it was so fun to see kids get all excited about Christmas from Santa and the whole shebang- I loved it!

After Christmas with Jeff's family- we went to my Grandma's house with my cousins and had a little Christmas program and gifts.

It was such a fun day, and we weren't used to all the go go going on Christmas. There is usually so munch down time. But we were constantly on the move and we were so glad that we were able to visit with everyone we wanted. We feel so lucky to live so close to our families and be able to be with both of them on Christmas. We had a VERY good Christmas and feel so fortunate.

I think that our favorite time of the day was the time that we spent together in our little apartment on Christmas morning. It was something new that we have never experienced before and we both loved every minute of it. It was so fun to open gifts together before anything thing else has been opened and really be able to surprise each other. I really feel like Christmas this year was so much more about giving than receiving. We both put so much effort and thought into each others gifts and the gifts that we got for everyone else.

christmas partying!

So as I mentioned in an earlier post that we have a gingerbread house making competition every year that is pretty competitive.

I was only able to get two pictures from the entire night. oops. But here's the scoop...

Every year there is a theme, this year it was "Where does Santa vacation?"

It was a really fun idea. The winner (not us) created Santa's bed and he was dreaming and in his dream he was at Hawaii. It was very cute, they made his bed our of candy canes.

Our gingerbread house was the "HOLIDAY" inn... where all the Holidays vacation.

Here's the Holiday Inn. The front of the house is of course Christmas, the other sides are Halloween, Easter, and St. Patrick's Day. It was very fun, as always.




... Speaking of Gingerbread, we received these lovely cookies, maybe some are missing... But they were so good. There is nothing better than soft gingerbread and that's what these were!

... OTHER PARTIES

SO FUN! We went bowling at Fat Cats, and when I got there I was super confused to find out my bowling name was "Fortune Cookie." But come to find out, Fortune Cookie is a famous bowler's nickname. Everyone had a different famous bowlers name. It was so funny. And I hope that you can read all of these cause they are so funny!

I thought you would be interested in knowing that I won no prizes. I am maybe the worst bowler and the worst sport about it; once I'm losing I just goof off from there.

Same thing with mini golfing.

Here is everyone in our little high school dance poses.

These last couple pictures were taken at random... but still at holiday festivities!

this hat is not a joke. My Dad wears this everywhere during December.

My Mom has such a big family and it is so hard to get everyone together. But somehow we managed to almost accomplish it. We are only missing 3 people in this one. This is all of the girls on my Mom's side of the family. We got together the other day for a little brunch. And it was so fun to see everyone right after Christmas and hear about what's happening in their lives!