Wrapping things up!

Christmas is quickly closing in on us and there's still plenty to do! At this moment, I am sitting in the corner of the couch with my back turned to Steven as he wraps all of the presents he got me. It's kind of silly but he's just been so busy and he doesn't want to have to take time away from me to do it, so this way we're still together. We're listening to Christmas music and the Christmas lights are on and I'm blogging and he's wrapping and it's just a cozy little moment.

He keeps bringing the gifts over and putting them on the couch after he finishes wrapping them so I can see them. They all have numbers on them. He was really concerned that I chose to take a picture right now because he hasn't finished all of them. This is only four out of the seven. We somehow ended up doing lots of small gifts this year. Should be really fun.

Oh! By the way -- check out his new shirt!! Can you find what's missing? Probably not, but this is his first shirt from the department that doesn't say "recruit" on it and he is super excited about it :) They have new recruits who are just getting started so he is no longer at the bottom of the totem pole! Woohoo!

Things have been pretty crazy around here. Steven worked a ton this past weekend and we hardly saw each other at all. We've both been trying to finish up Christmas shopping and even ended up doing a large portion of the shopping online this year for the first time ever. There just aren't enough hours in the day to go to the mall.

I've been baking, a lot! I've made fudge twice now (second batch in the works pictured above, with my phone counting up the 8 minutes that the sugar and milk are supposed to boil) and I've also made, sugar cookies, cream cheese spritz cookies, spice cookies, snowball cookies, raspberry mazurkas, and of course, the homemade marshmallows.

We're packing up a bunch of them to take to each of the three different shifts at the fire station over the next three days. I got out all of my holiday tins and filled them up! I love sharing food with people.

Rachel's in town!! Woohoo! I love having my friends come home to Seattle. It's just the best. We got together on Monday and enjoyed sushi and coconut tea and a little last minute shopping. It was so lovely visiting with her! I wish we lived close enough to have tea together on a regular basis. Maybe we should each get a kayak... I could bring a thermos full of tea and we could meet each other halfway. I wonder how far is halfway between Honolulu and Seattle...

We had a nice cozy evening at home last night. We watched I'll Be Home For Christmas, and yes, I am referring to the 1998 Jonathon Taylor Thomas film. It's a terrible movie but still so great at the same time. Besides, who doesn't love JTT in a santa suit! Anyhow, we watched the movie and shared a pomegranate. It was actually a really wonderful much needed date night for us. We've recently discovered that peeling and eating a pomegranate together is really fun and sometime around midnight (a little over halfway through the movie) we got up and toasted some English muffins with melted cheese -- most excellent midnight snack!!

Today my sisters came over. We made paninis and ate Christmas cookies and drank tea and played Scotland Yard, Last Night On Earth and Settlers of Catan. And then the girls left and Jeremy came over and we made dinner and played Pandemic, Acquire and Rumikub. All in all, a really fun day with good friends and good games and good food.

Steven is done wrapping gifts so I guess it's time to get some sleep. He has to work tomorrow and I'm meeting up with my mom and sisters for manicures and holiday tea!

Goodnight!!!