Our First Christmas

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday, and this year was even more special than any other because it was my first Christmas with my amazing husband.
My office was closed for Christmas Eve so I spent the day running errands and getting ready to go back to Clark after church. Neil, unfortunately, had to work all day, but was able to get off early to meet me at our 4:30 church service. The service was great, Christmas Eve is always my favorite service because of the Christmas songs, message of Jesus' birth, and the candlelight. Our church was very crowded, which is such a blessing to see that people remember the true reason to celebrate Christmas. After the service, Neil and I wentup to Clark to spend Christmas Eve with my parents and little brother. We had our traditional oyster stew and sandwich supper and then watched a movie together.
Christmas was also at my parents house. My sisters and their families came over so we could all open gifts together. There has been such a change throughout the years, five years ago we each would take turns opening gifts and see what each other received. Now with little ones running around we all watch them tear at the paper, sometimes enjoying the paper and box more than the actual toy they got, and open our gifts in between watching them. Although I do love receiving gifts, I find much more joy in watching other people open gifts that I give them. My favorite was watching my mom open the photobook that I put together of our family throughout the year. She loved it! Neil and I also were given some great gifts (pictures below). My mom's brothers and families and my grandma came over for Christmas lunch. We spent a relaxing day eating way too much and just enjoying each others company!
Sunday we went to my grandparents to have Christmas with my dad's side of the family. We again ate way too much and all enjoyed catching up and watching Kayla, Westen, and Waylan play and run around.
I love my family and I love how close we all are to one another. I love that we can all celebrate Christmas and I know that each person knows the true reason for our celebration. Next year we will be with Neil's family for Christmas and as excited as I am to experience that for the first time, I'm equally nervous about it because it will be my first holiday not spent with my family.

Breadmaker from my parents and electric wine bottle opener from Melissa

Wine glasses Neil got from James, also came with two bottles of wine

Tree Skirt from my grandparents

Christmas ornaments the New Home one is from Neil and the bell is from my parents

Also from Melissa, each day has a quote a couple of my favorites: "Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship." - Margaret Mead and "If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child." - Linda Sunshine

My parents gift to Neil, he can send in one of his pictures and will receive a 16x20 canvas of it

TV for our bedroom from Neil



The shoes I bought with the Christmas money from my mother-in-law



Proud Sister

My little brother had his second basketball game of the season last night, first that I was able to watch. Jeff has always been a good athlete, ridiculously fast and focused. Last year I went to as many games as possible. Jeff played some JV last year, but not a ton, and was on the Varsity Team, but rarely played. He wasn’t bad, just not always confident. Shortly after my wedding last May, Jeff cut his hair…short. Who knew a haircut could give someone such confidence and make so much difference in an appearance, he looks about 5 years older.

I was very excited to go to the game last night. After his first game of the season last Friday, my mom of course gave me a play by play and I was so mad I wasn’t there! She talked about how awesome he was. He jumped for JV and beat the guy by a mile (Jeff may not be a giant, but he can JUMP!). He played 3 quarters of JV and did great. She said Varsity started off slow and the team wasn’t looking too great. Jeff was the second off the bench and made all the difference! She said Jeff was all over the floor defensively, saw open players and made passes that many couldn’t, and gave the team the spark they needed. She said she had a number of people come up after the game commenting on the improvement, and at one time she looked at the coach and he just looked stunned. One lady even came up to her after the game and said that during warm-ups she had spotted Jeff out there and had to look at a program to see who he was, that’s how different he looks!

Last night, Neil and I couldn’t make it to the JV game because we had to work, but we made it just in time for the Varsity game. My mom told us Jeff played well during JV and only played two quarters, which meant he could play four quarters of Varsity, and he DID! Again, he was second off the bench and the team was up by 20 in the middle of the first quarter. I was amazed with Jeff’s performance; nothing my mother said prepared me for how well he did. I’ve always known he was quick so his speed up and down and all over the court didn’t surprise me, but the way he could see the court did. He was passing to people for an assist without even looking, between defensive players, whatever was necessary. He sank a three point shot that was BEAUTIFUL! Ultimately, he did foul out of the game with just two minutes left in the fourth quarter, but they were unavoidable fouls, not sloppy. Clark has a very vocal coach who isn’t afraid to yell when a player messes up and not once did I hear his yelling directed at Jeff! I just sat through the whole game so very proud of my brother; I just wish I could make it to more of his games!

Weekend with Westen

Thursday night my sister, Melissa, asked if Neil and I could watch her youngest son Westen for the weekend. She was going to be coming to Sioux Falls for a No Kids Shopping Trip with her mother-in-law and sister-in-laws. Of course, I was more than willing to take Westen for the weekend. I haven’t spent much time with him and wouldn’t turn down the opportunity. When his older brother, Waylan, was born in 2006 I was going to school and working part-time, which meant a very flexible schedule. When Melissa needed emergency daycare I would go to Bradley to watch him, or if I had a free day (or wanted a free day) I would go visit. Since Westen was born just last January my schedule hasn’t been nearly as flexible as it was which meant this weekend was only the second time I’ve ever babysit him.

Melissa made it to Sioux Falls around 7:00pm, dropped Westen off, and headed out for her girls weekend. Westen hadn’t eaten yet so we warmed up some leftover spaghetti for him. We don’t have a highchair or booster seat so Westen sat on my lap while he ate. This was fine until our dog Brownie decided Westen’s bib, covered in food, smelled good and tried to pull it off him. Luckily I was holding Westen and was able to push Brownie off before he actually got a grip on anything, but it definitely scared Westen and Brownie had to spend the rest of the weekend kenneled since he couldn’t behave. All too quickly bedtime rolled around and Westen fell asleep cuddled up in my arms.

Saturday morning Westen woke us up at 6:30am, which is my normal time to get up and ready for work so it wasn’t bad. We looked out the window to find blizzard conditions and knew Westen and I wouldn’t be leaving the house for the day. The morning went quickly with him taking a 2 ½ hour nap at 10:00. The afternoon however, wasn’t quite so smooth. Westen wasn’t so sure about Neil which meant I wasn’t allowed to leave his sight and most of the time I couldn’t even put him down. We tried to get him to go down for an afternoon nap, but he wasn’t going to have it! We spent the day climbing up and down the stairs, walking around the kitchen, reading books, and watching cartoons. Westen became more and more comfortable with Neil as the day went on, and Neil even tried to change Westen’s diaper, which was probably the highlight of my day! I was still laughing hours later about Neil frantically trying to change a messy diaper until finally I had to go take over. Neil’s highlight would probably be when Westen somehow managed to change the channel to ESPN and then handed the remote over to him!

Sunday morning was a very early one for us. Westen woke up at 4:00am and was determined not to go back to sleep! I was finally able to get him asleep at 6:00am; unfortunately I wasn’t able to fall back asleep and laid in bed awake until he woke up again at 7:30am. Westen spent most of Sunday morning playing with Neil which I was very thankful for because I was so exhausted! Around 9:30 Westen started getting tired again, but was fighting sleep. He finally fell asleep laying on my lap at 10:45, but at 11:00 Melissa showed up to take him home. He was only half awake, but still very happy to see his mom! I was sad to see him go because I miss all the hugs and snuggles, but was more than happy to curl up on the couch with Neil and take a nap!

Brownie

Here's the newest addition to the Brunner family! Isn't he cute?

Brownie - Yorkshire Terrier

We adopted him from the Sioux Falls Humane Society on Saturday. He had been left by another family because one of them had allergies. He's a three year old Yorkshire Terrier. He's not fully potty trained yet because his previous family left him in the garage most of the time, but hopefully that'll get better with us working with him. We brought him home Saturday night and had a rough first night. He instantly formed a bond with me and was very cuddly and affectionate, but we soon found he didn't feel the same towards Neil. Everytime Neil tried to walk down the stairs to our living room Brownie would start barking and run at him, no biting though, then he'd run back to me and just cower like he thought Neil was going to hit him. After a couple times of this we called the Humane Society for some advice. We found that this was Brownie's way of overcompensating for his small size. Basically he was trying to act like a big dog and felt he needed to protect me. I had to show him that I didn't need him to protect me and that Neil and I are a team. Since then Neil's been very patient with him and we've shared all the responsibilities of taking care of Brownie so he knows that he's our dog, not just mine. There was a while where we thought we might have to take him back, but luckily it seems Brownie's grown comfortable with Neil and he can stay! He's such a cute little guy, how can we not love him?!?!

Neil's Photography

My husband has decided he loves photography, so I thought I'd show off some of his photography skills!

HOMEOWNERS!

It’s official; we’re homeowners! This also means I get to cross #1 off of my list of 101 in 1001 Days! With the house came a few other things I can cross off the list or at least put in progress. #2 is now in progress as I have the date and time picked for my Pampered Chef party, December 18^th at 1:00pm, just need to get invitations out and host it. I am also working on #38 as we move from the apartment to the house. Thursday evening we went to Home Depot because they were having great sales on washers and dryers and purchased a front loading washer and dryer which crosses off #56. We now have an extra bed in our house that my parents kindly brought down Saturday so we finally went out and bought a new comforter for our bed (#55) and put our previous comforter on the guest bed. We also crossed off #81 because our new dining set came with a baker’s rack which I will be able to set my china out on.

Back to the house….we L-O-V-E it! It is absolutely perfect for us and even though the two lower levels aren’t finished there’s plenty of room for just us two. Eventually we’ll finish the two lower levels, but we really don’t need to worry about it until we start having kids. Closing went very smoothly Thursday evening and only took us about 45 minutes, best part was closing costs were MUCH lower than we had been told they would be the day prior. We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday moving. We were able to move enough stuff to the house to make it livable, thanks to my parents and Jeff. My dad brought down a trailer and he and Jeff provided much needed man power help to Neil so things got accomplished much faster (and less complaining) then if I had to help him lift and tote stuff all over. Now we just have to finish moving from the apartment, get stuff all unpacked, and, my favorite part, decorate! We’re so thankful that everything fell into place for us to get this house and can’t wait for family and friends to visit and see it!

Envy

Jealousy, desire, covet, want… all words that people don’t talk about. No one wants to admit that they’re envious of someone else, and people don’t want to hear others long for something they don’t have. Lately, I’ve been running into these emotions far too often. It’s hard for me to admit when I’m jealous of someone else because it’s hard for me to explain all the feelings that hit. First and foremost I am happy for the other person. Secondly the jealousy hits, I want what someone else has or achieved. Then all at once I feel guilty for being jealous and confused because I am truly happy for the person. I also get very upset with myself for being envious. I am truly blessed in my life. I have a loving, amazing husband who is proof of God’s love and blessings. I will soon have a house that we will own. I have a new vehicle, a good job, a wonderful family, I’m healthy, and so much more! Yet, there are things that I still want and want to achieve. I’m only 23, I’m not worried about being too old to accomplish my goals, but it seems they are staring me in the face. I find constant, little reminders of the things I long for whenever I turn around. I find myself avoiding certain Facebook pages and emails to stop the reminders. I’m human, these feelings hit me out of nowhere, and I do everything possible to make them go away.

Back to that amazing husband of mine. When I’m upset or happy or stressed or really any emotion that I may have, I talk about it. My husband gets the brunt of this. There are things, such as jealousy, that I won’t talk to anyone else about. I don’t want them to take it the wrong way or diminish their excitement, so I talk to Neil. Whether I’m crying, yelling, or just venting he will sit and listen. He helps me get through everything, he points out what I have to be thankful for without making me feel guilty for wanting more. He reassures me that someday it all will happen and I know he means it, he would give me anything in his power and I would do the same for him.

So, how do I get these feelings to stop? That I’m not entirely sure of, but remembering all I have to be thankful for helps. Talking about it also helps; sometimes hearing myself say things out loud shows me how silly I’m being. Avoidance also helps me, but it’s not something I can stand doing because I don’t want to hurt the other person. Having my husband tell me over and over I’m not a horrible person for being jealous also helps a lot! I know I’m harder on myself than anyone else could possibly be and Neil continues to try balancing that out and for that I am more thankful than he’ll ever know. Writing helps (thus this blog), being able to get my feelings out in the open without having to say the words is like a weight being lifted. Being able to voice my feelings, admit I’m by no means perfect, and maybe have someone else read my words and understand because they’ve been there too. Lastly, sharing in someone else’s excitement helps. I would never wish for someone to have less than they do or have something taken away. No matter what feelings may unexpectedly hit me I have always been able to share in others achievements and blessings and be truly happy for them; for that I thank God every single day.