leading up to christmas...

christmas was very good this year! it was so much fun with xavier. we did a lot this season and it was so nice to actually do so. last year i was pregnant and sick and didnt enjoy food all that much and didnt really want to go out and do anything in fear that i would get sick.

this year we made it to 2 christmas markets. one that is about 15 minutes away in a little mid-evil town called esslingen. that one was fun and very intersting. we had bread on a stick and i tried gluehwein for the first time - which wasnt the greatest drink ever. there was a parade of people dressed up in weird looking costumes and a guy telling stories with a torch. there was also a huge pyramid that was in the center of the market, it was pretty darn cool! the other market was just in downtown stuttgart. we started that market off by eating the biggest pretzel i have ever seen! we browsed and browsed, bought a couple of things and got a bite to eat. we had a bratwurst that had potatoes in it. it reminded us of a breakfast burrito type meal. it was good though. we were there for about 3 hrs. before heading out though, we had to grab some starbcks. and the awesome thing is that xavier slept the whole time!

we went to jeremys office christmas party and that was really fun. i always enjoy seeing the people that jeremy works with, especially sharon, renee, and josie. the party was at the commandants house. they are from louisiana so they had jumbylaya, seafood gumbo and the like. his wife also made this huge tray of almost bite sized cookies that i could NOT stop eating. they were delicious! they had the white elephant present exchange and after that we left. it was a pretty good party.

one thing i almost forgot to mention is that we ordered our first brand new car! its a metallic black volvo xc-90. it's pretty amazing and I can't wait to have it here!


most of our christmas shopping we did online again and we ordered about 3 weeks in advance, which wasn't long enough. some of xaviers presents didn't make it in time and still haven't came and the same with mine and jeremys. lame!

a couple of days before christmas i made sugar cookies for the first time. i was quite happy with the way they turned out. we decorated them that same night. these were the only cookies I ended up making this year. maybe next year i can make more.

i think we had a pretty good start to the christmas season. it only gets better on christmas day.