newlywed christmas.

Micah and I celebrated Christmas this year in Portland with his family (ALL of his family). But before we escaped Denver, we had a quiet morning to ourselves. Christmas eve morning I awoke from dreams of homemade sticky buns to pursue the real-life, edible adventure. My mom for years has made sticky buns on Christmas morning and I was not about to miss out on the looked forward to yearly, gooey mess of sugar and spice. The day before I conjured up the courage to work with yeast for the first time in my life and over night it had risen and was ready to be prepped for glory. As I rolled and sprinkled, and doused, and sliced, Micah brewed up our remaining novo coffee into an expresso delight.

And although they may not have been perfect, they tasted pretty darn terrific. I won't tell how many I ate, because that's a little too revealing of how much I love these rolls. But, let's just say I had plenty while unwrapping the presents stuffed in my stocking.

And, there were a LOT of presents. I had suggested that this year we fill up a stocking for each other, however, I mistakenly made the stockings much larger than normal.

My parents sent along some presents too.

Settlers of Catan's Cities and Knights was a big hit.

I love my hat! It's purple, which is rapidly (perhaps for some time) becoming one of my favorite colors.

Some other presents hiding in my stocking were:

Slippers!

An ornament reminiscent of Hawaii.

And an iPOD shuffle in green (which is also one of my favorite colors)!

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. The day was new and the ground was sprinkled with a layer of fresh white snow. The air was full of excitement and Christmas songs serenaded me. I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate the first of many holiday seasons to come. Even without all the presents, I had a great time hanging out with my best friend and love of my life! Although, I'm also look forward to carrying on the stocking tradition and, of course, the sticky buns as well.

Lastly, here's Micah modeling the dress shirt I got him. As you can tell it's all wrinkled...but, that's what happens when you go to desperate measures to roll up and squish a present in a stocking.

Stay tuned for more on Portland to come!