tis the season

for everything fun.

we've loving our first holiday season together.

here are a few of the fun things we've been up to.

{more than half of these pictures are blurry iphone pictures. sorry}

hittin the slopes.

we're lucky enough to have a father (in law) that loves snowboarding.

 and wants us to go up with him all the time. 

first time of the year. the saturday after thanksgiving with all of brian's siblings. :)

messiah sing-along.

a new tradition (for me.) brian's family goes to the messiah sing-along in salt lake city every saturday after thanksgiving. i'm not musically talented enough to really be successful at singing the crazy parts.

but brian & everyone else rock at it.

this would be at dinner before. @ market street grill.

Sunday's in Sandy.

our favorite thing is sunday dinner + a christmas movie with brian's family. after thanksgiving we watch a movie every sunday leading up to christmas. 

we love spending time with them.

(and not having to cook sunday dinner.) :)

we got to help put up the tree.

gingerbread houses.

this is another peterson tradition. and it's my first year being a part of it. brian's grandparents bring stuff over to make gingerbread houses. 

these babies took us an hour to make!

our first tree:

the birthday boy.

brian was pretty spoiled this year. 

he got to blow out three cakes.

we practically celebrated his birthday all week.

first up, his favorite cake made by his mom. 

thank goodness we still live close by so she can make the good stuff.

we opened presents as soon as his birthday started. (at midnight)

which i feel like might happen every year. 

texas roadhouse for birthday dinner.

 followed by cake & ice cream at our house with all of brian's favorite friends.

(of course i got no pictures of everyone else)

it was such a great night.

we finished the week off with a party with 2 of brian's high school friends. they were best friends growing up & celebrated their birthdays together every year. 

ugly sweaters & temple square.

we have a couple of cousins that live in salt lake/american fork/provo. 

we've been trying to take advantage of living close to each other lately.

first we had an ugly sweater christmas party.

 of course this is the only picture i got. in the car, on the way.

but can you see our ugly sweaters peeping through?

the bad news is brian loves that thing.

i have a terrible feeling i'll be seeing lots more of it this winter.

and of course, you can't do december without temple square.

to sum it up, we're having a good time.

& life is only going to get better when the fam flies in thursday. 

woohoo.