~ I Love December! ~

This season really is my favorite! I love the snow (even though we haven't had a whole lot this year), the lights (even though it seems no one has put hardly any lights up this year), spending time with our awesome families, and having a break from school and work. It gives me time to rejuvenate. It's been an especially good year for a lot of other little reasons.

One - I won two tickets to the Trans Siberian Orchestra! What!? I've been entering to win for a little while online and finally they sent me the email telling me I'd won. I was so excited! We went yesterday and it was soo so fun! Two of the girls we sat close to were kind of interesting as well. One seemed to think that she was Xena warrior princess, but they were both really nice. They even offered to share their popcorn with us. Unfortunately, they offered it to probably the only two people in the world who don't actually like popcorn. Ha ha! There were times during some of the songs where I actually felt the vibrations shaking my entire body and resonating inside my chest. I loved it! So much fun to get out and do something like that with Jared.

Two - I also won an outfit naming contest from Vanity and won this super cute outfit!

Yes, this is from their website and the name I picked out! (Tease me all you want about it. I entered about 5 or 6 names and that's the one that won!) I'll be getting everything you see pictured on the model. They did tell me they're actually out of stock on the boots so I will be getting these instead.

Am I okay with that? Yes I am. I'm pretty excited to get everything in the mail here soon!

Three - Probably one of the best of all, we got to talk to Elder Madsen on the phone! He is doing soo good and he sounds great! He had told us in his emails to make sure that we write everything down that we wanted to ask him or talk to him about. Apparently he didn't think our last phone call lasted quite long enough because no one really knew what to say. This time definitely wasn't a problem. We all had plenty to say and so did he. We each took a turn speaking with him and when we were done, my mom started to cry a little. Which started my dad crying a little bit, which made me teary eyed. He is so great! He's hit the year mark so we're on the downhill slope now. It will be good to have him home, but is doing so much good in Mexico too. I love that boy! I took a lot of video of the conversations but I'm still trying to figure out how to get that on here.

Family at Christmas time!

The best part about Christmas . . . by far being with family. Here are just a few pictures of some of my most favorite people in the world during my favorite time of year!

Jared and Emmett

Mary (Olivia) and Joseph (Savannah)

The donkey (Brett)

Jared squishing Emmett, I don't think Emmett minds.

Our little Christmas corner

The Kindle Fire that Jared spoiled me with. He had it in mind for months apparently. He was so excited for me to open it. Needless to say, I LOVE IT!

If I wasn't already spoiled enough, Jared also got me the Silhouette Cameo!!

Jared and Emmett playing with what we got him for Christmas

Wendy and Trevor

My mom and Abuelita

Everyone gathered around to talk with Elder Madsen

Me with the love of my life waiting for our turn to talk to Elder Madsen

Jared opening his secret Santa gift

Judith, me and my mommy with our new crock pots!

My parents opening up the gift Jared and I got them (from On the Avenue)

Temple Square

As always, we made it a point to go to Salt Lake to Temple Square this year to see the lights. It's one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Four years ago was the first time I went with Jared and it was the first time I met his family. I love this tradition. We invited two of my friends from my program and their families to come with us this year. It's great being able to share it with people I care about. We spent about two, two and a half hours showing them around and we still didn't get to see everything. There's just so much to see!

Gateway Mall Christmas Tree and warming fire

Jared at Temple Square

The Tabernacle

Salt Lake Temple

The Nativity in the Reflecting Pool

Christmas Crafts

I wish I could say I made all these, but I didn't. I did make some of them though! Christmas is by far my most favorite holiday to decorate for.

I made this for Christmas gifts

Hm . . . what are we watching?

Christmas Countdown (On the Avenue)

Believe (On the Avenue)

Rachelle made these for me last Christmas!

Christmas Trees (On the Avenue)

I made these for me! Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I got this mantle for Christmas! (On the Avenue)

And finally, I learned how to make bows. I will never buy bows again!

Grad School is . . .

I am done with my first semester of graduate school. What!? I cannot believe how fast it went by. Good thing because if it was dragging along I'm pretty sure I would give up and die. I remember in the summer the second year students were telling us how hard it was but after the first couple weeks I didn't understand what they were talking about. Then about a month in I realized . . . yeah it's hard. Especially when waking up at 5 am every morning so that I could get my hours in at work. I actually think if it wasn't for that it wouldn't be as hard because at least I wouldn't be as tired all the time. 

We'll see how next semester goes because I'll actually be teaching an online class on top of everything else that I'll still be doing. Man. What was I thinking? I just have to keep in mind that in the end, it will all be worth it. For one of my classes I actually had to go and shadow a school psychologist and for the past two or so years I've been so worried that maybe I'm not going to like it. That I've wasted all this time, money, effort, and I've picked something I'm going to hate. Thank goodness for that shadow because of that's what school psychology is . . . bring it on! I loved it! So yes, in the end . . . it will definitely be worth it.

One semester down. 5 more to go!

Forgotten Carols

Jared and I went on a double date to the Forgotten Carols 20th anniversary show at Kent Concert Hall. We went with a friend of mine in my grad school program, Emilee and her date Mike. The Forgotten Carols is one of my very most favorite Christmas cd's so I was really stoked about going. It was a lot of fun! The live show doesn't sound as good to me as the cd, but it's still fun to go and see the show live. 

Halloween

We got to do a few fun things for Halloween this year. More than usual since Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday. At all. 

We got to go to Thriller at the Kent Concert Hall with Shane and Rachelle, and we set Brett up on a date with Kakoli. We ate at Frederico's beforehand but since we got there late we didn't exactly have enough time to eat a whole lot before heading to the show.

Brett and Kakoli

I'd been to Thriller once before for a class that I had to take my freshman year of college but I couldn't really remember it very well. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone else had a good time too. Jared's favorite part was the werewolves. My favorite part was having Rachelle about jump out of her skin when a zombie came to say hello. I wish I could have recorded that. 

Shane and Rachelle

Shane and Zombie

Jared and Me

Werewolves

Another night we decided to have a Halloween movie night at our apartment with Shane and Rachelle of course, and Dan, Mandy, and Kara. We ate taco soup and watched The Silence of the Lambs (which I love!) and The Shining (which I hated!). Neither of them are scary but definitely creepy. Anthony Hopkins is awesome! And Jack Nicholson is just a creeper in real life so it wasn't a big stretch for the Shining. Maybe one of these Halloweens we can watch a movie that's actually scary.  :)  

Silence of the Lambs

Heeeere's Johnny!

Date Night!

I love going on our date nights. It's usually dinner and a movie, but seeing as how I love movies and I really love dinner, I'm ok with that! Plus, I'm always guaranteed a really good looking date.

This weekend we decided to catch dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant in Brigham called Hunan Village. My parents took us there to eat all the time when we were growing up and one day during my second year of college they were gone. I was soo sad! Luckily, apparently they were just moving and upgrading so they've opened back up and we love it! I almost always get their broccoli chicken and Jared's favorite is the lemon chicken. But the thing I love the most is their egg drop soup. I always try it at every Chinese restaurant I ever go to but no other place is as delicious as it is here. Sooo yummy!! We also always get us a side of their cheese puffs that you dip into sweet and sour sauce . . . I'm ready to go back again.

We got to Ogden and went to see Captain America! Love love loved it! It is definitely up in my top favorite hero movies. For one thing, everyone miraculously kept their clothes on (minus like one scene with Captain America showing off his new body of course), but all clothes on and still a GREAT movie. -Imagine that.- Also, it really was just a good movie. At the very end after everything is over, they had a little blip for The Avengers. I'm VERY excited for that one to come out!

Weekend Sleepover Party

In celebration of my youngest siblings' birthday we are having them sleep over tonight and taking them out for a night on the town. I can't believe that Erik and Heidi are 15!! Just one more year and they'll be dating and driving and . . . I swear I was doing all of those things yesterday.

We let them pick where they wanted to eat and we ate at a place called Burgerz Exprezz in Smithfield. It's family run and they used to be the burger place that was in the mall for a while. It's Jared's favorite burger joint. Afterwards, we took them to Thor at the theater in Lewiston. Neither of them had seen it yet and I loved it so I of course wanted to see it again. (It's another one of those that we'll add to our collection one day.) We didn't tell them what we were going to see and they were guessing up until the movie started. Good thing they loved it too.

I love having those two over even though I have no idea why they like coming here. We are actually mostly boring. Hence, very little blogging really ever done. Oh well. It's great being able to spend some time with the baby brother and sister.

~Craft Night~

So my beautiful friend Rachelle invited me to a craft night a couple months ago put together by this amazing lady in the valley. Her name is Mandy Schiess and she has a blog called On The Avenue. (www.ontheavenuelogan.blogspot.com) The craft night was so much fun and our projects turned out so stinking cute!! Since then, Rachelle and I have been to two more. The last one being last night. So far I've made 7 adorable projects (if I do say so myself) and I LOVE them! And of course I'm going to keep going!

There are a bunch of things that I love about these craft nights.

1. Everything is put together for you. Mandy and her husband have everything cut up and put into kits. They have the paint, mod podge, sanders, everything there so you just buy what you want to do and put it all together there. I love love this because a lot of the time I'll start something at home then I will never get around to finishing it. This way I'm just there for a few hours and I get to take home all made projects for my home.

2. Mandy is so great! She has such an awesome personality and is there to help you out with anything and everything. She and her husband also run all big nail and staple guns and sanders so that you can get bigger, cuter, put together projects that I wouldn't be able to do at home.

3. A lot of people go and do the projects so you can get ideas from the different ways people are doing their own things. This has helped me out a lot because sometimes I have a hard time getting my own creative juices to flow.

4. The prices for the projects are super reasonable. Like I said I just love being able to have a finished project to take home!

5. They do a drawing every time! The first night I won a free haircut from Valhalla. Last night they told us they're going to start doing bigger things as well like furniture (that they make and have all made of course) and other decorations. Last night they had an awesome decorative chair and welcome post for outside. I am so jealous of the people that won those. :) Maybe next time.

If you wanna come to the craft nights, I've been inviting everyone I know that I think would be interested in it. Her blog for the craft nights iswww.supersaturdayswithontheavenue.blogspot.com. The next craft night is at the end of August and she's got a whole bunch of Halloween crafts to do. I am very excited for a couple of them. Also, if you go on to good ole Facebook you can find her page there.

From our first craft night. My super cute Watermelon Welcome sign. It's what I tell people when they're trying to find my house. "It's the one with the big watermelon on it!"

My Lazy Days of Summer Blocks (also from the first night). I almost didn't do these because the picture she had they had a white background. But then when we got there she had brown paint, which of course immediately made everything better. For me anyways.

God Bless America! These are from the second craft night we went to. At first I had painted all my blocks blue and Rachelle had painted all of hers red. Then we saw that a couple other people had painted their blocks every other color. Ugh it's one of those times where we should have watched other people first. :) So Rachelle and I just switched every one of our blocks so that we could have it that way too.

I seriously LOVE these!! They're humongous so it took some rearranging to get them all to fit on my shelf. But I love them.

And finally, from last night. We made a bunch of fall stuff. I had zero fall stuff so I was pretty excited.

A cute birdhouse that I almost didn't make but decided to anyway.

My favorite from last night was this beadboard with sunflowers! I love love love it! I am proud of myself for taking a "risk" and distressing the inside with white instead of leaving it just brown, but I'm really glad I did. I love how it turned out.

Here is a picture of mine and Rachelle's boards. She did her's red with a brown distress over white. I like how they both turned out. :)