Still Adjusting

I love Christmas. Like, looooove Christmas. 

In past years, I've dragged Chris with me to all sorts of Christmas-y things: the Festival of Trees, the Tree Jubilee, Temple Square to see the lights, ANY park to see the lights, sleigh rides, walking down Main Street in Cedar with cups of hot chocolate....

I'll take almost anything, people. 

But this year, with Chris working every night and me working most of them, I've realized we won't get the chance to do the Christmas things I love so much. 

And it will be a big adjustment for me. 

I miss a lot of things from our life in Cedar. 

I miss our giant Thanksgiving parties.

I miss seeing people I know around town.

I miss the cute cafe's that are open late.

I miss being able to get a freakin' scone. {SERIOUSLY. What kind of city doesn't have a good scone place??}

I miss the random late-night hangouts with friends.

 I miss friends, period.

I miss going through the drive-thru on Taco Tuesday with ten people shoved into the car. 

I miss the un-plowed roads in the winter, the cops who have nothing better to do than bust up our bonfires, and I even miss ducking my head to avoid my professors in the grocery store {because what can we possibly have to say to one another, anyway?}. 

But I suppose this move has given us a few things, too. 

I like being close to family. A 45-minute drive is immensely better than a 4-hour one. 

I like not having a bunch of single, loud, pretending-they're-not-smoking guys living above us.

I like learning to explore by myself. 

I like developing closer relationships with the few people we do know here. 

I like not having I'm-falling-off-the-edge-of-the-world gutters on every street.

And just as of a couple weeks ago, I like having my first-ever calling that does NOT involve playing the piano {i've literally only had piano-involved callings for the last TWELVE. YEARS.}.

So I guess I'm not really complaining, but I'm not really celebrating, either. This move has been full of lots of ups and downs, and I suppose I'm just going to have to learn to live with it. 

Because hey, c'est la vie.

{those four semesters of french weren't entirely wasted.}

DIY Comfy Fourth of July Tee

Yesterday, I got the urge to suddenly do something crafty for the 4th. Which is kind of weird, because usually it's not a big holiday in my book. I don't decorate....I don't wear patriotic clothing....and I don't take the time to dye my food red and blue.

Except this year I am doing all that. {well, except decorating. small steps here.}

We are having a BBQ with a bunch of friends tonight, for which I am actually  making red and blue star-shaped jello. 

Yes, I'm making jello. It's a Utah classic, people.

But all that aside, here is the shirt I made:

Like I previously stated, I'm not usually super-patriotic. {sorry america.} So when I made this shirt, I tried to make something that would work both for the 4th and for any other day of the year. 

I started with a basic white men's v-neck tee.

I took it in, gave it a rounded hem, and shortened the sleeves. Then I cut out alternating strips of blue patterned fabric, and sewed them onto the shirt. I left the edges raw, because I liked the frayed look. Total of five stripes in all.

That's pretty much it.

I'm wearing it with a red necklace. 

Yeah, that's about as red-white-and-blue as I can get.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Easter Kicks

Man, I sure do love making my husband do things he doesn't really want to do.

Like search for his "Easter basket." {in quotations due to the fact it wasn't actually a basket...more like a pile.} {but it was a pile of presents, so it had it's redeeming qualities.}

Doesn't he just look so curious?

Yes, it is a rather odd assortment of things, but Chris has a rather odd assortment of tastes at times.

You gotta admit those are some stylin' pants, though. 

As today I had the whole day to kick back and do absolutely nothing productive things, I decided to try out a simple hair mask made of olive oil and honey. Chris walked into the bathroom to find me slicking back my hair and yellow drips splattered all over the counter. 

Don't worry, I responsibly cleaned it up.

The results weren't bad--my hair was softer, and it may have been a little shinier than it was before. {or it may have been that i was standing directly under a bright light.}

Either way, Chris liked it. 

Boom.

Success.

So now that it's two days after Easter and all our Easter candy is gone {i swear i could eat my weight in Starburst jellybeans}, I've taken up a new addiction:

Right now I'm trying desperately not to drip on my laptop as I try to cram whole chips into my mouth. {yeah....not gettin' a picture of that one}

It's soooooooo deliciously addicting. {thanks a lot brea}

Anyone got any other amazing snacks?

You can never have too many.

Christmas Week: Part 1

I love Christmas. Like, loooooooooooooove it. 

It used to be because I loved the excitement of opening presents. {that hasn't entirely faded...}

But nowadays, its a mixture of the absolute joy that always seems to hang around, the celebration of Christ, the family get-togethers, the endless hot chocolate and candy, and most of all, watching other people open the gifts I got them. 

{Yay!}

Since Chris & I travel up north to be with family for the holidays, we open our presents to each other before we leave. This year, we decided that instead of opening them all on one day, we'd create a new, beautiful thing called......

Christmas Week. 

{Yaaaaay!}

We open one present a day, every day this week. 

Day #1:

I got a scarf, Chris got a Green Lantern shirt. 

Day #2:

I got BOOTS, Chris got a wrench organizer. 

Day #3:

I got a hot chocolate maker, Chris got a Hand Reflexology Kit. 

{He's already pretty amazing at it...I swear it makes my headaches feel better.}

 Oh yes. That's fur-lined on the inside all the way down.

I love the spirit of Santa. :)

The First Day of December Joyfulness...

Let the Christmas month begin!

Fittingly, it snowed today. 

Yes, I know the days are wrong. But they were right when I took this picture!

Baby, it's cold outside!

PEEPS

Tis the Easter season!

And I'm cheap.... this wreath cost me a grand total of about $4 (wooooooo!). I picked up the wreath at a thrift store and used some white spray paint I already had. Then, I just hot-glued the peeps and the ribbon and VOILA.


Don't you just love chillin' with YOUR peeps??

 

(Don't worry, I saved some to eat!) 

Peeps Wreath

Valentinians & Brides-to-Be

I have a lot to catch up on!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day with your sweeties. I know I did. And I got some handmade killer earrings in the deal. I know you would love to see them, but the pictures of me opening them all turned out blurry. Take my word--they're beautiful! My dear Christopher also got me the one thing I've always wanted for V-day but somehow NEVER gotten (curse you ex-boyfriends)--a box of chocolates! Okay okay...cliche, but its chocolate. Stop judging. And it was in the shape of a heart. Aw.

From me to him I decided to get a bunch of little gifts and surprise him with them throughout the day. First up: a bottle of orange Fanta, some pistachios, and a CD of mushy love songs. 

"I hope that you'll say yes

and make my 'fanta-sy' come true,

oh won't you be my Valentine

'cause I'm just 'nuts' for you!"

Get it? Get it??? Mock me if you will. I thought it was cute.

Next up: new after-shave lotion (I personally smelled ALL of the ones in the store), coconut body scrub, and a box of Red Hot candy. No poem this time (rhyming=headache), just a note that said:

"'Cause you are RED HOT!"

Mmmm-hmmm. Yes he is. And to put the icing on my metaphorical cake of gifts, I gave him cufflinks in the shape of levels. They were pretty awesome--thanks Amazon! 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weekend before Valentine's we went up north to celebrate a friend's bridal shower. It was pretty fun--though I found out I was the oldest one there! At 22. Yowch. A blow to the ego.

Valentine's Craftiness

I have discovered I am very much a holiday decorator. It brings me pleasure. :)

Yes! I made this!

Tassels on the lamps

Windowscape! I just bought a bunch of different sized glasses from DI and filled them with red gems (sorry for the dirty window...yikes!)

Ho-ho-holidays!

New razor!

Chris got me....tools ?? Sigh.

Christmas is always such a wonderful time of year, and this year we got to spend the holidays with our three lovely families! Christmas Eve we attended the Diepeveen annual party, where we played games and stuffed our faces. Christmas Day we split between the Robbins and the Goodwins, ending the day with a 3D viewing of Gulliver's Travels (pretty good, btw).

Grenade headphones! He's....excited?

But he also got me boots!

We definitely had some fun opening all our presents--not to mention watching everyone else open our gifts to them! We felt like we did pretty good: we got my parents a digital camera, his mom and Bart got handmade ceramics from Chris and magnets with our faces on them from me, and his dad and Rikki got a Dutch porcelain nativity set.

The cats also enjoyed themselves!

Fiyero figured out how to be King. Once Skimble climbed under the box...Fiyero sat on it! Poor Skimble was trapped under there for a while. Chris and I were laughing too hard to push Fiyero off.

 For our Christmas dinner, we ate prime rib! Yummo. And Chris was officially nominated by my mom to cook it (she admitted to being slightly scared of the giant-ness of the meat). He was a pro cook!

After it snowed on Sunday we decided to do something we hadn't done in a while--go play in it! We started off making a snowman, but my brother and Chris decided that having a snowball fight would be better. So we turned our snowman balls into forts. At least, Chris did. He managed to build a fort as tall as he was and 3 times as wide in the time it took me and Jace to build a waist-high mini wall. As Jace put it: We were screwed. Had anyone kept score, I'm sure we would have lost miserably! But we had a grand time doing it.

After that, we decided to bury Jace. Such fun.

To sum up our holidays: we played, we slept, and we ate WAY too much!

Two Holidays--One Blog.

Well aren't the holidays just awesome (And I mean they really are).

Chris & I had a rockin' night at the Fall Ball here at SUU--we got to dress up and get dinner for free! The dance was a lot of fun--and who knew I married a man with such...unique...moves? ;)

The Sunday before Thanksgiving we threw our annual Pre-Thanksgiving party. We deep-fried a TWENTY-THREE POUND turkey! Phew. We also managed to squeeze 22 people into our kitchen! It turned out to be oodles of fun and I was so grateful for all of the wonderful friends who came to spend time with us!

Here are all the pies/desserts we had...so good...

I had to wait a couple hours after dinner was over before I even had room for any! So much food!

And just this past Sunday we decided to have a 'hot chocolate party' and hand around some gifts we'd bought for our friends. We had a pretty good time watching the expressions on their faces as they opened their gifts. Russell got a baby launcher...Matt got an 'Awesome' pin....Mario got fry sauce...haha they were all pretty random! After that we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Definitely one of my top Christmas movies! 

Happy Holidays y'all. :)