Christmas Eve Celebration

We had a very fun filled Christmas eve with family and friends. I think there were about 20 of us. We had prime rib, shrimp, ham fried rice, and all sorts of salads, treats, and desserts! Yum!! We played bingo, Guitar Hero World Tour, and added a little birthday celebrating for my mom! It was slightly hectic and noisy with that many people but tons of fun!
Here is mom's birthday cake. Don't you love the candles?? I think there were 24 of them. I am pretty sure that is how old she is. :) I did get pics of her blowing them out but I didn't think she would appreciate me posting them!

I just love people's faces while playing this game. It does take some pretty good concentration!

Here are a few of our party animals. My little bro Dylan, brother-in-law Kevin, other brother-in-law Steven, Eric, Mom in back with baby Jade (Jevan and Michelle's), Marty and Suzy. Thanks to everyone for coming! We ate way too much and had a great time!

Good Samaritans!

We have had a couple BIG snowstorms in the last week or so. The most recent one was on Christmas night. It was pretty insane. I just wanted to say what wonderful neighbors we have. The whole time we were in the process of building our home, they would stop by with treats, hot chocolate, just to say hi, or to lend a helping hand. We knew we would love Millville. And we do! There have a total of three times when we have been so appreciative. The other day we were both on our way home. Eric was going to make it before me and said he would try to get my side of the driveway shoveled before I got home so I wouldn't have to park on the street or drive over it and pack it down. Well, when we arrived home, this is what we saw......

We were so surprised and happy! And THANKFUL! I know they will never read this but we just wanted to say thanks. I took some goodies over but may have to do it again. Saturday morning, after a huge storm, we woke up (it was a little later than we would normally get up:) and to our surprise, our driveway had been cleared yet again. Thank you thank you thank you!! He also came over one day when Eric was out shoveling and helped him finish. Those snow blowers are amazing! Maybe one day we will own one...... (Sorry this pic is very crooked. Not sure what my problem was....)

I thought these little, tiny tracks of Kai's were pretty cute. She is pretty funny about the snow. Not really a fan. After she goes out in it, she is extra frisky and runs around the house like she is barrel racing. Maybe to warm her up? Who knows. She also does it right after she gets a bath. It is quite entertaining though!

Nutcracker Fiasco!

Despite the yucky (understatement) weather, we decided to brave it and head to SLC for the ballet. We left Paradise about 2:40 and headed south. It took us about 40 minutes or so to get to Brigham City. Not horrible considering the crappy roads in the canyon. We went about 45-50 mph through it. We only passed one accident involving a four door Chevy and a Doritos delivery van. Kind of random but hopefully every one was okay and not too many chips were damaged. :) Once we made it out of the canyon, we noticed cones, State Troopers, and EXTREMELY backed up traffic. They must be closing the canyon we thought. Nope! Turns out they had shut down I-15. Awesome! Apparently there was something like 30+ accidents in a short period of time in a short distance. We picked up the rest of our group in Perry and stayed on the fruit way. Don't worry that we could have ran faster than we were creeping along. Time kept ticking away and we realized it was a good thing we left early to go shopping. (The shopping time was slowly and sadly slipping away). We were finally able to get back on the freeway a little before Roy. We picked up our last person and decided we should eat somewhere close by. After we ate, it had cleared up and it was fairly smooth sailing. We barely (and by barely I mean we parked at like 6:50pm and the ballet started at 7!) made it there on time. As we were distributing tickets to everyone (our group had 11 in all), we noticed something fishy. We were short 1 ticket!!! Are you kidding me?! Apparently there had been some ticket exchanging going on and somehow, someone used a ticket they were not supposed to have used the night before. Confused? Me too. Lisa went to the ticket counter on the verge of tears to try to explain to them what had happened. She was so relieved when they reprinted 2 tickets and handed them to her. What a relief! So everything is great, right? Wrong! After a closer look, we noticed that they just reprinted 2 of the tickets we already had!! So we now had duplicates. After a few deep breaths, we came up with a plan. We had enougth tickets to get through the door, we just would have to hope for an empty seat nearby :) So we sneakily divided the duplicate tickets and sent people in in spurts. You know, so they wouldn't catch us? We all made it in and it turned that there was 1 empty seat by the others. We all sat down and as each person made their way towards us, and our hearts started beating fastly, we hoped they were not coming for OUR 1 seat. Phew! We made it and thoroughly enjoyed the ballet! The roads were much better on the way home and I survived to tell you all about it! Yeah for memories that you can look back at and laugh at.

Think it will snow?

I am sitting at work, listening to Christmas music, looking out the window, and wishing I were at home. The snow is dumping on us and we are supposed to get up to 7 inches!! It sure looks pretty though. So I borrowed a camera from my work and snapped a couple shots of what I am looking at out of my office windows. Don't worry, I was very productive this morning and I will be more productive later! :) At least the wind stopped. We are supposed to go to Ogden for Eric's work party tonight and I am supposed to go to the Nutcracker in SLC tomorrow so hopefully it stops and clears up soon or I am afraid we will miss one or both. Maybe we will get lucky and one of our many nice neighbors will snowblow our driveway for us while we are gone! :) Hey, at least it is warmer then 1 degree today!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! Look at those big, fluffy, flakes! Looks like someone better break out the snow shovel and plow.

Sorry about the dates on the pics. Since it is not my camera I don't know how to get that off. Oh well.

Help!! Please!!

Okay, so I have tried to figure it out but with no such luck.....how do I make it so all my blog links show when they were last updated??? I hate having to click on each one only to be disappointed when some of you have not updated in a VERY long time. he he :) Just kidding but it would be nice to be able to just look and see. I am hoping I don't have to re-enter everyone's addresses in again but if I have to I will. So, if one of you bright stars out there knows how I can do this, please share! Thanks bunches and bunches!

Crazy Eights

I have been tagged by Brit

8 FAVORITE TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH:
90210 (New one if that makes me less weird:)
Gossip Girl
Privileged
The Office
2 and a Half Men
American Idol (When it comes back on)
Bachelor (When it comes back on)
House Hunters

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
Angies
Chili's
Cheesecake Factory
Texas Roadhouse
PF Changs
Firehouse
Cafe Sabor
Costa Vida

8 THINGS THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY
It snowed!!!!
Went shopping
Watch Prince Caspian
Hung out with my hubby ALL day. Loved it!
Went ugly sweater shopping. No luck....
Attempted to make fruit cake. Yeah, Eric loves it. (Notice I said attempted. I will be attempting again.....)
Took a nap from 6-9pm. Didn't mean to.....but I still slept great that night!
Did laundry

8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO
Christmas!
Eric's work party Friday
Nutcracker in SLC Saturday
No work the day after Christmas and half day Christmas eve!
All my family together on Christmas Eve at my house.
Giving Eric his gifts. I can barely stand it!
Talking to my brother on Christmas!!!!!!
Next snow storm. Yes I am crazy and yes I know I will be hating it before too long.

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
A maid
A personal chef
New pan set (for the chef of course)
Vehicles paid off
A very Merry Christmas!!
A yard
A friend for Moose :)
To win the lottery. Probably helps your chances if you actually play it though.

8 PEOPLE I AM TAGGING
Suzy
Chelsie
Ashlee Shepherd
Britanee Walker
Shelly
Ashley White
Kiesha
Melissa S.

Now it REALLY is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I am sure many people were bummed but this morning when I woke up and saw all the snow, I was like a little kid! I was so excited! December is about the only month that I love snow. It just makes everything so pretty and gives it a reason to be cold. We have been hibernating inside, cleaning, baking and just relaxing today and it has been so nice! We are rarely both home together on a Saturday so I am enjoying. We might get brave a little later and try to finish up our shopping. Here are some pics!

Yes, my husband is shoveling in a short sleeve t-shirt....

I told Eric I thought we got about 6 inches and he said no way! So we had to see who was right. He thought 4-5 and said 6. And the winner is......

Look at that. Almost exactly 6 inches! That's right.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!

I love this time of year! I love the lights, the decorations, music, parties, treats, shopping, giving, all of it!! I know I am a little slow but I really did have all my decorations up by the day after Thanksgiving. Eric went out of town that Friday thru Sunday so I had plenty of time. And with the help of my mom, we got it done!

I just realized I didn't have my stockings hung in this picture! Oh well. I got that Nativity a couple Christmases ago and this is the first year I have been able to use. It is so pretty in real life.

I took a million (close enough) pictures of our tree and they all turned out blurry or dark or something. So this is the best one. It has a purple and silver theme. Surprised? Anyone that knows me really well knows that I LOVE purple. Plus it matches my plum wall! :)

I think this turned out as my favorite. My mom did most of the work on this one.

It is a very good thing Eric was gone while this was going on. It was a mess!! There was glitter and fake snow and stuff EVERYWHERE!!! I was worried that I wouldn't have enough decor to fill all my spots but it was just about right. Of course there is always room for more though. I am going to be sad to have to take it all down. Plus, my shelves are going to look empty. Guess I will have to shopping for just winter decor! I hope you are all enjoying this season and time of the year as much as I am!

You are invited!!

Hey everyone! I am having a virtual watch party! I thought this was a great idea since we get so busy this time of year. I have looked at all of these and they are all so fun! These would make great gifts for moms, sisters, friends, wives, teachers pretty much anyone. These are the interchangeable beaded watch bands. Feel free to pass this info on to anyone you think may be interested. She said that there would be no problem getting this to you all in time for Christmas. She ships within 24 hours of receiving payment. It should be very easy and hopefully help you cross a few people off of your list! And the prices are great! I believe you can get a band and face for $30! Thanks guys and I hope you are all enjoying your holidays!

You are invited to a virtual watch party!

Date: Tuesday, Dec. 9th- Sunday, Dec. 14th

Hostess: Brooke Sanders

Consultant: Sara Jane Taylor

A virtual party is as simple as 1,2,3!

Here's how it works:

1. Click on the link! Simply visit www.WhichWatch.etsy.com from Dec. 9th-Dec. 14th, to check out all the cute interchangeable watch bands and faces available.

2. Choose your favorites! Choose the face(s) and/or band(s) you like. DO NOT ADD THEM TO YOUR CART. Instead, when you are ready to make your selections, send Sara Jane a message at [email protected] letting her know which items you would like to purchase, including the band sizes and watch face colors you would like. BE SURE TO MENTION BROOKE'S NAME IN YOUR MESSAGE! Then, Sara Jane will send you a paypal invoice for your items.

3. Buy! Once you receive your invoice, simply click the payment link & complete the payment process. You do not need to have a paypal account in order to send a payment. Your watches will be in the mail to you within 24 hours!!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Sara Jane at [email protected] or Brooke at [email protected]

Time to go shopping!!

My "First" Thanksgiving

So obviously it wasn't my FIRST Thanksgiving but it was my first time hosting Thanksgiving. I was really fun and it worked out nicely that we were able to have both our families over. There were 16 of us all together which is a lot to me! It went smoothly, for the most part......I must have counted and recounted in my head how many people were coming. When it came time for dinner, everyone grabbed their plate (we did it buffet style). Our nephew Kaden said he didn't have one. Hmmm. That is weird. Oh well, I got him out another one. As we all started sitting down, I noticed the table was looking rather full and there were still a few in line. I counted once again. Oh crap! Then it hit me. All the times I had counted, I had forgot 2 special people. Me and Eric! Grr! So I was 2 place settings short. Now if I would have let it, it could have been a disaster but thanks to my very wonderful (and understanding) family, we worked it out. Don't worry that our dads had to sit up at the bar and use my purple utensils. Ha ha. They were great sports. And it turned out great! I guess it couldn't have been to bad because I have been hired to host Christmas Eve at my house as well! I am very excited for this one! Anyways, here are a few pics. Nothing to exciting, I just wanted to always remember my "First" Thanksgiving! :)

My lovely table setting for 14. NOT 16. :(

Not bad for my first turkey. It tasted pretty yummy too if I do say so myself! Yeah, it would have looked better on a beautiful platter with garnisments and such beautifully placed around it but give me a break people. Baby steps. Maybe next year......

My hubby carving the turkey. Nice work babe!

I hope everyone else had as wonderful of a Thanksgiving as I did! I am so thankful for my family and for all of you! Oh yeah, and remember those Chirstmas lights that were put up 2 weeks or so ago? Yeah, they still are not on. Turns out our electrician wired the outlet for our lights but forgot to install a switch to turn the dang things on! His assistant (meaning Eric) is probably partly to blame as well. Oh well. So as soon as we get the switch wired and hooked up, we will be in business! Don't worry that in the process of running some wire for the switch my hubby drilled through the wire that runs all the outlets in the living room and hall way and we had to switch modes and repair that first! Sheesh. It is always something. But you know what? I love it!

Happy Holidays!

I have been where Edward has been!

Remember this..........

I was here and guess what!! So was Edward. Turns out Multnomah Falls is in the movie Twilight. I feel so special. Too bad he wasn't there when I was there. I am not obsessed or anything (maybe a little) I just think it is really neat. This place is gorgous and now I love it even more!

A place for everything and everything in its place.

A couple weekends ago we had a very productive Saturday. We put up our Christmas lights (don't worry, they will not be turned on until after Thanksgiving. We just wanted to get it done while the weather was still nice.....) and we also solved a HUGE problem. Well it was huge to me. You see, we had all the wires for our TV and everything ran through the wall so we could hang the TV up and you wouldn't see any wires. Well, we decided to wait on the HDMI cable because for the 25 feet we needed, it would cost us about $200. So this is what I got to look at all the time......

Tacky, eh?! Yeah. It had to go. So as I was browsing the internet one lovely afternoon, I found 25 feet of HDMI cable for, are you ready???? $16 with free shipping!!!! I of course bought it and decided that for that price I was willing to take the risk of it not working. It arrived super fast and we went to work fishing the wire through the wall. It was a little bit of a challenge but with a little fish tape, string and a vacuum hose, we got the job done. Oh yeah, before we went through all that work, we made sure it worked and it worked like a champ! Ready for the "after"?

Ah, much better! Don't you think?

Elder Tribett!

My little bro has been on his mission in Florida for 8 months now and he FINALLY sent us pictures other than ones from the MTC. No I am not joking. The only good part is, he has been really working on loosing weight and so since we have not seen him in SO long, we can really see the results in these pics! I know a lot of you don't know him but for those of you that do, can you tell a difference?? He would probably be so mad at me for posting these but I am just so proud of him and I think he looks SO good! You will notice his hair is a little shorter than the average missionary......shortly before these were taken, it was the World Series and as you may (or not) know, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays made it! One of the games happened to be on his P-day and him and his companion happened to need hair cuts, so they decided to take advantage of this opportunity and shave thier heads into mohawks for a few hours in support. I am guessing they had to cut their hair a little shorter than normal to get rid of the mohawks. Silly boys. Anywho, here is my wonderful little brother David!

These were taken at this little boys' birthday party. Apparantly there was an entire petting zoo and pony rides! I love him so much and am so proud to have him as my brother. He looks SO good to me! All the suits and clothes he went with are now way to big for him so he recently went shopping at Goodwill and found his "dream suit". I guess it is brown with powder blue pin strips and it fits him perfectly. Ha ha. For those of you that don't know him or are curious, click HERE to see pics of the day he went to the MTC and see the difference! His secret?? The Abs Diet. I am going to try it out and see if I can get rid of my extra pounds! Seems to be pretty doable compared to other diets I have read.

He is sending me his camera card so that I can take all the pics off of it so be forwarned that there could be more David posts coming up! He is doing so good and is in the Clearwater area right now which is so pretty! Unfortunatley for him, his apartment is in a semi-questionable part of town but he is loving it!

Free Jewelry Anyone?

Click Here! To Enter to win a free jewelry set! Good luck!

You have got to be kidding me!

Last Christmas Eric surprised me with tickets to see Celine Dion in concert in Salt Lake. He knew I had been dying to go see her in Vegas so when he heard she was coming, he bought tickets. He had to purchase them a YEAR in advance. I was SO excited. Now a year later, the concert is this Friday night. Or so I thought. I just got this lovely email from Ticketmaster and I am fuming!......

"Hello, this is Ticketmaster Customer Service with an important alert for your upcoming event. Celine Dion, scheduled at EnergySolutions Arena on November 21, 2008, has been postponed. The new date is Sunday, February 22, 2009, at 8:00PM."

Are you freaking kidding me?! They are postponing it 3 MORE months?! And to make me even more upset, it is at 8 on a Sunday night?! Now that is convenient. I was getting so excited that it had FINALLY arrived and we were just making our plans and deciding when to leave and all that. I think this is a bunch a crap. Eric asked me if I wanted to sell the tickets. We had thought of this before because I know we could get a lot more than we paid for them but I decided I would rather go. Now I just don't know. I am so bugged that I feel like I would rather have the money to go shopping with.

I mean, who does this Celine Dion think she is anyways?! :) I don't care if you are a HUGE star, after making you fans wait a year, you would think you would be able to keep the date. And to wait about 4 days before the event to tell us? Can you sense my frustration?? She better have a good excuse. And maybe it is ESA with the problem but I don't think they would be dumb enough to reschedule Celine Dion. Maybe I should hurry and sell my tickets before she just completely cancels. Hmmm......now I am thinking.......

What would you do??? Sell them, send them back for an almost full refund, or suck it up, hope she doesn't completely bail, and go to the concert in February?

Slug Pug!

Oh my heck. I have been saving this one! When we were in Washington trying to find our way to the mall we pulled up behind this beauty and I read the license plate, thought it was lame, and then looked in the back window. Please click on this to enlarge it if you cannot see. Those are toy/stuffed pugs. Oh we were laughing hysterically! This is just great. A classic for sure. I wonder if that is the whole reason they bought this car. Some people....

Rose Marie's Bijouterie

My cousin recently started making and selling fabulous jewelry. I have had her button on my sidebar so some of you may have noticed it. She now has her site set up so that you can order and pay online. She does great work. Everything is high quality and very reasonably priced. Prices range from $5-$28 I believe. She sells earrings, necklaces, and bracelets and I believe she will even do custom orders if you have certain colors or ideas. Her email address is on my sidebar or on her website.

Please go check her out and pass the info on to anyone you think might be interested. Shipping is only $1.50. For anyone you that lives by me or may be visiting for any of the holidays, let me know. I have a bunch of her stuff right now and would be able to bring something to you so you would not have to pay the shipping. I am really excited about this and have bought a couple of her pieces for myself. Great gifts for moms, sisters, daughters or friends for Christmas! Go check her out and let me know what you think. You can order from her or check with me to see if I have what you want. Thanks girls!

Either click on the button on my sidebar or click here!

Boys will be boys......

On Halloween we went over to our friends house and just hung out. We had a lot of fun and they even made chocolate covered raspberries for us! Yum! We also had root beer floats. We were playing Around the World Ping Pong for a while but the girls got tired of it so it turned into just the boys. Well, of course they have to change the rules around and decided that for every 2 that you missed, you had to stand at the end of the table with your shirt up and let the other guys take 2 shots each at your back. It was actually pretty entertaining and I think you can tell from the pics who was the "loser".

Looks like a nice, fun, harmless game right?

Eric taking his beating.

Brady, Eric, and Jevan. The "aftermath". Yeah, that would be my hubby in the middle with all the welts. Jevan came out pretty clean. Wanna see a close up of the damage?

Are you kidding me?! He still had marks on his back almost five days later. They might have been faint, but they were there. See what I mean? Boys will be boys.....

Christmas in November!

So last year Eric's mom invited me to go see The Nutcracker ballet in Salt Lake. Her and a group of her friends had season tickets and one of the ladies could not go to this one so Suzy took me. I had never been and I LOVED it. My hubby has an excellent memory and surprised me the other day with these.....

Season tickets to the Ballet West ballets at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake! Oh I was SO excited!!! Some of you may think I am weird but I love this kind of stuff. Ballets, plays, musicals.......LOVE THEM! Well, the few I have been to anyways. After I was done freaking out and saying thank you, I asked, "So your mom asked if I would be interested and you said yes?" I was wrong. Come to find out, he asked his mom about it in the Spring! I was so impressed. Nice work babe. The first ballet is a week from this Saturday and it is The Tempest. If anyone has ever been, let me know what you thought. I am going with Eric's mom and some of her friends. We all have season tickets together. Merry early Christmas to me! He said it is actually not part of my Christmas, just something he wanted to do. What a sweetie. I have a fabulous hubby! I love you! xoxo

Rock Band Baby!!

The last night we were there we went to Jill's house and played rock band. It was a blast. We even got my mom and aunt to join in. Good times!

I love how her tongue is sticking out.

Such concentration. For anyone that knows my mom, you will know that this is pretty big for her. She is not very technologically inclined. ha ha We had fun and I am glad she gave in to peer pressure!

Aunt Darla jammin out.

Court on vocals, Kelly on guitar and Darla on drums.

Yeah, I suck horribly at drums!! I think my high was like 60%. Go Brooke! We had a great time.

Megan's Wedding!

So the whole point of our trip was to go to my cousin's wedding. It was a great night. She looked amazing. Here are some pics:

It was held at this neat place called the Arista Ballroom in Portland. I loved the entrance.

Oh, what? You are supposed to wait until the camera is done flashing before you move it? Silly mom.

Me and Court just after the wedding.

Again, cuter one on my sister's camera. What is up with that?! Me, my mom (Holly) and my sis.

Again?! Seriously mom. ha ha

I know this is way dark but the flower girls are my cousins little girls. They were so cute! They are twins and were always either holding hands or linking arms. They also kept flashing "I Love You" signs to their mom. It was fun to watch.

Her is the bride! I love her dress. I told her it reminds me of Belle. Who, by the way is my favorite princess.

We had such a great time. I can't wait to go back. It is so green and pretty there. I am not sure if I could live in Portland but Vancouver, for sure. We had so much fun hanging with family that we don't get to see very often. Thanks for having us!