Holiday To-Do's...Done!

We've trimmed the tree,


gone to see the lights at Temple Square,


decorated Christmas cookies,


played in the snow,


and have gone to see Santa (though Macy refused to sit on his lap, she was willing to get just close enough to get the bag of treats).

Okay, Christmas! You can come now.

Why I Love Christmas

Most people have that one special thing they look forward to during the Christmas season.

For me, it's these babies.

What are they you ask?

Simply the greatest cinnamon rolls ever known to man.

a.k.a. Heaven on a plate
a.k.a. Pure deliciousness
a.k.a. The best neighbor gift we've ever received (no offense other neighbors, but these really are that good.)

Every year our neighbors drop off a plate of these at our house close to Christmas. Over the years, our response to the cinnamon rolls has evolved.

2005-Ignorance is bliss. Up until this point, we had only known life without these cinnamon rolls. We received them graciously, excited to be getting to know our new neighbors. Still being in that newly-wedded stage of bliss, we share the rolls.

2006-The year we begin to realize that our neighbors give these things EVERY year. How lucky can we be? We are so happy to have them in our home once again that we sit down and split them equally...two for Brett, two for me.

2007-I'm nine months pregnant. I'm the only one home when the cinnamon rolls come. I eat them all and dare Brett to say anything. Not wanting to upset the hormonal beast that I had become, he stays quiet.

2008-Not wanting to miss out on this year's plate of pure deliciousness, Brett makes me promise (in October!) that we will split the cinnamon rolls equally this year. Lucky for us, Macy can't walk or talk yet, so we reason that she is not yet old enough to partake. More for us.

2009-We really are crazy about these things. Brett calls me while I'm at work today to deliver the good news..."guess what neighbor gift we got today?!" I drive home drooling. However, now that Macy is much more aware of her surroundings, and practically addicted to anything with lots of sugar, we force ourselves to wait until she is asleep so we don't have to share with her. Are we awesome parents, or what?

Ahhhh, those things are so good. I don't think we'll ever move.

Hoop It Up

Still searching for that perfect gift?

Might I suggest...


...the hula hoop!


Reasonably priced, it comes in all shapes and sizes,


gives you a unique, fun workout (if you can keep it going for more than 5 seconds),


provides hours of entertainment and laughs for both the hooper and spectators alike,


and, if nothing else, provides the photographer in you with some pretty sweet photos.

Graduation

Student Loans...More $ than we even want to think about

Books....Upwards of $300 per semester

Cap and Gown....$30

Being Finished with School....Priceless!

The much anticipated, long awaited day of Brett's graduation finally came! It has been a long hard road and I can't even begin to put into words how proud I am of Brett. He hates when I brag about him, but knowing how much he had to go through in the process of getting this degree just makes me that much more amazed at his perseverance, work ethic and motivation. I know college is hard for a lot of people, but having to work full time, take care of a wife and baby, work on our house and yard and volunteer time for a church calling in addition to going to school full time doesn't make it any easier. He is my hero.

Brett was fortunate enough to be hired on at Hill Air Force Base with their SCEP program (basically a paid internship) last year, and will be able to continue working for them in their staffing department. It is so nice to not have to worry about looking for a job. Now his only worry is trying to figure out what he's going to do with all his free time! (Right...)

Welcome Baby Haidyn!

Welcome to our new little neice, Haidyn Elle.


She was born at 3am this morning, weighing in at 7 lbs. 9 oz. and measured 20 inches long.


Macy was so upset that she didn't get to see her new little cousin (hospital rules don't allow anyone under 14 past the hospital lobby) but did have fun riding the elevators with Uncle Chase while Brett and I went to visit Breanne and the baby.

Hooray for new additions!

Almost Here...

Sib Snaps

We just wrapped up a super fun, early Thanksgiving feast with my mom and siblings, but due to a broken camera (sob! sob! I am going through serious withdrawals and need to get it fixed ASAP) I have no pictures of the festivities. So instead, I figured I would gift you with fun pics from the previous weekend when Brett, Macy, Sarah, Michael and I were in Boise visiting family.


What are my sibbies doing in this one? If only I knew...


Trying to escape the Mace monster.


See? We can take a normal looking picture...


...just don't expect more than one!


Little M in her new boots (thanks Grandma Barb!) and new coat/hat (thanks Aunt Sarah!) She thought she was the stuff and refused to take any of the new items off for hours.


Results of Aunt Sarah's modeling workshop. (AKA the cheerleader face. Both Sarah and I have one too many cheerleading photos with our expressions similar to this.)


Here's to getting my camera fixed so you can enjoy more photos like this one!

Sing Loud, Sing Proud

Everybody has one...or several. Those songs that you think you know the words to, that you sing at the top of your lungs for years until one day you're with someone who asks you to repeat what you just sang, laughs their head off, then informs you that you are essentially, completely wrong.

For example...

Song: White Winged Dove by Stevie Nicks
Lyrics according to Brett: "Just like the one winged girl..."
Actual lyrics: "Just like the white winged dove..."

Song:How's It Going To Be by Third Eye Blind
Lyrics according to Amanda: "Sometimes I want to clear the air!"
Actual lyrics: "The soft dive of oblivion!"

Song: Miami by Will Smith
Lyrics according to Brett's sister Shawnee: "Welcome to Miami, the beaches are so sandy."
Actual lyrics: "Welcome to Miami, bienvenido a Miami."

Song: La Cucaracha (the Mexican cockroach song)
Lyrics according to Amanda's mom Sherri: "On my pony coming home."
Actual lyrics: "Ya no puede caminar."

Song: Dirty Deeds by ACDC
Lyrics according to Brett's boss' wife: "Dirty deeds and the Dunder chief."
Actual lyrics: "Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap."

Have any of your own mixed up lyrics? Be sure to share them!

Halloweekend

Even though we had our Halloween party last weekend, we still found some stuff to keep us busy.


I won some Jazz tickets from a local radio station (holla for free stuff!), so we went to the Jazz home opener on the 30th.


We spent Halloween afternoon at the Carters and got to see everyone's costumes before they took off to their various parties.


Later that night we took our little ladybug to a couple houses in the neighborhood to do some trick or treating. I'm pretty sure Halloween is Macy's new favorite holiday...she ate more candy this weekend than she's had the past couple of months. I guess that's what Halloween is for, right?

Great Costumes...What Are You?

I'm starting to believe that when it comes to Halloween, we tend to think just a little too far outside the box.

Take last year for example. We decided to dress Macy up as Max from "Where the Wild Things Are" (see last year's post here) and nobody got it. Instead of being praised for our creative costume idea, we spent the entire night explaining what she was.

So this year we come up with what we think is an absolutely hilarious idea, get all dressed up and head off to our Halloween party looking like this:


So here's your Halloween pop quiz. Were we:

A) Cavemen/women

B) Disco dancers

C) Zebras on crack

D) None of the above

If you answered D, none of the above, give yourself some candy corn, you're right! Still stumped at what we did go as? (Drum roll, please.) Sigfried and Roy! Okay, so it wasn't the best attempt at creating the gay tiger trainers' getups, but I thought the intense bronzer and gold bling would totally give it away if our little white tiger sidekick didn't.


Anyways, despite our costume confusion, we had a fun night with the friends.


The Cooke crew featured 2 pirates, 2 Handy Mannys and 1 ladybug.


The Fields came as vampires, and apparently pretty scary ones. One of the Cooke's little boys hid behind the couch for a half an hour after he saw Brad with his "scary teeth."


The Johnsons came as Fred and Wilma Flintstone. I absolutely loved their costumes and might be hitting up Heidi to borrow their get-ups next year.


Moral of this story? If you can't come up with recognizable costumes, at least hang out with people who don't care!

Pumpkin Patch

Last week I decided to take little Miss Mace to a pumpkin patch a few miles away from our house. Would it have been cheaper and closer to get our pumpkins at the local grocery store? Of course...but how much fun is that?


I'm pretty sure they had this set up so that people with any kind of camera skills could make it look like their little one was perched atop this big ol' pumpkin. Obviously I need a little more camera practice...and a child willing to hold still for more than 2 seconds at a time.


Macy had lots of fun running around all the pumpkins, but got frustrated when she couldn't pick any of them up.


Inspecting the goods...


After searching through hundreds of pumpkins, she ended up picking the teeny tiniest one they had by the entrance.


Our little pumpkin picker. (And I promise, the overalls were not chosen purposely for this outing...I'm not that weird.)

Family Pics

Here, for your viewing pleasure...
Carter Family Pictures 2009!

(Photos by Jaclyn Davis Photography)

Couples Costume Ideas

Halloween always starts out as a frustrating holiday for me. I love dressing up, but usually have such a hard time coming up with good costume ideas. Google searches rarely come up with anything fun, unique and cheap, so I thought I would share some of my favorite couples costumes that Brett & I and our friends have come up with over the years.


Halloween 2005
(L to R) The Johnsons as Gomez and Morticia from the Adams Family, Brett and I as each other and the Cookes as nerds in love.


Close-up of Brett as me. Nice hair, right?


Halloween 2006
My absolute favorite! Our group of friends dressed up as the characters from the Wizard of Oz.


Halloween 2007
The Cookes as Pam and Jim from The Office.


The Johnsons as Mario and Luigi.


Me and Brett as Little Bo Peep and a sheep.


Halloween 2008
We weren't able to go to our traditional friends Halloween party, but did get invited to another party where we dressed up like Saturday Night Live characters Mary Katherine Galligher and Matt Foley.

Hopefully this has helped get your creative costume juices flowing. I can't wait for this year's party to see what everyone came up with. (You are going to LOVE ours...but I'm not going to give it away, so stay tuned!)

Hogle Zoo

We have been wanting to take Macy to a zoo for a long time, but just never seemed to be able to find a good time to go. So when Brett was able to take a half day off today, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go up to Hogle Zoo.




We got to see Zuri, the new baby elephant that was born in August. Right as we got there, Zuri decided to lay down for a nap, so we didn't get any good pictures of her. She was pretty cute through!


Giraffes have always been one of my favorite animals to see at the zoo. They also had a baby giraffe there, but it was impossible to get close enough for a picture. (The crowds were terrible...I blame the fact that it's UEA weekend.)


Macy LOVED the gorilla. She really liked all the animals, but she watched the gorilla forever. I was so glad that she got to see him this close.