Christmas Snapshots

Our home at Christmas time

 I'm loving all your Christmas posts! We had a great weekend with family.

 

It's a tradition at Mom and Dad's house for each couple to perform a Christmas song on Christmas Eve, and Scott and I always try to embarrass ourselves as much as possible. This year we sang the Chipmunk Christmas Song, hence the costumes.

We slept over that night, and stayed up until 2 am playing Cranium with Ash and Luke. We had fun opening presents at 9am...ahhh the joys of sleeping in!

I got Scott some clothes and a power saw. Like usual, he was amazingly creative and totally spoiled me! I'm so excited about it I made it its own post...I always want to remember all the awesome details he put into it.

We had a great time getting to talk to Scott's brother Jeff, he's on a mission in Georgia.  The whole family conference called in from four different states, it worked awesome!  It was definitely a highlight of the day.

We were also able to go to my Grandma and Grandpa's house on Christmas, it is always great to see family and eat awesome food! (Colleen, that salad was incredible! )

Happy new years this week to you all!

Vanity can be a good thing

Scott worked on a Christmas present all week and I had no idea what he had up his sleeve.  I was so surprised!

I usually get ready sitting in front of a mirror on the floor because our one bathroom is tiny and has about two inches of counter space. Scott decided that was no good, so he made me a vanity! 

He took an old desk (that was free on the side of the road, ha ha) and painted it. Then he took an old vanity mirror from his parents and painted it to match. Scott is the king of organization, and he thought of everything!

A basket for my hair dryer and irons.

Plenty of room for my jewelry and makeup! There is so much storage...I have an entire drawer just for head bands.

The stool is from Ikea.  On Monday Scott took me out and we went and bought a few accessories:

The iron frame above the vanity was our splurge ($20 from Hobby Lobby).  It was brown, and Scott spray painted it shiny black.  It's gorgeous! We also got an 'x' for $2 (Hobby Lobby), a mini vase (64 cents at Michaels) and an adorable pair of quail ($1.75 at D.I.).  Don't you love getting good deals?!

Now my corner is good to go! THANKS SO MUCH BABE! I LOVE IT!

Recently:

We're still here, let's just say the first two weeks of December could be summed up in one word...FINALS.  Gross!  I'm glad to have some quality time with Scott now that doesn't include words like "quantitative research" and "AP Style".

My little brother snapped some backyard shots of us all geared up for winter (for Christmas cards). I like this one (and we like our X mugs from Pier 1).

Other non-homework happenings:
We have been updating a journal we keep- it was a Christmas gift from Scott last year:

We write down quick one-liners about what went on during the month.  It is fun to go back and remember funny inside jokes and things.  We fell behind so we have been working to get it up to date.

My view for the last five nights:

My fingers are tender but it has been good.


We have also been able to see a lot of family recently- can't beat that.  Merry Christmas to all of you! Hope you have a wonderful week!

Trees Galore

Scott has never been to the Festival of Trees before, so that was at the top of our list of things to do this Christmas season.

Actually, we really do have a list.  We wrote down 25 things we want to do this month- some of them big things (like the Festival) and some very small (kiss under mistletoe).  We have checked off five things so far.

The trees were all incredible. We looked at every single one!  Our friends Kory & Amy came too, we always have a blast with them.

 

  My own lumberjack brought in our beautiful tree.  We had a lot of fun decorating our house for Christmas.  It's all silver and ice blue, our little winter wonderland!

Thanks for the fun

Our Thanksgiving was totally fun this year.  We stayed at my parents house for a few days and celebrated with the immediate family (We've gone from 6 to 9!  It's so fun to grow!)  We had Nana there as well, so it was an even 10.

We started off the day with all ten of us going to the movie "Tangled".  I have hoped that Disney would make a Rapunzel movie since I was little, so I have been excited about this!  It lived up to my expectations :)  I loved it, and cried at least twice (it doesn't take much). 

I take a lot of pics of Claire these days :)  Can't help it...soooo cute.

After the movie, we went home and had a feast...of Chinese food!  Ha ha, we all decided it would be fun to have a non-traditional meal.  So while others had turkey and stuffing, we had General Tsao's chicken and wontons.  The best part was, there were hardly any dishes to do!  Don't worry, we still had awesome homemade desserts later that night.

Scott took a nap for a bit and little Claire was kind enough to share her chips with him while he was sleeping.  Too funny!

As if seeing a fairy tale movie wasn't enough, that night the 'kids' (I use that term loosely since we are all 18-25) turned the clock back even further and played sardines (like hide-and-go-seek...but backwards) for hours.  It was a blast.  One round, poor Luke hid so well that no one found him for about 40 minutes!

 It was a great holiday, we had fun letting loose and not taking things too seriously.  It's nice to do that once in a while.

Thoughtful Gesture

I'm in the middle of a Nutcracker week. It is fun, but long.  As I left the house Thursday morning I forgot to take my violin and black clothes with me.  Luckily I had just enough time to run home after work.  I was really excited that I'd get to see Scott for an hour (our schedules haven't matched up so we've hardly seen each other this week).

I walked in our home to find this...

What?  Seriously?  A candle lit dinner.  I was smiling from ear to ear.  Not only did he cook for us (and even included a vegetable! I was so proud), but he put it on our china, which we have never used before!

It was extremely sweet, I want to always remember it.  I'm so blessed to have this man in my life!  I love you Scott!

Emotions

Drained, we are absolutely drained.  The past two days have been a marathon of emotions; anxious, sad, thankful, heartbroken, excited, bittersweet happy, and on and on.

On Tuesday morning, our nephew Beckham was born! We have been so excited for him to come.  He is the first grandson on both our sides (we have eight adorable nieces).  We were able to go see him on his birthday, and oh my heck, just check him out.  So cute.

 

Later that evening, the mood got much more somber.  We attended the viewing of Scott's dear Aunt Laura, who passed away last weekend.  We are so thankful for our faith in the gospel at this time, it is one of the only things that can bring any sort of comfort when something like this happens. We saw a lot of extended family at the viewing; Laura has 8 siblings and 7 beautiful, courageous daughters.  Everyone came together and supported each other through this loss.

That night, Scott's immediate family gathered together and we spent time talking about what would be happening the next morning...our brother Jeff would be leaving on his mission to Georgia.  There were many happy tears that night, we are so excited for him.  It's always hard to say goodbye though.

Wednesday morning we all had breakfast together, then said our goodbyes to Jeff.  Tears all around!

Here is Jeff saying goodbye to Scott, and below, Julie (little sis).  Scott asked me to put these pictures up on the blog. His siblings are very close and he was glad those sweet feelings could be captured on camera.

Straight from there, we went to Laura's funeral.  Many more tears there, but the spirit was strong.  Her family paid her amazing tributes and it was evident how loved she is.  She was buried in a really picturesque spot and amazingly, the weather was cool, sunny, and beautiful. 

By this time, Scott and I (and probably all of our family) had a splitting headache from so much crying. We can't believe the baby, the funeral, and the mission all fell within 48 hours of each other.  We are full of love for all the people involved in these experiences, we have had a lot to pray about each night.

I guess it's really over

I think I mentioned that Scott and I had season passes to Lagoon this year.  Now that it is closed, it feels like summer is officially over.  I am a little sad!  We went one last time this past weekend (with my brother Luke, who also had a season pass).  

 

I love these guys!

 

 

Scott wanted to win a Giants baseball helmet.  He had to throw a ball at least 70 mph to win it...he threw it 71!  Good job babe!

  

 Luke has never been on Skycoaster (a giant swing thing), so he and I did it together!  I hadn't done it since high school (with Jenna and Emily!).  It was just as awesome as I remembered.

 

At least winter will bring holidays and family gatherings, those get me through! 

Fun Fall

We sure have been having fun around here!

Scott went hunting with his dad and brothers.  They got 80 birds!  Jeff, the 2nd from the right, is leaving on a mission in a few weeks so they wanted to get in one more trip together.

We are expecting our first nephew soon, we're all excited! Last week, we had a 'man shower' for the little guy. After eight nieces, we had fun getting to shop for a boy! Scott's mom made this adorable blanket for him.

Scott's sister Lisa made these cupcakes, they were awesome! And those are bread bowls (for soup) in the background...one of my favorite things to eat in the fall.

Speaking of food, we were excited that an In N' Out opened just a few minutes from us.  We paid them a visit.

I had a fun symphony concert this weekend, we all dressed up and played Halloween music.  Can you tell who I was trying to be?

My brother Luke looked awesome.  The symphony members had candy for kids after the performance, and some little girls were too scared to go near him.  My parents took us all out to dinner after, and it was funny to walk in there dressed up!  Luke hoped they wouldn't think he was trying to rob them or something. 

Good times.  Oh, and if you would like to see what Luke looks like sans joker makeup...look here at his senior pics!  The baby of our family is 18??? I can't believe it.

FYI...this post says it is by Scott, but it's just me, Heather.  I guess I was logged on under our other email address.

Living for the weekend

Our week days are pretty busy lately, it is starting to feel like we're living for the weekends. 

We spent the first weekend of October visiting our family up in Idaho.  We had an awesome time, always do! 


Little sister Julie, who is almost 8 years old (can't believe it), drew a portrait of us that I loved!  She's at the stage where she loves 'love stories' and she said this is a picture of Scott and I at a ball.  So cute.  I wish my eyelashes were that long in real life.

This weekend, we went to Frightmares at Lagoon.  My brother came too and we had fun!

We all bundled up, and Scott and I thought it was funny that we matched.  We tried to get my brother to wear red too, but he declined :)

 I was too chicken to go in any haunted houses, so we just rode rides. 

Sunday afternoon, Scott had a great idea- we went on a drive to look at the fall colors.  Such a simple thing to do, but it was a really great time!

We went up little and big cottonwood canyons.

We tried to get a picture of us together...this was the best we could do.
We're thinking it's about time for a new camera!

 

This is the same view...looks a lot better without us in it! 

Hope you all had a nice weekend too!

Downtown

Can you tell where we went?  I'll give you a clue...I dressed to match the scenery.

I guess the posters in the window give it away.  Yep, we went and saw The Lion King at Capitol Theatre!  Man, the costumes were stunning.  We really liked it.  It was a great night out. 

On our way back to the car we stopped and watched the 10:00 news being filmed for a bit.  It was fun to watch the meteorologist point to the green screen and to read the teleprompter of the news casters while they read stories.  So, if you were watching channel 2 and saw a girl in a zebra coat in the background, you know who it was.

A day in the life of...us

I haven't known what to blog about lately, we're just settling into our fall routine.  For lack of anything else to talk about, I decided to take pictures all day on Sunday and just give a glimpse of our day through pics.

7am Sunday, it felt too early to be up, but it was a beautiful morning.

Why was I up so early?  This little gal was running circles like crazy in her squeaky wheel.  I must have been sleeping pretty light because it woke me up, and I decided I might as well stay up.

I finished preparing my sharing time lesson (for the little kids at church). 





Scott was dressed and ready for his 7:45am church meeting.  Might I say he looks pretty handsome in his shiny gray suit.

Then it was my turn to get ready for our 9:00 church, and by some miracle, I was ready on time!

Look how surprised I was! (yes, I took this picture of myself...but yes, I really was surprised I was ready on time!)

After a nice time at church we came home, changed into some comfy clothes, and did what most people do... memorize the state capitols.

Seriously though, we bought some $1 flash cards at Target once and every now and then we sit down and try to memorize every state capitol.  Quiz us next time you see us!

Pretty soon I was out like a light.  When I woke up, my face was totally indented from the square pattern on the pillow.  I'm glad we don't have a picture of that...

When I woke up, I found that Scott had made his favorite treat, caramel puffs, all by himself.

After Scott got back from another church meeting, we were on our way to my parents house for Sunday dinner.  Scott couldn't find his sunglasses, so he just borrowed some of mine :) 

After eating, we got into an intense game of Bananagrams, one of our favorites!

We missed my sister Ashley, but we did get to skype with her later that evening.

Our little niece sat in her chair like a big girl :)  She is usually our entertainment for the evening.  We all just sit around and listen to her "stories" and watch her dance.

Back at home, Scott checked to make sure he had everything done for school the next day.

And that sums it up! Just a regular day here at our home. At least it's a blog post.  I was feeling guilty :)