What a Nice Weekend!

Oh how I love Thanksgiving! We had such a nice holiday weekend, spending time with our families and with each other. On Thanksgiving day, we helped prepare a delicious meal, and watched a movie with the Olsen family. We visited my family later on in the day, and watched another movie. It was so nice to spend time with all of the people we love, and really think about the many blessings Jared and I have in our lives. I often feel overwhelmed when I think about the good things in my life and how lucky and blessed I am, and I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for giving me these wonderful things to be joyful about.

The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxation, movies, family parties and a Jazz game. Twilight and Quantum of Solace were the movies of choice- and both were pretty good! The Jazz game was especially exciting, because we got tickets with special privileges to go eat dinner and snacks in the VIP room in the Energy Solutions Arena.

Also, we checked out our townhouse, and it is so close to being finished. We are still hoping to be in it the weekend before Christmas, which is only three weeks away! It is painted, and our tile looks so nice. Our cabinets should be in by the end of this week. It has been so much fun to watch our little plot of land grow a house! We really can't wait to start living there.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend, and hope you have a wonderful Christmas season!

A good way to spend my time

For the past few weekends, I've employed the help of my mom and sister to complete a project for the Festival of Trees. I've been going to the Festival of Trees for as many years as I can remember. It started with my mom. She decorated and donated a few trees when I was younger, and the Festival became a traditional mom and sister outing every year. I loved walking up and down the aisles, listening to Christmas music, smelling cinnamon and scones, and feeling the magic of this charity for Primary Children's Medical Center. When Jared and I were dating, I became involved on the small fry committee thanks to Tammy and Brandy, and the rest is history. While this year we are taking a little bit of a break, I've still been able to donate some of my time to the festival. My mom and I have made several double batches of suckers, we've decorated about 130 really cute plates to be sold at the small fry shop, and I'll be working a shift or two during festival week.

I love the Festival of Trees, and the spirit of giving and love it gives me. If you have the time, make sure you stop by the Southtowne Expo Center and see why so many people are hooked!

Last Christmas

I'm excited to do this tag, because it coordinates with the season so well!

Rules: Go to your picture file and find your fourth picture in the fourth file. Post it, and comment about it.

This picture is from last Christmas. Jared and I were living in our condo, and we didn't have a lot of room for a big Christmas tree. We bought this really cute little tree, and it fit perfectly in our close quarters. We had such a fun first Christmas together, experiencing the season as husband and wife, and enjoying every minute of it. We are definitely looking forward to this upcoming Christmas, hoping that we'll be able to pull out our little tree and set it up in our new house before the 25th!

I tag- anyone who wants to be tagged!

My sweet dog Sydney was put to sleep this week. I got her for my birthday in 1995, and my family fell in love. She was sweet, patient, loving, silly, and just a great dog. She will be missed so much, and we are all feeling an ache in our hearts with her absence. Bye Syd, we sure do love you.

7 Weird and Random Facts

Thanks Brandy for tagging me! This one was fun to think about.

1. I bite my nails. Actually, I chew my nails and the finger around them. It's a bad habit, and I make myself bleed at least once a week. Gross, I know, but I just can't stop.

2. I am very much a homebody. I love to be at home, just hanging out with my family. I would rather be at home watching a movie than anything else.

3. I love the TV show America's Funniest Home Videos. There's just nothing funnier than watching people and animals faint, drool, and get kicked in the you know what. I laugh out loud every time I watch that show. Just thinking about it makes me giggle.

4. I love to wear pajamas. The second I get home from work or church, I head straight to the bedroom and remove all uncomfortable clothing. I cannot lounge at home in work clothes or jeans. I need huge t-shirts and pajama pants.

5. My hair grows unusually fast. I have been able to donate 13-15 inches of my own hair to locks of love twice in the past 7 years or so. That's even with some trimming in between!

6. I have a sweet tooth. I have to have some sort of chocolate every day- even if it means breaking open a bag of chocolate chips to munch on. When I was little I used to drink honey and eat sugar by the spoonful. I'm serious!

7. I have to watch the Today Show every day while getting ready for work. Even if I'm unable to see the TV, I like to have it on with the volume loud so I can hear it from wherever I happen to be. My morning just isn't complete without it!

Ta da! I tag Erika, Leesa, Lindsey, Brittany, Tessa, Meri (you can just e-mail me) and my mom. Have fun!

Another project?

As you all know, our townhouse is getting closer and closer to being done, and we are so excited! We took a peek at it yesterday (sorry, I forgot my camera) and we have drywall and mud...The next step is texture for the walls and ceiling, and then paint! Our tentative date to close is on December 18th, and we think it will be right on time with the way they are working right now.

I've been really excited to decorate my new house. When we lived in our condo, I had it decorated just the way I wanted it. It was really small, so it didn't take a lot of work. Our townhouse will be a little bit bigger that our condo, and so while we've been waiting for it to be finished I've been finding projects to keep me busy and to help fill our new home. I think Jared is a little tired of it... Here are some things we've done. We inherited a nice old dining table from a good friend of ours, and I decided that it needed a little "sprucing." Little did I know that to prepare and paint a dining room table and four chairs entails a lot of work (and sore backs and thumbs)! There's sanding, priming, painting, painting, painting, and sealing. It was a few weeks worth of Saturday afternoons. I also had a great idea for a headboard in our bedroom (thanks to walking through a few model homes). We found some great looking closet doors at the DI, and we painted them so they look antique and crackled. We'll put them all together at the top of our bed on the wall. Some people say weird, but I say cool! There have been other projects, one involving an old window, and others involving frames and fabric. Jared's been a great sport, but he won't let me start on my last and most difficult project. Tell me if I'm crazy to want to try it. I want to buy an old chair at the DI or Savers... a sofa chair type chair, and reupholster it. Comfy sofa chairs are so expensive, but at the thrift store they are only 15 bucks! I could recover the chair with some discount fabric and it would be like a new chair, right? Have any of you out there tried something like this? Do you have any tips or advice? Can you help me convince my sweet husband that this would be a fun project? After all, we've had success with all of our other ones so far...

Here is a picture from one of our fun-filled Saturdays!

The Hospital....For Dolls

It all started off as a quick errand with my nieces, sister and mom. Madison and Bailey have some dolls that they adore, but sadly, their hair has become frizzy and sparse. My sister Leesa found the one and only doll hospital left here in the valley, and we all went together to drop the dolls off to be fixed. Boy, were we a little surprised when we saw the "hospital!" It was on state street, and about 28th south. It was covered in vines, and looked like no one had lived there in years. As we walked up to the porch, the windows were covered in dust and dirt, and inside it was dark. Soon, someone came and opened the door for us, and we cautiously entered. To tell you the truth, it was fascinating to see the piles and piles of dolls filling every corner of the house. There were shelves filled with barbies and babies and wax dolls and glass dolls... I'm not kidding, I've never seen so many dolls! The really interesting thing is that my mom remembered bringing her very own dolls to this hospital when she was a little girl. (You know, everyone fixed their dolls back then!) Madison and Bailey were scared to leave their favorite toys there at the beginning, but after choosing some very pretty wigs and making friends with the doggies that scared us, they were okay. I'm excited to see how the dolls look in their new hair, and I'm really glad I experienced the doll hospital...even though it was pretty creepy!

A First For Everything...

The other day while Jared was making his way from school to work, something happened. He was driving on Foothill Drive, when all of a sudden, a police car turned on his lights as he passed. Jared looked at his speedometer, and realized that he was exceeding the speed limit...Only a little bit though. Jared has never gotten a ticket before, (he's actually a good driver, even though I might say he scares me sometimes) so I giggled a little bit when I heard his message on my phone. He sounded so guilty, so embarrassed, so sad... It's okay Jared, there's a first for everything!