On the First Day of Christmas

We have done quite a bit over this Christmas break. Here a few pictures to sum it all up!


Eating at Crown Burger * The lights at Temple Square



Devin and Dolly came stayed with my parents for Christmas * The Conference Center


Skiing with the Tuttles


Sundance

Connor acted out the Nativity Story and then we played a game

The game was a white elephant type game where we each received a pair of Christmas socks

All of our Christmas socks * Our new measuring tape (to aid in picture hanging :)

The joy of Christmas morning

Opening gifts from Santa * All 9 of us received Nerf guns so we had a Nerf gun war.

Mom's Gnome * The entire Linebaugh Family

Kinkades * Lichfields

a couple more

Projects

Thus far I've done a couple digital scrapbook pages, the info on them is not much different than blog posts, but here they are nonetheless. They are a little easier to see here.

Painting, Cleaning, Finals...

Today I didn't have anything until a final at 6:00 and Kevin was at work until 2:00 so I had a lot of free time. I decided to catch up on some things I have been meaning to do for a long time.

A couple days ago I started to hang some pictures that we have been meaning to hang since we moved in. It feels good to finally have things hanging on the wall. Well, I had some pictures from my old bedroom that we hung, but the frames were off white and didn't really look good against the white wall.

So, this morning I experimented and painted them. I went through a variety of different styles, but finally happened upon something that looked decent. While I was waiting for the paint to dry I worked on cleaning the bathroom and washing some towels, washcloths, etc.

Kevin came home not too long after I had finished the bathroom and then we worked on straightening our extra room and putting sheets on the bed, and vacuuming. Our apartment looks much better and it feels good to have those things done. I've been thinking about doing most of these things for quite a while and it feels good that we finally got them done.

We ate lunch and listened to Harry Potter (something we have been doing a lot of lately) and then Kevin got ready to go to the temple. He left just after 5 and I left for my final not too much later.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to class. We were supposed to turn in a journal we've been working on and then give a 3 minute presentation. Well... We turned in the journal and then talked about an article my teacher found interesting. I kept thinking we were wasting time and we should get on with our presentations so we could be done earlier.

Well, no sooner had I done this than my professor started to tell us that her first class didn't have time to finish all the presentations. So... she told us we just needed to turn in the outline for our presentation and then we could go. It was great! We were there half an hour instead of 2 hours. Given this extra time I decided to post about today along with some pictures.

The pictures hanging on the wall, the extra bedroom (while organized there is still too much in it), our bedroom with the newly hanging photo, and the living room.

Christmas Tree

I typically prefer the warm glow of white Christmas lights on the tree, but when you get a free tree with colored lights you definitely can't pass that up. My parents let Kevin and I use their old Christmas tree and lights. There werent' enough white lights to cover the tree, but plenty of colored lights. Along with the tree came all my ornaments that I have been collecting for 21 years, at least one per year. The tree barely fit in our apartment, but I was surprised how well these few ornaments covered the tree. We didn't really need any others.

A week or two ago, after Kevin got back from working at the temple we sat on the couch in the Christmas tree light and ate hot brownies, drank cold milk, and listened to Christmas music. It was so warm and happy and even in the colored lights :) it still felt like Christmas.

Snow! (sort of)

Kevin and I were able to go skiing today up at Sundance. They hadn't received any real snow (at least not a substantial amount) so we skied on only 20 inches of man made snow and only one run. It worked out since I was teaching Kevin to ski and we wouldn't really have gone on any other run anyway, although Kevin has quite the skiing skills. He picked it up very quickly and I wasn't nearly as worried for his life as I was the first time I saw him snowboarding.

It started to snow while we were up there and by the time we came home it was coming down pretty hard, even in the valley. Hopefully we keep getting more (which according to the weather forecast we should)! It was exciting though to be skiing again!

Almost done...

I have officially turned in all my art projects for my various classes and am starting to think about what I am going to do with my free time next week (aside from the two finals and a few short papers I have to write) while Kevin studies for and takes his finals. I regularly look at a few scrapbooking blogs and I've begun to realize how little scrapbooking I have done, not only lately, but in the last year or so. Today while I was waiting for class to start I was looking at one of these blogs and thought about all the random little things about scrapbooking that I am drawn to, although I don't necessarily use them. A non-exhaustive list of such things may include:

• chipboard (letters, cutouts, anything)
• painted chipboard
• {brackets}
• journaling blocks
• delicious color schemes,
• stamps
• transparencies
• typography!
• polka dots
• swirls
• mini books
• tags
• cool circle elements
• envelopes
• journals
  
• lined paper (school paper)
• and, naturally, stunning photographs

The list could literally go on and on, but I'll stop there. So, I'm thinking that aside from straightening and organizing things I've kind of been ignoring, I'm going to do some real scrapbooking (and maybe the digital kind too).

(I always hate posting without photos, so I've decided that I'll take pictures of my projects and post them a little later)

Thanksgiving in Logandale

Kevin and I went to his parent's house for Thanksgiving. While we were there we celebrated Shannon and Jamie's birthdays in addition to Thanksgiving. Anna and Dave came down to visit as well. They enjoyed making turkeys out of oranges, toothpicks, and various candies. Naturally, Isaac had plenty of fun faces to share. While they all took their time and made their turkey special, I think Eric's tactic was my favorite. He would make a turkey, hold it up to admire it, and then put it back on the table. He would then proceed to eat all the candy off his turkey and start making another one. We also had a delicious thanksgiving dinner! It was a fun thanksgiving!

Disappointment

Kevin and I were anxiously looking forward to Saturday, hoping to use our new ski/snowboard gear. However, we were disappointed to find out that Sundance will not be opening until (tentatively) December 12, next Friday. There hasn't been any snow lately and it hasn't been cold enough to make snow so we have to wait at least one more week. Sad day.

(By the way, I should have photos from Thanksgiving as soon as I get them downloaded)

Happy Birthday Early!

My birthday is on Sunday, but Kevin has been telling me how excited he is for my birthday for quite a while. He's been joking about celebrating my birthday on the 22 but I kept telling him we had to celebrate it on the 15th.


So as it turns out... I came home from my night class on Tuesday and the door was locked even though Kevin was home. So, I knocked and Kevin let me in. He told me I couldn't go into the kitchen or bedroom. I waited for a few minutes and then he walked me into the kitchen with my eyes closed and sat me down. We prayed and then I was allowed to open my eyes. He had prepared homemade Alfredo which we ate on china and had sparkling cider in our wine goblets under a makeshift candlelight (our lamp covered with a cloth). It was wonderful!

I thought that was very sweet and that maybe we were celebrating my birthday, but I wasn't sure. Neither of us had any homework to do so we were deciding what to do. Kevin said he needed to take a shower and I said I probably should to. I told him that I would have to go into our room to get pajamas though. He said that would probably be ok. I walked in our room and the bed was covered with gifts, which I thought he was going to make me wait to open. However, he didn't. So we opened the gifts which consisted of a blue shirt for skiing (from Jim, Nancy and Shannon), a super soft red robe and slippers, pearl earrings, the new Brian Regan DVD, and best of all :) chocolates (Kevin pointed out this was the best gift because it was chocolate AND because I could share it with him:). All of the gifts were very thoughtful and it was a lot of fun to celebrate early. Thanks love!

Timpanogos

Kevin wanted me to add these to our blog as well, so here they are! For my Photography class we were supposed to shoot a landscape. So, one evening Kevin and I went up to a view point off Squaw Peak road and shot a few pictures. We lost light pretty quick because we were a little too late, but I got a couple good shots, most of them just look similar. But here are the two I think were best!

I Voted!

Yep, today I voted. My first time in history!

Haircut and Halloween

I got my haircut last week. It was long enough that I was able to donate 10 inches to Locks of Love for a total donation of 20 in. It seems crazy to think the last time I cut that much off was 2 1/2 years ago. So here's a before and after.

For Halloween my mom hosted a party so Kevin and I went to that. Kevin had some sever injuries and I was the doctor helping him. Here are some pictures of pretty much everyone there: