Hearts are Cool - so are GIANT Hearts

Well gosh, everyone has been posting about Valentines Day so I guess I will too.  Valentines Day this year was on February 14, 2011.....ha ha ha. I asked my dear Watson to get me one of those little heart shaped boxes of chocolates (the ones that have 4 chocolates in them), and instead, he got me a GIANT heart shaped box of chocolates, a microwave cover and a six pack..... of Propel - AND he stayed under our budget.

We have been married for almost 9 months now, and although the adjustment to us and we has been difficult for this independent and stubborn girl, I keep having these moments where I look at my husband in utter amazement and think ..."you married me?" I wish I could articulate what I want to say about my dear Watson in a way that wouldn't go too deep for all you weak stomachs out there, but would still do him justice.  Basically, I'm so glad it was in Heavenly Father's plan to bring my dear Watson and I together again, because I think with him by my side I might actually become something close to the person I'd like to be.  I live with the most Christ-like person I've ever met, and I hope to be able to equal him in greatness. I mean, I think even if a person searched and searched, they would never be able to find something mean to say about my dear Watson. He is just good.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: my husband's better than your husband :).

Anyway, I made a Valentine decoration out of candy canes! Ha! Isn't that funny? I just glued them right on to some white paper and cut it down to fit this frame. Then I hot glued some ribbon on the frame (actually that was already done from a previous project), I pushed some pins in the wall (because we don't have nails), and I hung them up!.  How's that for a tutorial?  Even though there is an earthquake in our house 4 or 5 times a day (from our construction neighbors) the pins have held their own - my candy cane heart frames haven't fallen off yet!  Happy Valentines Day!

Ugh, I'm too lazy to rotate this then re-upload it. This is why I'll never have a famous blog - famous bloggers would never post an un-rotated picture. That's the ONLY reason :).
 I put a chocolate kiss on it so you could get an idea of how GIANT my  heart shaped box of chocolates is! 

Copy-Cat

I have been copying other blogger's ideas lately. We all do it: and even though we didn't come up with the idea ourselves, we feel really happy when we see the finished product. Am I right? Tonight I made Chicken, Bacon, Avocado Quesadilla's from kevinandamanda.com.  Even though I was mortified as I cubed the raw chicken, and then disgusted when I cut the avocado, and then almost threw up when I tore the bacon in pieces, and gagged when I sauteed the scallions - they turned out pretty good.  There were just WAY too many smells going on for me to enjoy the cooking process. I have an extremely sensitive nose - I can smell things from miles away. In the end the only thing that grossed me out about eating the quesadilla's was the avocado. That squishy texture was just not doing it for me tonight I guess. Click Here to see Amanda's recipe and a lovely picture.

I also made these cute yarn pom-pom's. I think I love pom-pom's. When I decide to get rid of a few more of my shirts I have great plans for a t-shirt pom-pom which idea I also copied from someone else.  I hung these little guys in the bathroom and when my dear Watson informed me there was something growing in the bathroom, I thought he meant fungus (because that IS growing in our bathroom). He said "no, fuzzy colorful round things." I can't remember which blog I got these from - sorry. 

 This is my favorite. I have always DREAMED of making a wreath and today it is finished. I copied this idea from my sister - in - law over at poppiesatplay.blogspot.com.  The rosettes are made out of red duck tape (duct tape?). I purposely wanted to include some silver roses, but the original plan was to have the silver bunch on the bottom left hand corner of the wreath. I got a hot-gluin' and before I knew it I had already glued red rosettes where I wanted the silver ones. So I had to change my plans. Cute don't you think? And talk about easy! Click Here! to see Andy's tutorial about these awesome duck tape wreaths.

JIMMERSIGHTING!

Ahhhh! Just hours after I posted about Jimmer, we had our very own JIMMERSIGHTING!  He was just hanging out with Jackson Emery at the SAME Costa Vida in Provo as my dear Watson and me.  My dear Watson went up to them and said, "Jackson, sick dunk," and, "Jimmer, you're freakin amazing." He got their autographs and now it is framed in our house. They were really nice. They are just normal guys, and Jimmer's even kinda dorky :).  He was wearing ugly shoes.

Jimmered

Read this article about last night’s BYU vs. SDSU game on CBS Sports: (just scroll down to the bottom and look at the pregnant girl).

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/14606036/jimmer-show-a-big-hit-that-leaves-fans-wanting-more

The pregnant girl in the picture at the bottom of the article is my friend Chelsy from work. Her baby was due yesterday but she went to the game anyway….and still no baby. She’s at work today and we’re all amazed about how famous she is now. She even got her picture with JIMMER!!!!  AmAzing! Apparently there was a guy from NIKE who also took Chelsy’s picture. He’s trying to get the company to start printing Jimmer shirts for all the crazy BYU fans, so he was taking pictures all night long.  There were a lot of really funny signs at the game (my dear Watson went and reported). My favorite was the big one that says Jim-Jimmery-Jim-Jimmery- Jim-Jim-Ja Roo.  Or the big giant Jimmer head pictured in the Deseret News…or how about the one that says Jimmer Fredette University?  This Jimmer craze is sooo fun! All of these pictures are from KSL and the Deseret News!

deseretnews.com

deseretnews.com

deseretnews.com

ksl.com

ksl.com

This one is awesome! 

http://college-basketball-blog.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/27270988

 

ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!

I crave adventure. When I was in College my life was organized by  4  month semesters. With each semester came some kind of change – new apartment, new roommates, new ward, new classes, new schedule. A change every 4 months satisfied my craving for adventure. It also ingrained in my mind that every 4 months something should change. Now, approximately every 4 months my mind starts naturally aching for an adventure.  Let’s move out of state, better yet, let’s go visit a different country for 3 or 4 months.  The problem is, I’m no longer in college and my life is no longer organized by 4 month semesters. It’s organized by 8 hour days, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year.  I can’t go anywhere for longer than a week because I don’t have enough Vacation days, and we can’t pick up and move because of school and work.

Sometimes I need to do something different than our normal routine, and if I don’t… I might explode. That’s why this weekend I planned an adventure. Vegas was out because we needed to be back on Sunday to teach our Sunbeams. Next best thing: Kamas, UT.  I looked at a map of Utah and picked a few small towns I’ve never visited. Kamas was the winner. We drove to Kamas to find a small town diner where we could eat lunch. Gateway Grille is what we found and I had the most wonderful sandwich that was as tall as 3 of my mouth. On our way home we stopped at Park City and cruised Main Street. Our 1994 Corolla enjoyed the company of cars that were 2 years old or newer – just babies compared to our timeless moving terd (as my dear Watson likes to call it). We went into several fun shops and kept our eyes peeled for famous people. We missed the Sundance Film Festival by a week though so we didn’t see anyone famous, just a bunch of boring millionaires in mink coats instead. 

We went into a hot sauce store that sold all sorts of spicy sauces.  When I saw the name of the store I thought it was called Function Hot. As soon as I started reading the labels on the hot sauce bottles I realized that the name “Fn Hot” was not short for Function Hot.  Kick Butt Rib Rub, and other slightly naughtier names for the hot sauces gave it away. We didn’t spend very much time in that store but we had a good laugh at my initial naivete. 

We had a grand adventure!

Ice Fishers!

The chairs at the diner had cow-hide backs.

HUGE! And that's only 1/2 of it. 

The Gateway Grille in Kamas.

Park CITY!

Oh, and this is our New Year's celebration. I look like I have a mustache. 

Homemade with Love

My dear Watson and I hand made gifts for our moms for Christmas this year.  I wanted to make my mom some cute covers for her Ipad. So I did. My dear Watson helped me figure out the basic logistics of the design and then I just gave it a go.  I borrowed my mother-in-law's sewing machine and my mom's too. I just told her I needed her machine and she needed to leave.  It was really fun. I made 4 and each one is designed a little differently. I enjoyed sewing and now I have a big long list of sewing projects I'd like to do. I don't have a machine though so the other day I hand sewed one of the things on my list. Just a simple little make-up bag, it didn't take too long.  I guess part of the gift was that I actually sewed something. My mom loves to sew and now so do I!

All 4 Ipad covers

My favorite fabric (I LOVE owls).

For my mother-in-law we made a birthday board. We got the idea from my sister-in-law who made one for my parents a few years ago.  We had to adapt the design a bit because we couldn't find the exact materials my sister-in-law used, but trying to work out all the kinks was the best part about making the gift. We thought it turned out really great.

The letters stand for each month in the year. We screwed little hooks under each letter and then hung the little circles below from the hook according to the month of each persons birthday.

Girls were pink, boys green. I wrote the name and their birthday along with the year on the side. My sister-in-law used  wooden gingerbread boys so they looked like actual people, but we could find any that were the right size, so we went with circles.

My mom made all the kids calendars this year and she used a little vinyl rub-on kit. She had a lot of extra rub-on pictures for each month so we used those to add character to the board. 

Christmas times 3

The last couple weeks have been super exciting.  We celebrated Christmas, and then we celebrated Christmas again, and then we celebrated Christmas again.  That is a LOT of Christmas.  Here are some pictures of our celebrations and other stuff. I can’t believe we didn’t take a single picture of the actual Christmas day at the Watson’s. We’ll have to steal some pics from the Watson siblings some time. 

First we celebrated Christmas with my family one week early. We always draw parts for the Nativity and then act them out. I was the donkey this year and I think my dear Watson was a Shepherd. We also did the famous chimes, ate a LOT and played some really fun games. Sarah was in town so that was a special treat. 

You can see some of the nieces and nephews in their Nativity costumes.  

We celebrated our own family Christmas one day early. I wanted us to be able to open our presents as a family and kind of start some of our own traditions. For our Christmas Eve we had Christmas shaped pancakes which we ate by candlelight. 

Me looking at my presents!!

On the real Christmas Eve we went to lunch with the Watson's and on our way we saw Santa on a motorcycle. 

You can see my dear Watson's hand as he waves to Santa.

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandparents party in bountiful.  We also slept over at the Watson's and enjoyed watching some of the grandkids and siblings open presents on Christmas morning. We visited my family for an hour or so and then back to the Watson's to open more presents, play games, have a talent show and Eat EAt EAT! All of our Christmases were great!