Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas 2010

We're pretty busy here getting ready to go to New York, but I wanted to post a quick Christmas entry.

Joe and I woke up early (6 am!) on Christmas morning. We let the kids have their stockings and opened our stockings from each other. Then we opened presents. Joe got me "footy" pajamas, a diamondy Christmas tree necklace and a stuffed cow. I got him a Build a Bear baseball, a Mets tie, and an MP3 player.

After, we headed over to my mom's house. David, Ethan, Jessica, and James were all there too. We always do stockings first and they are always loaded! Presents were wonderful too. I got the TOMS shoes I wanted, a pair of tanzanite earrings (total surprise) some great books, and more! Joe got the car bra he wanted, along with a video game, a gift certificate for some boots, and a sweater.

We went to Ethan and Jessica's house for brunch so the baby could nap and spent the afternoon relaxing by my mom's tree.

We didn't see Joe's family, they are all in New York right now, but we are going to celebrate with them soon!

Here are some Christmas day pictures!

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Stockings at my mom's house

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Me with baby James

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Modeling my new pajamas

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Some of my presents

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Joe with some of his presents

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Christmas dinner

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Bo was, of course, invited to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas. He thought this blanket was a present for him!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve and we are 100% ready for Christmas. We finished up everything yesterday so we wouldn't have to leave the house today. I spent the afternoon in my pajamas, watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Joe played a computer game that he got for his birthday. Now, he is making a fancy 4 course dinner. We are going to open a bottle of wine, light a fire, and watch It's a Wonderful Life. It's going to be a very nice evening.

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All ready for tomorrow!

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Presents :)

Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas Tree!

My very favorite part of preparing for Christmas is buying the Christmas tree. On Saturday night, after my mom's wonderful St. Nicholas Tea, Joe and I went to our favorite Christmas tree lot. I love wandering through the trees. They smell so good and it's like being in a forest, only you get to take a tree home with you! We spent a good 20 minutes looking at each tree and picking a few favorites. It was hard to choose, they had so many pretty trees.

There was one tree tucked away in a dark corner that we felt drawn to so Joe picked it up and brought it out to where we could see it better. We narrowed it down to that tree and one other and we both decided on the tree that we had gotten out. It is a Noble Fir and it smells so good!

We were going to wait and decorate it on Sunday, but right when we got home, Joe put the lights on and then we had to put the ornaments on. We put Christmas music on the radio, lit a fire, and had some wine. It was so nice and we have a beautiful Christmas tree!

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Poor tree

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This is June's first Christmas tree and she loves it! She hasn't climbed it, but she loves to play under it.

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Merry Christmas!

Friday, November 26, 2010

Mini Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday

On Tuesday, Joe and I continued our tradition of "mini Thanksgiving." I cooked a turkey breast and we had stuffing stuffed squash, mashed potatoes and gravy, asparagus, rolls, and wine. I have to brag just a little bit. I make a damn good turkey and my gravy was perfect this year. I really like feeling confidant enough to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner. We used our wedding china and wine glasses for the first time. :)

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Me with my turkey!

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Thursday, we headed over to my mom's house. We made pumpkin dip for an appetizer. Shortly after we arrived, the turkey popped and my mom got busy finishing everything else. Ethan, Jessica, and James came over and also Jessica's dad. We sat down for a very traditional and delicious dinner. We missed Joe's family this year. They are all in New York. I brought my camera to the table to take pictures of the food, but I was too busy eating to get any!

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Waiting for dinner

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James enjoying his dinner

On to Black Friday. I have never gone shopping on Black Friday. I decided to look at the ads at my mom's house just for fun. There weren't really any great deals I was interested in until I got to Wal-Mart. They had a great deal on a sewing machine starting at 12:01. I talked Joe into taking me and we got to Wal-Mart around 11:30. Everyone was nice and I found the sewing machine pile and waited until midnight and grabbed one! It was actually kind of fun. Then we stopped at Old Navy because they had jeans for $15. I got a gift card for my birthday and had a birthday coupon so I ended up with: Long jeans, 2 long sleeved shirts for me, one long sleeved shirt for Joe, pajama pants for me, pajama pants for my mom, and a piggy bank...for $1.48. It was awesome!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

24 years!

I am 24 years old today, although we celebrated yesterday. There is a big blizzard on the way and the entire state of Utah is in a panic. It's kind of weird. Anyway, because of that, we decided to have my family birthday dinner last night. Everyone met at the Old Spaghetti Factory and had a yummy dinner. Then, we came back to our house for raspberry almond torte and presents! I got some really great things this year, :)

Because of that, today didn't really feel like my birthday, but I did get a wonderful surprise from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They sent me the most gorgeous bouquet! It was a total surprise!

Now, Joe and I are relaxing, waiting for the storm to hit. I have a mini Thanksgiving dinner cooking and we're going to start a fire soon and have some wine. I loved being 23, but 24 has had a really great start.

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Me and my tasty dessert!

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Beautiful flowers!

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Saturday, November 6, 2010

Cooking on Halloween

I had a lot of baking/cooking projects that I had been wanting to try out. Since Halloween was a Sunday, I had lots of time to play in the kitchen!

First, I started making crock pot applesauce. I had read about it online and found a ridiculously easy recipe. I used honeycrisp apples, which are awesome, but pricey. Next time I'll probably use a mix of apples.

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Peeling and slicing the apples

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The applesauce! My crock pot is tiny so it only made a little. We ate it over slow churned vanilla bean ice cream. So yummy!

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Next, it was time to make caramel. I've never made caramel before, but I found a really easy recipe for honey caramel.

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Caramel apples!

And finally, I wanted to make another round cake because I had so much fun making Joe's baseball cake. I made this one a pumpkin. We had so much sweet stuff around the house though so Joe took this one to school.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

"Halloween"

This year, Halloween was on a Sunday. Being Utah, everyone changed the holiday to Saturday. Joe and I celebrated both days of Halloween, but this post is about Saturday.

We actually woke up early to go car shopping (post coming soon). I wanted to be home by 3 so we would have enough time to carve pumpkins. However, we fell in love with a car and after a long test drive, a check with a mechanic, and all the paper work, we didn't get home until closer to 5 (not that I can complain, I drove home in our new car!).

We got right to carving pumpkins. I usually like to buy normal sized, round pumpkins, but this year, a 38 pound monster pumpkin caught my eye and I couldn't leave it in the Smith's bin, so I bought it. Joe and I carved two pumpkins each.

Just as it was getting time for the trick or treaters to be out, it started raining really hard. I was sad, thinking we wouldn't get as many kids around, but we did! This is such a great neighborhood for trick or treating.

We had our standard Halloween dinner of a pumpkin shaped pizza and lots and lots of candy. After the kids stopped coming by, Joe and I watched Paranormal Activity. Neither of us had seen it before. It wasn't that scary, but it was fun to watch on "Halloween" night!

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My big pumpkin!

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Joe's awesome pirate ship!

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Our costumes. I was a sailor and Joe was a pirate.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Birthdays and Garden After Dark

Sunday was David's birthday. That day we also officially celebrated Joe's and Ameera's birthdays. Joe, David, and I met up with my parents and Ethan, Jessica, and James at the Planetarium. We walked around for a while, looking at the exhibits and playing with James. Then, we headed over to Z Tejas, the restaurant we go to every year for David/Joe birthday dinner. We had some really tasty food and then headed to E and J's for birthday cake!

My mom and I had gone to Granite Bakery (where we got our wedding cake) and picked out a fun Halloween theme cake. We picked spice cake with apple filling and a caramel buttercream frosting. It was so yummy!

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The cake! (All the decorations on the top were made of chocolate)

Tonight, for date night, Joe and I went to something new. We went to Red Butte Garden's Garden after dark. It was cold, but we bundled up and got a caramel apple before heading up the garden path. It was really pretty and there were some fun activities. One of my favorite things that we did was floating lamps: we decorated special papers and rolled them up to make lanterns. Then we taped our lanterns onto paper plates and put tea lights inside. They lit the candles and then we floated our lanterns on the water. It was so pretty to see dozens of lanterns floating on the water.

We didn't bring our camera, but here are some pictures of things we made. (I am such a kid. I love little crafty things like these!)

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Australian Faeries

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Roman potion bottles filled with lavender and allspice

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Our painted pumpkin, a grey kitty of course!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Haunted Hollow

I love October. I love the weather, I love the leaves, I love Halloween. And I lovelovelove something Joe and I discovered last year. It was the Haunted Forest in American Fork- an outdoor Haunted House (spook alley) through the woods. It was beyond awesome. Woods are creepy anyway, especially in the dark. Add in some people who are really good at scaring/surprising you and it makes for a really fun night.

This year, we decided to try their other location, Haunted Hollow in Ogden. It's very similar- winding paths through the woods, all sorts of scary people/things. It's a little cheaper and a little smaller, but it was just as scary. Joe was laughing at me because I was screaming so much (I don't get very scared in "traditional" inside haunted houses). They just do such an amazing job.

www.hauntedutah.com is their website. They have coupons for weeknights. Both are a bit of a drive and a little pricey, but they are SO worth it!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

My Cake Boss day (sort of)

Have you ever seen the show Cake Boss? This guy makes seriously amazing cakes. Today was my wonderful husband's birthday and I wanted to make him a really special dessert. The cake I made wasn't as awesome as the ones in the show, but I think I did a pretty good job. :)

Months ago, Joe mentioned that he would like to have a baseball cake someday. I found a baseball cake making set and hid it away until today. He worked on some house projects (that will be blogged) and I set to work baking Joe's surprise baseball cake.

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Cake batter baking in the oven

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Done baking

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I had to cut the cakes so they would fit together

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Cooling

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Homemade buttercream frosting

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Frosted

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Decorated! (The lines aren't perfect, but I've never decorated a cake before)

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25 years old

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Surprise!

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Happy Birthday, Love