Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

So much for trying to at least update weekly. But most of you have probably realized that I don't really stick to my plans all the time.
Nothing new has really been going on so I really had nothing to post.
I am getting a little more excited for Christmas, I guess I had better get more excited since it is only two days away.
This year Christmas time has been really....different. It is weird living in a house with 5 other adults(not including Adam and me). Adam's family has their own traditions and none of them are things we really did at my house or when Adam and I had our own place so it is going to be a little different. Somethings we will be opting out of so maybe it will be like our Christmas a little bit.
Has anyone else felt like this month has gone way too fast and that they are behind? These last few months have flown by and in some ways I am happy to start fresh with a new year and some ways I am sad because I feel like I didn't get things done like I wanted.

I hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope Santa brings you lots of fun stuff. :)

This is a little late

I know I am a little late but I feel like this has been the first time I have been able to catch my breath in a few days.
I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!! We had a nice day with Adam's family and then visited my family that evening. I need to get better at taking pictures because I have no pictures to go with this post. Maybe that should be my new goal?
After being sick on Tuesday Adam and I were feeling much better on Wednesday which was a good thing because I was supposed to make pies for Thanksgiving that night. I ended up making a delicious pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust and a banana cream pie with Nilla wafer crust. Yummy! I am not a big plain pumpkin pie fan that is why I made a pumpkin cheesecake.
Then Friday we did go shopping. We did not get up at 3:00, since we had been sick we decided we had better sleep a little so we left the house at about 6:45 am which was great we were able to get lots of good stuff at great prices with out the crazy lines and crazy shoppers. Did any of you go shopping? What kind of deals did you get? I finished almost everyone on my list except Adam.
Can I just say how stressful December is? I love this time of year like I said in my last post....lots of good treats, good shows and great music. However, we have four birthdays plus Christmas so that adds to a lot of stress. Our birthday extravaganza starts next Monday and continues on the 16th, 18th and 26th. Ugh! Most of our birthdays are fairly easy for our first birthday she is getting a gift card. What is it with this time of year that people think they should get everything when they want it? I truely am one of those people who would rather get the perfect present for someone and see their reaction than get something for myself.
Anyways I guess I will wrap up with what I am thankful for:

I am thankful I have a job that helps pay the bills and I enjoy most of the time
I am thankful for family and spending time with them
I am thankful to have my health
I am thankful for my hubby who puts up with my crazy moods and loves me unconditionally
I am thankful for my friends, they make the world go around
I am thankful for sweets: cinnamon almonds, chocolate cherries, chocolate oranges mmmmm!

Well I better get back to work.

Thanks for reading :)

Holidays

Ok so I'll admit it.....

I am getting excited for all of the holidays coming up! I guess I had better start getting ready since Thanksgiving is next week!
I am not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving but I love getting together with my family and just spending time together plus, I am ready for some pie yummy.

I wish we were going to my parent's house this year just for a break but we are staying with the in laws for Thanksgiving.

I am so ready to start Christmas shopping I am bound and determined to get some good deals this year. We have 4 birthdays in December so the more money we can save the better!

I am looking forward to the holiday season. I am a huge sap for holiday movies and specials on tv and I think Adam thinks I am nuts because I love to watch Christmas movies over and over. Who doesn't love "A Christmas Story?" Or "Christmas Vacation?"

If any of you say that you don't like those movies I don't think we can be friends anymore. :)

I am a little depressed that we won't be able to do our own traditions and decorate our own place this year but at least we are with family.

I guess I am even ready for some more snow. I need some more nice coats to wear to work though.

Are you ready?

Simple and Sweet

Well it's here...it's Friday!

This has been a long week.

Yesterday was a bad day.

Hoping today will be better.

End of Daylight Savings time and I am tired.

Need to get my butt in gear.

Ready for our own place.

Trying to get better at blogging more often.

Feel like my life is really not interesting enough to blog about.

Happy it still feels like fall.

Not quite ready for snow and cold.

Ready to be done with work...it's 10:00 am!

Check out Swagbucks.com

Find the link on my side bar.

Get prizes for searching the web.

Want to take a walk through Memory Grove.

 
Especially because this is what it looks like.

"Borrowed" the pictures from a friend's blog.

That's all short and sweet.

A Mish Mash of Nothing.

I really need to get better at this blogging thing.
I can't believe it is November. So far today I have put the 30th of October on everything and then I remember October is gone....sigh.
I am getting excited for the upcoming holidays however.
I love all of the family time you spend with cousins, aunts, parents, grandparents, neices. That is what I love about the holidays.
I am also one of those crazy people who loves it when they play holiday specials on tv. I watch most of them to try and get me in the mood for the holiday season.
I am a little nervous how the day of presents will be this year. I am trying not to use that word as much as I possibly can until after Thanksgiving.
Adam and I have always enjoyed our own little 'C' since we have been married but this year will be different. We will still go to my parent's for breakfast and his for dinner but what about when we open presents and all of that fun stuff. It sounds like it shouldn't matter that much but I am really going to miss our little 25th of December all by ourselves.
Hopefully it is only this year and that we will have our own place by next year.
I am still working on my new blog and hoping to have it up in the next couple of weeks. I want to get some of my favorite pie recipes posted on there BEFORE Thanksgiving. I decided to try wordpress (the free one) to help my friend with her's since she bought her URL.....wordpress is hard >:(
Anyways I am hoping it will turn out how I want and be a lot of fun.
Well there is really nothing new with Adam and I except we did find the house we would love to build so we will see if our plans work out the way we want and maybe next summer we will have our very own brand new place but if not oh well I guess.

Thanks for reading my way random post I hope you are all doing well and had a spooky and safe Halloween.

Lazy

Boy I am getting lazy at this posting thing. I guess it is because I never know what to post and I am not sure anyone really reads this so here goes nothing.......

I am kind of sad that October is almost over :( Where did it go and how did I miss it?
I am happy however that we are actually having fall this year! The leaves are changing and the air has that wonderful chill. I don't mind the dreary days I actually love them. I love seeing the leaves change and seeing the changes on the mountain because they aren't covered with snow yet.
I actually get to wear a jacket! Not a coat but a real honest to goodness jacket! Yay!

Let's see what else is new?
We got a new manager over my department at work. In the 8 years I have been working (since I was 16) I have had 9 different supervisors/magangers! Nine! I have only had three different jobs! I am really tired of getting new managers. They always think that things need to be changed, which some do but most don't. My new manager is really nice but it will be interesting to see how things work out. They actually let me older manager go last week which was kind of crazy.

There is a new blog I am working on. I have decided that I really love to bake and I really love to do crafts. I like to bake and cook things from stuff that you can actually find in the grocery store and I like to craft inexpensively, so I am trying to start a new blog, in addition to this one, that will share my love for those things. I am hoping that it will just be a fun blog to share things I have found and share some of my own ideas.
I will let you all know if this becomes a reality and hopefully you will all stop by to visit.

I think that is all for today.

I hope you are all having a wonderful October and taking advantage of all of the things that come with fall.

Few Words

I am sure that many of you have seen this picture but it still brings a tear to my eye. I thought it was hard when as an adult I had to have my dad leave to go to war and maybe never come home but being four years old I can't even imagine.



Abby Bennethum

Read the accompaning artcile here:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/Little-Soldier-Girl-Didnt-Want-to-Let-Go-63629627.html


I can't wait for the day when no one's mommy or daddy will be taken away to come back to a life that went on with out them or to not come back at all. May God bless our troops and bring them home safe and sound. I hope they all can come home soon.

What a Week!

So this is probably going to be a random post but what a crazy week this last week was.
So last Monday started out so nuts! I showed up at work at 8:00 and everyone was standing around outside a little odd I thought so I parked my car and walked over to my friend and saw the cop car. I asked what was going on and it turned out there was a bomb threat that had been called in that morning shortly before I got there. No one was allowed in the building and the bomb squad has been called to check things out. We were told we probably wouldn't be allowed back in for a couple of hours. I work for a mortgage company and we have until 2 pm to get our loans funded so that kind of put a wrench in things. A couple of my friends from work and I headed out for breakfast while we waited for them to check the building. About an hour later we started to set up at one of our branches to try and get through some files, when we got the all clear from the bomb squad. Like we really wanted to go back in the building after that but we did go back to work. We then had about two hours to do 109 loans. That was a long day.
Tuesday was pretty uneventful.
Then came Wednesday. Wednesday was the last day of the month and for any of you that know anything about mortgages and closing you know month end is crazy! Everyone is trying to get their loan funded at the end of the month because it gives the borrower less interest days and a whole month to live in their home before they have to make their first payment so needless to say it is a crazy day. We had 170 loans to do, luckily there were no bomb threats or anything else. But we had a lot of messy loans and were extremely busy. I didn't leave my desk, unless it was to go to the printer, for 6 hours. Our company usually buys the funding department lunch on month end because we can't leave our desks, this month no lunch! So we were starving and I hadn't peed in 6 hours ( I know TMI)
I hate having month end in the middle of the week it makes for a long end of the week. That evening I had Young Women's. It was an activity that was only supposed to last about an hour.....hahaha the activity ended up lasting 2 1/2 hours. I was exhausted.
Thursday was uneventful.
Friday at 10:00 all of our systems went down so no e-mail in or out and lots of crossing of fingers that we could get a few files funded. They still did not have the system up when we left Friday.
What a loooong and tiring week. I will have to post about my weekend later but that was my week last week and I am happy it is over!

Yummy!

Because I am so ready for fall I decided to make one of my favorite fall recipes:

Apple Crisp!

I decided to share the recipe with all of you that read this...... all three of you. This recipe does not have oats because Adam is not a big fan but it is still a great recipe. I can't remember where I found it but it has been tweaked a little to my liking.



APPLE CRISP

4 cups peeled and sliced apples ( I prefer the tartness of Granny Smith)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cups flour


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking dish.
Place apples in prepared dish. Pour water over apples.
In a bowl cream together sugars and butter. Add Vanilla.
Blend in flour and cinnamon.
Spinkle mixture evenly over apples.
Bake for 30-40 minutes until apples are tender and crust is golden.


I like to let mine sit for about 10 minutes before eating.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or just plain.
Easy right?


P.S. this will make your home smell so yummy while it is cooking.

Enjoy and welcome Fall!!

Can you feel it in the air?

Can I just say how excited I am for Fall!? )If you couldn't already tell from my background)




I love the smell of wood burning fireplaces, that seem to always show up in autumn.
I love the crisp feel in the air.
I love the crunch of leaves under my shoes.
I love the changing of the colors on all of the trees.
I love wearing jackets, not coats but jackets.
I love LOVE Halloween! I don't know what it is. Could it possibly be all of the stores shelves swimming in bite sized candies for me to eat all day long and not feel quite as guilty as if I had eaten a full sized candy bar? Could that possibly be it?
I love the decorations for Halloween.
I love the kids being so excited and being able to dress up as what ever they want to be for just that one day.
I love going to see "Thriller" at Kingsbury hall every October.
So can you feel it? The days are getting shorter and the air is getting cooler and I am loving every minute of it.
I am definitely NOT ready for winter, or Christmas. So those of you who think Halloween is a good time to start playing Christmas music please keep it away from me because I am going to enjoy fall as long as I can. If you blink, especially in Utah, it will be gone.

Feeling old :)

So it has been a little while since I posted last. Things are getting better on that end but it is going to take a while.

This last weekend we celebrated my twin nieces birthday! I realized that I am starting to feel old. I know, I know I am only 24 but still some things really make you feel your age.
I was a senior in high school when my nieces were born. I still remember that day, I was in seminary and Brother Bebe passed me a note and just stood there smiling, it was from my mom and she had called to tell me the babies were here and that they were doing well. I was so excited but they were a month early so I was a little nervous. I remember going to see them in the hospital and they were sooo tiny. Lizzy was only about 3 lbs and Alex was about 4 lbs, I think that's right.
They are now 7 years old! They just started first grade, and I can't believe it. They aren't even my kids but time flew by so fast and I just can't seem to figure out where it went. Pictures are to follow from this birthday and a few from their other birthdays.


This was at their 3rd birthday


I went to the grocery store a few months ago and has an experience there that really made me feel old. The bagger was talking about a concert she was going to that weekend and was talking about how cute the lead singer was and the checker, who was probably a little older than me, mentioned how she always thought Jon Bon Jovi was so cute. Well the bagger just gave her a blank stare and asked who that was? Seriously the checker and I just looked at each other like "you don't know how Bon Jovi is?" I could feel my age that time. :(
I have learned that you should not start reminiscing about your childhood and shows you watch or bands you liked when there are younger people around. (pictures are included for those who don't know what I am talking about)I have brought up Punkie Brewster, Color Me Badd, New Kids on the Block....hang tough! Just little things that I assumed those people I was talking to knew what or who those things were. Boy that just aged me again hahaha!

Trying to stay sane!

So I apologize in advance but this is kind of my pity post. I just feel the need to vent a little and I am not a big journal writer so I guess you lucky people will get to read my complaints and frustrations. I am just trying to find a way to maintain my sanity.



Do you ever stop and think that this is not where I pictured myself to be at this point in life? Sure I thought maybe I would be married and I am so happy that I am married to the most wonderful person. I just didn't think we would both be trying to finish school still and now living with the inlaws. I didn't think that Adam would be so miserable in his job because for the time being he is just kind of stuck. He is a good man who plugs along everyday to help provide for us and for that I am truley thankful. I thought maybe we would be in a house of our own maybe getting ready to start a family and that things would just fall into place.
Well here we are 24 and 25 and I know that we have years and years ahead of us but we are living with our inlaws trying, unsuccessful to this point, to save for a house, a place of our own. Looking at houses is very stressful. We still need to decide if we are going to build or buy a preexisisting home, figure out where we want to live, then we will need to find an agent if we don't build and that is just one more thing to try and find. Then there is the little tid bit that we don't have money saved up and would like to be in a better situation. Everyone tells us we need to buy now and that we can still get the tax credit but I just don't know if we are ready... will we ever be ready?
Here we are talking about starting a family but we do not want to be living with ALL of Adam's family (yes they are all at home. ugh!) and trying to squeeze our new born into the room we are currently living in. Then comes the same question that seems to come-up with every decision we are trying to make.... are we ready? Will we ever be ready?
Then there is school I was hoping to be done by now but there is a 5 year wait for the nursing program and then I will have to quit my job to finish that degree unless I decide to go to a private school that will cost more but offers night classes. Adam is going back to school and still has at least 4-6 years left so we need to get him finished with that and hopefully out of his job sooner than that.
I just feel a little overwhelmed and stressed lately and I can't seem to shake it. I don't know how much longer we can last at Adam's parents house. It has only been two months and we are already tired of it. It's not that we don't love our family it is just stressful to go from living by just the two of you to a house with 5 more adults.

I know this is a lot of complaining but I warned you :)
I am sure that you are wondering why we didn't move in with my family where I only have one sister left at home? That is a very long story but lets just say my mom didn't really understand.

I am not saying that I am not grateful for the things I do have or for the loving families we have both been blessed with it just seems as of late everything is going against us.

I guess I will just leave it at that for now and continue to go to church, say my prayers and ask for as many blessings from Adam as I can :) and hope that the Lord will help everything work out like it is supposed to.
Thanks for the vent I am starting to feel a little better.

All across the state.....

For our three year anniversary this last week Adam and I decided to take off a whole week from work together. Let me tell you it was a much needed break. No house full of in laws, no messes or stresses from work, just me and my hubby doing what ever we want. We went from one end of the state to the other....at least it felt like it.

We started out by going up to Park City on Saturday night. We went shopping at the Outlet Stores, walked a little Main Street and then realized it was 9:00 and we were hungry. We stopped at a little place on Main Street, nothing fancy but boy was it good.

Then we went back to our hotel and crashed!

Sunday we got up had our Mrs. Fields cookies, that we bought at the outlet stores, for breakfast. Yummy :) We then headed over to the Olympic Park. It was really fun to watch the ski jumpers practice in the pool. Unfortunately we forgot our camera so you will have to settle for iPhone photos. We got way too much sun and of course didn't wear sunscreen so I had a nice sunburn with a necklace imprint to go with it.
Ski Jumpers

It says take a picture here so my silly hubby did.

After that we went to ride the Alpine Slides. It was a blast except for the fact that Adam crashed and burned and let me tell you those slides are not forgiving he has friction burns on his arm, leg and wrist. Even with his crash he still managed to beat me!

After that we rode the Alpine Coaster, if you have never been on it, it is definitely a must. It is a metal track with cars that you have control on how fast or slow you go. Poor Adam always gets stuck behind someone slow and no it is not me.


We walked Main Street a little more. We had Lunch at the Red Banjo Pizza Parlor.....yum. I had to stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and get a frozen banana and a carmel Apple. This was my vacation after all and I was going to eat what ever I wanted.

Monday we headed back home to re-pack so we could head up to Logan to the Anniversary Inn. We could have gone to one of the places in Salt Lake but we wanted a change of scenery. Besides they have redone all of their rooms and they had My Comfort gel beds.....it was like sleeping on a cloud.                                                                                                                             

               Our room The Taj Mahal

We drove home from Logan on Tuesday Afternoon and Wednesday we just hung around town and got things packed up so we could meet Adam's family in Manti for camping. We left for camping on Thursday morning. Manti was beautiful and you could see the temple from our camp site which was pretty cool. It was nice weather and not too bad spending more time with the in laws. We went on Thursday night into town to have pizza and go see Harry Potter at the drive inn. It was lots of fun.

Saturday we headed home and then it was back to work on Monday.
Sorry for the long-winded post.Yay for you if you actually read the whole thing!
I think I need a vacation from my vacation. :)

Three Years and still going strong!

Today is our three year anniversary! We were married on August 11, 2006 and were sealed on our one year anniversary August 11, 2007. This has been the best three years of my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything. We had our rough times and our good times and I am thankful for all of these experiences because it has made our marriage and relationship the one it is today.

I am so happy that we made the decision to be sealed for time and all eternity a year later. What a great way to celebrate our first year of marriage! I was so thankful to have my older sister and her husband there as the only family from my side that was able to there for us. I know this decision is not one to be taken lightly and is not one that is right for everyone but for us this was a decision we have not regretted yet and I don't think we ever will.

Finally

So after much turmoil and many complications my blog is up and running with a much better background than I started with. Thank you to everyone who gave me some helpful suggestions. I hope that this blog is not extremely boring but if it is oh well because it is my blog right? :)
Hopefully there will be more exciting posts to come.

My First Post

Here it is my first blog and my first post. I am sure you were all a frenzy with anticipation so here it is. Please be kind because I am not the most eloquent writer and I certainly do not have an interesting life, at least I don't think I do. So here goes nothing........