Summer Wedding - Awwwww!!

My sister FINALLY got her wedding photos from her 'photographer'. She and Kenny were married July 11th, 2009. Here are a few of many many many photos:

P.S. My mom made Amanda's dress and my dress, and her own skirt to go with her blouse. She's amazing.

The "Company" Party

Saturday night, Paul and I went to dinner with Amanda & Spencer for our husbands' Company Christmas Party. We ate at the Rodizio Grill - which is one of my favorite places to go. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Yum!

Afterwards, since we were in Trolley Square and I have a gift card to the Pottery Barn that's been burning a hole in my purse since my Bridal Shower back in July of 2007, we shopped around in the P.B. for awhile and I bought myself a cute little tea light lantern (Thank you very much, Korianne!!). Amanda found these awesome masks and we decided to model them for everyone:

It's funny that these were there, but I am not saying why, yet!!:

And then after that, we went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where I probably should have bought an Apple Pie Apple but I was so full that I didn't even want to buy one, even if I just saved it for a few days.

And we took pictures because that's we do best!:

Christmas Candy

All the wimin' in my family gather to make Christmasy candy for the holidays. This year, not much was going on with the rest of the gang so that whole fam-dam-ily was there. I was more in a play mood rather than a cook mood, hence why there are pictures of us and no pictures of chocolate powder sugar cookies, or the english toffee, or the almond bark, or the fudge.

The place was an absolute mess in the first twenty minutes and not just because we had ten people cooking at the same time. These little rascals started an all out Powdered Sugar war:

Gaven in the aftermath....after he got me on the ground and smothered in powdered sugar and chocolate batter:

Bronsynn after her and Gaven's fight:

The two newest lovebirds:

And me, Bronsynn and Xannie - Bronsynn eyes could only look weirder if they were glowing red:

The rest of the night, amidst all the baking, we shook our little booties to some Footloose - it's my mom's new favorite thing to do when we are all together and I must say that besides the super fun time, it burns a helluva lotta calories!

BYU vs UofU

So I am super late on posting this one, too. Meh. It gets done so that's all I can say!

The past two years our great friends, Amanda and Spencer, have invited us to their neighborhood/ward shindig to watch the Holy War. It's nice of everyone to let us be squatters! Last year, the party was held in the backyard of someone's home and we all froze our butts clean off!! This year, they held it at Amanda and Spencer's which is quite brilliant actually because they have a second garage that we were able to huddle into for protection from the cold and have heaters going. It was a bit more comfortable this year for sure!

All bundled up for some football action!! Woohoo!!!

Amanda and Spencer posed for a picture, but then a play captured Spencer's attention and he turned at the last second. You can see he's still smiling! And Amanda looks cute as a Ute (I just made that up....just now. Get it? Cuz she's a Ute fan? I'm awesome.)!
But as we all know, BYU emerged the winner this year, which made us happy and them sad:

Thankfully, we are all good sports and just have fun with it, instead of all the crazy pyschos that become emotionally stunted people just because their team lost:

Thanksgiving Festivities

Alright - here is my Thanksgiving post - in the middle of December. Thanksgiving Day, while Paul was out playing Turkey Ball, I got my workout in and cleaned up the house, made a buttload of mashed potatoes and then Paul and I headed over to his Grandma Budd's at noon. This year was significantly better than the others because the dinners were spaced far enough apart that we were able to eat, sit around and relax, spend time with family at both places without having to rush off anywhere.

Paul and I goofed off a lot - but Paul is by far the biggest goof ball:

This is B.J. and Hilary's wiener dog, Steve. He will sit like that for ages if he thinks you have something to feed him. He basically sat like this through all of dinner except to change places at the table:


I laughed so hard when B.J. went to go outside and the doorknob came off in his hand:

And, of course, you can't have Thanksgiving without vegging out and watching Football!:

We went to my parents house around 4:30. After dinner, someone had put on Willow and the whole family ended up sprawled over couches, bean bags and blankets to watch it.

When it came time for pie, my cute little nephews in matching BYU jerseys (go Cougars!!) wanted Whipped Topping sprayed in their mouths.

We got out the papers to figure out if there was anything worth buying on Black Friday and me and my sisters ended up wrestling in the newspaper and shoving papers down each others shirts and pants - don't ask...I don't even know how it started. I just know it was super fun.

That was the end of Thanksgiving on Thursday. Thanksgiving continued for us on Sunday with my dad's whole family. It's a really big family and we meet at my parents house and the games always end up coming out and the place gets LOUD. Like, really LOUD.

Some of us got out the cards and utensils to play Spoons. Zanie and Sam had never played and they had a blast. We played several rounds. Behind us at the dinner table, they had about 18 people playing Blurt. I love it - it's all so much fun.

While playing spoons, I snapped this picture of my dad eating his greens...right out of the serving bowl. He does that. Everyone is done eating so my dad just grabs the bowl and goes to town with what's left!

Makin' Some Pies

I am really late in getting these posts up. I really dont' know where the time has gone. But, in any case, this is how my Thanksgiving went down. We girls get together a day or two before Thanksgiving to make all the pies together. Amber is in charge of the Pecan Pie, I am in charge of my Apple Cranberry Pie, Amanda does the Pumpkin Pies and my mom gets all the dough ready.

We take all of the leftover pie crust and make 'Pie Crispies' with cinnamon and sugar:

We put the iPod on the speakers and sang and danced like crazy women to Footloose, Holding Out for a Hero, and Let's Hear It For The Boy - all classics!!! - and brothers literally didn't know what to think about us: Amanda making the Pumpkin Pies:

Here is my super nummy Apple Cranberry Pie waiting for it's top - it's super delicious:
It was such a fun night - I can't even believe how much fun you can have listening to Footloose!!

Dear John...

I don't know how I have been so out of the loop with this, but I was thrilled to learn that Dear John is being made into a movie!! Dear John is probably my favorite book from Nicholas Sparks, and I couldn't tell you why (a couple girls from the Book Club I was invited to join couldn't see why it was my favorite book and while I understand why they would question that, I still don't have an answer). So I am very excited that Dear John will be a movie and that I don't even have to wait that long before it releases on February 5th (my littlest brother's b-day!). Woot Woot!! :} Channing Tatum is playing John and I am a little irritated at that fact because, while he IS pretty to look at and makes the perfect John, he IS NOT a fantastic actor. The preview looks promising though so I guess I will have to wait and see.




I have also been waiting to read The Last Song (which Nicholas Sparks wrote the screenplay for before he wrote the book, hence why the movie is already set to be released in April of 2010) but I have had zero time to finish the fourth book of Fablehaven and The Last Song has been sitting on my bookshelf for a LONG time! Also...(he he he) The Lucky One is going to be made into a movie!!! Hot Diggity Dog! I love it!!! So many good books coming to life! It must be Christmas!

Ingrid Michaelson

Wanna listen to an artist that is smooth, pretty, mellow and fun all at the same time? Ingrid Michaelson has a gorgeous voice and her songs are so pretty. I like me some pretty songs. Her songs have been featured on several major shows, my favorite being Grey's Anatomy, and even opened for Jason Mraz in Europe. You will like her, I promise!

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is a great read. I had never heard of it before (or the movie that they based off this novel) and needed to read it for my Book Group tonight. I finally got around to reading it yesterday - it's a really easy, quick read - and found that I loved the writing style of this man and the story itself is, in my opinion, very inspired and it makes you reflect on humanity and the horrible event that was the Holocaust. I have no real understanding of the pain and suffering that the Jews went through but it's an incredibly sad thing, nonetheless. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. The book itself does not go into detail about the conditions of the camp. It's about a 9-year old boy and his innocent views of the events going on around him. There was some controversy by some about certain realities of the Holocaust not being portrayed correctly, which you can read up a little on Wikipedia, but I wouldn't do that until after you have read the book or you will definately come across spoilers.