Christmas time

If I were more on top of things, this post would have been multiple posts. Since I am not, it's going to be one really long post of Christmas photos! This year we visted Dan's family and had a fabulous time. Before we left, Dan and I exchanged Christmas gifts at our own place. We thought it would be easier than packing all of our gifts and taking them to CA.

Here is Dan with his gifts. I got him Boggle because he loves word games- we have played it several times and I already know it's a game I will never beat him at. I also gave him a movie to go along with his large tv.

Here I am! Dan got me perfume & a camera... where is the camera, you might ask? Taking the photo :) The camera is the gift he got up at 4 am to go get. I love it.

And here we are at the airport waiting for our flight to San Jose. We had to do something to keep us entertained!

Once we got to San Jose, one of the first things we did was cut down a christmas tree! It's a Deceuster tradition- one I have never done before. Dan's parents were kind enough to wait until the 23rd of December to get a tree so that I could take part in the festivities. In CA they have Christmas tree farms where you go cut down your tree. So here we are at the farm. I'm sure at this point you are thinking "what the heck is Dan wearing?" I thought the exact same thing- apparently it's his outfit he always wears to get a christmas tree.

To the tree! haha

And here it is- the chosen one!

Then I helped cut the tree.

Time to take it home and decorate!

We did a lot of other fun things, but I forgot to take pictures!!! I went to Stanford Mall with Dan's sister and Dan's dad. On Christmas we had fun opening presents and eating a delicious meal (actually all the meals while we were there, were delicious). The day after Christmas I went to the scrapbook store and spent the giftcard I got for Christmas- and I found that scrapbook supplies add up fast! After that Dan, Anna, and I all went to the Winchester Mystery House. It is this huge mansion and it has all these weird things in it- staircases that lead to nowhere, windows with walls behind them, windows in the middle of the floor, crazy architecture. It was great fun! And I remembered to take photos of the event:

Anna and mom and I also made a gingerbread house:

A few other fun things we did were played our new favorite game Bohnanza every night, watched lots of movies, tried to go see Princess and the Frog- it was sold out, so we went to Cheesecake Factory instead.

Another fun thing, on the last day we were there, Dan's mom gave me tons of children's books she had collected- most of which were signed by the authors! She used to go meet the authors all the time at a local bookstore and get books signed for her kids. They are a great treasure and something we can one day share with our children.

We always have such a fun time in California. It was a very merry christmas! And see, I told ya it'd be a long post! :)

family photos

Ok, this post is more for my mom than anyone, but you can all enjoy the photos. A few days ago Dan & I got family pictures taken for Christmas. We haven't really had professional pictures taken of us since our wedding (a year and a half ago). So Dan's co-worker's wife took them for us. Her name is Kate Weaver (kateweaverphoto.com) and she is just starting out a photography business. Anyway, Mom, go ahead and pick the photo you would like for us to print for you (just tell me the number you like the best in the comments).... And I'm not sure if my husband's parents read my blog, but if you do, let me know if you would like a photo printed too.

#1












#2


















#3


















#4


















#5


















Ok, those are the ones I liked the best (#3 is my absolute favorite).

goodbye BYU... you will be missed...

I am officially done with college! I just finished typing my last paper ever. It is bitter sweet! Student teaching was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I did it!

I am going to miss my time at BYU. I can't believe how fast it went by. It seems like just yesterday I was a freshman moving into Heritage Halls, staying up late every night and being crazy with my roommates. It has been a great 4 1/2 years... I met so many awesome people, had a great job on campus, learned so much, grew in my testimony of the gospel, met my adorable husband, and got my degree- I feel very accomplished! And now I'm excited for the future... time to find a real job!

Thanks to everyone who I met along the journey and to everyone who supported me. Especially my parents (who helped me realize the importance of education, and funded the venture), my 3 favorite roommates ever (mel, lacey & lei- even though none of them read this blog), and my husband (who also helped fund my education and put up with me during the stressful times)!

the most wonderful time of the year!

Can I just say that I love my husband's job? Well really, I just love their Christmas party. I don't think I will ever let Dan quit, because of how much I love their Christmas party.

First off, it was at the Hilton in Salt Lake. When we walked in, they handed us a Christmas card with a $50 gift certificate to Target (one for every employee that came, and there were probably 200). We then had a delicious dinner... every plate had chicken and filet mignon... I mean who does that? Usually you pick chicken or steak, you don't get both. The end of the meal had a most delicious chocolate cake! After the dinner there was a comedian, which I was happy all of his jokes were clean. :)

After the comedian was the most amazing part. You see, the guy that owns Dan's company is... well... filthy rich! So every employee that comes to the party gets a raffle ticket. He then draws out raffle tickets and hands out CASH prizes. Um... it started with $100 and ended with $3000.... I'm pretty sure the guy handed out about $80,000 in cash! And he was loving the whole thing! And it's not like one person got $100 and then he moved up, no... he'd draw about 10 tickets and each of those people got $100. Then he moved up to $250 and rewarded about 10 more, then $500, $1000, $2000, and finally $3000. I could not believe how he just kept on going! So... wondering if we got any of the cash??? Well, let me tell you. We had our raffle ticket, #124. And then one of the owner's grandson's works for Dan. Since he was family and knew his grandpa would give him $$$ for x-mas, he decided to give us his ticket #253, to help our chances of winning. After a few $100 prizes were called, our ticket #253 was called! We got $100 and were so excited about it (that was until we saw people winning $250 and $500)! We then knew we couldn't really use our other ticket, because Dan had already gone up to the front for the $100. So he gave our 2nd ticket, #124, to his co-worker next to him and told him that if our ticket won, we'd split the prize. Well... he went through tons of cash prizes and we had no such luck. And then he got to the $3000 prizes, he handed out about 4 of them and we thought he was going to stop. But the owner said "this is so much fun, let's do some more!" A few tickets later and number #124 was called. Our original ticket!!!!! So Dan's co-worker went up to get the prize. Anyway, long story short, we won the $3000 (crazy, right???)! But we are splitting it with his co-worker- who should be very happy he was sitting next to us. Anyway, we ended up winning $1600 last night! I could not believe it! And that's the end of my story. And now you know why I love Dan's work Christmas party and don't plan on EVER missing it :)

Thanksgiving break

Oh my goodness, I have not blogged in a long time. I figured I should at least put up a few photos from Thanksgiving. It was such a great break and one that was greatly needed! And now I am back to student teaching. I've only got 9 days left though and then I'm done with school forever!!! :) I can hardly wait!

As for Thankgiving, we stayed here and enjoyed the week off. We had dinner with Dan's sister, Anna, his brother, Ethan, and Ethan's wife, Tiana. It was a small group, but we had a great time and still managed to make enough food to feed twice that many people :). I even made my very first turkey! I was nervous, but it actually turned out really good! Dan was happy it was even moist! I did a lot of research online beforehand to help me figure out how to make the perfect turkey. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought.

Here we ladies are in the kitchen. It was a lot of fun baking together!

And here are the men. They jammed and played video games.

Ta da! And here's the delicious dinner. Unfortunately the turkey is behind me, but I really did make one!

And here is our lovely table. I made candy turkeys for everyone.

After dinner the boys did the dishes :) And then we all went to see "New Moon." I thought it was ok. I dunno, I just think the Twilight series make better books than movies. I know Dan was extremely bored... but such a great husband for still going with me! The funniest part of the movie was when Jacob, one of the characters, takes his shirt off and during this part the theater was silent, so Dan let out a loud "Ye-uh!" It was hilarious. Everyone in the theater started laughing. Oh that husband of mine- maybe you had to be there.

Then on Black Friday, Dan got up at 4 am to go to a store to get me my Christmas present. Ok he didn't really get up, he actually watched tv until about 3:15 am and then headed out shopping. He figured if he went to bed, he wouldn't have gotten up. And the whole time I was sound asleep. I have no idea what he got or what store he went to, but it must have been a pretty good deal for him to go to such measures. I'm excited to see what it is! I went shopping later that day with my sister, Noelle, (while Dan was home asleep) and it was horrible, I ended up buying things for just me! How could I resist? Gilmore Girls seasons were only $15 :)

On Saturday we went up to Logan to visit our new nephew named Logan. He is so cute! And then sunday morning we had another nephew born on Dan's side- his name is Donovan. We have yet to meet him (they live in Cali). But congrats Christian & Gina!

Anyway, it was a fabulous break!

happy early birthday, husband!

Look what we got Dan for his birthday/Christmas (50 inch plasma)!

I finally gave in... he's been talking about getting one for the past year! It's nice though, because this year I won't have to worry about what to get him for his birthday and christmas (they're only 15 days apart). I told him he should wait til December to use it, but that didn't happen. It was exciting to get him something that he really wanted, he definitely deserves it!

And thank you Noelle, for dating Jared, who works at Best Buy, who helped us find a great deal and a great tv :)

October

I always love the month of October. Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays and there are so many fun things to do! Here are some pics of a few of the things we did....

Went to Gardner Village with Dan's fam. I love that place! They decorate really cute for Halloween.

Carved pumpkins.

Here are our friends, Laura & Brandon.

Dan concentrating.

Our Pumpkin.

Their pumpkin.

Got lost in the corn maze!

A word of advice, don't go to a corn maze on the last day of the season, because all of the corn is trampled and you will have a hard time deciphering if a path was intended to be there or not. At least we had that problem. We also went in broad daylight, which made it very easy to find our way through- at least the weather was nice!

A few other things we did: celebrated my birthday, ate lots of halloween candy, passed out some of that candy to trick or treaters, watched halloween movies, and at my school we had a halloween parade and the kids were crazy! We are now looking forward to Thanksgiving and then Christmas! I just love the holidays!

family dinner

A few weeks ago we had a family dinner. It was 2 days before my birthday, so Dan schemed with my sister Noelle and surprised me with a cake. Here are a few photos from it. These are more for my mom than anyone. Hope you like them, Mom! We missed you & dad, as always :)

Here is some of the fam- amazingly almost everyone fit in the kitchen!

Cute Ryan being Batman, Jannifer, and my green wall.
Grandma & Noelle. Grandma is always so stylish! She even has highlights, you just can't see them all that well in this pic.
I tried to get Chase to smile... didn't really work. But he looks very cute in his pj's!

Classic Noelle face. Pretty sure they stole my camera for this shot.

Ethan, the cute ghost cake made by Noelle & Jared, and me. Ethan is ready to blow out the candles for me!

Wall Art

So I've been wanting to put some type of art above our couch in our living room. I didn't really want to go out and spend a fortune, so this is what I did...

I got the idea from Better Homes and Gardens. I love their website. And here is a closer look...

Ok mine don't look quite as good as theirs, but it still saved me money and I had fun doing it. I've also been wanting to put something above our bed. But Dan never wanted to because he didn't want it falling on his head. So this is what I came up with...

Vinyl lettering! It says "Always kiss me goodnight". Now i just need a beautiful headboard and the look would be complete :) And Dan doesn't have to worry about this falling on his head.

My Birthday Present!

Ever since we moved into our condo I've been telling Dan that I want to paint a green accent wall in our living room. I was kind of getting frustrated, because it seemed like it was never going to happen. Well... yesterday I went to lunch with a good friend of mine who is moving to Virginia. After lunch we went shopping. When I came home, guess what was waiting for me???

My birthday present! Dan and his friend, Scot, worked on it the whole time I was gone. I think it looks a little more lime green in this pic than it really is, but we like it! Now I just need to figure out exactly what I want to put above the couch on the wall.

Here's the before shot, if you're wondering...
Quite a drastic change, right?

In other news, we just found out that there is a pumpkin patch only 1 block from our condo! I'm so excited to go there. Uh... i love springville!

October- get here already!

Only 2 more days until my favorite month! Not only is Halloween in October, but so is my birthday. It has always been my favorite. I love that there is so much to do during the month of October as well. We are already planning on going to Gardner Village this weekend- if you've never been, you should go. I hear it is so much fun during Halloween!

I just put up my Halloween decorations tonight (Dan told me to wait til October, but I just couldn't!) and it got me all excited! Then as I was looking through some pictures I found these:

This is ME! I have no idea how old i am... maybe 4?

And this is Dan! He's so cute! As far as I know, we were not at the same pumpkin patch :)

Anyway, I just HAD to put up these photos to help celebrate the coming of October!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

My friend made these last week and they were sooo good! I asked her how to make them and have been craving them ever since, so I tried it out today. I think it's the easiest recipe ever and very fitting for the season, so I figured I'd share :)


All you need is...
1 spice cake mix
A can of pumpkin... Either a 16 oz. can or you can use half of one of the big 30 oz. cans
1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips

That's it!

Just mix the 3 ingredients together, put the mixture into a muffin tin that is either greased or use liners and you're all set to bake it. If you look on the back of the cake box, it'll tell you how long to cook a muffin tin for. For example, I used Duncan Hines and it said bake for 18-21 min. on 350. So you'll just have to read the back of your box.

If you're wondering... my recipe made 18 muffins.

They are amazingly simple and so yummy! Enjoy!!!

Also... if you want to know another secret, you can also use this recipe to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Instead of putting them in a muffin tin, just put them on a baking sheet. I believe you bake them at 350 but for less time. I think around 12 min... but you may have to keep an eye on them to make sure.

preschool

So it's my 3rd week in the preschool and so far i'm liking it. Sometimes the kids drive me crazy and sometimes they can be really cute. Just wanted to share an experience this week where one of the kids was cute...

On Wednesday Mr. Brad (the head teacher) shared a story about smiling. He then talked about things that make him smile. After that he showed lots of pictures of people smiling and had the children discuss why they thought the people were smiling. For example, he had pictures of people eating, swimming, with family, etc... all reasons to smile. He then showed a picture of a bride and groom on their wedding day and asked "why do you think these people are smiling?" Instantly a little boy yelled out "because they're going to the temple!"- haha adorable :)

We Closed!!!!

On our condo!!! Hooray! It's ours! Now I can start decorating :)

And I love it... pics soon... i promise...

One other thing- we have an extra washer and dryer we will be selling... anyone need one, or know of someone that needs one? If not, we'll post it on craig's list.

Also, we went to Carabbas last night for dinner (italian place in Orem) and it was soooo good! If you've never been, you should go. Delicious!

We also went to Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband last night- they are so fun to watch! Plus we went with our awesome friends- Laura & Brandon, and our awesome family- Ethan & Tiana. It was at the Scera in Orem. It was so fun to sit outside & watch the show. I decided next summer I want to attend more events there.

What a great weekend! And Stake Conference tomorrow, gotta love that!

And plans for next weekend? Utah State Fair, of course!

The end.

lovin life!

I just realized today is September 1st... that means I can start pulling out my fall decorations! hooray! I love fall! It is my favorite!

I just started school yesterday. I am student teaching in the BYU preschool for the first block. The kids don't start coming until next week, so we have just been prepping. The unit I will be teaching them is about trees (I didn't choose the topic). I've already got a lot of ideas of things we can do. Tomorrow I get to meet the kids during a little open house we have for them. I'm excited! I'm sure it is going to be an eventful semester.

Dan and I just finished moving to Springville this weekend. We have been here 3 days and I already love it! I LOVE our condo (pics soon!), I love the location, I love the short commute to BYU, and I love how cute downtown Springville is. We have already met a few neighbors and everyone has been friendly. I also found out that my advisor in the preschool is also in our new ward! Looks like i'll be seeing her basically every day for the next 7 weeks. Dan also saw an old friend of his last night at Wal-mart and he and his wife are in our ward too! As of now, we are very happy here! And did i mention we have a jetted tub? Yep, i pretty much wanna use it every night! Ok that's all. We love it :)

Cartoon Dan

Doesn't this look like my husband as a cartoon? haha

Ok I know this is totally random, but this cartoon guy is on Honda commercials and every time I see it I tell Dan it's him as a cartoon!

Moving... again!

Remember all those photos I posted of our new condo? Well, we are moving, again! This has been the craziest summer. We were planning on buying the condo we were in, but there are all these legal issues the seller is having, meaning we couldn't buy the place until he got that all sorted out. It's been one big mess and we are sick of it, so we've decided to get out of the situation. I also wasn't loving the ward (not sure if i'm allowed to say that) and the commute was driving me crazy! I guess 20-25 min. wasn't that bad, but I was used to a 5 min. drive to work. We've got 10 days to find a new place. We're thinking Springville. It's closer to BYU (where i'll be teaching) and less crowded than the Provo/Orem area. I'll put up pics of the new place, once we find it!

Anniversary!

Saturday we woke up to a rainy morning. We had originally planned to go to Park City to celebrate our anniversary, but everything we wanted to do was outside! We sat around for a while and eventually the rain cleared up. Dan asked me what I wanted to do for our anniversary and I told him I wanted to go to Gardner Village because I have always wanted to go there and have never been. So we went! And it was probably the cutest place I have ever been, I LOVED it! I now have a dream of opening up a shop there and working there for the rest of my life :) It has all these cute boutiques, and little shops. We walked through all of the shops and had a fun time looking, however, everything there was pretty expensive. Even the clearance areas were expensive. Except, we did end up buying one thing. You see, we walked into a shop and it smelled so good! So I asked the lady what the smell was and she showed me these little envelopes that smell really good. You put them in your house and they make it smell good, the one I liked was called Orange Honey. It was only $2.95- so we got 2! :)

Here I am at Gardner Village with our only purchase. They even put it in a cute bag with tissue paper and a bow. Adorable!

And this is us with the big water wheel behind us at the Gardner Village.

After Gardner Village Dan took me to another craft store in Salt Lake that I have been wanting to go to. And he bought me these cute wood letters! Once we were done doing all the girly things, Dan picked the next activity. He decided he wanted to go to Boondocks, because neither of us have ever been there. It's a family fun center. We played mini golf and games in the arcade. Dan loves arcades! And did I mention the weather was perfect? It was probably in the 70's- basically unheard of for a Utah summer. It felt great to be outside and the mini golf course was the best one we have ever been to. And surprisingly, we've actually been to a lot.

Here we are at Boondocks, the sun obviously in our eyes. You can't tell, but we are on the mini golf course here.

After Boondocks, we went to Chilis for dinner. I love Chilis! We got their 2 for $20 deal, which is the best deal ever. You get an appetizer, 2 entrees, and a dessert to share, all for just $20. We then went home and watched "Night at the Museum". Ok, Dan watched "Night at the Museum," I fell asleep!

Then on Sunday, our real anniversary, we went to church. After church I planned a nice dinner for Dan. I made him steak! It's the first time i've ever made steak and it actually turned out pretty good. I was so proud of myself.

And here's the lovely table setup. Candle and all!

After dinner Ethan (Dan's brother) and Tiana (his wife), came over and ate dessert with us. We had plenty of dessert so we decided to share. We hung out with them the rest of the night.

It was a great anniversary! Thanks to my husband for doing all those cutesy things with me. He is the best!

Guess what happened...

1 year ago from today? This did:

Happy 1 year anniversary to us! It has been a really great year and it has gone by so fast. I have such an amazing husband and look forward to sharing many more years together. We have been celebrating all weekend long. I will have to write about it later. I love you, Dan! Thanks for such an awesome first year!

NY Trip

We just got back from NY, so I thought I'd post some of our photos. We had a really fun time visiting my parents!