Holiday weekend

Ever have one of those weekends that make you take a step back and realize all the amazing people that you have in your life? I just had one of those, and it was one of the funnest weekends I've had in a long time- and I was surrounded by family for about 85% of it!

It started with Friday night, where I finally got to see my best friend Tawny who had just returned home from serving a mission in Texas. We didn't get to talk long, but it was so great seeing an old friend how was such a huge part of my life 18 months ago. 

Afterwards, we headed downtown with Harmony, Jeff, and Keegan to see the lights. I know I was just complaining in my last post about the dry winter we've been having, but I'm actually really grateful that there was no snow that night because the weather for walking around Temple Square was perfect. The best part was definitely watching Keegan's face as he admired all of the twinkling lights. He was in complete awe of all the glowing trees- specifically the pink ones (definitely my nephew).

Saturday morning was the day of our extended family Christmas party. As hectic as those are, my cousin Heather actually did a really great job with arranging everything and making it fun for everybody. My favorite part was the while elephant gift exchange, because who doesn't love an excuse to get rid of crap that's been laying around your house and wrapping it up all pretty, just to exchange it for a piece of someone else's crap? I actually ended up scoring this year and walked away with a 3 movie-feature DVD that had two great movies on it (Big and Princess Bride). Kendrick wasn't so lucky and got three very dated kitchen canisters with apples printed on them (those went in the trash instead of our home, thank goodness.) That evening, we all headed out to Danny's house for Lincoln's 3rd Birthday Party! We also celebrated our other December birthdays- Nicole, Jeff, and Chris. It was a fun evening eating pizza and cake, opening presents, and hitting a ridiculously small monkey head pinata (haha). 

On Sunday, my dad sang and played a Christmas song on his guitar in Sacrament Meeting and he did an incredible job (this is a ward tradition). That night, we had a small "Family Christmas", where we exchanged gifts with the people who's names we drew (we also gave presents that we had for Harmony and Jeff because they are flying out to Florida with Jeff's family for Christmas this year!) This was my favorite part of the night because of the amazing and hilarious presents! The two highlights were definitely Nicole announcing her pregnancy (SO exciting!), and giving my parents a picture of us that we recreated from a famous childhood photo. My dad was so surprised and absolutely loved it, since it was a recreation of a dorky photo that we gave him for Fathers Day years ago. 

Seriously, do weekends get any better?

Just like Christmas morning

We finally got all of our wedding pictures back two weeks ago, and to say it felt like Christmas morning would be an understatement. I am so in love with almost every single one! This is going to be a bit on the chunky side, as I've posted all of my favorite below! Looking at these, I realize that I love candid shots the best- pictures that are taken while people are just interacting and having fun. I especially love all the shots with Kendrick and I. Our photographer just sat back and let us do our thing instead of posing us, and I'd have to say, our thing works out pretty well. ;)

   

There are still days that I get completely overwhelmed with the fact that someone so wonderful chose me to spend the eternity with. I don't know what I did to deserve him, but I must have done something right.

Christmas decorating, newlywed-style

Being newlyweds and having little-to-no storage space does not leave much room or budget for holiday decorations. While I settled on a spooky kitchen towel and sparkly pumpkin for my only Halloween decorations, I really wanted to make the place festive for Christmas this year. With the help of Pinterest and the dollar store, I've been able to successfully decorate my whole living room without spending a fortune. 

Our wall collage was simple to make Christmas-y, as I just replaced a couple of the pictures with free print-outs from a link I found on Pinterest- http://akadesign.ca/.  They have so many cute prints, it was hard to only pick two! (To print them, I simply ordered them off of Walmart's photo department online. It was about $2.50 for each print- so much better than having to purchase quality photo paper and using up your own ink!) The reindeer print on the very right is a white canvas that I painted a reindeer on and glittered myself. Okay, my brother-in-law created a reindeer stencil for me. I'm not that good. I got the inspiration for the project here: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/353954851938167264/.

These are my two canvases that I painted, and as you probably guessed, the ideas came from Pinterest, here http://www.pinterest.com/pin/33636328443135033/, and here http://www.pinterest.com/pin/232568768232912549/. The darling fabric-covered cork board is a gift that my mom made me for Christmas last year, and I decided to jazz it up by hanging a row of ornaments on fishing line. All of my ornaments came from Dollar Tree- I was pleasantly surprised by their selection this year! For a row of 12 medium-sized ornaments, it was only $1. As for the reindeer print on the top right- I purchased the PDF for only $3.99 on Black Friday from http://www.groopdealz.com/. (I highly doubt it's still there, but they always have amazing home decor for awesome prices.)

Our tree decorations were not costly at all. While in Richfield, Kendrick's mom was sweet enough to give me a box full of pinecones from the mountains behind their house, which I spray painted silver and gold. The acrylic crystal strands are actually from my wedding reception, and those were only $1.98 a strand over at www.orientaltrading.com. The rest of the ornaments were all from Dollar Tree! Like I said above, for a tube of 9-15 ornaments, it's only $1 (the amount of ornaments depends on how big they are. I got a good amount of each size). I purchased 8 tubes of ornaments, making them all only $8! Compared to Walmart, that's a steal (I made sure to check beforehand to make sure I was getting a good deal, and for the same amount, it's around $18 at Walmart). Also at the Dollar Store, I got 5 bouquets of those gold flower-beaded bouquets (what are those called?) and some fun ornaments to add variety, like the glittery K's and gold glittery bow's (2/$1.00).

This is another fun and free printout that I got off from Pinterest:  http://sandandsisal.com/2013/12/mistletoe-chalkboard-printable.html. I also decided to fill up all my apothecary jars with mini ornaments- Dollar Tree has a tube of 15 mini ones for only $1.

I also filled up the apothecary jar on my coffee table with the same mini ornaments. In the white vase I added a small bouquet of glittery flowers beads (?) that I got from Dollar Tree as well.

I wanted to get higher quality wrapper paper this year, as I've gone cheaper other years and the paper always seems to rip in the middle of wrapping (or perhaps I just wrap presents too intensely?) Either way, it was worth it to me to spend a little bit more. I found this darling gold striped and silver polka dot wrapping paper at Joann's for around $4 a roll, and can happily report that there has yet to be a gift-wrapping incident.

I hope this post has helped illustrate that decorating for the holidays doesn't have to be pricey! Happy decorating!

You had one job, Mother Nature

We are now one week into December and I think it's safe to say that Mother Nature isn't doing her job very well. We have had NO snow, and at this rate, I don't think we are going to be having a white Christmas after all. What is Christmas with no snow? Despite the shocking heat wave that we're currently experiencing in Salt Lake City, Kendrick and I have managed to keep things as festive as possible.

While in Richfield for Thanksgiving break, my father-in-law planned a fun Christmas craft for everyone to do. Yes, you read that right, my father-in-law! We drove up into the mountains and collected pines to make wreaths- we all know I was totally on board. Kendrick's mom picked up all things glittery and shiny to decorate them with, and we bought some gold and silver spray paint. Kendrick and I ended up keeping our wreath simple by spraying the tips gold, and adding a large gold bow at the bottom. Because like I've mentioned before, everything is better with a bow. Everything. My favorite part about the whole experience? Kendrick did a craft with me. :)

On the first day of December, I was finally granted permission to put up the Christmas tree. Kendrick's love and devotion for Thanksgiving is fierce and he firmly believes that anything Christmas or holiday-related does not belong in the month of November, what-so-ever. Being the good wife that I am, I respectfully waited until 12:01 AM on December 1st to put the tree up and deck the halls out of our tiny basement apartment.
(By the way, why didn't anyone alert me that I was marrying Scrooge? 7-days into December and getting Kendrick to watch Christmas movies with me is like pulling teeth.) (Love you, honey.)

I've been getting my Christmas-craft on like it's no ones business and have recently found a love for painting canvases. So far, all my inspiration has come from Pinterest and I have yet to venture out from just painting quotes or sayings. One day at a time, people. However, I'm pretty happy with how they are turning out! My sister is a bit more talented than me and made me a couple of gorgeous sparkly gold and white pillows, and I definitely intend on having them out year-round.

The other night, my family met at Winder Dairy to have our annual feast of scones and egg nog to find that it has been permanently closed. We were obviously sad about this- this is a tradition that has gone back as far as most of us can remember! However, we made the most of the night and settled on Abs for some egg nog shakes and hamburgers. Afterwards, Kendrick and I drove out to Christmas Street to look at all the pretty lights- this is also a yearly tradition of my families, and hopefully this one will stick around!

'tis the season!

Life lately...

I haven't had a job for a little less than a month, and while it's been a fantastic break and a never ending supply of sleep, it's safe to say I'm in a bit of a rut. So onto the serious job-hunting I go! However I have to say, aside from being jobless, life has been pretty terrific lately.

Our three day weekend in Midway ended on a wonderful note! It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so Kendrick and I drove to Park City to do a little shopping. Kendrick has been so ridiculously supportive with me not working, and with my little clothing selling business, and I really wanted to treat him to some new fall clothes with some of my earnings. Also, he scored an awesome black leather jacket for $40- regularly $200! I've been on the hunt for longer skirts and was able to find a darling cobalt one at LOFT, and a few odds and ends at Old Navy. After shopping, we met up with my family for some bowling! I'm telling you, the day that I break 100 in bowling just might be the best day of my life.

I've gotten to babysit my darling nephew Keegan lately, and aside from the explosive diapers, I've really loved the time I've had with that little guy. He's seriously the easiest baby to watch! He lets me watch my Gilmore Girls on the couch while he quietly plays with wooden coasters and a water bottle on the floor, and occasionally will look up at me and give me one of his famous toothy grins. Seriously, I love that little man.

On Thursday night, Kendrick and I had a wonderful temple date! We love going on Thursdays because we've made it a tradition to have a hot wings dinner afterwards, and Thursday night is conveniently 60 cent wing night at Buffalo Wild Wings. And even better, there's a BWW's right across the street from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple- meant to be, I tell you.

That night, I had theee worst insomnia of my life- I was up until 8:00 in the morning! On the positive side, I was up and awake to say bye to Kendrick before he left to work. ;) But as tired as I knew I would be that day, I only let myself sleep until 11:00 so that I would be able to get to sleep at a decent time that night. I knew that I needed something to keep me occupied that day- and then the idea hit me, I'd make Kendrick a nice dinner for him to come home to! After looking through our pantry, I fell upon a pizza making kit that Kendrick's work had given us as a wedding present. I was grateful for the dough mix (that could have been disastrous),  but decided it would be fun to make everything else myself! 

So I put some tomato sauce in a pan and threw in all kinds of seasonings and spices, and then let that simmer while I kneaded out the dough. While the dough was rising, I started to make the dough for peanut butter cookies, one of Kendrick's favorite desserts. When the dough was in the fridge, I chopped up a red pepper, threw some sausage on a heated pan, and rolled out the pizza dough, stuffing some string cheese inside the crust. I then put the crust in the oven for a few minutes, along with a small batch of cookies. Then, I mixed up the juice, and piled the pizza dough high with cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and red peppers. Oh, was it pretty. 

Once Kendrick told me he was on his way home, I threw the pizza and some cheesy garlic bread into the oven and threw together a salad. Setting up the table was the last step, and I was sure to add some candles for a little flare. ;)

It was a delicious dinner (or maybe I'm just biased) but the best part was the fact that prepping it kept me awake all day! After dinner, we took some NyQuil, popped in a Red Box, and were both out by 8:00. Oh blessed sleep. 

Now let me just end this rambled and scattered post with some adorable pictures of my dog in a wool vest. Because when you come across one of those beauties at Old Navy for $2.99, you just don't say no, guys.

You just don't.