Painting: The Beginning

We started painting today! We started with the wall behind our bed, which was a nice green color as you can see in the pictures. The blue went on really, really light....but it's looking good now. We got one coat on tonight and will do the next tomorrow. I'm loving it so far.....although apparently I paint thicker than Russell since the bottom has more paint than the top! Haha. We will have to balance it out the second time around!

The top edges:


The bottom edges:


First coat finished:


The mess of the bedroom:

The Final Book-Buying

Day 364-Dec 29th: After work today we went to the bookstore to get my books for the coming semester. It is my last semester and thus the last time I have to buy books! Good thing considering we spent about $100 more than we expected! I think my gift to society should be finding a way to make textbooks cheaper because I'm tired of paying $200 for ONE book!

Day 363-Dec 28th: I bought this book with the giftcard to Deseret Book Rachel got me for Christmas. I had been needing the book....it's the first in a series of four and I have been wanting to read the series again, but didn't have the first book. I read about a third of it Saturday, and finished it today! It's awesome to have time to actually read something you want to rather than textbooks!

Take Five

Day 362-Dec 27th: Today we went and got a gallon of paint and supplies to start painting the odd color walls in our house! While I desperately want to paint the red bathroom, I cannot decide what I want it to be. So.....we decided to get the blue that matches our duvet, which will suffice for much of the house. I'm going to do the wall in our master bedroom that is olive green, the master bathroom, and the wall behind our kitchen table in blue. It's called Take Five.....and it really is blue although it looks a little white in the picture!

I'm thinking maybe a light green in the bathroom..........

Christmas Excitement

We got up about 9:00am on Christmas morning and wandered downstairs to open our presents. I guess we are enjoying the late Christmas mornings while we can! We had a great time opening our presents and then using them all day. We just stayed at home and did our own thing. Here's some of our favorite presents.

My parents got me this rolling scrapbook tote to take my things to crops! It is wonderful because I will not have to carry six bags over my shoulders anymore! I can't wait to go to a crop now.

My mother-in-law got me this Quickutz Silhouette machine! It's a die-cutting machine that hooks up to your computer and cuts basically anything you want. I have been wanting one ever since they came out, they are super cool. Russell got me several things that go with it, which was most of my Christmas, and I spent 4 or 5 hours figuring it all out. It's going to be awesome!

I got Russell this new game called Jamaica and he really liked it. It's so fun to watch him open new games, he gets so excited! This one is about pirates! We played it twice Christmas night, and I won both times. It's a quick and easy game, not really any strategy, but really fun. It has awesome artwork!

Russell also wanted this turtle Zoobie Pet. I got him the baby one since the full-size went over the allotted budget. These pets are animals, unfold to be pillows, and unzip to reveal a blanket. He was quickly named Tiny Tim after the Turtle Song we sang in nursery.

We enjoyed all of our Christmas presents and the time we were able to spend together. It was a great Christmas!

Here's some pictures of us playing Jamaica. Captain Rahlstrom had to play too, because with only 2 players you have to have a "computer" player. Good thing we have a pirate around to take on that role!


If you want to see more pictures of our Christmas this year go here.

Christmas Eve Traditions

We have several traditions on Christmas Eve, mostly they come from our families growing up. First, we get new pajama pants to wear (which my Mom is still making!). I'm sure one day though she will let me know that I am in charge of making them, you know, once we have those sextuplets Russell keeps talking about.

Since right now we have to open the PJ's from Mom before wearing them, we open them first, then get ready in our pajamas, read the Christmas story in the scriptures, head to the piano to sing our favorite Christmas songs, and then open one present. And so we did just that. I think the only thing we've added ourselves is the singing our favorite Christmas songs, the rest was done in either or both of our families since we were little.

Here's pictures of our PJ's. I got some cute elephants, and Russell got Giraffes because my little sisters like to call him "Giraffe Man" since he is sooooooooooo tall. And....they also like to match him, so Cooper has matching giraffe pants, and Cymbre sent Russell some Wall-E pants that match both of them as another Christmas present.


And now on to the presents!

Russell choose to open a game from his BoardGameGeek secret santa. He has participated in Secret Santa both Christmases since we've been married, and the person who gets him always does a great job sending him MULTIPLE games. It's really nice because games are somewhat expensive and he gets more that way. Anyway, he opened Gathering Storm, which is an Expansion to Race for the Galaxy, and he was super excited.

I choose a present from my Dad, which I knew he got in Memphis while my family was there this summer for national dance competitions. Mom had told me Dad got something fun for me there. Well....turns out it is a book made out of recycled elephant poop! Gross!!! Dad was so excited and thought it was cool. It is a nice book actually, but the idea is kind of disgusting. Maybe I will put pictures of all my elephants in it.

Christmas Picture-A-Day's

Day 361-Dec 26th: So Carter's knows me well I guess. They sent me an email with a coupon yesterday and were having a big sale today. We decided to go up, since it's one of our favorite stores. We figured we could get a couple things, plus something for Jack and something for Jett who is soon to be here! So off we went to the West Jordan store.....except we got there and they were closed for the day!!! We have no idea why, but by then I was so excited to go that we just drove over to Park City. Good thing we were already in Salt Lake so it wasn't another hour away! We got these cute outfits. The blue one has Rhino feet, and we couldn't resist having it with Cymbre in the family! We got a Rhino feet one for Jack too! I even found a couple girl things I liked this time, so maybe a girl would be okay afterall.

Day 360-Dec 25th: Merry Christmas! We had a lot of fun opening our presents and enjoying them today. More about Christmas in the next posts, but this picture is Russell openinng some Jelly Belly's from my sisters. They like to tease him by sending him jelly beans, but never very many root beer ones (which are his favorite). He opened these and made this face and said "there's never very many root beer ones!"

Day 359-Dec 24th: This is Lyndsey, one of Russell's friends, and her husband. She is credited with our marriage since she is the reason Russell came to Archiver's that February day. Haha. Anyway, she and her husband live in Atlanta now, and they were in town for Christmas. So....they came over today and we had dinner, games, and some guitar hero! We had a lot of fun. It was funny because Lyndsey reads my blog and recognized many of the things in our house. She would say "oh, there are the nativity puppets," "I know about that elephant carving," etc. It was fun, and I couldn't believe how much she remembered from my blog! We had a great time, thanks for visiting guys!

Christmas Preparations

Day 358- Dec 23rd: I got home from work today and had a box from Britni, my older sister. Obviously it was Christmas presents, so I opened the box to put them under the tree. Well.....they weren't wrapped, so we got some early presents. This Monopoly has a Buzz Lightyear playing piece, which is awesome! And she got Russell a Root Beer Float candle. Hopefully smelling it won't cause any Root Beer Float emergency's, those are dangerous! We did put them under the tree though, and we'll pretend to be surprised again on Christmas.

Day 357- Dec 22nd: Today we wrapped up some cookies in these little packages to take to some of our neighbors and friends. We only got Keera's delivered today because it was snowing, snowing, snowing hard all day. We managed to get to Keera's though and bring them their cookies and Jaxson his transformer and balloon for his birthday. He got tons of transformers for his birthday, he showed them all to us!

Day 356-Dec 21st: Today we taught our first lesson of Temple Prep. It went pretty well, although we ran out of time so we didn't get to discuss the questions at the end, which is where I had things to say! Haha. Russell did a great job though. The lesson was outlining the Plan of Salvation and there were tons of scriptures to read. We each took turns reading, but a problem we ran into was the brother of the couple we are teaching is legally blind, so we need to think of a better way to involve him in the lessons with something other than reading.

Russell got this free game for his computer today called Enigmo 2. It's like a game I used to play in elementary or middle school where you have to make machines and get things to a certain point. This one has water, lazers, and magnetic fields. We played it for about 2 hours. We got through the first few levels pretty quick, but now each level takes us 20-30 minutes. It's quite a thinking game!

Christmas Lights

Day 355-Dec 20th: I know I went from 353 to 355, but somewhere in the year of blogging I must have numbered two of the same day. So know I'm back on track.

Tonight after we went to a wedding reception for one of Russell's friends in Highland, we went to drive through the holiday lights at Thanksgiving Point. It was shorter than we thought, but it was still fun. They had all sorts of things set up. It was a lot like a little drive-through place my family went to every year when we lived in Bartlesville. Definitely a fun time for kids. If we still live here when we have kids we will have to take them.

Fortune Cookie Jackpot

Day 353-Dec 19th: We left at 2pm today to take Rachel to the airport. By the time we got to the point of the mountain it was snowing pretty hard and made the trip quite slow. We made it there by 4, but neither Russell or I had eaten lunch. I forgot to take lunch or money with me to work, and Russell didn't have any lunch meat. So.....we decided to stop at Pei Wei in Sandy! That's the closest one to us, so we haven't ever gone, but we LOVE it! It's better than P.F. Chang's even though it's more fast food and is owned by P.F. Chang's. Anyway, one of our favorite things about Pei Wei is the unlimited fortune cookies! Can you tell?? Here's our pile of wrappers. Haha. We ate most of them while we were waiting for our meal because we were soooooooooo hungry.

The last time we went to Pei Wei was in Colorado Springs with Russell's mom. I think she was quite embarrassed that we were eating so many fortune cookies and she started taking the wrappers off the table! Haha. It's sooooooooooooo good.

We got home about 7:30pm and we were glad to be home. Hopefully it won't be a storm again when we go to pick Rachel up!

Crop-a-Deal

Day 352-Dec 18th: Being done with school for the semester gives me so much time to blog! I'm excited for the deal I got on this Crop-a-Dile the other day at Archiver's. It was 75% off, which made it only $7.48! I couldn't pass that deal up. A Crop-a-Dile is used to set eyelets, and they really aren't my favorite because I have little hands, but at a price like that I really couldn't say no. And....it's definitely easier than the other eyelet setters I have tried in the past.

Finished!

Day 351-Dec 17th: I finished my last final at 3:30pm today! Hooray!!! Only one semester left, and it shouldn't be nearly as crazy as this one was.

These are the mugs Rachel got us for Christmas. Apparently there are surprises inside underneath many an M&M. I ate some tonight, but only a few. I don't want to ruin the surprise, Rachel would be mad at me! Russell LOVES hot chocolate, and so I've been trying to get him to cheat so he can use his penguin mug for hot chocolate because I think it would be super cute. But he is strong.....so I guess we will have some hot chocolate on Christmas.


In other news.....I held Jack again today and I love him. He will snuggle for as long as you want to, which is perfect. He was wearing dinosaur Jammies today and I told him Uncle Russell would like them a lot. Maybe he will open his eyes next time Uncle Russell is there!

And finally....we finished our puppet nativity set last night, so here's a picture of the whole set. Russell put them on the piano....guess I have to find a better place for them since that isn't going to work.

Cymbre's Tag

Cymbre tagged me a while ago, but with finals and things I haven't gotten to it, so here goes.


1.What is your fav. color?Blue and Brown

2.What flavor is your tooth paste?Mint...UGH.

3.What is you fav. animal? Pachyderm

4.What did you eat for dinner yesterday? Eggos

5.When was the last time before now you posted on your blog? Yesterday

6.How many times have you posted on your blog in the past 2 days? 4

7.What was the last store you went to? Target

8.What is your Dad doing? Probably going to bed.

9. What is your fav. Christmas carol? With Wondering Awe

10.Close your eyes what color do you see? Black

11.If you were a candle what flavor would you be? Cinnamon

12. What does you fav. Christmas Decor look like? Nativities!

13. If you were a shoe what kind would you be? Probably a tennis shoe.....New Balance maybe.

14. What shape of ice cube would you want to be? Ummm......I don't know....but Russell would be a Lego shape.

15.What is your fav. movie? The American President

16.Who do you want to tag? Ummmm....I think everyone has already been tagged.

Angel Tree

Day 350-Dec 16th: I took the tag for a Boy age 3-5 off the Angel Tree in Relief Society on Sunday and tonight we went to Target to pick something out for him. We found this really cool foldout workbench and toolkit. It has all sorts of fun things for him to hammer and screw and then folds up again. Hopefully whoever gets it will like it.

Baby Jack is FINALLY Here!

Day 349-Dec 15th: Holly (my sister-in-law) had her baby at 6:27 this morning! We have been waiting for what seems like forever for little Jack to join us, and he's finally here! After my two finals this morning I went to snuggle him, and I held him for almost an hour. Then I went to work, and then went back for a few more snuggles! He woke up for me and showed me his little eyes when Russell and I were there, but whenever Russell would look at him he would close his eyes! Haha. He's super cute!

Theatrics

Day 348-Dec 14th: Today after church we started making our nativity puppet set we picked up at Pebbles last week. It was too cute to resist! We aren't quite done, because they actually take a while to make each one, but we can't wait to use them. We were excited to use them in Nursery for the Christmas lesson, but now we will have to just use them at home. It will be even better when we have kids. My favorite part is the cute little sheep the shepherd has!

Day 347-Dec 13th: Today we went out and about to pick up some last minute gifts and we stopped at the Quilted Bear. This nativity set we have been wanting was 30% off and so we got just the Holy Family and Baby Animals. They are really cute because everyone/everything in the nativity is really tall and skinny. Now we have two nativities we are collecting.

Day 346-Dec 12th: Tonight we went up to Salt Lake to The Forgotten Carols. It was awesome! Russell had seen it before, but I hadn't and I really enjoyed the experience, we will definitely have to go again. The music was great and it was quite funny. Overall, a wonderfully enjoyable evening!

Day 345-Dec 11th: We finally have some presents under our tree thanks to our family members! It's starting to feel like Christmas even though there hasn't been much snow yet. It looks like it's time to start shaking and feeling all the presents!

Day 344-Dec 10th: Today Allyson let me know that Wicked tickets were going on sale Friday! I thought that they were already on sale and the cheapest were $160, so we definitely weren't going! But....turns out I was wrong, those were just crazy people trying to sell their group tickets. So Allyson is going to buy tickets on Friday so we can have a great date in April! I can't wait for Russell to see it, and I can't wait to see it again!

A New Calling

Day 343-Dec 9th: Today after work and finishing up my last paper and homework for the semester I got the presents we need to ship ready to go and ended up with these two boxes. Big....yes. That's what happens when everyone's present is in the same box I guess. Now they are ready to mail off in the morning so they get there safely by Christmas. Now on to the Christmas cards!

Day 342-Dec 8th: Today I got my Shutterfly order! I had earned 200 free prints from a promotion Archiver's did with Shutterfly, so I ordered all my pictures of the day that I hadn't so far. Usually I use Snapfish, since they have 9 cent pictures, but if they are free at Shutterfly I never turn them down!

Day 341-Dec 7th: Today we were released from being Nursery teachers. It has been a fun year, but I was ready for a change. We did get called to be the Temple Prep teachers in the ward. I'm a little worried about that since I don't think I know enough to teach it, but Russell does and I'm sure it will be fine. We will teach during the Sunday School time, and I am excited to go to Relief Society again and meet some people!

Warehouse Sales

Day 340-Dec 6th: Today was the Quickutz warehouse sale! We went up to see if there was anything great for the Silhouette in case I get one for Christmas :) Well.....they had some great deals too and I got several things, some of which Russell is holding hostage until Christmas. But I did get this Holly set for $30, which was awesome. And.....I learned how to etch glass with the Silhouette designs and vinyl! I can't wait to try it!

Day 339-Dec 5th: Ticket to Ride: The Dice Expansion! Russell stopped and got this at Board Game Revolution on his way home today. It's about a month late in being released, which has really been a LONG month for me. We played over the weekend and it makes the game TOTALLY different. We do prefer the original game, but it was fun.

Day 338-Dec 4th: Today Holly and I ventured to the American Crafts warehouse sale. Most of the scrapbook companies out here have warehouse sales once or twice a year and they have great, great deals. Holly found out about the sale and let me know, and we were off. I got all these great things. The best part was Thickers for $2!

Day 337-Dec 3rd: Today Russell got his present from the First Presidency. He is always so excited the day he gets it. Not many people get a present from the Prophet. This year is was this nice leather hymnbook, which matches the triple combination they gave last year. They gave the bible the year before he started working.....so our set might not ever be finished :(

Day 336-Dec 2nd: Today after work I worked on a project with Keera for a couple hours. When I went back to my desk to grab my coat and backpack, there was a box of christmas cards left for me on my desk! My secret Santa acted early! And...they spent a lot of time making me these cards. Thanks Santa!

A Fun Tag

Clarice put this on her blog, and I just love to do these tags!

50 things you didn't know about me until you read this...

1.What color is your tooth brush? Blue and White (Go Cougs!)
2. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Getting milk at Albertson's
3. What is your favorite candy bar? Probably a Milky Way
4. Have you ever been to a strip club? Nope
5. What is the last thing you said aloud? The picture of the day can be our christmas lights the neighbors put up! (Our neighbors put up lights across the awning that goes above both of our doors)
6. What is the best ice cream flavor? Girl Scout Samoa Cookie ice cream
7. What is the last thing you had to drink? Orange Fanta
8. What are you wearing right now? running shorts and a BYU shirt
9. What was the last thing you ate? 99 cent chicken nuggets, that aren't 99 cents anymore
10. Have you bought any new clothing items this week? Nope.
11. When was the last time you ran? This summer, when I was doing HEPE independent study
12. Who was the last person to send you a message/comment on your blog? My sister Cooper
13. Do you take vitamins daily? yes
14. Do you go to church every Sunday? yes
15. Do you have a tan? umm...no. that's impossible for me
16. Do you like Chinese food over pizza? HELLO! You shouldn't even have to ask that question, chinese is about a million times better than pizza
17. Do you drink soda with a straw? if it comes with one
18. What does your last text message say? my phone is not text-enabled
19. Are you someones best friend? hopefully Russell's
20. What are you doing tomorrow? writing a paper...or two...and going to the Quickutz warehouse sale!
21. Where is your dad? Probably at home in Houston
22. Look to your left, what do you see? Russell's Holtz nativity
23. What color is your favorite pair of shoes? brown
24. Do you use chap stick? yes, if I can ever find mine!
25. Whats your favorite thing to do in your free time? play the violin/piano, scrapbook, read
26. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? Drive thru
27. Do you have a dog? NO
28. Last guy you talked on the phone with? Russell
29. Last girl you talked on the phone with? Elaine
30. Any fun vacation plans soon? I hope so...but I don't know where. Maybe St. George for Valentines day and Russell's cousin's wedding
31. Do you dye your hair? no
32. Can you say the alphabet backwards? I'm sure I could if I tried
33. Do you have a maid service clean your house? no
34. Are you jealous of anyone? I'm sure I am once in a while
35. Do you love anyone? YES!
36. Do any of your friends have children? yes
37. Do you use the word Hello daily? no....I really only use it to answer the phone if I don't know who's calling
38. Do you like cats? no
39. Have you ever been to six flags? Yes
40. How did you get your worse scar? surgery
41. What is your favorite smell? after it rains
42. What is the last DVD you watched? 24 Season 2 Disc 1
43. Have you ever been to Disney world? Yes
44. What is your favorite number? ummmm....i don't have one
45. Do you toast your pop tarts? yes
46. Have you ever waited tables? No
47. Where did you have your first kiss? at recess in elementary school....a truth or dare game
48. What should you be doing? writing a paper
49. Do you enjoy wasting time blogging? Yep!
50. Who do you want to tag? Keera, Britni, Caleb, Holly, Julie, Roxy, Cari.....and whoever else wants to do it!

Sushi, Sushi, Sushi (haha Cooper....I said Sushi!)

Day 335-Dec 1st: Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! We played this great new game called Wasabi to celebrate for you! Haha. Not really, just Wasabi finally came after being pre-ordered in May or something! We CANNOT wait to play it with Cooper! To play the game you have to collect the right tiles and put them on the board in order to complete all your sushi recipes. Sounds like just what Cooper would love.....maybe we will buy it for her for Christmas!

(For those of you who don't know....my little sister Cooper cannot handle hearing/reading the word "sushi." She will physically cringe if you say it! She's a wierdo. Now you can all bug her when you are around her!)

So....just for Cooper.....sushi, sushi, sushi, sushi, sushi!

Day 334-Nov 30th: We've been working on getting some of the Christmas decorations up the last couple of days. Here's our Willow Tree nativity with the added Shepard and animals this year! We wanted to get the Wise Men too, but it's too expensive for more than one add-on each year. So we will be wise next year!