No Black Friday For Me

So I've been reading all my friends blogs and it seems as if everyone goes shopping the day after Thanksgiving. It sounds fun but not something I've done. But after reading so much about how fun it is, I think I will make it an effort to go next year!!

Instead of shopping on Friday, I spent my whole day in my PJ's sitting on my couch signing "Santa" a million times. With Saturday being our first mailing of the Santa letters, I had to play catch up and sign "Santa Claus" on about 3000 items. The funny thing about this is that on Sunday I went to sign a tithing check and signed my name as "Santa Claus". Needless to say, I had to void that check out.

Pictures!!

So I thought I better post a few of the pictures I've taken (not that I've taken a lot). As this is my only form of journaling at this time in my life. :-)

This is my daddy rolling out pie crust

Justin, Kylee (Justin's girlfriend) and my Mom were peeling apples. As you can see, my mom cut herself which got her out of peeling apples!! :-)

The next couple of pictures are of Thanksgiving "Breakfast". Everyone came over bright and early. We had Swedish Pancakes, Fruit and Yogurt Parfaits, Ham, Potatoes and a Egg and Ham Roll!! Everything was yummy if I say so myself. I stayed up all night to pull it off and it was worth it...I think!! After breakfast we all headed out to the movie theatre to watch BOLT and it was soooo cute. If you haven't seen it, you should. Take your kids and enjoy another well done Disney movie!!

Tori and Austin (such a cute couple)

Jorgen and his girlfriend Kristal

Justin, Josh, Jeremy, Daddy, Mom, Marv and Doris

Thanksgiving Dinner itself. I wish I had more pictures...
maybe someday I'll get better at taking pictures.

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

The top 5 things I'm grateful for:

* Jesus Christ (enough said)

* Joseph Smith for kneeling in a grove of trees

* For my husband and all he does for me.

I lucked out when I got him!!

* My beautiful children. I often sit in amazement that I was given the chance to be a mother. Mothering is true joy! (as long as you get a break every once in awhile!!)

* Love. I am grateful for all the people that love me and for all the people I love. Without it, it would be impossible to go on.

and a few extra are:
* Chocolate
* Flushing toilets
* Toilet paper
* Clean toilets
* Guadalupe :)
* double ovens

Blissfully Domestic

As most of you know Justin is going to Italy on an educational tour and I'll be going with him. To do this he's been doing some fundraising. The latest fundraiser was a Thanksgiving Day Pie sale.

Justin only sold 7 pies and well his girl friend sold like 40 pies. So the last two days have been spent in the kitchen. With the help of my parents we have made:

* 19 pumpkin pie
* 9 apple pies
* 14 pecan pies
* 5 Lemon Meringue
* 5 Banana Cream
* 8 Chocolate Cream
* 2 Carmel Apple

So with all those pies, planning Thanksgiving dinner and Thanksgiving Breakfast I am feeling "Blissfully Domestic"


I hope that you are all feeling as domestic as I am and having fun with it. I promise to write more about being blissfully domestic in a future post!!

Thanksgiving Funny

I just had to share this cartoon with you all. I laughed when I saw it and well I needed a laugh. Enjoy!!

The Bachelor

I am coming out of my skin with excitement and I don't know who would even care so I don't know who to call so I'll just share my excitement on my blog.

I LOVE the reality show "The Bachelor" When it's on I record it every week and sit and watch it late at night after the kids are asleep.

This past season was "The Bachelorette" instead of The Bachelor and well as much as I liked DeAnna, I thought she picked the wrong guy and I was right (they broke up). I really liked Jason and Jeremy and had hoped that she would have picked one of them but she didn't.

Well ladies, guess what???

Jason's our next Bachelor!!!! I feel like dancing.


The Season Premier is Monday January 5, 2009. Anyone up for a weekly Bachelor watching party after the kids have gone down to bed??? :-)

Memory Tag

1) Add a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2) Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Awesome News!!

In case you haven't read or heard about it yet...here is some news that we have all been waiting for. [source: Summit Entertainment (summit-ent.com)]

TWILIGHT SEQUEL - NEW MOON

Los Angeles, CA November 22, 2008 — Summit Entertainment announced today that the studio is officially moving forward with the production of NEW MOON, the second installment of its filmed franchise TWILIGHT, the action-packed, modern day vampire love story. The movie will be based on the second novel in author Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series titled, New Moon. The first movie in the TWILIGHT franchise, the self-titled TWILIGHT, arrived in theaters this weekend to sold-out showings.

Stephenie Meyer stated, "I don't think any other author has had a more positive experience with the makers of her movie adaptation than I have had with Summit Entertainment. I'm thrilled to have the chance to work with them again on NEW MOON."

So it looks like another Girls Night Out!!

Twilight

So Twilight "the movie" came out on Thursday Night/Friday Morning and I LOVED IT !! I got to see it twice and loved it more the second time around so anyone that hasn't seen it, SEE IT, and for those of you that have just seen it once, see it AGAIN, it will be well worth it. :-)

I thought they did a great job on the casting of the movie. I say that now, even though before the movie was released I thought the pick for Edward was horrible. Edward grows on you BIG time and before the end of the movie I was sold.

Any Jacob fans might want to skip this next paragraph...

When I read the Twilight series I had a vision of Jacob being...well...hmmm...UGLY!! (told you not to read if you're a Jacob fan) Yup, I said it. I really thought he was ugly and well...they did the BEST job casting him. (stop reading if you don't like it!) I so think the actor playing the role of Jacob fits my vision of what Jacob should look like...So not my type!! I know a lot of people think that the actor that plays the character is good looking but I just can't see it.

Anyhow, for the 2:45am showing of Twilight there were a total of 15 of us!!! Two of my old Laurels and their friends came, my sister-in-law Tori and her husband Austin came and then there was our little "girl" group that consisted of Me, Danielle, Laura, Emily & Amber. What a blast!!

We planned to meet for breakfast before the movie and had a very interesting time finding a place. Ihop (closed) drove to Village Inn (closed), drove to another Village Inn (closing in 20 minutes) and then finally Denny's. We were so excited that it was open. I'm not a huge fan of Denny's but I sure liked their French Toast, you should give it a try sometime.

We got to the theatre just as 20 sold out showings ended!! It was so packed and a madhouse inside and out of the theatre. The craziness of it all just sort of excited me even more.

We had fun with our "pre-show" entertainment...

We had footie pj's


We had Blankets...
And best yet...Tutu's...

Now I know that all the girls thought the whole tutu thing was funny but I don't think they enjoyed it as much as Amber and myself did. She took all these great pictures of it all. It was such a hoot.

Here is a picture of us girls!!

Here are pictures from the second showing that I went to. At the second showing, Amy Braithwaite, her sister Miranda, my mom, Justin, his girlfriend Kylee and Kylees mom Shelly went. We went to Applebees for dinner but I didn't get pictures of that. By the way, Justin hated the movie!!! BOYS :-)

Anyhow, go see the movie if you haven't yet and for those that have, do it again because it will be well worth it. Heck...I'm going to see it again myself. :-)

Carrie Underwood Concert

Amazing, Amazing, Amazing!

So last night I went to the Carrie Underwood Concert and let me just say: "It was so amazing!" She is so cute and such a fun sweet girl. Besides the fact that she sung a few "rock" songs that I didn't like (and that aren't on her albums) everything was perfect!!

I took some pictures but they didn't turn out very good, but here you go anyway.

Carrie Underwood

I am so excited to be going to the Carrie Underwood Concert this Wednesday. I absolutely LOVE her. She doesn't just sing very well, she is beautiful and she tops it off with being down to earth (at least that is what I've read).

I hope I remember to bring my camera so I can post pictures of the concert. I think it's going to be a blast. I haven't been to a country music concert forever, actually I've only been to one other and it was Garth Brooks and that was amazing!!

Anywhoooo, I have to add that Carrie Underwood is on my top five most beautiful people in the world list!! I wouldn't mind looking a whole lot like her. :)

The Twilight Movie

I had a "blogger" friend comment on my "Where has time gone" post saying that she thought I was stocking up on sleep for the Twilight movie that is coming out this coming weekend. Well, I sure haven't stocked up on any sleep but I AM going opening night!!!

I have been waiting for this movie since the first day that I heard that it was being made. I LOVE this series and I'm dying to see how they can put the emotions that you get from the book, into a movie.

Anyhow, I was getting online each night and checking to see if they had posted the pre-ordering of the tickets for the opening night, which is this coming Thursday at 11:59pm (Basically Friday). So each day I would check and nothing. A couple of weeks ago I had logged on after church to just check and oh my goodness...ALL 20 screens were sold out. Yes, SOLD OUT. I was so mad and just couldn't believe it. I kept hitting the refresh screen in hopes of something, I don't know what, but anything to happen as I sat and pouted. Then all of a sudden, there it was....... A 2:45 AM showing!! You read that right, 2:45am showing and guess what? That's right, I'm going. I started calling my friends and seven of us are going to that early morning showing.

It gets better though!! Some of my friends couldn't go at 2:45am showing so I also got tickets for the 10:40pm Friday night showing as well!! I get to go TWICE in a 24 hour period. I'm way excited.

So Nicole, to answer your question: No, I haven't been stocking up on sleep for the twilight movie and I probably should but even if I'm sleep deprived I know that I'll enjoy this movie and there is NO CHANCE of me falling asleep.

The Cutest Blog

I have to give a huge shout out to Ashley. Ashley is the sweet girl at thecutestblogontheblock.com. She's the one that always comes up with such great designs for my blog. I have tried to create my own backgrounds and I've come up with some cute ones but I'm never happy with my own work and then there is the part of it taking me a full day to design something. With Ashley, I simply send her an email and my log in info and she sends me an email with a mock-up design and how much I owe. Once I pay, she can usually have my fun new design up within a day!!

I'm sure most of you have used thecutestblogontheblock.com for your background on your blog but if you've ever wanted someone to do all the "extras" you might want to consider shooting Ashley an email.

Thanks again Ashley!!

Where has time gone?

So here it is, already Nov, just weeks from Thanksgiving and Christmas is just a hair over a month away and I'm so far behind that I don't know if I'll ever catch up. With that said I wanted everyone to know that I AM trying. I'm hoping to get my blog updated!!

Just to give you an idea of what has been going on in my life, let me share:

1) Moved my parents from California to Utah.

2) Fundraising, fundraising, fundraising.

3) Programming, Programming, Programming.

4) Designing, Designing, Designing.

5) Teaching, Teaching, Teaching.

And then of course there is the parenting, mothering, housekeeping and trying to be a good wife, partner and best friend.

Anyhow...I promise, more to come!!