! ! ! ! !

Hooray for Christmas! It's coming down to it--crunch time! I have many lists and sub-lists in which I try to keep organized, but they're not working! Come on!


(I realize that was a whole paragraph of exclamation points, hehe!)


Okay, it's my goal to have a relaxing Christmas vacation before I start nursing school in January. So, I've done all my shopping (that's the easy part). Now I just have a mountain of fabric, ribbons, and beads that needs to turn into homemade presents. That's right family... look out! Start working on your surprised and happy faces now! I also have mountains of pecan brittle to make--yum! And fudge! And cookies! And marshmallow gooies...!


(I'm getting dangerously close to another exclamation point paragraph. Let me calm down a minute.)


I love Christmas. I love the snow. I love how my house is positioned in a vortex where the wind carries all the snow on to my driveway! Dead serious. The whole neighborhood jokes about it. The other day (when it didn't snow) the roads were clear, and grass was showing, but somehow... somehow (!), there was a foot and a half of snow just on our driveway.... :-! I did my best to shovel it. Then good ol' Father-in-law stepped in to show me how it's done. He flung that snow clear down the street! (He shoveled coal back in the day.)


Well, this will have to be my post for tonight. I fear I am procrastinating... darn sewing projects. I am NOT doing this homemade Christmas-thing next year.


Yeah, right. ;)

This makes me an Elvis fan

Everyone knows Elvis. I think he was the one that started the first name only fad. I love his younger years. How good looking is he?



Dark hair. Army uniform. Guitar in hand. Whoo!


My mother-in-law is a big fan. My little sis has everything Elvis--calendars, blankets, Christmas ornaments, toothbrush--maybe. But what got me to adore Elvis is this song. I love how sweet and slow it is.


Romantic.


Sad.


Make sure and turn up the volume, you have to hear this.


This song really turns him into a person. He has a real human moment here. He's laughing at that lady, right? I wonder what she is doing--besides the high-pitch wail. She sounds really in to it.

Haha! I love it! "Sing it, baby."

Trick or Treat!

I am going to try and make this a quick post. I wanted to show Halloween pictures before I do a nose dive in to bed. What an exhausting day! Up at 7:30 to make hotcakes and watch Shawn of the Dead on TV. HI-larious! I do enjoy a bit of British comedy now and again. ;)

We spent our morning and mid-afternoon at Gram & Grampa Snodgress' house. Everyone was all dressed up (except for Ike, he was having trust (?) issues with his costume). I was nervous to see how Ava would react to a tall, dark, scary Gramma witch. But what made Ava cry hysterically was Aunt B's costume. It was absolutely horrible. You'd think Aunt B stuck her with a pin to make her cry like that! By the way, Aunt B was dressed as Tom Brady. I know! Sca~ary, especially if you're a Buccaneer's fan ;).

Non-scary Witches standing in a graveyard.


We started the party with a treasure hunt. The kids thought it was the greatest thing in the whole world! It was so cute. The clues were in the cemetary, the BBQ, Aunt B's car, and on the oak tree. The kids got stuck on one clue. Not because it was difficult to find, but because it was being guarded by a GIANT spider! Auntie Tom Brady came to the rescue.


Gramma hid the treasure chest under a big pile of oak leaves. It was filled with candy, toys, miniature skeletons, and big, red, beautiful shiny apples.



We also made ghost suckers. Ava ate hers in like, 3 bites--I swear! She then experienced her first sugar rush. Kind of like seeing a kitten high on catnip.

We watched the traditional cartoon Halloween specials and ate David's awesome pulled pork sandwiches. Good times.


On to Trick-Or-Treating!!!!

The weather was unusually warm, I thought. No jackets for trick-or-treating, hooray! That always makes for a good Halloween.



Ding-dong.

"Trick-or-cheat."

"Oh, my! What a cute little witch. And this little boy is a...a... Hey parents, what is he?"

Our reply, "Yah, we don't know either."


Fabulous Witch!

????? Robot-Buzz ????? (That's what he claimed to be.)
As deemed by Gramma Witch; Loofa Princess.Woody & Jesse



Oh, had to post a pic of our Jack-O-Lantern! He's a cannibal. >:0 (gasp!)

How to NOT DIY

As many of you know, I am a Do-It-Yourselfer. Let me rephrase that; I try to be a Do-It-Yourselfer. I am one of those who scour the internet searching for sites labeled, "DIY," "Penny-Pinching," "Make your own...," etc. It has actually become a nasty habit. Allow me to explain;

DIYs are awesome. There are many great things which accompany a DIY task.

1. Sense of accomplishment.

2. Bragging rights.

3. Money saved.

4. Creative muscles stretched.

5. And on and on...

But my bad habit is DIY--to the extreme! As many of my family members have experienced my "Homemade Christmas," they could tell you that maybe buying a nice bar of soap would have been better than me spending weeks and weeks curing my own homemade soaps. After buying all the ingredients (glycerin, dye, lavender petals, scented oils), that came out to one expensive bar of soap! After that sudsy Christmas, my soap making days were over. "Wow, two bars of soap. It makes me wish I had bought you another sweater..."



My latest adventure is labeled, "Reversible Disaster."



It is my Mother-in-Law's birthday. Stressing over what to give, I went to Don for help.

......

No help.


Being the practical and thrift savvy woman that I am, I came up with a reversible tablecloth for the holidays.

Perfect!

Find 2 scraps of festive fabric, twist it through my magic sewing machine, and viola! A much-needed tablecloth. Easy. Cheap. Practical. And most importantly, a DIY! (my favorite thing!)


That was my thinking, anyway.


$40 and 18+ hours later, I realized that I am not as cool as I thought I was. :)


I was having a hard time with the fabric bunching together. I was worried that it would look all frumpy and wrinkled on the table, so I came up with a brilliant idea.


Get ready, here it comes...


Make tucks and swoops in the tablecloth so the wrinkles would look on purpose! Haha! Genius! At this point, I am thinking to myself, "Look at me! I am fabulous! I should start my own craft blog!"


And after working on this splendid tablecloth (swoops and all) for the past 3 nights... it still just looks wrinkly.
:/


I can just imagine Vicki opening her gift. She might say something like, "Oh Kelly, how pretty. It's a... bedsheet? Curtains? Patio furniture cover?" And I will say, "No, no, no. It's a shabby-chic tablecloth, worth it's weight in gold." I can call it shabby-chic. Things like that are supposed to be wrinkly and homemade-looking. :P


Happy Birthday, Vicki. I love you.

Mill 'Crik' Canyon

The weather is so beautiful in Northern Utah! I am fully appreciating the cool-chilly air and loving all the reds, oranges, and yellows. I love that I can eat soup and drink hot cocoa while I watch the dark clouds roll across the mountains. Could Fall be my favorite season? Possibly. The thing that might put Fall a smidge above the rest is the fashion! I love Fall fashion. Tall boots, turtle necks, light jackets, funky scarves, and (so excited about) hats! Am I right, girls? Hats are so cute now-a-days.

I am glad that I can spend this Fall in the blustery climate of Northern Utah. It is my goal to do all the fun things; hay rides, pumpkin patches, Halloween parties, corn mazes, etc. But the thing at the top of my list was dutch oven cookout at Mill Creek Canyon!

When I was a kid, my parents would take us up the canyon to see the changing leaves. My mom has it down to a science. She knows exactly when the leaves are going to be at their peak. I love my mom for so many reasons, and that is one of them. Another reason, is that she calls it Mill Crik Canyon. She is well-aware that there is no I in creek, but that's just how it is.

"Careful, now. Don't fall in the crik!"
Post Challenge: How many times can you spot Buzz? Hint: It's 3 :)



Here is classic Grandpa: Plaid flannel, pocketknife on belt, and Coke in hand.There are so many reason why I love my dad. I love his smile. And I love the smile that he puts on my kids faces.

I also love my sisters.

I love that we can make memories from an ordinary day. Memories that we will laugh about for a lifetime. I'm going to laugh about this picture for a while...
Aunt Jas is going to England for a while. "We'll miss you so much, sis!" (Notice the cute bambushka hat!)
Silly Parents... :)
We had a wonderful time hiking up and down the trail, eating delicious Mountain Chicken, throwing leaves into the crik, and eating the 5 desserts that mom brought! Oh, I can't wait 'til next red-leaf season!

CornBelly's!

Last night our family went to CornBelly's at Thanksgiving Point. Man, oh man! We had a blast!


The kids adore Aunt Holly. In fact, Holly has a little shadow named Miley. Here they are jumping on the Bubble Bouncy (inflated trampoline, I guess...)

I was the first one on the Bouncy (I ran, leaving the kids in the dust)...

But Don was the last one off! We're just a couple of kids, really. Look at Don here... totally ignoring our children while he tries to outdo everyone else. :) Hey Don, is Isaac okay? (That's Ike in the background)
This is the tractor pull through the corn field.
Gram & Gramps and Aunt Holly. Gramps is having a blast, as you can see. :)

Tractor pulls are so romantic... (sigh)

This was the coolest thing I've ever seen! It was an inflatable maze through a monster's digestive tract. You enter through the mouth, and find your way out to the poop shoot. I thought it would be cute...to drag screaming Isaac...through the horrible...claustrophobic...pitch black..."Oh look, there's a dead body"...groaning and moaning..."What the heck was that?!"...500 ft long monster.

After that...(clear throat)... We went to the Princess Playland, where I thought they were going to try and sell me an overdone princess dress for way too much money. Needless to say, I tried to avoid this booth, but after trying to feed my kids to a monster...(sigh)... I had to be "Nice Mommy."
But they didn't try to sell me anything. It was a booth for little girls to play dressup. So dang cute! They even got to dress up little scare crows as princesses. I think Miley was okay, she looks so happy being away from that giant monster... or maybe she is suffering from PTSD. Hmm...


"Two corndogs, please." Biggest-dang corndogs I've ever seen!
The whole festival smelled like wonderfulness. Corndogs, popcorn, corn chowder, carmel corn... mmmm! Here's Grandma and Ava enjoying corn chowder in a bread bowl by the fire.

CornBelly's Rocks!

The Fear

If there are any Friends fans out there, you might recall an episode where Rachel gets "The Fear." Don has recently required "The Fear" also. He lost his job and didn't have any real prospects. So naturally, we were flipping out... for about a day and a half. That's all it took for Don to formulate a plan and put it in to action. (And thank heavens for a wonderful savings account! If I can say anything good about Don's job, it is that it allowed us to pad our pockets for a rainy day!)



Don is amazing when he is motivated.



I love how his mind works. When he has a goal in mind, he can bring it to life. I have no problem supporting him in anything he does because I know he'll be a success. For that day and a half of flipping out, I was even considering supporting him through Golf University. I guess that shows how desperate I was. I don't even like golf.

But I love our new plan!

Don just had his first day of school today--Pre-Med. His goal is to become an anesthesiologist (wow, I can't believe I spelled it right on the first try!). If he can't get in to Med School then Don wants to attend Pharmacy School. This all means a lot of school, even more stress, and even more money.



BUT! It will all be worth it. And we figure it's better to be poor college students than just plain poor.

I already miss my friends horribly. My friends who are sisters, my friends who are kindred spirits, and my friends who I was just getting to know but am sure that we would have been girls-night-out-joined-at-the-hip-gabbing all night long BFFs.

I miss my family. My brother and sweetest sis-in-law, Shay. My Izzy. (Okay, Kelly. Don't cry, don't cry.) My Grandma Bev whom (who/whom?) I will miss terribly. I can feel Grandma Bev silently correcting my grammar right now. :) I'll miss seeing Aunt Chris-- she always brings a smile and leaves a bunch of love. All my extended family who I took for granted and wish I could have seen you more. I loved playing volleyball with my cousins--you guys ROCK! Of course our cousins/best friends, the Collards--yikes, I will miss you guys (Jas, Kam, Aub, Hunter, more Hunter, and Katie-girl).

I'll miss my church calling. Really, how many people get blessings for blogging? Maybe I can convince my new ward that they need a blog too...

I will miss St. Geoge, but I am looking forward to this awesome adventure ahead of me. Everything is an opportunity, especially since I have such great family and friends to support me (Don).

Everyone wish us luck!

Go Wolverines!