Hello Bloggers!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my blogging friends!

Big year, long year, much accomplished.

Spent many days (and many dollars!!) being sick and otherwise unhealthy
Spent many days (and many dollars!!) cramming my brain full of sometimes interesting, sometimes useless knowledge
Spent many days hanging with dear friends (mostly the kids - I don't have friends anymore)
Spent many days loving/hating the weather
Spent many days living/loving/laughing/crying/raging/all of the above

...what more can I say?

And I can't even post any photos for your viewing pleasure because my card reader is broken!  But I will figure it out.

Now, to spend many days with Mickey and friends...

Happy New Year to you all!

Where have I been?

Yes, it's been almost a month since my last post!  Wow!!  What have I been up to?

Finished up my 5th semester (wow!) of school
Finished my 100 hours of volunteer dental assisting (harder than it sounds)
Had some visits with Santa
Did some Christmas shopping
Attended many parties
Did some more Christmas shopping
Made some cookies with my pal Campbell
Finally!! cleaned my house (biofilms - all I will say)
Attended a few doctor visits (and other things)
Worked out a few times
That's about it.

Best Game EVER!!

Had the Fam over for a friendly game of football watching - 
My Mighty Utes v BYU.  Never leave a BYU fan unattended...

 Some interesting  snow art

 My favorite BYU fans

 We've been cougared!

 Anyone who knows me knows why this is HILARIOUS - hanging outside my house. 

And my Utah flag was hijacked!

 Taylor and Aunt Laura

 A little team spirit - cookie style!

 Tia upset AFTER a mighty Utah win

 Cousins, rivals, friends in the end

The cutest Ute fan ever!

Thanks for a fun evening family! ( Even if I did spend HOURS cleaning up blue streamers off the lawn, cougar prints on my windows, Max Hall signs on my garage, Y flags on my door...)

Oh, and in case you weren't watching - 
My Utes WON!!!!!

Stuff

NOT running the Thanskgiving Day race.  Too cold.  Too tired.  Too blah.

Where are all my readers?  Have I bored you all to Neverland?

Dear Santa

 

Check this out!  I got this idea from my friend Char

over at Crap I've Made

That's right - dry erase letters to Santa!

Love her brilliant idea.

Love even more that it was easy enough for me to duplicate!!

Click on the link above for directions.

Now that there is snow on the ground and only

3 weeks until I am done with fall semester,

I am feeling in the Christmas mood!

Or in the Christmas spirit? 

Not sure the right saying for that...

But hopefully you know what I mean!

Snowing - BEFORE Thanksgiving

Almost makes me grateful I got Mono

and didn't plan a Thanksgiving day race

(Enjoy, Uncle Randy!)

 The snow is beautiful coming down.

But I only like it for a few days. 

I am afraid it is going to be a LONG winter!

Thank heaven for treadmills

I was cleared on Tuesday to start running again.

Christmas is Upon Us

Do you want help decorating for the holidays?  Then go see Wendy over at Good Egg Interiors - she is giving away 2 HOURS OF DECORATING!!!  Plus she is going to throw in a visit with the Big Guy himself - go on over, check it out!!  But hurry, the giveaway closes tonight!!

Test Week

6 tests and counting until the end of the semester.  1 and 2 are Tuesday and Wednesday.  Test 3 is next Monday.  I'm almost there.  So close to being done with the semester from HELL...

Utah Football

Utah v TCU - otherwise known as THE WORST DAY EVER

It was cool to be there - for the first 5 minutes of the  game. 
Then we realized our team wasn't going to show up. 
So we sat in misery for the next 3 hours.
It was like a bad train wreck.  It was so awful, we couldn't look away.
 
I still love my Utes.
Maybe they got too big for their britches and had to have a massive, publicly humiliating reality check.
I don't know. 
I still love you, my Mighty Utes. 
And I still  love you, Jordan Wynn.

Halloween Part IV

Halloween ended with 2 parties last night, back to back.  

I was too tired to take pictures.  

Halloween is over.  Over, over, over.  Hope it was good for all of you.  As for me, I think I need a long, long nap.

Now let's start the countdown to Thanksgiving (and the end of the semester)!!

Halloween Part III

 Trick or Treat day - again with two dirty hobos

 An 80s workout Barbie...

 Two Slurpees (had several people ask if they were smoothies and what is a slurpee)

 The kids and all their treats...

 Keller and his treats...

 Cameron and his treats...

After sorting everything there were several

business deals involving the trade of candy...

 Chris watching the Utes ALMOST lose to Air Force

Glad they pulled that one off

There was a lot of yelling at the TV

Workout Barbie and some of her "nerdy" friends.

Nerds rule!!

Happy Trick or Treat day...

Tonight we are off to two MORE Halloween parties!

Halloween Part II

 Day II of our Halloween Extravaganza started with two "dirty" hobos

Cam and BF Keller came up with these fabulous little numbers on their own.

We got up EXTRA early so we could be to school early for the annual Halloween Parade

Okay, we really got up early so we could get a parking spot at the school.

 I ran into these two characters while waiting for the parade...

Have to say, these are some of the best costumes I have seen in a long, long time.
Plus, I think these two boys are too cute for words.

 And, really, what is there to say about these?  Other than I think these are the most amazing costumes I have seen, EVER.  Thanks to Char at Crap I've Made for her sharing her amazing talent with my daughter!  Hands down the best costume she will EVER have.

 We sat through the ENTIRE parade (an hour, total).  But it was well worth it to see this dirty little hobo...

 And the Energizer Bunny...

 And Cookie Monster
(these were some of my favorite costumes this year)

 Next, our dirty hobos were off to get some candy at the neighborhood "Trunk" or Treat...

Of course, Tay didn't want to be left out.  We can't decide if she is a ninja or a football player or just plain weird.

And that ends day II of Halloween Extravaganza.

Not one piece of candy was consumed by me today. 

And it almost killed me.

Almost.

 

More to come tomorrow...

Halloween - Part 1

And so begins my love/hate relationship with Halloween.  I love the pumpkins, the costumes, the fall-ness of it all.  Love, love, love. 
What is there to hate, you ask?

The Candy.  I am a candy addict.  ADDICT.  I LOVE candy, all kinds of candy.  I have no self control when it comes to candy. (doesn't help I have added 15 pounds in the last 2 weeks)
And so here begins my three day love/hate Halloween weekend extravaganza!
(read each day and you will understand what I mean by extravaganza - you will be shocked and amazed at how many Halloween things this family can do in three days!!)

Carving pumpkins...

Everyone is involved...

And LOVING it!!

 This is one of my loves - LOVE carving the pumpkins....

The finished product...



 

The Boy and his masterpiece. 

 This is the first year he did the whole thing BY HIMSELF!! 

(Can you see the pride oozing from his smile?)

Stay tuned for day two of our weekend Halloween extravaganza!!

Happy Monday!

Ashlie with her beautiful homemade dessert pizza!

Hope you have a happy Monday!!

Yep

That's right, folks.  I have MONO. Of course I do.

MONONUCLEOSIS, a friend of the Epstein-Barr Virus - which is a virus (duh) so there is nothing they can give me. At all.

Kind of funny if you think about it.  NOT!! 

On the bright side - only 8 weeks of school left.  And 6 midterms.  And 4 finals.  On the downward slide!!

I think I will go take a nap...

Today

For today I just want to be a mom.  No school, no work, no church, just a mom, marveling at how amazing my kids are. I want to freeze them in time.  They are growing like weeds and I am afraid they will be gone when I wake up tomorrow.

That's all.

Nothing New

Nothing new to post. I am stick of studying - again, nothing new to report. So I took off last Friday and spent the day with the fam at Lagoon. We ran into a few of our friends which was so fun!!

It was a nice break. And it was a beautiful day. And we spent 12 whole hours there. So we were all extremely exhausted, a little sunburned and glad we only go once a year!!

Another Weekend

...Has come and gone. 

We watched our little soccer star score 3 goals at his soccer game.

We caught up with old friends over breakfast.

We watched our beloved Utah Utes pulverize Iowa State (have I mentioned how much I love my Utah Football?)

Birthday party for my dad - we are so grateful he is still here (he gave us quite a scare last April with a major heart attack).

That's about it.  Now back to the grind of another week.  At least it is short - UEA for the kids.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?

A Long Weekend

We took off last weekend for a few days of rest and relaxation at our cabin.  Here is what we did...

We photographed two of the cutest boys EVER made!

We played cards with our FABULOUS friend Morgan...

We watched movies...

Giggled like girls...

Practiced our "Strong Man" poses...

Rode dirt bikes and 4-wheelers...

And acted tough...

And posed for the camera...

The dog was banned from the cabin so we kept him outside (yeah, right)...

We carved our names in trees...

We dustied up the 4-wheelers then loaded them up to come home for the winter...

We oohed and aaahed at the beautiful fall colors...

We got high on the clean mountain air...

I heard it was beautiful weather and an amazing weekend.  I studied for my micro test all weekend (which I did not do so fabulous on).  It was nice to get away and fun to have our favorite Morgan with us.  If only every weekend could be that relaxing...