Merry Decorations!

This year it was a delight to decorate for Christmas. Last year I bought extra decorations and lights and ornaments on clearance after Christmas, which made it tons of fun to get EVERYTHING out to see what I had and where I could put things. And since this was only our second Christmas in our house, and last year nothing was decorated and I was a basket case, I loved deciding on how to decorate and how to pretty everything up! 

  I love my glitter balls on the tree, and this year added the crystally twig things. They are all kinds of wonderful.

 

My nativity set is my pride and joy. Mary and Joseph are just so loving and attentive.

 My Christmas tree was lovely. Have I mentioned that I love Christmastime? I still don't have a star for the top, I'm hoping that next year I'll find one that I love.

 

And I printed up the Joy to the World sign this year, and couldn't be more pleased with how lovely that 4 minutes of effort turned out.

 

 My entryway struggled just a bit, I LOVED the garland, but I felt like it just needed something more. We'll see what I can come up with next year.

 Have I ever mentioned how much I love having a mantle? And that I can hang my stockings with care by the fireplace? We even lit a fire in our fireplace a couple times and it was absolute perfection.

 My kitchen has some of my more crafty and kind of eclectic decorations. I love my countdown made by my sister-in-law, Julia, I got the "wish" at a garage sale years ago and painted them, and oh, OH HOW I LOVE my Norman Rockwell book, and having it open to different favorite prints of his.

 People that send us Christmas cards should probably be warned that their pictures will be on display for a solid six months on our fridge. I love the collage of all of our favorite people that think to send us these beautiful holiday greetings.

 

I have been dreaming about this wreath above our front door for ages, AGES! I got the huge, 4 foot, pre-lit wreath on clearance last year for $24, and then with all of the extra ornaments and a hot glue gun, I made her so so pretty. I loved how it turned out and can't wait to use it again next year! 

  

 And here is the view of our front porch, which I was truly in love with. Just seeing this makes me want the front porch to have this lovely soft light all year round!

 

Now I can't wait until next year to decorate all over again! Especially since the day after Christmas I went to Hobby Lobby and bought 30 (THIRTY!!!) boxes of C-9 clear bulbs and we can turn our house into the Griswold's next year! Christmas is my favorite, and the decorations just couldn't be merrier.

Mel's 27th Birthday

I am 27 years old. Good grief, when did that happen? This year my birthday fell on a Saturday, which was fantastic because the whole day was spent celebrating! 

It started with breakfast at Crackers with three of my very favorite people in the world. Sara regifted the balloon that I had regifted to her twins a week earlier, and we both thought we were hilarious. Thank you Sara and Aly for meeting us and helping my day start out with a bang!

  

Philip then took me shopping, where I only had a slight meltdown about him not being specific enough when telling me what he didn't like about the jeans I was trying on. And then I think he was concerned that he was married to a 7 year old, not a 27 year old. He promptly took me to QT to get some caffeine in me, which proved to be a very smart move, and we were back in business, and all smiles. 

  

One of the happiest surprises of the day was when Philip decided to let me pick up this lovely hutch from a smelly old lady on Craigslist. Though she isn't much to look at now, after a paint job and my pretty china in it, she'll be perfect for our dining room.

We finished up the day with dinner at Salsa Cabana, our favorite, and it didn't disappoint. 

Overall, 27 is alright. I officially feel super old, but celebrating all day made it a little more bearable.

*Remember last year on my 26th birthday when I worked all day and then we went and signed on our house that night? Then we stopped at the mall where I got my birthday jeans and went to dinner at Oregano's with Stacie and Jesse. I didn't blog about it, but I just remembered it and thought how weird it is that that was a year ago, and how much life has changed since then. Crazy. Time flies.

Halloween!

I happened to fall in love with my entryway this year, and needed to show it off a bit. First year decorating for Halloween with a real people house: success.

First year passing out candy: meh, call it what you want. We thought we'd be have more business than we did, and therefore have some leftover goods. Nerds don't expire right? And fine, I'll eat all the leftover Twixes. Twist my arm.

October Conference 2011

This month we were able to go up to Utah to go to General Conference. It was such a delightful trip, I am so glad that we were able to make this happen! I have been wanting to go up for ages, and timing and flights and everything just fell into place!

We flew up the Thursday night before, and were pleasantly surprised by how short the flight was! An hour and a half? Shoot, that's nothing. Not even time to take a nap, just a bit of reading and eves dropping on conversations and we were landing! Chris, my fantastic older brother, came to pick us up, and took us back to his house, where he and Beth so graciously gave up their room so that we would have somewhere to sleep. Those kids are WAAAAAY too nice. I love them.

Friday morning we woke up and walked the three short blocks to Temple Square. Three blocks! It couldn't have been a more lovely morning and it was early enough that is wasn't super crowded. I hadn't been to Temple Square in YEARS, like perhaps in a decade or so, so it was so fun to kind of rediscover it all with a new appreciation for it. And we took pictures...imagine that.

That afternoon, Kelli is a sweetheart and took a half day at work so that she could join us for lunch and then entertain us for the afternoon. And entertain us she did! Lunch was delightful and delicious, and then she took us to the Red Butte Gardens which was amazing.

Philip liked to do this thing where he would start taking pictures while Kelli and I were "prepping" for the picture, which means where we were laughing and being idiots thinking we were hilarious and mostly likely looking unattractive. It was kind of awesome.

She's seriously so much fun. I loved being able to hang out with her. And the fact that she can talk baseball and tv and movies and food with Philip made the whole afternoon so much more enjoyable.

After Red Butte, we also went to Gilgal Sculpture garden to see kind of weird and really awesome sculptures that were scriptures mixed with modern church history mixed with a sphinx? Regardless of how odd they seemed, it was impressive how detailed the sculptures were.

After a great afternoon of catching up with Kelli, we went to dinner at The Pie that night with Chris and Sophia. Have I mentioned Sophie yet? That girl KILLS me. She is seriously the cutest and sweetest and funniest thing on the planet. I loved getting to play with her and spend quality time outside of gigantic family gatherings so that she will remember Philip and I individually.

So as we were ordering the pizza, there was like a 10 inch, 12, inch, 14 inch, and a 4 foot wide pizza. Philip was pretty sure that we would still be hungry if we went with anything smaller than the 4 foot pizza. It came out and took up our entire table. Not even joking, He had to hold his plate in front of him because it didn't fit on the table with the pizza. Insane. And amazing.

Saturday was another fantastic day. We started out by heading to the Farmer's Market, but before we walked around we went to Bruges Waffles & Frites. BRUGES!!! Seriously, the most amazing waffles on the planet. Do yourself a favor and go there TOMORROW. Chris and I got ours with crème fraîche and fresh strawberries and peaches, and Philip got his with ice cream on it and fresh strawberries. Oh my word, thinking about it right now is making me wish I were there right now! Incredible. And then we attempted to walk off a couple calories by walking around the Farmer's market, only to be distracted by the bakery stand, and ate some more.

That afternoon we were able to go to the Saturday afternoon session of conference, thanks to Kelli for getting us tickets. :) Like I mentioned earlier, Chris lives 3 blocks from the conference center, and was conveniently heading out as we were on our way there so he dropped us off on his way and we only had to walk the last block, so I was able wear heels the whole time, thank goodness. I was advised to wear flats...but what am I, a nun? Heels it was.

The session was amazing and so inspiring, and I'm so grateful for my faith and testimony that keeps me grounded and gives me perspective. I love the gospel. And I love the leadership of the church and this opportunity to hear inspired men and women give direction that is always needed and appreciated. It was a definite highlight of the trip.

That night for dinner, we went to Cucina Tuscana, which is kind of a fancy shmancy Italian restaurant. Maybe we didn't know it was fancy and were really under dressed, and really under prepared for how to be classy. The food was great, the service was out-or-this-world incredible, and then as we were waiting for our dessert, the waiter was apparently concerned that we "wouldn't waste away" while waiting, as if that was possible after eating our weight in pasta, they brought us hot chocolate!

Not only that, but it was in the tiniest and cutest little mugs ever, not to mention, super rich and delicious, and it just made our experience even more fantastic. As I pulled out the camera because I was dying over the cuteness of the whole thing, Philip said, "Taking pictures is not classy." But at that point, I didn't care, so we got pictures anyway.

And then the dessert was like a chocolate cloud turned into cake and piled on top of incredible gelato with fudge...once again, amazing. I kept saying to Philip, "I feel like we should be celebrating something, what should we celebrate?" Everyone needs to go there, and good news, it is just around the corner from Bruges, so you can hit up both in the same day like we did!

After dinner we did a little shopping, and then were exhausted from stuffing our fat faces all day so we just went home and went to sleep.

On Sunday we decided to drive the Alpine loop and stop at Sundance and enjoy the fall colors. They were spectacular! I kept taking pictures and commenting how these pictures would make the best puzzles.

Someone won the cute contest in this picture, and it wasn't me. :)

Soph loved seeing me take pictures and then demanded that I take pictures of every other person, and I gladly obliged.

We introduced her to Hostess Donettes. And when she asked for them she referred to them as white bagels which made me laugh every time. The world is a better place when powdered donuts are involved.

Bethy being a great navigator and driving on the scary and skinny windy roads.

Sundance!

The powdered donuts kind of made Soph have a sugar crash a little later, hence the not so happy picture, but isn't she cute anyway? And I love that she chose her fanciest dress for the occasion.

Can I have her eyelashes please? Latisse has nothing on her.

When we got back we played a Trivial Pursuit card game, which was fun to play with such smart and well-rounded people.

So.

Much.

Fun.

These two were so much fun to play and spend time with, it was such fun to just hang out and chat about anything and everything.

Sophie once again requested pictures. And I was more than happy to take about a million of her. That girl is hilarious.

Then Monday morning we got everything packed up and went back to the couple of book stores that we had visited with both Chris and Kelli, and Philip finally bough a few books that he had been lusting over and thinking about all weekend. He could have spent days and millions there had the time and money been available, so I considered the damage to be slight in comparison to his passion for old church books.

We met Kelli for lunch at Bruges again, because one serving of waffles in a weekend just isn't enough, and also got fries (frites) this time too, which were also incredible. Unfortunately because we were super busy inhaling our food, I didn't get a picture of it for the second time in a row.

After lunch, Kelli dropped us off at Temple Square again so I could search for a magnet to bring home and stick on the side of our fridge with the rest of our travel momentos. No such luck though, but we did get a few more pictures, just for good measure.

And then on Monday night Chris, Beth and Sophia took us to the airport so we could head back to our beloved Arizona. It was bittersweet as this was such an amazing trip, and we had so much fun hanging out with this awesome family.

We are seriously so lucky to have such great family who lets us impose and take over their house for the weekend and keeps us entertained and such great friends to take time off work and be incredibly generous with their time. We loved this trip and I can't wait until we get to go back and visit again! Thanks again to Chris, Beth, Soph and Kelli! They are the greatest ever!