I LOVE Christmas!

"Christmas is not a time or season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." -Calvin Coolidge

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Period. It's not about the presents; it's about the general feeling. Everyone is happy. Everyone is giving. Houses smell like cinnamon and pine. Cookies and pie are baked more. Special music is played. Winter still feels crisp and exciting.

And most people decorate.

I admit, I did not have high hopes for our apartment this year. Not only am I a terribly interior designer, but we had no decorations to our name, except for a tiny 3-foot artificial tree. Though we'll be spending Christmas with my parents and their house is decorated, I wanted our place to look festive to get us excited for the holiday.

While decorating my parents' house, we inherited the following:

• A full-size artificial Christmas tree
• Two 18-foot lighted garland
• A Christmas swag
• A nativity set that I don't have to worry about the boys breaking
• LOTS of Christmas lights

We also got one decoration for free from a friend in our ward, and discovered we had a few ornaments and 4 place mats while cleaning our place! Now the apartment looks great! Here's what we've got up:

Our Christmas tree! Not the most beautiful (the garland and ornaments keep getting pulled off by the boys), but I love it!

Nativity

The original Christmas tree we were going to use

Christmas swag above our kitchen table

Our place mats

Countdown to Christmas decoration and a light-up garland

Free prints I found on Pinterest, pinned HERE

And there's still more I want to do. There's one more lighted garland that I want to put on the half wall by the stairs, and then more Christmas lights I want to hang near the ceiling around the living room. Yay!

Secret: I sometimes want to be friends on Facebook with people I didn't even know in high school, just because I like seeing how their lives are turning out. Does that make me a stalker?

Amazing Recipe

"I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites, and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?" -Bill Bryson 

I've often wondered the same thing............

Alright guys. I have to admit - I am not the best cook. I can follow a recipe... most of the time. And really, the things I made do turn out ok. I have aspirations to become this amazing cook and baker that can look in my fridge and pantry and invent some new dish or dessert just by seeing what I have.

That will not be happening soon, my friends. Usually, the problem I have is finding all the ingredients in my house for a recipe that's already been invented.

I'm always on the lookout for a new (EASY) recipe to try out on my little family. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE Pinterest, mostly for decorating ideas, crafts I could make someday, holiday items, and new recipes to attempt. I actually had Jason look for a meal to try from my food board, and he found this one. I had high hopes, and man, did it turn out!

Pinned HERE

It's called Tuscan Pasta with Tomatl-Basil Cream. Jason loved it. I loved it. You'll love it too. Try it! Click HERE for the recipe. You won't regret it.

In other news, I've decided that I am decorating-illiterate. If anyone is good at that kind of stuff, would you be willing to share your talents with me? Maybe you can take what we have and figure out an amazing way of making our apartment look good. Because currently, it looks like a dorm. And it makes me sad.

Secret: I really like doing my family history. Especially now that there's the New Family Search website, it's so easy to organize. My dad recently gave me this HUGE book of remembrance for his side of the family. It's binding is expandable, and right now it's at least three or four inches wide. I just love discovering old family members and their stories.

Hair + Thanksgiving + David

"It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision." -Helen Keller

Maybe that's my problem with my blog - it needs more vision.

I'm getting terrible at blogging. I'm really good at reading other people's blogs though. I check back all the time to see if people have updated their blogs. I think my problem is a lack of knowing about what to talk about on here.

Well, here comes the rambling.

Hair

I did my hair today in a way I kinda liked. It was super simple, and didn't require any blow-drying, which, having two active boys and no time, is the way I like it.

Another view:

So the pictures aren't that great, and it really only shows one side, but all I did was french twist the sides until the met on the back of my head and pulled it all into a messy bun. Ta da! Super easy.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great. My little family went to North Carolina to spend the holiday with Jason's brother Paul, his wife Jennifer, and their four foster children. We went on some trails to these pretty waterfalls while we were there. Here are some pictures from that:

Andrew fell in the mud, poor kid!

David doesn't have a coat yet, so he had to be wrapped in that blanket the entire time.

This is the face I get whenever I ask for a smile anymore!

You can totally tell they're brothers! One just has a little more hair than the other... :)

I love David's little smirk! He does this one-sided smile all the time.

Andrew's face is priceless!

Here are a couple other pictures from our trip:

I'm actually not allowed to post pictures of the foster kids, otherwise I'd have a few more pictures... But suffice it to say, we had a good time and enjoyed the food and the company!

David

David is learning to stand by himself. He can only do it for a few seconds, but he's getting there! He also now has 6 teeth through the gums. How is it possible? How has nearly 10 months passed already? I swear, it goes faster the second time around!

Ummmm... I think that's it. Thanks for reading, folks!

Secret: I eat when I'm bored. (Or at least I search for food. A lot of times we don't have anything to eat so I leave empty handed, which is probably the best thing.) It's an awful habit. Maybe I should start writing down everything I eat so that I'm more conscious of all the food I eat every day! Ugh.

Sick + My Boys + Book Reviews

Hermione: "Now if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us all killed. Or worse, expelled."
Ron (to Harry): "She needs to sort out her priorities." -From the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone movie, based on the book by J.K. Rowling

The movie quote has to do with my secret...

Sick :(

We haven't been up to a whole lot lately. Earlier this week, we all came down with the same bug - some sort of stomach virus. It wiped us out for a few days.

What I will say about those days: we were very well taken care of. Thanks to great visiting teachers and friends, we were able to get through those couple days as well as could they could be, given the circumstances. We are very blessed.

All of us are feeling much better, except for David. He keeps surprising us. He seems to feel well all day long, until around 6 or 7. He gets really fussy, we think he's hungry, we feed him (a lot), and then... he throws up. It's been that same pattern for the last two nights in a row. :( He was given a priesthood blessing a few nights ago, so hopefully he'll be feeling better tonight.

No pictures of that, because I'm sure you wouldn't want to see them, even if I had them.

My boys...

Are getting big. Andrew will be THREE in a little more than a month. David is 9 months old! Ahhh! I want to keep them like this:

I think it's pretty obvious which one is which... But humor me, ok? Also, David has his 9-month wellness appointment tomorrow, so I'll update with how big (or not big) he's gotten over the last couple months.

On a completely different note...

I know I keep talking about books. Sorry if it's not interesting for you, but I love them. :) If you could care less, stop reading now.

I had some fun money to spend on whatever I wanted, so I bought a book online. It's one of my favorites. This is the book:

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

I've read this sucker probably 5 times over the last couple years. I LOVE it. If you like Jane Austen novels, and especially if you like the long BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (you know, the one with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy), then you'll like this book. I just can't even gush about it enough. (Have I mentioned that she's coming out with a sequel? Or that she's made Austenland into a movie that's coming out sometime next year [I think]? Ahhhh!!!!)

Ever since finishing this, I've wanted to watch this:

And I've wanted to read this:

And read all of Jane Austen's novels and all the movies based on them. Oh, if only my children would let me! Maybe I'll have to watch them every night after they're in bed until it's out of my system. *sigh*

Another book I read lately is this one:

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

Talk about a depressing book. I know the title doesn't make it sound like it would be, but I was crying the entire time. This one was worse than Charly, and I can't read the book or watch the movie again because the story makes me so sad. So. I guess you can read it if you feel like crying. Or, if you're like me and read books to make you happy, DON'T read this one. Just as a warning.

Next on my list: The Secret Journal of Brett Colton and it's sequel, When the Bough Breaks by Kay Lynn Mangum. After I've read this book (finally!!!!!!):

Secret: I've recently realized that I've become one of those people who could spend all their time (and I seriously mean all day) on the computer. I need to take a step back and look around and spend time in the REAL world, or I'm going to start missing things. :(

Books & Trunk or Treat

"When witches go riding,
and black cats are seen,
the moon laughs and whispers,
'tis near Halloween."
-Author Unknown

Our ward had their Trunk or Treat on Wednesday, and it was pretty fun! Jason, David and I didn't dress up, but Andrew was pretty cute in his costume. There was chili and cornbread to eat first, then a costume parade (that we all walked in, because Andrew didn't want to do it alone), and then the trunk or treat. Here is a picture of Andrew in his costume:

It was the cheapest costume ever! I got the idea from Pinterest, pinned here. All we did was dress him in a button-up shirt, sweatpants, and a big beanie. I put gray eyeliner on his face like a beard (which is rubbed off right around his mouth, haha), and wrote out the sign. The funny thing is, we didn't have any string to hold it up around his neck with, so we used dental floss. Haha, oh, how creative you have to be when you're poor! I'm excited to see how everyone reacts when we take him around my parents' neighborhood for trick or treating on Monday.

Again, I have to tell you about a couple books. I love to read (like, really), and this one was recommended to me by a friend from our old ward:

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

I loved it! Then I read the second book in the series, and I loved it even more. I'm looking forward to the third book's publication (Spell Bound, expected to be published March 13, 2012).

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

Also, my mom, sisters, and I went to Time Out For Women a couple weekends ago, and my mom bought me this book:

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

Loved it. I can't help but love a foreign love interest - especially Italian!

Secret: I always secretly hoped that some foreign man with a delicious accent would fall in love with me. *sigh*

Our October

"Day: noun. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent." -Ambrose Bierce

I've recently come to the realization that most of my days are misspent. Especially lately. Hence the lack of updates. There's nothing worth writing about! I need to work on that.

It seems weird that it's been nearly a month since I last updated the blog, and that even then I only updated it twice last month. To tell you the truth, it's not because I've been busy. It's because I haven't been. Not a whole lot has happened.

I'll post a few pictures of most of what we've been up to.

1. We've gone to Lynd's Fruit Farm a few times. This particular time was to get pumpkins and take a look at what other fresh fruits and veggies they had.

Posing with the pumpkins they had to sell at the barn. We had already picked our pumpkins from their fields ourselves.

David riding on Grandpa Budge's shoulders.

This expression is priceless! He loved these little gourds they had.

This is Andrew's favorite part of the barn - they usually have some sort of tractor outside for the kids to play on.

We've also gone outside to play outside a few times. These pictures are from today, actually.

Can a kid get much cuter than this? I submit that it would be VERY hard!

Andrew wanted to push him in the swing! I wasn't about to tell him no!

I swear. I'm never going to get a decent smiling picture of Andrew ever again! This is the kind of face he makes every time I catch him facing the camera when I tell him to smile. Haha.

Mostly what I've been doing is looking at this darling face:

I'd include Andrew's, but I haven't caught a good picture of his face in a few months... Well, I just NOW got a pretty silly one:

We've also watched a lot of these:

and

I've had a bit of a cold for the last several days, so we've been stuck inside because of a combination of that and the rain we've been getting a lot of.

A few other things we've been up to (but I have no pictures for):

• We went to the zoo
• We watched General Conference
• We went to play groups
• Andrew started preschool, run by a group of LDS moms that are in our ward (myself included)
• David went to a pediatric ophthalmologist to get his eyes and tear ducts looked at, and he's going to get his tear ducts unblocked next Monday
• My sisters, my mom, David and I went to Time Out for Women last weekend
• I've read a bunch of books, my favorite being Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
• And we've hung out with our friends and family a lot!

Hopefully it won't take me another whole month to update again!

Secret: I have recently become addicted to Pinterest...

Randomocity

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute." -Josh Billings

That's why I've been so quiet on here! Except I don't have any arguments... Maybe I should've said "Silence is golden." That would've made more sense. Oh well. :)

Lots has happened, but not a lot has happened. All at the same time. Does that even make sense?

This girl came home from her mission:

We're loving having her home! The family doesn't feel like it's missing something anymore. :)

I had my birthday, and this is my new age:

That's right, my friends. I am now a quarter of a century old. In all honesty, I feel exactly the same. Just like every other birthday of my entire life. Except that I feel like kids are probably going to look at me and think I'm old now. It's funny how when I was in elementary school, I thought all the high schoolers were so old. And then I got to high school, and thought, "Wow, we're still so young!" and thought people out of college were old. And now I'm there. And have two kids. 25 isn't so old. I don't know how old is old anymore. Maybe 90. I'll be happy if I get to be that old!

Andrew's still working on this:

He's doing pretty well, although we haven't had a day without an accident yet. There are days where the whole days are accidents, and days where we only have one accident. I think we're going to be working on consistency around here...

We've been dealing with this around here since Friday:

I know, the picture is kinda ridiculous, but in reality, David's been quite the sick baby. Starting this last Thursday, he had a bit of a runny nose, and then he started coughing a lot on Friday. He had the same symptoms on Saturday, just everything was worse. By Sunday, he was throwing up, and he threw up a few times on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. It was so sad. You could tell he was miserable, but things have started looking up on that front since yesterday. He's still hacking up a lung and his nose is still running, but he's stopped throwing up! Hurray!

As a side note, I made these yesterday:

These, my friends, are zucchini cupcakes. And they are divine. They have cloves in them, and as I was making them, it made me think of those crafty stores that sell those scented pine cones and make me think of decorating for Fall and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mmmmmm... It was wonderful. Click HERE for the recipe.

I think that's about it. I'll update this again sometime soon. :)

Secret: I hate orange juice with pulp. I don't like the texture. It makes me feel like I'm chewing on my juice rather than drinking it. Blech.

MIA

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it -- always." -Mahatma Gandhi

I post that in remembrance of 9/11.

Yes, I've been sort of MIA lately. There's a good reason for that - our laptop's battery died. Kaput. It happened a little over a week ago, and we *finally* got our new battery yesterday. Hurray!

What We've Been Up To:

Starting last Monday, we started to have Andrew use this:

The first day was awful. He didn't use the toilet once. He did it once by the end of Tuesday, and did it twice or three times on Wednesday. By Thursday, he was running to the bathroom to use the toilet every time, except for #2s. I was so happy. Until this weekend. We spent a lot of time over at my parents, and the entire time we were over there (and at church), we used these, which very much confused him:

And now we're nearly back to square 1. *sigh* At least he gets the concept.

"What else have you been doing?" you ask.

Well, let me tell you! I've been reading some more! Here's what I've been reading:

This was my favorite Sarah Dessen book I've read so far. Click HERE for the Goodreads summary.

The next two are A-MAY-ZING. I actually have a hard time not thinking about them. It's getting easier because I finished the second one this last Saturday, but still. Also, it helps that it's written by one of my friends' sisters-in-law!

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary.

and

Click HERE for the Goodreads summary

Only these two books in the series of eventually five books is out, and I'm kinda going crazy waiting for the next one to come out! Fortunately, it comes out November 1st, so I won't have to wait too long. I know what books I'm asking for for my birthday (this Friday!) and for Christmas! Well, those, and these (under my "books you have to read" section).

Why I'll continue to be MIA

This girl, Carrie, is my younger sister. She's been in Florida for the last year and a half serving a full-time mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She left the beginning of April, 2010, and she's getting back TOMORROW!!!!!! I'm so excited! I've missed her a ton, and I'm just looking forward to having her around again.

Also, since she's coming home, and my birthday is on Friday, we're having a joint Welcome Home/Birthday Party at my parents' house on Friday at 7. You all are invited to come!

Secret: Back in the day, I was IN LOVE with N Sync. With my older sister and some of her friends, I learned all their songs and the accompanying dance moves. Even now, I bust out some of their songs and get nostalgic for times that were not necessarily happier, but definitely easier. What music do you love but sometimes find embarrassing?