VEGAS BABY!

Well I didn't really take pictures on Christmas but we had a very nice holiday. It was nice and slow and relaxing. We slept in and got up when we felt like it, opened presents and then made biscuits and gravy and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then we hung out for a little bit before heading to Taylor's parents' house. We spent the rest of the day there with his family. It was a very good day.
Last night we went to Temple Square to see the lights with our friends Rye and Jessica. It was cold, but completely bearable and the lights were totally worth the cold. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures of the Square but I did get a phone picture of their gecko named "Sticky". He totally climbs up the wall - it was so cool!

He's kinda blurry because he was moving so fast

The weekend before Christmas we went to Vegas with most of my family for the Vegas Bowl. BYU did what they love to do lately which is break our hearts. The weekend as a whole was fun, but the game was stupid. A couple of things that happened at the game besides BYU playing awful was early on in the first quarter I had just taken a drink of Dr. Pepper and was putting the lid back on the bottle. Taylor got excited about something that happened in the game and flung his arms up (anyone who has ever watched any sporting event with Taylor knows how intense he gets). Anyway he slammed into my arm and the Dr. Pepper went flying forward. It was almost completely full and it got all over the people sitting in front of us and on their bench. Needless to say they were not very excited about that. Then in the second quarter Taylor was upset about some play or call and once again his arms went flying and I had my phone in my hand and he hit my arm super hard, the phone shot straight forward out of my hand and hit the lady who was already covered in Dr. Pepper; it hit her right in the butt and then went under their bench so they had to reach down and get the phone for us. I'm sure my face was bright red and I can't remember the last time I felt that stupid. Overall though, we definitely had a great time spending the weekend with my family in Vegas.

Stupid final score

We took BYU face tattoos and everyone put them on before the game.

Our view - not bad at all

Marilyn's view - it looks like she was sitting right on the sideline

Taylor and Jeremy right after a chest bump before the game

Standing around "pretending we don't know what we're doing" as Josh puts it. Taylor looks cute with my purse right? He was holding it because I was playing with Josh's crutches. I used them a lot more than Josh did.

I love Christmas!!!

Well it's Christmas time and I'm actually kind of sad that it's already the 14th of December; Christmas is coming way too fast and before I know it it's gonna be over.
We've had a busy couple of weekends. On Friday last week we went to Taylor's cousin Amanda's UVU Christmas ballroom dance production. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would and I was completely impressed with all of the dancers. It was a good night. We went to another dance recital yesterday; this time it was our niece Livvy's recital. I'm not gonna lie, we got lost on our way there and her dance was the first one so we totally missed it. She looked very cute in her little leotard though and I'm sure she did great. Hopefully next time we'll actually make it to see her dance.
Last Saturday morning I went to a bread class taught by the "bread lady" and her daughter. For anyone who hasn't heard of this lady she is amazing. She's seriously a bread (and all things bread-related) guru! Check out her blog here bread lady's blog. Marilyn and I went to the class together; I was excited to go and I knew it would be helpful because I am definitely not a bread-making genius but I had no idea how much I would love the class. I learned so much! This lady has been giving these classes for over a decade and now I can see why she continues to be in such high demand. The bread lady's not only a genius about bread (although that's obviously her specialty), she's also very smart about budgeting and meal planning and food storage etc. She gives awesome tips and advice about so many things. Even for anyone who thinks they're already pretty bread savvy I would HIGHLY recommend taking this $20 class.I put my new knowledge to use last Sunday. We had Landry and Susan over for dinner and we had homemade pizza, breadsticks and for dessert a delicious strawberry cream cheese braid. I forgot to get any pictures of my creations. Yesterday we had some friends, Nola and Brian, over for lunch and we had soup and breadsticks. This time the breadsticks turned out even better cause I put more seasoning on them. I also made some loaves of bread. I hope to never buy store bought bread from now on.

We LOVE homemade bread! At our house we're pretty much on an all carbs diet most of the time.

After our nephew Porter's baptism last Saturday we went to the mall and did some serious Christmas shopping, which was very enjoyable :) I sure do LOVE shopping! After shopping and stopping by a friend's house for the end of the Jazz game we came home and even though we were so tired I made Taylor help me put up the Christmas tree and some lights and decorations around the house.

If you look closely you can see the twisty lights on the railing of both our decks.

This pic's kinda blurry.

We got this chintzy tree last year because that's all our little apartment could fit.

This year we were too lazy and cheap to get a new tree so we're sticking with this little guy. It works for now. Taylor likes how my dad uses all blue lights for his Christmas decor (go Cougs!) so we are kind of following in his footsteps and showing our love for BYU with all the blue. We made some delicious hot chocolate because it seems like you should drink hot chocolate when putting up Christmas decorations. Last night we built and decorated the gingerbread house. As you can tell, we didn't put a lot of time and effort into the design but we had fun. Bring on Santa!

Yeah, it looks like little kids did it...

Turkey and Twilight

Well I'm really annoyed right now because somehow I managed to lose my most recent pictures both on my camera and on my computer so I don't have any good pics to go along with this post; sorry I know that makes it boring.
Thanksgiving was fabulous as always. We ate at Noelle and Trent's house and the whole family was there, which made for a very loud and fun Thanksgiving. We ate a ton of food and also managed to get some family pictures taken while everyone was together. Because of the millions (well it felt like millions) of kids I did not get my usual Thanksgiving Day nap, nor did we manage to watch much football, but it was still an enjoyable day. I had to work the day before and I also had to work on Friday and Saturday (boooooo) so I did not get in any good shopping or relaxation for that matter. It was great to see all of my family for a minute though.

The things that I am most grateful for, and I'm sorry that they're all the same cliche things that everyone puts but it's truly what I'm thankful for, are the following:

Taylor, because he is so much fun and refuses to be a grown-up because grown-ups are boring. He keeps life interesting

My whole family (including my in-laws); I couldn't ask for better parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, in-laws etc. than I have. I'm very lucky

A stable job (knock on wood); in today's economy I guess I shouldn't complain about working Thanksgiving weekend; I should just be thankful I have a job and steady income.

The gospel; who would I even be without it? It's scary to think about.

The best friends in the world; my friends played a huge part in making me who I am today (which may not be fabulous, but could be a lot scarier without their friendship and good influences)

I have so much more to be thankful for, it's kind of ridiculous that I spend any time complaining about anything.


Now, on to the second topic of my post...TWILIGHT. When I first heard that they were making a movie out of the first book I was not very excited or optimistic about how the movie would turn out. I just couldn't see how they could put the emotion and details on a screen in two hours. I figured that I'd eventually see the movie, but probably just when it got the the dollar theatre or something. But then the movie came out and I heard mostly good reviews, especially from my friends who saw it so I decided I needed to see it sooner than later. I got Taylor to go with me last week (what a good husband) and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously they had to leave out plenty of details, but they included the important stuff and they kept it intense and humorous and emotional and everything you'd want to see in the Twilight movie. Overall I was very pleased and after I saw it I kind of just wanted to watch it again. Now the hard part is going to be waiting for New Moon to be made into a movie...patience is not a trait I was blessed with.

Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you're all getting ready for Christmas! I LOVE Christmas time!!!