Merry Christmas!

Why is it that Christmas comes and goes so much faster when you are older? I still can't believe the whirlwind of activities is over! I let everyone else do the picture taking over the holidays and so I am lacking in the picture department (hopefully I will get e-mails with pictures from them very soon, Brooke). But the holiday's were wonderful!

The celebrations were on going but I felt like Christmas truly began with breakfast Christmas Eve morning at Market Street. Not everyone came, basically "the singles" (the new easiest name to call us four un-married children), Steve, Jamie, and Mom and Dad. It was so fun to share the morning together...

The rest of Christmas Eve consisted of me having to work (boo!), finishing up some last minute Christmas items, and then heading out to my parents.

Christmas Eve my mom always makes a big turkey dinner and it was so good! Again, not the whole family was there, but it was fun with those who came. After dinner Steve came over and we all headed to Heidi's house for a Wii Little Party. It was so much fun to compete against each other!

Christmas Day was definitely a different experience this year. As most of us are older and those with families aren't around, our morning activities got pushed back an hour for the first time in my life! It did help to make the morning last a little longer, but isn't there just something about getting up early on Christmas morning? I amazing did SLEEP until 7:00 and then waited for the 8:00 kick-off.

The whole gang showed up around 11:00 for our Christmas Breakfast and the rest of our Christmas morning. There are pictures galore of this, but again I don't have ANY. But Brooke and I did enjoy each other's company all morning...
The family slowly dispersed throughout the day and it was a pretty mellow afternoon. That night I had planned about the world's greatest, most cheesy date for Steve and I and it turned out wonderfully (more to come on that later)...

Saturday while everyone was still in town we decided to celebrate Heidi's birthday. We all met for lunch at Pei Wei. We thought we would celebrate and all dress in coordinating colors, we look good huh? (OK, it was a complete fluke)

We spent the rest of the day shopping and being together, it was so much fun.

Christmas does bring a lot of family time, but I just love it. I have such an amazing family and I am so grateful for my relationship with each one of them. Having Jake and Brooke in town made our family complete and it was so good to see them both so much.

Christmas Excitement!

I have always been one to get super excited about Christmas. As a child I always had a hard time passing time and falling asleep the night before (I remember watching "The Sound of Music" one Christmas Eve because it was so long and time always seems to go by faster watching a movie). I was usually one of the first one's up Christmas morning as well (which was usually around 4:00 AM).

When I say I had these issues "as a child" I am using the term "child" very loosely. I still have these same issues.

Take tonight for instance, we had our big Jensen party and it just felt like the start of Christmas. Steve and I ended up hanging out after and watched "It's a Wonderful Life," shockingly for the first time in my life. Steve slept through it all but it only invited the Christmas feeling more! The movie ended and my energy level was extremely elevated! I just get so excited that it is officially Christmas Eve and all of the fun is a head of me...

So here I am at 2:20 AM on Christmas Eve, already too excited to sleep... Tomorrow night should only prove to provide even more excitement!

Holiday Cheer

Last night Steve and I drove around checking out the Christmas lights. It was so fun to see all of the crazy houses as well as the cute ones. Christmas is such a fun time of year and I love the holiday cheer that everyone spreads with decorations, gifts, kindness, and parties.

I just love Christmas! And this boy...

Bake Night... Again

Last night I got to spend some time with Shannon. It was her night to do all of her holiday baking and she invited me to join in with her. I haven't done enough baking in the past week, so I thought why not!

(Sidenote: Earlier in the day she asked me if I had any cookie cutters. I don't, but I knew Steve did so I asked him if I could borrow them. He was on his way out of town and said he would drop them off at my house. Many of you saw the blizzard yesterday and if you have ever tried to get to my house in the snow, it can be impossible. He text me and said he must really like me because he couldn't get past the school in his car so he ran them up to my house. If any of you know where the school is in relation to my house it is a bit of a run. Cute boy!)

Shannon was little Miss Betty Crocker! She was baking up a storm. I got there and she had already made a pan of peppermint bark brownies and had two cookie sheets of pretzel kisses ready to go, plus she was making dough for sugar cookies...

Shannon had made frosting for our cookies, and it was so fun to frost them. We did get stuck in a rut of just doing one color for one shape, we weren't being very creative...

Making the cookies, with the cute cookie cutters from Steve...

Evidence of Shannon's baking skills...

We ran some treats over to our Ward Star Wars party and Shannon treated them to a little Christmas Carol. They loved it and Shannon hated me and Lauren for ditching out on the singing.

We got back and Shannon had the urge to make a snow angel. She ran inside and got in a full blown snow suit, loved it!

She was pretty excited about this adventure...

Doesn't this make you want to go jump in the snow? It made me jealous...

Always the tricky part of Snow Angels... Getting out.

Since Lauren had joined us we decided to finish our cookies. She brought a whole new level of creativity and inspired Shannon as well. Their cookies turned out a little better than our previous ones...

Shannon's mission trainer stopped by for some fun and we just sat around and talked. It was so nice to be among friends and share stories. At one point Lauren had started a statement about her excitement of a restaurant being open and her excitement turned into horrid shrieks of terror as there was a mouse running across the floor. We all followed suit and screamed and screamed. We all jumped up on chairs and just screamed. It was so gross, but our reaction was so typical. It ran away and we were all terrified for the rest of the night of where it was hiding. GROSS!

We ended the night by watching a Christmas movie, but I was asleep within the first 5 minutes. I was so tired!!

Gingerbread House Extraordinaire

Last night I was charged with the duty of coming up with our activity for the evening. With Steve going out of town this weekend, holiday parties, and Christmas only a week away, we were down to two nights to do Christmas activities. Thus brought on my spur of holiday idea's and activities. I made a long list of about 8 or 9 things to do, but we decided to settle on making gingerbread houses.

We ran to the store and each got to pick out two types of candy to use. Steve found this very hard and we stood in the holiday candy isle for a good 10 minutes while he decided. He eventually caved and decided to get three types of candy and we were set.

We got back and Steve made us dinner... And I set up stuff to construct our houses...
Steve is an engineer major, and I should have known going into this that this would be no small task. Luckily my pictures are time stamped so I can walk you through a time line of our night. This is us at 7:57, ready for the fun to begin... Steve started his "California" house and I started my lack of creativity Gingerbread house (don't be fooled by Steve's blurry hand, it isn't because he is working fast...) Here is my humble abode at 8:40... Here is my humble abode compared to Steve's progress at 8:40... This is me patiently waiting for the completion of construction on Steve's house at 9:01... Steve started to show some real progress around 9:31...
Finally after 2 hours and 22 minutes, at 10:19 the masterpiece was completed...I guess this is what happens when you decide to make Gingerbread Houses with a creative engineer (and yes, the duel level house is complete with candy cane struts, in case you were wondering).

The night was a blast and we fully brought the Christmas spirit by listening to Christmas music. I just love Christmas time and it provides so many fun activities!

Lights!

Last night Steve and I decided to go on a date. We usually just slip into the routine of hanging out or watching a movie, so we wanted to switch it up and go do something. We went to dinner at Iggy's to introduce Steve to the greatest fries, sadly they weren't the best batch of fries I have ever had there and was disappointed with his initiation.

Lights at Temple Square was our next stop. It was super cold, but I just love seeing the lights, they always do an amazing job with the lights and they are a staple to Christmas.

We tried to get some good pictures, but being just the two of us, left us to self-portraits (weird that there was no one around to ask, right? ;))

One of my favorite things about the lights is that they are surrounding the beautiful temple. I think that all of Temple Square is so magnificent and the Temple is just amazing. My goal all night was to capture the lights behind us, but we just kept getting in the way. I had to settle with the lights without us in the picture, but I love how many lights there are everywhere... We were attempting to take our picture by ourselves again and some nice lady offered to take it for us. Pictures turn out so much better when someone else takes them. Can you tell how freezing we are? I really was surprised how cold it was.

It was so fun to go and partake of the Christmas festivities. Christmas is just the best time of year and I love how festive everything is. It's also pretty fun to spend the holidays with this cute boy.

Weekend Recap

I had a fabulous weekend! Nothing all to extraordinary, but good all the same.

Friday night I had a little graduation party. Some of my friend came over to enjoy some food (that lacked good presentation) and games.

I was so excited to get to spend some time with Shannon. Many of you know just how great she is and sometimes it just goes far too long between seeing her...

Two of my most favorite people ever! I just love these girls...
The Losing Team. We got rocked. (Left to Right: Raul, Kara, Trevor, Steve, me)
Another one of my favorite people: Steve. One can never be serious for too long, and he feels that pictures just get boring with the same face. I personally happen to like cute pictures, not that this is one of them. (For those of you wondering, yes, Steve and I are dating again. He realized he just couldn't live without me, or something like that.)
Playing Mad Gab, one of my favorite party games. It is SO funny to hear people say things on the card when you know what they are supposed to be saying. Shannon stole the game away and answered SO many of them. She was awesome. Too bad she wasn't on my team. We had German Trevor reading for us (the game isn't in German).
Saturday is one of our long standing traditions of Bake Day. We get together and bake cookies ALL DAY. Now, when you have about 12 people making cookies for 6 hours you can imagine the number of cookies that are produces, somewhere over 2000 cookies.

There is not always something for everyone to do, and Jamie and I took a moment to have a little photo shoot. Neither one of us are ever happy with the first picture so we always take about a million. I didn't think any turned out great, but Jamie looks great in this one, so I picked this one.

This picture kind of shows the mass amounts of cookies. This is just one of the four kinds we made, and only about 1/4 of them. They had to be filled up with frosting (which was my job this year, LOVED IT! I feel like I graduated to the professional cookie maker).

Jenny and I, once again working hard. Jenny always adds that little artistic touch, isn't she a cutie? I can't believe how grown up she looks sometimes.

Saturday night I wasn't feeling great and spent the night at home. Steve came over and we just kind of hung out all night. We did add some Christmas spirit by sitting by the Christmas tree and reading Christmas stories. He fell asleep during them, so I guess I was just reading them aloud to myself.

Sunday was a Steve filled day, and I loved it! It was filled with video games at his house (I am not a fan of video games, especially when I am destined to lose all the time), his friend's farewell, and a night of family fun at Steve's mom's house.

Steve's family has a tradition of making and decorating sugar cookies. I had experienced the creative side of this family at Halloween with pumpkin decorating, and I knew they took this pretty seriously. We had a wonderful turkey dinner before we started the cookies, and it was like Thanksgiving take 2.

We made the cookies and had about 100 cookie cutters to choose from, Heidi would have loved it! We made about 7 or 8 dozen cookies, all to be frosted. One of my favorite moments was when Steve's mom asked me if I have ever made so many cookies. It made me laugh (reference further up in my post) because she had no idea just how many cookies I have made. Steve brought this up that I had made over 2000 cookies just the day before. They all couldn't believe it and it made me laugh.

The cookie decorating was so fun. They had about 8 different colors of frosting and sprinkles and the whole 9 yards. I stuck to the traditional origin of the cookie, if it was a Santa, I made it look like a Santa, if it was a snowflake, I made it look like a snowflake. Not very creative, but they turned out so cute! I should have taken a picture. The creativeness came from everyone else, there was everything from Spock and The Hulk to a bikini, an eye, a surf board, etc. All made from Christmas themed cookies. It was really fun to see what everyone came up with.

This isn't the best picture, but it captured us playing the video games. I just can't get enough of this boy and it was so fun to spend so much time with him. He is always so busy with school, work (he is a ski instructor for the winter), and getting ready for Lacrosse to start, I'll take any time he can give.

So nothing too crazy special about my weekend, but it was good. I am so lucky to have such good friends and a wonderful family to spend my time with.

It's Official (Kinda)

Tonight at approximately 6:48 P.M. I walked out of the last final of my life! I was so excited that I even announced it to the two people who were collecting the tests (I took my test at the Bountiful Campus, so it is just the two people at the help desk). I made them share in my excitement and was grateful for their support, regardless of not knowing me. I walked out of there with a new found feeling of freedom and a desire to sing out at the top of my lungs!

I DID IT! I have completed my college degree and couldn't be happier about it! Thank you for all of you who have helped me along the way, I couldn't have done it without a lot of you, especially my parents. Thank you for pushing me to continue my education and get my degree, I am so glad I did!

I had to document my state of joy with a picture on my drive home, Can you feel the excitement?

It might not be official for 90 days until I get my diploma, but I am still saying I am officially done with school forever, YAY!!!

Today I Become...

... A COLLEGE GRADUATE!!!

In 11 short hours I will be all done with college for the rest of my life! I think this is probably the single most exciting day of my life up until this point!

Wonderful Weekend

I wish I had a plethora of pictures to really share how wonderful my weekend was.

Saturday I had a nice morning of getting stuff done around the house and then running some errands with Shannon. I always enjoy when we get to spend time together, even if it is doing menial tasks of returning clothes. We did venture out and try a new place for lunch, highly recommended by my mom, we ate at Cannella's. It was so good and so fun to try a new place.

Later that night I joined up with my co-workers for our work party at the Lion House. Due to the crazy holiday traffic and untimely construction downtown, most people showed up late and postponed our dinner. It was still fun to get together with co-workers out side of work and enjoy one another's company. The night ended with some surprising developments that I am pretty excited about.

Sunday was a good day. I really enjoyed my experience at church and getting to be there with Shannon and our friend Lauren (I am now going to classify her as "our" friend and not just Shannon's friend). After church I finished my first class of the semester with the final test. It was so nice to get it done with!

It was Jensen Sunday so I headed out to my parents house for dinner, although a little late due to my test I was taking. I walked in the front door and there was an explosion of red and white and shouts of "Congratulations!" My family had thrown together a surprise graduation party for me! It was awesome! Everyone was dressed in red and white Utah apparel, the table was covered with red plates, red and white table cloth, and even red and white "U" cut outs all over the table. Red and white balloons lined the railings too. It was so fun to walk in and see everyone and be so surprised! Anyone who knows me knows that I love surprises and I LOVE celebrations, especially when they are to do with me. My family made it the perfect party!

My Dad showing the love...

This is how the kids liked to enjoy the party, we locked them in a closet in their barracks...

This morning I woke up sick (after feeling it come on all day yesterday) and spent the day in bed. It actually turned out to be a really good day. With the first big snow storm outside, my warm bed, and my class notes I enjoyed my time off and looked forward to finishing Test #2 today. In my room I have a wall of windows that I don't open the blinds of too much, mostly because they face the street, but with the snow today I decided to open them and watch it snow. It was so nice to see the winter wonderland just outside my window, I wish the picture did it justice...At one point in the day Trent and Amy needed to hire me as their family photographer. We all bundled up and headed outside. Amy was nice enough to capture a moment for me as well. Isn't Morgan so cute?The time came that I had to brave going outside and drive up to the U for my test. I was worried about making it out of the drive way since the road had been plowed several times and the snow bank at the end of the drive seemed daunting. Amy was nice enough to watch to make sure I made it out ok and so she could run and push me if needed. What would I do without her? I made it to class and the roads weren't actually all that bad. 30 minutes later I walked out of my test, having passed with flying colors, and ready for the next activity of the night: Twilight!

Ever since the movie came out, Amy has had plans to go see this for her birthday. I have waited on seeing it until tonight so it would be the initial viewing for us both. I had heard reviews both ways and went into it with an open mind. I actually enjoyed it, although there were things I would have changed, overall it was good. It was also fun to spend the evening with Amy and Kim (as well as some other members of Amy's family).

P.S. More pictures are yet to be added to this post, so you can check back later...

Just a Few Things...

Not much is happening in my life, but I'll update you on just a few things.

Friday's are the days we are allowed to wear jeans to work. This past Friday many people felt they wanted to wear a black shirt with their jeans. I thought we all looked like we had coordinated for family pictures. I made most of the people wearing black and jeans humor me with a family picture by the Christmas tree. Doesn't it just scream Christmas Card Picture? Just wait for it...

Friday night I got to hang out with an old friend of mine. Dima. He came up from Provo and we had a nice night of dinner and a movie. We went and saw the new James Bond. I hadn't heard many good reviews, but I think that is the ticket to liking a movie. I really enjoyed it and still think he is the best looking James Bond ever.

Due to some traffic, running late, and me being so prepared, I ended up at the restaurant first and seated, for quite awhile, before Dima got there. I was seated next to a group of people my age who seemed interested in my situation of sitting alone. I heard them ask the waitress about it and felt like the loser girl who gets stood up at the restaurant. Dima eventually got there and it was ok, but when the group left, one of their party dropped of a napkin and said "Merry Christmas."

I don't know if you can read it all, but he basically apologized if I thought they were talking bad, expressed his concern for my situation, and said nice things to the effect of making a beautiful girl wait. It was so nice of him. It made me laugh at the whole situation, I just had to share it.
As for the rest of my life:

*I am 5 days away from Graduating and I couldn't be more excited! (I am having a little get together at my house Friday night if anyone is interested in dropping by.)
*I am banishing boys from my life altogether. I had a good run, but I am done!
*Taylor Swift's new CD is my new favorite thing, as well as my new AE Jeans. Don't you just love buying a new pair of jeans and they already fit like you have broke them in yourself? LOVE IT!
*Christmas time is really the most wonderful time of the year! Who can't help but love it?
*I am adopting a spending diet, like the rest of my family, and I took back about $150 worth of stuff today, be impressed!

I guess that is it. Like I said, nothing too exciting but life is moving forward.

Still Feeling the Love

You would think after almost three weeks I would have moved on enough to not have bad days, but yesterday was not the case. It was just one of those days and things were getting me down. Lucky for me I have amazing people in my life that even without knowing it, lift me up.

During work a co-worker had run to 7-11 to get himself some hot chocolate, and knew how much I love 7-11 hot chocolate, and brought me some. So nice! Made my day, he even had marshmallows and the right creamer for it, PERFECT!

After class last night I met up with Raul for a much needed trip to Molcasalsa. I haven't been there in so long, and I just love their breakfast burritos.

I guess this sounds more like the food that makes me feel better, but it is actually the people. I know I find comfort in food, but knowing the the thought behind these two highlights of my day made the day so much better!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year my family decided to head to St. George for the weekend. It was completely different from every past Thanksgiving, but I loved it! Shannon was nice enough to come down with me and spend the weekend with the Jensen's (and yes she did survive and yes she is still my friend). We headed down Wednesday night after work with Brad and I was so excited to have the whole long weekend ahead of us. Due to the holiday traffic it did take a while for us to get down there so it was nice when we finally arrived.

Thursday was the big event! Actually, it was nice that it was just a relaxing day with no pressing matters. The family started the day off with a swim. I think this was the best part of our weekend. The weather wasn't great on Thursday, but with the warm pool and hot tub, it was still fun to be in the water. It was also really fun that the whole family joined in, I don't remember the last time we all went swimming together.

Spending time with my sisters, and Shannon, was so nice! We for sure missed Amy, but I am so lucky to have them as such good friends.

After swimming we all got dinner on. My mom was sick so we all did our part to get dinner together and it turned out so good! I have had Dodee food for everything Thanksgiving my whole life and we did try to emulate her masterful cooking talent, it maybe wasn't quite Dodee Food, but it was good!

After dinner, and while our food was digesting, we parked ourselves in front of the TV for a viewing of "Anne of Green Gables." I just love that show and it was so nice to just sit around and watch it with my sisters.

Friday morning we were all crazy enough to get up and go shopping. It made me laugh that as we were driving out of our drive way at 5:45 AM, none of us cared where we went or had anything specific we were up shopping for. We ended up at Old Navy first and had to capture the moment.
We made our way around to K-Mart, Target (with over an hours wait to check out, we didn't buy anything), Michael's, and Ross. We were all getting pretty tired by this point, but had one more stop to make at TJMaxx.
After shopping Shannon and I headed back to the house for some rest. We were so tired and I think Shannon needed some time away from the crazy Jensen's. We were lucky enough to get the den as our room. It is upstairs at the front of the house with a big picture window and a bathroom attached to it. It was like our own little apartment. We spent lots of time in there watching movies on my laptop or just laying down.

That night was my night to make dinner. I made Baked Potato Soup in bread bowls (which turned out great if you ask me). The kitchen was always full of help and fun.

Saturday was a nice day with nothing planned. We slept in, had pancakes for breakfast (my favorite), and had the day to do what we wanted. We headed out for some more shopping, but this time at the mall. Holiday shopping is crazy! We spent the rest of the day in the pool and playing the Wii. I have never played the Wii before this weekend, but it was so much fun! I thought everyone was joking when they said their shoulder hurt from playing, but I sure felt it the next morning!

Sunday was our last day in St. George and we headed to church before our drive home. As we were walking out the door we realized we had all picked the same color scheme: black.

I guess Mom and Jenny decided to spice things up with some red.

After Thanksgiving leftovers we headed home. Traffic was bad the whole way, which made for a longer drive home. I always like getting home once I am on the road, but I would have loved to have stayed a whole other week down there!

I feel so blessed and I have so much to be thankful for. I am lucky to have such a great family I got to spend the weekend with, as well as a great friend Shannon. I felt so much love this whole weekend and so blessed.