Christmas happenings

 

Let me just tell you, working in retail is not good for your blog. Especially at Christmas time. Serious apologies to my little space on the Internet.

Since I had to work like a maniac and couldn’t come home for Christmas, my in laws came to us! It wouldn’t have been Christmas without some family, for sure. Brad hadn’t seen his parents since the Christmas before, so he was looking forward to spending time with them since I stayed with them twice this year without him. We went out to dinner with them, took them to Rexburg’s finest restaurants (lol) brad gave them a tour of the campus, they all visited me at work, we played lots and lots of cards, and just enjoyed being with family.

We celebrated Brad’s Birthday by making a big breakfast with eggs, baked potato coins, waffles and oj! I loooove breakfast! We watched The Dream works Christmas short movies, and he opened his gifts! He received a one piece bum flap long johns, a stud finder, seek and find book, a drill, and a batman encyclopedia. Look at those goofy smiles :]

He said the only thing he’s found with his stud finder is his self. Ha!

I made him Funfetti cupcakes, since those are his  favorite. We celebrated with cake and ice cream that night at his aunts house where we played bingo for prizes and played some more cards!

I really missed my family and I wish we could have gone home for Christmas so bad. My parents sent us a box of presents, and I’ve already used them like crazy! My mom knew my love for salad spinners and got me my very first one, as well as the Babycakes vegan, gluten and sugar free cookbook. So far I’ve made the gingerbread and ate half the loaf by myself. No shame!

We made our Christmas tree and ornaments ourselves, since last year we didn’t have a tree because we went to Washington. And who wants to spend $30 on a tree that doesn’t even smell anymore because it’s dried out? who want’s to spend almost as much on a fake tree that smells like plastic and vinyl? certainly not us.  We’re a fan of dumpsters, it’s amazing what people throw away. I found a heavy bottomed pot once. I didn’t keep it because I already have one and I might just make brad crazy..but seriously? who throws that away? take it to the DI people! Anyway, someone bought a tree too big and threw the bottom portion in the dumpster where we found it while taking out the trash. Brad, being the crafty handyman that he is chopped it up, zip tied it together and we had a tree! We also blew up water balloons, made mod podge, and with the help of fabric, glitter and tinsel, we had ornaments!

We also had our own little Ms. Clause. I hope your holidays were swell!

Crafts, Bowling, Pennies, Shirts, Golf, and home made juice!

So, last Saturday it was my mothers birthday!!! I miss her so much, you never realize how much you need your mom until you're expected to not need her anymore. In my case, it was getting married. I still need my mama :[ I call her almost every other time I make dinner. "How do I cook frozen hamburger?" was one of my first phone calls haha. So to show her how much I love and miss her, I made her a fancy watch bracelet :]I love you mom! I miss you and dad so much! I can't wait to come home for christmas! So we live by the train tracks, very close actually. We had just gotten home from getting delicious Millhollow frozen yogurt and we hear the horn coming. All of a sudden, brad leaps from the couch to the other room and runs out the door. I knew instantly what he was doing. He had grabbed a couple pennies, to see if the train would flatten them and how much. The train flattened them like this:

They got pretty flat, it's impressive...christmas presents anyone? haha just joking. So that night we decided to have a little date night so we went to this movie theater/bowling alley/arcade called Fat Cats. We didn't have impressive scores, brad won but I got the one and only strike :]!

This ball was only 7 lbs...clearly, you can tell I'm struggling.

The afterwards....
The first was mine, I always get All Lovin No Oven: Cake batter ice cream, chocolate, cookie dough, and whip cream. Brad's was halfway gone before I got to take a picture of his haha. He always gets, Birthday Cake Remix: Cake batter ice cream, brownie, sprinkles and whip cream. They are both delicious, and I refuse to find out how many calories I consume every time we go :]

Guess who likes to golf? well, I like to go to the driving range. Brad got us a big bucket of golf balls and taught me how to use a driver, a number five? and a putter. I am not really sure, they all look the same to me. It was nearly 100 that day, and no clouds so it was hot!

Notice in this picture, how I didn't hit the ball? That happened a lot.Brad was such a good golf teacher, he is very patient and explained everything very well. I even hit one ball past the 150 sign, for real!

As for dinner, a couple that I made that we really liked were:
Chicken Fajitahs!Chicken Milanese with Spaghetti!
Brad said this was the best thing I've made so far. It really was sooo good, he asked for it the next night too haha!

One of the gifts from my parents that we got was a Jack Lallane's Power juicer. We went to the store and bought apples, carrots, oranges, strawberries, bananas, watermelon, lemons, limes, white nectarines, wheat grass, spinach, and mango's. The first time we pretty much did all of them but watermelon, mango's, wheat grass and spinach. It did not taste good, it was so lemony and sour! It tasted like sour lemonade but looked like carrot juice. So we went to the gym and when we got back we put the juice in a blender with yogurt, ice and a banana. It was sooo good!




We like juice at our place haha :]
So another thing we did last week was make our own shirts! We had brandon, travis, chase and his wife, ali come over and we got shirts and spray paint from wal mart. We all did different things with tape and stencils. Brad cut out a horse for his, and I hole punched construction paper and used that as a stencil. And for the back I twisted it up into a little cone and sprayed painted it to make it look tye dye. Brad made another the other day but I'll post it for next weeks blog. he was also very proud of that one.


That was pretty much our week, it was lots of fun :] Missing everyone at home, we love you guys!

This week: death by snow cone, bad habits, wet marbles, dinner, and cards :]

This past week went by pretty slow. I guess that's what happens when you don't have jobs haha. It's amazing how many bad habits you can develop in just one week. The main one is, going to bed late and waking up even later. Last night, neither of us could fall asleep until 4am, FOUR AM! and we didn't get out of bed until one today. I've been on a baking high this week. I think that could develop into a bad habit for sure! I made chocolate chip banana bread and made an oreo dessert. It came from a box, and it was like a frozen delicious cheesecake!

Sooooo yummy!

So other then applying to jobs in the area we have just been hanging out. We applied to a craft store here and brad had mentioned before about putting lucky bamboo in the bathroom. So while we were there we passed a whole lucky bamboo section! While brad was picking some out, I found the jars full of what looked like marbles. I, being curious and feeling like I should touch them, did just that. They were soft and wet marbles, they were amazing! we couldn't stop touching them haha! So we ended up buying clear ones, as well as some green glass pebbles to fill a jar we have. Brad should be an interior designer :]

So we had a lot of the amazing wet marbles left, so the directions said to just let them dry up back to their origonal size (which is smaller than rice!) So here is a funny story and another reason why I think brad and I were meant for each other. I was in the kitchen alone, and every once in awhile when I would pass the bowl filled with the extras, I would sink my hands in them. They feel so wierd, like little eye balls or something! It made me feel like a child because I couldn't leave them alone they felt so squishy, it was just silly. Later, I walk into the kitchen and I see brad mushing his hands in the bowl, and as soon as he heard me he looked over his shoulder like he got caught being weird haha! We laughed a lot and since it was out in the open that we were both doing it, we just did it together and talked about how cool they felt haha


Anyways, I think my cooking has improved. I made a chicken bow tie pasta with a really simple alfredo sauce with broccoli and garlic bread. Brad loved it! That night we made cookie dough milkshakes for dessert, well brad did and I ate it really quick :]


That dinner was funny, brad is hilarious and he is seriously my favorite dancer. He is so silly, and he knows it too. His dance moves crack me up, I was trying to get him to dance on camera and he wouldn't do it! So I got me begging him to dance on video, I figure it's the next best thing. But he does do a ballerina twirl in it :]

So the Madison county fair is going on, and it's the tiniest fair ever. Like of.all.time. It had tiny rides, and they only had one kid on them and they didn't look too impressed either. So if youre curious as to why the post heading says death by snow cone, this is why. I have food allergies to corn. And corn syrup is used to flavor snow cones. The last time I had one though, I was fine! So i figured I was in the clear and got a Peach Raspberry with cream. That was friday, today is sunday and I between then and this morning I had been rolling around, wimpering in pain like a kicked puppy. It was terrible. Never again will I trust a snow cone.Looks innocent, right? and by innocent, I mean delicious.

On Sundays we go over to Brads Aunt Belinda and Uncle Mikes house for dinner and tonight we played cards afterwards. We played Crown, which is like Rook. Everyone in my family knows that I suck at it haha. Brad helped tell me when I could lay down my cards, good thing he's honest because he would go right after me! I ened up doing second worst, with a final score of 164! Also on sundays, byu-i students will sing hymns underneath the stadium bleachers and brad wanted to take me so we met up with some people we know, and went to there place afterwards.

It was a good week, regardless of being sick. I love my husband, miss my family so much. Especially my parents, it was my mama's birthday this week and we got to webcam with them and walked the laptop around the apt so they could see our place. It was nice :]
We're planning on going to the sand dunes this weekend with a bunch of people, so I'll possibly blog about that next sunday.

From rexburg, with love :]