Christmas Parties!

With the new house, we have tried to have as many people over as possible! It has been so much fun having family and friends in our home. The day after Christmas we had the 2nd annual progressive dinner. We had appetizers at Jon & Julie’s in West Haven (north Ogden), then soup at our house, dinner at Dave & Amanda’s in South Jordan, and dessert at Ben & Becky’s in Lehi. It was so fun to see everyone’s homes all Christmasy! And Dan’s brother and his family was visiting from Idaho so they were able to come too! It was a blast. Last night (Monday), we had a bunch of friends over for a housewarming/holiday party! It was so fun to see our good friends from high school that we don’t get to see a lot. We have a blast when we all get together and we’re lucky to have such great friends!Me and Thaddy pants! Have I mentioned that I love this kid?? Well I do. I played with the pic to show his blue eyes and cute shirt. I kept feeding him so he would love me :) Matty is rockin’ the beard and long hair for a play. He looks great! Dustin and Kaley brought us a quesadilla maker (thanks guys!) and we all made yummy quesadillas! The boys are playing a finger running game on Dan’s itouch and yes, Dustin and Dallas are Mexi-spooning. Dusting is really touchy-feely like that. Stevenson, Wendy, Matt and Brighton! The cutey cute Monsen fam. Love them!

It’s Over??

Well Christmas is over and I’m so sad about it. I was hoping Christmas wouldn’t come because I didn’t want it to be over! It seemed to go so fast this year but we still enjoyed it and had a great holiday with our families.Christmas Eve was spent at Grandpa Goates’ house with a LOT of people! The little kids got pjs and they were so cute! The little girls in our family got tinkerbell and Addy and Sarah were ecstatic. It was so fun to watch them open them and realize what it was, then help them get changed and bounce around with excitement! Sarah was beside herself and just kept saying, “We got jammies!”. They were all so stinkin’ cute.  Dan and I had fun with the fam and we also celebrated Dan’s mom’s birthday! I made her a sweet photo book from MyPublisher with lots of pictures of the whole family. It was a hit and it was fun to show everyone all the cute pics I found!                                                                                       Danny gets really really excited for Christmas as you can tell…and I got this cute headband!!

 

Even though Dan’s style is definitely not my style, I still love it and I try my best to just let him be and wear what he wants…He loves his “lumberjack jacket” as he calls it which is a sick old blue flannel jacket he’s had FOREVER! It’s too short on the sleeves and he wears it all the time. I found a new version for him this year and he loves it! Yay!

Dan and I slept at my parent’s house and we opened our present for each other first. He did great and got me a shoe rack, headband, hat, kitchen stuff, lotion and a mouse sander for my crafts!

We talked to Dan’s brother on his mission in Brazil then opened presents with my family. We got so many great gifts! I got black couch covers for our old living room couches, house decor, clothes, scentsy,  movies, and a lot more!                       My mom bought herself a memory foam pillow with Michelle Obama modeling on the front. Weird.

Steph got my dad a U of U snuggie! So awesome!                                                      The best part of the gift giving was the last gift and it was for Dan. My parents got him an ipod touch! He wasn’t expecting it but wanted one so bad and was so excited! It was way awesome and he loves it! He also got a lot of other great gifts from my family!                                                

Christmas afternoon was at Dan’s house opening gifts with his family. His parents gave us a big folding table, tool set, and dish set. The little kids got cute gloves and candy canes.   Picture courtesy of a 3 yr old. I look stoned but I was just happy.                 Grandpa managed to snooze amid the madness and Sarah was modeling this sweet fur hat for me. Christmas dinner was back with my family and the Thomases. We had a delicious dinner and had a ton of fun playing Mad Gab and Catch Phrase Music Edition. Steph was visiting for 5 whole days from Cedar (yay!). We had fun together and she came and slept over and hung out on Christmas night. Love my sis. It was a fantastical Christmas and Dan and I were reminded again of how blessed we really are. We have wonderful loving families, many material things that we don’t need, our health, and most of all, the gospel! We are so grateful for our families, friends, our lives, and for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Homemade Christmas gifts!

I have been really into crafting a lot lately with the new house and having a lot more time on my hands! It has been really fun to ready all the great blogs out there and get some good ideas of easy crafts to try. So I gave a few homemade Christmas gifts this year that I think turned out really well!

I made these JOY blocks for Shelley and they were really easy. I just used GIMP (free version of Photoshop) to design the pages (using digital scrapbooking stuff). Then I printed them off at Sams Club. The hardest part was making the pages the correct size for the block! The block was 5” X 5.5” so I made the letter 5” X 5” and it worked great.

I spray painted and sanded each block then mod podged the letters on the front. I did a layer of mod podge over the top of the paper after it dried. Then I added a decorative furniture nail (looks just like a black tack) to each corner! That made a big difference and I think it turned out great!

I had the idea to do the letters BOO on the back of the blocks for Halloween too! I might make those for Shelley later!

I also made this cutie thing for Jon and Julie for part of their Christmas present. It took awhile because I was being really careful and not quite sure, but I love how it turned out! I got the idea here. It’s only about $2 for 8 feet of a 3.5” X 3.5” board, and Home Depot will cut them down for you!

I got a few cute scrapbook papers and mod podged them to the sides of the blocks with some cute family pictures on the front of the blocks. I mod podged over the top and the corners so the paper won’t peel off, then sanded and went around the corners with distressing ink. I connected the blocks with wire so it’s a little wobbly, but you can adjust it to look good! Now on to the next thing….

Holiday Fun

We have had such a great holiday and we both don’t want to go back to school and work! It has been so nice to spend time with family and friends and enjoy Christmas with Danny.

We went up to Logan and had a little Christmas party with Shelley and Brian and Bre and Derek. It was so much fun to have cutie pie Thad and darling little Brielle there too!

I made these cute JOY blocks for Shelley for part of her Christmas present. it was really easy and they turned out great!

 

The cute Monsen family. I love these guys and hope they are always close to us and our family! Thad is such a doll and Shelley is the best friend a girl could ask for!  

 

 

Bre, Derek and Brielle (3 weeks old!)

 

The girls :) Before we took this pic, they asked me if I wanted a stuffed animal or something. Haha, I’m sure I’ll have a kid some day, but until then, I’ll just love my nieces and nephews and my friends’ kids!