It's Over!

Guys, we made it. It's the last day of November, and we have made it. Was every blog good? Oh heavens no. But did we finish? We sure did ! And now, we can go on with our lives, hopefully blogging occasionally to keep updating, but no so much that it gets as boring as it did here at the end of the month.

Silly Geese

Darth loves to get his picture taken, and of course, he never likes to just have a smile, he likes to do weirdo faces. I am always happy to oblige.

It's Coming

Friends, the end is nigh. I have felt Death's chilly hand on my neck, and I know the time is coming.

Okay that's definitely an exaggeration. But, I fear a sickness is upon us. Exhibit A: the tiny kids in my house are both coughing with runny noses. Exhibit B: Darth definitely spent all yesterday throwing up. Exhibit C: My once amazing immune system has taken a nosedive after living with these kids. After the kiddos have been sick all day, we went to Jamba Juice to get some smoothies for the sickos. Because Gecko isn't doing too bad, he was all smiles and playing while we were there.

He was so jazzed to get a smoothie too. Hopefully none of us succumb to the illness!

Back to School

Alas, today I went back to school. I was actually pretty ready for it, because after a few days at home, I'm always ready to get going and get back to real life. The week off was great, but now I only have 2 weeks left of school! That's right folks, just two weeks, and then finals, and then I am DONE for this semester! I am looking forward to this greatly, hopefully the break doesn't go by too quickly, and is a fantastic time for everyone.

Smash Face

Tonight, we were preparing dinner and grabbing some things out of the garage, and tiny Darth felt the need to trip. (I know, I know, it was an accident, but I still wanted to say that) He tripped on...I'll say himself, because I don't even know what it could be, and smacked face first into the wooden garage stairs! Ouch! He said his cheek hurt and after a few minutes, it swelled up in agreement.

He was in good spirits, and didn't let the bump get him down.

Christmas Times Can Begin!

Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, I can get ready for Christmas. So this morning, Husband set up the Christmas tree, and this afternoon I decorated it and the surrounding areas. I had a lot of help from these little Santas.

They're just too cute sometimes!

Black Friday '17

Black Friday has come again this year, and again, I have embraced it. The exciting part about this year is that my sister is home for the first Thanksgiving in about 6 years, so we finally get to do this together! We got started bright and early and hit many different places. We got all sorts of deals, and had a great day. Of course, by the time we ended, we were all exhausted, both tired from the early start and our bodies were physically so tired. What a great tradition, and one I'm glad to partake in!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving everyone! I kept tradition alive, and ran in the Turkey Trot this morning, getting my four miles in to earn all the food I was going to eat. I didn't do too badly, I finished in just a hair over 32 minutes, to get me third place in my age group! The weather was beautiful, and not freezing cold as it has been in years past.

After a lovely morning of Darth locking us out of our bedroom, and having to use the roof to access the room, off to the parents house for some turkey time. Dinner was crazy delicious, thanks to my dad for preparing it. Then, home to sit in a lovely food coma. I hope everyone had the amazing holiday they wanted!

Behold...the Piecaken!

The other day, I was watching one of my favorite shows, Ginormous Food. In case you haven't heard about this show (which I'm willing to wager is very likely) its a show about a guy who travels all around the country eating GIANT food. One day there was a strawberry shortcake that was 12 inches high, it was amazing. This week they had a restaurant that serves the Piecaken. Let's break it down.
3 layers
Bottom layer: Pecan Pie
Middle layer: Pumpkin Pie
Top layer: Spice Cake
Topped with: a cream cheese cinnamon frosting AND apple pie filling.
Let's get started.

Basically, I bought store bought pies, because I was not going to homemake them. I got the pecan pie, and placed it on a cake plate. I frosted the top, and then placed the pumpkin pie on top. I trimmed the edges to make everything even.

 Then, I frosted the top of the pumpkin pie, for the cake to be placed on there.

 After the spice cake was placed there, I frosted the entire thing, and put some apple pie filling on top.

Look at this amazing thing. I can't wait to try it tomorrow! 

Eh...I got nothin'

Well, it took us a solid 21 days to get here, but this is the flaw of writing every day for a month. Not a lot happens sometimes, and I just have nothing to tell you. Break is fabulous and I am staying busy quite evenly with school work and fun. Hopefully everyone is gearing up for a great holiday!

Christmas Craft

I have a friend with whom I exchange homemade gifts every year. It always stresses me out to think of it, but then I always get a good idea. For example, last year I made her a homemade candles. This year, I chose something quite different. I thought it would be a fun idea if I made her small blocks for her desk at work, to portray all the months of the year. I went and picked out all of my stuff at Wood Connections, and then my sister and I set out to make them today. I had set aside the entire day to do it, but it took waaaaay less time than that. It only took us a couple of hours, I was surprised. But I think they turned out great! 

Break!

Guys, finally, some good times. This upcoming week is my Thanksgiving break. I am so excited to not have to go to school all week! I would like to be able to say that it'll be completely school-less, but I have homework to do during the week, of course. Basically, my goal this week is to make my Christmas crafts, and finish all my homework. Wish me luck!

Rice!

Tonight we went out for Mama's birthday. We went to Hu Hot (if you haven't been, you gotta go). When we were getting to the end of the meal, Gecko was eating some rice. And by eating, I mean, doing anything but. Luckily I snapped a video of this. Enjoy!

Foto Friday

Last night, I went to the movie theater, to get a gift card. As we were there, they had some sort of Comi-Con thing, and Wonder Woman was there. Darth was SO HYPED to meet her, until we actually got up to her and then he was so dang shy and nervous, and wouldn't go up to her until I was holding him. He got to hold her sword, which was much too heavy for him, so I had to help hold it. We snapped a picture, and then when we got home, Darth was just too excited for words.

Thumbs Up from Darth

Basically, his go-to pose is the thumbs up.

Emergency!

Today, my sister was at the dentist, getting a root canal done. Whilst she was doing that, I was at my home, of course, working. My phone rang suddenly, and there was the receptionist at the dentists office, telling me that she had a negative reaction to something, and they can't get a hold of her husband. I needed to come get her right now and bring her the hospital.

Uh...what?

So I immediately sprinted to my car and definitely did like 90 miles an hour, getting from Orem to Springville, where the dentist is. I got there and sprinted in and they immediately take me back to her and I see:

Oh boy, that's a reaction, all right. I took her to the nearest ER, in Provo. Her husband met her there, so I took the kiddos home, so that they wouldn't have to worry about it. By the time they discharged her, several hours later, this is what it looked like:

So basically, she had the reaction to the cleaning stuff in her tooth, and now her face is full of air, and it just needs to come down. Man, I thought I had bad reactions at the dentist, until this happened. Hopefully she's better soon!

Nearly Haflway

Y'all, blogging every day is hard. Especially when not a lot is going on, so there's not much to report. I just do homework all the time, and the time I'm not doing homework, I'm playing with the kiddos. So I leave you with nothing to report, but a picture of Darth wearing my gloves. It took about 10 minutes to put them on, as he would not cooperate. 

Bye Bye!

Last night, we had a late night (8:00 PM, when there are small kids in the house) game of Bananagrams. Tiny Gecko wouldn't go to sleep yet, so he toddled around the kitchen as we played. At the end of the game, we had some celebratory ice cream. We wouldn't give him any, since it was so late, and he had the best response ever.

I can't stop watching this video, it just makes me laugh so hard.

Old Photos

I have my last solo presentation for my Professional Business Presentations class. I could not be more excited for the end of this. After this week, I only have 4 more classes of this class! Woooo! I am legit so excited. This last presentation is supposed to be a persuasive one, and I chose to make my thesis "Run!". To set up my slide show, I decided to talk about how I hated running when I played soccer, so I pulled out some old soccer pictures. Because they're so old school, I decided to share them here, for the memories.

 This is me my first year of playing, which I think was 1996.

And here's me in my senior year, 2001. Ah the memories. What fun. Hopefully this presentation goes well!

Card Swap Christmas

Today was our last Card Swap of the year, and it is a Christmas one so it just gets me so excited for the holiday! We passed around our cutie cards, and then we all passed around our neighbor gifts. These gals are so dang clever, they think of such great things!

We had tons of great stuff, and good times all around, so what a great morning, can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

Foto Friday

Cookie got a haircut yesterday, and of course as soon as she came back in the car after the appointment, she was SO NEEDY. What a cutie.

Darth and Gecko

I get so many cutie pictures with these guys around all the time.

 They love Snapchat filters. All kids seem to, I find.

 Darth is legit the king of the weird face.

This guy is just a smiley guy.

Dinner and a Show

Tonight was my ward's Senior Dinner. The YW and YM combine and invite the senior citizens aged 65+ to a dinner in which we take care of everything. This year we had soup, and I was asked to do the rolls, so I spent all day baking 144 rolls for the event. The dinner was a success, I think.

 After the dinner, we had karaoke. The seniors didn't seem to dig it, but the youth did, so at least some fun was had.

Overall, good times were had by all!

Holy Crap!

We went to the grocery store today, and Darth got a green apple while we were there. I took a bite of it, and holy crap, it was the most sour apple I have ever eaten! Which is what I said right as I ate it. So then Darth took it back and ...

What a great guy.

Miscellaneous Monday

I can't believe we're already almost halfway through November. Where did the year go?! I mean, obviously this year has been busy for me, since I basically haven't written in here since August, but man, I can't believe that the year is almost over. I am so jazzed. Not for the year, necessarily but I am so glad that this semester is almost over, it's kicking my butt! I took more classes than usual, so the homework has been intense. I can't wait for the break of Thanksgiving, followed shortly by finals!

I'm settling into a rhythm with the tiny humans in my house. I will say, they are great at hyping up your self esteem at times. They're just so excited to see me, they are so happy when I come home, and they're just excited in general. Darth is a great yes-man, he just says yes to everything, so it's real fun to ask him questions about what to eat, what to wear, etc. I can't wait for the holidays with them, Christmas is just so much more fun with kids around, their magic is still alive.

I have my last presentation in my Business Presentations class this next week, I am so excited. I've decided to do it on the topic of running, I'm trying to persuade my classmates to run. (I don't know how much of it will be persuasive, but I'll try). I am just sort of sick of this class, it's just watching my classmates do presentations every day, and that just gets a little tiring. But! We only have a few weeks left, we can push through. Have faith, guys.

Working Hard

I had my laptop on the counter today when I was making dinner, and Garth needed to "do his homework" he said. So he sat down, and we got this adorable pic.

What a fella.

Cookie, the Persecuted

If there's one person to feel bad for now that we have small people in the house, it's Cookie. She is persecuted all day by the kiddos here. They like to hug and smother her, but also chase her and she hates all of it. She's doing her best to chill with them, but she is so old she just gets riled up really quickly. But she is cute as always.

Lil' Sebastian

Back in September, our city had a Harvest Festival, in which they brought in Lil' Sebastian. (If you don't know who that is, you need to watch Parks and Rec like, immediately) We stood in line for a bit to get this picture, and it was just so much fun.

 After we met the small pony, Darth got his face painted as Spider Man. We tried to get Gecko to get his face painted as well, but he would not have it. Otherwise, it was a successful outing and we had a great time, can't wait to do it again next year!

SoJo Half 2017

A few weeks ago, I ran the SoJo Half Marathon. I sure haven't run a half marathon since 2014, but I wanted to give it a go. My SIL was going to run it, and I was like, let's do this thing! I trained a bit for it, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to die. My finish time goal was about 2:10, I didn't have hopes of doing anything spectacular. But I ended up finishing in 1:56! I couldn't believe it! I was so jazzed. 

 Here I am, so excited for my medal. When I finished the race, I still had a bit to wait for my SIL to finish the race. In that time, tiny nephew Darth wanted to try a rock climbing wall that was there. But when we got him up there, he was NOT having it.

My SIL came across the line and we had a small celebration, her first half marathon! It was a great experience. 

 Here's to another great race over! Glad to be done.

Happy Blogging Month

Happy Blogging Month, everyone! So, let's chat. It's been a long time. A long, long time. The last time I wrote in here was about a week before school started. And then school started. I'm taking more credits than usual this semester, and boy, do I feel it. I am SWAMPED with schoolwork. And when I'm not swamped with schoolwork, I have work to do. And when I don't have those, I have small kiddos to take my time also. About a month after school started, my sister and family moved in with me, so I currently have a 3 year old and an 18 month old living with me as well. And of course you know them well, as I blog about them often.

But here it is, National Blogging Month, and I am HERE FOR IT. I will try my very hardest to get this going, and try to catch people up on what's happening in life.