Happy New Years Eve!

Y'all, we've made it! Safely to New Years Eve for all of us. I thought I would do the pics I have taken on today, the last day of the year, before we party hard and then enter 2020 as champs.

 This baby is just so smiley now

 Gecko always enjoys his time in the car without his brother haha

We introduced the fellas to Yahtzee today, this is how Darth rolls every time, arms above the head and everything.

Gifts Reveal!

Okay y'all, now that the gift giving of Christmas is over, I can finally reveal all of the homemade gifts I made!

 For my aunt who is a teacher, of course.

 If I was better at crafts, I would have loved to distress this hello sign, but I didn't want to ruin it, in case it didn't go well.

 I made a homemade vanilla! Basically you put a few cut up vanilla beans into vodka (ya girl had to go into the liquor store, can you believe?) and let it sit for two months!

 Here is the finished product. If you want instructions, I got them from here.

I got most of my crafts from Wood Connection, what a great store for stuff that makes you feel like a champion.
But yay! Now Christmas is over, what a fabulous holiday. Hopefully everyone had a great one!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my favorite goobers, in their matching pajamas.

Darth's First Christmas Concert!

Y'all, Darth had his first concert today and it was a freaking DELIGHT. This small child wore a small Santa hat and his best scowl.

This is my favorite song - because watch his face at the end, where it turns sideways.

What we found out after the concert was, he was upset that we smiled at him, so he spent the whole concert shooting us death glares because he was so mad at us.
I think the real issue was that he was just so nervous and didn't know how to deal with it haha. But he did great! And I can't wait for his next one.

Time to Head Home!

Today we finally get to head home. To say that I'm excited is an understatement. While there was definitely fun times on the trip, I am just ... ready to go home, I've had enough. Our flight left at 6:45 tonight, but we came up to Orlando early, to hit up Disney Springs and do a little shopping.
Then we walked around for a bit, enjoying the Lego creations.

 My nieces each got to pick out one thing at World of Disney for their Christmas present. Samwise chose an Ariel bubble wand, and she could not have been more happy for her prize.

After all the walking and being in the heat, we were ready to get to the airport. We got there pretty early and got through security faster than I have ever in my whole life (we didn't have to take off any clothing/shoes, and didn't have to take laptops out of our bags, wild) and so we had plenty of time to kill. We ate dinner (since our lunch was ice cream sundaes, which I do not regret in the slightest) and then we walked around to get out any wiggles. We finally boarded the plane a little after 6:00, and then proceeded to sit there for about 2 and a half hours, we were delayed 2 hours! Gah! The longer we sat there the hotter and madder we all got, what a crappy end to the vacation. But I will try and remember the good times of this trip, not just the delays haha.

A Day of Sarasota

Today was a day of busy-ness. In the morning, we packed up grandpa's house for the house to be sold and he moved out, and then we helped grandma with some yard work. We helped move a giraffe from one house to the other, and tried to make it look like my BIL was riding the giraffe.

If I knew how to photoshop Husband's legs out of the photo, I would to make it more believable, but I'm not tech-savvy.  Then it was beach day, and my niece in her swimsuit just looks so much like a Workout Barbie, I loved it. 

Then after a day of fun in the sun we went to the Botanical Gardens for their Christmas lights. It was great!

And then, after that long day, we were all too happy to go to bed!

Caramel Pecan Pie

Today we had a big Christmas dinner (since we won't be in Florida for the real Christmas). I was in charge of a pie, one that grandma had given me, she wanted me to make it. Essentially, you take a pie crust (I chose a pecan crust, seemed delicious) and then inside, you put:
2 8-oz cream cheese softened
1 cup caramel sauce
You mix those together until creamy and put it in the pie plate.
 All right, looks pretty good. Then you need to refrigerate it for at least 2 hours.

 After the two hours, bring the pie back out of the fridge and combine:
1 1/2 cups toasted pecans
1/4 cup caramel sauce
You toss those together, and put it on top of the pie.

Now, according to the recipe, this is where you're supposed to stop, drizzling more caramel on it. I, however, enjoy whipped cream, so I threw a half of a container of Cool Whip on top, of course. 

Y'all, the pie was great! I do think, if I make it in the future, I would caramelize some apples, and do a caramel apple cheesecake rather than the pecans, so I'll give those a shot and tell you how it goes in the future. But I do recommend this, and it's so simple to make!

Family Time

Today was the graduation, so it was full of boring ceremonies and whatnot. But we started the day with a good time, enjoying the sunshine and trying to find lizards, which we found 12 in the few minutes that we did it. Lizards are legit everywhere there!

 I also just really liked this plant and wanted to share it also.

After the graduation, we hung out on the grounds waiting for pictures and the like. We tried to get pics of all the kiddos, but you know how getting a group of kids to do the same face is impossible haha

We did our best!

Feliz Navidad

Y'all, it was a tense morning, waiting for the Spanish Fork Shelter to open (they open at 10:00 AM Utah time, which was noon Florida time). Then, at noon, sister was at the shelter and success, Cookie is found! I do genuinely think that because I dress her in ridiculous sweaters, someone picked her up because they knew she was someone's pet. So we have her returned and safe and sound and thank goodness.

As I was having the tense morning, I did get a video of Darth, singing the classic Christmas tune Feliz Navidad. He kills it, of course.

So, yeah! The day was fine! We headed down to Sarasota today to start the family portion of our trip!

Disney World 2019

The fam is all heading to Florida this weekend, our SIL is graduating from college. And since we have to come down for this, we decided to make it a nice vacay for all of us. So we came in a day early and went to Disney World for the day. 

We started the day in Star Wars Galaxy Edge. It wasn't as exciting or great as I thought it would be. But all of us ladies matched with each other and that was a great time.

Then over to Toy Story Land, where we did some child-swapping to ride the rides.

After about this point, we had had enough of Hollywood Studios and decided to head over to Magic Kingdom and of course I love the giant Christmas tree.

Then, it rained. A lot. We were all pretty wet, and since we were all wet and cold, we decided to call it a day and we headed back to our hotel for some pizza and changing into wet clothes. Samwise had some attitude at this prospect: 

 So after our pizza, we were like, why not head back for an after-dinner treat? So at 7:30, we headed back over to the parks. As we were walking into Epcot, it started to pour down. We were SOAKED. So after walking around to find the perfect place to grab a treat, we decided to split up and get different treats to share. Then we realized, the place that I wanted to go to was on the opposite side of the park and closed in 12 minutes. Yeeesh! So I started sprinting to the place, getting there in 6 minutes, and it was over a half a mile away haha my watch started a workout as I was running there. We met back up near the Christmas tree in Epcot (no pics because I was not bringing my phone out in that weather) and enjoyed our treats. We had peppermint shakes, cookies, and funnel cakes with ice cream, yum!
It was the perfect way to end the day. When we left this afternoon, we were defeated. But this time, we took back the night! We were even more soaked, but we had way more fun. We came back and changed out of our soaking clothes into our PJ's and then as I was about to go into bed, I got a text from my sister saying that she had lost Cookie! The joker had run off in the night! After a stressful couple of hours, we determined that a gray schnauzer had been brought into the Springville police tonight and we could find out tomorrow when they opened if it was her. That was the best we could do tonight, stay tuned!

Candle-Making Time

I recently bought a candle from Pier 1, a pine-scented one that makes my house smell like a delicious pine forest. Unfortunately, it ran all the way down after like, 3 days, holy cow so fast. So I decided to make a pine candle of my own since its so easy. I just got a pine scented oil from Michaels', and used leftover wax from when I made candles a couple of years ago. I melted it down in a double broiler-situation and then added the scents. I poured it into the same container that the old candle came in, just to recycle. Here it is right after pouring:

 And after it hardened:

And now the wicks are cut and it's ready to use! 

This was actually pretty fun - I'm glad I decided to do this.

Accident Prone Darth

The other day, Darth was climbing a tree and he fell out. When he hit the ground, he landed on his friends Nerf gun, which promptly sliced his hand open. He had to get stitches, of course. And although he definitely probably should have gotten more, he only received 6 stitches. 

Here's the Snapchat I got when they took off the bandage. So yes, he's going to have a nasty scar, that's for sure. Apparently after his hand was all numb, the doc put the needle in and asked if he could feel it. When Darth saw the needle, he flipped out and could NOT calm down, so that's the best they could do. Can't wait to see how it heals haha. 

Snoozin' Scootch

I find that Cookie sleeps all the time. It's adorable, she just moves from place to place and snoozes a little while longer. Today she came over for a small scratch (you don't choose when to pet Cookie, she decides when she's ready for people to touch her) and then as she sat there getting some love, she was nodding off a little. I thought it was so so funny, I was glad I happened to get it on video.

What a great dog.

Frosted Flakes Treats

Today in church, we had our annual YW Christmas lesson. This usually entails the YW sharing their talents - either singing, or playing an instrument, anything of that nature. They can also share a tradition of their family, a treat they make for the holidays, or a story that they enjoy. This year was different, but I'm not getting into it, other than to say, it wasn't that great this year and I sort of hated it. 

Anyway, that's not the point. 

I participated by bringing a treat, a tradition that we had (myself and my sister at least) was that on Christmas morning, we ate Frosted Flakes, heck yeah. I was scratching my head and trying to figure out how to bring this delicious breakfast cereal to this meeting, while having it not be very messy and then I realized, treats! I can do a Rice Krispy treat with it, but just have Frosted Flakes instead of the treat. 

I made it the exact same way - a stick of butter, a bag of marshmallows, and a few cups of cereal. 

So here they are, after being poured. They were pretty good - my only complaint is that you really couldn't taste the sweetness of the 'frosted' part of it, but hey, that's okay. Good to know, maybe there's a way to fix that later. 

Real Gingerbread Houses

This week at the local mall, there has been a gingerbread display happening. Today I finally went with my nieces and y'all, we were blown away by the gingerbread houses! Especially after my disappointing house that I made yesterday haha. But I took a few pic, to show the amazingness.

I honestly can't even fathom the amount of work and talent that goes into these! Holy holy cow! Good work everyone, I am in awe of what you do. 

My First Gingerbread!

Y'all, I have done my first gingerbread house today. For our YW activity, we got these gingerbread villages and each person just took a tiny house. I chose the chateau, because it looked like the easiest, and also, it reminds me of the cabins up at girls camp haha.

I should have something next to it so you can see how small it is, it's just about the size of like, a playing card. And it's certainly not great hahah but honestly, that's okay. It was my first attempt, all of our frosting bags were faulty (they were all just spitting out frosting everywhere) so I did the best I could under the circumstances. Maybe I'm ready to start with a regular size gingerbread house...soon.

Boom, crash!

Y'all, it has finally happened. After over 10 years of running, I was hit this morning by a car on my run.

Now, don't worry, I'm fine. Nothing broken.

But it was a shock! It lifted me off the ground and everything, it was wild.

The day was fine, I just took it easy, since my leg was hurting a bit after the hit. So of course, gotta ice that to keep the swelling down!

I'm glad it wasn't too bad of a hit, and that I survived with no issues. If I could get an actual good picture of the bruising I would share it, but as of now, there's not much to show. Maybe tomorrow, after the bruising has set and is all the way here ha ha.

Be careful out there everyone!

Happy Christmas Decoration Day!

Well friends, now that it's finally December, I can decorate for Christmas. I mean, you can't do it before Thanksgiving, that poor holiday gets ignored enough. So yesterday, on the 1st, I had Husband put up the tree, so that I could decorate today. So, I decorated with my usual brown and gold theme, and when I finished I was like...meh. I just didn't like it. I don't know what was wrong with it but I just hated it and I was so so sad. So then I decided, why not change it up? So off to the Hobby Lobby for me, and I decided to change the theme to red and gold. I came home and redecorated, and voila! I loved it!

 I love it! I wish you could see the new tree topper a little better, but hey, that's fine.
And then, my mantle ended up being minimalist this year, and I also love it.

And now that everything is ready, I'm ready for the holidays!

We did it!

Guys! We did it! We blogged every day this month and even though they might not all have been interesting, we did it! 

Here's Baby Yoda to celebrate.

First Time in a Shopping Cart

I did a little more Black Friday shopping today and this time, baby Epifanio joined me. We put him in the cart and it was his first time! Look how small he looks.

Look at him holding onto the cart with a death grip. He was having a great time, now he looks like such a big boy.

Black Friday Shenanigans

Today is the darkest of all days, Black Friday. As someone who strongly believes Thanksgiving is for families, I will never shop on Thanksgiving, so I never get the doorbuster deals or any of those, and that's fine with me. So we ventured out this morning at a reasonable time and hit up the usual stores. I got all the small nieces and nephews the cutest clothes, that was really my whole goal with shopping, getting those jokers some clothes. Other than that, I got a bunch of random things for people/myself, and survived the giant blizzard that started halfway through the day. The roads were crazy, the freeway was nuts, but we survived. 

Happy Thanksgiving !

Guys, this was not a great thanksgiving. Our basement flooded, so we spent a good portion of the day fixing that and trying to get under control. But hey, let's focus on the positive! I ran in the turkey trot this morning and although it was the worst every because of the dang blizzard, I got 5th place in my age! (For the slowest race I have ever run for this - the storm definitely effected everyone's times!

 I was happy to get my small ribbon haha!
Then I made my first charcuterie board, and it actually turned out okay! That class I took was very helpful and made me feel so fancy.

After dinner, we were eating some pie, and the fellas requested some "bubbles" (what they call Martinelli's sparkling cider) and we served them to Gecko in a mason jar mug. He's a little sweaty because they had all been running around and playing some very rough-housey games. 

 Darth was mad at us, as you can see here, because he was drinking his bubbles out of a champagne glass and looked so extra and was so cute, but when we laughed at him, he got very embarrassed and traded to a mug like Gecko. He wouldn't pose for a picture and instead was just mad.

So, despite the flood, it was a great day! We had so much fun, great food, great family, and great times.
Happy Thanksgiving!