I Love Christmas!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a WONDERFUL Christmas weekend. :) Here are some snipets from mine...


1. Yes, I'm in my twenties and got a doll for Christmas. But this doll has a story behind it. My mom had dolls like this when my older sister and I were really young. We both loved them so much, but my mom sold them when we built our home. We've talked about them ever since, but didn't know what kind they were. So my mom surprised us this year by finding out what they were and ordering one for my sister and one for myself. :)
2. My dad also got a toy for Christmas. haha! He received a remote control helicopter. He was so excited! Five minutes into playing with it and it was already up a tree. haha!
3. Fun socks by the tree.
4. I made Christmas sugar cookies the other day! Want the recipe? You can find it on my guest post HERE! It's the best recipe in the world. :)
5. The shadows of my sister, mom, and I walking home from church.
6. Those would be Juicy Moon Boots... :P
7. More fun socks!
8. Watched lots of Christmas movies this weekend! So fun!
9. These may just be the biggest grapes in the world!

Remember how on my Christmas Wish List I said I wanted a new bag/purse?? Guess what I got?! And it's even better than the ones I had pinned! My sister (and miss angela) is amazing!

I wanted to have a different way of saving my Christmas memories this year. So I took videos here and had my sister take videos of her little family in Illinois. Now it looks like we were together this Christmas. :)

song- I Love Christmas by The Girls With Glasses

Now everyone tell me, please-

1. what was your favorite part of your Christmas weekend??

2. What was the favorite item you received??

3. What was the favorite item you gave??

My answers-

1. My favorite part was seeing my family be completely happy Christmas morning, even though it was a much smaller Christmas than years past.

2. I have two- the doll because it's sentimental and the purse because it's exactly what I wanted.

3. My favorite item I gave would be taking my sister to see The Nutcracker (post HERE). She is also in her twenties and had never seen it!!

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

P.S. the WINNERS of the Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza were posted yesterday!!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I hope you are all having a WONDERFUL time with your family, friends, or however you celebrate this special time of year.

(just a look at some of my Christmas' past. The big one includes myself in the white t-shirt, my two sisters, two little cousins, and my Grandpa as Santa. The top little pic is me as a baby, aw! And the bottom little pic is me in my Christmas ball gown when I was 6ish)

I will be spending the day with my family, seeing a couple of movies, and playing games. Then tomorrow will be filled with friends, family, great food, skyping Christmas morning with my sister, BIL, nieces, and nephew, and Church. :)

How are you going to be spending your weekend?? I'd love to hear. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Remember- the Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza ends tonight at Midnight! Enter now if you haven't yet. :D

P.S. I'm guest posting over at Someone In Mind today about finding Christ in Christmas. :) I'll be posting the same post here tomorrow if you miss it. But I'd love for you to read it and check Erin's blog out. It's a good one!

Holiday Decor

Here's a look at what my home looks like around this time of year. I grew up in this house and my mom does a wonderful job of decorating each holiday. But Christmas is the best. It's beautiful, cozy, and magical. I hope you enjoy the little tour...

Here's a view of the daytime...

There's actually a funny story about our tree. You can read that in my guest post over at Nat the Fat Rat. It's a good one. :)


And a night view...


This is a music box I got for Christmas a long time ago. It was one of those things I wanted so badly. I was so excited when I got it. It's no ordinary music box. It has 4 different scenes from The Nutcracker, the curtains open and close in between each scene, and it plays 8 different songs from The Nutcracker. :)


Every little detail is taken care of. There are things to see everywhere you turn. It sure made Christmas memorable growing up here. :)


Do you like decorating for Christmas? Do you go all out or keep it simple??

P.S. I'm doing a Christmas guest post over at Mrs. DTF today! Check it out if you have a sec.

P.P.S. Be sure to enter the Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza if you haven't yet! It ends Christmas Eve at Midnight!

Sister Date- The Nutcracker

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend! Last night I took my sister to see the Nutcracker for her first time ever! She's in her twenties and had never seen it... Being dancers (well we used to be), and since schools will often go see it for a field trip, you'd think she would have seen it at least once before, nope. So for part of her Christmas present- I took her to see it.
*NOTE* I forgot my camera... my iPhone had to do.

We first showed up at the wrong theater (doh!), but luckily the correct theater was a short walk away.


It was beautiful and the dancing was superb.

Needless to say- she loved it! We had a great time and enjoyed talking "dance" for a little bit after.


How was your weekend?? Did you do anything fun??

A Look Back

Hey everyone! Are you having a good start to your week? Already ready for the weekend? haha! I'm guest posting over at A Lost Feather today. Sarah's blog is one of my favorites, so I highly recommend you hop on over!

Lately as the seasons have changed from Autumn to Winter, I've been daydreaming of warmer times. It's been so cold here, bitterly cold. I can hardly stand it, and I'm reminded why I don't love Winter. So today I'm going to step back to this past Summer. A time that seemed so perfect, adventurous, and warm. Well, as warm as you can get in Alaska. Which is where I spent a good part of my Summer.

If you weren't following me back then (most of you weren't) here's a summary:
My sister and her family lived in Alaska, but they were moving to the lower 48 in August. I knew it would most likely be the last chance I had to visit Alaska for a while, so I decided to put my life on hold and spend two months with them- then help them pack up and drive through Canada back to the USA. My parents even came up and stayed for a couple of weeks. Here are some of my favorite shots from that experience:
I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking... because there are a lot of them...






















Mmmmmmmmmmm... Good times. I'm feeling much warmer now. :) And if that wasn't enough for you, go ahead and enjoy this video I made of my trip. I still watch it on a regular basis...


P.S. Don't forget to enter the Rolled Up Pretty giveaway! It ends tonight at Midnight!

Thanksgiving-ness

How was everyone's Thanksgiving?! Or- How was everyone's Thursday?! :D I had a great Thanksgiving, it was a little different this year. Usually we get all dressed up, go see a movie, come home and eat dinner, then lounge on the couch. But there were no movies we wanted to see this year (my dad wasn't really excited about Breaking Dawn... Shocking?), and it was just my sister, mom, dad, grandma, uncle, and myself. (we usually have more people) So instead- my dad and I took the 4wheeler up into the hills before our early dinner. It was a lovely morning/afternoon in the mountains. My kinda day. :)


It was crisp and overcast. You could feel the temperature drop as we climbed.
(yes, that's a frozen pond)


I can't get enough of these mountains.


We also saw lots of wildlife! Now, I KNOW these pictures are TERRIBLE. But I had to zoom a lot. And my camera only has a 10x zoom before it starts loosing quality... Plus these animals would have ran if we had gotten any closer. So bad photos it is...
Wild Turkeys (how appropriate right?!) and mountain goats. Also some deer, but I didn't take any pics. I see them all the time.


If you look closely you can see the mountain goats to the side of me. 3 white dots. One is up higher and the other two are down lower.



Here's my dad! Gotta love his puffy orange coat. At least it kept us safe and easily spotted by those families who were in the hills practicing their shooting...


Here's a 360 degree collage from where we stopped. It's crazy how different Utah is. On the East we have the beautiful lush mountains and on the West we have the vast dry deserts.


Then we headed home and had our Thanksgiving feast! Mmmmmmmm....

Everything was made from scratch. My mom and grandma are awesome. She was practically finished by the time I'd offered to help. I need to be better at that. She starts the night before so it's not so hard the next day.

Sweet Potatoes with roasted Marshmallows
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Homemade Rolls
Jello
Homemade and homegrown Grape Juice
Turkey (duh!)
oh it was dellliiiiiissssssshhhh....


There was/is pie. But I didn't even think to take a pic. I don't like pie, so I just had second dinner... :/ haha! (don't judge me too much- our first dinner was really like lunch... haha!)

I'd love to hear how your Thanksgiving/ Thursday was! Please, do tell! :)

Happy SHOOOOPPPPIIIING!
Might as well enter the Poshlocket Giveaway while you're here! :)

Put Your Record On

Last night my family all gathered around as my sister had found a needle to replace the broken one on my parents old record player. It created quite the exciting night for us (we're that exciting...). They pulled out all of the old records that have been sitting in a box in the storage room for years. Memories of my childhood came flooding back as they pulled out all of the old Disney storybook records that I used to listen to. I can still see myself sitting on the floor, flipping through the beautiful vintage storybooks, while listening to beautifully told fairy tales.

Here are only a few of the records in their collection. These are all originals and very old...


look at all the vintage covers! Beautiful, right?!

We all had so much fun and will probably spend our evening doing the very same thing. My sister has already laid claim to everything... Apparently she did years ago. But I'm begging for the storybooks. It's a piece of my childhood that I distinctly remember and would love to share it with my future family.

Halloween Party! Costumes, Ghost Stories, and more!

Hey everyone! I hope you're having a fabulous weekend! I've got a few things for you today, but they're all AWESOME!! So I hope you make it all the way through. :)

Last night I was able to go to a party that my church was throwing for young single adults. I had a blast and was so glad I went. Two of my friends and myself planned our outfits to go together. They were a BIG hit!
idea via


ROCK, PAPER, & SCISSORS


The party was hoppin'...


There were a bunch of festivities going on as well as the dancing- a bonfire with ghost stories, "scary" movies (and by "scary" I mean PG-13), karaoke, limbo, as well as a pie eating contest (makin' me sick to even look at the picture), and a costume contest. We were the favorites to win and in the end a robot beat us... WHAT?!


There were a TON of people there and everyone was dressed in such amazing costumes! These are just some pictures that were snuck onto my camera...


Like I said, it was so much fun! I'm really glad I went!

Now, time to get even more into the Halloween spirit...

Do you believe in ghosts? I don't like to say either way... why tempt them?? If you don't, here are some ghost stories that might make you change your mind...

A little while ago my old ballet teacher Amy, posted on her blog a picture that her sister had taken while in England. I haven't forgotten this picture and I so I asked Amy if I could share it with you today. I stole her explanation of it too- I felt she could explain it better than I could:

"This picture still gives me the creeps.  When I first saw this picture, I screamed and my hair stood on end.  It is SO REAL!!! 

This is taken from a digital camera.  There was absolutely no doctoring done to the photo.

(Other than just cropping and enlarging the photo so you can see the faces better--it's blurry because it's about 7 years old and taken with a lower-quality digital camera.)

Look above the two girls' heads.

That is clearly another face.

A ghost. 

Here's the story:  My sister, Stacey, did a study-abroad in England.  They spent one day and night in Salisbury.  She and her friend sat on this bench outside a church.  Another friend was asked to take a quick photo.  As they were skimming through the photos the next morning, they saw the ghost.  They did some research and found out that they were sitting on an old, buried graveyard.

Look and the clarity of the face above the two girls.  It's not a double of one of the girls because, 

1) There would have been a double of EACH girl (and the bench for that matter),

2) The angle of the face is different from each girl, and 

3) You can just make out different clothes (old fashioned?) that the ghost is wearing.

It looks like he (she?) just wanted to pop in and be in the picture.

(I have had some people mention and point out there they see TWO ghosts in the picture.  Just to the left of the tree, there is a resemblance of a figure there.  Maybe.)"

via Amy and Stacy

What do YOU think?

A couple days ago Lauren shared some videos of "ghosts at Disneyland" on her blog and I couldn't resist sharing them too.

Do you see the "person" walking around?! What?!


As I was watching this a second time it looks as if the hitchhiking ghost is wearing a cast member name tag... and I would know what those look like!


This ones a little harder to see. But CRAZY if you can see it. Looks as if the ghost is having a fun time watching all the scared guests faces until- it just disappears...


Can anyone explain those??

Ok, back to the fun and games. :)

The other night my mom held her annual Halloween Witches Party. This is where she gets a bunch of friends from our neighborhood together, they all dress up as witches (I did her makeup and hair this year), and they have dinner etc. This year it was a Bunco party...


They're all awesome. :)

I have to add in this picture of my sister and her family in their Halloween costumes. It is just TOO cute!! Look at my niece/the chicken's feet! Rubber gloves! Hilarious! My niece/the chicken won the costume contest at their party! :D

Well, sorry it was such a long post. But I had so many things to show you! It was just my way of throwing a little blogger Halloween party. But I'd love for you to join by linking up any of your Halloween themed posts!



Happy Sunday everyone!

P.S. If you haven't entered the Printed Peaks Giveaway- do so now!