New looks

So Mark found the secret to looking younger (or older- I guess whichever you prefer)...

He went from this...



To this...



I think the facial hair makes him look much older, but he decided to shave it and I think he looks great either way! It kind of reminded me of when I got my hair cut about two weeks ago. One of the students that rides my bus (for work) said, "Hey I like your hair. It makes you look 10 years younger".

So I thought to myself, "Do I now look 13 years old, or did I look 33 years old before the haircut??"

School- what fun

I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, Woo-hoo!!!! I just finished my last test and I am officially completely done with my second to last semester of college!!!!!

And now......the side affects of too much studying. Sad, but true, I think I'll look at the back of my eyelids as well.



(He doesn't know I even took the picture)!

Fun Tag

1. My rock star name: *Bunny Escort*{First pet and current car}



2. My gangsta name: *Andes No-Bake*{Favorite candy bar and favorite cookie}



3. My detective name: *Red Dolphin*{Favorite color and favorite animal}



4. My Star Wars name: *Harwh of Singulair*{First three letters of last name and first two letters of first name then the word "of" then a medication you are on}



5. My superhero name: *The Blue Sprite *{2nd favorite color and favorite cola drink with "The" in front}



6. My Nascar name: *Phyllis Mariel Virgie*{First names of your grandmothers}



7. My "lover" name: *Curve skittles *{Name of your favorite perfume/cologne and your favorite candy}



8. Witness-protection name: *Lee John*{Mother's and father's middle names}

I tag everyone again! Have a great week!

Christmas Treats and Yummy Snacks

We always get into this baking/cooking extravaganza mode during the Christmas season. Mark wants to make every good recipe he finds and I don't complain because the stress of school is pretty much gone. So here are two of the latest recipes we have found. The first, "Texas Jalapeno Poppers" were discovered online at Mommy's Kitchen (link on blog) and they were yummy dipped in ranch dressing! MMMmmmmm....



Next: Truffles!



This "heaven in one bite" treat was a new one we tried from a recipe given to us by our sister-in-law Amy. Amy brought tons and tons of these truffles to our Harmon Thanksgiving last year in Salt Lake. Hers actually looked liked truffles though. We definitely need to work on our shaping skills. We ended up making four different (well five) different kinds; (not all shown in picture): mint chocolate, raspberry chocolate, raspberry dark chocolate, powdered sugar raspberry, and coconut!

They are quite the deceiving little treats though. It took us about five minutes to make each pan of filling and so of course we thought, "Man, this is going to be way easy". We ended up trying to dip the darn truffles and make them look good from about 8:00 pm to 4:00 am. Yep I stayed up until 4:00 am and still didn't finish! (yes I am crazy- won't be doing that again anytime soon). I woke up at 8:00 am this morning and finished after I put the roast in the crock pot. The reason it took up so long was because we actually made 7 pans worth (4 cookie sheets, 2 cake pans, and 1 8x8 pan). We need to learn some time saving skills from Amy. It's a good thing these truffles are soooo yummy: I'm still trying to decide if it was worth staying up that late (or early!)

Funny Story

So because Mark is the ward mission leader he has to go to PEC every Sunday morning, so he leaves the house at 10:00 and I don't come to church until 12:00. So as I was getting ready this morning after Mark had left, my phone rang. The caller ID read, "Missionaries" and I was wondering why the missionaries were calling me as I answered the phone. The voice on the other end said, "Hey, hot stuff"; (I felt like my heart stopped), so what would your reaction be if a missionary said that to you?? I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. And then the voice said, "This is Mark".

After my heart stopped racing and I realized who it was, I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Yeah for good times!!

I'm It: Christmas Style

"On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."

1 embarrassing moment: Okay, this was a recent embarassing moment that happened probably about a month or so ago. Mark and I were at the church preparing for a baptism (Mark is the ward mission leader) and so we were filling up the font. When we were in the relief society room where there are back doors to the bathrooms I really needed to go, so without thinking about it I walked into the bathroom, closed the stall door (because you walk right into a stall from the back door) and did my business. Well when I opened the door to go wash my hands there was a 14 year old boy standing at the sink. You should have seen the look on his face when I opened the door. It surprised me as well and I quickly said, "Oh, I'm sorry" and turned and walked out the back door into the relief society room. You guessed it, I used the boy's bathroom, for the first time in my life, (give me a break, there's no sign on the back doors!) So I went into the girl's bathroom laughing and as I was washing my hands, I heard the boy out in the hall talking to his friends and he said this, "I'm not kidding, there was girl in there!" So as I went back into the relief society room and sat with Mark and studied, a bunch of adolescent boys and girls started coming through the back doors of the bathroom into the relief society room and out the relief society room door into the hallway a few at a time (probably to get at a look at the girl who used the boy's bathroom!)


2 best friends: Mark and my family

3 things I buy regularly: milk, bread, tomatoes

4 places I want to go: Korea, Europe, New York, Nauvoo

5 goals for the upcoming year: graduate college (in May!!); eat healthier; save money; start working out again (and keeping it up); learn a new craft.

6 things most people don't know about me: I love watching "The Andy Griffith Show" (I have 2 of the seasons); I don't like pie all that much; I drink at least one glass of chocolate milk a day; I own 11 hoodies; my favorite food is cottage cheese!

7 things I would never say: Any seven swear words (I won't write them, so use your imagination)

8 things I love about the Christmas season: Focusing on the Savior and remembering Him; spending time with family; wrapping presents; keeping secrets from Mark about what I bought him; Christmas goodies; Christmas meals; NO SCHOOL!!!

9 things I say to my kids (Mark): "I love you babe!"; "I miss you"; "I don't care, you decide"; "I'm so funny, don't you think I'm funny?"; "It's too bright in here!" (at bedtime); "While you're up, can you get me.....?"; "I have so much to do, I HATE group projects" (I had a lot this semester); "Thanks for doing the dishes"; "What should we have for dinner on Sunday?"

10 things I do a lot: Homework, cook, homework, grocery shop, homework, eat, homework, relief society, homework, watch movies and cuddle with Mark (did I mentione homework?)

11 things I would rather not live without: Mark, the gospel, my warm house, family, my hair (haha), my education (I know I complain a lot), my future kids, the Book of Mormon, chocolate milk, clothes, food

12 people I tag: Cambree, Stefany, Kerri, Erin T., Linz, Kym, Cherry, Erin D., Carlie, Kyla, Jackie, Vicki

Do you notice anything different???

Like my hair???

I got 6 inches cut off and bangs!! I haven't had bangs for years and I really needed a change. We're talking like I haven't had my hair cut in a little less than a year (I got it cut on Dec. 18th last year). It feels so good and healthy!

Happy Holidays!

I know I just barely posted about our adventerous Thanksgiving, but I wanted to blog about our few, but cute Christmas decorations that we have actually had up since the 16th of November. We usually wait until right before Thanksgiving Break (because we want our decorations up when we come back from break) but we got really rambunctious and excited this year. Plus that was an easy time to put up our decorations since we have been crazy busy with all of our finals and projects.

This is one of our small nativity scenes and a cute decoration.



Here are our stockings (I actually made- with my mother's help of course!) and our other nativity.



Here is our entryway between our kitchen and living room with our table.



And, here is our tree!




We are so excited for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Break

How lame am I? Both mine and Mark's family's came through and stayed with us in Laramie during the break and I didn't get a single picture!! So this will be a pictureless post (sorry- I always love looking at other's pics)

Anyway I'll give a breakdown of our Thanksgiving week.

Tuesday night Mark's family stayed with us. Well when I went to fill up the air mattress they would be sleeping on, our air pump did not work (which I thought was interesting because it is brand new). Well turns out you have to charge it for 10-12 hours prior to first use. 10-12 HOURS??!! Yes and Mark's family would be here in 2 hours, so that did not leave me much time. I quickly gave my good friend Steph a call and she lent me theirs (thank goodness) because I did not want to have Mark's parents sleeping on the floor and I do not do well on the floor.

Wednesday morning, Mark's family left for Omaha Nebraska where our brother and sister-in-law live. My family came through on Wednesday evening about 4 pm and visited for about 30 min. before heading to Loveland Colorado where my mom's brother lives.

Wednesday night- we got tired of doing homework (or trying to do homework) and went to Twilight.

Thursday morning- off to Loveland Colorado for a scrumptious Thanksgiving. We stuffed ourselves with the good old Turkey, potatoes, rolls (thanks mom!) veggies, shrimp and green chili over rice (not the traditional Thanksgiving side, but it was soooooo good!!!) Thursday evening, Mark drove back to Laramie to continue studying for the four tests he has this week (Good Luck Babe!) Thursday evening, we (me, mom, sisters, aunt, cousins) went to Twilight again...

On black Friday we went out shopping at 6 am (which is very early for me!) I finished shopping for Mark though, which is always a good feeling. Later that day as my family and I were leaving we went to Lowe's and found this little beauty (I know I said no pictures...whoops!)





That's right folks....my very own waffle iron!!! This isn't just any waffle iron, these types are very hard to come by. You know, the kind that makes the flat, big, yummy waffles. Not like those thick, dry waffles. No thanks. My parents bought it for me for my birthday (I know it's not until January) but she's a beauty and will surely be put to good use.

So then my family and I traveled to Cheyenne on our way back to Laramie on Friday afternoon and stopped to see my cousin's family. Funny story: They have a three year old boy and he is hilarious. Not even joking. He does the funniest things, for example, he was playing catch using a football (a small soft one) with my little sisters and he licked the entire football and then threw it at them; and then (it gets better) his dad told him that we would never come visit again if he licked his football. So he wiped it off with his shirt and said, "all clean" and then threw it at them again. (okay, so you had to be there- this kid makes me cry because I laugh so much)

On our drive through the summit between Cheyenne and Laramie we hit some nasty Wyoming weather and were going like 50 mph down the interstate. It was icy and blizzardy (ugly!) We finally arrived in Laramie, went to Carl's Jr. for dinner and came home and played Clue. Then on Saturday, we all went to the UW vs. Denver boys basketball game and UW won! GO POKES!!

Saturday night we ate some yummy tacos and played more Clue. On Sunday morning my family left and on Sunday evening Mark's family came back through. Because the roads were so terrible they stayed on Sunday night and left Monday morning.

We're glad everyone traveled safely!

Anyway that was our busy Thanksgiving break!