Temple square

Despite the cold weather and slippery roads, Christmas time is my favorite season of the year.  Christmas music, lights everywhere, and the constant reminder of who we celebrate this season for make this season fun and heart-warming.

Temple Square in Salt Lake City has the most beautiful display of Christmas lights and the most stunning life-size nativity scene.  Last Sunday evening Cody and I went to Temple Square with his sister and her beautiful family to see the lights.  We went just in time too, because two days later a huge snow storm came in and the weather dropped a good 20 degrees.


After watching the nativity scene we went inside and spent some time looking at a beautiful statute of Christ.  It was such a wonderful way to kick of this holiday by taking some time to think about the true meaning of Christmas that so often gets forgotten by the hustle and bustle of the season.  I'm so grateful for my wonderful husband and the great man that he is.  And for my family and all the blessings we receive all year-round.
 

Budgeting

We are planning on buying a house in Grantsville this summer which is super exciting, but also it means that we will be paying a lot more for our mortgage than we are paying in rent right now.  Wanting to make sure we don't become "house poor" we have decided to kick our budgeting up a notch so we can practice living as if we were paying a mortgage. 

We came up with this clever little chart where we have allotted ourselves a carefully calculated budget and then we just deduct what we spend.  That way we are both aware of what we have spent that month and what we still have.  Then whatever money is left over for that month we save, so that when we run into trouble (say a car needs expensive repairs) we have the money.  Or if one month we need extra gas money (say we drive down to Cedar to visit Cody's families for a holiday) we already have the money saved up and we don't need to stress!  So far it has worked out wonderfully!

All Hallow's Eve

This month was really busy with work and school so I didn't manage to find any time to carve a pumpkin.  My brother as it turns out has no memory of ever carving a pumpkin.  So on Halloween night my brother came over and we carved a pumpkin together!  Neither of us have a lot of experience with carving pumpkins, but we figured it out- although there was a bit of learning curve to it. 





When we were little we used to carve pumpkins as a family and my mom would bake the seeds.  My brother decided we should try our hand at it and surprisingly they turned out really good.



The final product!

Halloween party

The perfect chocolate chip cookieAmy Reiter

 

Tonight Cody and I went to a family Halloween party.  The highlight for me was seeing my nieces in their adorable little costumes.  All three of them dressed as Disney Princesses. 

 

Whitney dressed as Merida from Disney's Brave and wore a big curly red wig.  She got tired of all the adults calling her Reba (a comparison I'm sure she did not get,) and threw her wig on the table and walked away.  So...my sister-in-law Kory put it on the baby, Zoe.  And here is what we got:

 

The cutest Little Mermaid ever!  What A Doll!

Minion Pumpkins

Since Halloween is coming soon, this week Michael's hosted a pumpkin painting activity.  Two of my co-workers painted minions.  They turned out awesome!

What a girl wants...

For some reason last night I was just really craving something sweet.  So I mentioned to Cody my craving and he said he would be right back.  Oh bless his heart he ran out to get me a treat while I finished up the dishes. 

He came back with 4 pints, 4 wonderful flavors of delicious Ben & Jerry's ice cream!  And then we sat in bed and ate ice cream while watching Home Improvement.  What a stud I married! I could not ask for a better partner.
   

If you don't want to wash the dishes...

Ever read Shel Silverstein's poem about washing dishes?  It goes something like "If you don't want to wash the dishes, break the dishes on the floor and they wont ask you to do the dishes anymore."

My husband was trying to break up a half frozen chunk of meant this evening, so he slammed it against a plate.  I was right about to warn him not to when he did it, and it shattered my plate!  I knew it wasn't a good idea but I had no idea this would happen!

On the bright side, (for him) I wont ask him to thaw the meat anymore ;)