so far so good

the Christmas season of 09 has treated us wonderfully. at first brett and i were planning on junking out and staying in bed all Christmas day. but lately all of our holidays have been planned at the LAST MINUTE. 2 days before Christmas we found out my cousin scott and his wife katy from back east were down in Utah visiting katy's family and they invited us over for dinner on Christmas! it was convenient to go there anyways since we were going to SLC for my nieces' sealing. but i was thrilled. getting to spend Christmas with family (even though i didn't really know katy's fam) and have Christmas dinner. we ended up driving most of Christmas day to Alpine, UT. it was so nice seeing my cousins scott and katy again. it was a small taste of my huge family that i miss from out east. since brett and i were out and about in ut for Christmas day we did our "presents exchange" pretty much when we went shopping and didn't bother wrapping them. brett got some doc. marten shoes that'll count for his future 10 Christmases. and all i asked for were knee high socks from the gap. it was a great Christmas.

after Christmas we got to hang out with some of brett's side of the family. brett's brother darren and his wife, cyndi, just adopted 2 cute girls and had their sealing to the family in the Salt Lake Temple. it was such a neat experience. i absolutely love my in laws. i thank my lucky stars that i have such awesome in laws. seriously, before i even met brett i watched the movie monster in law and that horrified me. i was SO scared to be related to some crazies. but they all turned out to be quite the opposite. they are truly wonderful and i'm so grateful for them.

so the following pics are pretty much the only pics taken of our vacay so far. my 9yr old niece, ieshia, and i played dress up with all the jewlelry i brought.

ieshia, her sister nicole, and i are the only brownies in the family.

its awesome

when she asked me where i had gotten all my jewelry i told her brett bought most of them for me, and she's like, do you know that he's just wasting your money too? ohhhhh the young innocence of children

love her!

i never believed

in SANTA that is....

i never trusted that old fat man in red. eh it didn't help when my dad would go around the house singing, "here comes fat fake here comes fat fake!" my dad just didn't want us believin in santa claus but hey i turned out all right? right?

lately i've been a bit grinchy about Christmas. i am absolutely SICK of Christmas music. the Christmas fun has died because i'm sure i've heard 20 variations to every Christmas song while working at jamba. at the beginning of the month i was super excited for the festivities, especially cuz jamba was AMAZINGLY decorated. i was SO excited to go to work everyday! our apartment, however, was not amazingly decorated. there was a moment when i was really excited to decorate the apt but that quickly evaporated. we don't even have a Christmas tree. we were gonna get a real one with our friends, the kelloggs, but i thought it would be silly to get one when we'll be leaving right on Christmas day. i was actually really heartbroken we weren't gonna have a Christmas tree this year. i've never had a Christmas without one. so this is one of the main reasons why i've been a grinch. yeah we could've gotten a fake one but we don't wanna have another clunkin thing to haul when we move...blah blah blah. there's always next year huh? but i am excited about spending Christmas with Brett doing nothing! we will be junking out and watching delightful Christmas movies. those i can't get sick of. we're also planning on going to SLC after Christmas for the sealing of my nieces to my bro-in-law and his wife. we're way excited for that.

this delish delight are the white chocolate cranberry blondies i made for our friends, brandon and rachel's white elephant party. the blondies turned out a bit doughy on the bottom but they were still RICH and lethal. SOOO good!

brett and i hope you have a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS and an awesome NEW YEARS!

♥

shakin it and lighting it up!

such an eventful week last week. its weird how i'm done with school yet i still have SO much going on! mostly because i've been doing the polynesian club thang this whole semester, and i hope to continue with it until brett and i leave rexburg once and for all. so up on campus we had a culture night consisting of our poly club, the indian association, the african association, and the latino association, and i believe thats it... but it was a blast. it was pretty much our last "major performance" for the semester. so thats why it was a little stressful for me last week. i got to do this way cute tahitian dance with my 2 good friends katie and alena.

i've been in the PCA for about 3 semesters now, i started 2 summer semesters ago and have gained such great friendships, a greater appreciation for different cultures, and learned some sweet polynesian dances.


and then it was PARTY TIME!!!!
brett turned 24! i can't believe it, he's getting old yet 24 is def really young.

we decided to have an asian invasion dinner night for brett's birthday bash! we had the party at the cougar court lounge so that we could have more room for our close friends that came...i fried my famous filipino lumpia (which i didn't burn, they just give off a lot of smoke) for the festive occasion and in so doing this is what happened...
i set ALLLLLLL the fire alarms off in the whole cougar court complex.... i was mortified. especially when the cops and the firemen showed up. but after the whole incident i couldn't stop laughing about it. our manager looked really pissed though. brett had to go to the church and grab him from his ward Christmas party so that he could turn off the alarms...sorry manager dude but next time how about adding a vent over the stove?
the shi-fu! katie made this delightful beverage for the party.

i surprised brett with a DQ birthday cake and i wasn't gonna light the candles after what just happened, but katie and gwen convinced me so i lit them up. but being afraid of setting the place on fire again i pretty much just ran to brett with the cake and half the candles blew out by themselves. sorry brett (i REALLY don't think he cared)

happy birthday boy! hopefully next year the cops and firemen won't come to your birthday party.

hey mom

happy birthday m♥mmy!

thanks for being my best friend (next to brett) and for always having your phone on hand in case i need to call you for ANYTHING. its always fun to call you with any random questions i have especially when it comes to cooking. i love the fact that we can share our passion for cooking now that i'm married. i never truly appreciated how hard you slave in the kitchen to cook our family delicious meals everyday. thanks so much for that. and i know i'll be slaving away too when i have a family in the future. you are the master chef and i hope to be as good as you one day.

i know you and i have had our ups and downs...but i ALWAYS treasure the ups! sorry i was such a piste han before and you know, i'll probably be a piste han in the future too...so i'll just apologize now. i like making fun of tootsie with you and reviewing movies. i miss watching movies with you all the time.

thanks so much for the wedding of my dreams! that was such a fun and magical day. thanks.
i can't wait to share even more memories with you!

peace out girl scout. i seriously hope i look as good as you when i'm your age.

I LOVE YOU!

rollin with the homies

i attempted my dad's world famous rolls for our ward Christmas party tonight.

it took me all morning and stressed the crap out of me. i wish i really paid attention to how my dad made them.

during the long and difficult process of kneading the dough my bowl of flour fell off the table and onto the carpet.

i screamed.

our table is completely dumb. mainly cuz we bought it from wal-mart.

i thought i had no hope in finishing these freakin rolls.

but with brett's help with rolling out the dough they turned out AMAZING!! i think i got an ab workout from all the kneading, so thats a plus too.

most definitely the rolls weren't as good as my dad's but i know one day they will be!

also this is the same recipe used to make my dad's ultimate world famous cinnamon rolls. so now i'm a little more confident to attempt his cinnamon rolls now!

its the Harry Potter weekend on abc family.

awesome.

the only thing keeping me alive

a few weeks ago brett and i bought a hot chocolate mixer. it was a NECESSITY. i seriously suck trying to make it myself using the microwave. the magical ingredients never gets completely mixed, that is, when i make it. our mixer gets the job done and PERFECT in just a few minutes. it's been one of the best investments i've ever made in my life. why the heck didn't i buy one when i was single and even lazier to make some delicioso hot cocoa during the cruel and torturing months of rexburg winters?

a cutie snowman filled with warm goodness makes a horrible cold day a heck of a lot better.

oh yeah, brett def helps with that too.

p.s. rexburg was 0 degrees this morning. sux. brett, get me out of here and lets go to texas please? thanks, love you!

p.s.s. brett kindly reminded me that it was actually -2 degrees this morning and that tomorrow it'll be -6/-7 degrees.

gee thanks ya poop