Merry Christmas!

Merry merry Christmas to all! -Yes it has past, but it is still December you know.-
This year was our first Christmas. So precious!
With it being the first, I was determined to do things my way. Well, our way. Which turns out to be my way because Tom said, "Honestly, I couldn't care less what colors are on our tree. I trust you." More or less anyway that is what he said. I had the most difficult time trying to decide how I wanted our tree decorated. Red and gold? Red and white? Blue? Purple? I was seriously stressing about it. But one day, I was on Pinterest and I found some cute DIY ornaments that I wanted to try. I told my mom about it and she was all in for the project too! We had a lot of fun with the whole thing.

If you know my mom at all, she is not super crafty. Don't get that confused with creative though! She certainly is that, but she doesn't care to spend too much time with little craft projects. So I made sure to document this occasion.


They turned out pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. With the exception of one... But luckily this great camera that I have still made it look pretty good. So I'll just let you believe that.


We found our tree on Black Friday at Big Lots of all places. I was hesitant at first, but by the time we got it home and all set up, I was very very pleased with our purchase. I'm so excited to incorporate the pinecones and holly berries -yes, just like the song that will now be stuck in my head.-


Can you see the cuties? I love them. They make our tree unique too.



Christmas was spent with my mom this year. We had a lot of fun both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. She made a lovely dinner on the 24th of Crepes! I adore breakfast for dinner. Nothing is better with crepes than strawberries and whipped cream. But did you know that they also double as a wonderfully moisturizing face mask? My sister enlightened us.


We opened one present that night, then went our way. Christmas morning I was up bright and early with one thing on my mind: Cinnamon Rolls. Tom's family always had a tradition of cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk on Christmas morning. I loved the idea and wanted to try my hand at making them from scratch. They turned out pretty good for a first attempt, thanks to a great recipie from my sister-in-law. And even better, they were a complete surprise for Tom! But I still can't believe he slept through all the clanging pans and other such ruckus from our kitchen.


And so, after opening our presents -mostly empty boxes... we didn't have our mothers around to tell us we couldn't open our presents yet. oops.- we had chocolate milk in our matching Christmas cups and cinnamon rolls. Yum yum.

Many wonderful Christmas memories were made this year, our first year, that we will never forget. The toys and the clothes and the other gifts are all great, but nothing compares to the time spent with family. (Cue photos.)











And beyond family, there is nothing greater than the reason for the season, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
"And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger..." Luke 2:7

We got a Christmas card from our Bishopric that had a wonderful quote from President Monson:
"As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always."

May you all have the Spirit of Christmas through the coming year.
Merry Christmas!
From: The Chambers.

Sardines Are Icky...

I love my husband. I really, really, truly do. He's so good at helping me expand my tastes, especially in food. I don't like olives, so Tom always takes the oppurtunity to help me practice eating them, in hopes that someday I will grow to like them. The same goes for other items such as baby corn, vienna sausages, and -you guessed it- sardines...


In Louisianna Hot Sauce no less. Because, you know, everything is more appealing in Louisianna Hot Sauce.


CAUTION: When eating sardines for the first time, under NO circumstances should you smell them...


They stink. But that is not the worst part.


Wait until you open the can and see them for the first time.




If that doesn't convince you that these little buddies are delicious, I don't know what else will.


Who could resist that face? Obviously, my husband can because I still...


Ate them.

Really, sardines aren't that horrid. They actually taste a lot like tuna. Once you get past the scales and the bones and the fact that you are basically eating a whole fish, they aren't too bad. Though I still don't think I would recommend them.

All Hallows Eve, Turkey Day, and Black Friday

I know Halloween was ages ago, and is such old news, but I'm going to share ours with you anyway. It wasn't too exciting, but we still had fun. We started the Halloween season with my first attempt at making a wreath. I went to the craft store, wandered until I found things I liked, and then went home to put it all together. It wasn't perfect, but I was fairly happy with how it turned out.



We went to the Halloween store hoping to find some ideas for couples costumes. We didn't. But we found some pretty sweet masks instead. Here's Tom with a cigar, because, ya know, that's a pretty common sight.



And I have aged quite a bit since we've been married.



Together forever...



We finally decided on costumes mostly using things we already had in our closets. We are ourselves, in 60 years. Complete with glasses, curlers, and a pot belly.



Trick-or-Treat! -if you know Tom at all, you had better take the treat... :)

This year Thanksgiving was with the Chambers in Rexburg. Tom and I went up the day before and stayed the night at his parents house. Thanksgiving was great with great food, great fun, and great family. Lots of great times. To celebrate at our own little abode, I decided that I wanted to make a Thankful Tree to display our gratitude for all our blessings. First, we needed branches. We journeyed to the cemetery, where there are lots of trees with lots of branches. While we were there, we stopped to feed the squirrels. We thought we would do them a favor by giving them food when it seemed so scarce. I don't think they would have missed us a bit. Wow were those little guys chubby! I know they stock up for the winter and all, but these squirrels impressed me.





I know they aren't the best photos because I only had my phone, but I think you can kind of understand what we saw. If not, use your imagination. After that thrilling event, we gathered our branches and headed home. We were happy with our findings.



We got to work making our Thankful Tree, but not until we warmed up with some hot chocolate. I thought it turned out cute, and we are both excited to make a tradition out of the whole deal. It was also wonderful to sit and contemplate all the things we are thankful for. Our blessings are innumerable. Some examples were our apartment, our education and financial aid for this semester, piano music, unicycles, and of course, each other.



Thanksgiving Day we came back to good old Poky. We had an agenda, and that was Black Friday shopping. We had seen something that we wanted at Wal-Mart that was going on sale at midnight. In order to give us pleanty of time to find it, we went at 10:30 pm. And it was a good thing we did! There were so. many. people!! Yikes. We searched the store for an hour trying to find the items on our list. Finally, about 40 minutes to midnight we found it and jumped in line. We waited, and waited, and waited, and then, they started handing them out. Come to find out, they only had 6 in stock. Luckily, we were 4th in line. No problem there. Once we got it, we made a bee-line for the registers because we knew that would be crazy too. We were right. We made it just before the rush and managed to make it home about 12:20am. Not too shabby. I was thrilled with our purchases! One in particular...



Look at that beauty! Oh, I am in love with it. It is my new pride and joy. Tom was going to surprise me with a camera for Christmas, but he was worried he wouldn't get what I wanted, so he enlisted my help. I was just so happy to finally get such a nice camera. I'm excited to put it to good use! And just in time for our first Christmas.... :)

I'm FALL-ing behind!!

Double-you, oohh, double-yoou.
I am really behind with this blogging deal. oops. Lemme fix it.
So, FALL! It has almost come and gone, believe it or not. Here's an update of mine and his crazy little lives over the past season.

September 15 -
That was Tom's birthday! The big 22. He's getting so old... He was excited to get a slightly early gift from his parents, and no matter how much I argued against it, he opened those gifts before his real birthday.



I promise he really was excited... That picture isn't too believable, but the next one is a little more convincing!




So that was a few days before his big day. On the real anniversary of his birth we had a little get-together with family at my mom's house. We had dinner and cake and ice cream, Tom's favorites of Burritos and funfetti cake of course.

Here he is blowing out his 22 candles... one... by.... one. Only Tom.



The birthday boy likes cake!! Bahahaaha. Such a great picture!



Tom's little brother Sam. We sure like him!



So, birthday festivities all over and it was back to what consumes most of our world - school. Tom and I are both going to school this semester, just taking a bunch of general classes. We managed to get all of our classes on only Tuesdays and Thursdays. That method has its ups and downs. It's great to have the days in between to schedule work, but it sure makes for long Tuesdays and Thursdays. This picture is proof...



Okay, so I do look pretty well put together that day, surprisingly. But I was more referring to my face. I look pretty sick of it.
But really, in the end, Tom and I still thank our Heavenly Father every night for the blessing that school really is. It is so difficult and stressful, but the opportunity to learn is really something and we're grateful that everything has fallen into place for us this semester.

But, with that great blessing it is, everyone still needs a little vacation every once in a while! Tom and I had a little weekend getaway to Salt Lake City over Conference Weekend. His first mission reunion was that Friday in Salt Lake, and we decided to stay the night and just enjoy some time away. We did a little shopping and stayed at the Kimball. Such a cute hotel. Unfortunately, we didn't pull out the camera until breakfast on Saturday morning at Denny's, so that's the only documentation we have.

From under the table -



And here is how Tom spices up breakfast. No boring eggs and bacon for him.



And those are the highlights so far of this fall season. We've had lots of fun with big events, but also small events too, such as making pizza for dinner. Nothing special, but we sure had fun.





With the end of fall just around the corner, we're sad to see the warm weather leave, but really excited for the holiday season! More seasonal stuff to come soon.... :)

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've had a tough week at work this past week. -For those of you that don't know, I work at the Front Desk at the Clarion Inn.- The gal that usually works the mornings took a whole 10 days of vacation time. Lucky. But, the story goes that she wasn't going to be able to because all the rest of the employess have school and can't work until the afternoon. Except one, who then agreed to work the whole week for her. The very next day, he gave his 2 weeks. He was out before she even left on her vacation. Bummer. So, I am the only employee that only has school on select days, Tuesdays and Thursdays to be exact. So I was asked to work Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday mornings from 6:00am - 2:00pm. And then, also on Thurday from 6:00am - 9:00am, which gave me just enough time to get to class from 9:30am - 3:45pm. That was a long day. Monday was a piece of cake with it being a holiday. Super slow. Wednesday was okay. Thursday was easy because it was only 3 hours. But Friday. Oh Friday. It was nuts. I woke up slightly frustrated already because of a crazy dream I had the night before and before I could get over that I ran into problems at work. And with just a combination of a million and one things, I texted Tom to declare mt "icky day" status. I finally escaped that nut house, and after helping my mom unload a lawnmower, I headed home. When I walked in the door, I had a most pleasant surprise...

My very favorite song in the whole wide world was playing on our little stereo. I started to tear up right at that moment, before I even closed the door. I looked in the kitchen and saw a big boquet of bright yellow and red flowers.



I found a note in our little love note book that explained what was going on.
"To the woman of my dreams," it started... The flowers were to help brighten my day and that is why he picked such bright colors. The bowl on the table was for me to have some ice cream. And then he told me to go and look at my laptop.

I followed directions and went to find my laptop. It was in the bedroom, along with our TV, hooked up so I could watch I Love Lucy. I love that show!



I turned around and found my side of the bed turned down, with another flower laying on my pillow.



Before I arrived home, Tom had made me promise that I would take a little nap, or at least lay down and rest. So I did just that. I changed out of my work clothes, got my bowl of ice cream, climbed in bed, and watched a great episode of I Love Lucy.

It was just a few of my favorite things, and now I don't feel.... so bad!

I absolutely love my husband. I love him to pieces and then all glued back together again. He's so kind and so patient with me and I can't thank him enough!!

A Sea (or Lake) of Blue Shirts

It's kind of old news, but Tom and I went to the Henderson Family Reunion 2011 in June. Friday June 17th to Friday June 24. We had a blast! It was great that both of us were able to get so much vacation time. 1 whole week plus the weekend. Yay!

We ALL (60+ at this little shin dig. Amazing, isn't it?) convene at Ideal Beach Resort in Bear Lake. We go to the beach, boating, water skiing, tubing, play in the pool, play volleyball, ultimate frisbee, bocce ball, baseball, tennis, go for runs, play night games, do crafts, treasure hunts... You name it, we probably did it.



Tom's favorite part of the trip was tubing and playing volleyball. He always likes to be active. But overall he said his favorite part was getting to know my family and little cousins better. He did so well! He was so determined to get to know names that I would quiz him every once in a while.






My favorite part of the trip was being with family and just being able to relax and have fun. Oh, and the lovely walk on the beach with my husband... I used to fantasize about that. Dreams do come true! It was really neat because the lake was SO CALM! It was calmer than I can ever remember seeing it. It sure was pretty. My sister Tavia took an amazing picture of it.



Every year we get new Cobandeh (Children Of Boyd A N D Ethel Henderson) t-shirts in a new surprise color! This year was blue! Monday, when everyone wore it, you could hardly tell us apart from the beautiful lake.



No family picture session is ever complete without the funny face one!



Family time is always fun time. We are looking forward to next year!