Temple Square

Last night, I went to Temple Square with the Thurber family and Amy. As usual it was BEAUTIFUL! We had a lot of fun at the gateway, seeing the lights, touring the Joseph Smith memorial building, taking a carriage ride around temple square, and just being together. Thanks for inviting me Thurbers!

La Navidad!

I love Christmas at my house! No matter whether it's a small number of our family who comes or everyone, it's always a time full of laughter and cheer. This year we had a small number, but that didn't stop us from having a good time. On Christmas Eve, we had our usual big dinner and then picked parts for the annual portrayal of "the Nativity." As always, that was a fun part of the night, but this year(possibly due to lack of number) was quite a bit more reverent than years passed...

The Shepherds

A wise-girl

Wise-girl #2 and baby Jesus

Baby Jesus?

The entire cast

We had our second annual year of playing chimes that my dad made last year for Christmas.

Exchanging gifts with the Thurber family on Christmas Eve

CHRISTMAS MORNING:

Even though we are all old and grown up now, we still have to wait on the stairs until given the ok to go see what Santa brought

This year he brought a lot!

Playing with our new toys

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Dia de Acción de Gracias (a.k.a Thanksgiving)

This Thanksgiving was a really epic one! My brother Ben, his wife Jess, and their two little boys Logan and Dane made the trip from Arizona to come visit and spend Thanksgiving with us. We had so much fun with them while they were here! I have so many pictures that I wanted to put on here that I decided to make several collages highlighting some of the events that took place while they were here so as to not have a super long post.

The day of arrival for the Bryner's was one of epic proportions. A big blizzard(supposedly the storm of the century) was set to hit Utah and everyone took it seriously. Schools and businesses shut down halfway through the day so everyone could get home and hunker down for the storm. By 1:00 we were all beginning to wonder if this big storm was really going to hit. It did; fast and hard. It was snowing so much and the wind was blowing so hard you could hardly see anything out the window besides whiteness. I wouldn't say we had the storm of the century everyone was predicting, but I sure was grateful to be inside a warm house and not out in it. Logan and Dane loved watching the storm from the windows and the next day when the storm was gone, they went outside and played in their own snow heaven.

Thanksgiving day proved to be a day full of not just turkey, but family, fun, and of course, sleep! My aunt Bonnie, Aunt Loene, Uncle Jim, Cousin Jerry and his little family drove up to Logan to celebrate the day with us. We had a lot of fun visiting with them and the five kids loved playing together.

Thanksgiving night we had our lighting ceremony outside to show off our new decorations. The little boys loved it! All that was missing was some good old Griswald family schemes... I think the house looks so cute!

The day after thanksgiving we went down to the farm and picked out our tree. It was cold, but fun and we have a beautiful tree now.

Happy Holidays!!!

The Small Things

It's the small things in life that make me happy. For example, the hour I got to spend babysitting Meile and Chloe Thurber on Friday. We had SO much fun together!

We pretended to be Willy Wonka

(We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

We made silly faces for the camera

And the girls played dress-up

Can life get better than that?

Thith Potht ith for Cathey

Life is always a party when you're at the Thurber house! You never know what to expect when you are over there. That being said, I would like to dedicate this post to my cousin Casey. We share the same birthday and both went to speech therapy for our S's(hence the title of my post) so we have a tight bond. I never know what surprises await me when Casey's around...

Like this:

Or this:

I love you cousin! Thanks for being my friend!

Halloween Magic

Halloween this year was as epic as it can be when you have to work all weekend. I closed both Saturday and Sunday. The highlight of this Halloween weekend was forgetting my mountain of homework to spend time with my aunt Bonnie and aunt Loene who came up and spent the night on Friday. We relaxed together, went shopping, and of course, out to eat! Probably the best part of the weekend was when Bonnie helped me put my hair in paper bags to curl it for my halloween costume that I wore to work. Honestly, I think it was torture for both of us(mostly Bonnie), but it was well worth it! Thanks Bonnie! You're the best!

Here is my hair all done up with paper bags.

While I was researching the best method to get big, curly hair that would stay curly for the two days I needed it to, I found a video on paper bag curls. At the end of the video, the girl said that if you sleep with a shower cap on, it will ensure the bags stay in place. The bags did indeed stay in place, but my hair was still very wet when I woke up and took off the shower cap! I had to go to a breakfast date with my friend Whitney that morning and did NOT want to go Looking like the picture below. Luckily my two aunts saved the day and each took a blowdryer to my hair and got it ready and dry in no time. Don't always trust everything you hear in a youtube video...

Here is the finished product:

Drum-roll please as I unveil my costume...

Can you guess who I am? My mom decided she liked my costume too so she used it on Friday at the elementary school where she works. Can you tell we are related?

Here's what my hair looked like after day two of the curls. I was actually a little sad when I had to wash them out because once they relaxed a little, it looked really cute! Too bad it took so long to get them to look that good...

It's Been a Long Time Coming...

First, let me apologize for not blogging with more frequency. My life has been kind of boring lately. Just the past couple of weeks, my workload at school has increased to what seems like double it was before, and I have had more hours at work which has taken away some of the hours I previously had to do homework. Between all that, I have still been trying to find some time to relax and do what I want to do. Thank goodness I have my bestie, Alice Thurber, and Gilmore Girls(which we started watching together) to get my mind off of school. I know this is how life is when you are in college, but boy do I wish life could be simpler during times like these!

On a happier note, in exactly 26 days, the first part of Harry Potter 7 comes to theaters! In 3-D! I am BEYOND excited!!!

Here are some goings-on in my life:

1. K-mart has gone blue. Rather than wearing red, we now have to wear blue shirts. The good thing about this change is that I got to buy some new clothes. :) Here I am modeling my new look as a K-mart employee

2. I have cute purple glitter toes! I went and helped Alice and Casey glitter toe their three daughters and four nieces, and then got to do my own. This picture doesn't do them justice. They are SO cute!

3. I cut my hair. It's not too much different, but I think it turned out so cute that I had to post a picture. [Note: I have been unable to make it look that good since the stylist did it so it looks like my same old hair again.]

4. It is officially sweater weather here in Logan! I am not a fan of the cold, but I LOVE how in the fall you can just put on a cute sweater and not be cold or hot in it(especially when you have some cute new sweaters like the one below you can wear)!