MIA

I'm in Utah! We're staying with Jason's family and having a blast! My family is driving up from CA today so once they get here we're going to be splitting our time just a little bit.

I didn't bring my laptop on this trip because there wasn't really a reason to, so I'll be MIA for about a week.

But stay tuned for posts about:

 our awesome trip, going to temple square, my 25th birthday (FRIDAY!!), going to a BYU Basketball game, and New Years!!

Christmas Guest

This is a beautiful poem that my family always hears on our old school Reba Christmas Cd. It shares a great message!

Please read and enjoy!

It happened one day at December's end
Some neighbors called on an old-time friend.

And they found his shop so meager and mean,
Made gay with a thousand boughs of green.

And old Conrad was sitting with face ashine.
When he suddenly stopped as he stitched the twine.

And he said "My friends at dawn today,
When the cock was crowing the night away,

The Lord appeared in a dream to me.
And He said, 'I'm coming your guest to be"

So I've been busy with feet astir,
Strewing my shop with branches of fir.

The table is spread and the kettle is shined,
And over the rafters the holly is twined.

And now I'll wait for my Lord to appear;
And listen closely so I will hear,

His steps as he nears my humble place.
And I'll open the door and I'll look on his face."

Then his friends went home and left Conrad alone,
For this was the happiest day he had known.

For long since his family had passed away.
And Conrad had spent many a sad Christmas Day.

But he knew with the Lord as his Christmas guest,
This Christmas would be the dearest and best.

So he listened with only joy in his heart,
And with every sound he would rise with a start,

And looked for the Lord to be at his door.
Like the vision that he had had a few hours before.

So he ran to the window after hearing a sound,
But all he could see on the snow covered ground

Was a shabby beggar whose shoes were torn.
And all his clothes were ragged and worn.

But old Conrad was touched and he went to the door
And he said, "Your feet must be cold and sore.

I have some shoes in my shop for you.
And I have a coat to keep you warmer, too."

So with grateful heart the man went away.
But Conrad notice the time of day

And he wondered what made the dear Lord so late,
And how much longer he'd have to wait.

Then he heard another knock, and he ran to the door,
But it was only a stranger once more.

A bent old lady with a shawl of black,
And a bundle of kindling piled on her back.

But she asked only for a place to rest,
a place that was reserved, for Conrad's great guest.

But her voice seemed to plead, "Don't send me away,
Let me rest for awhile this Christmas Day."

So Conrad brewed her a steaming cup
And told her to sit at the table and sup.

After she had left, he was filled with dismay
For he saw that the hours were slipping away

The Lord had not come as He said He would
And Conrad felt sure he had misunderstood.

When out of the stillness he heard a cry.
"Please help, me and tell me - Where am I?"

So again he opened his friendly door.
And stood disappointed as twice before.

It was a child who had wandered away,
And was lost from her family on Christmas Day.

Again Conrad's heart was heavy and sad,
But he knew he could make this little girl glad.

So he called her in and he wiped her tears,
And he quieted all her childish fears.

Then he led her back to her home once more.
Then as he entered his own darkened door,

He knew that the Lord was not coming today,
For the hours of Christmas, had all passed away.

So he went to his room, and he knelt down to pray.
He said, "Lord, why did you delay?

What kept You from coming to call on me?
I wanted so much Your face to see."

Then softly, in the silence, a voice he heard.
"Lift up your head - I have kept My word.

Three times my shadow crossed your floor.
Three times I came to your lowly door.

I was the beggar with bruised cold feet;
I was the woman you gave something to eat;
I was the child on the homeless street.

Three times I knocked, three times I came in,
And each time I found the warmth of a friend.


Of all the gifts, love is the best.
I was honored to be your Christmas guest.

Lately

So the past few days I've done nothing my lie on the couch with the stomach flu...LAME. So I got on my computer and decided to take some of the things I've been thinking about and make them into printables.

This first one is from the December visiting teaching message.

This quote really stuck with me:

Such an inspiring message for those of us who feel like what we do is never enough.

This is from an old VHS tape my family watched growing up called "My turn on earth." (Its MAJORLY old school.) I randomly get songs from it stuck in my head and this is part of my favorite song:

What a great reminder. Sometimes I feel like I have NO control over my life, 

but that's not true.

Here's the full song:

Funny Friday: Harry Potter Edition

I didn't realize how many funny Harry Potter things I had on my pinterest! 

There's a lot, but they're AWESOME!

Traditions

Lately I've been thinking a lot about traditions, because Christmastime is FULL of them. I didn't realize how many my family had until I had to explain them all to Jason 

once we were married.

-We get the decorations down the day after Thanksgiving
-When we decorate the tree we snack on M&M's that come in those tubes with ornaments on top.
-We listen to Bing Crosby when we decorate the tree, and Nat King Cole when we open presents.
-Buy a new ornament from Hallmark with the year on it.
-At some point we go to Candy Cane Lane to look at lights.
-decorating sugar cookies
-There's always some kind of candy to eat from our advent calendar.
-Getting PJ's from Mom and Dad to open on Christmas Eve.

Just to name a few. =)

I love all those traditions and we've pretty much kept them all, but the best part about being newlyweds is starting your own traditions.

(Our first Christmas 2010)

What Christmas is all about...

Its that time of year again! Christmas can be very stressfull when it comes to getting things done: wrapped, mailed, baked, decorated, delivered, etc. At church today there were some AMAZING talks given and it really got me back into the Christmas spirit.

Its easy to let the stress of things take over, but its always nice to get those little reminders of what Christmas is really about.

A few years ago I made this video when I was feeling down and very much not in the Christmas spirit.

 I love watching it because the music is beautiful,

and the pictures of Christ's life really strengthen my testimony.

So enjoy!

Funny Friday: TV edition

I love the pins from my favorite TV shows!

Reliving the funny parts makes me smile.

Wasn't Boy Meets World pretty much the funniest show EVER?!

I asked for more seasons for Christmas, I REALLY hope I get some!

(All these pins came from here)

Christmas Crafts

Crafting at Christmastime has got to be one of my favorite things to do. I even have a Pinterest board just for them.

Here's two of my favorites:

This wreath was SO easy to make, and it is now my FAVORITE decoration.

First you make a loop out of ribbon:

Stick a pin into the overlapping parts, pointing outwards:

 Stick the pin into the foam wreath until you can't see anymore white:

Isn't this so pretty?

Next is this cute tree:

All you need is a foam cone, hole punch, glitter paper, and push pins. It helped that the cone was already green so I didn't have to stress about covering it completely.

 I got the idea for this one from lollyjaneboutique

and you can find the tutorial here.

Christmas is coming fast...less than 10 days!

Funny Friday: Christmas edition

Happy Friday all! I decided that I should share some of the funnies I've found on Pinterest. Let me tell you, if you are ever bored or in a bad mood, just click on the "humor" category.

I literally cry from laughing.

Enjoy:

This one's not Christmas, but its so funny I had to share. It cracks me up every time I see it, because this is SO me:

  

O Christmas Tree

The past few days we've been decorating like crazy for Christmas. This is my absolute FAVORITE time of year. Anyone who saw our apartment last year knows that I might have gone a little over-board with decorations, but WHO CARES? Can you ever really have too many Christmas decorations? I think not!

Last night we bought our Christmas tree and had so much fun decorating it together.

Decorating the tree has always been one of my favorite traditions. My family has probably the best ornament collection there is. Each year we would pick out a few from Hallmark, and they're all really special.

We've started our own collection so far,

and these are some of my favorites:

1. Our First Christmas: I'll never forget our first Christmas together, glad we have this to remember!

2. Minion from Despicable me: aren't those guys the funniest?!

3. World Series Champions: This one makes me smile because the Giants winning the World Series was the greatest!

4. Germany: I like this one because I bought it years before I had even met Jason, and Germany is where he served his mission!

Funny how things work out. =)

We haven't bought our ornament for this year yet because the nearest Hallmark is in Idaho Falls. We're thinking about getting this one:

Because we both laughed till we cried when we saw this video:

Happy decorating!!

Happy Turkey Day!

Because my husband works at Walmart, he got scheduled to work from 11-8pm today. LAME! Luckily, he was able to get Wednesday off so we could still have a Thanksgiving.

First we had to get all this:

Then we picked the best turkey:

(Like the brand? We did!)

Then we had to soak our turkey in the brine overnight. That makes it so juicy! We decided the best way to keep it cool would be to put it outside. This was what we came up with:

(Yes those are jingle bells...to alert us if any wild animals

 trying to attack our bird!)

The Henderson's decided to come up and visit us from Utah. We were so excited to spend our day with family.

Here's how our day went...

Dad learned how to play mario kart.

Our kitchen was boiling lava hot, so the rolls went a little cray cray.

My sweet husband helped me make yummy side dishes.

We upheld the Farmer family tradition of doing a

1000 piece Wasaki puzzle.

and then we ATE!!

After our turkey coma's wore off, we played lots of games,

ate pie, and then went bowling.

It was such a fun day!

The highlight of the day was my father-in-law randomly busting out with his own rap to the beat of Ice Ice Baby, and then doing this:

 Of course I couldn't let a Thanksgiving go by without saying 
how grateful I am for all of my blessings!
The number one thing I'm grateful for is this:

My sweet husband is always so patient and loving, even when I'm not.

He has helped me so much this semester with all my crazy projects, and I'm so lucky he works so hard to support our little family.

Love you Sweetheart!

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Temple Printables

I found a blog today that has a tutorial for making Temple Blocks.

You can find it here at Lil' Luna's blog. What's totally awesome, is they have TONS of temples to choose from on their page.

Here's some of my favorites:

 

 

Oakland, Sacramento, and Salt Lake.

These would be great to put in your kids room as a

reminder to choose the right. You can easily find "your temple" and modpodge it onto a block! Super easy and cheap craft! Those are my favorite kind.

Weekend in Utah

I know it was a week ago, but I forgot to post about our short trip to Utah! We drove down on Friday and got there around 5:30. The drive was crazy, Jason and I witnessed an accident on the freeway. We saw a car literally side-swipe a bus, then slam against the median. 
Utah drivers be Cray Cray!!

We got to Provo safely and went to my sister Nellie's place. Here is where we were greated by the cutest face....

 This little Evie Bug is growing into such a little lady! She was so happy to see us, and talked our ears off from the moment we walked in the door.

We headed to our favorite Chinese food buffet in Orem for dinner with Nellie, Evie, Suz, and Ryan. We had fun catching up and laughing at all the cute things Evie did. 
Here's a few things:

-It was a buffet, so we all took turns taking Evie to pick out what she wanted, and every time we asked her if she wanted mashed potatoes she would hold up her hand (like to say stop) and go "Um...not yet." She did this like 4 times.

-We were all sitting at our table and Nellie was getting food and Evie saw her from across the room and started SCREAMING: "HEY! THATS MY MOM!" Over and over.

-The waiter gave us fortune cookies at the end and we all ate ours or gave them to Evie. Suzanne I guess hadn't eaten hers yet, and when she got up to use the bathroom, Evie bolts from her chair and snatches up Suz's cookie and eats it.It was like she had been waiting for the right moment to strike and that was it!

After dinner was over we said our goodbyes and headed to Jason's parents house about 15 minues away. We had fun chatting, playing games, and Jason's mom told me some HILARIOUS stories from when Jason was little. I'm REALLY scared to see how our kids turn out now, aparently he was CRAZY!

We also had fun giving Toby static-y hair!

We had a fun trip, just wish it had been longer. We had to leave Sunday afternoon because it was supposed to be bad weather.

Can't wait to see everyone again at Christmastime!