Year 1 Gratitude List

I can not believe how quickly this year has gone by! (I wish the two years I was waiting could have gone this fast..) We have been very blessed in so many ways, and I am very lucky to have Spencer in my life.

I am grateful that Brooke puts up with me so well and that my family has not had to bribe her too much to make her stick around. She's the best company I could ever have asked for. It sure puts a lot of pressure on me to be the kind of husband that she deserves.

Together, we have created a list of the many things we are thankful for.

• Family
• fantastic Parents (specifically)
• being sealed for eternity
• the Gospel of Jesus Christ
• Spencer!
• Brooke :)
• a warm, comfortable place to live
• Pell Grants!
• good jobs
• education at the U
• our fun ward
• running water in the kitchen
• our new car
• No payments on our new car
• being in good health
• Sunday Skype calls
• financial stability
• Aaron and Jayde serving missions

Christmas Projects

I finally finished sewing our stockings today! It took me a while... and they aren't perfect, but they will do. Spencer picked out his own fabric and everything.

This is how they started. A newspaper drawing I made.

They did get better from here.

And now they are done and hanging on the wall.

My other Christmas project was at work. I did a lot of wrapping for the Huntsman Christmas party. We got a sweet Blue-Ray player from it, but I made Spencer wait before he opened it because I was so proud of all my work.

And that's all so far :) That I'm allowed to post.

Christmas Decorating for FHE

This year we were lucky and got our own Christmas tree. Kim Hicken was super nice and let us have a cute little tree. So for family home evening one night, we set it up. With Ryan's help too.

They both got upset because I wanted white lights on the tree. They claim I am racist because I didn't want the colored lights... **rolling eyes**

But I did let them put the colored lights in the windows, so everyone else can see them too.

This is our cute little tree :)

They put lights in the kitchen too...

And this is our super awesome Nativity set from Ecuador. Spencer's parents gave it to us for Christmas last year.

They did help me with the tree... by putting Spencer's lovely shot-gun shell ornaments up...

Halloween

This post is a little late, but better late than never.

Ward Halloween Party Treats :)

Our AWESOME couples costume! We won a prize for our costume. All of the little kids loved them too :)

Carving pumpkins at Grandma Wallace's

Fall Break Idaho Trip

To start off our Fall Break, we made a trip to Twin Falls, Idaho to visit the Wilcox Family. Sharla and David spoiled us and we had a great time!


The first thing we did after getting there... well we fell asleep first because we got there really late. But first thing in the morning we got up to do a temple session. 

Then we hung out with Odie. He likes us.

Sharla and David took us to Gertie's, because you can't go to Twin Falls without going to Gerties at least once. So we made sure to give Spencer the experience. Then Sharla and Luke took us around to see the sites.

We totally got wet walking under this waterfall!

I was being very careful not to lose Jayde's ipod over the bridge while I was taking pictures. So it's not a very good picture. But while we were at the Perrine Bridge, we saw two base jumpers throw their bodies over the side of the bridge, pull their parachute and land on a target area. It was pretty freaky.....but it was cool too.

This is the Perrine Bridge

We had a great time. Sharla and David took great care of us and totally spoiled us. We loved it :) Thank you guys!

Grandma Haslem

By this time last Monday, we were having family home evening with Grandma Haslem because she was brought by ambulance to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray. She had both of her hips replaced about 11 years ago, and last week, her left hip had just given out. So she had a difficult day and we went to see her. (Needless to say, the rest of her week was difficult too.)

Tuesday night, Jordan and Crysta went to visit Grandma the same time I did. We did a lot of catching up on life and hopefully kept Grandma company too. Spencer joined us after he was done with work. Every time Grandma would tell a story, I would grab a pen and paper and write down as much as I could!

Grandma ended up having surgery on Wednesday. Lots of family members were there to support her. Which is really good, because I felt badly that I couldn't be there. Julie actually ended up staying with her that night.

I got back to visit after work on Thursday. Spencer stayed home to study and go to lab. But Hanna met me at this hospital that night and we had the chance to talk for hours. We even made Grandma laugh quite a bit. I think she just got a kick out of us. But that's what we were there for. Grandpa Haslem rode out with Don and Wade that day and we got to visit with them too.

                                                                                                   I stayed with Grandma on Friday night. She said it was good for Spencer to be on his own for one night. I slept pretty well that night, even though they kept coming in to check on Grandma all the time. By Saturday, Grandma was just ready to get out of there. She really did not like the physical therapist who would come in and make her walk and move her leg around. I tried to cheer her on and tell her she was doing well. She said "These are the longest halls in Salt Lake City!" She also referred to the physical therapists as "the fun people". I read to her off and on while we waited for Arlene to pick her up. Spencer brought me lunch and by that time, Grandma was able to get some more rest. We stuck around to see her off.

Now Grandma is recovering at the Villa in Roosevelt.

We're hoping she will have a smooth and speedy recovery.

Culinary Creations

So I like to make stuff I find on Pinterest...Spencer doesn't mind because he gets to eat it.

The corn dogs turned out rather well. The recipe just made a ton of them! Luckily for us, Ryan conveniently stopped by right as we were sitting down to eat them.

In preparation for the week classes started, I made little pizza roll things. They turned out too!

I also made ham and cheese rolls, but I think I have already put those up somewhere so I didn't take pictures of that again. ha

 It was Spencer's idea to add spinach to them and I really liked that. I will definitely make these again. They were yummy and easy to grab after class!





Tonight, we were preparing to take a treat with us to Orem tomorrow. We're going to visit Grandma and Grandpa Wallace and we like to take yummy stuff to them because they are so nice to let us stay all the time. And they are also trying to gain some weight so we thought we would be kind enough to help with that. And we wanted a treat too. We made Fruit Pizzas!

This is the one I decorated :)

(he wasn't done yet..)

This is the one Spencer decorated :)

The only bad thing is that this weekend is Fast Sunday. So we were careful not to eat bits of anything as we were getting our creativity on. But now we have something awesome to take to Orem with us to start off the Labor Day weekend!