Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas 2013!

 Halloween was so uneventful for us this year! Every year I say that next year we will do something cute and then we never do. But we never have any parties or anything to go to and so I have no motivation to think of a cute costume and put forth any effort! But I do have fun decorating the house. Here's the Halloween decor this year!

I did hardly anything for Thanksgiving. Just our traditional gratitude leaves. We had Thanksgiving in Utah. That's my favorite because my grandma's cooking is SO GOOD. She taught me some of her secrets this year! I really am lucky because my grandma is amazing and teaches me so much!

This year was our first Christmas ALONE. We did Christmas Eve at the Cromwell's house for a few hours and it was lovely. Then we went home and did our own Christmas Eve and went to bed! Christmas day we slept in! It was glorious! We ate breakfast and opened gifts at our own pace. Later in the day George and Vauna and Jed stopped by. It was nice! I loved it!

 We saw the Forgotten Carols again this year, loved it like always!!

George and Vauna played Santa and Mrs. Claus at our ward party. They are the cutest Claus couple ever!

I have to show these because I was so proud of them. I learned how to use the band saw for the first time! It was a little scary, and a lot fun!

We went to great grandpa Harding's Christmas party! Love going to that! Good food, good company, good time!

We visited Great grandpa Powell to give her her gift from grandma and grandpa Hathaway. She is so fun to visit I adore her.

  

Back to our house, jumping around...

And a few pictures from Christmas day

This wasn't Christmas day, but our Christmas package from my family! Not everything but here are a few pictures,

Holidays are so much fun! I hope next year's holidays get a better tribute than this years!

Getting My Craft On For Christmas

For Christmas I made Jake a 52 Things I Love About You book, it was so much fun to make and it was super easy once I figured out where to buy everything I needed!

I bought a deck of cards from Elf Magic so that they would be Christmas cards, I got blue 1 inch binder rings from Porters, red and gold polka dot scrapbook paper from Michaels, and then double sided tape and photo printer paper from Staples. Oh, and I borrowed a hole punch with adjustable hole punchers from my inlaws which made the hole punching SO much easier.

I made the two joker cards the front and back covers and hole punched all the cards.

Then I cut out random sizes of my scrap book paper and taped them to each card (the double sided tape worked really well! I thought I was gonna end up modge podging them but I didn't). I did every other page gold and red. If I were to do this again (which I might because I made a list of 128 random things that I love about Jake so..... I might make a volume 2 later.) I would make them all the same size because it's kind of bugging me that they aren't when I flip through it. OCD. Er, CDO. I also would find cute paper that isn't textured, I don't know if you can tell in these cell phone pics but the polka dots are raised. It was kind of hard to write cute on.

For the 52 things I did some serious, some funny, some physical, some characteristic..... All sorts of random. Luckily, the red shows up much much better in person. This picture makes it look like you can't even read it. Oh and anyone who has met Jake has heard the duck voice I'm sure....

Then for the cover I used red and gold. For the inside of the cover I used gold and red.

For the back cover (this part was the hardest for me because I am technologically challenged and I had no idea how to print a size that would fit the card!) I printed one of our engagement photos (the one where I'm giving him the I Love You sign, get it?) and taped it to the card. Then I hole punched the card/picture. I don't know if I like that better or if I would have liked it better if I made the picture smaller so it didn't cover the entire card like I did with everything else.

So that's what I did! Super easy, super fun, Jake loves it. The other hard part for me was finding the time to make it when Jake wasn't around! And keeping it a secret until Christmas! I just wanted to give it to him right away! So much fun!

christmas break!

So here's a big ol' update!

I flew home to Baton Rouge for Christmas and I am SO HAPPY and SO SPOILED because Jake came with me! So here are about a hundred pictures summing up our week there!

The boys did tons of football playing.

Like every day.

Merlynn and Brycen came one day and of course Brycen and Jake were little buddies. (When I wasn't holding him anyways. I might have been a little bit of a Brycen hog. I missed him!! :) )

Merlynn was a really good friend to me my senior year. We went through a lot together. And I'm her child's baby daddy so you know we're close ;). I love Merlynn.

This kid was my LIFE in Louisiana. I completely adore him.

Matt and I played with brycen and Merlynn on the little playground thing in the backyard while the boys played football. I love little Matthew.

More Brycen and I. It was like this pretty much all day. I hogged him.

He got the biggest smile and did the cutest laugh when you took him down the slide. Ahhhhh I love it!!

On my dad's birthday we went to Baton Rouge!

We got to see tons of neat places!

This is the war memorial.

We goofed off a lot while in BR.

See? (Actually you can't see it's too dark. That's Jake, Sari and I.)

And more.

This was at the old state capital building I think... A really pretty place!

On Christmas Eve we watched The Christmas Story

Christmas morning we always line up before we can see if Santa came!

Jake drew this for me for Christmas and I seriously love and adore it! It's on my desk right now.

My favorite gift.... Jake's favorite gift. Haha!

The boys Christmas gifts lol.

We got to skype Jake's brother Jed who is on a mission! So NOW I have officially met EVERYONE.

We ate lunch at the Degraff's. It was delicious of course! I love Louisiana cookin'!

The kiddos at the Degraff's. All so cute.

More of Christmas day. I was so happy that Jake was with me. :)

Anyways.... Mammew and I on Christmas. I love love loooove Matt. I missed him!

After Christmas my uncle Jason, aunt Trina, and their cuties Aubrae and Zya came over!

We went to Bubba Gumps in New Orleans with them.

It was super cold (50*) and super yummy!

Jason, Trina, Aubrae, and Zya! Cute family!

Look at these two cuties!!!

Seriously.

This is all of us at Bubba Gumps!

A really pretty street in New Orleans!

This is the view from the parking garage- way pretty!!

While the Hathaways were here we played lots of fun games and ate lots of good food!

I love how happy Jake looks here.

There was also lots of Rockband going on!

The last day in BR before Jake and I flew back to Utah we got family pictures done. This is my favorite of them all....

Yep. I love it.

So after our Christmas in BR, Jake and I flew back to Utah. Originally I was supposed to go to Bear Lake with Jake and his family for New Years.... But I'm a brat and wanted more time with my family. Which I know is good.... But we were supposed to trade Christmas for New Years and I didn't go with him and his family for New Years. I feel awful! But it all worked out and I'm really super glad that I was able to spend more time with the Hathaways. And my consequence for not going with Jake? No New Years kiss. ;)

Destry is absolutely one of the most awesome girls I know. She is so fun to be with!

See what I mean? We just goofed off all week! Right after this pic was taken she changed into her black leggings and a white long sleeve shirt haha we looked so silly but I didn't get a pic of both of us dressed like freaks... Just me :).

I'm so lucky to be best friends with my cousins! All three of us have so much fun together. I wish Sari could have been with us! I hope when Sari and I have kids that they will be best friends like Heidyn and I are and like Sari and Destry are. (Btw, Destry curled Heidyn's hair and my hair, isn't it so cute? YES. It is! She is awesome.)

So Grandma and Grandpa Hathaway drove me back to Rexburg for Winter semester. I have one roommate from last semester, Aimee, and two new roommates, Rachael and Dani.

The first morning Rachael and Dani were at freshman orientation stuff so Aimee and I had breakfast together.

All four of us! A lot less awkward than last semester's first pic together.

And of course my first weekend here this semester Jake and I went to Bear Lake and stayed at his parents mountain cabin. We went snowmobiling!

The helmet is seriously heavy! My neck is sore!

Jake and I all ready to go!

On Bloomington Lake.... ON THE LAKE. with five feet of snow on top of the lake!! CRAZY! from closest to farthest and left to right it's Tyson, Sister Cromwell, me, Jake, Joselynn, and Jared. Jared is Jake's roommate and Joselynn is his girlfriend. Brother Cromwell is the one taking the pic.

So it was the funnest day ever. But by the end when we were heading back I started to get to comfortable on the machine and I saw jumps. So I started going off of them. It was fun! But there was one jump that was bigger and I was heading towards it sideways and there was a tree not too far past it.... Bad choice! I landed really hard and I was sitting down so the hit messed with my back not my legs. But my leg came down hit the metal thing super hard. And so I was like confused for a sec cause I hit so hard and the next thing I knew there was a tree RIGHT THERE! And so I hit it and flew over the front of the machine and hit my ribs and chest on the handles. I'm okay and the machine is even more okay than I am but it was scary! I'm glad that their machine didn't break though. That would have been so awful omg. But it was a fun day and I feel like I got a major workout lol.

So this is a terrible picture because first of all it makes it look like I have zero calf muscle. Wait maybe I really don't... Ha. Second, it shows how white I am! Third, it shows how long it's been since I shaved ;), and fourth, the lighting is awful. But wherever there's green, even where it looks like just bad lighting messing with the coloring of the pic, that's all bruise. It's way bigger than my hand. It reaches down to the red part of the bruise closer to my ankle. But I love battle wounds. It's the worst thing ever when something really hurts but it looks totally lame.

Okay wow well now we're all caught up! :)