Holidays...Shmallidays

Stress much? This past month has been one of stress, sickness, depression, marital discovery, drama, basically your normal December.

Thanksgivin

Thanksgiving Take Two:

Well here is the shake down on our second Thanksgiving together. Traditionally my family takes turns seeing family during the Thanksgiving season, last year we spent with my family for half of the day and then the second half with his. We then flew to Alabama for about two weeks to spend the Christmas Holiday with his family. As mentioned in earlier posts I am very excited to have our first 'at home' holiday season.

To hit the insanity off we had our first official Dexter year. After a stressful past two weeks (sliced finger open, Grandfather fell off a tree and broke his skull resulting in six staples, complications with fall causes need to surgery, computer goes officially kaput must buy a new-yes cause THAT IS what I wanted to do with all of my money- I mean I didn't really mean to drop it...it was all a surprise phone call...the shock made me do it, insanity preparation for thanksgiving begin). All in all we held together pretty well...I think. David really stepped up and helped out around the house. We were able to get almost everything finished that I was worried about (did I mention my four page to-do list? Oh well, too late now.) I am really blessed.



I was asked to make pies this year (same as last) and once again tried to figure out the recipe for the custard pies from the restaurant I use to work at. I thought I did pretty good but the family poo-pooed the attempt, at least David's family was appreciative. There was a little confusion about making a cream pie, guess we will fix that one next time though. After a dinner full of family and funny stories we took the little kids to the park. This park has so many slides and fun fun stuff, I kinda wish that I had played there when I was a kid. After a while we noticed the smallest member of our party was shaking with cold so we headed back to grandma's house to play several serious rounds of Candy Land. Honestly this was probably my favorite memory of the entire day. David's brother Stephen and I have never really spent a ton of time interacting together and during our game of Candy Land (which he totally trashed us all) we had a really great time!

The next day (or rather later that night) David and I headed out for our traditional day after Thanksgiving shopping. This has long been one of my personal traditions, one I share with a few friends and my mother, but this is only David's second year. Last year he was very shell shocked and struggled to keep up in the throngs, but after training at Disneyland he promptly took control this year and scored himself a new television, portable hard drive, and well thats about it. by the end of the day we were completely exhausted. David was able to squeeze in a nap and then ventured out later that night for a movie with his family.

Shining Moment

After one very depressing week my husband once again turned the weekend into something quite wonderful. Sunday David and I went to church and discussed the future in silly and quite serious terms. It was interesting that both sides were in the conversation. Anyway, Sunday night after our home teacher left we had some much coveted 'us' time. We watched television, David did his homework (while sitting on the floor) and I layed on the couch behind him and cut coupons. After an hour or two of this David turned to me and said, "this is it. This is our Shining Moment." It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, once I figured it out my heart just about melted. He is so sweet, honestly most days I do not deserve this man. Then later that week as I started blogging about this he took over my computer and typed the following:

It was peace, it was comfort, kayde is the best woman in the whole wide world. and is the most amazingest and i love her more.

Stress

Well the month is slowly edging along. As we all know there was a slight dysfunction in our clocks the past couple days. I have been looking forward to setting the clock back as we get to gain an hour of sleep! When it finally got here I actually forgot. I woke up Sunday morning and got very excited as I thought I had slept in until 7:30. It was so exciting. I got up went to the bathroom and as I returned I realized that it was actually 6:30 and I had woken up at the same time I normally do. It was very sad. I still have not fixed the clocks and it has been rather amusing attempting to figure out what time it really is. Kinda odd how the day stretches and changes based on our perceptions.



Anyway back to the stress comment. I am so excited for Christmas this year. I have a few tricks up my sleeve for the hubby can't wait to start our 'first' Christmas together. Last year we spent Christmas with his family, saying goodbye to Alabama and such. I am excited to have our very own Christmas this year where we can incorporate both of our traditions and create our own new family traditions. My mom keeps trying to convince us that we want to spend Christmas eve at here house but I would rather just spend it with David. This will be the first time I could have spent it with her and choose not too.

As for the past week things have been hectic at work but boring in the evening. David has had to work until at least 10 every night and we crash as soon as he gets home, therefore I never see him. It really really sucks. We found out about a week ago that his parents and older brother will be staying with us for thanksgiving. We are excited but the wife syndrome hit a couple of days later. My house needs to be UBER clean, gotta have good food (sorry Dean I am not buying whole milk, don't think I will have room in the fridge and we don't drink it), gotta rearrange to fit everyone, figure out where to put everything, and make everyone comfortable. I know I am going overboard but I stress when I don't know details, ya know? This thanksgiving should be a blast and it will be great to see his family for more than a couple of hours. The only down side to this is not being able to set up the Christmas tree. As stated above I am totally psyched for Christmas and wanted to set it up the day before thanksgiving as Christmas season officially starts at 2 a.m. on black Friday and I will not have time or the mental capabilities to do it after (excuse). Oh well you can mock me all you want but I am SO excited!!! Anyway as stated David has been gone and while I know I need to clean I have been stressing about how much work there is to do and how overwhelmed I feel and because of this have not been doing much other than watch t.v.. Saturday was such a day and I ended up ripping 30 cd's to my itunes and for my younger brother and typing up a four page to-do list to prepare for the holidays.

Must hop to it!

P.S. I love Zumba just in case you were wondering.

October (in November) Part 2

Okay well so I lied about posting the next day...sorry. (that last bit was said with extreme sarcasm if you don't notice.) On to the rest of October. P.S. This will lead to the previously mentioned scary. Just so you are warned.

After the insanity of the month we decided (or rather were told by some) to have a Halloween party with some friends from work. Basically we started this whole game night thing before we were married and it continued for quite sometime. Last year we decided to have a Halloween party and I got the brilliant idea to make Chili. Now my maternal line are all very good cooks (paternal too) and I have watched for years and feel like I know how to do it as I help with preparation but that was the first time that I had made it solely by myself. Well it was a hit! So much so that I was told that I was to make it again. Who am I to go against the party planners? jk. Below you see the merry carvers. As always it became quite the competition. You see last time David and Hilary decided to start smack talking each other. It was epic. In the end Hilary's pumpkin ended up 'writing' a suicide note stating that it could not hold up under the pressure. This was again the theme this year as Hilary's 'pumkin' left her a message on facebook. This time it exploded under the pressure (via video of course).

Then on Friday before Halloween we went to the ward Halloween party. This was quite the event. We went dressed as Mario and Princess Peach, our friends and next door neighbors came as Luigi and Princess Daisy. David and Seth made the perfect characters, both looking and acting the part. The highlights of the night were the doughnut on a string contest. (David's first by the way). One gentleman behind me stated that it was a classic confrontation Mario Vs. Luigi.The last and final event of the evening was the Fear Factor. Fittingly enough the power went out and we had to use flash camera and flash light. The boys (neither of which could be out done by the other) went through the rounds to eat

1. Bone Marrow

2. Baby Whale Eyes

3. Whale Blubber

4. Utah Lake Sardines

5. A live Goldfish. Yes my friends a LIVE goldfish. Just in case you are wondering a gold fish can stay alive for at least a minute in your stomach. Please do not try this at home. I about lost my lunch watching them. Below you can see David proving that it is not hidden in his mouth! YUCK!!!

We did not celebrate Halloween in the normal sense of the holiday. Instead David went to school and then came home to cuddle for a bit before running some errands, wandering throughout the mall hand in hand, and then David even asked me on a date! We tried to go see a movie last week and when we realized that we were two hours early we grabbed some sushi and when we returned the movie was sold out. This week we thought ahead and bought tickets THEN went to get our dinner, buy Bones season 4!!!, and just spend time talking about our future and being all gushy and cuddly. It was a wonderful day. Towards the end David received a text from one of my cousins dis-inviting him to the Thanksgiving day Turkey Bowl (something they totally forgot to invite him to last year) as we were 'to good' to come to the family get together at grandmas, something which I had forgotten about as we do not have children to take around...oops.

October in a Nutshell pt. 1

Well since it is the end of the month and I have slacked lately in my postingness I bring you the month of October!!! This blog will be a blog in pictures (with captioned stories of course). There is the good, the bad, and the SERIOUSLY DISGUSTING involved. Faint of heart you may want to back away now.

First the odd. Note to self....Do NOT knock the spray cheese off of the kitchen counter...the pressure inside will cause it to spray everywhere, even when you try to pick it up and fix it.

Next David decided to cook me some dinner. Actually I think I kinda forced him into it as when I sent him to go grocery shopping he bought strange and exotic things. I have learned over the course of our marriage that it is never a good idea to send the hubby shopping on his own. When doing so he will inevitably show up with a menagerie of random junk. This time he bought risotto, something which I have heard Chef Ramsey yell about but have never see in person.

Next we travel to my parents house. They were babysitting for my older sister Stacy. Stacy has the three most adorable children ever. Here we see the youngest of her brood 'helping' do the dishes. In reality she was pulling spices out of the spice cupboard and loading them into the dishwasher. Much to my mother's chagrin.

About mid month I realized that I was wearing the wrong pants to work. The cart ate my pants. It took a while to figure out how to take them back.
Over fall break David's older brother Stephen came and staid with us. It was really interesting to see how we interacted as a family type unit. This sounds odd I know but for once it was not just the two of us. We suddenly had someone else to focus on and make sure we were working together to care for. As many of you know we have been contemplating moving on to the next phase and it was actually great to almost play house so to speak. ...Maybe that is the wrong way to put it, but you know what I mean.

Well thats all for tonight. Tomorrow I will finish filling you all in with the oh so scary Halloween special.

Come sign up!!!

I need friends to sign up for a class with me. Next wed (I know its late notice) there is a quilt class at Gracie Lou's, quite possibly the best quilting store ever! Its called Vintage Circles and makes a great baby or big sized quilt using your scraps!

October 27- Vintage CirclesThis is a super cute baby quilt. Fun to make and the pattern gives you instructions to make a bigger one. Fast and easy. Soft edges all pieced and quilted at once. You will need 2 charm packs or 64 5" squares. 1 1/4 yd light fabric, 1 1/4 backing and batting, 505 adhesive spray, glue stick, wash out marking pen. Pattern and some prep work required. Cost for class $15.00
http://gracielousquilts.blogspot.com/p/class-schedule.html