Creative Friday--Christmas Edition

Landon and I went to Michelle's house for Creative Friday on December 27th. Landon hadn't been over there in months, so it was nice to go together again. We took this photo at a stoplight and the glare makes it look like I have blue teeth!

I splurged and got Los Hermanos take out for our lunch!

These lovely homemade candlesticks from Jessie's husband Timm were on Michelle's table instead of the green apples.

It was very exciting to be receiving lovely gifts from both Michelle and her mom! 

Michelle gave me this cute and comfy pajamas (which I'm wearning now as I type this) and an awesome kit with notebook paper gift bags, matching Washi tape, baker's twine and tags! I love it!! Michelle's mom Susan gave me some awesome notebook paper gift tags, Christmas napkins, alphabet masking tape (very cool) and a decorative bird nesting on shredded book pages. It was delightful! (Sadly I forgot my real camera so these are all photos from my phone and aren't great.)

These are the gifts I gave Michelle.

A gift certificate for a pedicure, some cloud socks and a bag of Cadbury Eggs.

And the world's cutest door mat! She had a similar one on her Amazon Wish List but it was no longer available and this was almost exactly like it. It's painfully cute really, especially with her turquoise door.

The boys played games in the family room and sound like men now, which is weird.

Michelle wrote thank you notes and I cut out a ton of tags I'd had printed...I will be prepared for next Christmas' tag needs for sure.

Pleasing no? These are all designs I downloaded from Pinterest for free.

The boys ended up coming over to the table to work on a puzzle Michelle had started the day before.

Max was home from BYU for Christmas Break!

Landon and Lucas exchanged presents...earbuds for Landon and a Cold Stone gift card for Lucas.

 Lando's card to Lucas.

I wrote 8 thank you notes.

Lucas ended up leaving to go out with friends because we thought we would be going home soon, but we ended up staying another 3 hours because we got sucked into the puzzle!

We finished it (mostly they did, but I did a bit at the end).

**Do you enjoy cute gift tags?

Do you have a cute Welcome mat?

Do you enjoy puzzles?**

Bookclub Christmas--Best Gathering of the Year

We gathered at Collette's house last Friday night to celebrate Christmas together. It's been a rough year for book club gatherings because we've all gotten so busy it's hard to be together at the same time each month. This year we moved our gatherings to the 2nd Friday night of each month, which helped immensely with the late nights for Collette and I since we have to get out the door for work in the mornings and because there are less conflicts with kids' sports/church activities. But we still ran into conflicts with vacations and busyness.

This was the first time we'd all been together in several months!

Collette had the table set beautifully and a scrumptious roast cooked.

Jenn brought salad, Jana brought rolls, Amy brought baked potatoes, I brought the sparkling grape juice, and Michelle was on dessert.

This is the view from the kitchen looking into "the book club room". Usually the blue lounge chair is not there, but it is left over from Collette's husband Travis' recent kidney and pancreas transplant!! It is such a miracle that he is no longer diabetic and that he is healthy and well, this felt like a milestone for book club too!

As Jana was sitting there looking at her feet she realized she had mismatched, fuzzy red socks on.

Michelle made this fabulous oatmeal, butterscotch cookie pie thing with a caramel sauce. We devoured it of course!

We continued our traditional book exchange, isn't this book mark made by Collette cute?

  Michelle got her book from Collette.

Collette got a book from Amy.

Amy got a book from me.

Jenn got a book from Jana.

Jana got her book from Michelle.

I got 2 books from Jenn! She knows I hate paying for church-type books so she got me this Emily Freeman book and then also The Lover's Dictionary which is on my to-read list but I didn't remember putting it there but I'm thrilled to get it.

The whole book is done like this with a different work heading on each page and talks about love.

These are the unwrapped books we gave/got.

Then it was on to gifts! I ended up giving the girls this draft paper Christmas print that I got from Pinterest. I really struggled to come up with something this year, but I love this.

It was a bountiful harvest! Amy made us paper poinsettia decorations, Jana gave us a substantial roll of wrapping paper, Collette gave us an autographed book and Cadbury eggs, Michelle gave us a cute tin with candy canes and a decorative frame, and then Jenn was the big finale with the suitcases full of treat goodness AND the black wood Christmas tree decoration. We're spoiled for sure.

Miscellany from November

Here are some miscellaneous moments from November...

Sometimes on our gmail at work people will put a little message, I had this message just before my trip, but I took this picture because of Marci's message about the Fall playlist cd I gave her since I'm her Secret Pal--apparently she liked it!

Oh Whitney, why must she torture me so?!

My co-worker Angie gave me a bag full of goodies for my trip. It was so unexpected so nice of her to do this, I wore the sunglasses the entire trip!

My mom brought Kneaders for a car lunch the day before I left for California...it was my first car lunch of the year since I only work 3 days a week now there isn't as much need (though I still enjoy them).

Michelle texted me while I was in the car with my mom saying she was bringing me cookies! I felt so spoiled as I had my mom leaving and Michelle arriving...spoiled!

Michelle made these tasty sugar cookies for Cookie Monday (which she posts on Instagram every Monday) and I had commented that I almost showed up at her house to taste them, so she kindly delivered them to me at work!

I came home from work that day to find that Michelle had delivered my wreath! I had been working on it but felt stumped about how to attach the "S" and the bow so she and her mom tweaked it for me (which was the most important part).

One of our office aides put this note on my computer, this is funny for two reasons 1. She is NOT my favorite at all 2. I think the word "totes" is pretty funny.

My Secret Pal this time around hasn't been very into it but did give me these goodies after I sent a reminder email to the whole group.

I got a nice thank you note from Amie, oh how I love good mail and miss its frequency.

Amie and I went to the wedding reception of our friend Lisa's son. He was in the first primary class I ever taught 11 years ago! I loved that primary class so much I had them for 2 years. It was surreal to see him as a married man.

Our old oven broke so our landlords got us this one. It's very nice but looks a tad modern for our old house!

This is the only lipstick I've ever had that will actually stay on all day, and is a color I like. I usually have a back up stash but ran out of it last week and started to panic when I couldn't find it at 2 different Wal-Marts (nothing but the best for me). I ended up getting the last two our local Walgreens had which leads me to believe that Cover Girl might be discontinuing my color. Oh the humanity!!

Since Michelle and I didn't get together the Friday I was in California and weren't going to be able the Friday after Thanksgiving we opted for a Cafe Rio car lunch.

Birthday Post--42 Edition

Ahhhh the 9th of summer, my personal holiday, the day of surprises and indulgence...my birthday!

My mom came to pick up Whitney and brought me this lovely bouquet of flowers. There was a little trauma when I dug the vase out from under the sink because there was a big, brown spider (dead) in it! I showed some rare composure and didn't drop or juggle the vase upon discovering it! It was a little ookey that it didn't fall out when I tried to dump it into the sink. It took several attempts and some water to dislodge it from the bottom of the vase so I could rinse down the garbage disposal and chop it to bits...ew!

It was so nice of my mom to take Whitney out for the day and then have her sleep over at her house! Notice that Whitney is officially taller than my mom now.

Hooray for another birthday outing for Michelle and I; it's a little freaky how many of these we've had together.

We had lunch at Red Rock Brewing Company at Fashion Place Mall. I had pizza and she had a burger.

Of course we had to go to Paper Source while we were there. It's so sad to me that now that we have our own store I suddenly have purchasing restraint. This is due largely to the huge inventory of stationery and supplies I already own, but it pains me not to be able to take advantage of the opportunity.

Next stop was Home Goods, we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this store! I wish we had one closer to us. We both bought a roll of cute wrapping paper, Michelle bought sheets for Eva's redesigned room and I bought a new 9x13 pan with a lid since the one I've been using looks rusty and gross.

We caught the 3:40 showing of the new version of Much Ado About Nothing at Jordan Commons, two thumbs up.

We were going to get popcorn, but then got ice cream and gelato instead...so basically the opposite of popcorn. I was trying so hard not to drip any on my shirt, but at one point completely dropped the tiny spoon on my shirt instead...what the?!

 The final delight of the day was the gift giving, Michelle always wraps gifts so beautifully.

She was kind enough to give me this hard back copy of our August book club selection because she knows I hate buying hard backed books and this one isn't coming out in paperback.

She also gave me a hodge podge of things I love. She claimed it felt like a cop out to give me such items, but really I love this kind of stuff so it's never a bad idea! Stationery, 3 sheets of cool postage, a pad of bookmarks, cute bags, nail polish and washi tape...um hello favorites!!

After I took Michelle home I went over to Lori's house where I was given a big ole birthday bag with two new shirts (and some love from the kitties).

We then went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, which was good but strangely hot in there, it felt like the air conditioning wasn't working but fans were on. Weird.

We went back to her house to watch So You Think You Can Dance on her monstrous TV...good times.

I got home around 11:00pm and found these goodies on the porch. There was a little lotion and card from the Relief Society Presidency and then this beautiful vase of flowers, a bag of homemade caramels, and a bag of cherries from Jenn! I was so pleased and mighty relieved that the flowers hadn't been scorched from the hot sun.


P.S. Randy and Landon are gone all week with the scouts on a 50 mile hike and campout hence their absence for my birthday (lucky boys).