We finally finished the chair!!

I always get so excited to do projects, but it is never until I am in the middle of it that I seem to recall that I have no idea what I am doing, or that I'm not too much of a creatively minded person. It comes together okay most of the time, but I'm sure that trial and error isn't the most effective way of getting it there!

But alas, the chair is finished! And bonus, so that we can return the staple gun and extension cord to it's rightful owner, I did the matching ottoman today too.So here is the process and the mess...
The original chair (it has a matching brown corduroy chair, which may or may not get an overhaul now that I know what the whole process entails..)

The guts. The fun part was tearing the chair all apart. It was then that I realized I wasn't really sure that I how to go about putting it back together again.

My friend Allyson helped me try to wrap my brain around how to get the fabric back on the chair I had mutilated!
And now, after long breaks in between (when I actually wanted the mess to be cleaned up for a little while, and forget that I still hadn't finished the thing) Here is the final masterpiece!


and the ottoman...

The Christmas "wrap" up

Well, our little apartment is officially being cleaned up from the Christmas holidays. The wrapping paper pieces picked up and thrown away, and the tree, which was quickly losing its green beauty, ceremoniously taken down.

But we had a fabulous holiday. It was like taking a vacation without going anywhere!

Bobby, who has never in the history of our marriage, woken up first without the use of an alarm... excitedly woke me up in anticipation to the presents we had been gathering for each other. Bobby got a new fancy flashlight, a home-made apron (for his turns in the kitchen!!) some needed, though maybe not excited Sunday clothes, and a few fun toys. I was pretty Impressed with the presents Bobby gave me. Evidence that he had ventured into some pretty entertaining stores, like wet seal, solidified the fact that he really must love me!! He also got me 4 pairs of shoes (well one was a pair of slippers) after swearing that I had enough and that he definitely wasn't going to get me any shoes! He even got me the yellow salt water sandals I had envied on his stylish sister Katie.

The day continued with laziness and lots of yummy food. I, again, love the American traditions of elaborate food preparation and even more elaborate eating!


Bobby is now on book 6 of the Harry Potter series, which we have been borrowing from the library on CD. So the lazy day was entertaining with combination of the brewing intensity in the story, and the puzzles that we put together while listening.

I love holidays for so many reasons, but these year my gratitude is greatest for the excuse to not do much at all of consequence. Hope you all are also enjoying such Holidays!!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Well, Bobby put the crowning ornament on the advent calendar tree this morning, and that means that Christmas Eve is finally here!

We had a great calendar like this growing up, and Jeniel made us all replica's of this felt and sequin masterpiece for Christmas a couple years ago, and the tradition continues!

As children, we would always fight over who could put the star on the top, or whether it would be the star or angel that made it to the top of the tree. It was luck of the draw who got the number that had the star in it, so my mom got smart and started always putting the star in day 24- and the top spot on the tree had to be left open for Christmas Eve morning.

True to tradition, this morning the top spot was all that remained open, and because it was Bobby's turn, he topped off the tree and we knew that Christmas had finally come at last!!

And so we wish a Very Merry Christmas to you all!!

The Tinfoil Star

I have this new favorite, though childlike, tradition. I love it. It started a couple years ago when I was decorating the tree with my roommates and best friends. We were finishing it up and I realized that it was missing the ornament for the top! I couldn't imagine a tree without an angel or star on top. I got out a cereal box, and fashioned a star from the card board and covered it with tin foil, and then used half a toilet paper roll for the stand.

I had to admit, I was far more proud of myself than the star actually was worth, but I loved it.

And the next year, it wasn't a lack of decoration that necessitated it, but, frankly, I just wanted to make one to top off the tree.

This year, Bobby made the tinfoil star, and again, I love it! I can't help it, I feel like it is a silly but perfect little topper, and it just may have become one of our new Christmas traditions!

O Christmas Tree!

It is really to bad that we didn't have our camera with us when we went to get our tree...

We first set out Friday night, and I asked Bobby if we should take our camera. His response was that might be a little bit overboard on the picture taking. So the camera was left at home. But it turns out after running other errands, we didn't have time to find a very good tree that night, and vowed to set out again on Saturday.

Due to the conversation the previous night, I didn't take a second thought at grabbing the camera for the outing. But we did wish that we had it for this occasion. The snow was DUMPING down as we drove to find a lot with little trees that weren't too wimpy. By the time we got to one and got out- you couldn't even see through the giant flakes. We we walked into the lot with me clutching Bobby's arm, and trying to blink the snowflakes off of my eyelashes, the people working there said they wished they had a camera to document the sight of it. But in the dumping snow, we found our perfect tree.

I did run upstairs to grab the camera for the unloading of the tree off the car. It wasn't dumping as hard anymore, but it still made for a good photo!

festival of the trees

This is a little peep into our evening at the Festival of the Trees.

People are pretty dang creative. I wish I could remember the theme names for each of these pictures. That is half of what makes them so fun... From the Warmth of Christmas, to Screwed up Christmas Tree, and the Tall Man Club (the giraffe one!)

Here are a few that we liked, or at least that we thought were crazy enough to take a picture of!

This Morning

"I looked out the window and what did I see?"Snow covering every little bit of the trees

The struggle

I really like cute shoes.
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I would like to think that I am normally a pretty grounded, logic based person. But somehow when it comes to winter and what shoes I wear out in the frigid temperatures, I am completely irrational.
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I know that I will be cold. I knew that when I stared at the shoe rack in my closet this morning. I looked at the shoes I should wear, and then I looked at the cute green ballet flats I wanted to wear and said out loud to Bobby, "I want to wear these shoes, but then my feet will be cold!!" And then I put the cute shoes on completely knowingly.
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When we got in the car and I was freezing my begeebers off, Bobby said, "don't complain to me, you knew you would be cold when you decided to wear those shoes." And he is completely right. I did, and I still wanted to wear them more than my survival instinct wanted to be warm (you'd think the survival instinct would be especially be strong, because I am ALWAYS cold- and my feet and hands are the worst- perma icicles from October to March)
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I think I need help... Anybody??? Otherwise this struggle will continue through out the duration of the winter, I am sure of it, as last year I wore these ballet flats in the snow....
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Note: So I just came home from class with Bobby and.... it rained... my sad little shoes soaked though and my feet freezing!

Turkey Day!

What a beautiful array of delicious food. I love this meal, and look forward to it. The full stomach turkey coma that results, is probably the main reason that I don't create that feast more often!

This year we spent the holiday with Jeniel and Dave's family in Rexburg. Who can resist good food and good fun?

Is this my second post in a row dedicated to the traditions of over eating??

I do NOT believe in eating doughnuts...

Do we have no sense of self preservation? What is it with us eating foods, that while they may taste good, we know that they are going to have an adverse reaction on our body that will last much longer than the flavor of the food ever remained in our mouths...

This is how I feel about the doughnut. Once upon a time I gave up three foods for an entire year. Soda, Potato Chips and Doughnuts. I have similar feelings about all these foods. They taste good (sometimes) but they always leave me with a feeling that I wish I hadn't eaten it. So I figured that if I could just have the willpower to last past the initial temptation, it could be like I already ate the food, but with the bonus lack of regret and stomach ache.

That year however, was not this last year. And while I still manage to not eat doughnuts regularly, I have managed to eat them THREE times in the last month, and never felt good about it afterward. The first were made by Meesh from biscuit dough deep fried -of course- and covered with cinnamon and sugar. They were a great little treat while carving pumpkins ( I say were because you know that I did not just eat one). The second time were the best doughnuts I have ever eaten. They were the creation of Allyson and Dave from the collection of Alton Brown and Good Eats. Wow. I never knew that a doughnut could taste so good. Lets just say that I don't even know how many I ate that night, I just kept eating doughnut holes, so I didn't have to feel bad acknowledging how many entire doughnuts I had eaten. So these delightful ones were the cause of further cravings, resulting in this last indulgence. It was my turn to be in charge of date night , so I surprised Bobby with a trip to the Krispy Kreme Bakery and we came home with a half dozen to accompany our puzzle putting together activity. Needless to say, it was brought to my remembrance, in the middle of out healthy feast and on-coming stomach ache, that I do not believe in eating doughnuts. Thus the vow has been made, I have sworn them off again. (until next October 31st, because I'm pretty sure that Allyson and Dave are going to make their heavenly homemade doughnuts again next Halloween!)

shadow puppets and leaf angels

There is just no telling the fun that can come from a Friday afternoon jaunt in the canyon. My attention span for just walking/hiking forever without a specific destination seems to last a little longer than Bobby's, who wants to know where we are going and how long it is going to take us to get there. But somehow when you bring in the opportunity to do crazy things and document them with a camera, the excitement increases tenfold. I think I love taking pictures more for the adventure it creates when you are taking them than for the pictures that I get to view afterward.

It turns out that we were hiking at just the perfect time of day, and Bobby discovered as he was taking pictures (again, adventures through the eye of the camera) that he had a perfect shadow of everything he was doing. And thus, the next adventure began. It started with shadow puppets and ended up with shadow bodies...
If you are wondering what in the world is sticking out the back of me in the shadows...
That would be my favorite mitten holding location.

The adventure continued when I got my turn to play with the camera.. i.e. pictures of the Bobby we all know and love. I talk him into playing for the camera, and then he usually wonders later how I got pictures of him doing silly things!

And, because I LOVE leaves, i just can't ignore playing with them this time of year. I couldn't quite convince Bobby to jump into the leaves with me, but I'm pretty sure that he was amused to be an on-looker. I would highly recommend this entertaining companion to the snow angel...
***So, apparently I'm playing around with photoshop- forgive me if this is a little crazy..

Pumpkin Craze!

I get so excited for this time of year. A key feature is how excited I get about pumpkins. I love pumpkin bread, cookies, and decorating with pumpkins and the color orange. (ironically, I do NOT love pumpkin pie. How this can possibly be, I don't know, but I it is true. I even tried to love it again last Thanksgiving and I still don't love it...)

So naturally, I get excited about carving pumpkins. So excited in fact, that I inevitably get the urge too early in the season. Last year, we carved pumpkins about the first week in October, and they were oozing down the driveway by the time the trick-or-treaters came rolling around (its true, there are stains on my old roommates drive way- oops!) So this year, I thought I was reigning in the urges. September came around and the pumpkins started showing up in the grocery stores, and I started to get excited, but I told myself that I still had a LONG while before I needed to start planning that activity. The first weekend of October came, and I still refrained. So by the third weekend, I thought we were in the clear! These beauties became our doorstep display..


The quality Jack-o-lantern would be Bobby's artwork. The Spider randomly turned red would be mine. I decided since it wasn't a large pumpkin, not to clean it out and just do the cool surface carving. Turns out, that when you buy a "pie" pumpkin, it doesn't have that cool orange/white contrast. So I had an ugly orange/orange mess. So we improvised and I added red food coloring, and well.. you've seen the result of that!

Unfortunately, the sad ending to this story, is that week three is still too soon... It was very sad. Bobby's pumpkin turned into a squishy mess, and to prevent an oozing replay of last year and stains on our doorstep, it has passed on to the trash can. Next year, I think I'm banned from pumpkin carving until the week of Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!