Saturday, December 31, 2011

two-one & having fun

I am the wonderful age of 21 now. It doesn't feel a whole lot different from 20 except that I don't have to wait so long at restaurants to eat now since I can legally just go sit at the bar. I guess that's a pretty cool thing to do.

I think I'll like being 21. Actually, I might would stay 21 forever if I could. It's a good age. I'm still young, yet I can be mature about things. I'm at that age where I think I can basically be friends with anyone, no matter how old or young they are. That's nice.

I'll be telling much more about the day of my birthday later on. It was quite the spectacular birthday since I spent it in Las Vegas. It was the first birthday I ever spent away from home. Man, I am growing up.

Vegas was fun. Even though it's sort of a trashy place. But it can also be a classy place sometimes. Brian and I chose to be classy.


And I liked it. And you know what else? I really like playing blackjack. Blackjack on the machine, not in real life. I like the dinging sound it makes every time I win. And the double ding it makes when I get blackjack. I can understand how people get addicted to that stuff. I might would become addicted if I wasn't also addicted to saving money.

I also liked how I could be whoever I wanted to be in Vegas. I could put on black stilettos and a glittery dress and walk around the casino like I was a sophisticated millionaire. Which I did. But maybe you don't want to be sophisticated while you're in Vegas, and you don't have to. If you want, you can go sit on the sidewalk and smoke pot with the bearded man and his dog and his rat. But I don't know why you'd want to be that if you were given the option to be whoever you wanted. Especially since pot smells a lot like body odor. Really bad body odor.

Happy New Year, friends! May you be whoever you want to be in the year of 2012.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Kelsey's Birthday

Hello everyone!

This is not Kelsey and as you may have guessed it is Brian. You know, that goof ball she writes about occasionally. Anyway, I think it would just make her day (which also happens to be her birthday) if she could get more followers on her blog. She is too shy to ask for it herself, but I know it makes her happy every time she gets a new follower. So, you know who you are. Just click that little follow button. It isn't that hard. And who knows, you might like it. Ok, that is enough from me. I may return some day and post something else, but for now my ability and desire to write have been exhausted. Happy Birthday Kelsey Keller Weller! You are the best thing that has ever happened to me!

Brian

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Little Bit of Christmas Cheer


Looking back on my life thus far, I have some very fond memories of past Christmases. Some of the most special moments that I hold very near to my heart happened around this special time of year when we reflect on the birth and life of the Savior and take the time to give and care for others.


This Christmas was no different. On Christmas morning I couldn't help but think how happy I felt being surrounded by many of my favorite people. And just like every Christmas, the day ended much too quickly and I still want to deny the fact that I can no longer listen to Christmas music and still be accepted by society. At least the holidays aren't completely over yet. But it will go by fast and then I'll have to wait another year for this fun time of the year to roll around again. Brian and I leave for Vegas tomorrow for my 21st birthday (on the 29th). We unpacked yesterday after getting back from my parents' home in Idaho, and repacked in a frenzy so we could head to Eden, Utah to celebrate and unwrap gifts with Brian's family. Hopefully we didn't forget anything too important.

Mine and Brian's first Christmas together was a special one. After picking Brian's sister and her family up from the airport on Christmas Eve after they flew in from Texas, we headed to the Keller's place where we had a seafood feast of shrimp, lobster tail, and crab legs. The remainder of the night was spent doing puzzles, eating cinnamon rolls, reading the Christmas story, and watching "It's a Wonderful Life". Christmas day was just as great. We opened presents and went to church. After church we spent the day together as a family. We spent a good portion of the day playing Just Dance, and we even got Grandpa and Grandma Reeder to play. We also played card games and I practiced taking pictures with my brand new Nikon D3000. Later that evening, we had prime rib dinner at my aunt Kayla's house.

I don't have anything else to say besides that I'm just very grateful. I have never felt so happy and content in my life. . .but I'll probably say that same thing next year.

Enjoy some pictures. Some taken with my old camera and others with my new.















Friday, December 23, 2011

Let Your Heart Be Light


Over the course of this week I have felt absolutely overwhelmed with love. I feel so blessed to have family members and friends that I care so much about. The other night when I was cuddled up in bed with Brian on one side of me and snugly little Luna on the other side, I couldn't help but think about how nice it feels to have a little home of my own filled with lots of care. Sometimes I really miss being a curly haired grade school girl surrounded by the Christmas traditions that my own parents created for us, but at the same time it really is such a joy to be starting my own traditions with a loving husband and our sidekick kitty. Growing up is definitely bittersweet.

We've had a busy and fun-filled week and it's not over yet!

Tonight we plan on making the journey to those lovely Idaho mountains where we get to spend Christmas with my side of the family. I am so thrilled. I hope I'll be able to sleep on Christmas Eve night. I never want December to end.

And now let me leave you with my most favorite Christmas song. It gives me chills just about every time I hear this version:

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Truth Tuesday

So I'll keep this short since, well, truly it's just not Tuesday. But I still wanted to post some truths for the Tuesday before Christmas.





  • My excitement right now is similar to that of a six year old. I am so excited for this Christmas. Like I feel that I'm just bursting at the seams with Christmas joy and it feels great. I think a lot of the excitement comes from the fact that it will be mine and Brian's first Christmas together as husband and wife. I can't wait to watch him open his presents on Christmas morning. 

  • I had glitter toes done with a friend back in July. During 4th of July weekend. I still have bits of the orange and gold glitter on my toenails. It's almost been present on my toes for six months. Half of a year. I guess I should do something about that. 

  • I have been acting super obnoxious and sending everyone I know a hilarious phone call from Santa using this website. Try it. Best thing ever. If you feel left out and want one sent to you, hook me up with your number. I'd be happy to make the creepy Santa call you too. 


Photo above from weheartit.com

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Let Glitter Be Your Friend

For our very last show before the semester ended, I was assigned to do a DIY Holiday craft. Which I was totally okay with and yes, even excited about doing. I kept it pretty simple and decided to makeover some yucky and boring Christmas bulbs. Let me tell you, glitter is glorious. These babies are no longer boring. They are now eye catching and fun and soooo easy to make. You can buy cheap ornaments to do this or just use old scratched ones that are hiding in your basement. OR, better yet, you now know what to do with those burnt out bulbs that  you just didn't have the heart to throw away. Ladies and gents, feast your eyes on these glittery and gleaming puppies: 


And if it tickles your fancy, I even included the tutorial I made so you may watch it. Please try not to mock me and point at me on the computer screen. And try to ignore the fact that I wrinkle my forehead more than the average person. And, just as a side note, Brian filmed this entire thing since I was on camera the whole time. I think he did a pretty good job. I've taught him well.
                                                                                                                                                                     


You can watch other episodes of both our ATV News shows and Cache Rendezvous on YouTube. 

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Cinnamon & Chocolate

Possibly my new second favorite Christmas tune. Judy Garland's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" will always hold my number one spot. But this one is still pretty awesome. Plus, the title combines my favorite scent and my favorite food. Can't go wrong with that. Have a listen. I know I'll be playing it over and over all week long.



Happy Christmas Week! May you all feel loved and be warm. 

Friday, December 16, 2011

I'll Sugar Your Cookie




One of my very favorite Christmas traditions is making sugar cookies with my mom. Since I am free from school for a few weeks, this leaves me with my days pretty darn free while BWell is off at work all day. So yesterday I traveled northward and found myself in the mountains of Idaho, making cookies with my lovely mother. It was such a treat to spend the day with her frosting cookies, laughing, and eating cookies once we got sick of decorating them all. What can I say, it's not baking unless you eat the stuff while you bake it.

Luckily, my mom let me bring a serving of the cookies home so I could share them with Brian. I am not a huge fan of sugar cookies usually. I figure if I'm going to eat a cookie, I want to eat something better than a hard cookie with frosting smeared on it. My mom's recipe is an exception. They are the dreamiest sugar cookies of all. Crisp on the edges with a soft and sugary middle. Yum.

I may or may not have had them for breakfast this morning. Don't judge me. I ate them all in the spirit of Christmas. And yes, I am going to the gym now, so they cancel each other out. It's fine.

O Tannenbaum

We are young newlyweds. It's not like we're rolling around in the dough over here. So when it came to purchasing a Christmas tree, we really weren't looking forward to spending a ridiculous amount on a fake tree.

So why not go chop one down? We practically live in the wilderness. There are plenty of pine trees in these parts, right? Well, I forgot to mention one little detail. We are young newlyweds who own a very curious and playful kitty cat. And I just wasn't too fond of the idea of picking up countless pine needles every evening before resting my head down on my pillow at night. Plus, the speed at which Luna can scurry up full-grown trees kinda scares me. And last time I checked, I have never seen a cat as a tree topper. I think we should just stick to angels and stars on that one. Not cats.

Therefore, we jumped at the chance to get a 7 ft tree at Walgreens during Black Friday weekend for only $25. When we pulled it out of the box, we could kind of see why it went for so cheap. The branches were a bit sparse and also quite smashed, but I didn't mind. It gave me the chance to give our tree some love. I didn't want some grand and majestic tree anyhow. I wanted a tree I could adorn with my vintage ornaments and I also wanted to wrap it up in Christmas ribbon and stringed popcorn, as tacky as that may or may not sound. And now that the dingy little tree is all decorated, I never want to take it down. Because there is just something so nice about having something so ugly yet so beautiful tucked away in the corner of our living room. After all, all things deserve to be loved.


Also, I found the neatest idea to make some sentimental ornaments for pretty gosh dang cheap. I'm all about being cheap. If some people were presented with the option of describing me in one word, they might just say: tightwad. Shout out to Martha Stewart, for giving me the idea of taking some favorite pictures and turning cookie cutters into ornaments.




So easy. Yes, and we totally dedicated an ornament to Luna. Just call us the weird cat couple.



Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Truth Tuesday

Whew, this Truth Tuesday shall be a quick one. It's time to cozy down and cuddle with my boy and my kitten. My favorite part of every day. So here are some quick truths:



  • I am done with finals and it's only Tuesday. I can't tell you how good that feels! 

  • I went Christmas shopping with my mom and sister today and I discovered I love spending money when it's on other people. Someone stop me. Take away my wallet. 

  • While watching the classic movie White Christmas last night, I discovered that Bing Crosby's woman really annoys me. Like I kind of want to pinch her because she is so whiny and wimpy. 

  • I think I may have spent a solid half an hour while shopping today browsing through nail polish colors. It was horrible. I can't believe I can actually waste that much time when I become surrounded by jars of nail polish. I read all the names and think how nice they all are and then I sample half the jars too. I guess I get weak in the knees when it comes to lots of fun colors.

  • I wanted to buy one jar of nail polish today just because the name was 'Pink Lingerie' but then I realized that pink is my least favorite color of all. It's a fine color I guess, but just not for me. I don't look good in pink. It makes me feel like I'm four.

  • Speaking of four year olds, I have a story for you about what one of my Primary children told me in class the other Sunday. Apparently her mom is having a baby. She's pretty excited about that because this will make her a big sister. So I started asking her questions about the baby and she was all about telling me. Her eyes got huge and her voice got all wheezy and high pitched and she proceeded to tell me things like, "It's a boy baby and his name is Issac. He is inside my mom's belly." Then she got over the edge excited and said, "And teacher, guess what? He will come out of my mom's tummy and eat food from her boob!" How do you expect me to respond to that? I burst out laughing. Primary is much more lively than Sunday School. They never talk about mom boobs in there. 

In the Words of Mr. Crosby . . .


I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. 



And that's why I couldn't resist taking all the paper snowflakes home from our Christmas party and hanging them from the ceiling of our living room last night. It now looks like a beautiful blizzard. After hanging them, I twirled around a few times and pretended to catch them on my tongue. Then I rented White Christmas and BWell and I kind of watched it while also kind of studying for our finals. 

The night must have been a good luck charm because this morning when I woke up, snowflakes were carefully filling up the sky and floating to the ground. That means while walking across campus to go take my darn final, I had the privilege of wearing mittens and having snowflakes cluster onto my eyelashes. Good luck, I tell you! 

However, I don't think it was such good luck for my final. Oops. Probably should have studied more. But it wouldn't have been near as much fun. 

Monday, December 12, 2011

Party Animals. Ones that Wear Ugly Sweaters.


So apparently I married a social butterfly. Because of that we have this hobby that we enjoy doing together. It's called throwing parties. Throwing insane and out of control parties which cause the cops to show up and shut us down.

Yeah, so I'm exaggerating a bit. Or a lot. We throw parties bursting with good, clean fun.

So on Saturday, we prepared the good clean fun for our twenty or so guests. We buttoned up our ugly Christmas sweaters (mine had very colorful and mismatched buttons), strung lights, hung paper snowflakes, turned Pandora to the Rockin' Holidays station, baked treats, and Brian pulled on a Santa hat and insisted that I wear those goofy reindeer antlers. Seriously. We were in the store one day and I put them on to make fun of them and Brian's reply was, "Oh, those are so cute. We're buying them for you!" They even light up too. Now if only they would play Christmas tunes.

We didn't have everything completely in order at the start of the party, so I ran about for the first half an hour like a headless chicken, but it all came together. And it was fun. And no one went to jail.

However, we did build masterpieces out of graham crackers and frosting and it got pretty competitive. The coveted prize was a gift certificate to Coldstone. The queen of all ice cream shops.
Isn't Chloe's pregnant belly the cutest? 

Mine and Brian's was not the prettiest, but we were pretty original. We call it: A Snowman's Vacation from Hell.

 You see, it's a house boat. And there are chairs on the deck with some candy snowmen sitting in them. They are red too so we figured they were getting a sunburn. And then some more snowmen are tubing on the back of the boat. One fell off and is drowning, but you can't really see him. He's the globby thing on the other side of the tube.

There was also a white elephant gift exchange and there were some real grand gifts. Just to name a few: there was a sack with a bloody goose in it, a Nixon's Greatest Speeches video, a giant pickle, and I gave away my beloved old people picture.


The party was successful and I still feel ill from all the candy I consumed.

One more final tomorrow morning and then I am free to get sick off Christmas candy every day and celebrate and think of no school. Oh boy.

Props to Trev and Randee's homemade sweaters. Trevin won our sweater contest. 

Friday, December 9, 2011

Five Feel Goods

1.


I finally found a dress for our Vegas trip.








2.

Last day of regular classes was today. You know what this means? I don't have to haul a tripod and camera around for a whole month. And Prof. Champagne gave out the tackiest yet best trophies/awards for Newscast. I'm in need of a trophy case to put my mini construction cone in.






3.

Destiny's Child singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Except they look like characters straight from the classic "Rudolph" movie. Awesome and hilarious. It makes me laugh like my tummy is a bowlful of jelly . . . or something.





4.

A pretty way to display some of my favorite necklaces.








5.



These tasty Oreo Truffles I fully plan on making for our Ugly Christmas Sweater party. The party is tomorrow! Eek!!


Now Brian and I are off to the store to get some party supplies. Merry weekend.

Rach

I have this friend. Her name is Rachel Ruppert. Yesterday she turned the big and happy age of 20. Too bad for me, she lives all the way in Florida so I didn't get to celebrate her special day with her. Therefore, a blog post will have to suffice. So on we'll go with 20 facts about my gorgeous friend, Rach.



1. Above is a picture of me and Rachel at my wedding (I haven't shared many wedding pics, oops). Rachel flew out for my wedding and stayed with my parents. She was such a good sport and was one of the biggest helps during my wedding weekend. I love her so much for it.

2. Also, I am taller than Rach even though it appears like I'm not in the picture. I wore the flattest of flat sandals on my wedding day (I wanted to be comfortable while dragging that dress of lace around) and pretty sure Rachel had some heels on. She's one of those cute, little short girls. The kinds that are just bursting with energy, you know?

3. Rachel has this loud and contagious laugh and I love it!

4. She has awesome taste in music. We both have a deep love for The Beatles.

5. Rachel would probably be a hippie if the year were 1967 and not 2011.

6. Rachel is one of the most sincere and real people I have ever met.

7. She surfs.

8. She has the loveliest long eyelashes that every female should be jealous of.

9. She is very smart. She graduated from high school the same year I did, even though she's a year younger than me.

10. When her and Brian are together, they go off quoting movies like crazy and leave me feeling completely lost.

11. Rachel and I went to grade school together but then her family moved to Florida. A couple years later, we made contact through email, continued through facebook once the times changed and email wasn't cool anymore, and we also love sending each other actual mail.

12. I hear long-distance relationships are rough, but long-distance friendships can be pretty fun! At least mine and Rachel's is. But I really wouldn't mind if she was closer.

13. When Rach visited a couple summers ago, she swooned over Utah State's campus and made me feel like I was going to school on the prettiest campus in the world.

14. She plays guitar AND sings. Check her out on YouTube.

15. My little sisters think she is the coolest (which she is).

16. She is like the queen of cool graphic t-shirts.

17. Rachel is a free spirit and is always down to try anything. Which I love.

18. Rach has the greatest and most random sense of humor. It's awesome. Just one example, she will frequently send me texts telling me about Florida's perfect temps and then tell me about how many girls she has spotted wearing uggs, coats, sweaters, and blankets. I usually reply with, "Are you kidding? It's like -4 here." Those texts always make my day.

19. When we were in grade school, she used to color strands of her hair with Kool-Aid so it looked all colorful. And it always made me so jealous that I wasn't blonde.

20. Rachel has a big heart of gold and cares about people. She is one of the truest friends and anyone that can call her a friend is lucky. She is accepting, thoughtful, and respectful of others.


Love you, Rach! I hope yesterday was the greatest! Someday I'm going to wander out to Florida and we'll have a good little time.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Sticky Fingers & Beer Fries


On Monday, Brian and I celebrated our four month (I can't believe we're already to the four month mark) anniversary. I know that probably sounds ridiculous that we celebrate by months, but it's not like we do anything huge and monumental. It's basically just an excuse to find the time to do little and meaningful things together.

Like on Monday I decided I wanted to try some new recipes for dinner. I figured I'd make some kind of romantic food, although I guess I don't know what romantic food is. I guess Italian food seems pretty romantic. So I began searching the web for recipes that seemed lovey dovey. But like the unromantic person I am, I found two recipes to die for that were ultra easy and fast. I couldn't resist so instead of making romantic food, I ended up making bar food. That's right, I cracked my first can of beer and used it to make garlic beer fries and I found this recipe that was a copycat of Wingers sticky fingers. Brian and I LOVE Wingers, and their sticky fingers are our favorite.

The food was actually delicious. Yes, I really made something that tasted delicious, I was surprised too. And we even had leftovers for lunch the next day.

After eating our greasy American food, we ate cheesecake together and watched Home Alone. When Brian got home from work, he also surprised me with flowers. What a sweet pal.


So I've had several people ask for the sticky finger recipe, so I thought I'd post the link to the recipe I used here, along with the beer fries too.






It ended up being such a sweet little night. And if I can make this food and claim it was easy, than basically anyone can. The only thing you'll need to make this meal complete is a cute kitty to curl up in the chair by the table.