Crochet Ear Warmer

Call me an old lady if you want but I love to CROCHET. It's so theraputic and relaxing. Seriously, you should try it...For reals...I'm cereal...

N-E-WAYZ...While we were at my parental units house in California over Christmas I finished a couple crochet projects. One of them was this nifty little ear warmer that I thought I would share with you all. I found the pattern in one of my mom's Crochet Today magazines. I'm not sure which issue it was in but probably the November or December. The magazine is pretty much awesome and has tons of really super easy projects to try. You can also download projects off their website. So here is the finished product...

Thanks a bunch Mom for helping me with the stitching on the side and also a big thanks to Aunt Pam on getting that pom pom maker to work!! Love you guys!

Crickey, Just Call us the Squirrel Hunters

I guess it would actually be squirrely not cickey...but anyway that is not what's important here. What IS important however is that we FINALLY caught our squirrel!!

On New Years Eve Scot came home from work in the afternoon and saw a squirrel eating some little berries off one of the bushes in our front yard. So he got a little closer to investigate. That freaked the squirrel out and he climbed all over the side of the house and right in to a little unforseen hole on the side of the house. As I was driving home from work that same afternoon I called Scot to talk to him while I drove because that's how I roll. All he said to me was "there's a squirrel in our house." I was like "what?" OK actually I was more like "WHAT!??!! Curse word, curse word (j/k about the curse word, well the 2nd one anyway). Then he was like "I can't talk right now I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of this thing." So we hang up and I am just kind of driving in a fog at this point. Finally I snapped out of it and thought to myself Scot is such a joker, he is totally yanking my chain. This is so like him to get me all worked up. So I immediately call him back and was like "hahahahaha that was a good one, N-E WAYYYZ let's get this new years eve, we have the day off tomorrow and I am so happy party started." All he said was "I'm serious." No laughing, no giggles, no heavy breathing trying to push aside a laugh. I knew this was serious. So I got home and I am again IRRITATED. I finally get a day off of work and now I get to deal with a freaking squirrel. Perfect. So we read up on all of these awful ways to get rid of squirrels and learn all kinds of interesting facts. Such as:

* You can't just let a squirrel go in a field right across from your house after you catch him because they are smart little turds and they will just come back. Oh no you have to take them like 30 miles away so that they can't find their way back.


* There are lots of repelents for squirrels none of whichyou can just buy at the store, oh no you have order it off the internet. Ya right like I am really going to give some dude in Arkansas my credit card number so he can send me a bottle full of water and bleach. I will make my own concoction, thank you very much!


* Finally an average squirrel treatment by a professional averages from about $500 - $1000. Quite a large range if you ask me...

After learning these among other interesting things we decided to put some thin mesh up over the hole just to make sure that the squirrel really was living in our roof and sure enough two times the mesh was torn. So we knew we had to take some action. Finally in a last ditch effort we called a guy that we now like to refer to as our hero and he quoted us an extremely reasonable price AND he will fix the hole for us. Sign me up! So last week he came buy and set this trap...

by this hole...

Everyday we came home and checked our trap that is out on our roof for all to see. Now, I'm sorry to anyone out there who thinks this is inhumane but until you have a squirrel burrowing and probably making and having babies in your roof...I kinda don't even want to hear it...K? Anyway Finally by Friday I decided we had a pretty smart freaking squirrel on our hands. Our "hero" told us he is pretty sure that someone from down in town probably caught him and let him go in one of the fields by our house because this is not squirrel territory so he knows the drill. On Saturday again our "hero" came by and set another trap on our porch. This really did kind of freak me out because can't you just see the neighbor kids daring their friends to stick their hands in there or a cat coming by and getting stuck? Oh well it was a risk I was willing to take. Today however, today was a new day. I came home for lunch as I usually do fully expecting to see both trap doors open but lo and behold we finally out smarted the little turd. OH YES folks I smelled the sweet smell of victory. Here he is in all his nasty, little, furry, rodent glory. He's a feisty little guy too. He's chattering and really trying to get out of there. Too bad. He will not feel freedom until our "hero" gets back here sometime between and 2-4pm to take him out east and releases him 35 miles away out in the wide open countryside!

Oh the joys of home ownership...

We're still here...I promise!

So far 2009 has proven to be an interesting one. On January 2nd Scot's sweet mom was admitted to the hospital with a very serious case of pneumonia. She ended up on a ventilator to help her breath for 10 days and had to be sedated during that time. We spent every minute we could there with her in between work and on lunch breaks. It was an extremely scary and difficult time. Eventually on Monday she was well enough to be taken off of the ventilator, which was a long awaited happy day! She progressed really well after that and after a long 17 days in the hospital she was released to go home the following Monday. Oh happy day!! She still has a lot of healing to do but we couldn't be happier that she is home and on her way to a full recovery! We love her very much!!

We are so grateful for the gospel and for the strength that it brought us and continues to bring us during this difficult time. We have turned to the Lord for comfort, guidance and strength and feel his love around us continuously.

Life is good, we are happy and we are looking forward to a blessed 2009 with our family and friends!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We just got back from our fabulous Christmas vacation to Sacramento, California although we didn't really spend a whole lot of time there. We had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family and friends! So here is how it alllll happened...

Part 1: San Fancisco with Jared and Jenni

On Tuesday we were able to spend the day in San Francisco with our friends Jared and Jenni. They were great tour guides and took us to all kinds of cool places that even I haven't been to in all of the many trips I have taken to San Francisco which was really awesome.

We started out by going to Union Square and looking at all of the stores that I will never be able to afford but love to admire in all of my magazines such as Betsy Johnson, Tiffany's, Dolce, Prada...OK you get the idea.
Then they took us to this great pizza place in Little Italy where we had by far some of the best pizza we have ever eaten. Here we are walking down to the restaurant...


After we had stuffed our tummies we went up to a place called Coit Tower. It was built as a memorial to the firefighters and was designed to look like a fire hose. You can get some really great views of the city from this point.
If you look closely you can see the Golden Gate Bridge to the upper right of the picture...

We also went to Baker Beach which was really fun. It was pretty cold though so we didn't stay there too long.

Here is Scot with "The Thinker"

Another really cool place they took us is called the Sutro Baths. It used to be a public indoor swimming pool built right on the water but it burned down so now all that is there is what was left after the fire but it was pretty neat to see.
And finally we went looking for Uncle Jessie and Michelle but we didn't find them so luckily we were able to stop by their house...
And that was pretty much our trip to San Fran in a nut shell. Thanks guys for being awesome tour guides! We had a great time!

Part 2: Christmas Day at Aunt Pam's

We had a wonderful traditional Christmas Eve at my Aunt Pam's house where we ate clam chowder for dinner, visited and opened up Christmas jammies. Yay! Here are a couple pictures of my dad and Scot playing pool.


Part 3: Christmas Day at Grandma and Grandpa's

So we really didn't take very many pictures on Christmas Day which wasn't very smart. We did get a couple of shots with my cousins though...

Christmas Day was wonderful of course. It was great to be with family and catch up.

Part 4: Dillon Beach and Bodega Bay


As part of our Christmas gift this year my parents booked a beach house at Dillon Beach in Northern California. We had a fabulous time relaxing, playing games, working on projects (I will post those later), walking down by the beach and just hanging out.

On the first day we got there Scot wanted to go down to the beach and put his feet in the water so my dad and I went down there with him. Scot loves the ocean. He loves looking for cool things on the beach and getting his feet wet. We all warned him that the water was going to be freezing but he still wanted to do it. As we were walking back to the house a sneaker wave got him all the way up to his rear end and I think that's when he finally realized we were right, the water really was cold!
I just like this picture...
There were some really cool rocks to explore...
The next day we drove in to Bodega Bay just up the the road from Dillon Beach. If you have ever seen the Alfred Hitchcok movie "The Birds" this is where that is filmed so that is Bodega's claim to fame I guess you could say. There were TONS of seagulls there (HUGE ONES) dive bombing us which I absolutely hated. I had way too many poopy run ins with seagulls in high school so I don't really like those birds too much. Here we are at "The Tides"...
And you always have to get your picture taken with the whale head at "The Tides"...
We went back down to Dillon Beach later that day to explore some more. Scot found his very first sand dollar. It was a whole one which is fairly hard to find so I was impressed...

And finally here is a group shot in front of our rental house. It was just a cute little funky old beach house built in 1940 and we loved every bit of it.
We are so thankful for this time of year that we have to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Even amidst all of the crazy and tragic things happening in the world at this time we still have so much to be thankful for. We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and we wish everyone happiness in the New Year.

Buttons, Wonderul Buttons...

Here is my button tree creation that I finished up last night. I saw the idea in a magazine a while ago and decided to try it out. It is just a styrofoam cone that you find in the craft/floral department at craft stores or Wal Mart (the green kind are the best). Then you need straight pins from the sewing department and a bunch of buttons (probably around 600ish varying upon what size you make)! I got my buttons from Archivers which is a scarpbook store. Most scrapbook stores sell bags of buttons.

I had so much fun working on this little guy. It was very theraputic and we all know I need a little therapy once in a while...

So if you are looking for something fun to do when it is so stinkin' cold outside (-9 degrees here in The Springs this morning...BRRRRR) try this! It very easy and goes pretty fast!

P.S. The lighting is pooptastic in these pictures and they are super grainy, maybe if I knew how to work the camera I could fix that but since I don't...

Does anyone else hate it when...

... their husbands get on the freaking ROOF??????
Because I DO! Just look at how happy he is up there...

But the end result was worth all of the nervous reckedness...

Yay for beautiful Christmas lights and this beautiful time of year!

Happy Thanksgiving and Twilight!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! A little late yes, but happy none the less! Scot's sisters and their families were all here for Thanksgiving this year which was so much fun! We love getting together and spending time with them! Among other activities (see Katie's blog) one of the things we did was to go see Twilight on Friday afternoon!
I was a little unsure about whether or not I was going to like it. I had heard mixed reviews about it so I was kind of on the fence. Honestly I don't really know a whole lot about who is a good actor or actress and if the filming was good, I just know what I like and I LOVED IT! Obviously they had to cut a lot of things out and a movie doesn't give you all of the detail and emotion that a book can but I thought the movie was great. I thought the characters were cast well and I was thoroughly entertained and that's all I really care about.

After the movie we went back to our house for Pizza because it is so close to the theater. The boys also had a tie swap which was fun. They picked ties from their closets that they don't wear anymore and brought them and they all swaped ties...

I hadn't taken any PICTURES while they were here so we did a little photo shoot before they had to go home that night.

Here we all are:

I guess we were feeling a little cheerleaderish...Here are the sisters and brother (shouldn't Scot be on the bottom?) I love this picture! So cute!:

And this last picture is just...ri-donk-ulous and funny...here are the IN - LAWS (- Christian who couldn't be there) we were just feeling silly...and cheerleadery again (see above picture):

GO TEAM!

I am thankful for so many things this year. I know I act extremely UNGRATEFUL most of the time but I have so many blessings in my life. Here are 27 of them since Thanksgiving was on the 27th (clever, I know) in no particular order:

1. My Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ
2. My wonderful and caring husband
3. My families (both my own and Scot's)
4. My job, even though I hate it 99.999999999% of the time I am grateful to have it
5. A house. We were very blessed this year to get this home.
6. Food to put on the table each day
7. Books, I love to be able to get lost in a good book!
8. Good friends, lots of them are far away and I don't see them very often but I am thankful for them
9. My sewing machine, my newest friend. Love it!
10. My car, who without I wouldn't make it through some of these Colorado winters
11. The Gospel
12. My Camera, I love pictures to scrapbook and I love the memories they hold
13. Gas prices being so low, it has been a life saver these last couple weeks
14. My iPod, it totally gets me through my day at work
15. Mine and Scot's education
16. Clean water for cooking, bathing and drinking
17. Pajamas! I would live in them if I could
18. Vacations!
19. Eternal marriage and the knowledge that families are forever
20. Toothbrushes and toothpaste
21. Ice Cream - especially Peppermint
22. My new white down comforter thanks to Black Friday!
23. A garage so I don't have to scrape my car windows
24. Temples
25. California - Elk Grove in particular. It is where I grew up and learned and played
26. Wal Mart - we have a love hate relationship. It saves me lots of money but NOT lots of time
27. The Red Box. I love the Red Box. I would WAY rather spend $1 on a movie instead of $5. Booo Blockbuster....and Hollywood Video...Boo.

We hope everyone had a wonderful THANKSGIVING!

We loved seeing you guys! We miss you already! Come back...K?

Snow, Glorious Snow...

It has snowed SOOOO much today! This morning we got up and got ready to go to church. I was really dragging my feet because of how much it had snowed in the night and it was still snowing. I loath going out in the snow, especially in a dress! However, we pressed forward and got ready BUT just as we were literally walking out the door Scot decided to check his messages and lo and behold there was a message from a man in the ward saying that church had been canceled because of the "deteriorating weather conditions." WOW! That never ever happens! We were shocked to the say the least but a little relieved that we wouldn't have to go out in the snow and risk our lives, even though we did miss getting to go to church this week of course! Here is what we are looking at:

This is the tippy top of our 12 inch ruler about to be covered in snow! The weather guy on KKTV says that we could see at least 2 feet before the snow stops this evening. They are usually SOOOO off so I don't really believe him but lets face it if we woke up to 2 feet of snow I wouldn't be too heart broken if I couldn't get out of my driveway and not have to go to work tomorrow!!!!!

Here is Scot urging the clouds to break lose and let 'er rip so we can stay home and be couch potatoes tomorrow!! Oh the bliss it would be...(It's nice to dream...)

COME ON MOTHER NATURE, DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO!

It's that time again folks...

TO ELF YOURSELF!

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I have a problem...

I HEART MAGAZINES!!
i LOVE magazines. all kinds of magazines. scrapbooking, do it yourself, home decor, gossip, exercise, fashion, craft magazines. i am addicted! i have a big HUGE basket full of magazines just like these next to the couch in our living room! the first step towards getting help is admitting you have a problem...right?? i think i need to go to magazine buyers anonymous...