[.Resolutions.]

I’ve been lied to.
I’ve been judged.
I’ve been disrespected.
I’ve been heartbroken.
I’ve made mistakes.
I’ve lost hope.
I’ve been called hopeless.
I’ve been disappointed, disillusioned, and distressed.
I’ve given up.
I’ve given in.
I’ve punished myself.
But this year,
I choose to leave it all behind me,
And allow it to push me forward
Instead of keeping it in front of me,
Holding me back.

Here’s to an amazing 2010: Make your dreams come true.

Happy New Year.

jmw.

 

[.I've got one hand in my pocket && the other one is giving the peace sign☮.]

Lets see, where to start..

How about Christmas Eve.  Lance's family started a new tradition last year that the family goes bowling on Christmas Eve.  We all had our own bowling names.  Lance was [so] Fresh and I was [so] Clean.  Lets just face it.  The first round, I sucked!  As usual, so nothing new.  Lance normally does well so we don't have to brag about him breaking 100.  But, I DID!  And I'm pretty sure it was my second time ever!  Only on my second game though..for some reason I got lucky and had somewhere around 6 or 7 spares in a row!

Thanks Myrna and Diet!

Lance goin in for the strike!

 

Brad and Claire were so stinkin cute!  They got so excited each time it was their turn.

Once we were finished bowling, we were all anxious to get to the house before Randy and Jenny did.  We wanted to see the looks on Brad and Claire's faces once they saw their huge presents!

As soon as they walked in, Brad walked right past the big presents...looked at a small[er] one on the other side of the tree and said, "Hey! This one is for me!".  It was pretty funny! Once we mentioned to look at the big ones they wanted to open them immediately.  All the siblings watched a "year in review" movie that Randy made, ate pizza, then exchanged gifts.
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Christmas morning Lance and I got up early to go to my mom and Kevin's house to be with them for a little bit.  We got there in time to watch them open gifts and open some of our own as well.  Kevin and I made breakfast burritos after presents. 

This is when the fun began..

I started feeling sick after breakfast, I do not like migraines and obviously they don't like me back.  Lets just leave it at that.

G-ma and G-pa Neilson came over for a bit after breakfast and visited for a while.  I felt bad because all I could do was lay on the couch with a blanket while they were over.  I took some Excedrine, Zofran and Benedryl.  Only made me feel a little better, but functional enough to get on with the rest of the day.

Next stop was my G-ma and G-pa Hamblin's house.  We met Mandy, Lorin, Jonah, Jake H. and Isaac there to do our sibling gift exchange.  Mandy got a new camera for Christmas and she let me play with it for a min.  It made me jealous, but also SO excited to get one of my own one day!

 

Finally, last but not least, we went to my G-ma and G-pa Rose's house.  We met my dad, Tracy, Braydon and Cortnie there to do yet-again, another exchange.  Goodness - I guess that is what having a lot of family does to ya!  This year at Grandma Rose's house alot of our cousins were there!  Some that we haven't seen in probably 8 years!  It was a lot of fun to catch up with them and talk about fun times we had growing up, and all the tricks we'd play on each other!  Too bad we don't get to see eachother more often!

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Saturday Lance was up early to go ice fishing with his dad and brothers.  Whoopdee!  Well, us girls went and saw New Moon.  Kamie was the only one who hadn't seen it yet, but we were all willing to go again.

{I don't mind paying money to see Jacob with his shirt off!}

The boys did have fun and caught a lot of fish.  I  heard lots of stories.. The  heater falling into the hole, ice mustaches, steam coming from the tent..  Boy stuff.  I'll stick to my shows:)

 Later that night we had an [after-Christmas] Christmas party with the Fischer, Snedeger and Abbott family.  Had some dinner and played a white elephant game.

Christmas is such a busy time of the year, but I like being able to see so many people that you don't get to normally see during the year.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

[."Ooh, is that her?".]

Well, what a B.U.S.Y weekend.  With just more and more busy-ness to come!

It all started Thursday.  Lance and I were invited to my annual work Christmas Celebration.  It was really nice for the two of us.  My work had set up an intimate setting with dimmed lights and  lit candles.  The food was delicious.  Beef and ham slices with potatoes, veggies, rolls, and then apple or rich chocolate caramel cheesecakes with sauce.  Oh and there was hot chocolate that came in cute little dainty cups.  We sat with my boss Matt and his wife Jen, Court and Kellie Pitcher, & Mike and Wendy Isom.  It was good conversation with such sincere people.  Although Lance and I felt a bit out of place because we've never been to Paris or Copenhagen, we still had a good time laughing about every other minute.
___________
Jazz season seems different this year.  Maybe because Lance and I are married? Who knows?!  But it has always seemed like our winter weekends were full of Jazz games then heading home afterwards.  I like it better the way it is now.. Diet and Myrna came over Friday night for dinner and the Jazz game.  Dessert and Wii games included during  half time.  I'm thinkin Jazz need to kick it up a bit!  Anyway, why I like Jazz season better this way.. Because after Jazz games now we can go do things afterward and be home whenever we want.  Lance tried to be spontaneous and took me on a "hot date" after the game.  This consisted of driving to the Gateway and seeing the new movie Blindside.  Sounds hot doesn't it!?! Well it was fun for us.  And the best part was that it was free, because we had two gift cards!  It seems like life gets so busy that we never have just us-time, besides the time after our bed time, which by then we're both entirely too tired for any spontaneity.
Well, the movie was GREAT! I'm buying that one for sure!  For anyone who hasn't seen it, I highly recommend it.

We were up early (once again) for Saturday.  My brother Jake has been working on his Eagle Project and Lance was willing to help him out a bit.  Jake prepared a basketball day for special needs children.  Actually I'm pretty sure they were all autistic children.  Even though I wasn't there, I found it special because we could all related to these kids knowing that they were somewhat similar to Tyden, yet all very different at the same time.  Lance loved helping Joseph.  Joseph was a 19 year old with Autism and wanted to talk to Lance more than play basketball.

Part of their conversation went like this..
(Sorry I can't include what his accent sounded like, wish I could though)


Lance: "I'm Jake's brother-in-law"
Joseph: "Ooh, you married? You have picture?"
Lance:"Not with me right now."
Joseph: "Ooh, is that her?"
(Pointing to Jenna, Jake's girlfriend.)

Once the boys came home Kevin asked if we wanted to go with him, Brooke and Ty to see Princess and the Frog. 
(I didn't even have to convince Lance he was so excited;)

Brooke couldn't stop laughing the whole time, I think she was just more excited that everyone was at a movie with her.  I was kinda nervous actually because Ty has never been to a movie in theaters.  But it wasn't as bad as I expected, he moved around ALOT but he wasn't to loud.


I don't care what people thought of Tyden during the movie, to me he is special.  If you know and understand Tyden you can picture him doing this .....
He was so anxious through the whole movie patiently waiting for credits to come on at the end.  He knew when the end was coming because he stood up and said "Almost credits!!!", as soon as it had ended, the movie credits started Ty stood up and yelled, "YAY!! CREDITS!!!" Jumping up and down clapping.  It's so sweet to see how innocent he is and how happy he is just with the little things in life.  He is such an example to me.
___________
After church on Sunday, Lance and I went to my Grandma Hamblin's Christmas party.  Once again.. delicious food.
(the only reason I don't like the holidays.. I feel like I could explode after every meal..Then again, I love the holidays because I love food!)
All the kids went downstairs afterwards to dress up in their costumes for our traditional Nativity Play.  I was very excited this year not to have to be in it!  The rules are, you have to be in the play unless you've been on a mission or are married.  Luckily we both met the criteria.

We all gathered around to exchange gifts and have icecream treats for dessert.

. Ty wasn't in the play this year, but he read the whole program along with every one else.

 

.At lease Ike was happy to be in the play.

(Maybe because he was finally able to play Joseph)

I guess Jake was a little happy too, we caught him singing one of the songs with his eyes shut like he was performing in a concert!

(When he opened his eyes and saw Lance, Jenna and I laughing at him, it made him a little more aware)

 

.My nephew Jonah bein a gangsta.

[.Family Pics.]

A couple weeks ago Lance and I went and got our family pictures taken to give to my dad and step-mom for Christmas.

Here are some of my favorites!

-And yes, it was FREEZING!!!-

 

 

 

 {Braydon:Jake:Me:Lance:Cortnie}

We know, we are odd.

 

 

[Definitely.a.FAVE]

That is it.

The End

[.Out with the old - in with the New.]

Since we've been married we've put up with our love sac and our $15 hand-me-down DI couch with a couch cover that didn't even fit the thing!  They were comfortable for about fifteen minutes, then we'd end up on the floor with a blanket and pillow.

Well.. Those days are over!

Thank you Diet, Lance, Kevin and Jake for helping get this huge thing into our apartment!  They ended up taking the back off and taking the couch into pieces to get it through the door!  The only injury was Lance's knuckles.  Thanks again so much for all the help!

 

Now, instead of waiting for our CSI shows to hurry and get over so we can lay comfortably in our bed, we have fallen asleep out on our couches every night and wake up around 1:oo am to get in bed!  We're very grateful that we are blessed to be able to afford something this new for being newlyweds.  I've always known that by paying our tithing blessings will come from it.  I've felt so blessed lately to be able to afford new necessities/wants when the time comes.

_______

Even though I feel blessed to have these things, I now have a sense that all I'll be doing is saving again.  Buying a car, furniture, a Wii, Christmas gifts and upcoming 2x tuition + the cost of books, I'm starting to feel a little lack of control.  Saving time for us!

{although the "splurging" has been fun, enough is enough:}

[.Decorating.]

Now that it's been a while, I finally took a picture of our .first. Christmas tree!  I'm still adjusting to the real trees.  I tried and tried to get ribbon on our tree, but it just [wouldn't work] out as I'm used to!  Therefore, I used the ribbon ~elsewhere~!!  But I love the way it turned out, probably just because it's o.u.r.s and we were so excited to put it up and decorate it.  We probably would have loved it with only lights on it, but we needed a little more {spice} than that!

[.Smile, it won't mess up your hair.]

[.I need to start bringing my camera along.]

 

[.Food: God's love made edible.]

A Whole Lot of Thanks and Giving

Recessionista Party

is having a Coach Bag Giveaway!

[Click the above link to see details]

[.East Canyon.]

Ever since I started wishing for more -vacations- in the summer, they haven't seemed to stop.  This is not a bad thing, I love them.  My only concern is that the people living across the street from us see me packing the pillows, blankets, and bags every single weekend and they probably think I leave to do some "secret business".  But I don't really care what they think because Lance and I have fun.  I feel like we put our weekends to good use.  Even though the house doesn't ever really get cleaned because the weekends are my time to do it, and we are never there, I still feel like it is more important to go spend time with our families.

We really enjoyed this last weekend up in East Canyon, it was fun and relaxing at the same time.

(Besides when Ty and Brooke get pretty loud - that's not so relaxing)

The first night there we went and spent time in the hot tub and sauna.  I've come to the conclusing that it will always be a conflict with me when I get into hot tubs. I love them!! But because I'm allergic to the heat I can only spend about ten minutes in it before I start breaking out in hives and want to jump into the pool/snow (in the winter).  I'm going to have to try and find something that will help stop the reaction whenever I go hottubbing!

Saturday we all went to Park City for the day to do some "serious" shopping.  I must say I disciplined myself!! I came out of Park City with buying only two things!  Talk about serious!

This is how the boys spent their time "shopping".  Watching the stinkin game!!  (The little table in front of Lance actually had an empty Pepsi can on it when we got there, and we kinda made fun of it saying that it had looked like Lance had already been there.)  I was fine with it though, I moved on quickly enough;)  As I was walking out the door I talk the guy working there that they might be a while, with no hesitation he said, "no problem I'll buy them a pizza!"  I thought it was pretty funny.

The only bad part was that it was absolutely freezing with a blizzard as we were walking through the outlet.  But we were all bundled up so it was worth it.

We bought salted pretzel bites to warm us up as we were leaving!

.MmMmMm.

Instead of taking the main roads back to the condo we took the way through the mountains.

Lance got very excited when we got to see the deer, does and MOOSE on our way back.

.Sorry kind of hard to see - its right in the middle.

 

At least keeping them entertained was easy!

[.Here's your Sign.]

Thanks to my sweet husband, I had a wonderful birthday!

He gave me the present I wanted most!  Which yes, might be a weird gift as a birthday gift, but I really REALLY wanted it!

He got me the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, (which is killer by theway!) along with some weights!  I would have been perfectly fine with just that gift but he also gave me a movie and a nice {little} surprise (if you want to call it little) that I was SO excited for.
Thanks for the tickets mom, glad we all were able to go!!!

 

I seriously don't know why everyone loves to torture me:)

I don't know what the heck is on her pants!

 

 

 

On the day of my birthday Lance and I went to dinner with my family and grandparents, then went back to the house to open presents and have cake and ice cream.  Goodness, I felt so spoiled!  But thank you everyone for making it great!

Time for the "surprise" .. On Friday, we both got off work early and left on our way to Wendover.

We stayed in the Peppermill Hotel and had a nice buffet dinner once we got there.
We hurried over to Peppermill Concert Hall to pick up our BILL ENVGALL tickets at will call!

.Before the show.


I wish we could  have taken pictures of Bill while the show was going to show how close we were!  We had second row seats!  I was laughing the entire time, wishing I would have spit my gum out so I wouldn't choke on it!


Officially being 21, I could now enter the casinos.
[surprisingly Lance and I didn't get ID'd once]
We went and looked around for a bit and played a couple games, but I'm no longer a night owl now that we're married and got tired around 11:30!!  So Lance took me up to our room to tuck me in, then went back down with my mom.  They came back up to the room about a half hour later and I was already ZONKED!  Well.. they were hungry, woke me up, (more like pulled me out of bed, in my pajamas with no shoes!) and the three of us went on a late night munchies run to Micky Dee's.

It was a short one nighter trip, but it was a blast!!  And the best 21st birthday I could have ever had!


Thanks everyone!!

[.A little late.]

I didn't want this to be posted late, but I've been wanting to post and didn't have my pictures! So, thanks to some wonderful S.I.L I will get started on our Halloween trip to Richmond!  

The Friday before Halloween Lance and I were able to go up to Richmond to Randy and Jenny's home to spend time with Lance's side of the family.  We had a blast!

That Friday night all the girls went and saw This Is It.  I had never really been a fan of MJ and I've never been familiar with his music, but I actually appreciated going to see this movie!

{I'm sure that Jenny's vibe alone was enough to make me want to start dancing to Michael Jackson!!}

 Saturday we woke up to pumpkin waffles and searching for stencils to carve all of our amazing pumpkins!  I usually am lucky if I even get to painting a pumpkin, let alone intensely carving one!  Thanks to the start of this new tradition, Lance and I went and bought two packs of carving materials!

After pumpkins and snacking, Tori and I went with the boys to shoot clay pigeons!  I didn't get as lucky this time as I did my first time ever shooting but Tori hit her first shot!

 [Don't get us mad boys]

This Halloween was the first time I'd been "trick-or-treating" in a while.  Not the good part of trick or treating where  you ask for candy, but the cold door-to-door experience.  Lance and I went with all the family {besides Matt and Tori, who so kindly stayed to pass out candy} to watch Brad and Claire in their cute little costumes.  For some reason, I did find it quite funny that basically the whole family went walking through the neighborhood.

 

Later the boys scared all the older trick or treaters.  They did get called a couple of names, which were probably well deserved!!

.:Here are everyone's pumpkins:.

 

 {amazingly created by Lance}

{embarrassingly created by me}

 

{talented-ly created by Randy}

 

{enduring-ly created by Matt}

 

{lovingly created by Jenny}

{strategic-ly created by Tori}

__________________________________

Sunday morning we had the BEST omelets I have ever had in my entire life.

Jenny is such an amazing chef

Then off to church it was.

Halloween was such a fun weekend!

Thank you Randy and Jenny (once again) for letting us come intrude your house!