Claire's Dance Recital

This week we got to go see Claire dance in her Christmas recital. Seeing all those darling girls in their costumes was so much fun! That's why you have girls! Matt was just shaking his head the whole time. Claire was the best in her class, and definitely the tallest! I can't believe how fast she is growing right before our eyes. I am so glad that we can share these fun nights with her while she is still little. We love you so much Claire!

Christmas in the New Place

We absolutely love where we live. So when it came time to decorate for Christmas, both Matt and I were pretty excited. Matt had grand plans to put lights up on the roof of our townhome, but that never happened, so we put lights on our bush outside, up the post on our porch, and in the two windows. Matt and I have been fighting about Christmas lights and we finally came to a compromise: He gets colored lights outside and I get to decorate the inside of the house however I want, including the tree. He wasn't happy about it, but it was the best way to solve the problem!

I love decorating my tree every year. This year Jenny and I took the kids out to buy Christmas trees. We didn't have the energy or time to go out and cut one down. Maybe next year. I think Jenny was a little shocked at how much I spent on our tree- I definitely buy the tree I want! This year I also bought the beautiful Christmas painting on the wall next to the tree. It is a picture of Santa holding the Baby Jesus figure from the nativity. I don't have a nativity, and I thought it was a good substitute.

Matt made me a beautiful crown molding shelf and I just got it painted. But, because we haven't put it up yet (still fighting about where it should go), the stockings had to go on the railing. I hope Santa will find them!

Every year I use the leftover decorations and ornaments to put my wreath together. I love having a festive wreath on our little street. I am surprised at how few people decorate their door or houses for  Christmas!

Friends Christmas Party

Matt and I are very lucky to have such good friends. These are the girls who I lived with at some point while I was at Utah State. The moment we decided we wanted to do a Christmas party, I called everyone and they all set aside the date on their calendars and made it a priority to be there. I was so glad that everyone could come, because our group is growing with new spouses and new little ones!

From left:
Natalie and Zach Neibaur who live in Salt Lake, Matt and I are now in Logan, Jeana and Marc are in Tinnic (not sure of spelling?) and have their first little one due in February, Jenni and Jared live in Logan with little Trennon, and Lindsay and Tom live in Roy with one-year-old Olivia

We had a great night catching up on everyone's busy lives, making pizzas and eating yummy dessert, and we also played the present game (which I totally screwed up!). It was so fun watching the two one-year-olds playing and walking around and talking. It's crazy how they are only a few months apart but are so different! We are planning a summer camping trip and it is going to be a blast!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This year was our year to have Thanksgiving with the Fischer family. So we spent Wednesday with my mom and Jeff, we went to a movie and dinner and slept over. Then on Thursday morning we met up with the Fischer boys to go shooting. This is one of our family traditions, and it is one of my favorites. All the brothers were able to come this year, and Bradley got to come this year. It is fun that he is getting old enough to be included in things like this! My mom, Jeff and Cassie were all able to come, and I'm so glad that they enjoy this tradition too!

After shooting we had a fantastic dinner and even decided to do some Black Friday shopping. I swore I would never do this, and even though I didn't have anything special I needed to buy, I went with the others for moral support. I was definitely no help. I got lost in every store because I was so interested in watching the crazy people! I couldn't believe how crazy people are, especially when the deals weren't that great! We did end up having a good time. Whenever the four Fischer boys are together, things are always a little more exciting. While they were waiting for the women, the boys started "supporting" the other shoppers waiting in line. They were high-fiving everyone, and cheering for people with full shopping carts. It was definitely exciting just to watch those guys get stressed out shoppers to smile! I definitely think we should make this a tradition for us all to go out every year, even if we don't buy anything!

On Saturday Matt and I went to the last Utah State football game of the season. They have had a great season and we have LOVED having football tickets this year. We will continue buying tickets for sure. And you better believe it... we ended up winning our conference and having the best record of all the Utah football teams!

After the game, we rushed the field with the rest of "Aggie Nation" to watch the Aggies get their WAC conference championship trophy. While we were out there waiting, Gary Anderson was so antsy to get his trophy! He actually said, "Where's my damn trophy!?" It was hilarious. We were so close to the stage that we ended up being in some of the pictures on KSL.  The Aggies were invited to the Idaho Potato Bowl and we are so excited to go to that game!

Can't wait for the bowl game and can't wait to kill some people in the Mountain West Conference next year! GO AGGIES!

MULLET!

I told Jenny not to cut Harrison's hair... his mullet is too cute!!!

Five Years!

Five years of my life were spent working on this quilt and now it is done! Okay, not five whole years, but it has been on my mind, and has been one of my New Year's resolutions for five years and now IT IS FINALLY DONE! I am so proud of myself. I definitely have to give a shout-out to Myrna, who (let's be honest) helped me with every single part of the quilt, and even saved me when I messed up, had huge knots, and when my fingers were so exhausted she took over at the sewing machine. She told me I need to buy my own sewing machine, but now that I'm done with my quilt, I never need to sew again! I filled my sewing quota on this project!

I took my quilt in to school and read some monster books for Halloween, we did a monster art project and did a monster writing activity and the kids loved it! When I showed them my quilt it was the best reaction I could have ever hoped for! Some of the kids told me it was the best quilt they had ever seen! I think what makes it so great, besides the great colors, are the individual monsters, so here they are! (Don't look too closely or you might see my blood from all the times I poked myself while I was stitching!)

Whenever Matt looks at my quilt, he thinks about all of the things his mom sewed for him when he was a kid, because all my fabric came from her sewing room. The colorful dragon/monster has a tye-dye fabric that Matt had "jammers" made out of...

The half-square triangles came from Myrna's monster quilt that she is working on (her quilt inspired me to start this project all those years ago). She had made all these half-square triangles and didn't use them all, so I grabbed them up! Aren't they amazing?

The back is just black with a swirl pattern, but it came together so well!

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween

I LOVE CACHE VALLEY! I love our Halloween traditions that we can actually do this year because we live so close to Randy and Jenny and the kids. This year we started the festivities with our annual pumpkin carving tradition. The boys were gung-ho as always, I think Matt and Randy carved six or seven pumpkins between the two of them. I decided this year to try something new, and I melted crayons over the top of my pumpkin which looked pretty cool! I think that next year I'll have to do a crafty pumpkin again, but also carve a pumpkin too because I missed it this year!

Even Todd got into carving this year, although he would have been more into it if it wasn't past his bedtime...

Matt's temple, Jenny's cookie-cutter stars, Brad's frankenstein and Claire's smiley face!

Todd's deer pumpkin and Randy's duck hunting pumpkin! I told both of them that we could melt some red crayons on their pumpkins and then they could show that they killed these animals...

Carving with Brad and Claire was super fun. Brad got so frustrated trying to make his pumpkin perfect, but Claire was a crazy carver! She did the whole thing by herself, tongue out the whole time!

My crayon pumpkin! For some reason the crayon would drip down the side and then lift up off the pumpkin (it wouldn't stick!). Claire had a blast picking the crayon off the pumpkin the next day!

Don't you love how Harrison is staring at Matt in the mask? He was so nervous, even when he knew it was Matt! Claire was a dead cheerleader, Brad was a vampire and Harrison was a devil. Check out dirty Randy's costume. Nasty mustache- check. Gross mullet wig- check. Cowboy hat- check. Tight, v-neck t-shirt- check. Nasty fake chest hair- check. GROSS.

I can't take enough pictures of this baby! He is just so cute!

Harrison in my boots! Okay I put him there, but he was just so cute I couldn't resist.

After the festivities of Halloween were over, we watched the Jazz game. I tried to steal a piece of candy from Matt and HE BIT ME to get it back! Look at the teeth marks! I could kill that guy!

All in all, a fantastic and very fun Halloween!