Merry Christmas!

I saw this on my friend Kristol's blog and thought it was so awesome I copied her. Consider this our Christmas card this year!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Champs!

Sean has been playing on a basketball league with some friends at the Flash Factory in Lehi (used to be Open Court) and tonight they won the championship! It was fun going and watching the games each week and chatting with the other wives. They were undefeated and earned their bragging shirt!

Yeah, we're stylish

Sean and I went to an ugly sweater party the other night. Here are the hot little numbers we picked up for the event:

I was totally grossed out because I didn't have time to wash them before wearing. I wore a long sleeve shirt underneath mine to try an minimize the amount of contact it had with my skin! Sean's beautiful ensemble was found in the women's section at D.I. and comes complete with shoulder pads. He looked quite smashing. My sweater is made of 52% ramie-- whatever the crap that is. All I know is it was itchy and I will never wear something made with it again!

8 months and nursery

The picture is self-explanatory-- we're getting close! Sean and I have kicked it into high-gear in trying to get everything ready. We've made a few trips to Babies R Us, only to have to call family members for help and suggestions on what to buy. I had no idea things such as strollers, baby bathtubs, diaper genies, crib mattresses etc. were so complicated!

The nursery is just about done and I am very happy with the way it turned out. I catch myself spending a lot of time in here just because I enjoy the room so much. In my opinion it is simple but classic. We decided to keep our queen guest bed in the room and I am really glad we did. We were also going to add bead board, but decided the room didn't need it once we got everything situated. Maybe in the future! Here are a few pictures:

The red dresser is one of my favorite parts of the room. I was having a really hard time finding a changing table that I liked that wasn't $800. I found this at an independent local store for a great price and I love the color! I bought a changing pad and cover, placed it on top and voila! I'm planning to keep wipes, diapers etc. in the top drawer. One of the big bonuses is that it is taller than a normal changing table-- perfect for tall people like us.

Now it's on to finishing up the Christmas to-do list while we wait for the main event!

Concert and quick updates

We were fortunate enough to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert Friday night thanks to my sister-in-law's parents giving us tickets. My family has been going ever since I can remember and it is one of my favorite traditions. The performance was great and walking around temple square always puts me in the Christmas spirit. It helps me forget about the hustle and bustle of Christmas and focus on Christ. We had a great weekend and got to spend time with family from both sides.


As far as other updates, Sean is in the middle of finals right now. He's taken one, has one tomorrow and finishes his last one Friday. Needless to say, he's spending most of his time studying. He's also in a basketball league with some friends at the Flash Factory in Lehi and so far they are undefeated! This week starts the tournament so good luck to team Lew-dogg!

Friday was my last day of work. My co-workers were really nice and took me out to PF Chang's for lunch. When we came back from lunch I found a giant box by my desk-- they bought me a glider! Very cool. I was really lucky to work with some awesome people and working for such a large and successful company gave me a lot of opportunities. I learned leaps and bounds about the world of pr. I am excited to be moving on, though it is somewhat bittersweet. I am looking forward to the joys and challenges in my new job as mom.

Extra! Extra!

I'm talking to Sean yesterday and he asks me, "Did you see KSL has a copycat version of your story on their Web site?" Curious, I check it out and there it is!

Some background: About four years ago I was writing for BYU's newspaper, "The Daily Universe." It was a required class for public relations. Our final project was to write a feature story on anything we wanted. I spoke with my editor about wanting to write about BYU-INFO (a phone number people can call for information on anything from why the flag is at half-staff to needing the phone number to a particular person or department). My editor had heard that there was an older couple living in North Salt Lake whose phone number spelled out BYU-INFO and suggested I give them a call. You would think BYU-INFO's phone number would in fact spell out BYU-INFO, but it doesn't. The number for BYU-INFO is actually 422-INFO. Long story short, this couple whose phone number spells BYU-INFO was getting a lot of accidental calls from people trying to call the other number.

I interviewed the couple for the story and even went to their home. They were awesome! Instead of being mad about all of the extra calls, they enjoyed them. I found out that they actually tracked on a map with push pins where the callers were calling from. They loved talking to the people and found the whole situation humorous. Sounds like the perfect feature story, right? I thought so too. So I wrote my story.

As I said, it was my final project and after submitting my story I headed home to Idaho Falls for Christmas break. Little did I know the chain reaction my story would start. When I returned from the break I learned my story had been picked up by the Deseret News, News of the Weird (which is national!), tv stations, radio stations and other newspapers. Obviously I was shocked, and I must admit, sorta proud of myself.

So here is my ORIGINAL story (hint hint KSL). Keep in mind if you read this that I was a young pr student and my writing skills were not quite up to par...

And here is the link to the story in the Deseret News.

So here we are, more than four years later and KSL decides to ressurect the story on their site. It was kind of fun seeing it pop up again, although I wish the reporter would have given me some credit instead of claiming it as his/her own!

Holiday treats

We had our ward Christmas party last night and I signed up to bring a dessert. I saw this idea of topping cupcakes with chocolate snowflakes in one of my mother-in-law's magazines. They were so simple to make and I thought they turned out really cute! I just used a boxed spice cake mix and topped the cupcakes with buttercream frosting (with 1/2 tsp. cinnamon added). To make the snowflakes (I also made some trees) I bought white chocolate wafers (you can buy them at Roberts or Michaels in the cake decorating section), melted them down in the microwave and piped them onto waxed paper. If you don't have piping bags I'm sure a Ziploc bag would work! Anyway, I thought it was a fun idea.

I found a recipe for frozen hot chocolate the other day and Sean and I decided to try it out. My hot chocolate mine as well be frozen since the snow is taking its dear sweet time to show up and most days I don't even need a jacket. It's too bad too because at work we have an awesome free hot chocolate machine and so far I haven't felt the need for it. I am still dreaming of a white Christmas! Anyway, we both really liked this recipe. I tell myself it can't be THAT bad because there is no ice cream in it-- just chocolate, sugar and whipped cream is all! ;)Here is the recipe if anyone wants to give it a try:

Frozen Hot Chocolate

4 ounces of your favorite chocolate

2 teaspoons store-bought hot chocolate powder

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (I used more)

1 1/2 cups milk

3 cups ice cubes

whipped cream

chocolate shavings (optional)

Chop chocolate into small pieces and melt in microwave on low heat or in small saucepan. Once melted, add hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup milk, whisking until smooth. Cool to room temperature. In blender, place the remaining 1 cup milk, room-temperature chocolate mixture and ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Top with whipped cream and enjoy!