Happy Birthday Husband...

Today is the Husbands Birthday! 26 years old! Crazy. Having a birthday 2 days before Christmas isn't Jarom's most favorite thing, but we made sure to spoil him. Last week, Jarom and I went down to Hurricane to celebrate his birthday with his family. His mom made him his favorite chicken pot pie, but my favorite was that Jarom selected dirt cups for his choice of dessert. Yes, dirt cups. The ones you make when you are in 3rd grade, with chocolate pudding, oreos and gummy worms. They turned out so cute, I wish I would have taken a picture. The kids loved them, and I pretty much think Jarom will be the best dad someday, because lets be honest he is a kid at heart even at 26. :) Jarom's parents totally spoiled us with a bunch of presents to bring home with us for Christmas since we won't be able to go down. Terri made me promise not to open them until Christmas. I'm a woman of my word. They are still wrapped and under the tree....

After having a great time down in Hurricane for the weekend we came home and celebrated again with my family and with Josh since Josh's birthday was on the 20th (Happy Birthday Josh) We went to Tucanos for dinner. For those of you who haven't been there, it is amazing, and it is officially Jarom's new favorite place. It's basically a meat buffet where the servers bring, no bombard you with meat at your table. They bring it to you straight from the grill on skewers and cut it off right in front of you. We tried so much meat. The servers came one after another all night. It was delicious, but I think the grilled pineapple was my favorite. It literally melted in your mouth. The best thing about Tucanos is if you go to their website and sign up for the birthday club (which we did for josh and jarom) they get to eat free.... :) We came back to our place afterwards to open up presents and we, well I, had cheescake for dessert. Everyone else was too full. The boys were literally sprawled out on the floor hoping their food would digest more quickly. I somehow always manage to make room for dessert...

I was feeling terrible because I was supposed to work all day today on Jarom's birthday but things worked out perfectly and I was put on call today so we were able to sleep in, make breakfast, open presents, and we are planning on going to see TRON today. Wahoo! (Thanks work for the free movie passes)!

My next favorite thing about Jarom's birthday is that he shares his birthday with the sweet Prophet Joseph Smith. Check out this picture Jarom took while he was on his mission. It's one of my favorites...

Crazy huh? To my husband: Happy Birthday Jar...I love you! Marrying you was the best decision I've ever made. I hope you have a fabulous day. Thanks for being so perfect for me...

Well, Christmas is in 2 days! I can't wait. All these presents under the tree are killing me. I am the worst. Last week, I did a terrible thing and opened up the pair of jeans Jarom bought me for christmas. In my defense, I didn't have any clean ones to wear and it was date night...and I did re-wrap them afterwards! lol my bad. 2 more days....

15 days until Christmas!

Back again...with some updates! So much to blog about...

For Thanksgiving, I was able to get a few days off of work which allowed us to take a few days and spend Thanksgiving with Jarom's Family in Hurricane. We had a great time! It had been awhile since we had been down there together. Jarom's Mom opened up a Del Sol store down in St. George which was open all night on Thanksgiving and for the following day on Black Friday, which kept everyone very busy. We weren't able to spend as much time with his family as we had hoped for, but we had fun being down at the store and helping a little bit with the inventory. We also had the chance to go shooting with some friends and of course ate a lot of delicious food. I brought my favorite Pomgranite Fruit Salad (Thanks Amy Jo!) which seemed to be a big hit, so for your sole enjoyment I have posted it below:

1 Large Pomegranite

2 8oz. tubs of Cool Whip (thawed)
1 Large Rasberry Jello Mix (or two small packages)
Approx. 1/2 bag of Mini Marshmellows
1 Can of Pineapple Tidbits (I prefer my salad without the pineapple tidbits, however I do use the pinapple juice to mix with the Jello Mix and to give it more flavor)

With a whisk, mix the 1 Large Rasberry Jello Mix with Pineapple Juice drained from the pineapple tidbits. Allow the Jello Mix to dissolve. Then stir in the thawed Cool Whip, the 1/2 ish bag of Mini Marshmellows, the Pomegranite seeds, and if desired, the pineapple. And that's it! I like to let it sit in the fridge for 1/2 hour to an hour before serving. Enjoy :)

I have another fruit salad I am really wanting to try...so when I do, and if I approve, I'll post it. It sounds delicious...

I can't wait until Christmas! A few weeks ago my Mom and I went to Super Saturday, which happens to be one of my single most favorite things about Relief Society. We made ourselves a Christmas Countdown, and I threw together some modge podge and a few of my bridal pictures. The Relief Society sisters have all the hard work already done for you...which makes crafting possible for non-creative people such as myself. They even turned out alright. :)

Jarom bought me some Cinnamon Pine Cones, which also happen to be one of my favorite things about the Christmas Season.

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In other exciting news, Christmas came early for me this year. I wish I would have taken a picture of our old, sad couch, so instead let me paint you a picture. It was old, and gross, with a green and pink floral print...don't get me wrong was greatly appreciated while we had it (thanks Mom), but it is now R.I.P. at the D.I. and has been replaced by this beauty. Merry Chirstmas to me!

I have had my eye on this couch for months. Jarom, being the great husband that he is, ran out and bought it for me. And, we finally used an IKEA gift card that I've had since my Bridal Shower way back when...(Thanks Terri, Jen, and Kaylee) to buy this coffee table that I love. My living room is now complete. I'm a happy wife. As opposed to being an angry wife, which does occasionally occur. (Sorry Jarom)

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Side note: (I took this picture while Jarom was watching some clips of Mr. Bean. He was taking a much needed break from his crazy amounts of finals, research papers and projects. Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am that I'm done with school for a while? I am VERY grateful!) To my husband and others who are finishing up their fall semesters...I feel for you.

Also, Jarom and I finally got our Christmas tree up! After looking at the affordable, yet sad, atrifical trees, we decided a real tree was the only way to go. We found out that permits to cut down our own tree were sold out so, we purchased one. We have since vowed not to procrastinate next year. Jarom claims I was like a child in a toy store while picking out our tree. I thought each one was adorable. I wanted them all. Anyway, I couldn't not document "our first Christmas Tree" together...so, here it is.

Notice the presents under the tree...I am only 3, (maybe 4) presents shy of completing my Christmas shopping. Wahoo!

And to wrap it up...I had a terrifying experience at work last week. It had already been a pretty rough day. I was about ready to call it quits anyway, when yes, I got my first ever needle stick. And yes, it was with a contaminated needle. I held it together long enough to talk to my supervisor about our protocol and to draw the patients blood to test for any blood borne pathogens, and then I called Jarom. Sobbing. lol. Don'y worry, the test results all came back negative. Thankfully! (I was sure a nervous nelly). But I didn't even end up needing to be tested and it all worked out ok. I love my job, and I love being a nurse, but sometimes I do worry about the things I could or could not expose myself to. Not to mention my family or when the day comes that I have little ones at home that I could potentially bring sickness home to. It was one of those stinkin butterfly needles that I use all the time. I wasn't in a hurry or anything. It's kind of ironic actually I was trying to activate the safety decive when my finger slipped over the top. Some saftey device right...hopefully it never happens again!

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Oh and one last thing! My Sister-in-laws are both expecting next month and I can't wait! A big thanks to Jarom's family for allowing me to be an Aunt and for having babies to curve the baby hunger I may or may not be experiencing ;) Happy Holidays!

Recipes

So, I'm tired of making the same things over again,

and I've been recipe hunting....

Anyone have some delicious simple recipes to share? :)

The husband loves me...

Work today...not so great. Until I walked in the door to find this:

Along with a clean house, dishes done, and dinner all ready...I love my husband.

Last night...was A-mazing! Had a girls night and went to this:

The So You Think You Can Dance Season 7 tour here in Salt Lake.

We got some awesome pictures...they are soon to come.

And, if it's possible to top off the week, I have this to look forward to tomorrow night:

As well as Super Saturday tomorrow morning...which easily makes the top ten list in why I love Relief Society. Inexpensive, really cute crafts, (that even I can complete), great company, and delicious food. What's not to love about Super Saturday. Let's be honest.

Stay tuned...

In recent news...

Had a busy weekend. Jarom's parents drove up from Hurricane and stayed with us. They came up to go to the BYU game for Curtis's birthday. (Happy Birthday Curtis!) We are grateful BYU won. Jarom and I also drove up to Logan for a family wedding. (Congratulations Kevin and Lindsay!) I love weddings. I cried. Couldn't help it. This weekend I was introduced to Modern Family for the first time, thank you Josh. I think it's safe to say it's my new favorite show. If you haven't seen it, you must. Hillarious!

This morning I got a call at 4 a.m from the hospital saying I was put on call today. Thought to myself excellent, it's going to be a fabulous day and immediately went back to sleep. I decided today would best be spent making/decorating Terri's delicious sugar cookies. So, we did exactly that..

(Jarom's were alot better than mine, but in my defense

he's been doing this for years...I'll get better)

In case you were wondering, they were delic. Thanks Terri!

Since Jarom and I have been married he's decided to take on several new hobbies...his most recent being hunting. He saw this Savage Edge 308 hunting rifle online and immediately fell in love with it. Long story short, he shopped around everywhere to find the best price and after dreaming about/loosing sleep over the idea of it selling out or becomming unavailable for two weeks, we decided what the heck... :)

The best part about it (aside from the fact that my husband is actually sleeping again) is that on more than one occasion I've walked in the door to find him laying on the floor behind some sort of barracade made up of the couch pillows from the front room. He's worse than a little kid on Christmas :) Gotta love him.

Holiday Scheduling...

I can't remember the last time I just sat, quiet, by myself. I'm an enthusiastic planner. I do best staying busy, with long lists, and full schedules. As a "new nurse" I have the pleasure of working every other weekend...I'm not complaining, I was fortunate enough to find a nursing job in Utah, let alone working full-time and day shifts . I can suck it up and work a few weekends. It never killed anyone. One nice thing about working weekends is that occasionally, (meaning rarely, or almost never) it's quiet, and slow. I'm working today, alone, on the orthopedics unit with two patients and it is both quiet and slow. So I thought I'd set my book and KSL classifides ads (a.k.a. wishful couch looking) asside and blog a bit of what we've been up to...

First of all...holiday scheduling. I've been dreading this moment for a long time. Mostly because of my work schedule (apparently people get sick on holidays too,) but also because our families don't live particuarly close to one another, throw in being newly married and trying to establish your own traditions, and well, it can get quite complicated. For now, I'm just hoping it'll work out in the end. Back to scheduling, the process is intense...it includes rating Thanksgiving eve, Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas, and New years eve and New years on a scale of 1-6, (apparently everything is done on a scale here at the hospital..."What is your pain on a scale of 1-10" I can't even count how many times I ask this question on a daily basis) I feel like I'm being trapped. It's such a loaded question. How do you rate your holiday's? There are no guarantees. I'm trying to be all strategic about how and at what number to request these days off. But I'm at a loss. There are too many variables. If I think about it anymore I may just loose sleep over it. I guess it's just the planner in me.

Thursday- Jar and I washed up his bike all nice-like and got it ready to store for winter. Sad day. It will be missed. That night we went and saw the movie "Life as we know it" loved it. Highly recommended. Sidenote: Jarom is so good to go to movies that I want to see. I love him.

Friday- Jarom saw on the news that this fisherman caught a 30' some odd 14 lb. trout at Strawberry Reservoir, so naturally we had to go catch one too ;) We drove through Provo Canyon, the leaves are amazing. I love fall. Alot. It was really windy at Strawberry, but we had a good time. Jar brought our grill and made us some BBQ chicken. I caught a 14 in. trout which was our sole catch of the day, but in Jar's defense he did all the work, I was just holding it for a minute :)

And today- Nothing exciting. Our new favorite past-time is watching the Amazing Race on Sunday nights with the fam. We don't have T.V. so we try to go up when we can and watch it at my Mom's with them. Afraid we'll have to miss it tonight. Thank goodness for Hulu and other online broadcasting systems :)

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

And so it began...

I've always wanted to keep a journal, but haven't. Now that I've graduated and working full-time consists of me working three days a week, I get bored. I've recently taken up blog stalking, it's entertaining. Jarom and I refuse to pay for television. We're cheap. I like to think of ourselves as being "frugal." I also have recently realized I have a serious fear of "messing things up," therefore I just avoid them. This is why I don't do crafts. I don't scrapbook, I don't sew, I don't write in journals (my left hand never fails to smear the ink all across the page as I'm writing), I'll mess it up, of this I am sure. But then I thought, you can't really mess up blogging...there's a delete button just in case, so we're good. Also, this year has been the most life changing year of my life. I got married, I graduated from college and have begun my career, I became an aunt :) I've had some significant changes take place within my family, and I even drove a stick shift and went to my first concert. Thank you Jon Schmidt. So with that being said, I decided now is probably a good time to start some form of documentation of my life for posterity's sake. Yay for me!