The One with the Prettiest Present Ever!

So remember just a few days ago when I posted about Mom's birthday and how amazing she is?  This is why.

When we got home from school yesterday there was a big box on our doorstep.  And for once my name was on it!  Justin gets packages all the time due to his eBay habit.  Back to the topic, it was our presents from Mom and Dad and the first thing I pulled out wasn't a beautifully wrapped box, it was this gorgeous Christmas tree skirt!  What a wonderful surprise!

 Love these fabrics!!

The backside is so soft!  Someday our children will fall asleep under the tree on this :)

Just like the one we had growing up!  I almost cried I was so excited!!  You can see in this picture that we have our village under the tree right now but I actually used an old white mattress pad underneath some batting for the "snow."  We make do with what we have :)

Last year we used a Gator blanket.  I thought it only fair since there is an Arizona ornament actually on the tree.

Anyway, I am suuuuper excited to use my real, beautiful Christmas tree skirt!!

The One with the Christmas Tree

I love Christmas decorations!  In this case I am truly my mother's daughter- there needs to be more, more, more!  Honestly, our apartment is pretty Christmas-ed out but I can't help wanting to put up more decorations.  Where exactly, I have no clue but I'm pretty sure I'll find a way :)

One of my favorite traditions (can it be a tradition if it's only in it's second year?) is that since Justin and I currently live in an apartment and have no place to store a fake tree (thanks to the multiple items of camping gear in the spare bedroom), we buy real Christmas trees!  This year we have a Noble fir and I LOVE the smell.  It's the first thing I notice when I walk out of the bedroom every morning.  And thanks to Mom's 26 year tradition of giving us kids ornaments in our stockings, our tree is beautifully decorated.  I'm a HUGE fan of the whole traditional tree thing- none of those color coordinated festival displays in our house!  (Although I not-so-secretly want to decorate and donate one to the Festival of Trees next year.)

Here's a look at our decorated home.  With Bing Crosby playing in the background I can't help but feel that it is a wonderful life :)

This is even after a little bit of cleaning up.  It was pretty crazy in the living room for a few days :)

Our tree!  Well picked if I do say so myself.

Me decorating.  And Justin's foot.

The final product.

This year I couldn't decide where to put the village and thought the tree looked sad with so few presents (I already mailed most of them to Florida).  Problem solved.

Quite possibly my favorite ornament :)  Don't tell Justin but he's getting this guy's twin for Christmas.

This one is definitely in the running though.

This looks more festive without the flash.

 

I love our nativity.  It's so cute!

I recently added this adorable Snow Mama to our entryway.  Stole the idea right off a craft blog and it took me about half an hour.  I've recently discovered that people actually have blogs just on crafting ideas and am currently seriously obsessed.  I need to graduate soon so I have more time (and $$) to do this myself!

The One with the Big Birthday

Happy Birthday to Mom!!

I love my mom!! 

She is the most amazing woman in the world.

Seriously, if you want something done and you want it done right, don't do it yourself...

ask my mom!

She is ridiculously smart, organized and extremely talented.

When I grow up I want to be just like her :)

The One at the Festival of Trees

I love the Christmas season! It is definitely my favorite holiday. Growing up we had a lot of traditions, some we loved and others not so much (hall pictures anyone?). To be honest, I never really minded those because we can look back at them now and see all of us kids growing up through those pictures. You can see the age at which Dave started to care more about sleeping in than opening presents while I still believed in Santa. And the years when one of our presents definitely needed to be new pajamas.

Since we will be in Florida for Christmas this year I've been asking Justin what his family did growing up so I know what to expect. Did they sing a Christmas song before opening each present like we did? (By the way, this was also one of those traditions I was probably the only one to enjoy and Mom told me she started it just to make the present opening last longer. Genius!) Did they buy a present for everybody or do a rotating Secret Santa exchange? (Another genius idea of Mom's. How else do you keep the Christmas budget down with 6 kids?!) So far all Justin has told me is that Christmas Eve is spent at Mima and Papito's and we get to open our presents there at midnight! This will be the earliest I've ever opened them! Can you tell I'm a little excited about that part?!

Back to the topic (or title) at hand. Justin and I have started a few traditions of our own. One of them is going to the Festival of Trees at the beginning of December. I remember going to those when I was younger. It was the annual walking field trip for my elementary school even (yep, I'm from a super small town). Here in Salt Lake it is a fundraiser for the Primary Children's Medical Center. People donate decorated trees and then others can buy them, with all proceeds going to PCMC. Very cool. Two years ago somebody donated their ~30 year old entire collection of Star Wars collectibles, some from the original movies in their original packaging!  We're talking Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Boba Fett, the Millenium Falcon, ewoks (the entire forest fight scene was actually set up) and all of the limited edition Queen Amidalas.  It was seriously the biggest display we've ever seen.  And like I said donated with all proceeds going to the kids.  The trees are generally in memory of someone (young or old) and are themed. I made the mistake the first year of reading the stories on the back of the title cards and they made me cry. I recommend not doing that if you actually want to see the trees. This year I remembered to take our camera and saw a lot of trees that I thought my family members would love.

I almost forgot- there are gingerbread houses, wreaths, etc. for sale also.

This is probably the most elaborate we've ever seen.

I thought the kids might like this one.  The time this would take, ridiculous!!

This one is for Ray.  Obviously :)

-A Christmas Story

I thought Dad and Steve would enjoy this one the most.  The sports teams around here usually donate a few trees but this year they must have all "teamed" up to make this huge display.  Unfortunately, this had a large poster of Jimmer, so we didn't bid on it.

-Utah Sports Teams

I thought this was the coolest part of the Sports Tree.  How do people part with this stuff?!

  

This was the first year there wasn't a split Utah/BYU tree (sometimes there are more than one of those) but I thought I'd put this one in to give you guys an idea of what they usually look like.

-University of Utah

Also for the kiddos. People are really creative.

-The "Up" Tree

The band Neon Trees is from Utah (and Mormon!) so they donated a...

-Neon Tree!!

This one is for Justin, my outdoor-loving husband.

-A Camping Christmas

Sometimes I just like to get decorating ideas from the Festival.  Remember the Christmas plaque I made Steve for Christmas a few years ago?  "Be naughty- save Santa a trip!"  Got the idea from a tree display and I may have to steal this one too.

I thought it was funny that somehow only Dave and Amy made the Nice List.

This tree is also for Steve.

-Coca-Cola Christmas

In my opinion this tree was the most beautiful.  The piano is electronic and played Christmas carols all night.  I dedicate this one to Wendy.  (Again, obviously!)

This tree is for all the men, especially Justin who is a big Spiderman fan.

This tree is for Kaden.  And me :)  I love the sorting hat!

-Harry Potter

And the snitch!!

And finally you can't go wrong with a patriotic tree.

Go America!  And Merry Christmas!!

The One with the BIG GAME!

I think today is truly the first test of our marriage.

The One with the Thanksgiving in Arizona

As much as I love seeing my family I will admit that I am glad (or should I say, thankful :) this was our last double digit hour drive home this year.  I am also really glad that Justin and I broke the drive up into multiple sections.  We usually stay up pretty late and figured as long as we were awake we should hit the road early so we drove down to Lake Powell Tuesday night.  Justin also didn't mind leaving that early because it meant we got to eat dinner at El Pollo Loco on the way and camp one more time this year.

Lake Powell is Gorgeous with a capital G!!

We woke up to a beautiful view and then headed to Tucson.  I really wanted to hit up the "A" store in the Tucson mall.  My current collection of UofA gear is starting to look a little too "holy" and I had a Christmas present in mind for Justin :)  After this little detour we had a few hours to kill so we drove over to Wendy's house and I had fun pushing the kiddos on the swings while Justin fell asleep on the couch.   Landon thought it was hilarious when I ran behind his swing as it swung forward and suddenly reappeared in front of him, like magic!  Wendy made some de-lic-ious chiminichangas for dinner which I will be attempting on my own soon (wish me luck, I'm soooo not a chef) and then Justin and I drove over to McKale Center for... the UofA men's basketball game!  I was so excited!  Justin had mentioned at the beginning of November that my Cats would be playing at home over Thanksgiving but I didn't think we'd be able to make it.  Well, we certainly did.  I have to admit I was a little disappointed, because we lost :(  But it was still super fun to be back on campus and we got to see the HUGE new screen at the football stadium.

This was awesome!  We got to see the presentation of the Territorial Cup during halftime because the Arizona football team beat ASWho in the annual Duel in the Desert!!

This HUGE lit letter A is on the backside of the new screen at the football stadium.  Brings a tear to my eye every time.

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Thanksgiving day itself was fun, happy, crazy, crowded and tasty.  Maybe it's a good thing Amy decided to start her own family tradition and had Thanksgiving at home.  No, I take that back, we missed you guys :(  I guess we'll have to start getting used to not spending every holiday with the entire family anymore- there are just too many of us!!  I think it's funny that we try to plan activities when we get together and then all we end up doing is just hanging out with each other.  That's my favorite part anyway.  Especially since I've moved farther away than I've ever been from my family and don't see them near as often as I'd like.  Here are a few pictures/videos of the fun had with family:

James was playing hide and seek in the backyard with these cute kids which quickly turned into just playing in the dirt.  Including a game you can probably only play in AZ- dirt angels :)

 

Bwahahahahaha!!  This cracked me up!

 When Justin had the chance he tried to rest like this-

because when the Brimhall children could find him this was what he actually spent most of the weekend doing:
falling out of chairs

 and trying to fit under small blankets.

 

For some reason they thought it would also be funny to "trap" his legs in pillows.  Or to let him trap their heads.  Either game seemed to make them laugh.

Another hit game for the weekend- Wii bowling.   Here's Justin showing his technique:

And Wendy impressing everyone with her moves (which somehow beat out Justin's more traditional approach):

And finally, the funniest moment from Thanksgiving.  For some reason I kept doing that dance from musical theater where you swing both arms directly in front of you while kicking both legs out behind you in the same plane.  I don't know how else to explain it and no, there is no video evidence of me even doing the dance so if you don't get it from this next clip, well, you're just out of luck.  Anyway, here is Trevy and Callie's attempt to do the dance.  Soooo funny!!  Quickly followed by a dance they do excel at, the Diaper Dance, with a guest appearance by Landon (aka Donald).

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Justin and I drove up to Phoenix on Saturday to visit the Fulps family and cut out a section of the final leg of our trip.  Kaden is getting so big!  He's definitely no longer a little boy.  Makayla and I played school for a little bit (meaning Makayla wrote a schedule on her white board while I tried to keep Seth from swallowing Barbie shoes) and then Justin helped out by teaching her Snell's Law of Refraction, complete with diagram. Umm, maybe a little too soon for that one honey.  Her expression was hilarious!  Wish we could have stayed longer but I did snag a few pictures of these little cuties:

 

 

Seth loves his Aunt Cindy!

Oh and what did the men do.  Take a wild guess.

"To ancient times and distant music!!"

The One with the Stick

I was thinking about my, I mean our, blog today and realized I spend a lot of time talking about Justin or my family and not myself.  This is mainly because my 3(!) followers already know me pretty well and I'm helping them get to know their brother-in-law a little better.  Wendy uses her blog like a journal though so I thought I could do the same and put more of myself into it.  So here's a thought that has been on my mind a lot recently:

I dwell way too long on what other people think of me.  I am constantly aware of what I look like to other people when I'm doing things.  For example, last night I went grocery shopping and for some reason couldn't find the stinkin' cans of beans (which if you know me I can go through pretty quickly so I do buy them fairly often).  So I walked around the same 3 or 4 aisles in search of Rosarita and passed a few people more than once.  And what I was thinking was "They must be thinking I'm so stupid and don't know my way around a grocery store" which distracted me and made the search last even longer!  And what I could have been thinking was "Why are we all walking up and down the same aisles?"  They very well could have been in search of a similar item in as obscure a location as my beans, which means they're not perfect either!  I guess the silver lining is that I was dwelling on my own stupidity versus that of strangers but I think maybe I could cut myself just a little slack here- I did, eventually, find the beans.

Just another example of my own self-awareness and an explanation of the title, yesterday (I guess yesterday was a big day in terms of me looking silly) I was walking back across campus to the Chemistry building.  It was an extremely windy day here and the ground was covered with leaves and small branches.  In my attempt to step over one of these sticks I somehow managed to step directly on one end with my right foot, causing the other end to point up in the air and entangle my left foot.  How I achieved this feat I'll never know and if you laughed envisioning it I can't say I blame you :)  I did somehow catch myself before I fell on my face and luckily it was a windy day so there weren't many people out at the time, but I couldn't help thinking how ridiculous I must look to an outside observer.  I don't consider myself an extremely accident prone person, just slightly AP, so why am I (and the rest of the world, or a few others at least, I hope) so concerned about what we look like to other people?  Because in all honesty I'm so concerned about actually stepping completely over the stupid stick that I have no idea what you are doing!

The One with the Proposal

Gotcha!!  This post is not about Justin asking me to marry him (although that is a good story and happened over 2 years ago, crazy!!) but about him checking off the last pre-req (the research proposal) to become a full PhD candidate.  We've been practicing (well, he's been practicing while I listened) his presentation all week and yesterday afternoon he passed!!  Yay!!  I took him to Red Rock, a restaurant we've been wanting to try out, to celebrate.  It's also a brewery where they brew their own root beer- alongside other beverages but we didn't try those.  I'm not a huge fan of root beer but Justin ordered some so I tried it.  Pretty strong stuff.  I only took a sip but then couldn't tell what my drink even was because the flavor lingered so long!  The food was good, not spectacular but not overpriced either.

We watched the Arizona game when we got home.  They didn't look great but they did look very promising.  And they won.  What a great day!!!

The One with Makayla's Imagination

My absolute favorite thing about Makayla is her imagination.  She has endless ideas for entertaining herself.  And usually everyone else around her. 

I wasn't present for this story but I think it's so funny it needs to be included.  One time Amy (you can correct me if I get something wrong) called me after being in the car with Makayla and said they had passed a bunch of chickens on the side of the road.  Apparently they did this quite often and so Makayla named one of them Brownie and he would sometimes "appear" in the car with them or back at home.  Yes, Makayla's imaginary friend was a chicken.  When they got home Makayla wanted a piece of cheese (Makayla eat cheese?  Of course.  It's probably her favorite food!).  She was probably only 3 at the time and so eventually the cheese got mangled and disgusting.  She tried to give it back to Amy and said "I don't want this anymore.  Brownie bokked on it!"  I'm not sure what a chicken's clucking does to a piece of cheese but apparently you can't eat it afterward.

Makayla is so loving.  Be it animals or cousins she is always there to help.

Since Kaden had the Milk song on his post I thought it only fair that my favorite Makayla song be posted.  When I went to Girls' State after junior year of high school we would sing "camp songs."  That is where I learned "The Moose Song" also known as "Way-Yo."  Eventually I taught Makayla and she loved it!  But she was too young to pronounce all the words so when she sang it, it went like this "way-o way-o way-o way-o way-o."  Not much of a tune and even more unfortunately no dance moves but you could randomly hear her sing this chorus while playing by herself in the other room.

This is one of my proudest pictures.  Makayla is so good at entertaining herself she sat still the whole time I was french braiding her hair!  Now if she would only let us touch her head now...

Makayla, you are such a sweetheart and we're so glad you're part of our family!!