Congrats Matthew!!!

for receiving Continuing Faculty Status (CFS) (BYU Idaho's version of tenure)!!!

Continuing Faculty Status is granted upon demonstration by the faculty member to the satisfaction of the university that the faculty member has performed his or her job duties with a high degree of professionalism, has conducted oneself in an exemplary manner consistent with the Honor Code and the standards and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and through the probationary period has acquired appropriate degree credentials (minimum expectation: master’s degree). (source: http://www.byui.edu/terminologyguide/termsC.htm)

We're so proud of you and all you've accomplished in life to get here!! Woohoo!!

Now you know where we'll be for the next 30 years :)

We just had to take the opportunity to celebrate!!

Of course Matthew picked Texas Roadhouse--who wouldn't!!

Our Annual Girls' Night Cocoa Party

You've always got to start with the invite. This is the cute invitation and if you couldn't tell, the theme is snow. It's a little snow globe if you couldn't tell :)
A few of the party details...
These branches were a lot of fun to spray paint. We sprayed them with the fake snow while we were standing out in the snow!

We had to place them out of the way because every time you touched them, the snow would fall everywhere! If you're thinking of doing this, spray paint them white instead :)
The spread. In the center is our pile of snowballs. Those were fun to spray snow on too :)

We had picture frames to label each food item.

Cheese ball with snowflake crackers.

Those snowflake cookies I posted about before.

Donut holes that were supposed to be powdered sugar donut holes. We ordered them from the store and they were glazed, not powdered sugar. We had to roll them in powdered sugar to get the snowball effect.

Yummy cake pops. You can find the recipe here.

More snowflake sugar cookies.

Isn't this the cutest party favor ever?

Thanks to my creative friends these are just ADORABLE!

Of course there's something yummy inside too--cake pops!

The table of party favors. I love the hanging snowflake!

One of the best things about our cocoa party is getting together with all these wonderful women! (Wish we could have gotten our photographer, Lynne in the picture too)

The Hostesses

My most favorite picture of the night! Hopefully, they won't kill me for posting it!

The absolute best thing about throwing our cocoa parties is getting to spend so much time prepping with these two AWESOME ladies! This is how much fun I have with this girls! Love them!

A HUGE thanks again to Tiffany and Lynne for their creativity, talent and hard work at putting this all together. And thanks for hosting it at your house again Lynne!

*all the amazing pictures were taken by Lynne on 12/11/09

Teacher Christmas Gifts

I decided to do everything early this year since every year I'm always so late. We did the kids' teachers' Christmas gifts the first week in December and they were a lot of fun to make. I saw this idea on the Internet on bhg.com and thought they would be cute for the kids' teachers.

Ethan working hard on his Christmas Tree.

Kalin making her Christmas Tree.


Ethan showing off his finished product.
We did add ribbon to the top to dress it up.

Kalin's cute tree & cute smile!!

These were really easy projects. Lifesavers, T-pins and ribbon.

Locks of Love

Last week Ethan got his hair cut and Kalin was sad she wasn't getting hers cut. After discussing it with Matthew, we decided that she could cut her beautiful locks. We figured that she's young and could always grow them back if she wanted. She mostly wanted to look like her best friends who have really short cuts.

Last picture of her long hair. Excited to get her hair cut.

Trying to see if there's enough to send to Locks of Love.

Kalin's new do and her beautiful long locks that she sent off to Locks of Love.

She really wanted to keep it because she thought it was so cool, but when I showed her the Locks of Love website and told her all about where her hair would go, she was all for it.

Loads of Snowflake cookies

We had our annual Girls Night Cocoa Party this week and I was in charge of making the cookies. I decided to make the whole batch of my sugar cookie recipe that I always half. Now I know that the recipe makes around SEVEN DOZEN big cookies!!!

That's a lot of cookies!

I'm just glad that I didn't have to decorate them myself! Tiffany, Lynne and I spent quite a long time decorating these--in between refereeing, feeding & consoling kids :)

They were scrumptious and I still have left overs!!

We used Martha Stewart's royal icing recipe found here.

**More party pictures to come...

Church Christmas Program

We had our Ward Christmas party a week ago and the primary kids sang. Lexi wanted to sing too, so she went up with Kalin and they were so cute I had to take a few pictures!
A few close ups of our cute girls!

Trimming the Tree

One of our family traditions is to put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I'm sure Matthew would love to put it up after Halloween, but I like to wait until after Thanksgiving.

Everyone helps to put on the branches.

The kids couldn't wait to get the tree up. It's so fun to watch them enjoy it so much!

What's that bump in the blinds?

Oh it's Lexi!! She would rather play in the blinds while she's waiting to put ornaments on the tree!

Thanksgiving

This is the spread and boy was it good!!

Matthew LOOOOOVES pecan pie and he made these himself. He's a chef you know!

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is the bready stuff--homemade rolls and stuffing!

Yum, I'm getting hungry just thinking about how yummy it all was!!

We were so fortunate to have Brian come up and visit is for Thanksgiving.

We're so glad we didn't have to eat this all by ourselves, although, we still need to hit the treadmill after it!!

We love Thanksgiving and are so thankful for all our blessings. We have so much to be grateful for!!

Lessons on Wii fit plus

Lexi just wanted to show you all how to do the Wii fit plus!

I just love watching her play video games cause she's just doing what ever she wants :)

Shopping with kids at Walmart

This is Lexi's idea of shopping at Walmart.

Matthew went to the toy section to look for a toy and when it was time to go, this is how we found Lexi.

I couldn't resist taking this picture!
She ignored every attempt to get her to come with us, so eventually she had to be picked up and put screaming in the cart! That was lots of fun :)

Matthew said, "Well now you know what to get her for Christmas." I told him the fascination with the toy would only last a day, so if she wants to play with it, I'll just have to take her back to Walmart :)