happy birthday ryan

Ryan turned 26 in April!!! Happy happy Birthday! I love any excuse to have a paaarty and make a cake!!!!

january shout outs!

Okay, well I realize January is now over (crazy) and Megan had her birthday on Jan 22 and Scott and Carly had their birthday on Jan 26..... Happy Happy Birthday to everyone! But I wanted to show my new favorite obsession. This delicious cake from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.

It is so good! I made it once here for Scott, then the other day for JT and Kali because of their new baby, and now I am making it on Thursday for a baby shower. LOVE IT! Everything seems yummy in the cookbook, try it out yourself.

2010

I know I am a little late with this post........but HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We had fun ringing in the new year with JT and Kali! We drank martinellis, watched the Times Square ball drop and played Yahtzee! I had never played Yahtzee before and it was sooooo fun!

Kali and JT actually had their baby yesterday and we are on our way to see them at the hospital. Happy New Year to everybody and congrats to JT and Kali!

2010

I found myself feeling so nostalgic last night right before it was midnight. Like I had not properly reflected on the last decade. So much has happened!

• I went to high school
• Traumatically moved to Utah
• Went to college
• Graduated from college
• Met Ryan
• Got married
• Became a teacher
• 3 of my siblings got married
• Facebook :)

Crazy crazy crazy! I remember so specifically what I did, where I went, what I wore on New Years Eve 1999. I was at Katie Moorhead's house in Spring, TX. I was wearing an aqua ribbed knit sweater with 3/4 length sleeves. My parent's wouldn't let me spend the night at my friend's house, just in case Y2K was real! When some fireworks started a little plant on fire my friend's mom tried to put it out with her glass of wine. Ahhhhh the memories! I hope this next decade is just as exciting as the 2000's have been!

christmas tree

I love our Christmas tree. Well we have actually had it up since before Thanksgiving! I just can't get enough of the Christmas holiday. I wish it was Christmas all year long :)

Every year it is Ryan's job to put the ribbon around it. He does it way better than me! I can't wait to actually up grade our tree.....this one is looking a little ghetto at times. It really leans to one side, but for $20 from Target 3 years ago....pretty good value! ha ha

walk through riverwoods

Demi has been in town this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. We have sure had fun hitting up the Provo hot-spots. Five Guys, In & Out, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. It was so fun when we got this hot chocolate. We just left my parents house and walked to all the shops in the Riverwoods and looked at all the pretty Christmas lights! They live at such a cool location!

happy thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! On a side not can I just say how lucky my brother and his wife are. They live in Manhattan and I'm pretty sure today they are watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as it passes by their apartment! They are living the dream I tell ya!

Dianne's 50th Birthday

I know this is a little late in coming, but back in September Ryan's family came into town to surprise Ryan's mom for her 50th birthday. We had cake and ice cream at our house, went out to eat and went to a BYU football game. It was so fun and she was definitely SURPRISED..... which was the whole point after all!

Notice Scott and my matching BYU shirts. Go cougars!

aubrey's creation

Aubrey has become quite crafty. Check out this adorable clip she made and gave me for my birthday. That is what I call talent.

hocus pocus

Halloween would just not be the same without watching the movie "Hocus Pocus". It is one of my favorite holiday traditions. Aubrey and I spent days searching to buy this movie back when we were roommates. It has come so in handy, since every Halloween season it is rented out of all the movie stores. Last year was the only year I haven't watched it in years and I was so sad. Aubrey better move to Houston for her masters so we can carry on this tradition!

halloween

Megan and Clayton were in Provo on Halloween, so we had chili and then went trick-or-treating with Monet. My dad stayed home since Scarlett was asleep. It was really funny seeing that there was 7 adults all with 1 child trick-or-treating. She is just so loved :)

I of course provided a Halloween inspired cake for the occasion; seeing that cake decorating is my new best friend. I tried to recreate a cake that I had from RJ Goodies (my favorite bakery ever in Houston) that I had for a birthday party when I was little. I was proud of myself, but I'm sure my cakes will improve over time!

Monet was Fo-Fa from Yo Gabba Gabba. She is just checking herself out in the mirror. So cute!

Aubrey and I just hanging out. For those of you who haven't seen my parents new house they bought, her it is. It is really modern so they did a ton of work to it and are tweaking it to make it more "home-y" as my mom says. It is really awesome!

pumpkin carvings

I love the pumpkin patch! There is this awesome place in Santaquin, Utah called South Ridge Farms. They have a cherry pick and a pumpkin patch each fall. We went last year with our friends JT and Kali and this year we went twice. Once with them and once with my mom and sister. It's amazing how cold it got one week apart.

Here we are with JT and Kali. If you go, you have to buy some apple juice (amazing, it taste like biting into an apple) and home made pumpkin or apple doughnuts. We thought we better go twice this year since I know there won't be anything close to as beautiful of a setting for picking pumpkins in Houston next October :)

Then of course we carved them. Every year I try out a pattern and then I give up a "free hand" my design. It always sucks and Ryan's looks like a work of art. You can go ahead and guess which one is the "free hand" pumpkin below. Is Ryan not sooooo talented at carving pumpkins? Do you remember his "Darth Vader" from last year?

Here we have JT and Kali's. JT is a pirate pumpkin (that was very fragile) and Kali's was the cutest bat ever!

Happy late Halloween!

costumes

The night before Halloween our neighbors had a party. We didn't have much time to put our costumes together, but I think they turned out well. The Jelly Belly's is not exactly how I envisioned it, but it got rave reviews!

i lied

Ok, so we we probably are not going to be Dog and Beth for Halloween, but what we ARE going to be is so good I can't ruin it. So you will just have to wait and see!!

halloween

I hope you are excited to see Ryan and I this Halloween season at your various get together's. You better believe Dog and Beth will be showing up!

monet sharing

Funny Monet!  When we were at Megan and Clayton's house for New Year's Eve, Monet was taking turns with her little friend pushing each other in the baby doll stroller.  It was hilarious!

I can't believe she is about to be a big sister!  I don't think she is going to like it very much how much attention the new baby gets.  She will probably want to push the new baby around in the stroller too.  Oh she is seriously so funny!!!!

sewing chicken

This year for Christmas it definitely paid to be a sewer!  My Grandma ReVoe gave all the girls that sewed these awesome "sewing chickens" that my Grandpa actually made himself with you know wood and a saw.  It is what was in her house as a child and around in the 1930's and 1940's.  When you needed to sew on a button you would get down the sewing chicken which had the scissors, thimble, thread and needles.  She gave me the neatest pair of Ginger scissors, one of her thimbles from her collection and a page with the story behind the sewing chicken!  I LOVE it Grandma.  It is such a neat thing to always have and use and remember you by!

christmas day

Ho Ho Ho.......Santa came to our house and brought the kids some pretty nifty piles of presents!

They had two sets of matching jamies that were so cute!

Monet just kicking it with her new presents.

Parker and his AUTOMATIC Nerf gun.....

There was so much trash we had to take a picture of it.  There were 18 bags in all.  And the funny part is someone has to stand out and hand each to the trash man because they wont take anything not in the trash can.....ha ha

I miss everyone already!  

ugly sweater party

Check out our 'festive' sweaters!  We didn't tell the relatives that we would be showing up in our ugly sweaters.  We have been working on getting these bad boys for awhile.  Ryan got his on eBay........We got together with the whole extended Wilson family and had dinner, Santa, a nativity play by the children and what not!

Jimbo did an excellent job delivering the gifts to the kids(even though only one sat on his lap, they were all too scared)!

The kids were cute dressed up all like wise men.

new years eve

Happy New Years!  This is where Ryan and I will be spending New Years eve this year, but don't worry.......

we won't be spending it smashed in between all these people.........can you say CLAUSTROPHOBIC!

Happy 2009!