Fun, Fun, Fun

It has been a while since I have updated. Things have been kind of crazy so here are a few things.

Temple Square

Before my brother left on his mission, my family all went down to Temple Square. Jedd and I arrived a little late (due to the awesome BYU/Utah game where BYU WON!) so we didn't get to hang out with a lot of the family, but we got to spend some time with a few of them. Here are just a few pictures from the night. (This tree was gorgeous, it was like a yellow/orange/red mix. I just loved it!)

Elder Downs

This is my little brother Taylor, the night before he went to the MTC, December 1st. Ok, I should probably say younger brother since he is over a foot taller than I am. He went to the Oklahoma City mission. I have been able to see Taylor grow and mature in the last few weeks since he got his mission call into a GREAT MISSIONARY. We are so proud of you Tay!

For your enjoyment

And last but not least.....this is what my husband wants to wear to Disneyland when we go his week. Um.....I don't think you will see me within a mile radius of this hottie!

I have found the biggest difference between Jedd and I. He wears things like this to get attention and to make people laugh. I wouldn't wear things like this because I would get attention and people would laugh. What a crack up.

Happy December!

Family Pictures

This Thanksgiving, my family was able to get together and take our last family picture for 2 years. (Tay leaves in 2 days for his mission!!). Here is the family. And here are updated pictures of each little family.

(Jerilyn and Jeremiah's was taken in the fall when the colors were gorgeous! LUCKY!)

Jerilyn and Jeremiah with their 2 kids Zach and Hailey. Jon and Holli with their 4 kids Jacob, Jackson, Jocelyn, and Mylee.Michael and Afton.Michelle and Brian and their 2 kids Ashton and Branson.And of course Jedd and I. Many of the pictures turned out so cute, how do you pick just one?? It was so fun to get together and celebrate with both Jedd's and my family this holiday season. We are so grateful to have such wonderful families who love and support us unconditionally! Also just a little tid-bit, we are so excited to welcome 2 more babies into my family. Jerilyn and Michelle are both pregnant and due in June!

New Purchase

I had this totally empty space in my living room and had to fill it with something. I have been looking around now for quite a few weeks trying to wrack my brain to find something. Jedd laughs but it really has been driving me crazy! I went to Rod Works the other day and everything I wanted was WAY over-priced....at least for what I would pay for it. So I found that they had a clearance center right across the street from their regular store in Layton so I had Jedd take me to see what I could find. So...What do you think? It fills up the space perfectly, not too bulky but something that was big. It was a big empty space so whatever I bought had to be big. I only paid $40 for this almost 3 foot by 2 foot rod iron design.

Now if I only I could decide on how to decorate my bedroom....everything would be done!

Late Halloween

A few of us in my family (without kids) go to my mom's house to carve pumpkins before Halloween. This year proved to be the best so far. There were three pumpkins to be carved..... Taylor and Melynn carved a pirate with "AR" on the side....it was pretty funny to hear the boys all night say "ARRRR" like a pirate. It made me smile every time!!Michael and Afton carved a pumpkin looking through blinds...my brother free handed it, he has drawing talent! And Jedd carved Dwight from the office. Look at that concentration! What a hottie! All of us with our finished pumpkins. We had a lot of fun, and I had a lot of fun watching everyone and drinking hot chocolate. I don't carve, I leave that to the hubby! He has more talent than me anyway. Here they are all lit up on the porch....don't they look great??

Pictures of the house

Ok, ok, as promised, here are pictures of the house. We absolutely love it! We have been in almost 2 weeks now, can you believe it? We finally have most things hung up, but I'm still a little unsure about our bedroom walls, so that will have to wait. I have found that I have more "wall space" in my house than I had in my last apartment, so I have a few empty walls. But that's ok, I'll fill them up soon enough. Here are a few pictures of our place. The kitchen/dining room. The living room (sorry the lighting didn't seem to be working with me yesterday). Down our hall. It took Jedd and I a while to be able to hang these pictures, but I think it turned out to be my favorite wall in our whole house. The stairs go down right there so it was quite an event to get them hung in the right place with a ladder. This is what I call our "family picture" wall. I love it! Like I said above, our bedroom proves to be more of a challenge than I thought to decorate for. For now, we have a bed, a chair, curtains, a dresser and a tv. This is our master bath. I wanted so bad to use this picture in our house, but it just didn't fit anywhere until I had a thought to put it in our bathroom. It is perfect, this was just a big blank space and so the picture fits so well there (at least I think so!!)

Well, there you have it. Just a few pictures of what we call "home". We are so happy here and couldn't be more excited to live here for many....many years to come!

Updated Picture

Friday was such a great day, and such a relief to finally have things signed. All the paper work is done for our closing. Tuesday is when the money is funded and so this gorgeous house is ours officially tomorrow....but it's considered ours already. We put up blinds on Saturday so we're ready to move in just as soon as they do a few touch ups this week. Saturday is the BIG MOVING DAY!

Closing

We are officially closing on our house tomorrow! I can seriously not wait. I'll get a few pictures later, but just wanted everyone to know. That means moving in next week!! (of course after I clean it, they never do a great job at getting every little thing!)

(this is an old picture, but I will take a few when we are all moved in and everything is set!)

Elder Downs

My little brother Taylor got his mission call yesterday. He got called to the Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission. He leaves on December 2, 2009. As a family, we all decided to do a poll as to where he was going. As you can tell we were scattered all across the world. Branson (3 yrs old I might add) was the winner. He really did guess Oklahoma, so way to go Branson!
This was Taylor opening up his call. He was delaying reading it as much as possible, as to probably give my mom a heart attack. Of course he read it to himself first before he read it out loud and just started laughing. We all were yelling "TELL US!" And Taylor being the jokester that he is, kept delaying as long as possible.

I think my mom was about ready to jump over all of us and strangle him but she was really good and patient until he read it to us.

Tay, we are so excited for you and so proud of you making the decision to go on a mission! We know you will do great no matter where you go, but think you will be AWESOME in Oklahoma. Just remember the advice Jedd gave you, bring a BYU shirt with you!

WE LOVE YOU BRO!

Paint Nails

If you are one of the very select few that knows me really well, you know that I can't stand feet....they are just disgusting....everything about them is. So this is totally out of character for me to post about feet...mainly toes, but I thought it was too cute to not post.

My cute niece Hailey is a total girly girl. And to put it in terms of my dad....she is 3 going on 18. She loves to talk on the phone, play with make-up and drive already. I think it is totally adorable, and some of these stories my sister tells us are HILARIOUS (I can laugh because she is my niece but sometimes I feel bad for my sister already, ha ha)! But one thing she loves is having her toenails painted, what she calls "paint nails". About 95% of the time she asks all us girls if we have paint nails on (meaning do we have our toenails painted). So recently, my sister and I have decided to paint our nails when either we are down at their house or they come up here to my mom's. It makes for quite a girly 15 minutes and Hailey is in heaven. My mother has been quite sick this past week and Hailey was almost positive that having her toenails painted would make her feel better (see what I mean?) so yesterday while we were all at my mom's we decided to do paint nails. My sister was brave enough to let Hailey paint her nails, I'm still not that brave yet. Here are just a few pictures of the adventure. Sorry for the "2 feet" picture. This is Hailey's and my toes, they are matching purple nail polish, I put this one on just for Hailey Bailey.

Who could say no to this smile? The only hard part is making Hailey stay still enough to let the paint dry. Once they are, she is off showing everyone her toes and fingers.

Thanks Hailey for the paint nails. I love my purple toes!

One Year Older

(I know....it's not a house update!!)

Jedd had his birthday on Sunday. To celebrate on Saturday, I decided to take Jedd to Maddox for his birthday and then we went mini golfing at Toad's in Ogden. It was so much fun; we realized we had never been mini golfing together before so what a great idea! (sorry for the nerdy picture, but it's all I was able to snag during the day of both of us!) I am quite the talented mini golfer (ok totally being sarcastic) and picked up 3 hole-in-ones. But after 36 holes, that meant nothing because Jedd beat me 92 to 102. Ya, how that worked out I'll never know! Jedd picked up one hole-in-one as well. (Notice the new shoes and pants that he got for his birthday. Looking good honey!) And it wouldn't be a birthday unless I made one of my chocolate desserts for my husband as a birthday surprise. He is addicted to anything chocolate so I usually try to find the most chocolaty thing possible to make him. To me, it's pretty disgusting, I can usually have a few bites but can't finish it. So this was my newest recipe. And I have to be honest, for a chocolate mousse pie, it was delicious. I had a piece, but won't eat another, too much for me. Jedd even commented that it was just as good as the fancy hotel desserts that he loves to eat. WOW! What a compliment right? I've decided to make this a birthday tradition for my hubby. It's a good thing I have another year to out-do this year's recipe! (Click here for the recipe. It was so easy.)

Happy Birthday Honey! I love you!