Christmas 2017

I realize that my last post was posted today.. but in my own defense, I wrote it like 2 weeks ago.. My life I feel like is literally just getting away from me. Haha.

Christmas has come and gone.  It’s always so quick! After looking back on the last couple of days, Devin and I have decided that we had a really, nice break.  It was much needed!! We spent a lot of time together, and enjoyed time with both of our families. 

Friday I was able to get off from work at noon.  I was able to go and finish some Christmas shopping.  Mostly for food.  I did grab a couple of stocking stuffers however.  So last Monday (December 18^th) I was on my way down to Brigham City to go to the dentist.  I was literally like ¼ of a mile away from the Brigham City exit when my car went nuts.  My RPMs were bouncing back and forth, my engine light came on, (and then it started to flash) and my oil light came on.  I knew I had to pull over.  I called Devin who called Tom’s Service out of Wellsville, and both came through the canyon.   I stopped by Tom’s on Friday after work to check the status of my car.  Looks like I’ll most likely need a new computer put in.  I didn’t understand all the terminology other than he’s going to take it Accurate Automotive and Performance in Logan.  So my Martha is currently sitting there waiting to hopefully be diagnosed soon.  Also on Friday, we got a snow blower!! It was delivered to us from Ipaco.  Full of gas and oil and ready to go! Which was nice – considering it snowed all night Friday night. 

Saturday we really just hung out at home.  We did a lot of cleaning, preparing for the holiday.  We got to use our new snow blower and man it’s amazing.  Isn’t it funny what we find entertaining now as adults?  This year, since this is the first time in our own place for Christmas, we decided to start a new little tradition.  We’re going to start decorating gingerbread houses!  We decided that where it’s just the two of us right now, we’d just decorate one together.  It really was just so much fun!

Sunday we got up and went to church.  It was nice that D didn’t have any meetings before.  Now that we’re going to start going to church at 9:00, Devin’s meetings are going to start being at 7.  Since we only had sacrament meeting, we just went over to my parents or a little bit after church.  We enjoyed Papa Murphey’s pizza!  I love that stuff.  I made a new bean dip too!  1 cup of sour cream, 1- 16 oz can of refried beans, 4 oz (1/2 bar) of cream cheese (softened), 1 package taco seasoning, 1 cup Mexican blend cheese.  Preheat oven to 350, mix all (but cheese) into 8x8 pan, top with cheese and cook for 25 mins.  It was so good!!  After we left my parents, we had our annual Fabricius Christmas party with Devin’s dad’s side of the family.  We had a baked potato bar and it was so nice to see everyone who came.  When we got home from Grandma Shirley’s, Devin and I decided it was high time we watched A Christmas Story from start to finish.  This was the first time I’ve really seen any part of that movie and it was the first time that Devin has seen that movie from start to finish.  What a cute movie!! We will definitely be watching that every Christmas Eve now.  

Monday I set my alarm for 6:30.. Devin wasn’t exactly thrilled haha.  He made me wait in bed until 7:00.  Which is fair, since we only got each other two gifts this year, we wanted to make Christmas last a little longer.  Devin got me a new Ninja Fit blender and a new set of utensils! (Again, the things you get excited about as an adult!!) Devin got a new set of wrenches and a GoPro for snowmobiling.   After we did a little bit of shoveling and food prep, we headed over to Jedd and LaDawns for breakfasts and gift exchange with them.  I got ONE HUNDRED AND ONE cookie cutters, some kitchen gadgets and new clothes.  I got this thing called an herb dryer.  It’s a mesh net with layers in it to hang out side and dry herbs/plants/fruits etc. without bugs getting on them.  When I opened it, the package it was in was the size of a small salad plate.  I unzipped it and it popped open! Scared me to death!   Derik got me some new plates!! White, circled plates.  I love them!! Devin got a new ladder and this game that’s called “Exploding Kittens”.  It’s actually really fun!  I won the first round.  I was very proud of myself haha! Jedd and LaDawn also surprised us with these hangers that we’ve been wanting from Jackson!  We found them on our trip in October but we didn’t want to quite buy them yet.  LaDawn called the store and they found the exact ones we wanted and shipped them to her! We’re so excited to hang them in the back hall way.   We ate Christmas dinner with my family this year.  We had ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, everything bad for you.  A couple of Saturdays ago, we made jalapeño jelly with my mom.  Its sweet, and so so good over a block of cream cheese!! I ate plenty of that!!  I’m actually like 90% sure I gained 3-5 lbs this holiday season.  Not very thrilled about that, but we’ll make due ;) My mom and dad got devin a bunch of new pliers! Now that we have our own place, tools are prime gifts for Devin.  I got a new sweater.  I think it’s quite beautiful!  We drew names this year in my family.  Kendal had Devin, Devin had Lindsie, I had Jason and Allie had me.  Kendal got Devin an iTunes gift card.  He loves his music, so that was a perfect gift for him!  Allie got me this gorgeous rose gold watch set.  It’s beautiful!  Devin got Lindsie a new sweater and some Lindt coconut chocolates.  I got Jason a wood carving kit and 2 Mountain Dews.  Grandma Karen also got us Scattergories.  We played that and ate and ate and ate.  I made my loaded baked potato dip.  I posted it in December of 2016 – but I’ll post my recipe here too.  After time spent with my family, we headed back on over to Grandma and Grandpa Jeppesens house.  Ate good food, received wonderful gifts and had a good time.  I got a new purse, wii u game, shoes and some perfume.  Devin and I got a new heated blanket too that will fit on our bed!!  We tried it out last night, man, oh man do we love it.  We also got a new little popcorn popper.  I’ll do a little review of that in another blog post.  Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like so much fun!  The best part of Christmas however, was returning home to our own place, to find that we had water in our basement. (yay! Not.) It was just a little, tiny bit, but enough to make me cry. (This would be number three.  My car, D needs new truck tires, and then this?!)  Devin could hear something in the baby room that sounded like running water.  Turns out, there were two leaks in the city’s water line, and they were working on fixing it.  In the process, our water heater’s pressure release valve popped up (as it should) but it got stuck.  So we had boiling hot water spilling out of our water heater.  We decided to just turn our water off until the city could get the line fixed.  Thankfully we got water back the next day at like 5:00PM.  We are so blessed that we had such a great Christmas.  We were able to spend our Christmas with the most important thing of all, family!

 This is the ONLY picture I have of Devin and I on Christmas. 

 herb dryer and all my cookie cutters! 

Yesterday we really just relaxed.  We put away all of our Christmas stuff and enjoyed the day together hanging out with grandma and grandpa (they had running water ;)  Sometimes I struggle with the fact that I don’t get to see my grandma and grandpa Jackson as much as I see all our other grandparents.  It can be sad, but I know that they love us and understand that we have work and responsibilities here at home.  We’re planning on making a trip up to see them sometime soon though.  Hopefully they know too how much we love them and appreciate them :)  

I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and that we were able to spend time worshiping his birth.  I am so grateful for my families and for the time that I get with them.  I know that not everyone has the same privilege that I have in seeing them so frequently and I can take that for granted.  I love them dearly and I am so blessed to have the best.  I hope that everyone was able to have a very, Merry Christmas and that we will all be able to have an enjoyable new year!

November

November got away from me so fast! Every blog post I say I’m going to be better, and every blog post I lie. Haha! Here’s a quick little update of everything that’s happened.

Grandma Karen: Grandma is doing so good!! I can’t even believe it. A couple of months ago, she was
having this massive pain in her leg and she couldn’t walk very well. As you can imagine, that made
everyday tasks more difficult. Going potty was difficult, getting dressed was difficult – the sad thing was,there was literally nothing they could do about it. Grandma has had a couple of knee surgeries, so long story short, there’s nothing that could have been done unless they amputated the leg. Well, obviously nobody wanted that to happen. We did a lot of praying, fasting and hoping that her leg would get better! It’s been a rough couple of months for my mom. The last couple of weeks though have been a complete miracle. My grandma’s done like a complete 180! She’s getting dressed on her own, walking with her walker on her own – she can even take herself to the bathroom now, which has been a huge blessing!! We are so glad the God has been watching over her and helping her.

Thanksgiving: This year for Thanksgiving, we ate the main meal with Devin’s family. Grandma, grandpa, Jedd, LaDawn , Derik, Devin and I. It was a nice little intimate Thanksgiving. After playing some games, we went and chilled with my family for a little bit. Then off to Newton for pie night with grandma Shirley. Black Friday was a big hit! I always try to do Black Friday with my mom and sisters. This year, poor dad drove us all over Ogden. I was able to get some of my Christmas shopping done, which is always so nice!! Devin and I also spent Black Friday, setting up our cute house for Christmas! I don’t think anyone can comprehend how squealy I was. OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS IN OUR OWN HOME! We hung our lights up outside and sweet Devin was able to rig something up where I can hit a button from the inside of my warm house and all the outside lights will turn out. What a beautiful day it was to set up lights too! Devin, Derik and Jedd were nice enough to set up grandma and grandpa’s lights too. I know they really appreciated it. I am so THANKFUL that we were able to enjoy this blessed holiday with both families.

Cows/farm: The cows are officially out of Dry Lake! The guy who owns the piece next to us (Brian)
hauled his cows home the same day that we did. Unfortunately for him, one of his cows is still up there. She got spooked and went up the mountain. I am not 100% sure if she’s come back down yet. To add to the sadness of that last sentence, my favorite cow, 644, has left the herd. It was so sad for me! She was Chleo’s mama and the sweetest thing you’ve ever met in your life. You could pet her in Dry Lake, at home, wherever! She just was getting so old, we had to sell her. Thankfully I got to pet her one last time and she even let me take her picture!

Birthdays: We have officially started the birthday streak for Devin’s family. Starting on December 3rd through March 25th , we knock out every ones birthdays on Devin’s side. Including grandparents and
mine! In a way it’s nice to get them all over with.

Christmas: Christmas is just a few short days away from us.  I PROMISE that I will post about our Christmas adventures :)

Rainy days = catch up

Rainy days are not always my favorite, (I do enjoy a good rainy day though too!) but they give me time to catch up on some things.  Mainly life. Haha.  This rainy November day has given me time to catch up on quite a bit of things.  First thing I did was sleep in! Last weekend we were in Jackson, which meant we were up about the time we're up to get ready for work.  I have been looking forward to sleeping in this weekend for a long time! Since it was rainy, I didn't feel too bad about sleeping in.  First thing that D helped me do was brown hamburger.  (Also, it was brought to my attention at lunch today that I've been saying "grounding hamburger" instead of "browning hamburger".  So...sorry if I have ever confused anyone while talking about this subject.  I clearly didn't know what I was talking about.)  We browned eight pounds of hamburger to freeze.  We call these days, "meat day".  It's nice to be able to brown a bunch of hamburger and freeze it to have for days we don't have a lot of time for dinner.  I just use simple seasonings when doing this.  Deverle's seasoning, and onion salt.  Usually we use this meat for tacos, hamburger helpers, tostadas, spaghetti, things like that.  It's really useful when you're in a pinch with time.  

For our anniversary (we weren't supposed to get each other gifts..) Devin bought me the Instant Pot! I got the IP-LUX80 model.  8 quarts of pure awesomeness!  I was so terrified of using it at first.  When I think of pressure cooker, I think of a lid in my ceiling, with food all over my kitchen, with the smoke detector going off.  This is SO easy to use though! I love it.  With that being said, along with my eight pounds of browned hamburger, I made a batch of homemade chicken stock!  In my Instant Pot, I can saute things directly in it.  It's great for keeping extra flavor!  I threw my rotisserie chicken bones in and hit the saute button.  They browned up nicely.  I added carrots, celery, onion, four cloves of garlic and browned them with the chicken and bones.  I added 10 cups of water, two bay leaves and a bunch of thyme -- hit manual and set the cook time for 100 minutes.  While this was cooking (in a "pressure cooker") Devin and I acutally went to dinner with my family!  It did a natural release and it was so nice to not have to sit there while making this stock!

  

Rainy days also give me an opportunity to catch up on missed blog posts. *insert embarrassed emoji here*  September and October were good to my little family.  We started September off by helping my dad put a new roof on.  Whatever it was that I did, is the reason the entire roof is staying on!  HAHA! Just kidding.  I didn't even get up on the roof cause I hate heights that bad.  Infact, my palms are a little sweaty just thinking about it.  Devin was able to smoke some great meat!  We smoked some chicken and ribs. 
Also, we took Aggie to the Founders Day parade with us.  She was very well behaved!  She LOVED the marching bands.  So enjoy this cute picture of her listening intently to the marching band.  

My little Aggie baby is growing right up!  She graduated puppy class.  Unfortunately for us she has literally forgotten everything.  Except for sit and lay down -- but only cause I usually have a treat.  She will not lay down unless there's a treat in my hand.  In case it's not obvious, she rules the roost.  Because it's starting to get colder, and her mama (me) has some anxiety issues, she also got a new house.  It's supposed to be insulted and keep her extra warm.  As in, if its 0 degrees outside, it will be 30 degrees inside her house.  It came with a cushioned bed and an electric heater for colder temps.  She is so protective of her house too!  That is HER house.  Along with anything inside.  She gave D the cold shoulder for close to 20 minutes because he was messing with her house. (He was adding her electric pad in...silly dog, little does she know he's trying to help her!)  Today for instance, it has rained nonstop.  Her bed was soaking wet, her blanket and towel were soaking wet, SHE was soaking wet..I thought I would be a good puppy mom and put her blanket and towel in the dryer for her while we did a quick 15 minute errand.  She cried the whole time and then proceeded to stand in the rain until we were back. (Trying to break her mama's heart!) Even taking a single leaf out of her house will make her almost die of worrying. #dramaqueen

We went to an Aggie volleyball game, which was really fun! I'm sad we never went to anymore games.  We had planned on attending more, but we all know that life happens and doesn't always goes the way that you would like it to.  An example of life not going the way you want is my toe.  Ya'll remember how I had to have my toe nail removed OVER A YEAR AGO?! -- Still not fully grown in.  I had to do an ingrown toenail procedure which seems to have helped.  I've almost got a full nail back.  Yay! 

We got to do one of my favorite things on the farm! -- as well as one of my not so favorite things.  Preg-checking the cows (yay!) and castrating bulls. (boo!)  We ran almost every single cow in our herd through the shoot that day.  All the mama's are pregnant, except for maybe two.  Every time they exit the shoot, I tell them "congrats, you're pregnant!"  Then the least favorite part.  Making bulls, steers.  Poor dudes.  They walk into the shoot not knowing they were going to be leaving their manhood behind.  Literally!

I have had an obsession lately with making cookies and decorating them.  I'll do a post on cookies hopefully soon.  They have been so much fun to do! I'm hoping that I could maybe make cookies for small parties and/or events.  But here are cute pictures of my first cookies, to my most recent ones I've made.  I haven't made cookies in a couple of weeks, but you can plan on some cute Thanksgiving ones coming!

Jackson Hole in October was by far our most successful trip!  We saw 41 moose, 3 bear, elk and a whole lot of buffalo!  We determined that 36 of the 41 were different moose. (Sunday before we came home, we saw 21 moose..) A lot of people who live in Jackson say that the park resets at night, and you'll never see an animal in the same place twice.  Its sort of true -- for example: If we saw 3 bulls and 2 cows near the Gros Ventre campground one night, and then the next morning we went out and there was 4 bulls and 2 cows a mile or two away from the Gros Ventre campground, chances are there's only one new bull in the group.  Alot of times too, bull moose have patterns in their antlers that are very different from each other.  I would compare them to a snowflake.  Not every moose's antlers are exactly alike.   We saw Blondie (the bear) and her two twin cubs too!  We got really lucky.  We've known that they've been up by Pilgrim Creek, but we didn't know if they'd be there again on Saturday morning.  There she was, a mile or two up the road in a little field, just being a cute little photogenic bear.  (I apologize if the pictures aren't fantastic.  Remember, I am NOT a pro photographer and it was really cold outside.  Even with a tripod I was shaking so bad. -- I tried to edit them with photo shop, but again, not a pro :) 

One of the most memorable experiences happened in Jackson on this trip.  If you're at all familiar with Jackson,  when you're on highway 89/191, going north, there's a road that will take you to the Gros Ventre campground.  Right at the intersection between the two roads, is where the elk refuge starts.  With that being said, there's also a 10+ foot tall fence.  On Saturday night, we were starting to head back to the Moose-Wilson road, when we noticed a bunch of cars stopped near the intersection.  Right there, 15 yards from the fence (on the inside of the fence) were 5 moose!  We were able to walk right up to the fence and take pictures, 15 yards away from these beautiful animals.  You can only imagine the kind of heaven that I was in!!  

Hopefully now that it's starting to get cold outside (as I'm typing and getting ready to post this..its currently snowing...) and darker a lot sooner, I will be able to keep up with my "blog".  (I know, I say it all the time..but a girl can dream, right?!)

SIX MONTHS IN OUR HOME

I have been waiting to get this post done!! To be honest with you, I wanted to have it posted on August 17 – buuut we all know how my life goes, right?

HAPPY SIX MONTHS to our little, yellow home!  I can’t believe that it has literally been SIX months since we bought our little house!! When we first bought our house, the first thing we decided we had to do was paint.  We were in an excellent situation where we could still live with grandma and grandpa, and paint the house.  The colors of the house were definitely not my cup of tea.  Everything was so dark!  My first demand for Devin was to paint the ENTIRE HOUSE.  We wanted neutral, light and bright!  The color that we chose was “clay dust”.  It’s so funny what different lighting can do to a paint color!  Sometimes the color looks just like I want it to.  Other times it looks peachy, then pink, then yellow.  It’s so strange!  Gratefully it looks good in the house either way. 

When you walked in the front door, the first thing you saw was the dark brown wall.  That had to go.  To the left of the living room is the master, pink room (baby room) and bathroom.  The bedroom was the worst, yet most rewarding experience!  It was two-toned, red and tan, and the texturing was SO thick.  The pink room is called the pink room (or we call it the baby room – nope, not pregnant!) because one of the walls in that bedroom was legitimately rose pink.  Didn’t like that either!  Devin suggested keeping it pink in case we have a girl first.  Nope.  I wanted neutral so that if we had a boy, I didn’t have to paint it then!  The bathroom (and kitchen) had a dark brown wainscot in it.  Did not like that either.  I didn’t paint the wainscot in “clay dust”.  I painted it a step up.  The paint is called “Brazilian tan”.  Just in case you didn’t realize, every room in our house got at least one coat of paint.

In the living room, there was a big leak above our fireplace and it caused the ceiling to sag.  Thankfully my dad and Devin were able to fix it and patch it right up!  We've spent the next couple of rain storms, trying to figure out how its coming down the chimney.  Devin and Jedd got up on the roof and put some sort of roofing tape up there and we think we've got it sealed! (we have a metal roof..)

The back of the house has the kitchen, laundry room and one more bedroom (we call that bedroom the brown room).  The kitchen was pretty much perfect.  I had little to paint in there. (Mainly the wainscot)  The people who owned the house before us put in brand new cabinets.  Apparently, the old ones were black!  The new cabinets make the kitchen feel soo much larger than what it really is! Plus, they are so beautiful!  Our next door neighbor, he actually built them and installed them.  

The laundry room was super dark.  The brown that was in most of the house was all over in the laundry room.  It’s the smallest room in the house, yet to me, it was the one that changed the most in the makeover.  The brown room changed pretty drastically too. (Let’s be honest.  The ENTIRE house changed drastically.)  In both the brown room and the master room, there was this piece of wood that went right across the middle of all walls.  Devin didn’t think we could take them down without there being some sort of noticeable line in the middle of the wall.  Well, Devin and grandpa were painting the back room and grandpa accidently pulled one off.  Yay for me! They looked just fine!  So we took the wood off in both the brown room and the master.  

The inside of the house wasn’t the only thing that needed some updating.  There was a fireplace in the middle of the back yard.  I’m not that into fires unless I’m camping.  I knew for a fact that I was never going to use that thing – so out it came!  We put sod in the little circle and it’s grown in beautifully!  There was also a lot of leaves on the yard too that hadn’t been raked up the fall before.  We spend a couple of our Saturdays raking the lawn to try and get it to come to life.

The other thing that has needed some work was the garden.  There were TWO HUGE PATCHES of raspberries.  Now I love me a good raspberry, but I know that two rows would have killed Devin and I.  And boy was I right!  Our raspberries this year produced more than what we could handle.  Devin and I decided we should probably tear one of the rows out.  Boy was I glad we did that!

Our little house has definitely come a long ways in the last six months.  I can’t believe what a difference some paint can make.  In case you missed out on what happened our first week of owning a home, you can find that here.

I’m extremely grateful for our house, and that we were in a good situation to buy it.  D and I have already made lots of memories in this house, and we can’t wait to make many, many more.

House pictures below! 

Family room before and after

Bedroom before and after

Bathroom before and after

Pink room before and after

Kitchen before and after

 

Brown room before and after

Laundry room before and after

Back hallway -- not much different than before

Garden before and after