oh, sweet home

The other day, my lovely and talented friend Jennika Rae asked me to model for some photos she needed to take for her photography class (below are a few from the series that she is doing)...

and so, because she was conveniently at our house, and obviously very qualified, I ran inside when she was done and told Cam to hurry and come outside.

This was his initial reaction to spontaneous picture taking.....

but then he realized that I wouldn't let him leave without getting a few good ones.

And we got a few! Here are my two favorites.

  So although these weren't planned, I still love them and am so happy that Jennika was willing to take a few spur of the moment "family photos" for us! We finally—after almost 10 months— have a first photo in front of our first apartment!

yay!

Home Improvements

We had a long, lazy, wonderful break in Idaho with my family so we didn't want to come back to Logan for school until we absolutely had to. When we got into town last Sunday we also had the depressing task of taking down our Christmas Decorations which always makes life feel so Blah! I think that the combination of taking down Christmas, starting school AND -9 degree temperatures kind of made us go into a crazed home improvement kick. We really did go crazy.

project no.1

The first thing we started on was something a saw on Pinterest that I've really been wanting to do for a while. These are the steps we went through.

(our boards were 16x16 inches)

Although Cam's real home state is Louisiana, he felt like Utah is more of his home so he chose that instead.

Cam felt like Utah was a pretty dull shape so he nailed in the Great Salt Lake.

and then he decided he didn't like the blue in the lake, so he took it out. haha. I think he redid his like 5 times.

This project was pretty simple, fun and quick!

project no. 2

The tree branch.

First, let me tell you that our house is about 105 years old...literally. So the walls are made of plaster and extremely difficult to hang anything from, so I'm grateful Cam is an extreme analyzer and handy-man. I would have never been able to do this on my own. In fact, I really didn't do anything except hold the tree up while he was tying the fishing line. And I didn't even last long at that. 

We used a stud-finder to make sure the hooks in the ceiling and hung the tree with fishing line. Conveniently, we have a little nook to hide the end of the branch so it really does look like it is just growing in our living room!

project no. 3

painting

I hate painting. It's one of those things that you get excited about because it seems easy and then 10 hours later you want to die. Haha! Do you see that ugly blue chest under the TV? That was once a painting endeavor and mid-way through, I just stopped because I hated the color so much. So we decided to give it one more try. We also got a dresser for our bedroom from an estate sale and it was pretty but just didn't fit our house. Due to the negative temps, we did all of this in our living room yesterday. I think we went through 5 movies and half of New Girl Season two before we were done.

But hallelujah. It's over!

we love the white! Maybe someday we'll add color in the designs on the front/legs...

and PLEEEASE ignore our poor, dead, houseplant. We just can't seem to let go of him.

Cam was in charge of the giant dresser...

Let me tell you, we are bad paint pickers, and we loved how this dresser looked in our naturally lit living room and on the paint-swatch but in the light of our bedroom, it realllly looks high-lighter yellow so we'll probably add a less intense coat of paint on top someday in the future. 

But for now, it'll do!

I think we'll lay off on the projects for a little bit.

Idaho.

Logan is rainy & I'm stuck inside with absolutely nothing to do.

All I wanna do right now is go back to Idaho and hang out with my mom.

{I created this poster for my sister Jenna to put up in her room}

happy earth day

this post is all organic.

hence the title of it being all lower-case and no period. just raw.

why?

hello, it's earth day!

i don't think an earth day has ever been quite so pleasant in my life.

i woke up to sunshine and warm in logan.

miraculous! yesterday it hailed three inches!

looks like mother nature wanted to be nice to logan on this day.

i even ran today.

––okay, i ran to the old main steps, made it to the top and then turned around and walked back.

but i couldn't believe how beautiful and green the rain (and hail) had made everything look.

my car is getting repaired right now from hitting a coyote (long story.. sorry mother nature)

so i carpooled home with a few friends (very eco-friendly!)

on our way, we stopped at a factory. the pepperidge farm factory.

and we made sure that none of those rejected goodies went to waste!

lala, one of my best friends in the world was in town for a couple of hours so i stopped by jess's and got to spend some quality time with her and also with a few furry friends. zoe and sammie.

ever since i saw disneynature's Oceans last earth day i have been looking forward to African Cats.

so i called up my dearest cousin ali and we set off to a late 9:45 showing of it.

I was not dissappointed.

my parents sat next to us. (yeah, we met them there.... haha)

and the whole show was super entertaining mixed in with my dad's cheesy reactions + me and ali's extremely inquisitive question about cats.

we were way too into it.

my favorite part had to be the end when it told where "the cats" were today

and it stated that the cheetah Sita is one of the most successful cheetah mothers to roam the african land.

how do they know that stuff?

haha oh disney.

i'll admit that we did a not-so-earth-friendly thing after the movie.

we went to taco bell.

had to.

and then we had some good cousin talk.

if you don't know ali, you need to know that she is a pretty witty lady.

she makes me laugh.

she gave me bunches of fun finals week ideas for study breaks and i can't wait to do them.

you will just have to wait until finals week to find out what they are.

i cant wait though.

all in all,

earth day was full of organic (for the most part), natural, kitty-catty fun.

i can't wait for chimpanzee (please watch the trailer)

a most magical christmas

I still can't believe that Christmas has come and gone so quickly! 

That seems to be the theme for this year.

I was lucky enough to have two christmases this year. 

One of which was this summer. 

It's tradition at the Playmill to celebrate Christmas on August 25th (or in our case, the 22nd) 

and the owners gave everyone a trip to Disneyland. (Best bosses on earth)

It was so much fun to be reunited with the people who I spent every second of this summer with!

"team churro"

(I think the name describes itself)

We just happened to go during one of the biggest storms in California in years.

But honestly, besides our soggy feet and mildew scented clothes. It was pretty great.

Yes, I wore the same outfit for 4 days in a row

No lines more than 10 minutes! 

I appreciated the Christmas spirit there as well. Every inch of the park was decorated with 

garland, lights, ornaments. I absolutely loved it. 

 I got back home just in time for a sleigh ride with the family!

The rest of Christmas was spent with family. Meeting the newest little babies on Christmas Eve. And eating lots and lots of delicious Christmas treats!

(My Christmas Breakfast, Too beautiful NOT to take a picture of)

I love this Holiday and everything it represents, 

and I love the comfort of a warm and happy home to come back to.

I hope everyone had a 

very merry christmas

Now I am headed back to "sunny" California for my best friend's wedding!

10/01/10

Little Neezy is not so little anymore.
I went home last weekend to celebrate his Sweet 16!!
In my head I still picture him as a lil guy with cute curls on the back of his head.
But now he is OLD! I feel like my Sweet 16 was yesterday and now it is his.

We started out his Bday with a midnight scavenger hunt that took us all over town.

(My personal favorite clue was:

-Go to McDonalds and order the "McNeil Special"-

only to find that there were the perfect amount of apple pies prepaid for both cars! 

Only Rollie would do that! I loved it)

This hunt led us to his very own pumpkin patch and THIS...

The rest of the weekend was spent watching General Conference
and I even got to spend a few hours working in the little blue hut!

So much fun that I'm seriously contemplating just going home for Fall Break.
Is that lame?