2012 Sure Was Swell!

Okay, I KNOW. I was told today its been pretty much two months since I posted last and I KNOW. I suck. Christmas was pretty rough for me this year and I was so stressed out I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel in my brain or something. And now this last week I've spent basically doing nothing except trying to recuperate. So, the kids went back to school today and I guess I've had enough time to get my act together. But at this point I'm not even going to blog about the holidays, I am just going to do my annual "favorites" post and call it good for now. :)

Favorite Song:

honorable mention:
Anything by Fun. or Maroon 5

Favorite Movie:
Gonna have to be The Avengers because my boys were so obsessed with the cartoons and characters, we had so much fun with it this year! :)

honorable mention:
Skyfall
The Dark Knight Rises


Favorite TV Show:

We just got in to How I Met Your Mother this year, how have I not watched this before?! I'm a little obsessed...

honorable mention:
Once Upon a Time-- LOVE this show!


Favorite Book:
The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima

honorable mention:
The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning


Favorite Vacation:
Since the only real vacation I went on was with my sister-in-laws and mother-in-law to Oregon, I will choose that! ;)

Favorite Outfit:
uh, I guess my favorite outfit would be these turquoise jeans, with that button down jean shirt and the bubble necklace. :)

Favorite Project:
This wall:

Most Drastic Change:
We bought our first house!! Moved across town and the girls switched schools (without uniforms!)!

Highlights:
~My baby sister got married!

~Got a guitar!

~Holiday fun:

~First drive in movie :)

~Summer fun:

~Did my first 5k

~Camping:

~Baby Ava!!

~Finally got our house! YES!

~New school for the girls!

~House projects:

~11 years of marriage!

~My niece was baptized, and the other one blessed in the same weekend! Nice!

~Nutcracker with friends :)

~Happy New Year!

Lowlights:
~My Grandpa passed away, love and miss him so much!

~Crazy stressful year with the whole short sale process--waiting almost five months to get approved and into our house. Sheesh.

~Trying to deal with the holidays a few months after moving, gosh this Christmas was so stressful. Plus, procrastinating is bad.



Well, in a nutshell, that sums up our year! Truly its been a great year full of blessings and changes. Sometimes changes are scary and hard, its only after the fact that we see how grateful we are they happened. Much love to you and here's hoping 2013 brings much joy and happiness!

Who You Calling Dummy??

Hey ya. I don't really have much to say except I have a LOT to say.

Except its stuff I really shouldn't say.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Really the only big thing on my mind would be all the crap thats going on around the election but its just starting to die down and I REALLY want it to stop, so I'm not going to add my two cents about it.

Anything else to talk about? Well, I'm sure I could come up with some random stuff nobody cares about! Whee!

I spent all day yesterday watching the third season of Downton Abbey and bawling my eyes out. Dang that show is sad! (No, it has not aired yet, I watched it on a probably illegal site okay? Don't judge me.)
I really needed a break from painting and house repairs.

I have to say, re-doing things around our house would be SO MUCH MORE FUN if we had money. I still like it but I would like it a lot more if I could buy whatever I wanted. ;) I have so got an itch to get out and buy crap. WHY CAN'T I BUY CRAP?!?

Its freezing here today. I know its not snowing like it is in Utah, but dude, I'm COLD.

My husband put two bookshelves together for me from Ikea. Which was very nice and much appreciated. All except the part where he put one piece on backwards and now instead of being white, its particle board. Dude. (For some reason, I feel like this is a metaphor for my life.)

I read somewhere earlier today that Christmas is in like 46 days. Shoot me now. I don't want to think about getting Christmas ready!! Doesn't time know that it needs to slow down for me right now?? I've got a lot going on with this stupid house and it just keeps whizzing by!

I just got called to be the Activity Days leader. I think it'll be great but I wish I could have started at the beginning of the year so I could spend more time getting things unpacked. It'll be fine of course, and I am happy to do it, just that time thing is happening again.

How long did it take you to unpack your house? Please tell me it was like a year so I feel better about myself.

Did you guys have a super fun Halloween?? I LOOOVE Halloween and we got to go to an adult party, and we went as a ventriloquist and his dummy. Here's a picture for ya:

It was so much freaking makeup, I felt so gross by the end of the night! haha

Well, missed ya friends, hope you're fantastic!

There's This and That and Some Other Stuff Too

Hey guys. Guess what? We bought a house!!

Yup, it finally happened. We finally, finally FINALLY moved in--after almost five months of waiting for everything to go through and just about anything and everything that could come up in our path did, but we persevered and we made it! 

I'm tired just writing about it. But you know, it feels like a million years ago already. Especially now that all my time is filled up with unpacking and painting and getting things hooked up and you know those kids I'm supposed to take care of...and Downton Abbey...

So since I'm so busy, I started another blog. I don't know why I do these things, besides that I'm crazy. But if you want to keep up with me on our house projects, you can go here.

Are you ready for Halloween? I'm not. I haven't even thought past "oh crap, Halloween's coming up, gotta get on that!" But really, this is no different than any other year. What are you going to be? We're doing what every other person in America is and being the Avengers. Heck yes. I'm going to be the most kick butt Black Widow you ever seen! (You know, if I can get that costume stuff together in time...)

I'm helping throw a baby shower for my sister this weekend too, because you know I'm a super hero and can do anything. It will be fun. (<--------statement.)

We're getting new iphones tonight and I can't wait to start instagramming!!! Wheeee! So awesome...

I just finished a Mountain Dew and maybe it wasn't a good thing because I think I'm starting to feel hyper. Crap.

Okay people, I'm gonna go run around in circles for awhile and try and wear myself out before bed! See ya!

Just A Quick One

Okay, I'm back. Things in my life are INSANE right now. Just freaking insane. But I wanted to update to tell you I didn't make the top 10 in the room makeover. :(

I did want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for voting for me and trying to help me out! I so appreciated the love!

If you want to REALLY do me a favor though, would you just pray for us that everything will close on our house soon? That would be fabulous.

Funny Words

On my post about my Oregon trip I asked how you would pronounce "tillamook" and it got me thinking about other weird words where I live. You see, Washington has a lot of Native American influences and so a lot of the cities and things have Indian names. So I came up with a list for you! Yay!

First up, I wanted to set "tillamook" straight, its pronounced: till-uh-muck

I went to high school in Puyallup, its pronounced: pew-all-up (not as hard as you'd think right?)

Issaquah: Iss (like hiss)- uh- kwaw

Snoqualmie: snow-kwall-me

Steilacoom: still-uh-come

Cle Elum: clee-el-um

Yakima: yak-uh-muh

Quillayute: quille-ute

Sequim: skwim

Wenatchee: when-at-chee (not that hard but you'd be surprised!)

Chehalis: shuh-hay-liss

Kennewick: ken-uh-wick

Sammamish: Suh-mam-ish

Tulalip: two-lay-lip

Nisqually: nis-kwall-ee



Okay, I might have gotten a little carried away; but there's even more than that and I could keep going on and on and on. But I'll stop. I just thought it was interesting! So how did you do? Would you have pronounced them how I said? Do you have weird city names that you don't usually realize are weird until someone visits and can't say the town you live in? :)

Remember that Makeover??

Just a little reminder to go here and vote for me--PRETTY PLEASE!!

I'm #5 and just below my picture is a star with "vote" next to it, just click it and you're done! You can vote for me every day for like...I don't remember...I think just one week. :)  The top ten will be chosen by most votes, wild card and random.org.

I'm going to be honest here, I haven't been seriously blogging for a bit now--I know I don't have a ton of followers. So the odds that I'll get enough votes to qualify for the top ten is low (seriously, there's over a hundred entries!). BUT I still want to try, so if you love me, or hate me, or feel anything past "meh"--PLEASE GO VOTE!!

Thanks. I really want to win this. Really bad.

really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really...bad

Next Time I'll Eat Less Crap

Guess what guys?! I went on a trip. Alone, without my kids! Or my husband. But seriously, it was AWESOME!

My sisters-in-law put together a girls trip for labor day weekend and we went down the Oregon coast. First we stopped in Portland and got some "Big A** Sandwiches" (it was on a Food Network show, so we had to eat there) and then we walked around the corner and got some "Voodoo Donuts" (also from the food network). Then we drove down to the beach and shopped all weekend and played games and stole sand and shells off the beach (did you know that was illegal??). The weather was perfect, and sunny and wonderful (its always a little cool on the coast, windy and such--but seriously, still gorgeous weather). Then on the way home we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory--I'm curious how you guys would pronounce "tillamook", please tell me in the comments! :) The only real bad thing about the trip was that I ate so much junk food I was pretty sure my body was going to revolt and cause some serious damage to...myself. It was getting kind of scary. (And now I have a few pounds extra to work off...but it was worth it. Probably. Not the revolting body...but...I'll stop now.)

Here's a couple of my favorite pictures! :)