Monkey

For any of you who haven't met my favorite stuffed animal, he's a monkey and his name is Monkey (pretty creative, I know). Monkey is a pretty experienced traveler because me and my good friend Rachel take Monkey whenever we go on vacations. So far, Monkey has been to Honduras, Washington D.C., all over California, Brasil, Utah, and North Carolina. He's pretty excited to be going to Florida for New Year's (and so am I!!!).

Can you see Monkey hanging in the tree?

I thought that it would be fun to dress Monkey up for all the holidays. Here's a picture of him in his Christmas hat!

Picky!

Although my husband has gotten a lot better at eating different kinds of food, he still is a little picky when it comes to vegetables. The other day we got Chinese food and the restaurant forgot to take the vegetables out of the rice. I later caught David sitting by the trash can picking out every vegetable from the rice. I just had to take a picture!!!

Luminaries or Luminaros?

My family always called them luminaros. I found out when I moved to North Carolina that they are actually called luminaries. But, who cares, I still call them luminaros and at least my family knows what I'm talking about!

Anyway, onto what I really am posting about. For those of you who don't know, David and I basically live in a huge arboretum (AKA a really nice park). It is a wonderful place to live because we can walk down to the park anytime we want! It is also neat because every once in a while the city will sponsor activities at the park. The other night they lit up over 6,000 luminaros throughout the arboretum. David and I walked down so we could see them. It was so neat!!!

They also had a Scottish bagpipe band come and play. They were really fun to listen to. One of the band members brought his son along who wore his own little kilt over his jeans. He was so cute!


We got to the park right as the bagpipers were finishing. They ended the concert with the Scottish folksong that we now use as the tune to "Praise to the Man". It was so cool to listen to them play that song. David especially loved it! Here's a little bit of them playing that song.

Family Pictures

Over Thanksgiving we decided to take some pictures of our small family. Here's how they turned out.

Surprise! We have a two-year old already!!!! Just kidding! Jackson just really wanted to be in the picture with us. Here are the real pictures (Thanks for taking them Courtney!).

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

My finals are finally over and that means I have a little time to post some pictures. A couple of weeks ago, David and I went to get a Christmas Tree for Family Home Evening. It wasn't our first Christmas tree together because David surprised me with a Christmas tree last year while we were dating. However, it still was a first because, as we got ready to leave, I realized that, although my family has always bought a real Christmas tree, I had never gone with them to pick it out. David couldn't believe I had never picked out a Christmas tree, but that just made it all the more fun.

We first stopped to get some hot chocolate because it was so cold and then we went to the lot that David has been going to since he was little. It was so fun to hear him talk about his memories of picking out a Christmas tree. We looked and looked and soon found the perfect one. Since we live in an older apartment, our ceilings are tall. So, we ended up with an eight foot Christmas tree!

We came home and began to decorate until we realized that we only had two strings of lights. So, at 11:30 at night we headed off to Santa's workshop (AKA Walmart). We bought some more lights and David had to have tinsel so we bought that too (it made me think of my dad because he always loves to have tinsel on the tree). We got home, put on some Beatles music (this is a tradition of my dad and I to listen to Beatles' music while we decorate the tree), and decorated most of the tree. We finished it off the next night. All in all, it was so fun to take some time away from studying to do something for Christmas!

David was a little tired that night!

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, David and I went to Charlotte to be with David's mom. David's sister, Courtney, and her family also came down. It was so nice just to sit and not think for a while! We had such a great time and David's mother did SOOOO much. We are so thankful for her and to have family so close to home!

Jackson enjoyed watching TV while standing on a stool.
Jackson loves to wear girl's shoes! He is such a funny little boy! We love him!
Jackson eating (or destroying!) a cookie
We made a Thankful turkey together. It turned out pretty big but it's just because we have so much to be thankful for!
The beautiful table setting
We had SOOOO much dessert. We had cookies, brownies, skotcheroos, candy popcorn, pumpkin cheesecake, blackberry cobbler, and homemade BYU mint brownies (mom, I know you're jealous. I'll send you the recipe! ;)

Family Home Evening

David and I are both stressed with school right now so we just had a quick family home evening tonight. I remembered how my brother, Brian, and his wife, Katie, always make a thankful turkey (or thankful poster) for Thanksgiving. So, David and I tried it out. We each wrote down things we were thankful for on the feathers of the turkey and then taped the whole thing to our front door so we can remember how much we have to be thankful for. It was really fun and really quick! Now...back to homework!

Notice that David is pointing to the feather that says he's thankful for his wife... I LOVE HIM!

Early Thanksgiving

Because my family always has an early Thanksgiving dinner and my roommates and I also always had one, I decided to keep up the tradition. David's mom, grandpa, and sister's family all came and we had a great (although a little cramped) dinner. We had crock pot turkey (it was so moist it completely fell apart when we took it out of the pot...literally all that was left in the pot were the bones!), carrots, green bean casserole, cranberry salad (thanks Angie!), mashed potatoes (thanks David's mom...so good!), yams, rolls, and awesome pumpkin and Christmas tree ice cubes! I also made apple, pumpkin, and chocolate mousse pie. Everything was so yummy! Here are some pics!

These are the centerpieces I made for Thanksgiving.

Sweet Caroline
I love this picture...Jackson looks so funny!

Isn't my apple pie pretty?!

David's sister Courtney made these wonderful cookies. She just used fudge graham cookies for the brim, yellow frosting for the buckle, a tiny ckicklet for the buckle, and a reeses cup for the top.

Youth Temple Trip

This weekend, David and I were able to go with the youth to the Raleigh Temple. I got to help in the changing room and David was able to baptize all the youth. While just being in the temple was wonderful, even more special was the fact that Kacie and Leslie, the two who were just baptized, came to the temple for the first time. I was able to watch as David baptized them and they did great! They are so willing to be a part of the church! We are so grateful for their example and friendship! And I have to add that my young women are pretty wonderful too!

From Left to Right: Jenny Simmons (My fellow young women leader), Amanda Fowlkes, Kelly Jarvis, Kacie Sneathern, Leslie Shreve, Ashlea Ross (Young Single Adult), Rachel Rufunacht, ME!

Penelope

If you haven't seen it, SEE IT!!!

Goodbye Lauren!

One of the most wonderful girls I know, Lauren Hunter, is moving to Utah this week. We had a little shindig before she left. I'm going to miss her so much!!!!

Late Night with Roy

Last Friday David and I went to Late Night with Roy Williams, the official kickoff to the Tar heel basketball season. The "show" introduces the men's and women's basketball teams, has scrimmages, skits, and plays highlights from the previous year. It was hosted by Stuart Scott from ESPN who is a UNC alum. It was pretty fun to go to and David especially enjoyed it. He LOVES Tarheel basketball! The Heels have been picked to start the season ranked #1 and to win the national championship.

The famous jerseys in the rafters (Michael Jordan is second from the right)

Tyler Zeller one of the Tarheel's three top 25 freshmen.

Tyler Hansborough, last year's "NCAA Player of the Year," dunkin' it. His jersey will be retired and added to the rafters after this season.

Fall Break

This week has been pretty eventful for our little family. First of all, I realized I forgot to tell everyone that David and I both received new callings. David is now the assistant ward mission leader and I am the first counselor in the Young Women's presidency. We are both extremely happy for our callings and to be in such a great ward with people we love!

On Wednesday night after my American Architecture class I went out to dinner with the girls from my program to celebrate our friend, Liz's, birthday. It was so much fun. I am so blessed to be able to associate with such wonderful people!

(Left to Right: Allyson, Sarah, Liz, Sarah [my next door neighbor by coincidence...or divine providence], me, and Lisa)

On Thursday, David and I (after I had talked him into it) went Halloween/Thanksgiving decoration shopping. We found this awesome pumpkin ice cube tray at the dollar store and some mache pumpkins at Michael's. David and I painted the pumpkins. David was definitely more skilled at it than I was but it was ok because earlier I had beaten him big time at Scrabble!

So Crafty!

After a long weekend of homework and regular work, David and I drove down to Charlotte to visit David's mom. David's sister's family came too and it was so fun to have family home evening with more than just two people. The next day, David and I went to see an exhibit on Pompeii and then met up with Courtney and Jackson to go to Discovery Place (a hands on, scientific museum). We all had a blast!

Afterward, David and I raced home so he could head to work and I could go to Young Women in excellence. The old YW presidency had put the night together and they did such an amazing job. Instead of the Emmy awards, we had the Emma awards and highlighted each of the girls as elect ladies and as stars. Each girl walked down the "red carpet" to her own music and received her own "Emma" award (a Mrs. Butterworth syrup bottle spray painted gold). The night was so much fun!!!

Lucky I'm in Love with My Best Friend