Ornament Exchange 2014

This was so much fun!  Basically, in the middle of October I asked these fabulous ladies to each make enough ornaments for everyone in the group.  Then, we got together the weekend after Thanksgiving and exchanged them!  So each person received about 11 new ornaments.  Here are all the ornaments and the people who made them.

 Gauchay joined the exchange and we were so happy to have her!

I thought it might be fun to share a picture of each participant too!  This is Gauchay! :)

Her lovely ornament.  She actually had quite a variety of different types, but they were all adorable!

My aunt Alysa and her baby Mirren.

She made these super cool terrariums!  I wish there was a picture of each individual one because they were all so fun!

My aunt Wendy.

She made these sweet lollipop ornaments.  They look good enough to eat!

My lovely Mom.

She made these super cute penguins!  She also had a few other cute ornaments.

My sister Miranda.

She made these awesome color swirl ornaments!  Each one was unique and had its own design.

My sister-in-law Melissa.

She made these cute painted wood ornaments.  They were all so intricate and detailed!!  There were a variety of adorable shapes which were all painted beautifully.

My aunt Alyson.

She made these disco ball ornaments.  They are so pretty on the tree when they catch the light.  It is so cool!!

My sister-in-law Jenni.

She made super cute, sparkly ornament shapes out of clay/dough.  They were all so cool looking with sparkles!

My sister-in-law Tawnee.

She made these cute poinsettia ornaments, which are also sparkle-full.  So cute!

My sister-in-law Heidi.

She made these cardinal/dove ornaments!  She painted them and put feathers on them.  They look so, so awesome!  

Finally, these are the ornaments that I made:

I made a variety of different ones, they all involved burlap in some way (love/hate relationship there).  My Mom totally saved my bacon at the last minute!!  Thanks Mom!

Here is a picture of all the ornaments!  

Hopefully you can see all the names!

This kind of allows you to see the variety of different ornaments that people made.

Loved all of the ornaments.

I cannot tell you how much fun this was!  We had some treats, played holiday taboo and admired all the ornaments.  It was so cool to see all the creativity involved in each persons ornament.  Thanks so much to all who participated and helped me out, it wouldn't have been possible without you!  Hopefully, we can make this a yearly tradition!

Love,

Courtney

Jake's Home! And Also, My Brother Is Here!

YAY!  I was so excited that my brother was able to come up for Jake's homecoming!!
When he first arrived, I had to show him the IF sites.  Namely, the Destinations Inn and Chesbro's.  Jeremy's favorite room was the Venice one.  We also saw a ton of cool ukuleles, in all different colors.  (No pictures of that, sorry.)
It was so nice to see lots of family!

Just hanging out.

Playing games and enjoying the latest confection from Sarah's Candy Cottage.

We had a lot of fun chatting.

Here I believe we were having a serious political discussion about unicorn immigration.

The kids LOVED playing with everyone.  They are all very good friends and very loyal to each other.

This homecoming was so much fun.  Jake did a great job with his talk.  It was great to hear about his mission.  I remember his farewell two whole years ago!  It went by so quickly and so slowly at the same time.

Me=fail!  This is the only picture I have from his farewell!  

We were so glad to see all the family and be able to hear Jake's talk.  I am so glad that Jeremy was able to come up for it as well.

Love,

Courtney 

Girl's Night!!

While my Mom was here, we had an amazing girl's night at Wendy's house.

We soaked our feet in epsom salts and peppermint oil.

My feet felt so amazing!  

We were also watching Leap day at the same time.

We all painted either our toenails, fingernails or both.

This is a tweezer-type hair removal thingy.  Mom loved it!

We had so much fun painting our nails!  It was awesome to have everyone all together.

Love,

Courtney

Mom's Visit

My Mom came down to Idaho Falls for a work conference.  It was so great to have her here!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures...  Here's what we did:
We had a fun game night at Wendy's house.  We played Balderdash, which was hilarious as usual.  Everyone came over to her hotel for a pool party, which was a lot of fun.
We had a girl's night, which I will cover in a separate post.
All of this was super fun!  I wish there were pictures...
It was great to spend time with her, and I was very sad to see her leave.  I miss her already.

Halloween Fun!

Happy fall everyone!  I have really been enjoying this harvest season.  There are so many beautiful sights to see and I love to crunch leaves under my feet.  A few days ago we went over to Wendy's house for dinner and games.  Here are some pictures:

We made some yummy Chex mix (with and without nuts).

Wendy instructing me on rolling the pumpkin roll.

Delicioso!

Seriously, these are so yummy!

We also played Beyond Balderdash, a classic Merrill favorite.  During this particular session, it became apparent that Dillon would be the leader in writing literary masterpieces.  One of the most hilarious was a movie category, in which he described a bored Dr.Frankenstein who started to grind up people in a "ginormous" blender.  This substance was then used as meat for a certain fast food company.  (Oh, the movie title was Mix a Person, by the way.)  I have to say, this story almost rivaled Jake's infamous Life is Cheap, but Toilet Paper is Expensive plot. 

A few days later we carved pumpkins!

All the "insides"

The hollowed out interior.

Cameron smoothing out the eye socket.

I seem to have an evil look in my eyes....

Spooky!

This was a very fun Halloween! Now to go and snap up all of the clearance items!

Love,

Courtney

Two Days With Wendy

I received a phone call from my aunt Wendy asking if I wouldn't mind helping to serve food at a football game.  We were lucky enough to be assigned concessions duty on the biggest football game of the year.  This game is the equivalent to Battle of the Bell in Spokane, Fight for the Fish in CdA and pretty much any sporting event that involves the school's biggest rival.  Needless to say, there were A LOT (no, seriously, a ton) of people there to support their favorite team.  We were a couple of busy beavers for the entire game.  I was in charge of hot dogs and hamburgers, while Wendy manned the hot chocolate machine.  Sadly, the machine broke halfway through the evening, denying all of the frozen spectators its warm goodness.  Fortunately, someone was able to fix it and it worked for a short while longer, until the hot chocolate powder was no more.

This is a picture that shows how crazy-busy it was for about two hours.  It was hectic, but at the end of the day, it was fun.  

The next day, we went to the Relief Society Broadcast together.  This is an annual tradition for us, and I enjoy it.  We had a delicious dinner beforehand and met some really nice ladies.  The broadcast was awesome, and inspiring.  I really loved the story that Sister Reeves told about the Provo Tabernacle:  

"Almost three years ago a devastating fire gutted the interior of the beloved, historic tabernacle in Provo, Utah. Its loss was deemed a great tragedy by both the community and Church members. Many wondered, “Why did the Lord let this happen? Surely He could have prevented the fire or stopped its destruction.”

Ten months later, during the October 2011 general conference, there was an audible gasp when President Thomas S. Monson announced that the nearly destroyed tabernacle was to become a holy temple—a house of the Lord! Suddenly we could see what the Lord had always known! He didn’t cause the fire, but He allowed the fire to strip away the interior. He saw the tabernacle as a magnificent temple—a permanent home for making sacred, eternal covenants.  My dear sisters, the Lord allows us to be tried and tested, sometimes to our maximum capacity. We have seen the lives of loved ones—and maybe our own—figuratively burned to the ground and have wondered why a loving and caring Heavenly Father would allow such things to happen. But He does not leave us in the ashes; He stands with open arms, eagerly inviting us to come to Him. He is building our lives into magnificent temples where His Spirit can dwell eternally."

I love that story!  It really made me think about the trials in my own life.  The Lord always has a plan, even when it doesn't match up with ours.  It can be very difficult to remember, but He is always available to help us.  

Love,

Courtney

Fourth of July Fun

This year Cameron and I decided to continue our tradition of going to Idaho Falls to see the fireworks with Aunt Wendy and family.  Little did we know the fun we were in store for.  We arrived at the fireworks an hour early, so we decided to play some cards games such as It Came To Pass, Old Maid, etc.  Ever few minutes an unknown man decided to scare the pants off of us by throwing loud fireworks in random places.  Needless to say, we were all afraid for our lives :D  As soon as the fireworks finally started, we realized that we were unfortunately seated in the worst spot possible, due to the position of the trees in front of us.  So, we all congregated to a new spot that allowed us to see most of the fireworks (the rest were blocked by a Jiffy Lube).  Now, Mr. Obnoxious Firework man sat diagonally in front of us.  He decided to make annoying comments, interspersed with horrible singing of certain patriotic songs.  The fireworks were beautiful, however, even more distracting, was the street in front of us.  On this street were two lights, one lane of both the lights were blocked by either a police car with flashing lights or a barricade. You would think that would make the impassibility of the said blocked lanes clear, however some cars just did not get it.  Hence, the entertainment.  Whenever a car would try to approach the blocked intersection, they would be yelled at by the  policeman in charge of directing traffic.  We heard such scoldings as, "You can't go this way!  That's why there's a police car in the way!" and, "There's a barricade here, that means you can't cross!" and my favorite, "TURN YOUR LIGHTS ON!"  After the fireworks were over, I suggested we stay and listen to silly people be yelled at by the cops, but it was to no avail.  I guess some people don't find that as entertaining as others (or they were just tired).  This is where the real fun started.  For some reason, we decided to go to a Wal-Mart that was in the middle of a traffic jam caused by people leaving the fireworks.  Getting there was no problem, trying to get back was the hard part.  It took us an eternity to make it home through the constipated streets of post-firework Idaho Falls.  Oh well, it was worth it :)
Thanks to Aunt Wendy and her family for a wonderful Fourth of July!!
Happy Independence Day!!