Plans for the New Year

New Years caught us a little off guard over here.  We didn't stay up til midnight or really set any goals.  We also started the year off with eggnog pancakes and Texas Roadhouse, so you could say we were not in the mood to better ourselves.  Now that we're another day in though, I'm ready to remember 2017 and make some plans (I guess I should mention that we did do our 2018 budget, so we're not totally lame...or does that mean we ARE totally lame, I'm not sure.).

2017 was a pretty good year.  The highlight was easily the new house and basement.  The lowlight was easily the stress of our daily schedules and the moving process.  I loved 2017 so much more than 2016, though thank goodness!  I think I learned a few things about what makes me happy and I'm happy to report that both Ivy and my job are among those things. ;)  I learned that it takes a bit more effort to keep yourself happy when you're a parent, but you can do it.  I learned that having things to look forward to makes a huge difference to me. 

In 2018 I hope to learn how to curb my love of dessert to once a week, I hope to put in the effort to better decorate my house with stuff that I really really like, I hope to say, "Yes" more to fun things and also service opportunities, and I hope to spend more time creating things.  (Also, hallelujah for not setting exercise resolutions anymore.  4 years of habit, going strong!

Christmas Time is Here

We have only a few days left til Christmas, and I'm ultra excited.

So far here's our list of holiday doings:

We sent the Christmas cards.  I think we got like 7 back.  I won't take it personally... (Don't other people like spending a million dollars on family photos/outfits and then another small fortune on cards and stamps? Ok, fine.) 

We baked and delivered treats to our neighbors.  Growing up we always delivered a treat to like half of the ward, and we usually had some sort of clever saying to go with it.  That was a requirement back in the day for some reason.  Funny story--I remember one year, we needed Sprite for our clever gift's saying, and the store was out of Sprite (this makes it sound like this was 1965, but it wasn't).  Instead, my mom bought "Moon Mist," which it turns out is highly caffeinated and we had to hand-select which neighbors would get it and not be offended.  Hahahaha.  Also, another funny story.  In my youth we once accidentally delivered a treat to the wrong house behind us and I'm pretty sure my parents still exchange gifts with these Asian neighbors each year, now 20 years later.

This year's sampler plate in all its glory.  It was one of my best plates yet.

We took Ivy to see the lights a few times, which she loved.  She's good at saying, "lights."

We've been to several parties including a seemingly insurmountable sushi night one hour away with our friends, in which Ivy was actually well behaved.  It was truly shocking.  Also I think I liked the sushi?  I've never eaten something where I thought, "Well this tastes good, but I feel mildly uncomfortable," but I'd say that's a successful first time.

Ivy met Santa, although she really did not realize he was a "special" person.  To her, it was just another man she's never seen and probably doesn't like.

We decorated!  I pretty much blew the entire decorating budget on the new 12-foot Christmas tree, but we weasled up a few other tiny things as well.  I'm slowly realizing that with a great larger house, comes great responsibility and a million decorations in order to look very festive.

We had our neighbors over for dinner (Ivy's babysitters and their family).  Scott and I rarely host non-family things so this was a fun thing to do. We love love love our babysitters!  And now I feel like I sort of know them the tiniest bit better after 6 months of saying "hello,...well goodbye" almost every day.

Other than that, we've just shopped and taught Ivy how to say, "ho ho ho."  It's been a great December so far.  On to birthdays and Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Aaaaand I have not thought much about blogging lately.   Is this what happened to everyone else in like 2009?  Noooo.  Must.keep.this.going. 

This year's Thanksgiving was pretty great, however I did spend most of the weekend with a pretty bad cold.  Leave it to this family to have one person be sick for every major holiday!  I'm almost relieved it was me though because sick Ivy is just so sad, and I somehow have a lot less patience when Scott is sick (despite my knowledge of this and efforts to fix it), so at least I don't have to feel bad about my behavior this way! :)

I guess the only thing we did for Thanksgiving was...show up, but I did also make some pies which was fun.  Scott is probably very tired of hearing about me making pies.  I only ever make them for Thanksgiving so I pretty much just talked about making pie and nothing else for a week or two.

Sadly we had to cancel a lot of our weekend plans because of the sicknesses, but we were still able to see the family a bunch, and Scott and I went on a temple dinner date where we ran into our own sealer.  Before I realized who he was, he was mentioning how he doesn't remember everyone he's done ordinances for.  So then I read his name tag and had a good laugh to myself since he did my ordinance.  Surprise, he did not remember us.

We also drove down to Springville, which is such a magical place during the holidays to me.  It reminds me of so many past holidays from my entire life.  Yes, my Grandma and Grandpa still play kick ball. #goals

All in all it was a great weekend and I have a lot to be grateful for, especially for this one:

He's everything I've always dreamed of having, PLUS he isn't mean to me when I'm sick.