Christmas is coming too soon!

Now I don't say that because I'm not prepared, cause I am. I just have mixed feelings. I say that because I love Christmas so much and once it comes, it's gone! For another whole year. Does anybody else feel like this or am I the only one out there? I guess I should just be glad that this wonderful time of year that I've looked forward to for so long, is finally here. And I am happy for that. I really am. Because I am really looking forward to spending quality time with this handsome man:

(This is Nick just chillin on the couch watching hockey. so sweet.)

Since September, Nick's been gone from 5:30am-almost 7pm every day, and I find myself missing him more and more as the days go by. So Christmas break together will be just what I need. I am looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing, doing whatever I want for a week and a half. I'm also looking forward to cuddling in blankets and watching Christmas movies and eating yummy treats. Speaking of yummy treats, this is what I made this week. Don't be too jealous :) Only 8 more days till Christmas. Yay! (See, I am still excited.)

White Chocolate Snack Mix (Mmmmm...)

I love Christmas!

A new favorite: CandyCane Kisses - An old favorite: Second Cup White Hot Chocolate YUM

Nick teases me that I might be obsessed with Christmas. It's not true though. I just get so excited when there's anything to do with Christmas because I love the season so much. I'm including a few pictures of the decorations I have around our house, especially my much loved tree. And today I thought I'd share a few of my favorite Christmas memories.

My book shelf: We made the Wiseman tile at Enrichment last month, isn't it great? If you can't tell, it says " O Holy Night"

Christmas Balls

Stripey Stockings

My Christmas garland and wreath

Christmas Memories:

As long as I can remember I am the major decorating helper to my Mom. I love putting up the Nativity sets, and the little village my Mom has. Once my Dad puts the lights on the tree, I love decorating it, and seeing all the ornaments we've collected over the years. I love the cold snowy nights sitting around a toasty fire watching a movie. I love that my parents house has an actual wood burning stove that creates that toasy atmosphere. I love coming home from a cold afternoon of tobaggoning to a mug of hot chocolate and a bowl of popcorn. When I was younger we used to go to my Grandma & Grandpa Legge's house on Christmas Eve (we still go there, it's just a different house now) . But when we were little, we used to sleep over there with my cousins and our parents and all have Christmas morning together. We used to make a fire in their fireplace and roast hot dogs, and Santa would always make an appearance! As a kid that was always so much fun. One or two years we even had a horse and sleigh ride around town. More recently, we have started a Boxing Day tradition (or somewhere in the few days after Christmas) and we all go skating and play hockey together. I think that's probably the favorite thing for Nick :) I love that everyone has time to visit with family and friends, and you can catch up with those you don't talk to enough. I am truly grateful for a family as close-knit as ours, and for all the great memories I have with them.

I've complained a lot about not being able to put up my tree sooner, but I'm glad we waited so that we could get a real tree. I love the smell it brings into our home, and it was fun to go pick out. Pretty nice tree for $35 huh. (The picture makes the tree look more blue-green, but when there's no flash it looks great.)

And here is my much awaited for Willow Tree Nativity set. I love the simplicity of these pieces, and I love having a scene of the Savior's birth in my house so that I can think of that wonderful night often. (The table might be a little small once I have the full set, but it'll do for now :)

Sneak peek...

I have been waiting FOR-EV-ER for it to snow! I really wanted our Christmas card picture to be outside in the snow, so of course random Alberta weather decided to be mild and not snow until this week. But I finally twisted Nick's arm enough today and we got his sister to take a few pictures for us. I think they turned out pretty cute, though I saved the best one to mail out. Here's a sneak peek. :)

Nick looks like he really loves me in this picture, but he was actually really cold and tired of posing. What a good sport.

Our Humble Abode

At long last, I'm getting around to posting a few (or a lot) of pictures of the place Nick and I are renting here in Edmonton. For the first year and a half of our marriage we lived in a little one bedroom apartment off of 99st and 88Ave. Our apartment was on the bottom floor so it was usually pretty dark and sharing a wall with the front entrance made for lots of loud stomping coming through our bedroom wall. The area was a bit ghetto (my car did get broken into on my birthday last year) BUT it was nice to have so many great friends close by, and be in such a young ward.

We started looking for a new place to move to at the start of the summer, and stumbled upon a great deal in Millwoods (and no, it's not the ghetto part of Millwoods) . The house is divided into a main floor apartment and a basement suite, and we are on the main floor. I love having so many windows and getting the daylight streaming in (except not really now, since winter has come and it gets dark at like 5pm..... Ohwell, summer will be great. ) We moved in during the last week of August and we have loved it so far. Some of the perks:#1- We love the location. It's so close to the new Anthony Henday so we can zip to Sherwood Park in no time, and it's way closer to my work. #2- Having more room! #3- A dishwasher (our fighting has dramatically decreased due to this point alone)

A couple different angles of the living room

The dining area

Perk #4- Our very own washer and dryer (whoo hoo -- no more hauling our laundry to Nick's parents house since we were too cheap to use the tiny apartment's community coin laundry)


Perk # 5- A deck with table and chairs, a small backyard all to ourselves, as well as a big parking pad out back so we don't have to park on the street.

(okay, so it needs to be painted, but who cares? It's our very own deck!)

Perk #6 - An extra half bathroom so I don't have to see how messy Nick likes to keep his sink (ps. how funny is the seashell sink? :)


Perk#7- room for storage in the laundry room


Perk #8 A huge closet in our bedroom so I can organize all my stuff (Isn't my shoe shelving sweet? And yes...my shirts are color-coded...I'm kind of OCD.)

And moving to a new place gave me an excuse to buy a new, cute duvet cover. I love it!

Perk #9- A spare bedroom so our computer is no longer in our bedroom, I have a little room to scrapbook, and there's now room for company to come and stay. Come anytime!


Perk #10 We are happier! Can't you tell... this post was huge!

Olivia's Reception

I just looking on the computer at my pictures, and I realized that I didn't post anything about my darling Olivia! She got married to Rob Mark out in Ontario during May long weekend this year, and they (finally ;) ) had a reception here in Edmonton on October 24th. It was SO much fun to see her again, and see her as a married woman! We hadn't met Rob yet, so it was nice to finally do so, and get to know him a little bit. He seems like a really nice guy, and is perfect for Olivia. It was great to see her so happy and content with life. She deserves the best. They had their reception at the Rutherford House here in Edmonton, and it was really neat to see what it is like in there. She looked gorgeous, and I loved seeing her dress and how her style totally comes out in it. It was also great to see Shay and Ben, who drove up for the reception and to house hunt. We can't wait till you guys move here in January!!!

The happy couple, me and Shaylena

Nick and Ben posing. What's with Ben's hand?

I love you Olive Garden!

By November 15th!

Guess what I did this weekend.........? Lots and lots of shopping! Nick's sister, Alysha, and I got together Saturday morning about 9:30am and went Christmas shopping. I had already picked up a few gifts when we were down in Utah last month so I haven't been feeling too pressed to get more yet, but I had the day off and she wanted to shop so I went. I was expecting to get a few things, but I totally lucked out and ended up finding almost everything I needed! We came home around 5pm and decided we might as well wrap them, since we didn't have anything better to do. I was feeling so accomplished and in shopping fever, I decided to go back out on Saturday morning. I was successful in rounding up the last few gifts and I am officially done my Christmas shopping. Even the stocking stuffers. And. its. all. wrapped. By November 15th. Whoo Hoo! Sorry, I just had to brag a little :) Here's a picture of our spoils:

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone had a good Halloween this year :) Nick and I were pretty low key and didn't dress up or go to any parties, we just relaxed at home. I wasn't big into decorating for Halloween either, I have a few fall decorations and that's pretty much good enough for me. But I did make some yummy sugar cookies and had fun icing them, and Nick and I carved pumpkins. My parents were going to make a last minute trip up here to visit and I felt bad having no festive decorations, so I picked up a few balloons. They ended up deciding to come next weekend instead, but I think it was fun having the balloons anyways. We weren't sure if we were gonna get any trick-or-treaters, so we bought some candy just incase and the doorbell only rang twice. Oh great, more treats around the house for me to eat.... Here are a few of our pictures, don't mind how haggard Nick and I look, I hadn't showered - just had been cleaning the house, and Nick's still in his work clothes.

Aren't the witches cute? One is the Wicked Witch of the West,
aka Elphaba, haha can you tell why?

Nick looks really creepy here...

Nick's is scary, and mine's cute - he says it looks like an M & M

Trip home and home of the Grovers

Well, all my posts about our two week trip to the States wouldn't be complete without telling the story of our lost luggage. When we landed in Salt Lake, by the time we got down to baggage claim our beautiful purple polka dot suitcase was going around the carousel, and we were excited thinking we'd be out of the airport in no time. Well, that idea was squashed when we realized that our second bag did not seem to be coming. We took our baggage claim stubs to the attendant at the desk and she pointed out that of course the bag wasn't showing up. It was tagged to go to Pittsburg! Some idiot in LAX had tagged our bag with someone else's name and destination, and we were lucky to have even located it as fast as we had. The plane wouldn't be landing in Pittsburg for four more hours after we'd discovered it was sent there, so the airport wouldn't be able to get it back until noon the next day. Since we were planning on driving straight to Idaho that night, we were in quite the predicament. Okay, so it wasn't that bad, we just arranged for them to send it to Idaho Falls, and it got there the next day while we were just hanging out with Nick's mission buddy, Josh Grover and his wife Brooke. But it was mostly just annoying because the bag that got mis-tagged was the one with our clean clothes, my makeup, our toothbrushes, facewash, pretty much all the essentials. So we had to make a Wal-mart stop and stock up on a couple things. Staying at Josh and Brooke's was a lot of fun, we don't get down to see them near enough. It was nice to just veg and hang out with them, and their little boy Karver, is such a little stud. As well, I thought I'd share a few pictures of their house. It is absolutely beautiful! Josh works with his dad building houses, and he does custom trim work as well. He is so talented, and we were so impressed with how great it looks. Someday when Nick and I get a house, we want to have Josh come up and do the trim work, it's beautiful.

Josh and Nick

Front entry

Living room and wall of windows in living room

The kitchen

Stairwell

The master bathroom
Karver and I

We drove up to Cardston, the next day after getting our delayed luggage, and enjoyed an evening of hanging out with my family before driving home to Edmonton. Nick and I were excited to be home and sleeping in our own bed again, but our trip was great and we're grateful to everyone who opened their homes to us and spent time with us along the way.

Sunny California

I've been meaning to get the rest of our trip posted for the last ten days, but just keep procrastinating it. Maybe it's because I'm sad it's actually over and I'd looked forward to going to LA for so long. Nick and I had such a good time with Nathan, Lindsay and Beckett, they made us feel right at home. Thanks to Nick, Linds and I were able to enjoy some Girls Only time. I got my hair done, we did a little shopping and even made it to the beach. I'm sure if I lived in California I would go to the beach everyday, if only to read a good book for an hour or two. The ocean is so beautiful and I always feel totally relaxed. Well except for the first few minutes Linds and I were there and the seagulls seemed to be attacking us. Reminded me of a scene out of that old horror movie, Birds......creepy.... But once we'd moved a few feet they didn't seem to bother us anymore, so the beach day ended nicely.







Nathan and Linds were so great to go out and do lots of fun stuff with us; One night we got all dressed up and ate out at the Cheesecake Factory, and we spent another evening helping them get ready for a friend's going-away party (who knew I was so talented at cutting fruit into little stars?). We also had dinner at a Chicken and Waffle place, and it was so good. I know, fried chicken and waffles with syrup don't really seem to go together, but the meal was delicious. You probably had to be there to see what I mean.


One of our last nights there we spent a few quality hours jamming on Rockband. Nathan is so ridiculous at the drums, Nick and I could hardly believe it. I love this picture of Nathan because he looks like a strumming machine on that guitar, too hard core! And in the picture of Linds and I, she totally looks like she's singing into my guitar, so funny.


Linds and I drove up to Malibu to meet up with one of my old mission companions, Jaimee, and we had such a great time. We ate at a cool little restaurant on the beach called Paradise Cove and it was so beautiful. You literally walk out of the patio doors and onto the sand. You can walk right down to the water, and there is even a pier right there. The food was amazing, we all had this awesome clam chowder, and shared a platter of stuff like calamari, jumbo shrimp, etc. We barely ate half of it, but still splurged for the GIANT piece of chocolate cake. It was divine.


Our last day there we took Beckett on a walk to the park and had so much fun on the swings and the slide. He is getting to be such a big kid now, it's crazy how fast time flies.








We ended the afternoon with another on of my favorite treats, Coldstone Icecream. Yum! Marble Slab has nothing on this place, look how full our cups are. (Has anyone noticed how much I've talked about food in this post? Ohwell, I guess you can say I like American food. :)


So we just wanted to end with a big thanks to the Roberts fam for being such great hosts and allowing us to crash at your house for so long. We had a blast, and can't wait until we see you next.