Thanksgiving

We had an amazing time on our Thanksgiving Week. Jamie and I are very grateful for all of the family that we were able to see and for all of the awesome food that we ate while we were in Alabama. While we've been in Kentucky, I had completely forgotten how many women ware that Alabama print. You know the print I'm talking about, it's the slanted black and white checkers. Wow, if I wasn't an Auburn fan than I would have so much of that print, since I love black and white clothes. But anyways!

Over the Thanksgiving holidays we were able to visit all of our family down in Alabama!

 We spent a few days at both parent's house and got to see all of our friends close by. I even got some pretty neat pictures while we were driving. This is probably our favorite scenery. No wonder we miss it so much!

 Just in case you're curious, here's a little background of this lake I keep taking pictures of.

 It's called Lake Guntersville. This is a massive reservoir  that stretches over 76 miles and supplied by the Tennessee River. You don't see the lake very well from my parents house, instead you see the massive Tennessee River. In fact, the 3rd picture of water up there isn't a lake picture, it's the river. And there might not be humongous mountains there, but there are pretty good far off views of them. 

Here is the picture that we took with my side of the family. This is my little sister standing in front of us, and my brother-in-law and two of his kids in the front. I love those kids. They are some of the cutest ones that I know. 


Here's some pictures that I missed up there. ; )

 

Discounts

So there's a site that I'm trying out that is supposed to have really good deals. We'll see! You can try it too.

Happily Ever After

So yesterday, while we had the missionaries over, I decided to try something new for a desert. This time instead of doing some boring milkshake for the missionaries I was going to make apple pie. The only thing was that it was so hard for me to make the crust that it didn't get done until they'd already left for the night. It's OK though because Jamie and I still got some! Here is the delectable pie that we were treated to! Just looking at that picture and remembering what I went through to make that pie makes me extremely glad that my husband is patient with me.

Now that Jamie and I have started packing our house has become such a mess of everything. Nothing is where it was and if it is, it won't be there for much longer. We hope to have the house all packed and ready to move by the time we leave for our week of Thanksgiving vacation. And hopefully Morehead Kentucky Rentals has found someone for our trailer. If not...then we'll be living out of boxes for a little longer than originally planned!  

But amidst all of our packing I have begun to loose my mind and be more than slightly forgetful. A couple of nights ago I had pushed forward one of our special plates we got from our wedding. It was fine where it was on top of the fridge, but then when I opened the freezer door it fell crashing to the floor. I was so mad that I couldn't look at Jamie for a minute or two. Not that it was his fault! I was in one of those moods that you just want to be frustrated for a little while, and if I'd looked at him he would have had the emotion rush right out of me and replace itself with a smile. Nevertheless, I did look on my way to the trash with the mess. Once I calmed down a little and I was about to throw the plate away I said to him, "Now our Happily Ever After is broken." Boy did he get a kick out of that! He had me take some pictures of the plate, and it really made me start thinking about it. Doesn't it always seem to turn out that way? And in the words of Wolf on 10th Kingdom, "Happily Ever After didn't last as long as we thought it would." But really I think that happily ever after is more of a continuous effort. We may not be able to see all of the big picture but with every thing changing all the time, you just have to put your trust in the Lord in order to not have a broken Happily Ever After.

Man oh Man!

So, it has been sometime since my last post and I apologize for you regular readers...Polly! But it has been one crazy ride ever since Jamie got his job at Lowes. He now has to wake up at 3am three days a week! Which also messes with the days in between due to the need to get enough sleep. Nevertheless, we've been having a splendid time looking forward to our trip to Alabama! We are extremely pumped to be going back home for Thanksgiving. I think the most common phrase in our house right now is, "Lets just make it to Thanksgiving." We will have the wonderful opportunity to be there for a whole week before we have to get back to Kentucky for work.

In the mean time though, this is whats been going on.

Halloween: Jamie as Facebook. He had a ton on fun with this costume because he'd walk around asking everybody to update their status. The people who got it, loved it. The people who didn't (most people) didn't really get it at all. He even put adds down the side of the pages. I love that man!

Halloween for me was a little different. I was Molly Mormon. Many people didn't get my costume because there were a lot of non-members, plus the fact that people here just hadn't heard of it. Go figure! I will say that the biggest hit I got out of my costume was with the missionaries. They loved it. 

Missionary: Right now I'm going to give a shout out to one of our missionaries that is over in Mt. Sterling. He is originally from Spanish Fork, UT. Anybody who knows Jamie's family and knows the background of where they came knows that his Grandfather picked up his family and moved to Alabama from Spanish Fork. There are still many a Jex back there in UT. In fact, the Jexes actually own half of the town. When we found out that this missionary was from there we went up to him and asked him if he knew any Jexes in Spanish Fork. He said, "Yeah I know the Jexes. They are a really big family out there!" He was really excited to find out that we are Jex too. And now he absolutely loves us. Which is a big change from some of the others that live here who've never heard of the name Jex.

Yeah, I think thats all of the really exciting stuff that's happened to us. Nothing really new. We've just been having a grand ol' time being us!

Birthday Cards

Many of you might notice that I am posting this around, oh,  4:30 in the morning! That's because Jamie's new job at Lowes requires him to get there by 4. Also, many who may read this know that I am an avid sleeper. There are two things that I love more than sleep, and that would be my family (especially Jamie) and food. But since Jamie gets up at 3:15 every Mon, Wed, and Fri I have reluctantly followed suit. Needless to say, I woke up before his alarm around 3 this morning and haven't been able to quite go to sleep.  : ]  

So here comes the real part of my blog. Now since it's only the 15th my little sister CANNOT READ ANY MORE OF THIS BLOG! Atleast she can't read any more until she gets her birthday card in the mail. That is also applicable to my Mom. So if you're reading you must stop, Mom!

Now that I have that discloser out of the way, every one else can google at my new cards that I made last night! I think that they are so cute! Before I show you them I need to inform those of you who don't know that my little sister turns 7 on the 18th of this month and my Mom turned ...... well she had her birthday on the 5th of this month! So, obviously I'm late on my mom's but I figured since I can't be late on my sister's I would send them both a card at once. hehehe.
" O the cleverness of me!" --Peter Pan

 So with out further ado, here is my Mom's birthday card. I tried to pick some papers that woudn't be too busy but yet would be something feminine that my mom would like.

I'd also just like to point out that her card is simple, but nice. Which is really how I think of my mom. It doesn't take a lot to make her happy and she is one of the nicest people that I know. I just wanted to give her something that she would like for a while.

And of course it's not Hallmark or anything close, so I had to put a little something on the back. Not that anyone really big is ever going to see it, but making cards is my thing and I like people to know it. :]

 One of the things that I'd like to point out while I've got it here is the detailing of the paper edge when they change papers. You can see it really good on the first picture up there right above "Mom" I even highlighted it. Not that it's anything super cute but I got a new rotery cutter from the discount aisle in Wal-mart. I also got my new mat there too! I love them and I thought this was the perfect project to try them out on!

Now on to Ximinie's Birthday Card!

(for those of you who don't know how to say that it's pronounced Zim-AN-EE)

Now my sister is actually turning 7 and so she is still very much in the mode of pinks and princesses. So for her card I decided to jazz it up a bit. Nothing really fancy because a) it will probably be hanging on her door and b) I just don't have a lot.

I wanted her to very much feel like this was her very special day as a princess, because it is! But I definitely wanted her to feel that way. Just because she's 7 doesn't mean that she isn't as vulnerable as the next 14-year-old. So on her card I decided to dress it up with lots of pink and still make her feel like a big girl and put something a little more formal too.

 And if you'll look at the side of the card (I blew it up so that you could see it better) I put lots of extra little notes because she adores me ; ] Not that I'm hepped up on myself or anything but I know that she really does like me. I'm the closest one to her age out of the 5 of us and so she got to spend much more time with me than pretty much any of the others. Now that I'm married I know that she misses me just as much as my parents do, if not more ; ]  In any case, I jazzed it up with some doodles of my own! lol. You'd think that an Art Major might actually be better at doodle-ing. And then to top it all off I closed with the lovely script on the back that says I made it especially for her. And honestly I did. I hope that everyone that has a birthday coming up has a wonderful time on their special day! And for those who just had a birthday, I hope that you paraded around feeling like you were the best thing to grace this planet. In fact, we truely are, in our own individual ways, some of the best people to grace this planet! Have a awesome day!

Halloween Crafts!

About a week ago Jamie and I bought these beautiful pumpkins for tons of fall decor! I was so excited and just couldn't wait to get started. I had so many different ideas banging around in my head that it was hard to pick what I wanted to do. You'll have to forgive some of my somewhat "crude" crafting. I'm not a professional yet, but I do have some decent ideas. It seems that time really is a factor for the perfection of crafting, and I give my Kudos to those who make it look so easy and quick. Also, I haven't gotten used to taking all kinds of pictures of my stages and I appologize for no pictures with the steps. I'll have to work on that.

Now my first decoration is a Trick or treat pumpkin! I loved it so much that I am trying my hand at a Trick or Treat sing and I'll post pictures of that later when it's all finished. However, I did pick up this font and get up already turned backwards from this site : ]  I also end up using the witch mentioned here on the sign as well. It's just all so super cute!

1. I ended up tracing the writting out becausse I don't have a printer and putting it onto some cardstock.

2.Once on the cardstock I cut it out with an exacto knife making a template.

3. I placed them onto the pumpkin where I wanted the words and painted. *note that due to the roundness of the pumpkin, it was difficult to make it even and it came out splotchy. I think that adds something though.

4. I took the bottom and painted it all black just for extra kicks. Ultimately I like the way it turned out. Not quite as crisp, but I feel it adds to the Halloween mood.

 

The next project that was on my list is an apple. We'd had some extra apples that were laying around and it got me to thinking that I should do something like the poison apple off of Snow White. Now my apple is not nearly as fancy as theirs because, frankly, I'm only working on a dime. I'd used some old art supplies for the paint ( just standard acrylic paint) and an apple out of the bunch that we had. So, it didn't cost me anything. I'm sure that there are many other ways to do both of these projects, but for those of you who don't have the expensive craft equipment that could the job hop on board ; ]

At any rate, here is the finished product! I'm pleased with it although my cross could have been way better. Nonetheless, it remides me of a pirate ship flag or something, which works for me!  : ]

All I did for this one is paint it black (leaving a space big enough for the skull and cross). Then filling in the space until I had the basic shapes I needed. Once I was there I switched to a smaller detail brush (rounded instead of squared) to perfect the skull try to fix the cross.

If you're like me then you've been cruising the craft blogs looking for great ideas. Sadly, my house isn't very fall or halloween like what I keep seeing. Needless to say, I put together a little centerpiece out of some spare fabric, some plants I cut from out side, and my two nifty projects : ] This now sits on my kitchen table! I love it! And if you'll notice in the background, my husband loves this caricature that he got of him down in New Orleans. Yes, that is my strong wonderful husband that I adore : )

And that is all that I have for now, hope you guys liked it.

Banks

Jamie and I had been talking and we've decided that it's time that we picked a bank for here so that we could deposit money into it for our own safe keeping. In the hopes of finding a great new bank that we can use with both our names on it, we went out today "on the prowl", so to speak. We've been to a few of them in the area and I think that we've found one that fits us. 
I'm pretty sure that we're going to be going with Kentucky Bank. They've got some really neat stuff, like if we get charged a Foreign ATM Fee, we just have to bring the recipt back to them within 30 days and they will give us a refund. I also like that I can set it up so that if I accidentally overdraft for any reason, we can have them pull the money out of a savings account if available. I also like that we'll get new cards every year!It makes me super excited. I think that the only question that I forgot to ask him was what the cards look like and if I get any options as to what I want them to look like :)

All in all, I'm just glad that I can finally have a bank up here close by that allows me to deposit any money that I want out of my pockets! Plus, I feel somewhat productive!

Girly Stuff

Today Jamie and I were just killing some time in the Fashion Bug before he had his interview appointment. I saw this super cute necklace! And then I saw the price. Lets just say that, like always, I told my husband of my wondrous talents and the ability to be able to make it. He, for the first time actually, challenged me on it. He said, "You always say that, but you never end up doing it." So, for all of the bragging rights and the wonderful flaunting of a new necklace, I decided to rise to the occasion ;)

This is a picture of what type of necklace mine is based off of. Well, it's the closest to the one I was looking at in the store. I was going off of a $16 super gaudy one. But I decided to tone it down with mine. Not to mention that I put mine together for around $3!

It was super easy, and I actually used most of the things that I had around the house. You might not necessarily have everything that I used, but I basically just improvised. And I'll tell you what. I love it!

Catch up

Don't you just love it when you wait to post things because you want to put pictures with them? Well, thats the name of the game today.  : )

For all of you who remember the cake that I posted a couple of times ago, here are the actual birthday photos to go with it! Yay for 24! I love that big stud of mine!

Also, I was doing some projects this past week and I thought that you might enjoy to see them : ]  Now the first one is a purse that I found on a blog while I was cruzing my sister's blog. The only problem is I didn't bookmark it and I can't find the blog anymore : (

But that's ok because I did it from memory and I don't think tha it turned up so bad. This other thing, if you couldn't tell, is a pin cushion. I just got sick and tired of my cat getting into my pins and finding them all over the floor. Plus, it makes them much easier to pick up : ] It's my recreation that I found, once again, on a blog. I would give you the blog, but I'm not for sure which one it is. I just took a screen shot of it in my Microsoft OneNote. I like it : ]  I also think that the purse will make good Christmas presents ; ] So, watch out for one in a few months!

Trips to come : ]

So I haven't really set my mind on what exactly it is that I want to post about. I just knew that I needed to make a new post.......


Now that I've thought about it, I think I'll post on my trip that I'm planning for Thanksgiving! Jamie and I even bought my plane ticket. I'm to fly from Louisville to Birmingham on Monday before the big Turkey Day! I'll be able to see all of our family again over about a week. I'm thinking that I'll probably end up going and celebrating the big day with upto 7 different parts of our family (potentially). Wow! I can't believe that we did almost that much for Chirstmas! lol : ]
After the big day has come and gone, I'll be going down to Florida with my sister for probably about a month or so. I'll probably end up staying with Megan and babysitting for her till Jamie gets off for Christmas. I won't be babysitting strait through that whole time, but I'll definitely get to let her and Randy get some time alone. With three kids, that can come a lot rarer than it used to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so proud of the task that Jamie is doing for me and for us, but I will absolutely and whole-heartedly miss my hubby while he's away. That's why it's so good for me to have some fun and some wonderful people to distract me while I'm missing him.

Just can't wait for the holidays!

Food!

As many of you who know me are well aware, I love food. And it just so happens that my husband does too! ; ] We like to experiment and try new things, especially (for him) if I do the cooking. 

Recently we have gotten into making our own breads, pizzas, and just about anything that you can think of. And for those of you who don't know, today is my husband's birthday. So in keeping up with our tradition of making things ourselves, I baked his birthday cake and decorated it using this site I got off of my sister's blog. it was my very first time using or even making fondant. So, be nice when you critic it : ] 

Even better than cake is the pizza that we've been making! I love pizza and I decided to try out an experiment that I'd gotten in my head. I wanted to make a Baja Chicken BBQ Pizza. So I bought all the stuff to make it and while I was compiling the above masterful creation, ha ha, I marinated the chicken in the Baja Marinade, browned the chicken on the stove and made up the dough for the pizza crust. Then, instead of spreading the pizza sauce on, I just replaced it with Honey BBQ sauce and put motzzerella chese on instead of pizza cheese. All that was left was to put on the browned chicken, mushroom slices, and some red onion slices and voila, you have a Baja Chicken BBQ Pizza. Well, that's what you get after you bake it for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees. : ]

Institute

So, Jamie and I are big fans of the institute program that our church puts together, probably due to the fact that we originally met at institute ; ]   Naturally, we went to the first institute of the season for everyone in Morehead. I know what ya'll are thinking, "Why is this the first institute, don't they have it over the summer?" but sadly, we don't actually have a local institute over the summer. In order to go during the summer, we'd have to drive all the way into Lexington and that's just a little too far on our budget : /  Nevertheless, we did go last night. It was different from the classes that they usually have due to it being the first one. At this one we all read our favorite D&C scripture. Mine was rather hard to pick out because of all the many wonderfully inspirational scriptures that you can find in the Doctrine and Covenants : )  but I finally chose a verse that went along wonderfully with my favorite seminary scripture mastery. My scripture was D&C 10: 26 and 5 which says,

"26 And thus he flattereth them, and leadeth them along until he draggeth their souls down to hell; and thus he causeth them to catch themselves in thier own snare. 5  Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work." [emphasis added]

I decided on this one because a) it was my favorite scripture mastery, but b) because it also describes so vividly how the advisary works and how he uses our own shortcomings against us. It tells me how to avoid being caught in my own snares [by praying always], plus I've always loved the word conquer. To me it has a hero's conotation and suggests that not only will I simply win in my own battles against Satan, but that I will defeat him so mightily that I will be remembered and be called on as a hero in the eternities.

At this time I feel that I have to give a great big shout out to or beloved Brother Dyer who was our institute teacher back in Alabama. He is amazing! The best teacher that either one of us has ever had : ] We love him and think of him always as we continue to go the the class that he made dear to us in many ways. Thanks!

New Public Library

There's a new Public Library in our town :] We are super excited because it's much bigger and nicer. But I think that my favorite part about it is that the stairwells/doorways don't smell like you're going into a petting zoo ;]
Now that Morehead has this wicked awesome new place I think that it needs just a few more books and movies to fill it up :] At least it has the space now to expand it's horizon and content. All in all I think that the new library is quite the place. In fact, before we saw it, I didn't think that we'd be able to visit it as often as we used to (because its on the oposite side of town as us), but I think we might be able to manage it. lol.
It has many a wonderful sitting areas and little nooks to get on you're computer. Many nice new tables and super tall book shelves to place any book. And a wonderfully, super cute new childrens section, aquiped with a sink to do awesome little science experiments and art projects! It's all super exciting, and I don't know about Jamie, but this library makes me extra excited to bring our children into a place that has a wonderful resource like this. :]

Combined

So one wednesday every month the Young Men and the Young Women of our church get together and do an activity. Ours got together today, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't get Jamie there in time for the start of it. : (  But on the good side it wasn't his month to have the activity planned. I'm not exactly sure what they were doing tonight, but I hope they had fun!

Anyways, why he was late was due to the fact that we'd gone into town and done some shopping. When we got home, it was early enough, but I didn't keep track of the time and I ended up having dinner take too long. : /    Atleast I can say that it was a fun dinner....sushi! Yep, that's right, Jamie and I had sushi tonight and it was a good experience. : ]  But for the sake of my tummy, I think I'm going to let him eat all the sushi from now on : ]

new stuff

With me redoing all of the blog, I figured that I needed to make a new signature for my posts that would work better with the blog.....I can't see it right now, but I hope that ya'll can. : ]  I hope that it works.

PICTURES! again......

So, I got up with one of the sisters in our ward at church, because she is a photography fanatic like me, and she has allowed me to tweak some of her photos. As many of you know, I love to ShaZam my photos, so of course I have done this to some of hers......

Let me know what you think! It was super fun and I hope that we have many more pictures later to share with everyone. I definitely hope that we are able to get up with each other in the future to swap tricks and editing techniques!

Also, I love tute blogs and if it has anything to do with photos then I'm there. So if you know any cool blogs that do that, then just leave me a comment and I'll be sure to check them out! : )

This picture with all four of them I did a couple different ways. I did it in B&W, this way, and in full color. I just liked this one. : ]

Blogs!

I must say that I absolutely love tutorial blogs! Yesterday in my down time I was skimming through all the blogs that my sister follows and I came across a wicked awesome blog that tells you how to turn old cribs into benches! I LOVE it! I even have a crib that I might need to do something with so it was perfect! Here is the blog

Kittens

So, I've been trying to eat a little healthier lately and I had cut up some carrots last night. Well, this morning I got a little snacky and I'd pulled them out. The whole time that I was eating them our cat was trying her best to get at my carrots. And when I was done I zipped them up and set them aside not thinking about her at all. The video below is what happened shortly afterwards.

She is just the cutest cat ever! : )