a few odds & ends...

Before we go out of town, I just have to post a couple things. First of all, I was at the craft store buying some fabric to make baby blankets for some friends who are hopefully not reading this! A lady there overheard me explaining the project and asked how you can crochet around the edges of a baby blanket. I couldn't really describe it, so I'm posting it on here for her to see. I love making these because my great-grandma Thacker taught it to my grandma Allison who taught it to me! Here are a few more pictures:
This is the back:

First Snow

Rachel & Josh came out to visit recently (notice I said "recently" and not "for Thanksgiving" because that would mean I'm running REALLY behind!). It was fun. We went over the Roskelleys for games and had the first snow of the season!

Have an Incredible Christmas

So, I'm not done with this painting yet... the mom's mouth and the baby's hand aren't finished, and I'm going to fix the hair. My mom needed a bean-bag-toss so I started this. I didn't make deadline, but they used it anyway. :) I was going to post it when it was finished, but... it could be a while.

8 Days!

We're spending Christmas with the Clarks...
Have I mentioned Jeff is scared of sharks?

Ohh, that was fun! Let's see...

Dragging luggage, present-bearing
we'll visit to see how all are faring
waking on Christmas at 11, I'm told
wow, that's late- we're all getting old.
I'll bribe children into giving me hugs
(Jeff just said that Aunt Jenn bugs. :(...)
sipping hot cocoa and eating a tart
the air will be reaky when the Clark siblings... lovingly talk to each other.
We'll play Rook (and I'll clean house)
we'll then reminisce about Elder Faust (*sorry, that's all I could come up with)
Seeing grandparents is a fun affair
K, this is pretty long...8 days till we're there!

...I'm never writing a post that's not a poem again.

TURKEY IS SERVED!

Yeah, that's me if you couldn't tell. Jefferson was freaking out about the scary mad woman before I told him. Course, he freaks out when he knows it's me being a scary mad woman about once a month...
Anyway. This year for Thanksgiving we had Jefferson and I, the Hoffs, Grandma, the missionaries, and the Robinsons all together. There were a lot of people. But it was really fun! I was put in charge (aAnd by that I mean I put myself in charge) of the decorations. I went with a "Winter Wonderland" theme and I was really happy with how it turned out. Our camera died right when I went to take pictures, so all we have is a little snippet of 1 of the tables before the food was put out.

There were 2 tables since we couldnt' all fit at one. This is the "kids table" and that's us with the missionaries. Ana, in the front, made me laugh SO hard when I saw this picture!
So we had a beautiful fireside the week before in church called "Hymns of Grateful Praise." It was tons of different instruments and childrens' choirs and singers singing hymns about gratitude. This inspired us to do our own program after dinner! It was pretty cool. The mom of the family that came over sang a song, we did a couple as a whole group, and Al & Camille and I played Mary's Lullaby with me on the piano, Allison on the flute, and Camille on her oboe! The following, however, is one of our less reverent numbers (To Be a Pioneer) on the kazoos.

This is the girls and I during a performance. That's Tori, Baby, Squakor, Anna, and Me!

We also played the bells.
I wanted to hold a blog contest to see who could come up with the best caption for this picture. I was vetoed, but some good ones that were discussed around here were "What a ding-dong," "See no Jingle, Speak no Jingle" (from Cam), "Voices Singing, Children Ringing" (from Me), and "Jingle Al the Way" (from Jeff).

Lovely

Isn't this FABULOUS?! I loooove the dress. I love old-fashioned kinds of dresses. I've been waiting for just the right post that I can use this picture with and I look at it every day and finally thought to myself, "Julie, you just gotta post it. It's too beautiful to hold out on the world." So voila! A lovely little picture for you. It was taken by Mark Holladay Lee of Holladay Photo in Hawaii. His pictures are pretty cool.
P.S. I made someone cry today when she saw their pictures. I LOVE it when I make clients cry and it's not at the bill!!

In the Spirit of Christmas Past

This was my cute little apartment last year for Christmas. :) It was an exciting day from the looks of it- eating cereal, reading a christmas book, drinking hot cocoa, playing Friends Scene it, and blowing my nose! I miss it, though, it was a good little apartment and it was so fun to decorate it and make it cozy for the holidays.

And now it's time for my annual Christmas Joke!

I tell this every year. I don't understand how it gets worse and worse to Jefferson and better and better to me! ...I think maybe something is wrong with him.

So it was time for the annual chess club convention at a big hotel. These guys only get together once a year, so they started bragging when they saw each other in the lobby. "I put this guy in checkmate twice last year!" one exclaimed. "That's nothing," said another. "I got him in checkmate in five minutes flat on 3 separate occasions!" They started getting louder and louder till other guests complained. The manager came over and said, "Could you guys keep it down? No one likes chess nuts boasting in an open foyer!"

Jeff pointed out that if I post this on my blog, then I can't tell it to people. Hmmm.... NOT TRUE! SO BE PREPARED!!! :)

Twilight: What I Think

Yea! November 21st finally came! It was very fun to see the movie and, you know, feed the obsession. The movie was good, especially for such a low budget. I did think it was a bit cheesy when it wasn't supposed to be, like when Carlisle changed Edward and it looked like they were making out (and it didn't help that he was wearing the 1900s hospital dress) or when Edward was sucking the venom out and looked very cross-eyed! :) The special effects looked a little stupid, too. But I will gladly see it again so that they have a bigger budget to fix that in the second one!

.

That being said, it WAS enjoyable. I tried to go in with super low expectations and was pleasantly surprised to find that I did like it over all. I also LOVED the baseball scene; it was so cool and exhilerating! It was the first time that I really got into it. I thought they picked perfect actors for Bella, James (of course!), Victoria, and Jacob. And the ending was really good with Victoria. I wasn't expecting it and I thought it was a cool way to finish. All in all, it was a good movie and I think the next one will be even better!

I saw this picture and remembered...

I once tried to sell my brother to passing cars on the edge of our yard. He tried to retaliate by attempting to sell me so I had to lower the price little by little from a dollar... to 5 cents... and eventually for free. Also I made him go around the corner so the cars interested in buying little brothers would see me first. I remember being determined to stay out there until he was gone so we stood and yelled to cars in pouring rain for a really long time! …Eventually mom made us come inside.

Football Game

This weekend was really fun. Jefferson told me I had to watch a sporting event, so to punish him I made him come with me to the BYU Ballet! I didn't really think it would work, but he came and was a good sport. He most enjoyed himself whenever a dancer's shoe would squeak against the floor and make a woopie-cushion sort of noise; I always looked over at him and he would be snickering. I'm starting to understand my Webelos Scouts a little better :)
The game was Airforce vs. BYU in Colorado Springs. It was pretty good weather and we went with the Blackfords which was fun & I got to hold their little son, Eli. He is SO cute! The Airforce planes flew overhead, though, and it was really loud and he cried and was pretty traumatized the rest of the game. Any time people would yell he'd panic or cry again. It was so sad & pathetic!! Here's a picture of him trying to think of his happy place. It was how he looked pretty much the whole time:

P.S. BYU won!


Afterwards we went and saw the house I lived in in CO Springs. It was fun to look at again.


Now to the really important part. What not to wear. Woo-hoo! I feel like Stacey London.
#1. How about NOT taking your 4 month old out in public lookin like part of the KKK? I dunno, just a thought. :) I couldn't get a very good picture but you get the gist.
#2. Awesome snowsuit! Maybe after the game you can sled down the stadium 10 years ago! :) I am not mean, I swear. I tried to get some "good" pictures of this little kid with really great hair, and a picture of a mom with a beautiful diaper bag, but... I don't know, these two were just more of a priority. ...I do have redeeming qualities, I swear.

Trick or Treat

This year for Halloween Jefferson & I dressed up as Cruela De Vil and a dalmation! It was really fun. We walked into our ward Halloween party and someone looked at Jeff and said, "What up, Dog?"

The last few years we dressed up as Fred & Wilma Flintstone...

Cinderella &... Gus Gus (I tried to get him to be Prince Charming, but nooooooo)
and Matt & Melissa! Jefferson looks so much like his brother (except the hair) that it looked pretty good.

We even took a family picture with their kids! It was fun.

What will it be next year?? Any suggestions?

Fall Crafts

Ok, it is feast or famine here! I didn't update in a really long time and now I have a lot of entries I want to get up! I found a couple of really cute decorations for Fall and wanted to share. The first is this adorable vase made from a gord! You may have already seen this on the cover but it's so beautiful and simple I couldn't believe it. Although drilling through one of these babies is sometimes harder than it looks. :)This next one is actually also from BHG, but it was too cute to pass up.

I love it! I love it! Very different and original. Here's the link to further instructions: http://www.bhg.com/holidays/halloween/pumpkin-carving/halloween-witch-dance-pumpkin/

At my mom's house, we've been painting pumpkins for years because it's less messy and because we get bored halfway through a carving. :) But ours are never this cute.

Visit from Doug & Kay

This weekend Jefferson's parents came to visit. It was a lot of fun! Kay & I had lunch, all of us toured Windcrest where he works, and Jeff & Doug & Kay went shopping. We also all went to Allison's play, saw an IMAX and visited the Denver Museum of Natural Science.

*T*W*I*L*I*G*H*T*

The waiting! The waiting! I just read Twilight again today in preparation for the movie premiere on November 21st. It is so good I just can't even stand it! It's a very moving, emotional book and I know the movie will probably screw it up, but I need something else Twilight. :) People in my ward here are not obsessed, as they were in Utah. Just me.

This is a design I found that someone did about New Moon. If you're an avid reader (Melissa), click on it. It's good.

P.S. Here are a few of my favorite Twilight songs from all of the books:

1. Linkin Park- Leave out all the rest * (official soundtrack)

2. Muse- Super Massive Black Hole (official soundtrack

3. Jimmy Gnecco- Someone to Die For- Breaking Dawn

4. Dark Blue- Jack's Mannequin- Breaking Dawn

5. Muse- Hysteria

6. Alanis Morrisette- Uninvited

7. Muse- Blackout

8. Jimmy Eat World- Pain

9. Saliva- Rest in Pieces

10. Jack's Mannequin- Resolution

Sorry

I have it on my to-do list! Right there between "edit more pictures" and "bang head against wall" is "do the Office post, or any post for that matter, on the blog." I will get to it. But maybe not until Winter! Just a COUPLE updates- my photography's doing alright (busy enough for me to banging my head against the wall, I guess!), and I'm trying to get all the shoots in before the leaves are all gone off the trees. I'm also going with my Grandma Hoff to Texas next month to help with my uncle's new baby, as they will have 5 children under the age of 4(!!) which includes twins. We also have our tickets to Utah for Christmas. YEA!!! I can't wait to see all of our family there and play with my Ellie and see all the nephews and stay with Doug and Kay and see my grandparents and... just excited all around! And if anyone wants to go caroling this year, SIGN ME UP! The other update is that we FINALLY have health insurance!!! Last week I told Jefferson, "Ok, have fun at basketball. Remember not to break- wait! We have insurance now! Break anything you want!!" ....I guess it could have been said a little more tactfully. There was much gasping and scolding from nameless onlookers. Mom & Al. And Jeff's friends.
Welp, don't expect a post for a couple of weeks, I guess! Just a parting thought:

And now it’s time for our first installment of Blog Gems!! As you know, I frequently get online and look at other peoples’ blogs and have stumbled across a few “gems” that are really funny whether you know the people or not!!
And I’d like to share them.
First up is from Andrea Oveson’s blog. Here’s what she writes:

"I found this cute little note on my nightstand and I am happy to report that Lindsay and I are friends again! You may recall another not so nice picture Lindsay drew for Merrill a few posts back, I don't know how but I've redeemed myself."

So I scrolled down a few posts and found this one. You gotta read the whole thing. :)


"As many of you may know, because of ski season and Merrill working at Park City as a ski instructor during the day and Convergys at night I am a single parent all but 2 days a week. As it turns out...I do not make a very good single parent which you will see by the note Lindsay left for Merrill one night on his pillow. At first glance you may not notice anything out of the ordinary, in fact when I first looked at it I thought we were hugging each other. But if you look closely you will see I am actually pulling her braid as it's the only thing I could grab at the moment to catch her from running away from me in order to not brush her teeth. You can tell I was mad because Lindsay drew my face close up down at the bottom. I just could not stop laughing...how sad is that? I think it's so funny it still makes me laugh! I don't know what she thought Merrill was going to do to me when he got home, but in her mind I was going to be in BIG TROUBLE. Make sure you click on the picture to see it up close, it's a must see! I guess I'm not going to get "Mother of the Year" this year...there's always next year."
http://www.ovesonfamily.blogspot.com/
The next little jewel I found was in Tyler & Tiffany’s blog, Jefferson’s cousins. He had found a big bug and, after chasing his wife and 3 daughters around with it, offered to pay a dollar to anyone who would hold it.

He didn’t think he’d get any takers but brave little Lexi needed the money!!

Jeff & I laughed at this picture for so long! Her little face is priceless!
http://tylerwatkinsfamily.blogspot.com/

The last treasure I found is my favorite. This is off The Wilkinson Quints blog by this lady in my uncle’s ward who had quintuplets last year. She laid them all out to get a picture when…..

“Finally, Ryder decided that all this picture taking made him want to puke. As luck would have it, I caught the action shot of this decision on camera. The projectile vomit actually made it all the way to Kassidy (on the end all the way to the left) and required her to have a complete wardrobe change. Once it landed, Rustin and Kaydence got it all over their face and hair--only Kyndall made it through unscathed.”

...Yessss!!! :D