Crafting

For Christmas this year I did a lot of home-made gifts. And now I am finally getting around to showing all of you!
For Dustin and Sarah, I made an ornament wreath (I stole the idea from Ashley, she's got lots to spare though.)

Theirs was actually slightly different, it had gold instead of silver, and a red bow, but you get the idea. This is the one I made for my own home.
For Benjamin and Curtis:

A lot of it was tracing, but pretty much everything I modified from the picture. The race track, garage, park and house were free hand, no tracing. Justin did a lot of coloring in the roads. He's so great :)
For Abigail:

For whatever reason I didn't take a normal picture of the tutu, I just took a crazy one of it on my head as a hat. At least I'm making a normal face in this one. I wish I had gotten a picture of Abigail wearing it though.
For Justin:

I bought the paper lantern at Michaels (on sale!) and wrote our name in Chinese. I think it turned out pretty good :) Plus look at those gorgeous books behind it... I'm such a nerd. (By the way, if you're wondering, from left to right, they are the complete works of: Douglas Adams [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series], Lewis Carroll [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland] and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [Sherlock Holmes]).
One of my coworkers just recently turned 66 (she's awesome), and we decided to celebrate. Someone brought in decorations, someone cookies, and I brought these cupcakes:

There's a reason for the ducks.

Our company recently got new insurance, and so they were giving away these Aflac stuffed ducks. They only gave out like three, and Phylis (the one who turned 66) got one of them. I would constantly talk about how cute it was, and it has now become the official duck of scheduling. We dress it up for the holidays (it's been a turkey, Santa Claus, a partier [for new years], and will soon be cupid). So, duck cupcakes! I think they turned out really cute! Ashley is the one who suggested how to do the ducks. I didn't have a cookie cutter that would fit on one cupcake, and there is no way I'm going to try to free-hand that. So it's a mosaic affect!
That's what's been keeping me busy lately.
And, as always, thanks for reading!
(P.S. I just posted two in a row, because I had a lot to blog about, so there's another new one just below this)

A weekend of giving

And receiving. Mostly receiving on my end.
My husband had a camp out this weekend, so we spent our first night apart since getting married. It almost killed me.
To keep from thinking about it too much, I invited myself over for a sleepover at Kristi's - I figured, it would make things more bearable for me, and I think Jenny had a blast :)
As I was heading out to go to Kerry's baby shower, Kristi says to me, "Oh, by the way, there's a grill in the garage if you want. It's our old George Forman one, we upgraded recently, but it still works great. Has detachable plates for washing and everything."
I just looked over at her and said, "Really?"
What she didn't know was that I had been planning on asking for one for my birthday. I think my stunned reaction made her think I didn't want it, because she kind of excused herself, saying "you don't have to take it if you don't want it."
Needless to say, I took it, with much gratitude. :) I've been aching for a home-grilled hamburger for months.
So, trying to think of something else to pad my birthday list...
Justin and I have been talking about how when we move to a bigger apartment it would be really nice to get a desk. Then just this past week, we've been thinking maybe we should get one sooner than that. We have a wall in our bedroom that would fit a small desk, and it would be really useful.
So we were talking to Justin's mom about how we were looking for a desk, and I was planning on maybe asking for one for my birthday, she says, "well, if it would fit, the one in Justin's old room doesn't get used very often." Justin's sister and brother still living at home both have desks in their rooms, so the only one really using it was Travis when he would come home from the dorms. Yeah, it didn't get used very often.
So we all troop into the room to take a look at it, and it definitely is small enough. Justin leans over to me and says "You know, I bet that would fit in the Explorer right now."
So, ta da! We now have a desk. Family rocks.

Justin setting everything up

Hard at work

So, it's been a pretty good weekend. Other than the whole camping trip thing. But all the free stuff is awesome. Thanks everyone! The desk fits perfectly, and I can't wait to use the grill.

New Years Celebrations

What did I do for New Years?
I slept.
Justin and I went over to my parents and played wii games and made yummy hot chocolate things and then watched tv with Ashley and Zach, and Ashley fell asleep first, then I did, then Zach did. Somehow Justin stayed awake. Probably has to do with the fact that all growing up he rarely went to bed before midnight. That was an adjustment for him when we got married, me going to bed at nine :)
Justin woke us up (well, he tried to wake up Ashley but she was too disinterested and tired to actually wake up), and we did the countdown thing. Then I went back to sleep.
We're finally getting over the sickness that has been lurking in our home for the past week. It's been nice to have the energy to do things outside. I was getting really stir crazy.
I used to get really into making new years resolutions, and every now and then would actually keep some.
This year, my main goal is to make dinners that actually have nutritional value instead of just fast and easy (not every night, but get some fruits and veggies in there several times a week), and to keep my house in a state that is, if not up to my standards of clean, at least not embarrassing if someone stops by. Wish me luck, neither will be easy with as sparse as time can be at my house.

Hope everyone had a great new year!