Christmas Decorating

Growing up my parents gave us Hallmark Ornaments in our Christmas stockings every year. 

I had a bunch of ornaments that needed a new home this year, so we got a live Christmas Tree!! 

 Our Christmas star. It has lights that plug into the tree lights. Thank you Grandma!

We made some ornaments for our tree too. I think these ones have to be my favorite. We made some home made modpodge and cut up some sheet music and glued it around the ornament ball.

 Rudolph is pretty cool too. I shredded brown construction paper to put inside of him.

 For this one, I used some of those rhinestone things that you fill flower vases with, 

and glued them all around it. It's super heavy, but looks pretty cool on the tree.

 Modpodge on the inside and then glitter.

 Attempt at painting on the ornament. I had planned to paint on more of them, 

but after attempting an "H", I decided I'll stick with simple this year.

Our first Gingerbread house together. Next year maybe we'll try to make gingerbread, 

but for now we'll stay with the pre-made kit.

I found this guy on Pinterest. 

Everytime I would look at it, I just laughed. 

So when Curtis was at school studying until midnight, I decided to make him. 

I still chuckle every time I look at our fridge.

I think he's staying up until May.

 And this is my last craft of the season. It's hanging above our mantle.

Merry Christmas!!!

 May we remember the real meaning of Christmas and the gift our Savior gave to us all.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we were planning on going to Philly to see my parents and extended family. We both ended up with Wednesday off so we decided to drive to DC for two nights before heading up to Philly. Since I did my student teaching there, I LOVE DC and it has a special place in my heart. One of my favorite places in DC was the temple. As you're driving on the highway you come around the corner and BAM!!! There's the temple! I LOVE IT! And it's glows! So Beautiful! I wanted Curtis to see it at  night and that's kind of how it fit into our schedule of DC events anyways, so we headed there first Tuesday night. We got there around 10pm and hung out in the parking lot for about a half hour. We were about 3 days early for all the Christmas lights, so we'll have to go back and see those eventually. 

 We started Wednesday morning off bright and early. We went to the Lincoln Memorial first.

 View from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

 Lincoln Memorial

 This is the WWII Memorial with the Washington Monument in the back. I love this memorial. It is breathtaking at night. It is all lite up and the water is beautiful with all the fountains.

 WWII Memorial. The things hanging are stone wreaths. 

Above each wreath is inscribed with the name of a state, territory, or commonwealth of the US. 

 The Washington Monument.

 You can tell it was a gloomy day and it poured on us about a minute after we took this picture. 

The Washington Monument wasn't opened because of the earthquake a few months ago, but we were still able to get up pretty close to it.

 The White House

 National Christmas Tree

They were decorating it while we were there. 

You can see the guy in the crane bucket putting the snowflakes on.

 Natural History Museum

This was the one thing that Curtis really, really, really wanted to go to.

I'm not such a huge museum fan, so I was a little hesitant but it ended up being really cool.

There's so much stuff you can't really even look at it all.

 The Hope Diamond

 The Capital Building

We LOVED our trip to DC. Maybe more for me than for Curtis, but it was really fun! We ate lunch at a burger joint called Good Stuff. DELICIOUS. And then after lunch we headed out to visit with Curtis's friend from when he lived in Minnesota and his family. Thursday morning we headed to Philly, and for some reason did not take ANY pictures... It was wonderful to visit with family though and to remember all that we are grateful for. We're very excited to head to Utah in a few weeks and get to see even more family and friends!

OSU bball

My friend Heather texted me one night and said, "Hey, I have 4 floor tickets to the OSU game tonight. You guys want to come?" and I said, "We sure do!" We were second row. Apparently they're ranked Number 2 right now in the Nation... at least basketball is holding it's own this year. :)

 Warm up

 Before the game

 

It was SO fun to be so close! We were practically on the court. 

They ended up beating North Florida 85-50. WOHOO! Go Bucks!

Thanks Matt and Heather for inviting us to the game!

Thanksgiving and DC pictures coming soon.

Random things

So I've had on my to-do list for a week now that I needed to do a blog update. But now that I'm starting to try to write one, nothing really seems all that important to put up here. Here it goes anyways.

 This is my Pinterest inspired decoration for my piano. I like to try to think I'm crafty and then things never turn out like I want them to...haha. Take these vases with candles in them for example.

Then here's our Halloween costumes. We velcroed our Oreo's to the back of white shirts. Together we made up a whole Oreo! The coloring didn't turn out as dark as I would have liked, but it was cute and people got the idea. 

This was my after Halloween find. We had bought the light up Jack-O-Lantern a month earlier, but I kept looking for a table runner or table cloth that I liked. They were always around $20! So, the day after Halloween I found this baby at Marshall's for $3. I couldn't be happier with it! I'll save it for next year. :)

 Since being in Ohio, I've had a few people tell me I needed to check out this really cool bookstore called The Book Loft. It's a really NEAT bookstore. There are 32 rooms full of bargain books! It's a whole city block long! We spent a few hours last Friday roaming around the store.

Saturday morning I went to a pie making class at the church. We learned how to make really good crust! Then I came home and completed the pie. My first ever apple pie! It actually was delicious!

On another note... I started my new job! I'm now a Leveled Literature Interventionist (Reading Specialist) for Columbus City! I LOVE it! I am really enjoying the kids and they've already found a place in my heart. Things could not have worked out more perfect. I am reminded everyday that Heavenly Father is aware of His children and has a plan for each of us. I am exactly where I am supposed to be and I know God answers our prayers. Sometimes it takes longer than we want and sometimes we don't understand why we are being guided and directed in the way we are, but I know that He answers my prayers and He answers your prayers. I know that God lives and that His Son, Jesus Christ, died for me and for the world. I am grateful everyday for that knowledge of my Savior and the plan that my Heavenly Father has for me and for each and everyone of us. Take a minute to thank God for all of the many said and unsaid prayers He has answered for you.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Since I have a lot of free time on my hands lately (long story), I've been trying to come up with some new hobbies/things to do. I decided to try these peanut butter cups that I found on a recipe site last week. They're delicious! I think next time instead of using a full size muffin cup, I will use the miniature ones. We ended up freezing the left overs so we didn't eat them all at once and they've made for wonderful morning snacks. :)

Get the recipe here!

Hocking Hills State Park

We decided to go camping last weekend. We got some camping gear for our wedding and we were excited to try it out! The leaves here are starting to change colors so we went to a state park about an hour away that a friend had recommended to us. We got there just in time to set up our tent as it was getting dark. It had rained all day Friday, so it wasn't as packed as we thought and we were able to pretty much have two sites to ourselves. It was perfect!

Curtis cooking his s'more.

Curtis loves that our air mattress fits in the tent. And yes... we used it. Best sleep camping I've ever had!

This is our dutch oven that Brian gave us for our wedding. We made apple crisp. Our coals ended up being a lot hotter than we thought and it cooked WAY faster than we thought it would... so we may have burnt the outside of the apple crisp, but the middle was delicious. :)

Saturday we went to the trails to do some hiking. Our 3 mile hike turned into a 6 mile hike when we realized half-way that we took a trail that looped around and half of the trail was closed...so we walked back the way we came.

The first thing we saw were some beautiful waterfalls.
Who would've known these were in Ohio?!?!?

This was a beautiful lake that we encountered on our hike. We loved how the clouds reflected in the water.

How cool is this??

Old Man's Cave

These pictures really don't do it justice of how incredible these rock formations were.

Lesson learned: Make sure to look at all camping gear and clean it before leaving home. Our pizza maker had rusted on the inside and we didn't realize it until opening it up to make dinner.... so this is the result...Curtis using a pan to cook pizza sandwiches! Good thing we were prepared and brought a pan and utensils! They actually turned out to be really yummy.

This was probably one of our favorite weekends we've had since being married. It was so nice to get away and just enjoy being together without any schedule or to-do list. We spent hours in the beautiful outdoors and were reminded of the many incredible creations that Heavenly Father made.