My haircut from a future stylist of the stars!

Over the Christmas holiday one of my favorite friends Nicole came back to Utah from Colorado.  Nicole is one of those friends that I know I can always count on.  She's one of those friends that no matter how long we've been apart it still seems like we've seen each other just yesterday!  I'm so lucky to have a friend like her!  Nicole has been going to cosmetology school for almost a year now and she said she'd do my hair when she came out.  I knew she would do an amazing job because she loves doing this so much!  She told me a long time ago that she was thinking of going to cosmetology school and using that to help pay her way through nursing school.  I instantly knew it was a good idea and that she would be fantastic at it!  She is finally doing and it and I was wrong.  It wasn't just a good idea, it was a GREAT idea and she is more than just fantastic at it! :) I told her to do whatever she wanted to my hair, I trusted her.  Plus if it happened to turn out not so great (even though I knew it wouldn't) hair grows back.  It turned out great!  It's the best haircut I've ever had.  It takes only about 10 minutes to do and even if I don't do anything to it. . .it still looks great!  Here are a few pictures:

Here's a view from the front, not the best
picture sorry

And here's the back

This is without doing anything to it, it has just air dried

I can't put it in a ponytail, but at least I can pull it
up out of my face and it still looks good!

Like I said Nicole sadly lives in Colorado, so I can't have her cut my hair anytime I want her too.  If any of you are lucky enough to live close by though, go and see her!  I promise you'll leave happy!  Here's her info:

Proud Mama

Since Avery was about 7 months old we've been making her fold her arms for prayers.  In sacrament meeting, before meals, and during a prayer before going to bed.  I'd always say, "Time for a prayer, fold your arms."  On Sunday she saw me folding my arms while I was walking back over to her and Louis at church and she folded her arms too!  I didn't know if her arms were just like that or if she really was "folding her arms" later before a prayer in church we said "fold your arms" and she did!  It's cute and makes me happy and proud.

Homemade

I've been waiting to do this post for a while.  I've been feeling quite crafty this year and made some Christmas presents.  Now that Christmas has come and gone and the presents have been given I can post about them!

This first one was for my cute little niece Elizabeth.  She is almost 6 weeks old so I was hoping that this would fit her, but she was tiny and only 4lb 12oz when she was born, so it's going to be a while before she gets to wear these.

Cute Onesie and Hair Bow.

I made the onesie with fabric paint, to make the dots I just used the eraser of a pencil and for the little ones i used the back of a small paint brush.  Super cute, cheap, and easy!  The bow was my first one making and it turned out good!

Sweater Dress

Tutorial for the sweater dress here.  It turned out pretty well and was only a little stressful to make.  I made it out of one of my old sweaters that I'd grown out of.  I also got some cute stripey tights for her to wear with them.

The next one was for my nephew Teancum!  He's only 8 months old, but his parents like him to wear a white shirt and tie to church already.  Not that he'll wear these Tie Onesies to church, but I knew that they'd like them.

I like the middle stripey one the best

I can't find the source I used for this!  But here's a pretty good, different, but good, tutorial for the tie onesie here.  They were pretty easy to make, but unpicking the side seam for easier access kind of sucked.

The last thing I made for Christmas was a moby style wrap for my sis-in-law Sarina (the one who just had lil' Lizzie).  I had made one for myself and really like it.  I got some  fabric for pretty cheap here.  The only con to this style of baby carrier is that it's a ridiculous amount of fabric, they're so nice though!  My favorite of the 3 kinds of carriers I've tried.  Avery loves it too.  I don't have a picture of Sarina's, but here is the one I made for myself:

Sarina's is plain red

I had fun making gifts this year and I think it makes them more special and personal.  Hopefully everyone appreciated their gifts and will be able to get some good use out of them.

Christmas Post

This is coming pretty late, I've been in a very un-bloggy mood, but here you go.  We did our Christmas on the 23rd since we knew we would be out of town with our family on Christmas Eve and Christmas.  It was fun this year, Avery didn't know what was going on, but she was excited about her new stuff!  I was able to get Louis just about everything on his list and that made me happy (and him too).  I got a lot of good stuff too, some of my most exciting ones were my stand mixer (not a kitchen aid, but still exciting) and chocolate oranges of course, I got sooooo much candy!  Here are a few pictures from our Christmas.

Before the Present opening

The top two are from our Christmas Eve (22nd) her Christmas Eve
jammies were so fun, but sadly they don't unbutton!  I'll have to fix that
later.  She peed through them of course so she wore some different
 Christmas jammies the next morning.  The bottom two pictures is Louis
reading her a Christmas book before we started opening presents and of
Avery looking through her stocking.

Just opening up some more presents.  She loves her water bottle, I love her eyes!

Christmas Eve we headed down to Ogden, I dropped Louis and Avery off with his family and then I went to my friend Nicole's house and she cut my hair!  Don't worry, she's in cosmetology school.  It turned out so good and I'm loving it and it's so easy to do in the morning.  Here's a before and after picture:

My other friend Kristy came over as well to get her hair cut then we went to pick up Avery and went to The Greenery for lunch.  It was so good to see them, it's funny how you don't realize how much you miss something until it comes back to you :)

After being with my friends I went and got Louis and headed over to my parents.  We did our usual Christmas Eve festivities; a big dinner and then a program with singing and scriptures.  Here are pictures from the night:  

Top left:  Louis and Avery, Top right:  John and Avery
Bottom left:  Tafton and Mikaela being silly with Avery, Bottom right:  Mom and me

Every Christmas Eve night John and I get together and watch "The Santa Clause" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" after a two year break we were able to do that once again.  I knew John was really looking forward to it.  Since he got home from his mission he's mentioned it about 15 times with 3 of those being on the day he got home.  I didn't know it meant that much to him.  For Christmas I got him both of them on DVD since we only have the VHS versions.  I actually stayed awake for both of them which usually doesn't happen and we even finished before midnight, 11:47 to be exact.  

This isn't on Christmas Eve, but it's the only picture I have of us since he's gotten home.

Christmas day started with us opening presents with my family, Avery got some homemade blocks from her Gram and an outfit and pajamas. (she's used all three already) Louis got two shirts and I got socks a cookbook and a knitting kit.  Louis and I also got a new comforter for our bed.  Then we headed over to the Brandley's.  We put Avery down for her nap then opened stockings.  We left after that (leaving Avery napping) to go to our nieces blessing.  Then headed back to the Brandley's.  To summarized we opened presents until about 1:30 when Elder Phillip Brandley would be calling from California.  Actually he skyped.  So we took a long present opening break and started back up again around 5-5:30 and didn't finish until about 8:30.  Then we headed home!  It was a fun day and I didn't even get a headache :) I got one the first year we spent Christmas with the Brandley's in 2009.  Pictures:

top left picture:  Megan, Pug, and Alisha (my first picture with my new
camera, THANKS JOSH! top right:  Grandpa Grandpa and Avery playing
Bottom left Louis with T and Avery.  Bottom right:  Celestial with her new umbrella

I liked having Christmas on Sunday it helped to put a special emphasis on Christ which is how is should be.  I'm grateful for Christ and the sacrifices he made for me and you!
Below are some videos from Christmas weekend.  The first one is Jon "signing"  12 Days of Christmas, super funny.  The bottom one is Megan and her kids singing Away in A Manger.  I tried to get the other two I have to upload, but they wouldn't.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The House of the Lord

Today has been a good successful day, I was on my feet most of the day, but it was for a good cause!  Today my sister-in-law Celestial and I made a gingerbread house, but not just any gingerbread house we made this:

Isn't it wonderful!

If you can't tell, it's a temple.  Can you tell which temple it is?  I'll give you a clue, I live about 5 minutes away from it.
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Do you have it yet??
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That's right it's the Logan temple!  Here's a picture of the temple to compare it to:

Totally similar right!  Except there are no windows.

Our Bride and Groom (bride on left groom on right)

Bride and Groom with the camera man.  Can you see camera in his hand?

We're pretty proud, and we're currently having an open house from now until we decide to eat it.

The architects

Okay people this took us 6 hours!  So I better get a lot of comments saying how awesome it is.