I had fully intended to post this BEFORE Christmas...

But, of course, I am nothing if not lazy.

Anyway, I'm making this post because I'm actually kinda pleased with my Christmas decorations this year; this was the 4th Christmas that Bon and I have been married (for the first Christmas, we had only been married four days - what was I thinking to get married four days before Christmas???)and I finally feel like my Christmas collection has started to take shape and is fairly substantial for our little apartment. So, I'm taking a moment to brag and boast and I'm going to force you to 'ooh' and 'aah' at my stuff. (actually, I'm aware that it's really nothing fantastic and totally understand if you want to look at another website instead. Go, leave now, before it gets any worse) Also, for the sake of time and everyone's gag reflexes, I'm only posting the new or refurbished decorations - fair enough?



First up is a small quilt that Bon's mom made for him when he was younger. In the past, we've just draped it over the couch but it always fell down and got ignored - so this year, I attached some rick-rack to it and hung it on our pantry door. Ingenious, I tell you!


Next, we have our "Merry Christmas" sign. I made it a couple years ago at a Relief Society craft day thing. I originally painted it forest-green, but I've been trying to do a red/burgundy/white/cream theme with our Christmas stuff, so I repainted it this year. And, luckily, the original ribbon I had used for it matched perfectly! (are you gagging yet?)

Okay, here's a new one to the group. This puppy took a LOT of time. And a lot of glue sticks. I saw the idea here (warning: mine is not nearly as good looking as the original. Not even close) and thought it was simple enough that I could do it. Psh, WRONG. Ok, well, it was easy enough but it was just really time consuming at took way more ornament balls than I thought it would. And hanging it up wasn't easy either. Anyway, with all this buildup, prepare to be underwhelmed:

Another new one is the set of five ornaments I finished this year (yes, finished - I bought them two years ago). I originally just painted them burgundy and hung them on the tree. But after a couple of days, I got the idea to cover them in red glitter-glue for some added sparkle. And, now I LOVE them! They are so pretty when the tree lights are shining on them. Gosh, they give me warm fuzzies.
And, lastly, the crowning glory. In the past, we've rigged up a few different methods of hanging our stockings, but nothing I was ever crazy about. Then, last year, I saw this blog post using a sign and knobs to display stockings. I thought it was way cool and finally got around to it this year. (also, a little plug - I have gotten several signs from Lolly Jane and she always does an AMAZING job - LOVE her!) So, I got the vinyl from Lolly Jane and used some knobs I got from Anthropologie and - voila!



So, there you have it: some of my Christmas decorations! And, look, we all survived!

Insert clever Halloween title here (also, the abundance of pictures are for my mom)

Let's see, for the actual day of Halloween, Bon's little sister (Hannah) threw a great little bash and it was quite fun!

But 99% of my Halloween efforts were absorbed by the party I hosted the weekend before. It was fun (or, at least I think so) but caused LOTS of stress beforehand! And now, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking...

The Decor...




The Costumes...



Bon and Me...

Ok, I doubt many people will get our costume reference, so let me explain it first... There's a video game that Bon loves (ok, he loves a lot of video games...) called "Left 4 Dead". In it, the four characters - Louis, Francis, Zoe, and Bill - are trying to survive the Zombie Apocalypse are are accosted by thousands of zombies. It's quite horrific. So, in sticking with our video game themes of previous years, I dressed up as Zoe and Bon was a zombie. I got to kill him - it was great. Bon even made me my own (pretend) pipe bomb!

Have I Ever Mentioned...

That I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!!

I don't bust out the physical decorations until October 1st, but I figured it wouldn't hurt if I put the blog decorations up a bit early. After all, I'm nothing if not impatient.

So I guess I could also use this opportunity to update you on the comings and going of our lives. Although, I maintain that my life is totally boring, so this might be a very short post...

Two weeks ago, I hit the 90-day mark at my job (which is usually about the time I get laid off) and so had the 90-day-review with my bosses last week. I was a wreck in the days preceding the interview - sure, I was feeling good about my job performance, but I had felt good about my work at my previous jobs too and they laid me off!

So, during lunch, I met with the two owners of the practice and we reviewed my performance along with a little questionnaire I had filled out (can I just say: honestly, I wrote several drafts for each little question - I mean, these were psychologists that were reviewing my answers - they're trained to analyze the crap out of that stuff!!).

Anyway, the interview went really well - and I even got a raise! w00t!! But the biggest thing for me is just that I finally feel appreciated and safe - I don't have that feeling that one mistake will get me fired. I'm really loving my job!



(at this point in the blogging process, I asked Bon if there was any update he'd want me to share on his behalf. He replied "...uh...I don't think so...")

You come in to MY HOUSE and attack MY FAMILY!?!

-- or -- SCORPIONS ATTACK!!!


So 1am last night, Bon and I are fast asleep - suddenly, Bon shoots right up and grabs his foot. He's shouting in pain so I ask him if he was having a charlie horse. He's like "no, something stabbed me!" I have no clue what he's talking about, so I start to fall back to sleep (I'm such a nurturing wife!) and he hobbles to the bathroom to inspect his foot. He's almost crying in pain so I go check it out too, but we can't see anything. I get back in to bed and Bon realizes "I know what did it - it was a scorpion! Jessie, get out of the bed!!!" So I get BACK out of bed and shake out the sheets but don't see anything. (at this point, I'm overcome by a massive wave of nausea from being woken up so abruptly so I run in to our other bathroom and almost pass out) So poor, stung Bon is left to hunt down and kill the predator himself which he quickly finds at the foot of the bed on our bedskirt. He hobbles out to the kitchen and grabs our Raid and returns to douse the monster with a generous spray. Finally, we both recover enough to drag ourselves out to the computer and call poison control (after I disposed of the carcass - man, that thing was crazy looking!).

Poison control said the symptoms would last a good 6-7 hours. I think Bon can attest to that and then some! Poor guy wanted to chop his foot off!

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Don't They?

So Froggybaby's comment on my last post got me thinking: kids really don't have a filter between their brain and mouth (I still don't have one) which can lead to some pretty funny revelations. Heck, looking back, I can think of several things I said that probably made my parents want to melt in to the floor. I'm gonna share my favorite oh-no-they-didn't tale and then I want everyone to share their favorite story too (it can be something someone else's kid said or something your own child said - if you want to own up to it) (c'mon, I need some comfort before starting in Primary tomorrow!)

So, back when I was eighteen, a family asked me to babysit their 5 year old daughter and their 2 year old son. Just to give some background, I had never met the family before - they were friends of a family in my ward; the mother was an avid Mary Kay "consultant" and the father was the pastor at their church. I got the vibe that they were very...how do I say this?..."into their image".

Anyway, towards the end of the babysitting evening, I was coloring with the little girl. We were drawing pictures for each other, so I thought I'd be all cutesy and draw a picture of her family. She was very excited about it and it inspired her to draw a picture of her dad. When she was done, she handed it to me and proceed to explain her 5 year old scribbles:

"This is my dad sitting in front of the mirror. He takes his hair off every night in front of the mirror. See, he's brushing it."

!!!!!

I had no idea what to say to that, so we just went back to coloring. I tell ya, it was really hard not to rake my eyes over the dad's hairline when the parents got back home!

"Gee, Paw!"

So, this past Sunday, Bon and I were called to be Primary Teachers for the 6-year olds...


...I won't share all my feelings on the subject, but I will say that there were some tears... And, boy, did Bon feel silly about crying in church! (kidding!)

Anyway, tonight while we were looking through the masterpiece-of-organization that is our Teachers Manual, I found a page about "things to understand about each age group." I began to read the part about six-year olds and am now wondering if my class has been cryogenically frozen from the 1950's... here's what the manual explains of them:

"Girls this age learn to jump rope, bounce a ball, and play jacks. Boys learn to whistle, turn hand springs, and balance a pole on the open hand."

Does anyone else feel like the children described in that paragraph are from the sleepy town of Mayburry? Is Andy Griffith the bishop?

Good job at not updating your materials for the past fifty years, Primary. This should be a great help!

I Haven't Blogged Because I'm Boring.

The other night, Bon and I were chatting over dinner about our day and swapping stories. Even though his stories may not have been any sort of show-stopping extravaganza, Bon at least had stories.

So, I paused for a moment to gather and evaluate my limited options, and proceeded to share the highlight of my day:

The first patient of the morning had a huge booger hanging out of her nose and never got rid of it - even after she went to the bathrooms.


......wow.