Then Comes the Big Night, Giving the Tree the Trim!

As you can tell by the smile on Allen's face, yesterday was a very fun day!

We were very excited and had lots of fun.

Earlier in the week I had prepared by making these . . .

and these . . .

and this!

I got to use my fondue pot with cheese for the first time!

It was all for this naked guy!

Growing up, my family always made a fun little family night of trimming the tree. We had fondue and yummy Christmas goodies and listened to Christmas music. I was so happy that this year, I got to share that tradition with my husband. It was so much fun to get our first tree together, and I LOVE the smell! My home feels so wonderful and Christmas-y with the scent of a real tree. I just love Christmas!

Allen putting the star on top.


The finished product!

This was a little craft I put together this year. I really like the way it turned out.

Halloween

For as long as I can remember I've looked forward to doing a couple costume for Halloween. I know it's cheesy but it's something I've always wanted to do. So I was so glad that Allen was so willing to be such a good sport and dress up with me! We went as Mario and Princess Peach from the old Nintendo game. I made both of our costumes and I must say, I'm pretty proud of how they came out. Allen's was super easy of course, I just bought overalls, a red sweatshirt, gloves and a hat. I cut the little circle and the "M" out of white felt and hot glued it on. My dress was a little more involved. I didn't get my sewing machine until a week before Halloween so I didn't have much time to make it either! I just got really busy and sewed my butt off!

Hey Hillbilly!

Our ward had a Hillbilly Hoedown a few weeks ago. Everyone was asked to dress as hillbillies and we thought there was a prize for the best outfit. Turns out there was no prize, which is a shame because we would have won for sure!
They also had a twinkie eating contest that I entered. I have a history of winning eating contests believe it or not. I've won watermelon and pie eating contests, and since this was a test of speed, not quantity, I thought I'd give it a shot. I did inhale it pretty fast and Allen said I was the first to clear my plate. I had a hard time swallowing it though and it was probably because I don't really like twinkies. Allen taped the whole thing though with our new camcorder, and you can see that I'm having a hard time. There were a couple of times that I almost lost it!

Raspberry Picking!

Early fall is raspberry season in northern New Mexico. That makes it one of my favorite times of the year! My parents have a little cabin there that Allen and I were able to spend a weekend at.

This is all Allen really wanted to do, but since there is no internet I was able to steal him away from the computer.

One night we wanted to cook out, but we couldn't. My parents had taken their grill back home and we couldn't get a good fire going because it kept raining. So we wrapped our steaks and corn on the cob in foil and stuck it in the oven. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either.

Ever since my parents bought the property a couple years ago we've heard that there are lots of bears in the area. But I've never seen one and I don't think anyone else has either. Until this trip when we got lucky! We were driving to Angelfire for some food and were less than a mile from the cabin when we saw this guy! He was in the middle of the road but by the time I got out my camera he was halfway up the hill and all I got was his backside.

And of course the best part of the trip, raspberry picking!

Birthdays!

Even though Allen is almost a full year older than me, our birthdays are only a little over two weeks apart. Mine is at the end of August and Allen's is the beginning of September. For my birthday this year I spent the day shopping with a gift card from my mother-in-law and got some super cute clothes! Then that night we were going to the temple with my sister and brother-in-law. On the way home from the mall though I had a tire blow out! Thankfully Allen was able to get there quickly and get the spare on so we were able to keep our plans. When we got home I found these lovelies!
Allen also got me a fondue pot, and my mom got me a sewing machine. It was a pretty good birthday!

For Allen's birthday I made his favorite dinner, meatloaf and potatoes au gratin. Yummy! I also *tried* to make him an awesome soccor ball cake. In case you didn't know, Allen LOVES soccor. His favorite team is Liverpool, who's colors are red and white. So, I made a red velvet cake. Unfortunately, our oven is ridiculously uneven so of course the cake layers came out fatter on one end. I wish I could say that was the only thing that went wrong. I tried to frost it to look like a soccor ball, but because it was so lopsided all the icing drooped to one side. The red and white sprinkles were about the only thing that went right!

But he didn't seem to mind, he liked it anyway!

4th of July

This year we had a really awesome 4th. I really love living in the old neighborhood that we do and it just made it so fun! My little sister Samantha came up and stayed with us for a few weeks and she was here with us for the 4th which was fun. We didn't really do much during the day. We went to a festival thing in another town which was nice until a storm blew in and we decided it was time to go home. That night we grabbed some blankets and walked down to a nearby park to watch the fireworks. On the way Allen and I were goofing around until he got really mad and pushed me down! Actually,I just tripped on the blanket and skinned my knee on the sidewalk. Allen was very nice in making me feel better.

Sammie and I put patriotic ribbons in our hair.

Gigi came with us and enjoyed the walk, but decided to stay under the table when the fireworks started.

Our first 4th!
This picture doesn't really do justice to the magic of watching fireworks over a lake.


After the big show everyone did their own little fireworks in the street. It was so fun walking past all the kids with sparklers and everyone just celebrating our independence. We also had a few little things to set off when we got home, here's Allen deciding which one to do first. Poor kid, being the son of a fire chief he never really got to do a lot of fireworks growing up.

Utah

In May we took a little road trip up to Utah for my sister-in-law Amy's high school graduation. It was a fun little trip and was nice to get away for a weekend.

Setting out in our shades.

Allen and I with the graduate.

All the Holden kids. Can you find the the two(!) on the way?

Such a typical big brother.

It was also on this trip that we hit 100,000 miles on my car!

Good Grief!!

Well, it has officially been F-O-R-E-V-E-R since I update the ol' blog. So, to catch you up, and because I've been missing the warm weather, I'll start with some lovely Summer pictures. This is our cute little house in the early months of Summer.

These are the little baby pots I planted. They only lasted a few weeks because the dang squirrels knocked them off the railing and broke the pots.

Here's a good picture of the lovely bougainvillea I got as a gift from my sweet mother-in-law.

One more photo of our house in the wonderful warm weather!

Springtime, Ring-a-Ding Time!

Ah, Spring. The flowers are blooming,

there are eggs to be colored,

and Crocs are on sale.

Yes, that last one was right. There was some big warehouse sale on Crocs a while back here in town. It was a little ridiculous. People rode buses over from the mall to stand in lines that went around the building!
I didn't see it but Allen said people were leaving with garbage bags full of Crocs. I couldn't believe the extremities people were going to for these "shoes". It takes all kinds I guess.
The daffodils above are what the mystery plants turned out to be. They were so pretty until the darn snow came and killed them! It was so sad.
And the eggs! We had a very nice first Easter together. The Easter Bunny brought something special for Allen:
He seemed pretty happy with his basket. It had plenty of Reese's Eggs, a monkey with bunny ears, a chicken that walks and lays eggs, and some gummi Krabby Pattys. We also had a yummy Easter dinner.
I made the ham, asparagus, and hollandaise sauce. Allen made the fruit salad and Au Gratin potatoes. The potatoes aren't on the table yet because they took a little extra time to cook. Allen didn't want to read the directions, but decided to go ahead and put a lid on the potato dish. He also got creative with the fruit salad. I had just planned on doing strawberries and bananas, but he added kiwi and coconut. It turned out really well, super yummy!
Since we don't have kids yet and no one to hide eggs for, we just did our egg dying on Sunday night. We had fun with it though!
I wanted a nice dark pink egg . . .
so I waited, and waited . . .
but it took so long!
Allen had a vision for one of his eggs. We got some sports wrap-arounds with a soccor one which he, of course, wanted to use. Unfortunatly, I bought eggs that were too big! We couldn't get the wrap-arounds on the eggs! He wasn't about to let that stop him though.
He sat and worked on it for most of the time I was dying other eggs. Sure enough, he finally got it!
Then he added a little Liverpool red, and the masterpiece was complete.