We're still alive

For those of you who follow our blog and are wondering if I'm ever going to update it - this post is for you.

Let's be honest, I just don't have the time or anything new to say. It seems like life for us is just "stuck" and things are just repeating over and over.

I'm teaching 4th grade for my 5th year. I've taken on a more mentoring roll and am in charge of the student-body officers. It's so fun to still be involved with the 5th graders. I loved my class last year and it was really hard to say goodbye. The transition to this year has been one of the hardest yet. My class last year was just really well behaved and so much fun. This year's group is fun, but I definitely have more "handful" kids. I had a student ask today if they were my worst class; I honestly didn't know how to answer because in some respects - Yes, they are. Usually I can count on one hand the kids who frequently misbehave and I have to remind to listen. This year I can count on one hand the kids who are always on task and I don't need to remind to behave. Don't get me wrong, I do still enjoy teaching. This year has just been more challenging - which in one respect is good; it's just really exhausting.

In other news, I am the primary 1st councilor and I love working with our ward primary kids. We just had our program and have had a lot of changes thrown our way. Hopefully we'll get a few weeks of normalcy and not have things be so crazy. I taught a really fun sharing time a few months ago about keeping the sabbath day holy. I made an ice cream sundae and put toppings like catsup, bbq sauce, cheese, mustard, etc.. and each of those had a different label of a good activity to do during the week. Then I made a sundae with all the normal toppings that had labels of good things to do on Sunday. We talked about the other activities weren't necessarily bad, just not good on a "Sunday." The kids really got it and LOVED it. I even had parents tell me how good it was the following Sunday because their kids told them. Even still they will occasionally bring it up. I love teaching lessons like this!!

Our dog (who is the closest thing we have to a child) keeps us happy and active. It's so fun to have him around and see his definite personality. He gets very protective of us and loves to play, but also cuddle. His biggest downfall is that he sheds - something he didn't do the first little bit. He hates the water and therefore the snow. The other day he went out to go to the bathroom and refused to step in the snow, so he just pooped right on the sidewalk. I don't blame him though, I wouldn't really want to sit my bum in the snow either.

Tonight we watched Troy and Liam (our nephews) while Ben and Charlotte went to see Skyfall. The boys are now in bed, but we had a lot of fun playing with them and Jimmer. They'd throw the ball and Jimmer would chase after it. Troy thought it was so funny and would just do it over and over. Jimmer even helped to tuck him into bed and almost got in the bed with him. Troy didn't mind and continued to think Jimmer was hilarious. It made me excited for when we have kids to play with Jimmer.

Life is definitely not what we have expected or planned, but it is still good. We're still in love and Devin still makes me laugh everyday so I can't complain too much :)

Meet the newest member of our family

No the title of this post is not an announcement --not the one you'd expect. The newest member of our family is...
JIMMER

For those of you who haven't heard or met him yet, we recently got a dog. He is a mix of a Rat Terrier and Yorkshire Terrier. He definitely looks more like a Rat Terrier though. Jimmer is very fun and active. He loves to play - especially if you're down on the ground. He also loves to sit on your lap if you're relaxing. We have to be very careful with our socks because he will chew them like crazy. We've taught him to sit, shake, up, down - to get off things, fetch, and go to his crate when told. He's a very smart dog and a quick learner. We really like him and he definitely keeps us active.

Jimmer when we first got him:


Jimmer likes to crawl under the couch and take things with him. We find all sorts of things under our couch now.


We went to a family reunion for Devin's family and his cousin had these huge Great Dane's. Jimmer loved it! He wasn't afraid of these huge monsters at all.


Jimmer loves to be kept warm. If we have a blanket on us - then he's under the blanket too. If it's really cold he'll find any place he can that's warm...even under a shirt. We went camping and it POURED! Jimmer does not like water and he definitely didn't like camping in it.

We sometimes find Jimmer laying in the weirdest positions. This is just one of the many weird positions that he likes. We've even seen him sleep on his back with his legs straight up in the air.




I had some extra fabric and this was the result. Don't worry Devin hated having his male dog wearing a skirt and Jimmer didn't like it either. If you look closely you can see that Jimmer has BYU tags.



We went boating with Devin's sister and some friends. Jimmer loved being on the boat, but didn't like it when he walked off the end into the water. It was really funny to see him just walk right off the end as if he thought the water was solid for him to walk on. Boy was he sure surprised.

We love you all very much and hope everything is going great for all of you!

Picture Catch up

Well, it's been so long and even longer since I posted with pictures that this post is really just a picture catch-up since last November. Enjoy.


Delicious feast for Thanksgiving using our china.
Our first Christmas tree where everything (including the tree) belongs to us.
This little sweetheart stole Devin's heart when we walked in and she immediately goes straight to him with her arms up wanting him to hold her. I was just a little jealous :)
We have a tradition of getting new pj's for Christmas every year. These were the ones I made for Christmas 2010.
My cute nieces and nephews all had matching pj's. It was SO fun to have little kids around at Christmas time.
Mocktail Party with friends.

I barely had to bend...I'm so short.
3 of the 4 fourth grade teachers at my school.


The Ice Castles in Midway. Very cool!



We went to the BYU vs. San Diego St. game and were so excited that we WON! What a great season.

New decor for my red accent wall...now I need to find things to go in these cute shadow boxes.
Bowling with the family over President's Day Weekend
We went to Las Vegas the beginning of March for a Ultimate tournament.

Devin before and after his most recent haircut. I cut his hair to save money.


The thing I'm most excited about coming up is Spring Break! Devin and I are going to be spending over a week in California running from theme park to theme park. I can't wait!!

Christmas and New Years

Devin and I had a great Christmas and New Years. I had my sister Rebecca and her family out from Georgia. It was so fun to see them -- her kids are so cute. I did get a sense of competition for Devin's affections though. My competition is one year old, has bright blue eyes, and no hair. The second we walked into the door in she comes right up to Devin holding up her arms for him to hold her. That was it after that, she had him wrapped around her cute fingers. That little Eliza sure loves men. She would go to any man around and have him hold her, when I'd hold out my arms for her to come to me she'd just shake her head no. I just keep telling her she'll like me when she's older and we'll play. To the delight of 3 of my nieces I got out all my doll stuff and we played for a few hours. They were so excited when I actually got it out because I have A LOT of American Girl doll stuff.

For Christmas we got lots of Blu Rays, games, our yearly book of pictures, and some BYU basketball tickets. Devin got an external hard drive, a quilt I made him from his Ultimate t-shirts, and clothes. I got clothes, an i-home, and jewelry. It was a great Christmas, but the thing that made it so great was just spending time with family.

For New Years we got together with Adam and Lynsie and went out to Cafe Rio and Leatherby's for dessert. We sure ate a lot...I guess we felt like we needed one last hurrah for the year. Adam has a goal of No chocolate at all in 2011 so he had a delicious Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream treat and Devin and I shared a brownie sundae. After filling up on food we went back to their place and played games while again eating way too much food. We realized that Devin gets very defensive in games--don't challenge him too much or he'll get mad :) However, Devin did win at The Office Clue. We rang in the New Year with martinelli's and of course a kiss. As we watched the ball drop in time's square it seemed really weird to me that it was only last year the Devin and I were actually there in New York to celebrate. Where has all the time gone? Well 2010 was a great year for us and hopefully 2011 will be too.

Here are some goals that I have:
~Lose some weight
~Get pregnant
~Exercise 6 days a week
~Drink more water
~Get pregnant
~Eat healthy
~Have only 1 "sugar day" a week. This is something a few people at my work did last year that I want to try. Tuesday through Sunday I'm going to be really good and watching how much sugar I eat...whether it be in treats or in other food. Then Monday - I chose Monday because that's the hardest day at work - I'm going to be able to have treats. I'm been really good so far, especially considering our house is still full of delicious treats from Christmas. I haven't even wanted any and I started before Christmas with this. We'll see how long it actually lasts.
~Get pregnant

Along the lines of getting pregnant Devin and I have found a doctor that we really like that actually is proactive in finding a solution to our problem and not just assuming everything's okay. We've done some tests and all but one of the results came back normal. The only result that was abnormal was my level of DHEA. It was too high. So now we have another appointment to see what we can do about that and what the next steps are. If anyone knows anything about DHEA or has tips for me I'll gladly take them.

Well my Netflix movie has now loaded so I'll have that be all for now.

Merry Christmas (better late than never) and Happy New Year!

Too long ... too little time

Well I sat down with the intend to make a nice long post with pictures of what we've been up to. However it's been too long and I have too little time. We're up at my parents right now and about to start a movie, so the update will have to wait.

For those of you who actually care about what I post on here just know life is good, busy, and we are still madly in love with each other.

Till the next 3 months ;) Okay so hopefully it will be sooner.

All in one week!

Well, it's been so long since I posted that school has started again. I am still teaching 4th grade at Providence Hall and have a really good class this year.
This week has been a really crazy one. Last Sunday the 19th a fire was started in the foothills behind my school. It was started by the National Guard doing a Machine Gun drill. Well, being the windy place that Herriman is the wind quickly picked up and soon the whole mountain was up in flames. School was closed on Monday the 20th as our school was then in the "evacuation zone." I had several students that were evacuated from their homes on Sunday night. Tuesday we were able to go back to school because the fire had moved the opposite direction of the school and the school was no longer in any danger. However, other areas of the evacuation were not lifted until Wednesday afternoon. I am very thankful to the firefighters and officials who helped to save our school and hundreds of homes. Three homes did burn down, but with the wind it could have been much worse. There are pictures on some news websites of the fire burning right up to people's lawns. *Note to self: Having a lawn and finished yard is a good fire preventer.



Here's a link to the story if anyone missed it wants to see.

Well, if that wasn't enough for a crazy week. Thursday and Friday added to the fun. We found out that our school won a KSL summer reading challenge. Their prize? A visit from the Chopper 5 helicopter and a pizza party. We told the students it was a fire drill and then the helicopter landed when we were all outside. The kids went crazy!! All the students got to see the helicopter and we had a class picture taken by it. News crews were there to report the story.

Ok so now to finish this crazy week was Friday. Several of the classes at my school had written thank you notes to the firefighters. Well, we decided to give them an extra big thank you. The principal asked all the classes to write thank you notes and each grade made a big thank you sign. Then we all went outside with our flags and lined the street entrance to our school. When the fire truck, ambulance, and police car from the Unified Fire Authority arrived we gave them a heroes welcome. Once again there were news crews on the spot and the kids went crazy. As several news reports would say it sounded as if Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber had arrived.

Wow! My school was on the news three times in one week! It was also my birthday on Wednesday -- I'll have to write about our fun at the circus. It was definitely a busy week and I'm so grateful for the weekend!

Making a house a home

Well, after a few weeks of moving things we're starting to finally feel like we're at home. We painted our living room and kitchen and Devin surprised me with a few really great surprises. I made him promise that it would be my birthday present because he bought me so many new things. In order to not make this post too long I'll just focus on the painting of our living room and kitchen right now.

Before Painting our living room:


Before painting our kitchen:


During the prep and painting:
Thanks to everyone who helped with prep (which takes forever) and helped with the painting.


After painting the kitchen and putting down the primer for the accent wall we were sad to realize our color was way too orange. We ended up running to Wal-mart for a different color.

Here's the finished product: