And to All a Good Night

What a crazy week it has been! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Judd and I were able to have Christmas at our place for the first time since we met. My Dad came over Christmas Eve afternoon! Daddy and I made Rice Krispy Treats like we always did. It was fun. Later that evening my I took out a bad that my mom made. It was filled with all sorts of things. When she gave it to me she said "Ask your dad. he'll know what to do." So I did exactly that. It ended up being a "Teach the Children" bag. If you don't know what that is, it's a bag filled with all of the symbols of Christmas and a poem explaining what each symbol stands for. Teach the Children... the true meaning of Christmas. It is a simple reminder to enjoy spending time with family and friends, and that Jesus truly is the reason for the season!

xo -Shell

Oh yeah... we had snow too!

The Great State of UTAHHHH!

mmmm I left for the great state of Utah last Thursday morning. I landed, got in my rental car and headed down I-15. I rolled down the windows and breathed in that mountain air. What a recharge that was! I needed just a moment and I was all pumped for the up coming week!

Once I made it to Provo, I went to Jenni and Michael's apt. {SUPER cute!} They are amazing! They live quite a hectic little life style, but some how they seem to make it through with few to no complaints! Man I could learn a thing or two from them. :) I learned that Jenni and I have tons in common! She is such an awesome person, and I am an in awe of all of the things I can learn from her! I love being around her happy self! And that silly Michael is so wise beyond his years! I love him soooo much! He is all grown up, it's hard to believe that he is all grown up and so smart! I can't wait to see what life brings him and Jenni! They are amazing examples in my life and very special to me! I just know that any blessing sent their way is well deserved!

Thursday was fun. I followed Michael all over campus while he printed a paper and turned it in. It was super fun getting to chit chat with him. I sure do learn more and more about him every time we get to chat like that!

Friday was fun! I picked Nathaniel and Benjamin up at school and brought them home. It was supposed to be a surprise, but of course now days you can't surprisingly pick up children from school! They are getting soooooo big!! It makes me just a bit sad when I see just how big they get with each visit! We went over to Robert and Tamara's new house and I visited with Tamara while the kiddos opened their late birthday presents from me. {bad aunt shellie}
Friday night we had a fun game night with Jenni and Michael's dear friends, Stephanie, Jarom, Lauren, and her bf Josh. We played Loaded Questions. If you have never played, it's a great way to get to know people and a great way to "re-get-to-know" your siblings! I dont think I have ever seen Michael laugh as hard as I did that night!! {he's a lil weird btw} Lauren and Josh brought yummy hot chocolate and a Cocoa-motion Machine... I need one!! That crew is just to much fun! I love how peeps in Provo know how to have a great time... the "real way."
Saturday we went to Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. It was a teeny bit chilly, but we still managed to have a great time. We found Michael some handsome sweaters and a some "Jenni Approved" jeans. Then on our way back to Provo we stopped off in Draper and had us some yummy Frogurt! If you are from Carrollton and love the yougurtland and all those yummy places, you would love Frogurt even more! They had yummier flavors and more fixin's. (I am actually thankful there isn't a Frogurt here. I would be super duper fat! That night Mikey scored some tickets to New Moon. It was really good! I can't wait til Eclipse! it's gonna be great!!I loved that when I was getting ready I saw Jenni was wearing this cute black dress... I didnt think anything of it until she completed her Sunday best with a cute gray cardigan. Well... all I brought was a (lil too short) gray dress with black boots. And well Michael came out of the closet wearing his handsome gray suit! We all coordinated for church that morning. HILARIOUS! this was unintended, but none of us cared enough to change! We had to take a pic! We went to Jenni's friend's baby blessing and then came home for some yummy supper!

Sundays are for spending time with family, so we went over to Robert and Tamara's house to visit for a bit! Look how stinkin' big LuCille is getting! She is two and super cute! She had just gotten up from a nap and it took a bit before she would warm up to me, but after that we were buds! We read a few books and put together an Advent Calendar for Christmas! Man that little family is soo cute! Little missy was too shy to smile I think! But thats ok... she is like her Aunt Shellie and likes to stick her tongue out! It was fun visiting the little Woodmansee Family! I hope they get all settled in their new house soon!

The last night with Michael and Jenni was the perfect way to end my stay with them. I got some sweet tickets for us! Row 10 Center Stage! David sang some songs from his self titled album and then changed super fast and sang his little heart out to the audience during his "last set" Make fun of me if you will, but you will never understand the awesomeness of the Archuleta until you hear him live. He is just so real. He is a "take me as I am" kind of guy! He has nothing to hide. He poured out emotion with each song. And shared his pure feelings of Christmas between each set! I love that he is not afraid to take every moment to share his testimony of the Gospel and that Jesus is the real reason we celebrate Christmas! Oh and check this next picture out!! David had a very special guest!! HIS MOM!! She sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas with David! How cute is that?!? I think that is very special. Her dream in life was to sing in front of a large audience, and well how cool is it that her own son helped make that dream come true!! So cute!!! I got the chance of bumping into dear friends and meeting new ones! The night was simply divine!
Ok well that is all for now! When I get more pictures, I will have to finish my story of Utah! There is lots to share, so stay tuned! I will finish tomorrow. As for now, Judd and I are going to put up the Christmas tree!!!

One of my goals

...is to get better at baking. A few weeks ago when Megan and I were looking for cans of pumpkin for out pumpkin cakes...we had to search several stores before finding any. SO, when I found some, I bought three extra cans of it, JUST in case I had the craving for some pumpkin goodies. Last week a lady from Relief Society brought me some yummy pumpkin bread and I ran out and was craving more.... Soooo this morning I saw an easy recipe for pumpkin muffins and I decided to give them a try. I know how to make pumpkin pie...how hard would muffins be right? Well, I followed the recipe STEP BY STEP and they didn't turn out! What on earth could I be doing wrong? The picture looked so yummy, and mine tasted like gooey pumpkin mess... URGH!

If any of you have any good pumpkin muffin recipes lemme know pleaseeee!!

I felt the need...

to eat the pizza crust that Judd didn't want. I had tried my hardest to avoid Judd while he was sick....but I just couldn't resist the yummy Frecshetta taste! Now I have a sinus headache that I am praying doesn't turn into something worse!

"A good neighbor is a great blessing."

Today I took the step... I met my neighbors! I am certain my husband thinks I'm a weirdo...

Oh, and tomorrow I am getting a new phone! Yay! I have not bought a new phone since 2002!! I can't wait! This is going to monumental! Which is better the itouch ot moto cliq?

The Story of Jack! (and Jackie-O)

A couple of weeks ago my dear friend Megan showed me a cute picture on the cover of her Family Circle Magazine. It was a picture of a pumpkin cake! I thought it was adorable so I said, "let's make one!" Funny thing is, I had never made a cake from scratch. I was really just half joking. (and scared at the thought of making a REAL cake) I am usually the person that gets a cake mix adds the eggs and water, and calls it good. Megan however...is very much NOT! She is like the baking queen!

We went to Sam's, bought all of the ingredients that we needed and waited til Wednesday to bake the cakes. DO you know how hard it is to find pumpkin this time of year! we went to several different stores to find a few cans of pumpkin!!! ahhhhh but Megan found some!! YAY!!

The recipe calls for a small Pyrex bowl, but we wanted to make the cake bigger so we used bigger bowls (and added in some of our own ingredients)...and each cake to over and hour to bake!! (we got smart and decided to go running while the cakes were baking!!) We let them cool Wednesday night. Thursday came and we made cream cheese frosting, (Ummm yummm! I could eat a whole bowl of that stuff!!) We used it to stick the two half circle cakes together to form our pumpkins...then we colored the rest of it orange and iced our cakes to look like basketballs... then, for what seemed to be hours, after sorting a bag of reese's pieces, we put them on...ONE-by-ONE to cover the entire cake to look like a pumpkin!! (good thing we had Vampire Diaries to keep us entertained!) I finished faster than Megan cuz I just started getting restless... if you know me, you know I canNOT do the same thing for more than like 15 minutes. Megan however is a perfetionist and well took longer. :) so I took all the reese's and we had to get more from the store at like 10pm... it could have been because I used them all... or I couldn't stop eating them! I LOOOOVE sugar more than any other food!!! Next year... I think everyone should make these cutie pie cakes!

OH YEAH! I almost forgot... then I saw these super cute owls in my Southern Living Magazine and thought I just had to make some! The cookie I am holding is a chocolate moon pie that you use candies to turn it into an owl! Soooo fun!

And I made Jack, Megan made Jacki-O! they were soooo yummmmmy!

ooopsie dolly

So... if you know my family AT all... you know that my mother has this crazy obsession with dolls. She has been collecting them since the beginning of time. Now that she has a bajillion dolls, and free time to explore the inter web...she chooses to spend her time chillin' in the world of ebay. A couple of summers ago, I was living at my parent's house working for the summer months. EVERY morning I woke up to the sound of the door bell.(not exaggerating!) It was always the mailman delivering another doll from some random place. I am sure that poor mailman had to be SLIGHTLY curious, and just wanted to peak in the front door just to see where on earth all of these dolls went. (don't worry mister mailman...I still would like to know)

Anyways... mom came up with this brilliant idea to start making clothes for these life size dolls of hers...and better yet... to sell them on the internet to other ladies with the same interest. (I tried very hard not to say "crazy ladies" but it's just so dang hard) SO...she has spent the last few weeks putting together some november-esque outfits and asked me to help her take pictures of them.

Yesterday, she comes over with what looks to be 12 different outfits she has created, puts them on the dolls, and then asks me to get the camera ready. Now...I have never used Mister Judd's camera so I am not sure how to change the card...but mom insists that these pictures be on her own card (because she is unaware that you can save them to ANY computer and access them from ANY camera card) anyways... it become a fight, and I take out Judd's card, put in mom's and one of the tiny dang pins in the camera that help read the card... BENT...and LATER broke! Grrrr... Judd was very calm about it when he got home, even though I know he wanted to scream (I would have wanted to) so yeah...sorry Mister Ryan Hawkins...my husband will be unable to take your family pictures like you guys have had planned! and sorry Hardon and RTR, Judders will be unable to take pictures of the very first Brickfight performance. Some days I just wish there was a simple rewind button...live and learn.

Have a happy hump day!

Adios

Oh yeah....we ended up using mom's camera....

So, apparenly everyone's doin' it!

Ok, so I have had this silly blog for like a year now, and I have NEVER done anything with it! Everyone I know has a blog, refers to it, and love it! I had a "Live Journal" back in the day, but that was back in college when I had more fun and random things to share...I guess now I can share bits of my life with you! I do have to warn you, I use way too many periods and commas, and I don't always use the correct punctuation and capitalization. Yes I know how to, but let's be honest, this isn't some college paper that is going to be scrutinized by a boring professor! It's my life... Here it goes....

SOOOO If you know me, you can skip this part... If havn't met or talked talked to me in a while, here is the short run down of the past year. Judd and I got married March 15, 2008 in College Station! WHOOOOP! We moved to a cute house in Katy, Texas. Judd got some job as a Landman duder guy in the natural gas industry based out of houston. Please don't ask me what he does...I'd be lying to you if I tried to explain. While in Katy, I taught first grade at Winborn Elementary. I LOOOVED it there! In fact, it was my dream job. I worked right next door to my best friend/college roommate! not kidding, we shared a wall hahah. Teaching was more like my hobby, and I happened to get paid for it! I met some of the most extraordinary people at Winborn, and they will forever be in my heart! The 08-09 first grade team is so dear to me! They were my family in Houston while I was struggling to make it through a tough year! I love you guys!!! anyways... RIGHT after I got the job at Winborn, Judd took a job with a company based in FORT WORTH! We lived apart for the first year of marriage. I had the house, and he had a small apartment in the DFW metroplex. :( We saw each other on the weekends and Holidays...and that's about it! it was a bummer!!! He was so good to drive down to Katy every weekend, just to turn around Monday morning and drive back up to Fort Worth. I DO NOT suggest living away from your spouse if you are a newlywed! (or oldlywed) IT IS NOT FUN!! While in Katy, I lived through Hurricane Ike...He ruined our roof and our ceiling fell in. It was a disaster. But some firendly members of the church tarped the roof so the damage wouldn't get worse while I was out being a refugee in Oklahoma. When Judd and I thought it was safe to return to Katy after all of the storms, we came home to find pink insulation ALL over the carpet, and water damage in 2/3 of our walls. (good thing we didn't take that advice to buy the house!) SOOOOO from September 12-Late December I lived in a house with a HUUUGE hole in the ceiling, and moisture hanging out in the walls....(can you imagine what was growing in those walls?!?) Good thing I had this awesome team member at work (thanks katrina) that let me crash at her house for like 6 weeks, just so I wouldn't have to live in those nasty conditions! After the house was re-walled, and I'm not exaggerating, the air conditioner leaked and ruined the SAME huge piece of ceiling that was just replaced. We called the property manager in January...and she never did anything... I had mold growing in my closet downstairs for crying out loud! Not to be complaining this entire blog, but really...how hard is it to send someone out to fix a ceiling before it gets too bad?!?! Katrina and Toby and the Lalendorff family really saved my sanity last school year! I mean, how many people do you know that you can work with, live with for 6 weeks, work out with, and hang out with AND STILL not get tired of eachother! Katrina is amazing, and Toby is so sweet to let me invade their house all od last fall!! I love the entire Lalendorff family so much! They are truly a blessing in my life!! If you ever have the special opprotunity to meet any one of them... your life will be forever changed! They are amazing!!! anywho... At the end of the school year I moved up to Fort Worth so that we could begin living our "happily ever after!"

There, how's that for an introduction!

I have had several people ask to see pictures of our house so I thought I'd post some here. Please remember that we are slowly decorating the house one paycheck at a time lol, so it's still a work in progress

Here is the Kitchen...it is way smaller than my last one but I love it oh soooo much!



















This is our living room! Do you know how hard it is to find a good couch?!?! I think Judd and I sat in every couch in the metroplex! One morning after traveling alllll over checking out couches, Judd and I ran into an Ashley's furniture. At this point we had almost lost hope.... BUT when we walked in, they had this living room set on display. It had just come it. We both sat on the couch and Judd said "We'll take it! This and that chair and a half." Dang! I am not going to lie, I was ECSTATIC! downside...we had to wait a few weeks because it was so new. BUT...I loooove my couch it so so so comfy! BTW If you can think of some cute short window treatments that would look good in this room, pleeease lemme know! I have been racking my brain with ideas! I am NOT a decorator, that is for sure!

OH! and I found this cute desk at this little shop in Bryan, Texas! Meadow Lane...where my dear friends from college, Jenna and Elizabeth used to live, had this cute little antique shop on the corner. Jenna and I stopped in real fast when we were in town for another friend, Sarah's bachelorette party...and i walked out with this antique school desk! Only I can go to a bachelorette party and walk away with a piece of furniture! I LLLLOOVE this desk, but had no clue where to put it in my house! soooo,
for now it is an end table! LOVE IT!


My dining room was a fun find of the best mother-in law ever! Thanks Sande!! I love it, and it fits perfectly in our little dining "nook"! However, Skeeter, the bloodhound, finds it quite amuzing to make me chase her a few times around this fine table EVERYTIME I tell her to go to her kennel! grrrr! One day that silly dog will listen to me!!














Here is an older picture of our bedroom! I am sorry that the picture quality and the colors are off, but it was a sunny Sunday, and I just snapped a few shots! I have since added a a lamp on each nightstand...and I need something on the wall above the bed, but I have such commitment issues that I can't find the "just right" piece!


When you enter the master bedroom, you enter through french doors that lead into a little sitting area. This is where my laptop can often be found...so if you are ever chatting with me online... I am either sitting here... or on the couch. but mostly here! AND can you notice my "friday flowers" on that little table... gosh Judd is so good!!!















Ode' to the Guest Room! If you have known me since elementary school, you just might recognize my guest bedroom decor! This is a comforter my mother purchased when I was in the 6th grade, but a few weeks later decided I "wasn't mature enough" for it soooo she waited until after I was married before she would give it back to me...a little silly... but I lover her still! This room was already painted the two tone blue...so it fit PERFECTLY...and I love it! SOOOO if you are ever in the metroplex and need a place to stay, you can stay in this supper girly room lol! OH, and there is a picture in that right picture frame now...I just hadn't gotten it developed yet when I took this pic. AND I'd dress the window, but I have no rod....


Well that's it for now! I am now three hours late to bed, and I must be up early for church! Night! I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!! I loooove Sundays!!

Adios!