Thanksgiving in Houston

We were spoiled rotten this Thanksgiving!

We got to go to visit my sister and her family in Houston, Texas!

The first couple of days my parents and brother, Tom, were there too.

It was an absolute blast!!

We sure love the Piepers

and little Jilly finally warmed up :)

Of course, Scott has completely won over every niece and nephew. Seriously, every kid is immediately drawn to him. Maybe it's because he's notorious for chasing them, tickling them, and picking them up upside down. They couldn't wait for Uncle Scott to get to their house!

Avery is quite the performer. Grandma gave her an early Birthday present while we were there and she loved putting on comedy shoes and musicals for us

and she is a great singer! She knew every word to the "Wicked" songs, and here she is totally belting it to "What is this Feeling". I'm still amazed. She can also read any book you ask her to, including the Scriptures! She just turned 5! I'm a proud aunt! Way to go Shel and Nate!

Cute Benny and Shel

And we loooved spending time together! 

Finally a break from school and work! woot!

Thanks for having us! Can't wait to see you next time!

A changed individual, maybe?

Not to be so negative on this National Holiday, but

I'm not really into Halloween.

I think college ruined it for me. 

Party Hopping + Girls dressing embarrassingly revealing = killed it for me

It's just so not me. 

Halloween to me is Dressing up (modest is hottest), looking ridiculous, eating candy, carving pumpkins, and eating pumpkin baked goods. 

And this year was just that. 

And possibly my most favorite Halloween yet!

Us on our way to an amazing Halloween party:

(thanks to Scott's mom for costumes again this year!)

Have I mentioned how great of a ward we have?? 

Allow me to just take a moment..

I've never been in such an outgoing, including, and fun ward!

Everyone is up for getting a babysitter and getting out! 

We have sure been blessed to make such great friends here!

Some couples in our ward put on such a fun Halloween party!

(Jessica Nye, I definitely stole these pictures from your blog! :)

We also went to a Murder Mystery party!

Meet Mr. and Mrs. White:

and (almost) everybody else

And we carved pumpkins with some of our really good friends that are in our Stake here!

 Scott's parents grew our pumpkins on their farm in Utah!!

 don't mind the white stuff on Scott's pumpkin's face in the picture below, long story, but it came off :)

 the great white shark!

Our ward also had a huge chili cook-off and trunk or treating!

My mom has been making "Chili in a Pumpkin" for a few years, and although I've never tried it, I've been wanting to, so I did! 

Yum Yum!

I've also never lived in a house that got many trick or treaters! 

I'm expecting our young neighborhood here will bring me lots!

So I'm strictly on door duty tonight while Scott studies... 

Can't complain because he didn't study all weekend long!! And it was glorious :)

We even went on TWO date nights (spoiled me rotten!)

Here we are trying a pizza place by our house.

Rosati's

Maybe this year changed my opinion of Halloween???? 

Because this is how I always pictured it. 

What we've been up to:

Scott's been up to: school, studying, callings, studying. Did I mention studying?

I've been up to: Work, cleaning, sewing, and callings.

Speaking of callings: oh, my. 

Heavenly Father is REALLY trying to teach me something.

That something is piano. 

I really enjoyed playing piano growing up,  and felt like by the time I graduated high school 

I was pretty comfortable with it. 

But then I hardly played at all for 2 years. And lost a lot of my ability to sight-read...

Heavenly Father must have noticed. 

It started with my calling to play in Relief Society in my singles ward.

Ok, not so bad. 

But I was still so nervous every week.

But THEN, they called me as Sacrament pianist in my next ward. gulp..

I stressed about it so much. 

For a while, I even dreaded Sundays. (shh!!)

Then I moved, and felt relieved. 

But no! They called me as Sacrament pianist again!!

Thankfully, not for very long.

I was hoping I was off the hook when we moved to Las Vegas.

And I figured I was off the hook when I was called to teach the Sunbeams. (love them!)

But then, even though nobody has ever heard me play the piano here, they called me as

WARD CHOIR PIANIST

i. want. to. die. 

So most nights I practice my super hard pieces 

(why do 50% of them have to be 5 sharps! gahhh)

On a happier note.. :)

We are loving our new life in Las Vegas!

We've been busy doing projects too!

Like these:

Scott gets all the credit for this one:

Picture a backyard of dirt only. Now see this:

Scott's Parents came down one weekend and we put it all together.

THANK YOU!!

 We love our BBQ's and Bonfires back there!

We saw this on pinterest:

had to make our own (but simpler):

Saw this on pinterest:

 

Had to copy (finally used that fabric I got way back when):

 Craft Room!!!!!

Saw these on pinterest:

 had to make them for the Stake Pioneer Day Bake Sale!

This makes me laugh every time!

I'm really into pinterest. If you can't tell...

This post is so random, but, just for fun-

The other thing we love about Las Vegas is-

I never understood these signs:

 until now:

It will be a happy, sunny day, and all of a sudden

this really happened in 25 minutes. no joke. 

Anywho, we are doing great!

And really, really, miss you all. 

First day of School!

In four years, this cute little guy just might be your Dentist!

 Today is the first day of Dental School for Scott!

I am so excited for him (and he is much more excited than he looks in this picture)

And this is my proof that he is excited. 

When he got his new backpack,

he would not take it off all day!!

No need to pack that backpack last night, it was done weeks ago!

Today is also Jenesee's first day working a new/2nd job! 

I'm working a lot less hours at en.gauge media. 

And am starting full time as a Dental Receptionist!

I'm really looking forward to learning all I can about dentistry and running a practice.

Scott doesn't know much about running the front office, and they don't teach them in school!

So, this will be very beneficial. Super excited!

What happened to my blog?!

Where are all my pictures :( this is so sad. Can anyone else see them? Because i can't....

Ombré

om·bré/ˈämˌbrā/

Adjective: (of a fabric) Having a dyed, printed, or woven design in which the color is graduated from light to dark.

om·bré/ˈämˌbrā/: the secret name for showing our roots!

The Last couple of months, I've been trying to talk myself out of going Brunette.

It seems like everyone drastically changes their hair after they get married.

I didn't want to be like that too.

But the thing is, I wanted to even before we got married.

I've been blonde for about 9.5 of the last 10 years. Each time I went dark, I hated it immediately.

Truth is, my natural hair is not so light at all!

Then I saw this Ombré look.

It's different, and with my hair, I don't usually do different.

But guess what....

I did it!

I went for the not drastic at all look. and I'm happy I did!

I may throw in a couple more highlights on the bottom next time.

But right now, I'm enjoying the subtle shimmer of gold.

You know what else is shocking?

The color matched my natural so exactly that I didn't even pull it to the roots underneath.

Who would've known!

I'm just glad it didn't turn out like this

yikes

A trip to CA!

The week before we left Utah, my cousin Kenzie and I went to The Material Girls to look for fabric.

I was absolutely in Heaven. They have the cutest fabric I have ever seen! It's kinda pricey... so I decided to buy their $2 scraps and somehow decorate our new bedroom with those! Here's a glimpse at the fun fabric!

I'm excited to post the finished product. Whenever it is finished...

I tell you that, because it explains the rest of what I'm about to post!

One of the greatest parts of living in Las Vegas is that we are 6 hours closer to my home in California!

Last weekend we took a short, but amazing, trip home.

We got there Friday evening.

My Dad and Tom were at a father & son's campout so we want out to dinner with my Mom.

The next day we got up early and went down to the LA fashion (or fabric?) district.

I've always wanted to go here. And since my small scraps weren't going to get as far as full curtains, I needed to find some inexpensive fabric!

I've never seen so much fabric in my life! It was so fun!

I was looking for cotton. What we didn't know, is LA has everything except cotton! ha! They do have some. But not a lot. So we actually didn't end up buying any fabric. But it was still fun! And Tom and Scott got sunglasses, which they were pretty excited about.

Later on we went to Joann's, still determined to find fabric! We had three 50% off coupons, but of course you can only use one per customer. So don't worry, Mom, Scott, and I were each separate customers and we saved a TON! (is that totally wrong?!)

OK, enough about fabric...

THEN we went to dinner with Tom. I think Scott and I have started a tradition of going to Ruby's on the pier whenever we are in California. We just love it!! And so we went. And loved it, like always.

such a fun trip.

I sure love all my family!

We're the newest residents of North Las Vegas, NV

For the next 4 years, Scott and I will be living in North Las Vegas!

We moved here about 3 weeks ago, and we are really liking it!

We are so grateful that Scott's parents decided to invest in a home down here. We are renting it from them while we live here!

Today we went on a picnic after church.

Our neighborhood has a long park that runs through it. And since we live at the end of the cold-a-sac, it's next door! Here's a glimpse of our roof and park.

When I am a mom to a child (or a pet) I look forward to going on walks through it.

I'm already a little envious of the moms that are jogging, the kids that are skateboarding, and the dogs that are barking out there, as I am getting ready for work!

Our first night here, we drove in at 1 am. First thing we did was walk though the house, second thing was walk through the park.

We are sure enjoying the warm weather!

We hear that we will regret those words soon...