Things I Am Not Good At

1) Keeping a blog. Ha! I have definitely started several blogs before that I let fall to the wayside - but I'm going to really try hard not to let that happen here! I haven't finished recapping the wedding yet (still have the reception to post about!) but I'm not in the mood to do that right now, so instead, this will be a "Here's What We've Been Up To" post.

Family. Lots of family stuff going on these days!

For those of you that don't know, I have 13 nieces and nephews - nope, that is not a typo. I have 5 older sisters and they all have kids, so there are a whole lot of babies in my family. Well, actually, a whole lot of kids - only two babies. The youngest two are Kennedy and Bently, my niece and nephew. Two of my sisters were pregnant at the same time and their kiddos were born less than a month apart. We haven't had any babies in the family for awhile so it has been nice having them around again! I can't believe it's been a year already since they were born - it feels like just yesterday that my sisters were pregnant and when I was there for both of their births. Kennedy just had her 1st birthday party last month, and Bently's party is this Saturday. I love them both so much I can hardly stand it!


Spending time with Kennedy Jean when she was still brand new.



KJ's 1st Birthday Party!



Bently Scot - chillest baby EVER.



1 Year Later.

Bently's the younger one, but look how much bigger he is than Kennedy! Even on his knees! Precious.

Aren't they adorable? I tend to think so. :) I have some of the CUTEST photos of Kennedy at the wedding. Why are babies so photogenic? My family sure does make some pretty ones!

This year Clint and I did two Thanksgivings - one w/ my parents and then one w/ his. We got to his parents' late and I was kind of stressed so I neglected to take photos there, but I took a few earlier in the day. First up, every year my dad deep fries the turkey, and every year I forget to take a picture of him in his Turkey Frying Gear. We live in Phoenix and it was like 85F degrees on Thanksgiving, but my dad winds up out there in gloves and a leather jacket (frying a turkey is dangerous!) and it just cracks me up. He actually fried THREE turkeys this year because we needed 2 for how many people we had, and then they wanted a 3rd one entirely for leftovers hahaha. Good thinking, family!

After we ate, a few of my nieces went straight to decorating the Christmas tree - that's right, someone who actually decorates earlier than I do! I waited until the day after, but they made a beeline for that tree right after eating! My kinda girls! I went in there to help for a little bit and then went to socialize some - when I came back the cutest thing had happened - my nieces were decorating my HUSBAND. And he was letting them! Haha! I definitely picked the right guy to have babies with.

Family photo time!

Also of note - another one of my sisters who lives in Oregon was visiting last week. She stayed with (yet another! ha!) one of my sisters so we went over there a couple times to hang out - I actually didn't take any pictures of my sister or her husband or my niece - I was mostly too busy just spending time with them! On the first night we were there however, we all ended up in the backhard roasting marshmallows and making s'mores over the standing firepit. It was really nice, a great family night.

Pinterest. Pinterest is addicting. If you're on it, you already know. If you're not on it you have two choices - 1) get on it, surrender the rest of your life to its mighty power. 2) Don't get on it, remain blissfully unaware of all that is awesome in this world. I've done quite a few Pinterest inspired things this year, here are just a few.

For Halloween I made a door hanger and a window decoration.

The Original Pin

My version - bigger, and longer, more prominent ribbon.

The Original Pin

My version - mirror image and added bats.

Pinterest is also good for inspiring gift ideas! Clinton and I went to a housewarming party a couple weeks ago and I wanted to bring the something other than a bottle of wine - something useful, but cute. I found a really cute idea and stuck to it pretty closely - I added a card and a tiny dog bone for their pup and a candle but that's it.

The Original Pin

My Version - Front View

My Version - Side View

Bonus - that gift only cost about $20! Cute, creative, and doesn't break the bank. Pinterest is awesome for that - I don't even necessarily look for "projects", I just look for cute decor and think that if I can make it for cheaper, I'm gonna go for it. I really actually got a lot of confidence from doing DIY projects for the wedding and realized I don't have to spend nearly as much as what stores price things at when I can make half of it myself.

I also recently made bread completely from scratch for the first time ever. I made it to bring to Thanksgiving at Clinton's parent's. The Original Pin had a caption that said "crockpot bread!", which I figured would be impossible to screw up - even for someone like me, who doesn't enjoy baking. I looked at the ingredient list to make sure I got everything I needed then went home, prepared to throw stuff in the crockpot and leave it. WELL. Turns out that is not the case, ha! When I clicked through the link it was just regular bread that you do the old fashioned way, in the oven. I approached this recipe with trepidation, but it actually turned out really good, and I think I'm going to make bread more often now. It's really REALLY cheap when you figure how much you can get out of one bag of flour, compared to buying two loaves a week!

The Original Pin

I can't find the photo of my bread, but it looked almost exactly the same except for the rosemary on top -there was enough in the bread. It was good - everyone ate it and I would make it again. It also gave me an excuse to use my pizza stone, which I am a huge fan of - thanks, Nick and Ashley!

Lastly, a Christmas decoration - I found this and didn't want to do flowers (too much upkeep!), so instead I just used a bunch of little wreath decorations from Michael's - and I switched to colored candy canes to match my red/green/silver decor.

The Original Pin

My Version - Side View

My Version - Top View

That'll be it for this week in Pinspirations, but expect more of them as time goes on! I have so many things that I want to try, I just need to find the time to do them!

I was also planning to cover Christmas and Movember in this post, but it's getting far too long, so I'll save those for next time. Hold onto your butts, it's about to get SUPER exciting up in here!