Ringing in the new year

I know, I know, so cliche right...? New Year's Resolutions, who actually follows through with their resolutions??
This year I've decided to make very realistic goals, since past years my goals have been so NOT realistic.  I've got 7 resolutions, and so far, I've done a great job at meeting my goals:

1. Be at church early (not just on time, but EARLY).  I HATE getting to church late.  I like to pick my seat, and not have to crawl over people. 
2. Go to the temple every month (at least once).
3. No soda.  Totally doable for me.  I was doing really great at this about a year ago, and I have slipped a bit this past year (especially the holidays).
4. Workout 3 to 4 times per week (also doable considering we live like 1/2 mile from the gym...NO excuses!)
5. Read 1 book per month (a total of 12 books this year)
6. Make dinner at least 3 times a week (another easy "to-do" with my kitchenaid and my blender)
7. and last but not least, Try new recipes

I feel like all of these goals are really great for me, and, once again, are very realistic.  I hope everybody else makes goals for the new year, AND is able to meet those goals.  Happy New Year!

 This picture is from New Years 2010.  Sorry for the blurriness

Ready for holiday overload? Here we go!

 once again, i am behind on blogging... i swear, if only i could get this down. for christmas, tyler and i did a lot of fun things, and were fortunate to be with both families during the holidays. first, we started off with "express christmas" (you'll understand if you watch "modern family") with tyler's family. we did sub 4 santa, went to tanner's basketball game, had christmas dinner, opened presents from each other, and relaxed. we were at tyler's mom's house for the weekend, and everybody but myself stayed for monday as well. i, unfortunately, had to be at school until wednesday, the 21st (boo!). we had a really enjoyable time, and got some really great gifts. the #1 most exciting thing we got from that weekend was our blender, the "vitamix." it is AWESOME. it's like the blenders you see at jamba juice (no joke). it can blend an ipad if you want it to. while we were there, we made a few things, and had a lot of fun with experimenting (as have i this past week).  enjoy some pics from "express christmas"


i made a book for lisa and my mom about mine and tyler's adventures in the past year.
 
 with our loot ("amazing," shirts, and dr.seuss books  from tanner and allie; kindle from tyler (which i LOVE); and the blender from shawn and lisa (AWESOME)


on thursday, we headed for ca for 10 days. it was wonderful. the weather was exactly what we asked for (70s the whole time). while we were in ca, we did a LOT of fun things:

• saw "white christmas" at the oc performing art center
• shopped a lot
• lunch with aunt robyn
• christmas eve with the neilson's in temecula, which included a fabulous dinner and nativity scene with the younger cousins
• christmas eve pjs
• christmas eve- tiersha going to the ER for her foot (nothing was wrong, don't worry)
• christmas day- G&G sheppard and robyn came over; church at 9 (dad spoke); back in pjs after church; opened presents until 2 ish (can you believe it??); skyped with Elder Neilson; tiersha & josh left for kentucky
• quading in glamis- monday through wednesday we went 4-wheeling in glamis (this was quite the adventure with 9 of us in one trailer- 4 little kids and 5 adults = not a whole lot of sleeping)
• hung out with nicole a couple of times, which included lunch at chipotle
• saw "iris" at the kodak theater with my fam, aunt robyn, and g&g neilson, which was super fun b/c g&g neilson told us all about their childhood in la
• breakfast at las brisas on new years eve- delicious! if you've never been, go! get there before 9:30 though b/c that's when it gets busy; afterward, we walked on the beach (laguna beach)
• new years eve: take out from BJ's and watched 2 movies (well, i only stayed awake for the first one- "the help"); woke up at 12:02 and gave ty a kiss :)
• new years day- flew home from ca; dinner with paul
• monday before school started- relaxed; lunch with paul; outlets in park city; fish tacos at lisa and shawns (they had just gotten back from mexico, and had a LOT of fish)
• tuesday the 3rd- dad's birthday and back to school

here's the pic overload!

 us at "white christmas" (excuse the darkness)

 christmas eve nativity

 lillee with christine

 gracee as a sheep

 grandpa and dad

 the twins with their gingerbread houses

 in our christmas pjs (of course william's screaming)

 me and my handsome husband in our pjs

 annie wanted to be a part of the pictures too

 annie and me (tyler kept getting us mixed up b/c we looked so identical in our pjs...oh, and our height)

neilson christmas tree (11 people's presents) 

giving piggy back rides to the twins

 tyler and i looking through our stockings

  please excuse my "just woke up" look

 me and adorable lillee; just can't get enough of this cute one

 the gathering place for presents

 robyn opening her gift from the college neices

 josh looking good in his new kobe shirt...looking good josh!

 me with my harry potter blue ray (courtesy of tyler) 
 
tyler and his new goggles

 g&g sheppard with the manti temple painting (courtesy of college grandkids)

 skyping with michael (this got extremely emotional after a while- michael had a really hard time seeing the babies)

dad with all of his girls (would you be able to tell that any of us are related if you didn't know us??)

 in the razor (my dad's new toy)

 me scared for my life (it was really fun though)

 the little ones in the back (they LOVED it)

 tyler on the quad

 isaac and skylar were there with us

 adorable lillee liked to try everything on

 me and my lover all geared up

 some of the crew (aaron dunion came with us as well-green shirt)

 annie and isaac playing volleyball

4 New Meals

Tyler and I got a great Christmas gift from Tyler's mom and husband... the Vitamix blender. It is awesome! So, this week I planned 4 meals using the blender.

1. Tacos w/guacamole (the guacamole was SUPER easy)
2. Chipotle Pepper Cream Sauce w/noodles
3. Harvest Cheddar Soup w/bread bowls
4. Mac n Cheese (obviously just the sauce part)

I've only made the guac so far, and it was a success. Wish me luck on the rest!

So hypocritical

I constantly find myself wanting my friends to "update" their blogs. I love reading other peoples' blogs, but find that I am certainly not great at keeping my own blog current. So, here's an update on my life, if anybody out there actually reads my blog :)

Over the weekend, we did a few fun things... ate Cafe Rio and saw "Contagion" with Pate & Kacee, had lunch with Tyler's dad, played cards with Michelle & Trevor, and opened Mom's Christmas gifts with Tiersha & Josh. Cafe Rio was delicious (it had been too long!), Contagion was interesting...more like a documentary then a movie, but still good, Wing Nuts was great (it was our first time there, but we will definitely return), cards are always a good time, and Christmas gifts were homemade crafts from Mom. My mom sent these HUGE gifts home from Thanksgiving with my cousin, and we decided to open them Sunday since Tiersh & Josh are leaving this Sunday for CA. They did not disappoint, and they most certainly show how talented my mom is...

Us, super excited about the gifts (well, at least me)!

Predicting the future

Remember these from Elementary school...?
Yeah, I found one of my student's playing with this during class...So, I did the teacher thing, and said, "Thank you, this is mine now." I totally forgot about it until later in the day when I pulled it out of my pocket. The future for these 5th graders could be any of the following (this is what it said on the flaps):

• You will be stupid
• You will fall in love
• You rock
• You will be pore (poor)
• You will be in love
• You will merry Caroline
• You will die on Christmas

These kids are hysterical...