So much to be thankful for

I don't know tons of Thanksgiving songs, which is okay with me. I know one, and it's my favorite! "Thankful" on Josh Groban's Christmas CD, "Noel." I love Josh. This morning he performed on Good Morning America, and it honestly brought tears to my eyes! So silly. I promise I don't cry every time I listen to his songs. Just sometimes.

We had a great weekend. And week before that, though I don't remember much of it. :) All I know is that I had my last quiz for Anatomy! Crazy! I will take the lab final the Tuesday after Thanksgiving- so if you're trying to find me before then, I will be in the cadaver lab studying. Except for when it's closed, when I will be sleeping. Eat, sleep, anatomy. Saturday night Mitchell, Garrett, and Adam came over. We watched The Guardian (still in my top 10 favorite movies list) and had root beer floats. We love having them close by! Sunday was a great day, despite my waking up with the worst headache I've ever had. I don't think I've ever woken up with a headache... no fun. Two awesome talks were given in Sacrament Meeting though- one on humility and another on strengthening marriage. How much more applicable can it get?? Primary was great after that too. We had a few of the Sunbeams in our class because their teacher didn't show up, which was a glimpse into our near-future. They are slightly more crazy than our current class, if possible! But we had fun- Tyler is so much better with them than I am. It's pretty amazing to watch him calm them down. He will be the best dad someday! We had a very relaxing afternoon. I took a nap and made dinner (and oops- some brownies) and our home teachers came over. First time being home-taught since marriage! Pretty awesome.

Our Sacrament Meeting talks hit me so hard though- really made me think. Humility is a huge part of marriage, and also a huge part of being thankful. AND it's something I struggle with. I'm honestly one of the most stubborn people I know. But, when I'm honest with myself, I see so clearly my faults and the things I need to learn from others. There is something to learn from everyone, but I have to be willing to reach out to people in order to know them and then learn from them. I really am so thankful that I have a husband who helps me to be better. He treats me like the person I can become, and that makes all the difference.

By the way, I am SO excited for the holidays. One of my favorite things is surprising people, so gift-giving is really fun for me. Even with little things- I just love the idea that someone doesn't know what's coming! Also, my feet are wet, putting a damper on my day. Literally.

Random picture: at the BYU hockey game last weekend.

Needs and wants

-After standing in the pouring rain waiting for the bus this morning, I decided that I have a sincere need for: a pair of rain boots and an umbrella. Also, today is a bad day to have bangs.

-I want another pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Despite my posting about making them last week, I didn't get around to it until yesterday. They turned out so well! We may or may not have had cookies for lunch yesterday. Yup- just cookies. I can tell you're jealous.

-Need to change my clock in our bedroom. Actually maybe not-- I have never gotten ready so quickly in the morning as I did today!

-Want to go running in the rain. Maybe I could jump in some puddles too if I had those boots.

-Tyler doesn't agree, but I need some new (or rather just more) winter clothes. Maybe if he did the laundry for a month he would understand.

p.s. Our weekend was great. Friday night we went to the BYU hockey game (did you know BYU has a hockey team?!? I didn't) and they beat Utah by one goal. It was really exciting, even though I know zilch about hockey. All I know is that they scored goals and there was a fight or two. We were so inspired by them that we went ice skating on Saturday night with Adam and Aubrey! Tyler and I began our quest to be the next gold medal figure-skating pair. I learned to skate backwards and twirl in a circle, so basically you can watch for us in the next Winter Olympics. We also got to play tennis Saturday afternoon with Giselle and Audie- the weather was PERFECT. Thanks to Smith's, we have carbonation in our home for the first time ever (plus a bottle of strawberry lemonade- my favorite). You can't beat 79 cents for a 2 liter! We also spent some time with Randall and Crystal, watching Amazing Race and playing Loaded Questions. Oh, and eating too much. As usual.

The yarn invasion

Yarn has taken over our apartment! I've been crocheting tons lately. My goal is to be finished with all my Christmas gifts by Thanksgiving. How great would that be?? After a couple of busy weeks of tests, I'm on cruise control until finals. Well, as much on cruise control as one can be while preparing for finals.

Our Halloween weekend was fun. The weather was really nice on Thursday so we played tennis with Austin and Giselle! It'd been way too long. Hopefully we can play more this week before the snow comes for good. Friday night we went to the haunted corn maze at Cornbelly's! I'd never done anything like that before... we had a fun time, but I really don't like that kind of stuff. Saturday night we went to Aunt Dana and Uncle John's to see everyone in their costumes, and then watched "Invasion" at Austin and Giselle's apartment.

I've got a bunch of crafts I'm dying to make to decorate our place for Christmas! But first, I want to make some festive pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. And finish all my crocheting so I can clean this yarn off our coffee table!

Giving credit where credit is due

First, credit for all of the crochet projects I posted below goes to Barb. She taught me to crochet, so I owe it all to her!

Second, the patterns for both the hats I found on youtube. There's a woman named Teresa (tjw1963) who posts really good videos. The flowers also came from her, but the headwraps came from my own genius/experimentation. :)

We had a fantastic weekend! Went to the game on Saturday, which was way more exciting than it should have been. But we had great seats and had access to all the yummy food inside the Hospitality Tent thanks to my bro-in-law Caleb. We left pretty quickly after the game for Vegas. Got there just in time to see the kids for a bit before they went to bed and stayed up late talking. Sunday we had a yummy breakfast and then went to church for baby Dean's blessing. I was so glad we got to be there! It was a wonderful day. We had to leave after Sacrament meeting to drive back. It was so hard saying goodbye to Eva and Leighton! They asked to "go to Aunt Cami's house." So adorable.

I bought a cute set of cookie cutters in Halloween shapes. I'm going to have to make a LOT so I still have some for myself after I complete my list of people to give cookies to! :) If you're lucky, you're on the list.

A long-time wanna-be crafter

My dad is here! He arrived last night and I'm so happy to have him here. My dad is one of the greatest men I've ever known! Plus, he brought a duffel bag full of goodies from my mom-- one of the greatest women I've ever known. :) Included in this package were these:

I knew that these were familiar, but I didn't remember why, until I flipped one over and saw this:
Apparently, I've been attempting to do crafts since the 6th grade! You can tell on the block on the right that I got a little impatient and worked on the eyes before the paint was try or something... not sure how I messed it up. Maybe I'll find some wood blocks and make two more of these so I can *hopefully* recognize some progress? I can't believe that was 10 years ago!

As promised

Here are some pictures of the stuff I've been crocheting...









Yeah, I shouldn't be left alone with yarn and a crochet hook! And yes, I have bangs now.

"Sunday is a speshl day"

Today was our ward's Primary Program. One of my favorite Sundays of the year! It's not as relaxing and entertaining when you're involved in it, but I loved it. We're so grateful to be in the Primary, teaching together. Our kids were SO funny during class though... Laura was visiting again and started to write down some of the best lines:

Tyler: "Is it a good idea to steal?"

All kids: "No!"

Greg: "BORROW!!"

Tyler: "I wouldn't guess 'C'" (trying to give a hint as we're playing hangman)

Greg: "Well what letter would you guess?"

Laura: "Are you going to teach me a lesson?" (Kids are pretending to be teachers)

Catherine: "Aww, man! We already had a lesson!"

Mila, taking role of teacher: "Who said you could talk?!?"

We love our kiddos. In other news, we can't believe how quickly this semester is flying by! I have 5 (literally) midterms this coming week. But I had my anatomy lab midterm on Saturday, so the worst is over. Tyler has a test on Monday as well, so neither of us are terribly exciting right now. But we did have a fun date last night-- Tyler's so sweet to set aside time for me, even when he's so busy. I have been crocheting in every spare minute the last couple of weeks, and I love it! I'll post pictures of some of the stuff I've made soon. My little obsession is about to turn into Christmas presents for everyone I know! :) Speaking of which, I may or may not be watching White Christmas right now... early or not, that's a great movie! Before I can get too excited about Christmas though, I need to figure out Halloween. Or at least these midterms.

Not much is happening out of the ordinary around here. School, work, and homework seem to consume our lives! But we did get out for a fun date on Friday night-- we did some mini-golf, batting cages, and an XD theater movie at Trafalga. We also took a drive up Hobble Creek Canyon on Sunday afternoon and it was absolutely gorgeous! Last year fall was so short and it really just was an early winter, so we're soakin' it up this year. Oh and did I mention PUMPKIN SHAKES?? I love them with all my heart. Don't worry, Linds, I'll go back and eat another one in your honor. And then I'll probably have another one for me. :) We get them at Arctic Circle (where the good stuff is, of course) because they're the best! I also put Oreos in mine for a little crunch. I didn't like pumpkin pie until I had pumpkin oreo shakes.

I have my anatomy lab midterm on Saturday... gulp. I'm pretty nervous! Tyler has a test this weekend too, so I'm not sure how much fun we will be. But we're hoping to head up to Hee Haws on Saturday night, and that will be a nice break. I've been trying lots of new recipes lately, from the blog Let Me Plan Dinner. Tonight is Viva La Chicken! I'm also making some chocolate chocolate chip cookies from a new recipe... they're really good, but kinda flat. Hopefully after refrigerating the dough they'll be a little better. Wow am I hungry or what??

I feel as though I need to apologize. After spending some time with Giselle and the Wright ladies on Saturday night, I realize I am getting a little bit out of control, and that there's a little something wrong with me! I have this uncontrollable desire to tell people what I know. This is normally not a huge problem, because my intelligence is limited. However, since starting school, I feel like all I can talk about is anatomy and language impairment and the phonetic alphabet! I just get SO excited about this stuff, and I want everyone to know and be excited about it too. But I realize I am letting this excitement invade my thoughts and conversation to an extreme! So I'm sorry to anyone who has had a conversation with me lately. You probably didn't want to know which bones could cause you to bleed to death by breaking them, nor did you want to know when to start worrying that your kid doesn't talk.

*But before I tell you that I'm going to stop telling you what I've learned., I learned TONS about autism (mostly in relation to communication) today. I'm completely fascinated! The knowledge has made me analyze everything about myself and people around me though... not so good.*

Okay, now I'm really done. Unless it's something uber-important and exciting.

-My gym membership has expired, so now I watch Biggest Loser instead.

-I just finished taking out my long day on the kitchen. It hasn't looked this good since before conference!

-Started reading "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom yesterday. It is so humbling to read about people so genuinely sweet and thankful and kind. I want that to be me.

-The sickness is finally going away-- we're down to just a cough and a constant headache. I can handle that! Good health is such a blessing that I usually have, and that I usually take for granted.

-I'm anti- blog post titles right now.

-We don't usually have much ironing to do... but there is one shirt of Tyler's and a skirt of mine that have been draped over a chair in our room for a while. I think I will iron them tonight. Probably while I watch Parenthood!

-Tried a new recipe tonight-- Chicken Nachos! They were really tasty, but we weren't totally in love with the fact that some of the chips got a little soggy. I'll do a little tweeking and hopefully try it again soon. Next new recipe: taco soup. YUM.

-I wasn't feeling super fall-festive while the weather was still so summer-like, but it finally hit me yesterday! It was raining and I needed a jacket outside. I came home from school and curled up on the couch with a blanket and listened to the rumbling thunder and took a nap. We had soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and it completed the day perfectly. I even got out my fall decoration! Emphasize the singularity of that sentence-- I need to do some serious crafting and decorating.