Cup of Christmas Cheer

Mark and I spent Christmas this year with my family (The Johnson's).  It was the first time that my entire family was together for Christmas in nearly 3 years.  We had such a delightful time!  Mark and I got my parents sling shots that look like little wolves along with a big bag of large fluffy marshmallows.  Everyone took their turn at sling shot.  Those slinger-dingers were the hit of the Christmas gathering.  

My dad aiming at my mom, pegged her right in the eye (she didn't get hurt) it was hilarious!

My mom aiming back at my dad, her face of determination cracks me up!

All of us kiddies surprised my parents with a family Christmas picture.  We prearranged the color coordination and made sure my parents had the right colors to wear for the picture.  The girls wore purple and the boys wore black or white.  We just took them ourselves, nothing professional or fancy.  It was the first time we've taken family pictures since I was a little girl.  We were well overdue!! My parents were very much surprised and I could tell it meant a lot to them.  That was the best part of Christmas for me.  To see the look of joy on their faces, something so simple can bring so much joy.

We had to take some silly pictures along with the serious ones, because that's apart of who we are.

Mark and I started a new tradition for ourselves and will carry it out with our future family one day.  I said one day, don't get any crazy idea's, no kiddies yet!  Each year we will have a theme present that we will open on Christmas eve.  This year to start us off for the years to come, we chose PJ's.  So I took it upon myself to get the PJ's this year, you know me though....go big or go home!  I decided on silly Footy jammies this year.  I found this fabulous website pajamacity.com, and it has all sorts of awesome Footy pajamas.  I had to get us silly matching Footies or it just wouldn't be as exciting.  Mark was a great sport about it.  We have had some hard laughs this Christmas while wearing them.  In fact...as I am sitting here typing I'm snuggled up in my awesome ducky Footy.  I am excited to put these on again next Christmas as we continue our new tradition.

I hope y'all had a delightful Christmas!  I hope that the Spirit of Christ and the remembrance of His birth echoed throughout your homes.  How grateful I am for my Savior, for His life, His example of righteousness and His Atonement.  I look forward to that day, upon my worthiness, when I will be able to return to Him and be graciously embraced and be welcomed to live forever in the presence of my Father in Heaven and my Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

Giving Thanks Thanksgiving

 

 Big Delicious and I had the awesome privilege to start off our Thanksgiving Holiday trip by taking a historic adventure through Kirtland, OH at the beginning of Thanksgiving week.

It was such a uplifting and spiritually edifying trip.  We were grateful to take a moment out of our busy lives to reflect on those early Latter-day Saint pioneers that sacrificed and contributed so much in order to build the first LDS Temple in Kirtland, OH.  They gave up all they had to fulfill the will of God.  The revelations and keys that were given in the Kirtland, OH Temple, to imagine prophets of old and Christ were at one time present in the Temple.

    For now, the Community of Christ seems to be taking very well care of the Lords first Temple.  Perhaps one day it will be back in the hands of my beloved church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

 To hear and see how the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lived in that time made me quite humble and full of gratitude to have indoor plumbing, A/C and a heater, a sturdy home, plentiful food, and over 100 temples that I could attend in these modern days.  It was a strength to my testimony and a desire to increase my obedience to my Heavenly Father and the Savior.

      After we left Kirtland, we headed over to Columbus, IN (where my mom grew up) where most of my extended family and good friends on my mom's side live.  I had not been there for nearly 2 years, and it was such a delightful time to spend a week with aunts, uncles, cousins and my sweet dear Mamaw (my grandma)  She is just a hoot to be around.  I love that little lady with all the jolliness of my soul!  She is starting to loose her memory, which makes her tell stories from her forgetting what really happened.  She is in great spirits though and we just laughed and laughed together.

     My favorite of her stories is that a few years ago her house was damaged from a flood, she owned a cat named Oreo.  Well because my Mamaw had to live in an apartment while her house was fixed, she wasn't able to take Oreo with her.  Now Oreo was a smarty-cat, she trained him well.  My aunts gave the cat away to a friend of a friend from what I understand, but my Mamaw doesn't remember that...so, she will randomly tell you that someone came in and stole her cat.  Hahaa, she says, "Nicolette, someone came in here and stole Oreo.  Who does that?  What kind of person just comes in and steals a cat?" We will let her rant on about her story for a bit and then have to remind her kindly that Oreo went to a nice little girl to take care of.  Then she will agree with you as if she remembers.  I love that precious Mamaw of mine!

     We got my Mamaw to play the game Apples to Apples with us and that little stinker won, she didn't even know how to play!  She would forget how to play by the time her turn would come around again, and she would just play with her cards, and line them up and match them.  But she would always put down the word that ended up being picked.  No one helped hardly either.  I was starting to think she has some sort of trickery tactics go'n on and fooling us all!  Spending time with all of my family was so wonderful, I miss them already and am excited when Mark and I get to visit again.  Mark is recovering from the trip still, haha just kidding!  He was a great support and we both had a glorious time.  I hope all had a Thanksgiving that was as memorable as ours was.  Reflecting on the memories, and all the things that you have in your life.  Even if you have little, it's at least something to be grateful for.  I'm mostly grateful for eternal families and beautiful temples!!

Cat Lady and Mr. Tutt's MaGee

     I love the good ol' Thrift Stores!  More so when the original 'Cat Lady' costume I saw was over $50...seriously...it's a robe with some fake cats on it...so thank you Thrift Store for creating my costume, which looks more hilarious than the one for $50, and I put mine together for about $10.  Mark's was about the same, and we even used our own Barber Shop like skills to create a ridiculous bald-half bowl like cut...I don't know what to call that hair style...reeedonkulous, that's what it should be called.  So we dazzled up our hair with some gray spray..and there you have it.  Cat Lady and Mr. Tutt's MaGee.  

     We decorated our trunks for the ward 'Trunk-O-Treat'...and I should have worn a diaper, I nearly pee'd myself 15 times.  We had spider webs up, had a little pumpkin bucket for the kiddies to reach in the trunk to get some candy.  You know me...anything for a laugh...we had this nasty looking fake hand with the arm down to the elbow that was all bloody, and you bet your sweet knickers we used that sucker!  Mark and I took turns sitting in the back of the car and when the kids would come up all jolly and excited feeling cute in their costumes reaching in to grab some candy.....then....'SHIZAMMM!" we would shove that arm through the spider webs and reach out for the kiddies getting the candy...BBAAHAHAAA!!!  I can still hear their little giggles and some cries (yea...still too funny to feel bad at this point, the parents loved it), it was HILARIOUS!  Then of course you had those tough guys that didn't think you could scare them....oh..you haven't met the Hamilton's yet!! mmuuaagghhaaa!  I hope everyone had a Halloween that was just as delightful as ours was handing out candy to the kiddies (on Saturday *wink)!!! 

Artsy-Fartsy.......

     Nooo I didn't cut the cheese in class!  Sicko's.  Sooo, I'm taking an Art Appreciation class, which was much needed, and we had to do two art projects this week.  Why they both had to be in one week..... torture... I have discovered a little artistic side in myself, that never really came out before.  I'm pretty creative and can do some crafty things, but art is a whole new world.  So I am posting some pictures with this post because I'm pretty excited about my very first college art project...which could be mistaken for a 6th grader, but don't let that take away the excitement! 
  
     The first art project I did was interesting...it's what I like to call "Jibble-Jabble" it's the first words that came to my head when I thought about describing this 'action' painting.  The idea comes from the artist Jackson Pollock.  He just took a brush, some good ol' paint, and waved it around in the air above his paper or canvas to create blobs and lines and diddle-daddles of paint all over it.  This was our assignment.  I felt like a monkey with a paint brush, flip'n and slop'n and doing swirling motions in the air.  If someone were to come up behind me while I was doing this...they might think I have gone into some sort of spaz attack.

 

      The second art project was to cut out an image from a printing block (backwards to what you want to have on paper...that was a doosie!), roll some ink on it and slap the image on the paper, and Viola' you got yourself a relief print!

     So, I tried to come up with some sort of theme, you know, digg'n deep down inside to get that artsy-fartsy gal to come out.  This art work is what I call 'Love-Let it Shine".

 

      In the picture of 4 images next to each other, I allowed the ink to fade in each image printed.  This to me symbolizes love in different stages.  The ink gets lighter with each image, expressing that love needs to be nourished or it can fade away.  I've experienced this in my own life. 

  

     So there you have it, artsy-fartsy.  I learned something out of my class so I guess I got my money's worth!  This semester is busier than bunnies making babies!  But, it has taught me a lot of principles that I needed to learn, and it reminded me that I can do anything when I put my mind effort and booty into it!  Speaking of booty.....I gotta' get mine to bed!

Flubberlicious to Flubberless!!

     Sooo, Mark and I were going to go on a cruise this coming December. But we decided to make a game out of it, to make it more interesting, instead of just going simply because we want to go.  We thought it also might want to be courteous to the other cruisers on our ship and not scare them with our lard butts.
      We stepped on the scale, (I swear I heard mine utter a sigh of discomfort) and I tipped the scale at a whooping 259 lbs of beauty!  Where in the world did all these pounds of blessings come from?!?!  I decided that my goal would be to lose 115 lbs, I want to get down to 145 for the cruise!  Mark has set his goal to lose 120 lbs for the what I would like to call the "Flubberless" cruise!  So with our gym memberships in had, and 2 days strong now, we have started our journey from Flubberlicious to Flubberless!!  My goal is to have this accomplished for us to go in Dec. 2011, and by golly I'm determined.  It's very helpful to have an end goal in sight, a cruise that is glistening in the distance for me to get!  

     I practically had to dust off my gym clothes yesterday as I haven't even seen them since I got married in June.  They almost jump out at me with excitement.  I seriously thought I was going to have to slip into a pair of Spanx in order to get those gym clothes on......who out-fats their gym clothes!  Sweet cookie crumbs I finally found my way into them!!   When I got to the gym, you see all those itty bitty skinny gals there...really?..really?  You have to show up at the gym the same time I do...I could have used a carton of ice cream at that moment...but nay!  I pushed forward and said to myself "self...one day...you will be that girl, the very one you hope trips on her shoe laces and face plants into the treadmill..." I felt better ;o).
     I jumped on the treadmill, and off I went....2.1 miles per hour...oh yea!  Chugg'n along, feel'n good...then I increased the speed...2.4...2.7...3.5...ok a brisk walk.....3.9....4.5....6.2....running full speed ahead and thinking "good things these suckers are bolted down to the ground or we would have some serious problems!  Big mama can't stop once she gets started!!!"  I was huff'n and puff'n thinking of that fabulous crystal clear blue water and the luxuriousness of the cruise ship, when all of a sudden I felt like I was sucker punched in the ribs on my right side!! What in the world!  Is this some sick joke?  Nope, my body was officially pissed.  It fought me the rest of the night for waking it up out of it's lazy state of fatness.  I took a breather, had a pep talk and finished up my workout.  Mark and I came home feeling like champs!  Day 1 down...364 to go!  

     Day 2....sore as all get out.  As if I had a tickle fight with a boxer!  I love the burn though, it means my fatness is on it's way out and my muscles are resurfacing!!!  Mark was sore also, so I felt a little better since he is so manly and meaty!  We even noticed that we wanted to eat better, not that our food habits are terrible.  The gym was much kinder to us today, we felt that we were able to make progress in our workout routine even though our bodies are hating us.  We made it home, I feel my abs still burning, I forgot I even had those suckers, after my love handles had moved in.
     So onward we go in our journey to healthy and fit lives.  I will update every now and again on the progress, I wouldn't want to bore your hearts out with a daily report!!  For now, I will take my treadmill and weight machine beat'n body to bed so I can do it all over again tomorrow!!!!  Oh, and I really don't despise those skinny ladies, I admire them ;o). 

Pop'n the Blogger Cherry

Well who in the right mind would have ever thought that I would sit down and fancy myself to the blogging world.  I sure didn't.  I really gotta get a job! Ha!  Right, with this awesome economy right now, yep I'm sure to find one...in oh, lets say....3-5 years!  Food storage here we come!  No, truly we can't complain, because we all know there is some luscious lard that just needs to fall right off!  We get to be a newlywed's all day long!

School is awesome.  It's also terrible at the same time.  Why didn't anyone tell me that most people go to school while they are young and don't have cob webs in their brain cells, non the less still have brain cells.  To be honest we surely are doing mighty fine over.  We are grateful for the sweet tender mercies that are Heaven sent.

We are looking forward to the wonderful journey that is anxiously awaiting us ahead!  When we fall, we laugh.  When we get up we say, "hey, at least we got back up."  Then it's keep on keep'n on!