This is Halloween...

Matt and I shared quite a relaxing Sunday yesterday with the majority of the day spent watching a show about America's most haunted places, and Swamp People. What? You've never heard of Swamp People? It's basically a camera crew following around a bunch of alligator hunters in the south. it. is. awesome. My favorite part of the show is trying to figure out what in the world the gater hunters are saying. Luckily for me, Matt's a really good interpreter being a southern man himself.

After dinner (my current obsession is twice baked potatoes. don't worry I made Matt some steak too) we watched some scary movies and carved pumpkins.

Here's our (more interesting part of the) night in pics:



My headless horseman

My guapo and his jacko


That pumpkin was actually really heavy lol.


Matt's awesome hand rising from the grave. I ALMOST picked this pattern, I wish I would've...

My favorite pic of the night.



And what Halloween activity is complete without....

...loads of sugar?

We also finally finished the TV cabinet last night...(insert big sigh of relief here). Pictures to come soon.

House of Sugar

Well, we are finally all moved in and somewhat settled:) We've been in our little Sugar house home for about 5 weeks now. Can I just take a second to say how much I absolutely LOVE this place! I've always loved this little spot of SLC. I have memories as a little girl of going to Sugar house park for the 4th of July, or going sledding down the treacherous hill in the winter. I have no idea why, but I especially remember driving through the neighborhoods of SH and seeing all of the cute little houses. I have a strange fascination for all things old. Black and white films/musicals, Lawrence Welks, the sounds of an old crackly, popping record and telethons are just a few of my favorite things:) So when I found out that the house we currently live in was built in 1920...I was beyond ecstatic. I know I'm weird. Although our house is small, I love it's old time-y vibe and proximity to 21st. Even better our ward building; which is just at the end of our street, was built in 1925 and is absolutely stunning. I love Sugar house.

...So that was super jumbled and longer than a second. moving on...

We still have quite a few boxes that need unpacking and our walls are still pretty bare, but we're getting there. Slowly but surely. Other than the move Matt and I have been staying pretty busy on the weekends either hanging out with family or doing projects. For the past year or so I've been wanting to do something with our TV/movie cabinet-majig(it's not quite and entertainment center). So last weekend Matt and I got started on painting the beast. We are SO close to this dang thing being done. We're just waiting for the last coat of polycrylic to dry on the doors and shelves...IT.TAKES.FOREVER. I need to pray for more patience. I'll be sure to post pics when it's finished.

I've got a few other projects on the back burner that I have all of the materials for, but am just so darn slow at getting started. My SIL's Leah and Bink helped me pick out some SUPER cute linen this weekend at Jo-Ann's to make dinner napkins. I'm so sick of all of the paper towels we go through! It's really shameful, but I'm putting a stop to it. I also have some great fabric for pillows, I just need to get bit by that craft bug to get going on these things.

This is the Halloween "wreath" I made for our door. Call me cheap, but I am NOT about to spend $12 for a foam ring to make a wreath. So I strolled into the DI next door to Joann's in Centerville and picked up this frame for .50 cents. Then I had at it with some ribbon, lace, burlap and hot glue. It's a little unconventional, but I think it turned out okay. If I could do it over again I would have kept the glass and made a chalkboard surface so that I could have written "happy Halloween" or some clever spooky saying. maybe that's how I'll change it up for next year.

One big project that needs to happen ASAP is Matt's and my Halloween costume. We're throwing a Halloween costume party for the kids at our place this coming weekend and just yesterday FINALLY figured out what we are going to be. Procrastinating. It's what.we.do.

Happy October!!!

Love,

The procrastinators.

high FIVE?...

....yes. I would most definitely say that a high 5 is appropriate for this given occasion! So I'm a little late (as usual), but Matt and I celebrated 5 years since meeting eachother on July 24th! Most of you know the story, we were FORCED to meet by some family members at a 24th of July party back in 2006, and well the rest is history...

The summer we met. I'm pretty sure this is the first picture we ever took together. That necklace was the first gift matt ever gave me. It was a beautiful little onyx heart with silver details on the border. I'm not usually a heart shaped jewelry kind of girl, but this was honestly so pretty, I LOVED it! Unfortunately it got lost in the move the summer I moved back home from Utah State; right before we got married. It still makes me so sad, but at least I have a picture of it...well kind of. In the picture it's actually flipped around so all you see is the back.

Walking out of the Salt Lake Temple about a year later

Us now 5 years later... a little plumper and even happier:)

I'm so grateful to have Matt as my husband and best friend. He. is. my. rock. Obviously life AND marriage itself can be very hard(and those of you who say it's not are lying, or haven't been married long lol) but it's about how you and your partner work together; even when it's REALLY hard for one of you, to get through the rough patches in life. I'm so grateful that Matt is that person for me, and I hope I am (I'm trying to be at least) that person for him. I'm VERY grateful for unconditional love. Neither one of us will ever be PERFECT but we have an unconditional love that allows us to love eachother despite our shortcomings, and pushes us to be better for one another. Okay I'll stop here, you get it, I kind of love this guy...a lot.

Us on the 24th this year. Not the GREATEST picture, he's all fuzzy and I'm makeup-less but remember the "unconditional love" thing? We spent the day swimming, seeing HP7 part 2(his first time, my second), and going out to dinner. Lucky for us since it was the 24th, little did we know that when we asked to sit out on the patio we would be getting a firework show too! It was awesome we ate dinner and watched fireworks going off in Sandy, West Jordan and South Jordan. Again appropriate for our ocassion:)

In other news I can't find my camera with ALL of our Oregon pics!!! Tragic I know:( But it has to be in this dang apartment somewhere! So hence the lack of absolutely breathtaking Oregon photos, so in the meantime I'll post about other happenings in our "oh-so-adventurous-life"...not. We REALLY need to get out and do more. Unfortunately our time has mostly been consumed by hunting for a new place to live. Our lease is up come the end of september so we are having to search pronto! There are a couple houses we really want (renting just one more year. That's the goal!) but we're just crossing our fingers we can get one of them, and if not then the search will continue!!

Anyway hope your all enjoying this lovely utah transition from summer to fall! It's my favorite time of the year!

The following week after the camping trip my BIL Dave invited us to go fishing, so Matt and I went on over to the lovely sports/hunting dept. (my favorite part of Walmart) and got ourselves some fishing licenses. We got some lunch and headed up Big Cottonwood...



Paul posin' for the camera.





















Dave with the first catch of the day! Don't worry we just did catch and release.














mil mil, lilly and I. I spent most of the time watching the girls so I didn't fish long enough to catch anything. I did get stuck in the middle of the stream though and matt had to come in and get me out so that was kind of a... high? of my day.










The girls had poles, but hello, who wants to fish when you can throw HUGE rocks into the stream??











Milla teaching lilly how to fish. Can you believe they are only 8 months apart???Lilly=a shrimp.

















Matt and paul at our second fishing spot.












Pretty Panoramic







Dave schooling everyone...
















Matt and his little baby fi...I mean most ultimate, awesome catch of the day!!!









Another Panoramic...in this one you can see Paul's evil twin getting ready to attack him from behind...

This is what I LOVE about UT. It's so beautiful. As much as I gushed over the landscape of Oregeon, my heart belongs with these mountains.

Oh, and Paul finally caught a fish at the very end of the day! yay paul!!



(I know you can't see it, but I promise the fish is there...)

The Great Outdoors! (Part 1)

A few weeks ago Matt and I planned a quick little camping trip with my mom, grandma, brothers/sister, and niece and had an awesome time! We camped a couple nights and went swimming. My favorite part of the trip had to of been watching Killer swim in a body of water for the first time. Hilarious I tell you. He looked so cute and pathetic all wet, I wish I had pictures of it. I'm usually pretty good about having the camera in people's faces at our family gatherings, but I guess I was having so much fun that I completely forgot about my camera until the final morning at breakfast, so unfortunately this is all I got...








These two weirdos. Yes. They're wearing cutoff shirts; a big no-no in my book. They're both super sports obsessed/athletes, and think these make them look "cool" and "muscle-y". They haven't said it out loud but I know they're thinking it...










My sweet grandma "Mami Bessy" and I. I love this Lady. When I was a kid I was obsessed with searching all throughout her house for old treasures, and antiques. Now I'm obsessed with hearing her tell me stories about her childhood, and about how she struggled to come to this country to provide the best life for her children; all as a single mother. I heart her. a lot.












My mom and Mami bessy








A couple of the cutest girls I know, lala and lilly(yes I mixed up their names about half of the camping trip. The other half I kept calling lala by my other niece's name, mil mil...). These two had SO much fun together and kept eachother so entertained there was hardly any complaining lol. I think the best part of watching these two interact was seeing how opposite they are. Lilly is very girly girl,"I dont want to get to dirty" where on the other hand I could NOT for the life of me keep Lala away from piles of dirt. At one point I found her playing with a pile of coal ashes because I had banned dirt piles (she had a burn I didn't want to get infected), but not coal. I've NEVER in my entire life met a kid (and I've worked with quite a few kids) that LOVES dirt so much lol! Sill girls, they made the best of friends.







Edward and Gypsy








Moments I wish I could have captured:
* Just ONE picture of Matt and I haha!
*Lala and one of her piles of dirt
*Killer's wet little snout
*One of matt, the boys and myself jumping off the docks into the lake
*Killer jumping off the docks:)
*My ridiculosuly huge mosquito bites! I swear I'm allergic...
**And finally I wish I had a video of my grandma teaching us a game our last night. The game consisted of us standing in a circle, one person yelling (in spanish) something about selling a quart of cooking oil, and then scrambiling around the circle to another spot. I think? Yeah. It made no sense. At one point we were completely confused(actually we were pretty confused the whole time) so we asked my grandma "What's the point of the game? How do you win?" and she said "What do you mean? Nobody wins it's just for fun...". After she said that we all looked at eachother and busted up laughing like no other! I love grandmas...

and camping.

Ketchup!!

Matt and I just got back from the wonderful state of Oregon, and although I'm feeling like that's the highlight of our summer at the moment, we've had a lot of fun happenings going on, so I'm going to take the next few posts to play catch up and then we'll talk Oregon!

First off this little beauty turned 1 on June 30th!!! We celebrated our neice Emilia's birthday with the Crows at the park...

Bink (visiting us in UT with the kiddos while her hubby is deployed in Iraq. We missed you Mark!!!) and Leah (emmie's momma)

Cute Dave and Lucy...and cute Momma in the background LOL!

Pauly D. my favorite dog sitter:)

Emmie loving on the puppy matt and I picked out for her. Leah told us that she LOVES stuffed animals especially dogs. She was so cute when we gave this to her and was even making barking noises:)

Later that week/weekend (I can't really remember) Leah and the kids took us (Bink her kids, me and lilly) up to the Bountiful Temple to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous! Thanks Leah!!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

I've had various friends post about their favorite brands/products in the past and thought I would do the same! I love hearing about others' favorite things and trying them out...

ULTA shower smoothie: I don't know how many of you have been to ULTA but it is wonderful! They have a variety of affordable (and not-so-affordable) beauty products, but one of my favorites is their Berrylicious shower smoothie. It smells so yummy and leaves your skin feeling super soft! I hate when you find a body wash that smells good when you first wash with it and then the smell wears off later, this wash isn't super strong but you can still smell a hint of berries on your skin hours after youve showered!

Oatmeal Raisin Ice Cream: Those of you who KNOW ME know me, would have already guessed that ice cream would make it on this list somewhere...are you surprised it's not first? When I first saw oatmeal ice cream in the freezer section at Smith's I about DIED! first of all I LOVE LOVE oatmeal AND raisins, and ya'll know my track record with ice cream. The sad thing is that I can hardly ever find it! I've seen it at Smith's the one time and Walmart one other time, I am however finding lots of homemade recipes online so I'll probably just have to take that route. If you are lucky and come across oatmeal raisin ice cream try it! I promise you won't regret it.

Johnson & Johnson Vanilla Oatmeal baby lotion: Obviously I have a thing for oatmeal. One thing I really can't stand is lotion that leaves your skin feeling greasy or sticky. This stuff sinks and dries immediately leaving my skin feeling SO smooth. I usually have a hard time with scented lotions because my skin can be pretty sensitive, but this stuff is awesome, not to mention it smells delightful!

Cracklin' Oat Bran: The first time I tried this stuff was in Alabama. My SIL Natalie offered me a handful, and I've been addicted ever since! I'm not one for super sweet cereals so this one is perfect, plus it comes with a nice dose of fiber! This is one of my faves next to Raisin Bran.

TERRA Vegetable Chips: I'm not much of a potato chip person but these veggie chips are fantastic! Matt actually picked them out one day when we were at the store and said "I bet you'd like these", I love my husband:) They use a variety of exotic veggies like yuca, parsnip, taro, and sweet potato. To be honest I don't like the sweet potato chips, I pick those out. I also dislike really salty things; which is probably why I don't like potato chips, but these have just a hint of seasoning/salt and they are so good! You can get them in any store in either the chip or organic foods aisle.

Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme wear "Grey Area": Okay this one is inspired by two of my SILs. A few months back my SIL Elizabeth ("Bink") made fun of me for being too safe with my nail polish choices...bad idea. I decided to conquer that fear and now pretty much everytime I go to the store I either buy a new "outgoing" color or spend the entire trip talking myself out of spending those few extra bucks...so thanks Bink lol. I found this particular color when I was in search of a color that my SIL Leah had. She has this amazing brownish grey color, and this is the closest thing I could find. This stuff is awesome. It stays on forever and I love this color with pretty much any outifit.

The D.I.: I know this isn't really a brand/product, but I heart the DI. I try not to go too often, but I always use loose change/extra random cash in my purse as an excuse to see if I can find a little something. I spent $15 bucks there the other day and I made out like a bandit! But that's for another post...

Thai Sweet Chili Sauce: Okay I love Thai food. I was first introduced to it by an ex-boyfriend's parents when I was in highschool and I've loved it ever since. It took a while to convince Matt of it's awesomeness but he eventually tried it and now he LOVES pad thai. You'll find this sweet chili sauce in any thai restaurant (it always comes when I order chicken satay yum!) or the oriental ailse of any grocery store. It's the perfect blend of sweet and spicy and goes good on just about anything. I recently had a co-worker mix this sauce with sour cream and serve it for dipping with potato wedges, that's how versatile this stuff is! We've been eating it all weekend with wontons and pot stickers.

>"The Way it Goes" by Gillian Welch: I'm loving this song off of Gillian Welch's new The Harrow and the Harvest Album. I first heard them on NPR's First listen and had to get the album ASAP. The band consists of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. This is the first album of theirs that I've heard, but it is a beautiful collection of folky or americana; is how matt describes it, songs . The instrumentals and lyrics are amazing and their harmonies are the cherry on top! If you get a chance check out this song on youtube, I love these guys.

Paul Mitchell Shampoo/Conditioner: This shampoo and conditioner combo is hands down my favorite hair product. ever. And yes I mean this particular combination. I've tried a variety of combinations of paul mitchell and the Awapuhi shampoo + Instant moisture daily conditioner= bliss! This stuff not only smells terrific, but it leaves my hair feeling super clean and soft.

Nollie perfume: I'm not huge on strong perfumes, I actually used to be a strictly body spray girl, and then I fell in love with Ralph by Ralph Lauren. Then sometime between junior year of highschool and college I found this little jewel at PacSun and I've stuck with it ever since. I really like citrus-y smells and this stuff just does it for me.

Chacos: Back in 2007 Matt came up to Utah State to visit/surprise me for my 21st birthday. He made me breakfast, got me flowers and did all of the sweet stuff a great boyfriend does, but he earned major brownie points when he got me these Chacos I'd been eyeing! Mine are actually blue and green but they're the same style as the ones shown above. They are by FAR my favorite shoe in the ENTIRE world. They are (obviously) the best hiking sandal EVER, and are so comfortable and have awesome support in the sole. Another great thing about these is that the straps are adjustable! I wear them constantly throughout the months of april-september-ish and have for the past 4 years and they are still in GREAT condition. They are a little pricey but for the quality of shoe that you are getting, they're a steal!

BURT'S BEES Chapstick/Lip Shimmer: I've always been a fan of Burt's Bees products, particularly their cuticle cream, but my SIL leah let me try her mango butter chapstick once and I was hooked. I try to avoid flavored chapsticks, because most of the time they can taste gross or bitter and I hate having to deal with that during my day, but this stuff is great. It doesn't really have a taste, but it leaves my lips moisturized and smells fantastic. So after trying the chapstick I decided to try the lip shimmer, for like date nights and such,( I DON'T do lipsticks) and it was another winner! It has some color to it, but not too much, and it's really light, moisturizes and dries fast. I don't think you can go wrong with anything Burt's Bees...

Neurogena Healthy Skin face lotion: I went through my teenage years and early adult years searching for the perfect face lotion/cream/mask etc, and I just recently found the perfect stuff (for my skin anyway). I've tried a variety of products that work pretty good, including pricey stuff like clinique and philosophy, but if you know me you know I usually like to go the cheap route! With this stuff I get the best of both worlds! This stuff is easy on my wallet and it's a great product. It's a great moisturizer, has SPF, and leaves your face feeling soft and fresh. I hate greasy feeling face creams, but I don't have to worry about that with this stuff. Another great thing about this stuff is that a little goes a LONG way, so it lasts forever too!

And there you go! I hope some of you will post about your favorite things, like I said I LOVE trying new stuff!