Hatch Family Pics

As I mentioned in my first Christmas post, we had lots of Hatch Bashes (that's my mom's side of the family). Three of them, three days in a row in fact. It was so fun to hang out with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. We played tons of games, most of them improv games and everyone was a good sport. And of course, on Christmas Eve, the chimes. Oh the chimes. The day after Christmas, we got together one final time for a white elephant and family pictures party. I ended up with a menopause fan and a Hershey's bar. Kurt got a number ten can of jalapenos. The most coveted gift was a large piggy bank--you know, those new white ceramic ones that are super cute--with a pink tutu and a tiara. My cousin Conrad took it. He's like 20, I think. All the girls kept trying to trade him for it, but he held tight. Too funny.

 My awesome, adorable grandparents.

 The grandkids. I'm the fourth oldest.

The great grands. I just realized they're all blonde! Kinda crazy.

 My family. Yay! By the way, that's my dad picture smile. I'm not sure why, but he always has a closed mouth smile/smirk in pictures. And notice how we're all brunettes? (Well, except Caroline. She's Norwegian!) Tell me how Chris and Max are blonde...

The whole gang! Before we ate dinner my grandma, who is not at all sentimental or mushy or anything like that, told us all that she's glad we belong to her. She even got a little choked up. :) Love my family!

My Little Brother Is Hilarious

A message he recently sent to me on Facebook:
"haha, at the end of practice number 14 came up to me and was like "collin, the guys on the team, im not going to name names, buuuut, theyve been talkin bout how 'coop has a really hot girlfriend'. i just wanted to know, is it true?"..
well, i didnt really know what to say. so i just looked him in the eyes and said "aye little one, i do. and aye, she is as gorgeous as a clear spring morn on the sea"."

For the record, his girlfriend is indeed gorgeous.
(And don't you love how he used single quotation marks for the quote inside his quote? Smart kid! Of course, no capitalization, but whatevs.)

My Christmas Wreath

Yes, another Ally Rae wreath. What can I say? Well, I can say that they're adorable. And way cheaper than even fake wreaths. And fun to make! It's a win-win-win situation!

For this one, I decided to go with green so it was kind of a play on a pine, traditional Christmas wreath. And the ornament was fun in place of a bow, plus I can't tie bows worth nana. So yeah.

I opted for little pom poms instead of buttons. I originally thought green, but they only had packs of red and green. Then my sister suggested doing red instead. Then I couldn't decide by the time Christmas came, so I never glued them on. But I will for next Christmas because this wreath didn't get bleached out by the sun like my summer one.

So, what say ye? Red or green?

Staying Organized

Towards the end of last year, a 40-something coworker teased me about my lack of cool technology things. I was showing her my new planner, and new iPod nano, and she said I should just get an iPhone because then I would have a planner, iPod, and phone in one. I tried to explain to her that I'd rather have my set up now. Yes, it would be convenient to have 3-in-1, but then my phone battery would die super fast because I listen to my iPod all day, and I wouldn't smile every time I opened my planner.

Because my planner is gorgeous.

I love having a planner. After a few years without one, last year I realized I desperately needed to buy a new planner. I've always had cute planners. If I have to look at something every day, I want to like how it looks! But they were always cute on the outside. And huge. I don't like really big purses, so I was looking for something small. There was a small undated Moleskin planner with a pink snakeskin cover that caught my eye (it needed to be undated since I was buying it in October and wanted to use it right away). But then I saw this one from Papaya! and knew I had to have it. Each page is beautiful and makes me happy and inspires me! Because, you know what, I'm a creative person. I didn't realize that till the last few years, but I am. I am not analytical, often to my detriment. But I love color and creating things and writing and daydreaming.

So an eletric planner with a white screen and black type would not do.

See how pretty it is??

It even has a journal section, which is awesome since I'm constantly jotting thoughts/observations for my writing.

Anyhow, thought I'd share. Papaya also has tons of gorgeous art (print and giclee canvas), greeting cards, and other doo-dads that are all equally colorful, fun, and playful. Check it out!

Ski School

We spent Christmas in Utah, splitting the time between Kurt's mom and my family, who all happened to be there (Ryan and Mandi, though it was the year to spend with her family, even made it for the big Hatch family bash!). We had an absolute blast. It was really fun to hang out with my family and all of their craziness, but then be able to come spend time with Kurt's mom where it was nice and quiet and we could relax (and play with her landlord's son's Xbox Kinnect game).

On Christmas Eve, we took Caroline and Collin snowboarding. We picked a really small resort because the lift tickets were only $29. Can't beat that! It only had three lifts, two of which went to the same hill, and was clearly for just learning how to board/ski, which is perfect since Caroline had only been once and Collin had never been before. And they did awesome. Caroline and I stuck to the green slope, since it was really icy and she wanted to work on carving and gathered too much speed on the harder slopes than she was comfortable with. And Collin was doing the (only, lol) black diamond by the end of the day with Kurt! Mom, Dad and Steph brought us yummy sandwiches from my uncle's restaurant for lunch. Steph was sad because she couldn't board with us since she fractured her ankle the week before by slipping on ice. But fun was had by all!



Happy Spring!

I know that it's been spring for a whole week now, but I'm still doing a Happy Spring! post because it's my absolute favorite time of year.

I love the green (which comes later here than in Charleston, but it still comes!).

I love the warmth (again, more delayed here but that's okay).

I love the flowers.
I love the SUNSHINE. (Don't get me wrong... I love the cold and I love thunderstorms and snow storms and just plain ol' gray days ... but I love sunshine more.)

I love the promise of summer activities (mountain biking! road biking! hiking!).

The only thing I get sad about when winter's over is the end of snowboarding.

BIG OL' FROWNY FACE:

:(

But that's okay, because there's always next year!

Anyhow, this image came across my Google reader last week

and it just looks so springy and colorful and happy to me,

that I just had to share.

(And make it Value sized!)

Also, I officially want that cat.

Da qui.

Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Woowee, life has been absolutely bonkers the last few weeks. School, work (which I don't have to take home with me, but has been very tiring), family in town (including babysitting my adorable but energetic nephews), getting the kitchen safe for little boys (the week before my family came, I didn't get any school work done, we didn't go to bed before midnight ever, I didn't go to the gym, we just worked all evening on the kitchen... it was very tiring!), and of course, Jimmermania. :D But things are a bit slower for now, so I'll do some posting this week.
But this is just a quick post to say check out my awesome, beautiful, amazing friend Lindsay's design/decorating/DIY blog. It is SO cute and very professional looking and she's done this all in the midst of our dreaded 3rd semester (she's a friend from school). Ack, I can hardly stand how awesome her blog is. Blows mine out the water ... but that's not hard to do. :D Anyhow, enyoi!

SOOO EXCITED FOR THIS BOOK



The wildly talented and fabulous Tahereh has landed a book deal!

Animals are Prettiest in Twinkly Lights

The Denver Zoo has a "Zoo Lights" thing every year, where they put up pretty Christmas lights and everyone can come and see the animals, most of which are asleep. But there are lots of indoor exhibits so you can still see the cool animals. We scored free tickets (twice actually) and went with our friends the Winfield's and the Miner's. It was super cold, but we took advantage of the free refills on hot beverages with the souvenir mugs. We had a really fun time! 

Yay, pics from the Blackberry!

Sugar and Spice

Even though at times during this kitchen renovation, my table has looked like this:

I've still been able to capture enough space to do this:

Thoughts at Five A.M.

Sometimes you don't fall asleep till 1:30ish,

and then you get woken up by a weird noise that sounds like your dog howling at 4:30,

and you're completely awake.

But you feel calm and peaceful.

Sometimes we need to be shown by the Lord that we can succeed,

that we can accomplish things,

that we have capacity

on our own

(well, with not as much help from the Lord as we'd like).

Sometimes we need more help from Him than that.

Regardless, he gives us exactly what we need.

He won't write the paper for us,

or the story,

or read the book,

or go to the library,

but He will show us how to do it ourselves.

He won't fold the laundry for us,

or wash the dishes,

or vacuum the floor,

but He'll give us a loving husband who understands and helps,

and He'll let us know it's okay to let it slide for a while.

Doctrine and Covenants section 130 verse 18 says,

"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection."

Not whatever load of laundry. ;)

Happy Friday i miei amici.

Show Ready

Just picked up the dogs from the groomers, and thought they looked so cute with their little bandannas.

That's all.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had some bad experiences with my birthday parties in high school. Like, hardly anyone showing up. More than one year. So I kinda avoid having birthday parties for myself. Out of fear that I'll repeat it.

Well, Camille was super awesome and threw a birthday party for me last year. It was really nice of her. The colors were black, pink, and white and she made my favorite cake--chocolate chip poundcake.

Thanks Camille for being so awesome and thanks everyone for coming and helping me feel loved. :)

And thanks baby Dean for letting me hold you during the birthday song.

A Tucson Kind of Day

This year for Thanksgiving we drove to Tucson to visit with Kurt's dad. We left the day before Thanksgiving, which happened to be my birthday. Yep, I spent my birthday 15 hours in the car, with a car sick Swift on my lap. We discovered he gets car not long after leaving the house. He was panting, and swallowing, and drooling, and eventually shaking. We stopped in Monument and grabbed some dramamine after reading online it was safe to give to dogs. Every website we read said you could give two milligrams per pound of weight, which would be around 40 mgs for each dog, but we played it safe and just gave them 25 mgs. Then we left Ruby in the crate in the back, because she's a champion traveler and just slept the whole time, and kept Swift on my lap. It wasn't ideal, but we made it. And as part of my birthday present, Kurt drove the whole way. Fifteen hours is a long way to drive without a break!

Also, part of my birthday celebration was the stop in Albuquerque at our favorite dive, Frontier Restaurant!

 Delicious green chile breakfast burrito and sweet roll. I snagged tables while Kurt ordered and he got me a real, non-diet Coke. Awww. 

Kurt decided it was time to represent. 

Thanksgiving Day was the weirdest I've ever experienced. Okay, that was actually two years ago, when we drove all day to Tucson to check on the house (back when Steve was still in the middle east) and ate at some fancy restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner dressed in scrubs. But this one was close.

Steve made it easy on us and ordered a ready-to-go meal from the local grocery store, so when I woke up, I threw on some clothes (probably from the day before) and we went to the grocery store. Then we came back and washed the dogs. Then I took a nap. I planned to shower and get dressed after my nap. (In my family, we always dress kinda nice for holiday meals; nice jeans, nice top.) Well, Kurt woke me up at 2 from my nap and we ate dinner. In my scrubby clothes! It felt sacreligious, lol. Dinner was delicious, and we followed it with movie watching. And, some picture taking.

 No Thanksgiving is complete without your redneck family photo.

The rest of the trip was spent trying to get Swift and Ruby to use the restroom outside (no one has grass in Tucson (weird) and they didn't like going to the bathroom on dirt), trying to get them to sleep at night (I slept in the bathtub one night so they would be quiet. When I woke up, I was very confused about why I was in the bathtub with a blanket and thought it was the zombie apocalypse), and visiting friends having a good time. One day we drove to the top of Mt. Lemmon. I'd never been and wanting to see the view. And we hit a crazy blizzard! In the town on the top of the mountain, we stopped into a shop for hot chocolate and a ginormous cookie.

It's as big as my face!

 

Then they chased everyone out because they were going to close the roads soon, it was so bad.

In other happenings, we spent a lot of time at our friend, James's parents house, because James and Camille were in town. And James's younger sister Hilary (who is awesome) took me to see our mutual friend, Punkin! Okay, I call her Punkin, Hilary doesn't. I hadn't seen Punkin (aka Megan) in like ... 6 years. Craziness.

 And James and his brothers and dad took Kurt mountain biking, so Kurt was happy. 

James rode home with us, so we stopped in Hatch, NM, to introduce him to our second favorite restaurant in the Land of Enchantment.

 This looks to me like an album cover.

Mmm.... delish.

And I, in the back, annoyed Swift. That sock is probably dirty.

On second thought, he probably enjoyed being able to smell it so well. Weird dog.

Movember the Third

Last November was Kurt's third year participating in Movember. And possibly the last! Because he no longer works in public accounting. On February 14th, he started a new job in the tax department for an industry company (aka, not public account firm). As far as he knows, his new office does not do Movember. But he threatens/aspires to implement it. Here's hoping he forgets/it's harder than he thinks/there's no interest at his office, because I'd be happy to never have to go through a month of this again:

*Shudder*