Very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas is a lot like Thanksgiving dinner. You work really hard to prepare everything and it's over in what seems like 10 seconds! We had a great Christmas this year! Don't worry Santa didn't forget where our house was :) We also had a great time at the Phillips' Family party in Morgan. We had tons of food and lots of fun! We went sledding in the dark and I felt like a kid again! I definitely need to do it again soon!

Our Tree

Me & Lindsay after sledding

Me & Chase

And now it's time to take all my hard work down... probably my least favorite part about the Holidays! Taking down the decorations! Would you all laugh at me behind my back if I just leave them up year-round?!

My latest craft :)

A Little Winter Fun!!

Chase and I braved the snowy roads last Saturday and went to Salt Lake. We met up with the Jaques' and ice skated at the Gallivan Center and had dinner at The Melting Pot! It was so much fun! We had a great weekend!!

Another craft I made for a Christmas gift this year. Is it bad when you really want to keep what you make for other people?!

Thanksgiving in Idaho

Chase and I had a great Thanksgiving break in Idaho with my side of the family!! There was always something going on, it made the days go by way to quickly. The dinner was delicious and as always took way longer to prepare than to scarf down!! I guess that is how it goes though! The girls braved the crowds and headed shopping on Black Friday!! It was actually a lot of fun, and I had a great time. I think that it works out better if you go with no real plans of actually buying anything, because then you can't really be let down! I ended up purchasing a video camera and some stuff for the nieces b-days that are coming up! So I was a winner!!

I took Chase to the one of the many things Rupert does to celebrate the holidays. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, Santa comes to the town square to turn on the christmas lights. It is a huge deal and there is fireworks too!! I forgot how much I miss the small town things like that! I think Chase had a good time and was impressed at how many people come out to support the event!

Chase did a lot of shooting with the boys, including clay pigeons and us girls even went up and gave it a whirl. Let's just say, I am not a good aim!! We also got to spend lots of time with our neice and nephew on the Cook side!! That was my favorite part! Makell was so much fun to play with and she is sure becoming a little spit fire!! And baby Tye is growing sooo fast!! He is the cutest little man ever!!

Crafting makes me HAPPY :)

Had a recent craft night with the girls. It was a much needed time for us all! We made some cute stuff too! I don't know what it is about letting your creative side take over, but it sure makes a difference!

Recipe Holder (just need some magnets)

Countdown Blocks!

Cute little trees

H-A-double L - O-W double E-N (Halloween!)

October has come and gone.. but that is the great thing about October it leaves with a bang!! Halloween is a favorite holiday of my husbands, for example: He chose to work every weekend at a Haunted House so he can scare people. So we decided we were going to throw a Halloween Party. It turned out to be lots of fun, so it will become a traditional thing. We had a pinata, played Charades, and had a donut eating contest. And a ridiculous amount of candy and treats!


We also did a costume contest. Chase won the Scariest Costume. Dustin won the Funniest Costume, and The Clarks picked up the BEST COSTUME!

If you are one who is easily offended, I recommend not scrolling down. :)














On actual Halloween night, we went up to a party in Logan. My friend and I went as "Girls Gone Wild" girls! It's not what your thinking... we made fake boobs out of nylons and stuffing and sewed them to our sports bras!! I thought it was hilarious... but that is just me. Chase was the "devil" that made me do it! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

~Sneaky Sneaky~

I just thought I'd share this funny little story with everyone. Those of you who know Chase, know that he can be quite the prankster. So, we have started an on-going rivalry between a few of our friend couples. As of a few weeks ago The Phillips' had yet to be pranked back. Well that all ended on the night of pumpkin carving.

The story goes as follows:
After we finished up with carving, Camille and I were sitting around and I heard this beep. I kind of looked around to see if I could see anything flashing and there was nothing. I asked Camille if she heard it and she did. The beep continued on intervals of around 10 - 15 minutes. I decided to ignore it for the night and just go to bed.
The days went on and the beep continued to irritate me. I had pin-pointed the location to the kitchen near and around the stove & microwave. On my day off I decided I was going to find what it was. I unplugged, reset, moved, rearranged and anything else possible, still no luck. Thursday I almost went insane because of the beeping. I had spent 4 hours baking treats for our Halloween party on Friday and the entire time the beeping continued. You can imagine - - it was something like the Edgar Allan Poe poem "Tell Tale Heart".
Saturday was my day of success! I was cleaning things up from the party and gave one last shot to find the annoying sound. I pulled the oven out (for the 3rd time) and VOILA'!! I found this:

Note: in the bottom left corner is the word ANNOY!

And the culprits were Camille and Kelly themselves. One word Jaques' - - REVENGE!! Just you wait for it!

Pumpkin Carving!!

Monday night we had some people over to carve pumpkins!! It was a smash :) Here are the pumpkins!

All of them lined up on the counter

Chase's creation

Kelly's Creation

Bryon's Jack Skellington

Amanda's Marilyn MonWitch

The Latest and Greatest

I thought I'd share a few of my latest crafts! My cousin Andrea is having a little girl in December... so for her baby shower I made this super cute bow holder. Its missing the finishing touch which was a cute iron piece that mounted on the top of it to hang with. And the couple of bows that my mom and I clipped to it. But oh well, you get the picture! (yes those are rhinestones!!!)

Second is my attempt at being artsy. Chase has been wanting me to make something for this office with pictures of us. So I came up with this little photo collage. The wording says "My heart (only its a picture of a heart) Loves Your heart" Kinda cute!

And last is my very very favorite! I painted and modge podged this cute little step stool for my kitchen. The colors don't match but it is very much ME! (the other 2 legs are hot pink, and orange)

And that's it! Stay tuned for more!

A Haunting We Will Go....

I suppose it's been long enough since my last post to make everyone wonder what we have been up to. Well let me just tell ya! We headed to Idaho the first weekend of Oct for a baby shower and family picture (taken by Camille Jaques herself!) I'll post those later when they are done :) Lots of fun to be with the entire family and be together for the first snow storm of the year. Ugh, it came much to soon if you ask me!

And then there was our stellar Girls Night Out!! I can't even tell you how much fun it was because you would all be super jealous and sad you weren't a part of it. Its okay though... we'll do it again soon! Camille, Lindy and I went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and hit not ONE, but TWO haunted houses! We got some Rockstars and slammed them, and let me just tell you - - - we made so many new friends while all hyped up! Camille got Lindy and I boyfriends at the first haunted house. We will name them Skeletor

and Chain Gang

. We had so much fun at Nightmare Mansion that we HAAADDDD to go check out Nightmare on 13th!! Totally worth it. It was full of colorful language, many trips to the floor, and lots of pushing and shoving eachother!! Who could ask for more?? Seriously??

I went to a Super Saturday that our ward hosted and made this super cute witch hat for my front door. I'm lovin it!! It made me so excited to decorate for a holiday that I went out and bought some lights and a scary window skeleton!! We are the coolest house on the block! (I'm not bragging!)

Chase is currently working weekends at the Haunted Hollow off of 12th street. He pretty much LOVES it! I'll get a picture up later of his character! It's a good one if I do say so myself! I am very excited for the coming parties and get-togethers the next few weeks brings! Not to mention dressing up on Halloween!!!

Also, I made my first investment to my new idea of a business!! What's in that big black bag you may ask... Well I'll tell ya! It's a portable massage table!! For those who haven't heard of my amazing plan, I want to start doing Spa Parties!! Much like the Scentsy, Jewelry, and many other "parties" I'll be going to someone's house and giving spa services at a much discounted rate! Hopefully they will catch on big time!! But anyway... More on that to come. I still have a few more items to purchase before I'm ready for the adventure!

Autumn.... It's here!

As much as I hate to admit it. Fall has come. At first I was really disappointed that summer had come and gone so quickly, but I really do love the season of Fall. The leaves are changing through Sardine Canyon - - which makes me smile when driving to work on a crispy fall morning. And I can make cute new decor for the season! Hooray for cool weather and all the cute new clothes to wear!

NEW - - hair ~ nephew ~ tradition

Well quite a bit has been going on these past few weeks! And I'm happy to share that it has ALL been good stuff!

First things first... I got a new do! I had been wanting to do this for quite some time but always chickened out. So finally I just did it! I DYED my hair RED!!! And I love it!

Second... Chase and I got a new nephew!! Mr. Tye James Cook was born on Aug. 31st! My brother Jason and his wife Laree welcomed him with open arms! But how could you not when he is so stinkin adorable! I'm a proud auntie and even got him a bib to prove his love for me! It says "I love my Auntie!" He is going to be a heart-breaker for sure!

And the last excitement we have had was going to Peach Days in Brigham and enjoyed some famous peach cobbler! While we were there we HAD to ride one carnival ride and we chose "SPIN OUT" - - for those of you who are unfamiliar with the carni rides, it is similar to the Samurai at Lagoon. Holy cow, I was ready to cry by the time we were done! Hands down, best carnival ride ever!!! Also, we were able to see Jon Schmidt perform his "Taylor Swift meets Viva la Vida" song! It was amazing! Again, truly a major motivator to get my piano inside my house!

Stevi & I - -so excited to see Jon Schmidt

And to finish the night, we headed up to Mantua to camp! We found a spot at "Dock Flat" :) It started out as an eventful night and continued to progress! While there I showed how we Idaho girls gather firewood! We had neighbors who came over to invite us to their "camp party" - - we declined. Then later they started shooting guns! Totally not okay in the hunters safety guidelines. I feared for my life for a few! But then they quit. We camped out under the stars in the back of the truck! Such a great time! Cheesy filled hot dogs + The Phillips' + The Sherman's=LOADS OF FUN! It is going to be must every year!

Sandy's Wedding

Well it's over!!! Chase's mom was married to a great guy last weekend! We had so much fun being with all of the family! I will admit it was incredibly exhausting and very stressful getting it all ready. But the outcome was phenomenal!!

Friday night we got to have dinner with all of Dave's kids. He has 4 daughters!! The Phillips' don't know what to do with this many girls around! It was a lot of fun spending time with them and getting to know one another! There is always that fear of mingling two families - - what if we don't get along?! But it was meant to be. I think we all clicked pretty good!

The BIG family!! 3 new bro in laws, 4 new sis in laws!

Saturday was the big day, and boy did we accomplish tons! I have the best brothers and sisters on the Phillips' side! We all work soo well together and come up with amazing ideas! Jamie did the flowers and they turned out beautiful! We had music, balloons, great company and great food! What more could you ask for right?!

Sunday was the best day! All of the kids stayed the night at Sandy's, and we made a huge brunch and had Grandpa and DJ over and some surprise visitors from Colorado. Chase's great aunt Venice and uncle Terry!! We had a blast cooking and playing in the pool. I was so sad the day went by so quickly! I love having all of us together!

Chase and Mason in the pool

Everyone enjoying the sunshine and breakfast

Chaddy & Mason

Kinley being her cute self!!

Congratulations to Sandy and Dave!! We are so excited for their future together!!