Surprises and weddings.

It's almost THANKSGIVING! Where is the time going?!?

My sweet dad surprised me the other night. He was in town for a few days for work and hadn't told me because he planned to surprise me and well.. it worked!

One night I got home from work and did the usual-- put on sweats, took off my jewelry, and pulled my hair up. I was about to start on some art projects when I received a picture from my sister of everyone in my family (except my dad) and the message, "a special visitor is on their way!"

Literally a second later I received a text from my dad asking if I was home. I said yes and the next thing I new he said "Look out your front door!"

I ran straight to my door and opened it and there he was running across the parking lot and up the stairs! It was the best surprise. It made me so happy to have him in town! We spent the evening on a date :) We went to the pasta factory for dinner.

The next night when I got off work he picked me up and we went shopping around to his stores--Sportsman's, Cal Ranch, and JC Penney. Then when Drew got off work we met up with him at IN & OUT for some dinner! It was so fun! 

He left for Richfield the next day, but I sure loved every minute I had with him! He is so wonderful. I love my dad so much!!

This last weekend Drew and I had a really big weekend. We left late Thursday night to travel to Richfield. We visited with my family for a bit and then we went to bed around midnight. We got up around 4 am and left around 5 am because we had to be in Ogden for my good friend Whitlee's wedding which was at 9 am! It sure was early but it was worth it. 

The Ogden temple was immaculate!! It was so gorgeous. Although it was freezing outside, the spirit there was so happy and warm. A feeling I can't really describe, ya know?!

Drew and I spent the entire day up there celebrating Whitlee and Jesse's big day. I helped take pictures all day (which was such a fun experience for me) and before we knew it the beautiful day was over. It truly was such a special, emotionally touching, and absolutely beautiful day.

We stayed the night at my aunt Katie and Bri's house and then got up early the next morning to beat any potential storms. We love staying at their home. It's so comfy and cozy! Not to mention they treated us to cinnamon rolls for breakfast-- yum!!

Sunday we visited Grandma Carol and Grandpa June for a little bit. I got her chocolate pie recipe from her (because I will be making it for Drew's family on Thanksgiving) and she also sent us with a bag of home grown apples and some winter buttercup squash! Oh! And she also sent us with a new table runner that she has been working on. One side is fall, and the other is Christmas! How thoughtful is she?! She's amazing!

She really blows my mind. She is so talented and always has some type of project going on whether it is painting or making yummy treats or sewing beautiful things.. She is so happy and beautiful. And Grandpa June is so sweet and happy too. We just love them!

My other grandparents Grandpa Doug and Grandma Micki came over to our house for Sunday dinner so we could visit with them too before we left. We sure do have the best grandparents in the world!

Kambry spent the weekend in Cedar and sent us this picture of her with Drew's dog Max :)

My mom made a delicious meal and even treated me to sweet potatoes and marshmallows! Talk about amazing people... she is bursting with amazingness. I love her so much.

Now we are back in St. George working and doing the usual. However, we will head up to Cedar for the weekend shortly! 

I can't believe the holidays are here. 

It's such a happy feeling :)

Love,

Kate

Beginning of November

The day after our Halloween party, Drew and I drove to Richfield. I went with my mom to my friend Whitlee's briday shower. We got her the game "Ticket to Ride." She and Jessie are going to love it!

It was fun to visit with Whit and to run into Hailey and Tiana too! I sure do love those girls.

Later that evening we met up with the Jensen side of the family to go bowling to celebrate Konner's birthday! I usually end up winning Drew, but unfortunately he beat me by a couple points this time.

However, I beat him by a long shot at the -shoot the basketball- arcade game! 

So proud of myself.

On Sunday Konner received the Aaronic priesthood! It was fun to be there for him. We celebrated with my Mom's side of the family + had our little family Halloween party altogether after church.

We ate home made Cafe Rio and my mom did the traditional witches brew!

Her kackle kills all of us every time. She's too good at it!

You can see my gummy worm in my witches brew punch ^

We drove back to St. George afterwards. 

I'm happy we have the privilege to drive home to either Cedar or Richfield to be with our families.

We are so blessed!

Love,

Kate

Halloween 2014

"Hi! I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs."

That was the theme of my costume for preschool. Of course the kids went crazy over it! I bought a $3 hat from Michaels, picked up some 33 cent felt, and drew the eyes and eyebrows on with a marker. The twiggy things on top are pipe cleaner and I used hot glue for the nose. It was SO EASY and so perfect! 

 There were multiple Elsas around at preschool and so I figured Olaf would be fitting. 

The next day was actual Halloween. At Dixie (my other job) we got to decorate pumpkin cookies but of course I had to be different so I turned my pumpkin cookie on its side and created a frankenstein. It was fun to create!

After work I went home to pack and finish making treats for our annual Halloween party that we have with Drew's friends up in Cedar! Our first party was last year. You can remember that here.

Anyways, this year I made some peanut butter + powder sugar creepy fingers and carmel popcorn. They were both a hit!  

The party was up at Ellen's cabin and it was a murder mystery theme. It was pretty fun! A couple of us had a part and we all had to figure out who the murderer was. Afterwards we played a new funny game called Egg Roulette, and then a few rounds of telephone gestures. We finished the night off by watching a scary movie. 

 This year Drew and I dressed up as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Our costumes were homemade/DIY. I found my outfit at D.I. and I put Drew's together. I made his hat and shoes out of felt. I'd say we pulled our characters off pretty well!

We stayed the night at the cabin and the next morning Taylor made us all breakfast burritos. We left a little while later and headed to Richfield for the rest of the weekend to celebrate Konner's birthday and ordination. I will talk about that more in my next post.

I thought this hill was fitting for Halloween because can you see how it resembles a candy corn?!

Overall it was a great party and we love how everyone always goes all out to dress up! It's always a blast to be with everyone and we're already looking forward to next year.

I wonder what we will dress up as next time!? 

Love,

Kate

Baby Shower for Toree

My friend Jaclyn and I threw our -use to be- coworker a baby shower! Her baby's room colors are gold and pink so we based it off of that. I designed the invitation and we decided to decorate and have foods that could be gold/yellow and pink!

We had oreo truffles with gold sprinkles, rice crispies with gold sprinkles, apples and toffee dip, pink lemonade, and ham and cheese sliders.

The food was incredibly delicious!

I painted her a sign that said, "Twinkle twinkle little star, do you know how loved you are?" framed it, and got her that flower you can ^see^ next to it.

The baby was definitely spoiled! Toree is going to be the cutest mommy.

It was a fun night.

Love,
Kate

Update: August-October

Worst blogger award goes to me.

Life caught up to me and it was like a smack to the face and I haven't been able to catch my breath since! Okay, not literally.. but you kind of get what I'm saying.

The last post I wrote was the end of July and now it is OCTOBER so yeah, I NEED TO CATCH UP. So that is what I'm going to do here. I'll explain a few things we have been up to here and there and then I'll post some pics from my phone-- mainly for myself-- because let's be real here.. this is my journal.

Here'goes:

AUGUST.

Portrait of my neighbor Brent Nielsen who passed away and his grandson Bridger.

The Nielsen family asked me to sketch this for them. It took many months of prayer and pondering so I could figure out exactly how it should be. I think it turned out absolutely perfect!
You can read more about the experience here.

Preschool started up again for the year. This is a panorama of my classroom.

This is my preschool team. Cara and Laura. They're so fun to work with! Also in the bottom right are my new friends Saya and Angela. Love them!

St. George has some great sunsets. The panorama made the bus look like a train, ha!

Just a couple pics of some of the projects we have done around our little apartment.

We took a trip up north to spend some time with our good friend Bo and his family. We played games, had a delicious BBQ, and went boating the next day.

Bo also taught Kambry and I how to drive his boat. It was a good time!

My friend Lindsey and I got our hair done by my cousin Jaclyn during her instructional class for cosmetology. She is an instructor at Taylor Andrews and she is amazing!

Drew went with my family to the derby in Richfield! It was his first time ever to a derby and he loved it.

Drew started his third semester at Dixie! We went out to breakfast to keep the tradition going. He's such a cutie!

Oh two WAFFLE LOVE photos right in a row! Guess you could say I love that place.

We spent a weekend in Cedar and got to help out at Drew's father's YSA ward bbq. Also, it rained heaps in St. George and looked like it was flooding down below our apartment. It was neat.

Oh this book is amazing. My cousin Dana wrote it and its a compilation of thoughts and words and songs unsung. All by her. It's beautiful and you can get it here.

I applied for a full time position and Dixie and made it to the second interview!! It was so amazing. It was truly such an incredible experience. I learned so much but unfortunately I didn't get the position. However, my sweet mom and family are the best and sent me a little care package full of "sunshine!" They're the best!!! And Drew got me beautiful flowers and left me cute notes around our house. It made me so happy! 

We drove Kambry down to Las Vegas to send her to Hawaii for a while. It was so hard saying goodbye to her!!

But luckily, she arrived safe and sound :)

SEPTEMBER.

We have spent most of our weekends in either Richfield or Cedar. Above is a picture of Drew with his brother Mark and dad putting cupboards in their garage.

One weekend while in Richfield, my family went on a walk while talking to Kambry on speaker phone ha ha! It was pretty funny.

Also in the middle of all our traveling we purchased our first vehicle! We absolutely love it!

My friend Candace got married so we spent the day celebrating her. It was great to see some friends that I haven't seen in a while! It was really good to all be together.

We also got to attend a country concert with my family while in Richfield. We got to watch Konner play football and we ate pancakes with fresh rasberries straight from our garden! Also, Kambry sent us a sweet post card from Hawaii!

Here are some snapshots of Kam's adventure in Hawaii.

We are SO blessed to have a cabin in one of the most beautiful places.. Fishlake! We enjoyed the colors of the changing leaves, some nice rain showers, and a fresh cool breeze. It definitely felt like fall up there.

I stayed in Richfield while Drew drove back to St. George Sunday night. The next day was my cousin Mara's birthday and so we celebrated that with some of the family. A couple day's later I went hunting with my dad while Drew was home going to school and working. I will write about my hunting trip in a different post :)

And at the end of September we got to pick up Kambry from Hawaii! We had missed her so much. My family came down and stayed with us in our little apartment. It was so wonderful to be all together again! 

OCTOBER

So far this month has been busy as well. We watched general conference in Cedar with Drew's parents, the next weekend I went to a baby shower in Cedar and brought Kambry down to St. George with us. She spent the whole week with us! It was a lot of fun to have her here. She came to preschool with me one day, we went shopping, we went out to dinner, we went long boarding to the temple, played guitar and ukulele, and watched New Girl all week. It was fantastic! We loved having her here with us!

We drove her back to Richfield last weekend, attended a baby shower, and went on a double date to the pumpkin patch, then to Hoovers for dinner, and then back to our home to paint our pumpkins.

As you can see I had way too much fun painting a sloth.

I love being home in Richfield with my family.

I love this month and this time of year.

And I am so happy.

Love,

Kate