Winter Wonderland

Hip hip, hooray for the festive season approaching!!! I love Christmastime for so many reasons. :) It really does bring a special spirit as we turn our thoughts toward the birth and life of Christ. 

I also really love Christmas parties!!!! "A party, is a party, but a Christmas party...!" (What show, what show?) 

I love getting together with family and friends, and for some reason, dress during holiday parties is like 10x fancier than dress for other season's parties. I love this outfit, and I'm stoked to wear it all winter long:) I may trade out the heels for my little flat wedges though, so people stop asking me how the weather is up here ;) 

Also, this is my rommates' room, so don't judge the messiness ;)

Sweater and Stripes

So, I think I'm late to the party, but I just discovered that stripes under a sweater is the bomb. I discovered that by being late getting ready for work and putting on a navy striped tshirt, then remembering that it wasn't summer and throwing a green sweater on top.
And it was cute.
The end.

PS, this is not my room, don't pass judgement ;)

I'm a Polar Bear!

Happy Halloween!!!

I love dressing up for Halloween!!!! I already dressed up as a maid and wonder woman, but I just wanted something cute and simple to wear to the office to be a little festive for Halloween, so I ended up being a polar bear:)  I just wore my polar bear sweater and drew a little black nose with eyeliner and set it with eye shadow. When I walked into the office, one of my coworkers was like, "You have something on your nose..." (I felt like Mean Girls, "I'm a polar bear- DUH!")

Maid and Butler / Professor Plum and Mrs. White...?

Maid and butler/ Mrs. White and Professor Plum

Halloween is upon us again!!! Since I wanted to spend zero dollars on a Halloween costume this year... Okay, I spent about five...

I decided to be a non-scandalous French maid. Or, you know, just an American maid ;)

I already had the black dress, tights, shoes, jewelry and handkerchief (in my hair). The adorable frilly apron was something I picked up when I was living in El Salvador. All the vendadoras wear them, so there are huge pockets to sell from and a zippered pocket to keep money in. Super handy:)

I spent $1 on some perfect stretchy lace trim from Joann's and sewed them into little cuffs for my wrists. I actually ended up making the feather duster. I bought one from the Dollar Tree, thinking I could spruce it up...but there was metal on the inside... anyway, it didn't work. I stole the plastic pieces for the top and bottom and glued them onto a $1 wooden dowel I got at Joann's and hot glued in a $2 pack of feathers. (And I ended up with a new Dollar Tree duster as well ;D) I painted the dowel white with some white paint we had lying around. 

These pics are from our ward date night. My date wanted to match, so I told him I was being a maid and he could be a butler if he wanted :) BUT this is what he ended up wearing (he was also carrying a white hand towel and giant cleaver) and after a couple of highly impressed people asked if we were Mrs. White and Professor Plum...we decided to go with that:)

Oh, and btdubs, we totally won the costume contest. Not like it's a big deal or anything. But whatever. ;) (JK, I'm super duper proud of it. Go for the "W." I wish they'd given us a trophy.)

Oh, gol, so cute.

And here we are on Halloween! Some of us went to a corn maze down by Utah Lake. It was really fun. Elena was our guide and I think we only made like, one wrong turn the entire maze. 

After that, half of them went to a dance party, then to watch a scary movie. I was pretty much danced out, and I HATE scary movies, so a few of us just chilled at home and ate treats and played truth or truth. :) Great Halloween!

I changed up my costume a little with a long sleeved shirt under my dress ( mostly so I wouldn't get cold...) and a white bow headband in my hair instead of the bun and handkerchief. I think I liked the bow better:)

Downtown with the Sissies

Baby Cece!

The Hoffmeiers are just too cute:)

My adorable BFF for life just had a baby! A little babe! A Wee Bairn! And she is so perfect. And Rosi and Patrick are the most adorable parents ever:)

Me and Cece!

Babies have such a special spirit:) It was so wonderful to hold her!

Here's a little baby quilt I made for Cece, it's the first quilt I've ever made by myself! I can see how it would be easier with more of the proper tools...but it still turned out:)

I used double high loft batting, because I just wanted it to be super fluffy!:)

Of course, I had to incorporate duckies for the Hoffmeiers! :)

I quilted it in diamond crisscross on my regular sewing machine since it was such a small quilt. I just rolled it up to keep from being too bulky on the machine side.

Here we are at Rosi's baby shower:) And now little Cecilia Rose Hoffmeier is here!

Alpine Loop Camping

We went camping this weekend and it was phenomenal!! We were all just dying to go before the season ended. There's something about fall camping. I just love it:)

We went somewhere off the Alpine Loop. Katie basically made me swear in blood that I would keep it secret, keep it safe, sooo, it was just somewhere in that area;)

Gorgeous!!!

It was super hard getting a flash group selfie at night. Like, ridiculous :)

The next morning

It was seriously such a blast to be up there. One thing I was thinking about while we were up there is that camping is one of those things that grows richer every time you experience it. Some things get boring, but camping just gets richer! You learn every time you go. You know better how to prepare. You know what to pack and what to leave behind. You know which foods are AMAZING camping foods and which are not. You learn how to stay safe from things that cause harm or annoyance. And you sleep more comfortably, you enjoy the views more. You get out of the car and smell that familiar mountain smell and you just feel happiness bubbling up inside you.
I want to fill my life more with the type of experiences that increase in richness, rather than diminish.

Carlos is the most amazing fire builder ever.

We arrived later than we had anticipated, about 9 at night, and we were all RAVENOUS when we arrived! We ate a whole pack of hot dogs:) And many, many s'mores. Delish.

Found this amazing little teepee someone had set up

Welcome to my home

The view was amzaing