It's time we had some Christmas cheer!

Christmas is TOMORROW!! :)
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Our Christmas break started off kind of rocky! We finished finals with sickness looming in our future. Kyle got a nasty head cold in the middle of finals, and I held out to the end of the week, but it wasnt long before I took up permanent residence in bed and on the couch for a couple of days.
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Thankfully I married a good man. He took good care of me and even gave a talk in church for me on Sunday!
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By Monday I was up and moving again. We cleaned the house and got ready to leave the next day to Utah for my sisters birthday and Christmas. We were done with our to do list early and figured we might as well head down to Utah that night instead of just sitting around waiting to leave. So we called my mom and told her we were going to surprise my sister and come that night. We got her pretty good.
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Unfortunately for us though, since we got in late, we were carrying our stuff inside in the dark and subsequently I left my purse, make-up bag and ipod in the car. We also at some point had a miscommunication on who locked the car. I thought Kyle locked it, Kyle thought I had locked it....which led to an unlocked, well-stocked car.
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We woke up the next morning and I asked Kyle to go get my make-up bag and purse from the car. At which point, we discovered that someone got into our car and took all that I forgot in the car the night before.
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The good news, they only took what was in sight.
All of our Christmas presents were in the trunk, they didnt take any of those. Kyle's camera was in the middle console and they didnt take that. And luckiest of all, we had a spare key in the car. They could have taken off with the whole car and we would have been in some big trouble then!
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So we spent the rest of the morning canceling debit cards, blocking checks and filing for fraud alert. Needless to say, we have learned our lesson to make sure the car is locked and we take everything OUT of the car to begin with!
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We were ready for a change in our luck! We spent the rest of the day in downtown Salt Lake City. We went ice skating at an out door rink, went to dinner and looked at the lights at temple square. It was an ok way to end a miserable morning.
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Yesterday we celebrated Christmas Adam with my dad's side of the family. Since both grandparents live close by, years ago we started celebrating Christmas with the Allreds the day before Christmas Eve...since Adam came before Eve, we nick named the event Christmas Adam. As we've all grown up, its been hard to all get together for the last couple of years, so it hasnt happened for a while.
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Within the last couple weeks, we learned my grandpa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So we all made an extra effort to get work off and be there for one more Christmas Adam. It was so much fun to have almost every one back around one VERY large table again. We opened presents from each other, ate, talked and laughed, ate some more. It was so much fun! And a really great time to reconnect and reminisce with all the family.
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Today its on to the next family for more eating and visiting and eating and laughing and eating and talking and eating.
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Its time we had some Christmas Cheer! :)

The most wonderful time of the year

Yes, my favorite time of the year is FINALLY here!

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Kyle and I started off our favorite time of the year a little early. Before we left for Colorado for Thanksgiving, we wanted to set up our christmas tree his parents gave us so it would be all set up when we got home. We also hung our stockings and my sister is living with her in-laws right now, so we got to set up her nativity set too!

Our home is now festive and cute! :)
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We flew to Colorado for Thanksgiving. It was a very much needed break from school and so much fun to spend time with our families. I love this time of year where everyone comes together and we just eat! Good food with good company. Does it get any better than that?!
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We helped set up Christmas trees at both Kyle's house and my house!

(We decorated three Christmas trees!)

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I was not ready to come back to snowy, cold Rexburg. We flew into Salt Lake City and then had to drive back up to Rexburg...and we ran into just a little complication which resulted in this...

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Yes, that is a sock and duck tape!
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We've had some pretty bad wipers on our car since I met Kyle, but we have put off getting new ones because you have to get them through Audi and we knew it wouldnt be that cheap. Well, while cautiously driving through the snow I turned on the wipers and the drivers side wiper flew off! It was slightly commical but we were in some serious trouble since the nearest Audi dealership we could get wipers at was hours away!
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So we pulled off at a gas station and bought a regular wiperblade and some duck tape to keep it on! We decided to switch the good audi wiper to the drivers side in case the other one didnt work. We get back on the road and Im trying to use the wipers as minimally as possible, but hello! It was snowing! So I turned on the wipers again and lo and behold, the last standing audi wiper flew off!

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At this point Im thinking...REALLY?!

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We pulled over again, switched the new wiper to my side so I can see and duck tape it on. We didnt want to stop and get another one and we didnt want the wiper arm to scrape on the windshield every time I used the wipers so we duck taped a sock to the other one. It looked like a little nub!

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It was quite the drive home! We finally made it and got new wipers! They work so great! :) Merry Christmas to us!

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Now were back to school and have to stay focused for just a couple more weeks of school. This semester has been a long, hard one so I am SO excited for it to end!
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But I'm more excited for Christmas! My family is coming up to us this Christmas because my sister is having a baby any time now! Since we dont know when exactly the little man is going to make his entrance into the world, parents and sister and brother will join us all here at our cute decorated home! :) I can't wait!

To cut, or not to cut?

My hair is getting ridiculously long.

Ok, that may or may not be an exaggeration, but nonetheless, its long.
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I know its getting too long when I braid my hair and look like a 10-year-old more than straighten it.

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Now if I had the perfect hair and it did exactly what I wanted to all the time and was just beautifully straight all by itself, this would not be a problem. (My sister-in-laws all have this said perfect hair, I'm sure of it!)

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But it is not the perfect hair and instead of being beautifully straight all by itself, it is really quite the opposite. Not opposite as in curly, pretty locks of golden hair, but opposite as in it takes way to long to do and never does anything I want it to, therefore the ends do not justify the means. (Means being sacrificing an extra hour to blow dry and straighten on top of showering)

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I really cant stand my hair when it reaches this point, but I always have such a hard time getting myself to cut it! I feel like a simple, barely noticable trim wont fix the unmanagability. No. It's got to be big scale...6-8 inches. So maybe if I start talking about cutting my hair now, in a few weeks Ill find the courage to chop off my not-so-perfect, ridiculously-unmanagably-long hair.

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To cut, or not to cut? That is the question.

just a bit of hocus pocus!

This was kyle and I's first halloween together!

We had quite a fun time celebrating this spooky holiday!

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Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a fan of haunted houses! Well my sister and husband convinced me to go to a haunted house in Idaho Falls

(proof I went through)
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pretty sure I can cross that off my bucket list and NOT do it again!! It was so scary! I just plugged my ears and looked at the ground. I was not a fan.
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We also carved pumpkins! I havent carved pumpkins for a long time. While cleaning them out, I remembered why! We both made some cute pumpkins though! :)

Our favorite part of the halloween fun was dressing up for our ward halloween party. We were originally going to be mario and luigi, but we couldnt find overalls. But in our search for overalls, we found a walker instead. So Kyle and I dressed up as an old couple! I thought we looked pretty legit, especially Kyle! I'm convinced he will be the most handsome old man when we grow old! :)
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We had fun, but I am excited for halloween to be over and to move on to November! That means we can listen to Christmas music!
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I know, some of you are thinking that the beginning of November is way to early to start listening to Christmas music, but I think if it insists on feeling like Christmas outside, it might as well feel like it inside too!

Baked with Love

Since I've been married, I've learned a few things about myself (Im sure Kyle has as well...maybe someday I'll get him to write a post!)
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one thing I've learned is I detest cooking
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ok, detest is a little strong, but I really am not a fan of it. Im not even good at it, although my husband would tell you otherwise. (one of the many reasons i love him!)
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but as much as I dont like to cook, I love to bake!
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My mom makes the most delicious sugar cookies I've ever consumed in my life! Dont believe me? Visit her for any holiday and your taste buds will be enlightened! I've made them once before, and although they were not too bad for a first time, there is nothing like hers. I only dream of one day being on equal sugar cookie baking ground with her.

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Earlier this week I was craving those sugar cookies. I didnt want to make them, I just wanted her to arrive on my front porch with a batch warm out of the oven. Of course that didnt happen, so I was on my own to provide this heavenly delicacy for my taste buds.
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In my mental preparations for baking sugar cookies, I also noticed we had some bananas that were going bad, so I put banana bread on the baking list. Of course, my mother also makes divine banana bread so I had to call her for her recipe.
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When I called her to get the recipe, she told me she had made pumpkin bread that day. So of course, it being fall now, pumpkin bread also made it onto the list, quickly followed by pumpkin pie.
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I made the pie (simple delectable) and made the sugar cookie dough with hopes of completing the process (rolling, cutting, baking, frosting) the next day. Unfortunately, I highly underestimated the amount of time I would spend doing school and homework (I do that often) and the sugar cookies never were baked. In fact, four days later, the dough is still in my fridge, although its quantity has been significantly reduced (cookie dough is almost equally as delicious!)
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so all my baking ambitions for the week have now been saved for the weekend. {My tastebuds are watering just thinking about it!} and I think I shall enjoy every minute of baking and tasting every delicious food my taste buds encounter! You all are welcome to join me!

we had questions...

he had answers.

I am in a women's health class and the teacher is good friends with Elder Bednar, so for her retirement she wanted to take her students down to have a question and answer with him.

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It was such an incredible experience.

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He knew just what to say to touch those who needed to feel the love of our Heavenly Father. He knew which scripture to use right off the top of his head, He knew that the Holy Ghost would teach us better than even he could and he encouraged us to be taught by the Holy Ghost.

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Girls asked questions about everything from how to handle not having your family be in the temple when you get married, how to be a good mother and how to deal with depression in your life and in the lives of those you love. There were questions about how we can better ourselves as women, wives and mothers in the church and he had a way of giving us the guidance we needed in such simple terms.

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Nothing he said or taught was new, profound doctrine that I didnt know before, but he had a way of making grey situations black and white.

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Im not sure why it works that way with general authorities. Why is that when they say something we go "ohhh" like some new doctrine had been taught to us, when really they just remind us of the doctrines that help guide our lives.

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Maybe thats just erroneous thinking on my part, but I really am grateful for the way he reminded us of the simple elegance the gospel offers us.

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Some things I learned was reminded of...

we are meant to compliment our spouse, not change them to be more like us. you need to be a good wife before you can be a good mother. make the comfort and convience of your spouse your highest priority. offer more, take less. self-worth comes from living righteously. "It is more important to not shrink than to survive" ~ Elder Neal A. Maxwell. we cannot accomplish everything through great measures, but rather one step at a time. the atonement is important to redeem us from our sins, but it also gives us power beyond our own to overcome every affliction, trial, sin and sorrow.

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I am still in awe at the spirit that can be felt in the presence of these great men who lead and guide our church and teach remind us of the astounding simple blessing the gospel is in our lives.

a boquet of sharpened pencils

"dont you just love [rexburg] in the fall. if I new your name and address I would send you a boquet of sharpened pencils!"

For the first time ever, I believe I am experiencing fall in rexburg!

Normally it goes from summer to winter over night!! But this year we have been so lucky! instead of snow, its been warm enough to have rain! so now I can actually step on crunchy leaves instead of snow! :) its a beautiful thing, my friends.

i love fall time when the leaves fall of the trees and its just crisp enough that all you need is a jacket and your nose gets just a tad cold instead of frost bite.

The leaves are falling off the trees and today it even smelled fall-y.

I know the snow is just around the corner and our lovely weather will be gone for another 7 months, but I think I will enjoy this lovely fall day while I have it! :)

today is a good fall-y day :)

The Best thing about the future...

is that it only comes one day at a time!!

I feel like whenever I think I've got the future figured out, I change my mind and go back to square one. I think I've returned to this square at least 71 times since the start of the semester.

The current mindset: apply for the nursing program

The new current mindset: dont apply for the nursing program

The newest current mindset: apply for the nursing program

you get the point. Im ridiculous sometimes, I know!

So Im not sure what lies in the future for Kyle and I, but I know it will only come one day at time for us to handle. Thank goodness it works that way!!

In the meantime while we try to figure out what to do with each day we have, we have been chugging along with school. My focus seems to be no where near Rexburg and Kyle is stressed to the max with his math class. We both are looking forward to Thanksgiving break already!! :)

We celebrated our 6 month anniversary this weekend. (cheesy, i know!) I feel like we've just always been married, but also like our wedding was just last week!! it sure has gone by fast and we have loved it all! :)

6 months down, forever to come!

blessings of our lives

Kyle and I have had some pretty amazing experiences over the last week or so. We got to go down to Utah over labor day weekend because my aunt and uncle adopted the cutest little boy about 14 months ago and now that the adoption has been finalized, they were able to have him sealed to them in the temple. We were able to attend the sealing and it was such a neat experience for both kyle and i. That was the only other sealing we'd been to other than ours, and it's a rare occasion to go to a live sealing of a child to parents. It was such a beautiful ceremony and was such an incredible reminder to me of the amazing blessing that we have to be sealed to our families for all eternity. What a great blessing to know that our families live together beyond this life. I never want to imagine my life with out kyle and im so happy that i never have to because we were sealed for all eternity! we get to spend FOREVER with each other! :) While we were in Utah we also got to visit Temple Square.

Another one of the great blessings we've seen in our lives is tithing blessings. I had an issue with my W-2 form and i wasnt able to file my taxes until august (yes, they are due in april!) Because of it, i couldnt turn in the tax paper work required for financial aide through pell grants or a scholarship. In the meantime, kyle and i slacked a litle bit in our regularity of paying tithing. (dont judge, it happens!) We would forget to bring it with us to church or forget it was even fast sunday. But we finally got our act together and did what we knew was right. Well not to long after, we both got online to find out that both kyle and i were given a generous amount of financial aide through grants and scholarships! It's been an incredible blessing to have help paying for school and such a reminder to us that we cant afford NOT to pay tighting, because the blessings come back to us ten-fold! :)

Kyle and i took a day trip to Yellowstone last week. I went when i was little so we decided to go again. It was pretty chilly, but lots of fun to see Old Faithful and to see all of the animals. We also went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center which Kyle loved! We got to watch them feed the bears and the wolves! It was a fun day.

school is about to start up again so we both will be busy busy busy! Another a semester ahead of us! Bring it on!

look out TLC...

a new show is on its way! no, were not having 6 kids at once or having any medical breakthrough surgery, we are honing in on our betty crocker baking skills! it all started with the sugar cookies and last night we tried fondant icing. although it didnt taste all that delicious, our decorating skills are giving carlo's bakery a run for their money. ok, probably not, but we had lots of fun playing with the edible (although only kyle found it yummy) playdough.

our creationsall of the cupcakes we made! We made a golfer, a snowman, a frog and birds, my specialty was the bows!

Kyle's birds. i think the red one looks like the red robin but as a baby!

What can we say, Rexburg is a little dead right now and with no school to keep us busy, we're finding our own entertainment!

T.I.W.M.C.T.K #1

Ok, so i may have stolen this idea from someone elses blog. But since this is my only sad excuse for a journal, i think ill share for my future posterity the things i want my children to know. I was trying to fall asleep last night and part of my mother kicked in and my brain wouldnt shut off. i dont remember what mental track brought me to this memory, but i decided i wanted to share it with my children some day, so that they can learn from my mistakes. I had a friend one time who told me all of these things she'd done that she and I both knew were wrong. I remember that i was too worried about keeping our friendship that instead of telling her taht what she was doing was wrong, i just ignored it. What kept me tossing and turning all night was that she knew what she was doing was wrong and she knew i wouldnt approve of it, but i didnt do anything about it. and i feel like now that she needed me to tell her to straighten up. she needed me to address it with a matter of importance in order for her to know that i cared about what she did. and she needed someone to stand up for what was right when she hadnt done so herself. So future children of mine, dont ever hesitate to stand up for what you know is right. I wasnt by any means encouraging her to continue what she was doing, but by not speaking up about it, i was doing nothing to help her and nothing to stand up for what i knew was right. I want my future children to know who they are and what they believe in, but more importantly i want them to have the confidence to share that with others so that they can stand up for what is right when noone else is. got that kids?!

I think ill just put in my request for perfect children.

you can never have to much sugar in sugar cookies!

While walking aimlessly through the grocery store aisles (never a good idea!) i had the sudden urge to achieve the epitomy of my mothers baking skills and attempt to make her delicious sugar cookies (no easy feat i assure you!) but with a little bit of extra sugar and making a riskinator move by adding more sour cream soley because i thought something was "missing", i have to boast a little and say i didnt do all that badly! in fact, the only thing missing to make give them ultimate perfection is the "mom touch" which i assume only comes after years of perfecting the sugar cookie science! I even made homemade frosting and colored some different colors so kyle and i could decorate them. We had tons of fun using our cute cookie cutters that we got for our wedding.

For the last bit of dough thats not quite enough to roll out and cut, kyle and i sculpted our own shapes. I made a femur bone! :)

We only have a couple of weeks left before school starts up again I'm enjoying the no schedule life, but kyle is starting to get a little stir crazy! We had such a fun time on a vacation with my family to flaming gorge, spending a week on a house boat with no plans but to soak up the sun and have fun boating. I learned how to kneeboard and took one for the team when i was the first to try a 20 ft rope swing, only to find the results were a very painful backflop. (what can i say, i was born with lack of fear and grace!) Kyle faced his fears and jumped off the top of the house boat and even learned to dive! We all were very impressed!

One night we went off the slide late at night! It was such a fun week!

its a busy life!

Kyle and I have had a few busy weekends! I've been meaning to write about all of our adventures but schools been keeping me too busy, so here are the highlights!

Horseback Riding

Kyle decided to face his fear of horses and signed us up to go horseback riding with the school! It was freezing and kyle's first horse was so lazy they had to switch him, but it was lots of fun! Kyle has decided when we are rich, we are going to get horses!

Families

Kyle's brother, Kory, came home from his mission and we flew to Colorado for the homecoming. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed because of bad weather and we missed the big "WELCOME HOME!" and kory instead had to wait for US to fly in! But we had lots of fun having ALL of the Johnson all together for the exciting event! Kyle's older brother Jordon took a book called missionary reminders with him on his mission. He made his own notes along with the 500 missionary tips and then gave Kyle to book for his mission. Kyle did the same and then gave it to Kory to do the same and in 15 years Jonah will have lots of advice! We had a fun time reading over the notes and laughing at what all the boys had to say. We had a really fun weekend!

The next weekend we headed back down to Utah for my grandma's 80th birthday. We made our own makeshift four-square court and played in the sun and my sister brielle finally got to share the exciting news with my parents that her and jared are expecting a baby in December! Again we had lots of fun and had a hard time going back to school.

Inspiration

This morning Kyle and I went to watch the runners come in from the Teton Dam Races. It was fun and mob mentality quickly inspired Kyle and I to run in the races next year. Kyle thought maybe he could do a full marathon and I was feeling really inspired and said I could run the half marathon! It would be cool for me to say I ran a half marathon and I know Kyle could do a full, but we'll see how long this inspired running high lasts!

joining the blogging world :)

I figure now that we are married, I can officially join the blogging club!

Kyle and I are staying busy busy busy with school. He is almost always swamped with History reading and I am always swamped with anatomy studying. We both find our subjects "the best" and more interesting than the other does. Our conversations while doing homework consist of each of us sharing some "really cool fact" that we find fascinating and the other finds ridiculously not worth our time remembering. I told Kyle last night that its a good thing we both like different subjects because he can take care of bringing all the history knowledge with us into the next life and I can take all of the human anatomy knowledge! :) We make a good team!

Only two more weeks until Kyle's brother comes home from his mission and we are skipping a few days of school to fly back to colorado! Kyle is so excited to see his brother and I am so excited to see my family! :) We just have to get trhough two more weeks of school...bleh!

We like married life! :)