That's about all folks!

Well hello again blogging world! Its been a while!

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Our lives have become rather monotonous these days. We started work in January so our schedule consists of waking up BEFORE the early risers, driving a hour to and from work and returning home, eating dinner and back in bed by 8:30 so we can do it all again the next day.

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Its rather uneventful and not really worth blogging about. However, there are a few exciting things to update about for my future posterities sake.

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First, I blogged last on Christmas Eve and mentioned we were going to Idaho since we didnt know when my sisters little dude would make his entrance into the world. Within hours she texted my mom saying she didnt this she was going to make it until Monday, her scheduled date to be induced. And by 11:15 pm Christmas Eve night Parker Daniel Rucks made his debut into the world!

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He came weighing in at 6 pounds 7 ounces and 19 inches long.

He has been simply perfect, but my opinion may be a false representation since I get to hold him and love him and then give him back and get a full 8 hours of sleep at night! :)

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Second, my cousin got married! We went to their wedding just this last weekend. It was a very nice ceremony and they left in a wonderfully decorated car :) Unfortunately, I'm often a failure at documenting our life experiences!

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Thats about the extent of excitement for us these days. We've just be chugging along through work. One month down, two more to go!

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When we were in Utah for my cousins wedding, Kyle and I were so close to Rexburg! We were tempted to just forget work and go back up to Idaho instead of returning to Colorado. We've been living with Kyles family so we can save as much money here as possible. We're greatful for the blessing and opportunity we have to save money for school, but I've been rather home sick for our own place these last couple days. I miss that place and I cant wait until work is over and we can get back to our normal life again!
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But until then, thats about all folks!

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.