Clauss House

Bird's the word

2012-01-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

Ok...here is my attempt at catching up...what put me so far behind? You know how I like everything in order, and I wanted to get this blog post done so I could then blog about everything else that's happened...it all started a couple months ago (first week of October to be exact) when I came home from a walk. I walked in the downstairs bathroom and heard a noise. It sounded like it was coming from behind me (laundry room) or above me (our bedroom/bathroom). I got really freaked out after I walked in the laundry room and clearly heard it above me. I grabbed a long screwdriver and my phone. I called Carleton's office and told him I thought someone was in the house. You see, I always, ALWAYS lock the door but my key was in my car in the garage and I didn't want to walk through the house with my tennis shoes on, so against my better judgment thought, it's only 45 minutes and we live across the street from a sheriff. Ok so back to the phone call...Carleton asked where I was, I told him I was outside with a screwdriver, he told me to go back inside to see if anyone was there. I made sure he knew our address (a week earlier when we bought our car he wrote down the wrong address, I thought that's all I need... him calling 911 them coming to find "nothing wrong" because they're at the wrong house!) I walked inside and was quietly going up the stairs. Carleton kept asking if I was still there, I said yes but I'm trying to be quiet, he told me to do the opposite so I said in the bravest loud voice I could muster, "Hello, is anyone there?" ... no answer (phew!)

I proceed to go in my bedroom and look around, nothing. I switch the screwdriver for my gun and look around the rest of the upstairs...bathrooms (yanking back shower curtains), walk-in closets, under all the beds, nothing. I thought, perhaps the perp went downstairs while I was outside talking to Carleton, so I checked the whole downstairs again. When I went in the laundry room I heard more walking around, at this point I thought it was either an animal or a really loud and therefore stupid criminal. I went upstairs again and looked behind all my big dresses, nada.

After returning the gun to it's rightful place I went in the laundry room, this time I heard the noise between the laundry room and bathroom walls. Figuring it must be an animal I decide to get ready and leave, I jump in the shower (still cautious) and get ready. Right before I leave I go in one last time. The walking critter is now in our dryer hose. I called Carleton to give him the latest, he said to tap the hose to see if it would go back out the way it came. After listening to me knock it with my foot he said, "not too hard, the hose could come off". Not wanting a squirrel or anything else crawling up my pants, I decided to shut the door and leave right then.

That night Carleton detached the hose and set a trap:

He tucked a mat under the door before we went to dinner, just in case:

His hope was it would crawl out, fall in the box and not be able to crawl back out. Good idea, right?

All night we kept knocking on the dryer and checking the box, no sounds, no critter. This was Thursday. Friday morning Carleton checked and saw a box and laundry room floor with poop on them plus boxes and things moved around, but no critter. I asked him to look one last time before he went to work. He opens the door to find something fluttering in his face. He said, "WHOOOAAA" and quickly shut the door, "well that explains a lot". He then located a box to catch this bird. I wish I would've recorded it, it was the funniest thing I've heard in a very long time. He started off saying things like, "hey we're all on the same team" to "I'm not trying to hurt you! If I wanted you dead I would've eaten you by now!" to "We're all friends here, we want the same thing" to "Get in the box you stupid bird!" It was HILARIOUS!

He caught it, he actually caught it with a box!

Time for the release:

Thanks, honey have a good day at work!

The next day, Saturday, I was washing and waxing the cars while he was taking the dryer hook-ups off so we could clean them, and he could clean out the back of the dryer. A few hours later, we were done, all was clean and we decided to rent a movie to watch that night. I washed a load of clothes on an hour and 27 minute cycle, shut the door and sat down for the movie. With about two minutes remaining Carleton says, water's leaking. I said how do you know? C: I can hear it.

We both run to the laundry room to find inches of water all over the place. 4 bath towels, several dish towels, 2 mops, 2 fans, and a LOT of ringing out later (over 2 hours) we had gotten most of the water up. Somehow the washing machine hose came off while our guest was visiting. I HATE that bird.

Then, a couple weeks later, guess what. It happened again. Carleton went under the house to see how on earth critters were getting inside. We thought it might be a mouse this time, but there was no way it could've come up through the crawl space. Two days later we find the exact same type of bird (probably the exact same one) in our dryer. This time I recorded Carleton from outside the door, it wasn't nearly as funny, not even a little bit. He didn't bother with the box shenanigans this time, he just used some gardening gloves. One new dryer hose and a lot of cleaned out seeds and bird poop later, our dryer was put back together and our house bird free.

The week of Thanksgiving it actually happened again. (SERIOUSLY?!) Hence the picture I put up on Thanksgiving:

I'm happy to report since Thanksgiving we've had no more visitors (knock on wood).

Halloween

2011-12-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

Carleton decided to carve the scariest thin he could think of in our pumpkin this year...

...unfortunately nobody else got it...and by the time I took a picture of it it was a little wilted:(

Saturday before Halloween we went to a really fun party hosted by Ashley and Clyde Ward. We were running short on time and ideas for Halloween costumes especially since we didn't know if I'd still be pregnant or not. Carleton decided I could just wear a maternity shirt I already own and we'd make a shirt for him to go with it...

...I guess he dressed up as a pervert?

the wonderful hosts:)

Thanks, Wards for a great night!

On Halloween night we went to one of our favorite mexican restaurants with some friends. I was a little bummed thinking we'd miss all the trick or treaters in our neighborhood but luckily our neighborhood was still hoping at 8:45 and even later. We barely got the car parked when we had our first doorbell ring. We were two treats away from running out of candy!

love a fair

2011-12-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

We love going to the North Carolina State fair every year. The NC State ice crem is always on the must buy list, no matter if it's hot or freezing. This year we ventured out and didn't get oreo....the chocolate peanut butter was still amazing though:)

Afterwards we picked out a pumpkin and went to my parents' house for a quick visit before going to the youth halloween dance. It was awesome but none of my girls went so Carleton made me leave...but not before we rocked out to the bieber dance!

PS this was about one week pre-Tinley:)

Birth and baby class

2011-11-29T15:37:00.000-08:00

We took a condensed birth and baby class...2 hours one night, 7 hours the next day. Carleton said he would not wear the belly...

...we see who won that battle.

So much to be grateful for

2011-11-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

I am a stickler for doing blog posts in order, call me OCD about it if you want, I know I am. Hence the reason I've been so slack on doing posts...between being overwhelmed with how much I have to catch up on, to not knowing what to take pictures of for the 30-day photo challenge, choosing what pictures to share, and waiting on receiving pictures, the blog got swept under the rug...again. Hopefully from now on I'll be better...but no promises;)

I had to go out of order this one time just so I can say how thankful I am before Thanksgiving is two months away.

A few things I'm thankful for are...

Tinley- she is such a blessing in our lives, we are so grateful for her healthy body, sweet spirit, and all around perfect self.

Husband- Carleton is such an incredible dad and husband, he does so much for us and I love him more than words can describe.

America- We are so blessed to live in a free country! I'm thankful for those who fight to defend those freedoms.

Newborn care- I had a fantastic doctor throughout my pregnancy, she was great through the delivery, stepping back letting Carleton deliver Tinley. Now we have a wonderful pediatrician, David Johnson, to care for our beautiful baby girl! Wipes, diapers, nasal aspirators, swaddle blankets etc. are also in this category of things I love and am grateful for for my newborn!

Kind people- I was at Dick's Sporting Goods Friday morning, I spent over $100 and the man next to me gave me his "spend $100 get $25 off" coupon. Last year, I went to the post office to mail a package, I didn't realize I didn't have my wallet in my purse until I got to the counter. A guy overheard me (after I'd been waiting in line for 45 minutes) he let me use his credit card to pay the $45 shipping cost, I found $40 cash in my purse and gave it to him but he wouldn't let me get his address to send him a check for the rest, he said to just pay it forward. I was shocked that he was so willing to pay almost $50 to a complete stranger just to be kind.

Family- I feel like whatever I write here will be completely insufficient for how grateful I am for the family I was raised in, married into, and for each person that has entered since.

Unconditional love- I'm so grateful for those who love me despite my faults as well as those who
I'm lucky enough to have in my life to love through anything.

Loving Heavenly Father- He knows all of our desires and struggles and never ceases to perform miracles.

Now a quick recap of how we spent our Thanksgiving:

Tinley and I put on some warm clothes to watch Carleton play Turkey bowl with some guys from church. Every year we're in town, Carleton plays and I love watching him. I look forward to it every year:) I forgot to bring my camera unfortunately

After some football we came home and Carleton attached this to the house...more on that in a later post.

Then we had Thanksgiving at my parents house that afternoon

Tinley's outfit was huge on her but it had a turkey on it and said "Thankful for mommy and daddy" so I had to put her in it. We're thankful for her too:)

Being a baby is messy, so you always have to come prepared with extra outfits...she needed hers pretty much as soon as we arrived to my parents' house.

Eating so much can make you very sleepy!

Of course there's nothing like a camera flash to wake you up...

...so you can watch more football

out with the old

2011-11-21T12:57:00.000-08:00

and in with the new!

I got a new car the first weekend of October!

Charleston with the Connells!

2011-11-20T02:40:00.000-08:00

For labor day we went to visit the Connells in Charleston. While there we did lots of fun things. We arrived Friday night and started Saturday morning off with a beach trip to Kiawah Island.

After playing in the water and enjoying the beach for a few hours we went back to Kristin and Ben's house to get cleaned up for pictures and a nice dinner downtown. While Kristin and I stayed at the house with Annabelle, Ben and Carleton took Ben's brother out for lunch. They brought us back a yummy variety of food...including a moose burger...I think. It was delish!

I wanted to have some maternity pictures with Carleton in them and Kristin graciously agreed to take them-thank you, Kristin:) Prepare for some picture overload!

He's so cute. I just love him to pieces:)

Sunday after church and naps Ben stayed home while Annabelle continued to nap and the rest of us went downtown to walk around.

That evening we went to Folly beach to see Morris Light house...and take some pictures. Ben and Annabelle were there too.

check out the pictures I took of the Connells on my photography blog here.

Monday was pretty rainy followed by some pretty hot weather. We went to Angel Oak first and took a few pictures of this crazy big old tree. It is "reportedly the oldest thing - living or man-made - east of the Rockies, Angel Oak is a live oak tree aged approximately 1,500 years".

After that we went to the Aquarium. Carleton LOVES aquariums.

What a fabulous long weekend, thank you Ben and Kristin for making it that way:)

Photo Challenge day 9

2011-10-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

Someone you love:

Although it may not be his real smile at least he's not hiding from the camera! I got this shot by asking him to sit in a place where my clients would be...sucker;)

Clauss House Projects

2011-10-04T09:41:00.001-07:00

We've (mostly Carleton) been fairly busy working on projects around the house. What we thought would be a 5 day thing, tops, turned into a couple weeks...let's start at the beginning. Carleton pulled the toilet up in the master bathroom then saw it was leaky and black underneath. Great. That meant the flooring had to get ripped out, Phillip came over and worked his magic (no idea what happened except it was pretty loud and some of the floor was replaced, end result: no more mold, we can start the project again). Carleton eventually got the rest of the flooring done and was able to tile most of the floor while I was at my shower in Greensboro. Way to go, honey! The first picture shows how much he'd done before I left for the shower and Auxilary training that morning. I was gone from about 8:00am to 5:00pm.

And the mostly final product...of course we cleaned the thinset off the baseboard and had to put quarter round around the entire thing along the baseboards.

Needless to say, I'm very happy I no longer have to walk all the way down the hall to the guest bathroom 6 times/night to pee!

This past Saturday we worked on lots of projects, one of which being this:

Staining the back porch. I actually did most of it, but Carleton started and finished it.

Baby Showers!

2011-10-04T09:07:00.001-07:00

I had three wonderful baby showers thrown for me in Chapel Hill and Greensboro by 8 incredible women.

First baby shower and the lovely hosts:

Lana made this delicious cake:

I requested to have the same one from our reception in TN because it was amazing!

I had to guess how much each of the items in the basket cost, I was closest on ONE item. It was a little embarrassing.

My mom made this little diaper motorcycle thing, it was cute:)

Second baby shower (milk and cookies theme) and the beautiful girls who threw it:

Talk about your variety of cookies!

And what's a milk and cookies party without cute straws for the milk! They had regular and chocolate milk and pink lemonade to drink!

I loved the banner that Kathryn made of the progress pictures throughout my pregnancy, I wish I would've taken a better picture of it...I thought I did. I will, eventually!

...we had fruit too:)

Three pregnant women: Me (yikes-note to self: don't curl hair and/or wear sweaters while pregnant if it's not freezing outside-you get hot/sweaty and therefore look ugly!) Heather (who has since had her baby) and Hayley (due three days after me!)

And the last but certainly not least baby shower:

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the host (or any other people for that matter, myself included) at this one, but Jess and Allison did a fantastic job. The decorations were beautiful, the food was tasty, and the games were fun! The theme was "She's about to POP!" hence the cheesecake "pops" on top of the cake, popcorn kernal guessing game, and other "pop" themed foods...like white chocolate popcorn with m&ms...yum.

Allison's famous chocolate/raspberry cake:

The game table:

Looking at theses pictures make me HUNGRY, all the food was AMAZING! I loved all the details in each of the showers. I know they each worked so hard making everything perfect and I appreciate it so much!

A HUGE "thank you" to my mom, Jesica, Lana, Christal, Kathryn, Becca, Jess, and Allison for all the work you did! Thank you also to all those who came!

Photo Challenge Day 8

2011-10-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

A bad Habit:

If you asked my husband (and others) they would say that I'm CRAZY for wearing heels such as these at 8.5 months pregnant. What can I say, I'm a heel kind of gal.

PS- Carleton would also say that ~~crying~~ sobbing at random times is a bad (yet hysterical) habit at the moment too.

Youth Conference

2011-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Carleton and I chaperoned the 10-stake youth conference held at ECU this year. It was CRAZY hot (as in over 100 degrees every single day) but it was incredible. The speakers, the performers, and the youth were all amazing! We're so glad we got to go be a part of it. I was waiting to do this post until we got a picture of our group (family) and I'm happy to report Kyle came through! Thanks, Kyle;)

I love these pictures:

I was looking at this picture (right) that Aja took and it reminded me of another picture...one from two months before we got engaged. I love how they're almost identical down to the placement of my hand and my fingernail polish! And no, that was not planned.

While we were dancing I looked around and these two people were taking pictures of Carleton and me with their disposable camera...I'd never seen them before, glad we're that awkward "short girl/tall guy" couple that gets made fun of and random pictures taken of! I never thought that would be me.

HE thinks he's so funny:

Carleton telling our group he doesn't think this activity will work:

Part of our family:

all of our family!

My crazy swollen feet/ankles:

luckily they were back to normal by Monday morning.

And the Bieber dance... we were actually really good at it, we just got a little thrown off by the pressure of the camera, and we started in the middle instead of the beginning...then I tried getting creative at the end, we should've just done it how we always did, oh well.

Harry Potter

2011-10-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

We went to see Harry Potter on opening night, it did not disappoint! Carleton met us (Jes, Phillip, Weston, and myself) at dinner. When he walked into the restaurant he was wondering who this girl staring at him was and thought "my pregnant wife will not be happy this chick keeps staring at me"...a minute later he realized it was me. I guess he forgot I'd gotten bangs the day before!

This is actually the better of the two pictures...he was pretending to sneeze in this picture, so I took his head off the other one where he wasn't ready for the picture. The things I have to go through to get a picture. That's why we have so few of the two of us together...well few considering how many things we do that I'd like to document!

Photo Challenge Day 7

2011-09-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

Fruit:

Photo Challenge Day 6

2011-09-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

From a low angle:

When I went to Hanging Rock for some maternity pictures, I took a few pictures of one of the "falls" to the side and below where we took all my pictures.

Maternity Pictures at Hanging Rock

2011-08-29T09:11:00.001-07:00

Amy and I ventured to the lower cascades at Hanging Rock to get some epic maternity pictures. The product below is what you get when two photographers with one goal get together. All photos taken by Amy Terrell of Simple Moments Photography and edited by me.

Thank you, Amy!

Photo Challenge Day 5

2011-08-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

From a High Angle:

Photo Challenge Day 4

2011-08-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Something Green:

Living in NC when I hear "something green" I automatically think of all the trees we have. However, having shot my last wedding before baby arrives last weekend, I thought I'd show a different green. Heather was my last bride of 2011, when I first met her I noticed she had spectacular green eyes. Today I wanted to show those off as my something green!

Photo Challenge Day 3

2011-08-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Clouds:

I stepped outside as soon as it was done raining to grab my "day 3" pictures...then I forgot to post them:/

My little handyman :)

2011-07-25T09:05:00.001-07:00

Carleton has been very into home projects lately...the nursery, crown molding in the entire house, chair rail in the formal dining room, etc. Well he wanted to try his hand at tiling as well so we decided to do it on the upstairs guest bathroom.

putting down thinset and ditra:

Yes, that is the toilet sitting in the tub.

cutting tiles with the wet saw:

checking all his spacing and measurements:

Finished product!

I think it looks great!

Photo Challenge day 2

2011-07-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm back from youth conference (which was AMAZING!) and I promise to be diligent with posting the 30-day challenge pictures.

Picture 2: What you wore today.

Oh yeah, I'm also sporting my new haircut, complements of Hayley Hansen:)

Better late than never

2011-07-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

My friend, Ali decided to do a 30-day photo challenge, and I loved the idea but being gone for 6 days with girls camp and Wed-Sat this week at youth conference I thought maybe I shouldn't, or at least postpone it...well I'm done postponing. Today marks the first day of the photo challenge for me. So while there will be a break in posting pictures while I'm away being a "ma" chaperon, they will be posted eventually:) I'm also hoping this will help me blog more regularly since I keep slacking off! I think it's because my husband hates pictures so much that I'm not taking any (except for at all the weddings and other shoots I have!)

picture 1: Self-portrait

Disclaimer: If I'm not holding the camera all pictures will still be taken by me...with a tripod...and the remote shutter-release in my hand;)

4th of July

2011-07-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

The fourth of July was a little wetter than it has been in years past. We were worried fireworks would be canceled but luckily, the Mebane ones still happened even though several of the surrounding areas were either canceled or postponed to the following night.

We started the day off doing some work around the house...always fun, then my family came over to go to the pool for a few hours that afternoon. Amazingly, there was hardly anyone there, it was so nice! Later we went to Jes and Phillip's house for a grill/potluck party with their neighbors...the flies really wanted in on the action too, there were SO MANY swarming the food, yuck, it was like a game trying to keep everything covered before the flies landed on it. After eating some yummy food the rain forced everyone inside. My parents left, thinking the fireworks would be canceled but we stuck it out. We watched most of the fireworks at a park in Mebane with Jes and family before deciding to head out and miss all the traffic.

For those who are curious I'm 22 weeks here. The night before was the first time Carleton felt our little girl kick!

I don't know why he hates pictures SOOOO MUCH. He definitely married the wrong person.

Carleton teaching the kids how to whistle with grass. Talan looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel!

Fail

2011-06-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

My friend, Lauren, put up a map of all the places she's visited or lived in in honor of the 4th of July, so I thought I would do the same. Mine is pitiful! BUT I will tell you all these places are places I've visited (or lived in) for more than just a few days, none of this "I remember driving through that place" so I'm sure there are actually more places. It's still kind of pathetic though!

me:

visited 13 states (26%)

Create your own visited map of The United States

the boy:

visited 37 states (74%)

Create your own visited map of The United States

Carleton's is much more impressive!

And now it's time to pack for girls camp, I'll be there all week!

Is it sad?

2011-06-22T13:44:00.001-07:00

that I love the nursery better without a crib in it? It's so big, it covers up the pretty walls we spent so much time on and the color is just a little too light for my taste with the walls, I think it might clash. I feel like it needs to be either SUPER dark or really light. Once we have more stuff in there though I think I'll like it better...there isn't much in there yet...in fact just the crib, but I wanted to show what we've been working on the last week and a half. We didn't like the original white, so we painted a brighter one, then we thought the boards and wall looked dingy next to the chair rail so we painted it yet another white, all in all 3 different whites before we decided on the white it is now, who knew white would turn out to be the problem color!

Carleton has been amazing about putting crown molding in the ENTIRE house, he's quite handy with a miter saw (who knew!) and loves all the projects we've done to beautify the house. I haven't taken pictures of the other rooms because I feel like there's always ONE MORE THING I want to do (ie: living room, hang up-after we get it framed- our 15x30 eiffel tower picture). In our bedroom I want to hang up a couple things, including make a multi canvas piece of art and refinish all of our furniture black, but what we've done with our bedroom so far looks awesome! At least I think it does:) Maybe I'll put up the works in progress since that's what I'm doing with the nursery!

Starting out with nothing but some paint swatches in the corner:

Being Crafty

2011-06-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

I LOVE being crafty. But I feel like it takes a lot of motivation, especially when you think about all the stuff you need to buy, pull out of bins, and then clean up afterwards. It's time consuming and messy. BUT when a couple friends decided to have a sewing party one day I was thrilled to be a part of it! After about 5 hours, no real pattern, and a very patient Sofia, I was finished with this beauty! Sofia "made up" this bag, she measured out some freezer paper and used a plate to round the edges, the rest was just different lengths/widths strips of fabric. How cool! I took a picture pretty much immediately after finishing it and only moved the essentials from my other purse, can you tell I'm pregnant? 3/4 of the pockets are full of food and drink....typical. The outside has a pocket on each end, one is meant for keys, the other a phone...it might turn out to be a bottle pocket though in a few months;) Thank you Meaghan for hosting and Sofia for teaching! I'm excited for this to become a regular occurrence:)

Father's Day!

2011-06-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

This Father's Day we went to Jes' house for a cookout with the fam. I'm blessed to have such a wonderful dad and a great husband who I know will be a fantastic dad to our little girl...and any other kids we have in the future!

Doesn't he look thrilled to be in a picture with me? I promise he really does like me. He even tells me he loves me several times a day, he just doesn't show it in pictures. Oh well, Carleton's first partial father's day is officially documented whether he likes it or not!

Happy (late) father's day to all the daddies and daddies to be out there!

And today marks week 20, halfway there!!!

We're having a...

2011-06-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

GIRL!

My family and some of Carleton's family came in the day of our gender ultrasound for our gender reveal party. The day was SOOOO hot, mixed with a few random downpours here and there. Then I started getting everything ready too late and didn't get to get ready/dress cute like I wanted to. Oh well, it's not like I really wanted these pictures forever... :(

about to cut into the frosting to see if we're having a boy or a girl!

rather than cutting a slice of cake, carleton opened the cake...is he new to life? cake cutting?

it's pink inside!

and DELICIOUS!

Thank you, Elizabeth for making such a cute and yummy cake!

Carleton making fun of the "preggie"

he's gonna be a great dad someday...

Visit to see the Connells

2011-06-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's no secret, we really miss the Connells since they moved more than a mile away from us... WAY more than a mile away! Well fortunately we were able to go visit them for Annabelle's 1 year birthday party. Naturally, we had a great time! We miss ya'll and can't wait for a Charleston trip soon. YAY!

I mean really, can we ever take a normal picture together, husband?!

Aww, David. He's getting married next month!

I LOVE HER!!!

After the party we went to the lake- cut me some slack I'm 4 months pregnant here. My dr. is from India and super dark, so I needed to get some sun on my tummy so I didn't blind her at my upcoming appointment;)

We knew we'd be outside for the party, walking around the zoo (or so we thought!), and going to the lake, so it was a no shower day for the Clauss fam:/

Oh man, I totally want one of these in our back yard!

The main reason I've been MIA

2011-05-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging but...

2011-03-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

We're in the process of moving so most of my time has been dedicated to packing, cleaning, and trying to get away from this apartment full of boxes! This is only part of one room, there's also the living room that's packed with bins, now that all my pictures and shelves are off the walls I feel like it's time to move on from this place, it no longer feels like home.

But come Wednesday we will be living here:

ps: the top two pictures were taken from the photo booth built-in camera on my new 27" imac. It's a thing of beauty:)

**just to set the record straight, my mother-in-law purchased this house but is unable to move in until she retires and sells her home in TN, so we're going to live there until we buy our own house later this year:)

We were off to a good start...

2011-02-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

Too bad it didn't end that way.

I feel like my blog is turning into a craft blog...

2011-02-10T09:32:00.001-08:00

Oh well, here's another craft I did this week.

I wanted to make cute little, dainty headbands for my cute little, dainty newborn girls (not mine, those I photograph, obviously). With the help and expertise of my friend, Ashley Ward, I made these pretty headbands.

this one I made without attaching it to anything, but I do have thicker headbands I can clip it on to (there's a clip on the bottom). Or I might just wear this myself from time to time!

Valentine's Day Decor

2011-02-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

I have never decorated for Valentine's day, this year I wanted to.

I saw a bunch of crafts I wanted to do (I didn't end up doing all of them this year) and I have a lot of time on my hands during the day, so I went for them!

If you want tutorials on anything, let me know and I'll post them, although the only ones I did from tutorials are the felt heart which I've already posted, and the rosette balls. Unless you have the patience of Job, I would suggest not making the rosette balls, at least the red one! The pink one wasn't nearly as time consuming since the flowers are bigger.

I think I'll add a little something more to the I <3 U, but until then, here's what I've done!

New do!

2011-01-27T12:04:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand, here are some pictures of my new do!

1. My expression in this picture sums up how I felt about my hair. I thought, "wow my hair is way too long and blah, it doesn't hold curl like it used to, and when straightened looks gross". It actually was longer than it looks here because this was taken after sleeping in it with a pony tail, and going to the gym so it it got some volume from the ponytail bump!

2. After my visit to Hayley at Hairport 77

3. What you want to see how it looks curled? So did I! Now I'm thinking that I just can't curl my hair anymore, it's in a funk. I love the new cut but the curl is OFF. Maybe my rollers died when we moved to Greensboro? Oh and if you're wondering, I'm not eating something in this picture, I don't know why it looks like I have something in my mouth!

4. And for those of you who want to see what it looks like with one of my latest craft projects... the headband (one of 3 I made last week).

Next style for my new do will be curling it with a flat iron, wish me luck!

Do I look proud?

2011-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Do I look proud of the little heart wreath I just finished? Because I AM!

*edits to the tutorial, I got a smaller wreath, I think, about the length of my head or so, it was the "medium" heart at hobby lobby. It was much thinner than I would have thought from the tutorial pictures. I only bought 1/8 of a yard and have some left over and I think my circles were a little smaller (maybe). If you do any of these fun tutorials I'd love to see links to them!

More V-day crafts coming soon!

Productive snow day.

2011-01-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

I refused to sit at home and take more pictures of water on Wednesday, so instead I headed to Hobby Lobby (never even heard of it until earlier that day), picked up some craft supplies and went over to Jes'. Well thanks to my friend, Jenna, who always posts her cute crafts and the tutorials they came from, I was able to make a super cute headband and my sister made a really cute necklace. The tutorial for the necklace Jesica made is here, within that link is the link to a headband similar to the one I made...I decided on a regular headband with three flower/pom poms/whatever you call 'em rather than one. This lady (little miss momma) has some pretty cute crafts/tutorials and is really cute herself. I decided to take pictures of my new craft but had a similar problem to the one I did with the water pictures, the lenses! I had 2 wide lenses, one was lost, another stolen (long, sad story) so now I'm forced to use my telephoto lenses which are WAY zoomed in so it makes it really difficult to try to hold the camera and take a picture of yourself at the same time. Now that I've finished my rant I have a disclaimer, of course. One, I'm not and don't proclaim to be nearly as cute as "little miss momma". Two, I will not be taking nearly as many pictures of myself as she does, I feel weird enough with these three. And three, the photographer in me needs to say this. I know the picture on the left makes my hair look a little purple, BUT the picture was dark, like almost completely black, so when I lightened it up enough to be able to see me, this is the outcome. The first picture I took in my living room fighting with my tripod to get me in focus and in the frame, the second two were in the bathroom. The lighting is quite different in these two places, obviously. Ok enough disclaimers, let's see the dang headband already!

PS- I think next time I'll do a little less flower, it's a little big. That could just be because I'm new to the whole headband thing and usually think they look terrible on me; however, this one is growing on me. I will be making more:)

To conclude, we also made and ate cookies on this productive snow day and went to dinner with friends. Wednesday was a success.

What do you do?

2011-01-14T13:47:00.001-08:00

When you're cooped up inside all day due to the snow? This is what I did!

and if you were wondering, yes, I did get up and go outside at 7 in the morning with my tripod (still can't find my remote, darnit!) to take pictures in the snow with Carleton before he left for work that morning! Later after still deciding I was way too bored to stay inside I took my camera out and took pictures of the bushes and my car with the month and year carved in the snow/ice. If you're also wondering, Ashley what the heck are you wearing? Those are some old yoga/pj pants and I thought from a distance tucked into boots they would look like regular black pants and since Carleton wasn't wearing jeans...well you get the idea. TURNS OUT they look nothing like nice black pants, they're saggy and gross, hence the cropped picture to cover most of my poor decision up!

Later I was still SOOOOOO bored and Carleton, although the only one at work, decided to stay til 6, ugh.

That's right, I took pictures of WATER. Only a photographer would find this interesting in the slightest, and even then, it was borderline boring. If only I'd had a different lens to use for this it would've been a lot less of a hassle and probably would've yielded much better results!

After a few water drop pictures I decided to throw my rings in a champagne glass to see if I could get a cool ring shot, eh not exactly what I was hoping for, again if only...

As you can see, I get bored, will someone please come hang out with me?!

What's been happening in the Clauss House?

2011-01-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

August/September:

Well it's official, we now live in Greensboro, NC (and have for 4 months- yes I'm that behind!!). Carleton has started his job, he's passed the bar, gotten sworn in and everything! We really like the area and the friends we've met...but we need to hang out with them more, because it gets rather boring here on Saturday nights! A month or so ago I said, "Carleton, I want to get dressed and do something" (I'd been in sweats all day since our run that morning) and he was like oh wait we don't have any friends we can call to hang out like we used to, sad! We were spoiled in Durham being able to walk practically next door to see our friends or call when we were already on our way....or on their doorstep:)

Here are Carleton's official attorney pictures, taken by me:)

Anyway, we've been busy with lots of things, we got the apartment all decorated the first week we were here, Carleton has been working a lot, but usually leaves by 6:00pm which is AWESOME! He already had his first business trip to Rochester, MN to meet with one of their clients, it was a very lonely 4 days for me, even though I stayed at my parents house. Speaking of my parents, my dad got called into the Durham Stake presidency and was released as Bishop of the singles ward on his 5-year anniversary. In other church news, the ward boundaries in the Durham stake as well as Greensboro have changed for anyone who doesn't know and is interested, in fact, another stake has been formed! I've been busy with shoots, working on pictures and getting my logo where I want it to be and getting up my website! If you haven't checked it out yet, do so and pass it on:) Introducing: Art by Ashley Photography. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I got a big L-shaped desk that I LOVE and Carleton came through with a beautiful office chair after I searched for months and kept coming up short.

October:

We celebrated our 2 year anniversary October 10th. Carleton got me fast flats for all those times I find myself wearing insensible shoes and start complaining, especially on those photo shoots where I buy new shoes for a wedding and they seem ok in the store, then when I wear them for more than 5 minutes I'm dying. He also got me not one, but TWO bags of "hint of lime" tortilla chips. We're pretty sure those are laced with crack, they're sooo addicting. I feel like there was something else, but I can't remember for the life of me at the moment. I got him movies 1-6 of Harry Potter.

Allison came to visit for a day while Ted was in Utah interviewing for summer internships, we must have been good luck because he got the internship, way to go, Ted! She then came up after I won a contest on her blog (winning the MOST AMAZING BROWNIES EVER) she is welcome to come back everyday of the week:) Kristin came up for a few days (twice) which is always SOOO nice to have her, I miss these girls so much, ya'll come back anytime;) Ben came up a few days later in time for Kristin's 25th birthday and the halloween festivities!

We had a little party with the young/newly married group and Carleton and I dressed as the princess and the pea. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of us together, and Carleton pinned his "peapods" on him while I wasn't looking so he was only partially in costume...he pinned them to a gray BYU shirt or something instead of his green one. Oh well, you can't win em all I guess. Ashley Ward, my amazingly talented friend who makes all my newborn hats, made his peapod hat SOO last minute, she never ceases to amaze me. She opened an Etsy site and you guys should totally look her up, her stuff is great and very reasonably priced! Anyway, Carleton won the costume contest, even with his gray shirt. Most people put princess and pea, but there was one vote for just Carleton, so he BARELY won;) It was fun to see all the creepy and cute treats people made. I wish I would've taken pictures before most everything was eaten, darn.

The outlet mall opened in Mebane and Jes and I took full advantage of her living so close, it's been a nice excuse to go visit her, at first I was going once or twice a week, yikes! I decided to get myself a few early birthday presents:) I would've gotten things for Carleton too but he's so tall nothing I buy ever fits so I need him to go with me, shucks looks like another trip is in the near future!

November:

I turned 25 on November 14th, and I had a really nice birthday weekend/week. Carleton got me tickets to the UNC vs. Texas Longhorns basketball game at the Greensboro Coliseum, and did the usual spoiling he does practically everyday, he's so thoughtful:) I told him that when it's my birthday it has to be even better than every other day, if he weren't so great everyday it'd be a lot easier for him.

I also read all the Harry Potter books so I could have them completed before the 7th movie came out, goal completed! I'd never read them but I'd seen movies 1-6 so I wanted there to be at least some surprises in one of the books I'd read.

Thanksgiving was such a treat to spend with Carleton's family. We went to Tennessee, which I always love, I didn't bring my camera though:(

December:

Jes and Phillip brought the kids over while they went to see Harry Potter. It was the first snow of the year and we had a great time playing with the kids in it.

The Holt's hosted another extremely fun ugly sweater party, it's THE party we look forward to every year, and this year, I won the contest for the best/cutest/most creative (I'm not really sure what the requirement was) food, yay!!! In case you can't tell I'm sitting here patting myself on the back;)

Here's a picture of the goodies I took to the Holt's party (reindeer cake balls) as well as the brownie reindeer for the Howard's party...I guess I felt like sticking with a reindeer theme this year!

Carleton's mom, Lana, came into town and unfortunately we had to leave her alone almost every night she was here:( First we had Carleton's Christmas party/dinner which was phenomenal. The food was exquisite and the company was great too, he works with some really wonderful people, and their wives (those who are married) are great too. The next night was the basketball game Carleton got me for my birthday and what an awesome and SOOO CLOSE TO WINNING game it was! The game wasn't decided until the last 1.4 seconds, I was freaking out. That was followed by another fun ugly sweater party, thank you, Howards! Here are a few pictures I snagged off their blog;)

I actually played this game (from minute to win it) at the Holt's party too, and I won. Here I went on for like 5 or 6 minutes, Carleton spanked me (figuratively speaking).

Carleton was very happy with our white elephant steal:

Apparently something Colby was doing was FUN-NY!

A few days before Christmas my mom, sister, the kids, and I all went to Old Salem and had a fun day together. After walking outside in the very frigid weather we came back to my place, painted toes and fingernails, drank hot chocolate and watched a movie. I'd say that counts as a successful day:)

Last week was Christmas and aside from people getting over the flu, others having the flu, and me getting the flu that night/and throwing up etc. all night and the next two days, it was great. What's not to love- Being with the family, counting blessings, being thankful for a loving Saviour who never ceases to bless us, and all the other wonderful things that come with "Christmas". It snowed, I feel like the world's worst photographer having not taken any snow pictures, but I felt like I was on my death bed:(

Last night, for New Years Eve, I sat on the couch and continued to work on this update. I had to re-update the Clauss House update since I started writing this post November 17th, UGH.

That pretty much sums up what we've been up to as far as I can tell...I'm sure that since I'm blogging 4 months at once that I've missed things but Oh well! Now that I'm caught up I'll post more as more things happen:) My new years resolution (one of them) is to keep up with it, so keep on me if I fall behind!

Rome.

2010-11-17T05:45:00.000-08:00

I can do this-finish posting about our trip-so I can get on to more current postings!

Our final stop was Rome. The night we arrived we went to the Fountain di Trevi. It is beautiful. It's crazy to think that people carved/sculpted these things hundreds of years ago without the electric tools we have today to help. I can't imagine how long it must've taken, and the patience required for such a task.

I'm not the biggest museum person, but Carleton loves them. I had had more than my fill of museums by the time we got to Rome, but there were a few more Carleton wanted to see and one that he knew I'd love, The Borghese, which happens to be his favorite museum. We had to buy tickets one day and go another because they only let so many people in at a time and everyone has to have an appointment to get in. When we finally got in, I was nothing short of awestruck. They had a lot of nice sculptures, but nothing, NOTHING compares to Bernini's work...figures it's one of the places you're not allowed to take pictures. I recommend looking up "Bernini" in google, he is AMAZING. I found this video that has two of my favorite Bernini works, I highly recommend watching it. After that, all the other places we went to with sculptures seemed rather bland, they're incredible and I'm still amazed they can carve those things out of stone, but it was nothing like the marble that is butter in Bernini's hands.

We took a day to go to Vatican City.

Here's the map room (hall) in the Vatican:

Famous sculpture in the Vatican museum:

Carleton looking so thoughtful, "School of Athens" in the Vatican:

After visiting the Vatican, we went to St. Peter's Basilica, where we walked all the way to the top, yet again.

back at the bottom:

Also, while in Rome we went to the Coliseum and the Ruins.

inside the coliseum:

The Pantheon, one of the oldest buildings with original roof in the world, and the arc de Titus:

The fountain of Rivers by Bernini:

One of the last little museums we visited:

Carleton and I spent some evenings by the pool and just relaxing our last couple days on the trip. We knew when we got home it would be late Monday night, we were moving early Tuesday morning, then flying to Utah Wednesday afternoon (after a newborn session) for Carleton's friends' wedding.

For more pictures from our trip see my picture blog or my facebook page.

That's it, folks! Our Europe trip is officially wrapped up, now on to some (slightly) more current updates!

Florence/Tuscany.

2010-11-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

Now on to my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE part of the trip, Tuscany.

Carleton asked me what some things I wanted to do while we were in Europe were and I really didn't know, he's the one who'd been there two or three times already, not me, so I felt like he would know better. I knew I wanted a romantic kissing picture in front of the Eiffel Tower and after doing some research I wanted to go to Montepulciano (where the Italy scenes in New Moon were filmed). It was about two hours away from the hotel we stayed at, but how often do you get to go to Europe for three weeks? I figured now was my chance. We stayed in Florence the whole time, but we rented a car for two of the days we were there and drove all over Tuscany.

The first day (and all the other days we didn't have the car) we just stayed in the area, went to see the duomo, all the outdoor shops and walked around the city.

The lines for a couple of the museums were ridiculously long so we decided after waiting for an hour and not moving that we would do other things. We walked up to the Piazza Michelangelo which has a replica of David since we skipped that museum. It's a beautiful area that overlooks Florence.

The next day (our first day with the car) we went to Montepulciano. It was AMAZING. The city is gorgeous as well as the drive there. Drivers in Europe are INSANE, with two lanes there will inevitably be 5 of 6 cars side by side at a time, and people on mopeds are even crazier than the average driver. We were pretty much terrified at all times while driving. Our GPS apparently had a faulty connection so halfway to Montepulciano it died, thank goodness for Carleton and being ten thousand times better at directions and "feeling the way" than me! I would've been so lost and pulled over crying had I been driving without him. We finally made it to the right area, eventually found a place to park and started the steep walk up to the clock tower as seen in New Moon. FYI, the fountain Bella runs through is not really there. Carleton, being the good sport he is, did some New Moon/Edward reenactment pictures for me:) Love him! This time I decided I wouldn't add sparkles to his skin:)

We went inside and on our way back down from the tope there was a young boy (maybe 12 or 13) with two girls around his same age, perhaps a little older. Carleton and I were standing behind them when all of a sudden his whips off his shirt and the girls start clawing at his chest and trying to kiss his cheeks. Apparently we weren't the only ones with this idea. I snapped a quick picture from behind;)

I then got my pictures in the doorway and we were on our way to explore more places.

We took pictures in alleys and of the beautiful surrounding scenery.

We headed back to the car just drove around the neighboring cities and through the country. We pulled over to check out some vineyards:

We saw the most amazing sunflower fields so of course I made Carleton pull over for picture time. Good thing I brought my tripod! Unfortunately the sun was SOOOO bright so it was not ideal for pictures. We would wait for clouds to come but they'd only last a few seconds and I forgot to bring my remote so I had to set the timer and run, we somehow managed to get some ok pictures although I had a much different idea in mind.

Oh well.

Carleton also snapped some pics of me that I think turned out really good, who knew he was such the photog!

After we packed up the camera and left our spot we had been on the road for maybe two minutes when I saw even more sunflowers...we pulled over again:)

The next day we went to La Spezia were we hiked Cinque Terre (the five beautiful cities). What started as a 5K hike turned into a 9K hike (we didn't realize this until we'd finished it). The first stretch was really tame, anybody could've done it.

Places like the picture below were all over Italy, people put locks on fences, benches, gates, etc. then lock them and throw the key in nearby water. It's supposed to symbolize being together forever, I thought it was so cute so we looked for locks everywhere we went so we could do it. I'd heard about it before we even left for our trip but forgot to buy one in the states, darnit!

After the first city it got more and more treacherous we were climbing up rocks and when we'd stop my legs started shaking uncontrollably, still despite the difficult hiking circumstances this was one of my favorite days of the entire trip. Thank you, Anna for recommending it! I wish I would've taken more pictures, but there was this REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY annoying family behind us that we were trying to keep our distance from.

On our way back we stopped by the leaning tower of Pisa:

The panda was a great (and tiny!) car.

This next picture is completely unflattering, but we had to get a picture of one of the foods we ate almost daily, gelato!

Oh how I miss it...Carleton and I want to buy a villa in Tuscany so we can go there often, anybody care to go in on it with us? :)

Venice.

2010-11-17T05:29:00.000-08:00

I LOVED Venice, it was one of my favorite stops on our trip, had it not been for Tuscany, it probably would've been my favorite. Everywhere you go, you have to travel by some sort of boat, we always took the Ferry (it's sort of like a boat metro) whenever we had to get to a different island. The idea of gondolas is very romantic, the reality is everyone is leaning over the bridges, walkways, ferries taking pictures of you, I bet if you tried to sneak in a kiss 60 people would capture it on camera. Plus they're expensive like 80 euros which is around $105 USD, for 40 minutes.

So we decided to do other things with our money like go to Murano and buy handmade glass. First, we watched a couple guys make it, which was really really cool. Then we went to all the little shops on the island and bought a few things. Every year we try to have an ornament that symbolizes something special to us, so this year we bought a really pretty handmade, glass ornament from Murano. It symbolizes a lot...Carleton finishing law school and him getting a job, the end of one chapter, the start of another (the whole reason we went on this "bar trip") as well as our big, fun thing we did for the year and in one of our favorite places...not like I didn't LOVE the bahamas in January:)

Our hotel had a private beach, but we were too busy doing other things to go to any beaches, plus one of the days was pretty rainy. We went to all the famous "must see" places like St. Mark's square, and St. Peter's Basilica but we also went places where we were practically the only ones in sight. Like this little gem of an alley:

In my opinion that was WAY better than feeling like a cow being herded through the crowds. We didn't know where we were going most of the time, but that was half the fun of it. We always made it back to our hotel on Lido eventually! The vibrant colors of the buildings and water are just two of several things that make this place so beautiful to me.

Little photo op at sunset:

Another place we went where we were practically the only ones there was the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. We went to the top of that too to take in the view:

Next stop, Florence.

Next stop, Milan.

2010-11-17T05:21:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten that Italy pretty much closes down for the month of August, especially places like Milan because it's not really a touristy place. Every single restaurant we found online that had reviews were all closed. Of course we didn't know that until we walked a mile and a half to get there, then had to turn around. Another annoying thing, almost every place doesn't open until 7:00, we were usually starving by then and waiting around the corner with our eye on the door so we could go in the second they opened. When places say they open at a certain time, it's a rough estimate. We waited outside one restaurant for 40 minutes before they FINALLY opened their gate, I wanted to just go somewhere else, problem was, we didn't know where else to go because everything was closed!

In Milan we dropped off our things and headed to the Duomo which happens to be right next to a huge outdoor mall!

a couple days later we climbed to the top.

A man came up to Carleton and put dried corn in his hand then held it up, before we knew what was going on a pigeon landed in his hand. I happened to have my camera out taking pictures of the duomo when they stepped in front of it, otherwise I would've missed the whole exchange because it was all so fast.

Carleton gave him back the birdseed and the guy kept asking for money saying it's a business, Carleton thought, "how disgusting, now I can't use my hand until I find a place to wash it" which is a lot harder than one might think if you've never been to Europe! In America there are public restrooms everywhere you look, in Europe, not so much, I guess because everything is so much older, they didn't have the space, plumbing, etc to be able to add bathrooms. You're lucky if you can find a porta-potty type thing that you pay for on a sidewalk (we never used one, we never got that desperate).

You guessed it, I forgot the name of this place too:)

The Cimitero Monumentale, noted for its abundance of highly artistic and often imposing tombs. You should google image it, it's amazing. I've never seen such a huge, beautiful cemetery with such detail in all the carvings. When I thought I'd seen the most spectacular one of the bunch I'd walk 15 feet and see an even more incredible one.

Top of the Duomo:

another view from the top of a very long set of stairs (still on top of the Duomo):

Geneva.

2010-11-17T05:07:00.000-08:00

Our next stop was Geneva, Switzerland. The train ride from France to Switzerland had the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen in my life, it looked like some ideal painting. I told Carleton I'd love to stay in southern France in a place like that, he informed me that it's probably 50 miles to the nearest grocery store or anything else. Darn, maybe not. We only spent a day in Geneva (it is quite expensive) but we saw a good bit and had a taste of some typical swiss foods. We walked all over downtown Geneva and sat on the water's edge feeding the swans and ducks while enjoying the beautiful scenery and cool water on our feet next to Geneva's most famous monument, the Jet d'eau, which is the world's tallest water fountain.

The water was beautiful and with the swans and boats it was very picturesque.

I had no idea swans were so big, or maybe it's just something in the water there, because I'm pretty sure I've seen swans in real life before and they weren't that big. Can you see all the little fishies in there too?

We had dinner at a nice place called Les Armures, it's one of the most recommended places to go. It's in downtown Geneva (we were walking up and down all sorts of steep hills to find it). Several famous people have supposedly been there, Clinton is the one who comes to mind, but I was only half paying attention...when you find out it costs you $6.50 for a bottle of water, and $27 for a sausage you kind of get sidetracked with what other people are saying at the moment. Carleton got the sausage with hashbrown type potatoes and I got the Raclette which came with two small boiled potatoes and melted cheese on top. Apparently that is a common dish there and we were trying to be authentic:)

Our hotel was REALLY nice, the swiss know how to make comfortable beds and everything that goes on them! We wish we could've had that as our hotel everywhere we went.

*We didn't try any chocolate while there, but we bought a couple bars for family...after we got home and we snuck a bite after they'd opened it we were both (and still are) REALLY REALLY sad we didn't buy 50 of them. No wonder the swiss consume the most chocolate in the world, (as told by a French woman who lives in Switzerland, she had all sorts of interesting facts and was very good at French, Italian, and English!) if our chocolate tasted like that, I would eat it 24/7 too...as if I don't already;)

Paris.

2010-11-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

Well I'm FINALLY getting around to blogging about our trip, then I'll be able to update on all the other things we've done since then! I won't bother with a day by day replay because we were gone for almost a month, so that would be A LOT of posts about one, albeit huge, trip! In the weeks leading up to our trip we were busy packing...not just for the trip, we had to pack our ENTIRE apartment and make sure everything was pretty much white-glove cleaned and ready to move out the day we got back. So Carleton took the bar July 26th and 27th, my last day of work was that Friday, the 30th, and we left our place in Durham at 11am the following Tuesday. I have a habit of losing my sunglasses on trips. Last time was at Disney World, I had them on our plane rides, and then when we were on the bus, I left them in my seat:( Well this time I had my other favorite pair (I'd had two, and this was the last of the two I got in NY) I left them at the RDU airport, I was so mad at myself. Anyway, this is about our fun trip, not my pathetic attempts at holding onto my sunglasses...so we arrived in Paris Wednesday at 7:25am. Guess who couldn't sleep until oh the last 15 minutes of the flight, yes that would be me. I felt like a zombie all day because the second we dropped our bags off at our hotel we let the sightseeing begin.

Let me just say, I have never seen so much smoking, groping, and passionate making out before in my life, and by people of all ages...I mean people don't even spare a glance at these kids who MIGHT be 12, but probably younger who are doing all of the above. I think we met two people on our entire trip who didn't smoke, they were from Australia, smoking is like breathing there, even if you don't smoke, you can't help but to inhale as much smoke as the ones who are.

DISCLAIMER: The days kind of turned into a blur for me since we were there for so long, and I'm so late at recording it, but at least we remember most of what we did (thank you pictures!) while there:)

Our first stop in Paris was Isle de la cite...

...where we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is beautiful. I should probably go ahead and say most buildings/places/art/etc. in Europe are beautiful, it will save a lot of repetitive writing:) The picture to the right was supposed to be funny, but the guy who took our picture cut off the saints/gargoyles above us doing the same thing, typical.

Also on the island was St. Chapel, which has the most amazing stained glass windows I've ever seen!

Monument of the Invalides

We bought museum passes which got us into several museums, including Napoleon's Tomb:

The Louvre...probably the most famous Museum because of things like the Mona Lisa:

here is the crowd of people trying to get pictures of it:

I was where the blonde boy with the black shirt on is standing when I took my picture. I'm pretty sure half of one of my toenails got ripped off trying to get there, ouch!

Left: Law code of Hammurabi, Right: Venus

I loved visiting the Rodin Garden, home of "The Thinker", it didn't have a ton, but it was a beautiful day, half the stuff was outside, and it was just nice to sit back and enjoy being together.

Carleton's version of the thinker:

We took a day trip to Versailles and let me tell you, they didn't do ANYTHING small. I'm pretty sure this is where the term "go big or go home" came from! They have enormous hallways leading everywhere, one is the hallway of mirrors:

another consists of paintings of the castle's surroundings... paintings of the gardens and town so they don't actually have to step outside to see it, crazy!

I got new sunglasses in Versailles, thank goodness the first couple days were HARD on my eyes!

on the left side is the queens chamber:

We went to the Eiffel Tower a few days into our trip around twilight so we could get some pictures in front of the tower while it was still light (and scope out a good spot) then get some good night pictures. Carleton was such a trooper for my not one, but two trips to the tower for mini photo shoots:) We lugged around a backpack with my camera in it and my intense tripod, that thing is heavy, and could probably kill someone with one blow! When we got to the place I decided would be best for pictures, I set up my tripod as big and awkward as possible so people would think twice, or maybe three times before stealing it. It worked! We saw a guy get his iphone jacked as soon as he got off the metro...at our stop, awesome. Thank goodness for the handy remote I purchased just for this occasion:) Here's how a few of these pictures turned out:

One thing that kind of stunk about Europe is the lack of elevators and the PLETHORA of steps. We probably walked up and down several hundred if not thousands of steps every day. This little gem, the Arc de Triomphe had 234 winding stairs, I think the picture below portrays pretty well how dizzy I was feeling after only going halfway. Also, I'm not usually one for taking these kinds of pictures (on the right) BUT I wanted to show how tall it is/how much walking we had to do, you can see tiny tiny people standing near it on the other side of the street to get an idea of the height, we're actually a good ways away from it in this picture. We had to walk in an underground tunnel to get to the arc on the other side and climbed the spiral staircase all the way to the top ugh.

view from the top:

I hated walking up the steps to get to the Sacred Heart too, but once we were at the top it ended up being one of my favorite places (if not my absolute favorite) in Paris.

We're ALMOST there

...I don't remember what this was called, but it was pretty neat, Carleton sure enjoyed it! We went inside, up all the towers, etc.

The last day we were there we went to the catacombs, that place is crazy, it looks like people got bored when they were laying the bones so they decided to have some fun making shapes/symbols out of the bones (including but not limited to hearts, bodies, crosses, etc.) When you have roughly 6-7 million Parisians' bones down there, you start to get creative I guess! They check your backpack when you leave to make sure you didn't steal any bones, apparently people really do that!

After the catacombs we headed down to the Latin Quarter, home of the Pantheon:

Jardin du Luxembourg (where Carleton performed a concert when he was on a high school band trip). We sat at the beautiful garden to take a rest from all the walking we'd done so far:

Next stop, Geneva.

Europe Pictures up!

2010-09-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

I am slowly but surely getting around to blogging about our trip. For now I put pictures up on Facebook...of the 1100 pics I narrowed it down to 780, don't worry I only put up 200 something!

4th of July

2010-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ok so I lied, I have a few minutes before we leave so I'm going to go ahead and get this post up:)

This was the first time I've actually been in NC for a fourth of July since high school, I think. We had a good time with the family and Jes and Phillip's friends. I used to go to Kenan Stadium for the fireworks every year when I lived at home. I must say, after watching the massive show Idaho Falls puts on where people come from the surrounding states and camped out for days to watch the show over the lake, and watching the fireworks in DC the last two years (at the White House two years ago, thanks to Christian) and on top of the firm Carleton was interning at last year with some great friends, this display of fireworks seemed pretty tame.

There were festivities at the football stadium before the actual fireworks show took place. We took Taylor on a quest to find a man taller than Carleton, and we did, sort of. At first she was a little nervous, keeping one on eye on him while the other tried to smile at the camera.

She loosened up after a minute or so.

Carleton tried turning every which way to not get anything "UNC" in the background...sucker. As a side note, I usually dress very patriotic (well very red, white, and blue) on the 4th of July, this year I look a little pathetic with my "blue" jeans and little red ribbon, sorry, I slacked.

Taylor was excited for the fireworks, then it went off and she fell backwards and started screaming, she was TERRIFIED. After a few minutes she was getting better, this picture was her entering the "better" stage.

Ok, now we're really off to go camping!

Gone for the weekend.

2010-09-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

We're going camping with some friends, but I PROMISE next week the blog posts will resume. Yes, that includes pictures from Europe!

Big News

2010-07-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know what this is a picture of?

Any takers on where it's located?

If you guessed the reception site for the wedding I most recently shot, well you'd be correct.

If you guessed the building Carleton will be working in as a brand spanking new attorney come September 1st, well you'd also be correct.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Carleton got an offer and much to my parents' liking, it's located in Greensboro, NC.

In other news, there is somewhat of a countdown going on for us.

*10 more days of work for me (last day is July 30th)

*13 more days until Carleton takes the bar (don't remind him it's less than two weeks away!)

*20 days until we leave for Paris

*40 days until we return from Rome (We're spending 3 weeks in Europe...France, Switzerland, and Italy)

*39 days until our lease runs out at our apartment

*42 (or 43) days until we fly to Utah (EXTREMELY jet-lagged and sick of traveling) to attend our friends' wedding.

Anything you're counting down?

Our love story...

2010-07-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

If Stephanie Meyer wrote our love story, the reader's digest version would go something like this...

Carleton was a vampire and he loved Ashley, the human girl, more than anything, he wanted her to be his forever. Ashley felt the same way about Carleton, that one lifetime just wouldn't cut it for them. So they took actions into their own hands.

First, they got married, after-all, there is an order to these things!

A regular wedding wasn't enough to keep them together forever, so they had to do one more thing to seal the deal, ensuring an eternity of happiness...

Now, nearly two years later, they are so happy they decided to go this route and are loving every second of it:)

Their story never ends:)

I saw Eclipse last week and couldn't resist. Sorry, Carleton:)

So about the events surrounding the movie. Around 4:00 that day there was a bomb scare on I-40 which shut down exits 274-276 (the exits to our apartment). My friend, bless her heart, was going home from work to shower, change, eat dinner...she never even made it home and barely got to the theater as the movie started at 7:30. Thank you for still coming, Jess!

After halting traffic for 3.5 hours, Carleton taking our friends to the airport, them missing their flight, having to come back home (which took forever), then driving them back to the airport the next morning at 4:30, sending in a robot to spray the thing with water (drum roll please)...turns out it was not a bomb, shocker.

Most likely it was nothing more than a homemade bumper for a boat that accidentally fell off while driving to the lake.

p.s. totally unrelated to this post, we have some big news, actually lots of it...stay tuned in the next week or so:)

Outer Banks.

2010-07-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

Last month we went to the Outer Banks with Carleton's family. It was so great seeing everyone, especially the little babies! There are some seriously beautiful kids in our family! Now I know what you're going to say, "What, not one SINGLE picture of you guys or anyone else with an entire week at the beach?!" That is correct, I only pulled my camera out once. We heard there was a sea-turtle on the beach laying eggs, but by the time we got there we just saw it's trail back to the ocean, darn!

Every time we walked to the edge of our beach (there's a fence that separates it so the wild horses and vehicles don't come on the other side) I saw birds sitting on these posts. I thought it'd be cool to get a silhouette shot of them, unfortunately the sun was behind me so that wasn't possible, but I shot a few for fun anyway.

Some farther away...

and some closer...

Some with slower shutter speeds...

and some with faster shutter speeds...

We had a nice little pool at our house which was a nice way to cool down and relax without freezing in the icy ocean water. I held live crabs (as in more than one) for the first time (Carleton wanted to show our nieces how brave I am, and used that strategy to try convincing them to hold some, it worked on a couple of them.) We went on lots of walks and found a place that had at least 60 turtles including one huge alligator snapping turtle. We went back later with the kids and fed them lots of bread, I've never seen so many turtles in my life. Some were swimming and probably two dozen or so were sitting on the grassy edge, sunbathing. What a nice life:)

Despite getting sick, and Carleton having to study every day for at least 3-5 hours/day, we had a great time and ate WAY too much yummy food. I think our next family vacation should be in the winter so we can eat all we want and cover up our full bellies with puffy ski coats:) As Lana said, "You don't come on vacation to loose weight." Ain't that the truth!

It's sad, I know.

2010-07-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since I've posted anything on my blog. I can't stand this from other people, since I'm a sucker for good pictures and fun/funny stories, so I must apologize! BUT, having said that, I like having everything in order and have an OCD habit of not posting things if they're not chronological. Well one of the things I was waiting for I just received pictures of...had I actually asked for them before yesterday, I probably would've gotten them sooner :)

Ok so here it goes...the NC Asheboro Zoo. It had been a few years since I'd been to the zoo here, and Carleton and the Connell's had never been, so before they moved (and before Annabelle came) we made the trip!

We left bright and early so we could spend the whole day there and still get back in time for me to do a photo shoot and Kristin to go visiting teaching...I think, it's been a while!

I had to have a picture of the two of us by this statue because I have the exact same picture of my parents from probably 10 years ago!

We hung out with the polar bear for a while, he was SO cool. That ball he was throwing around was a 70+ pound medicine ball and it threw it around like an air-filled beach ball!

The Ririe's went to the zoo a couple weeks before us, after me crawling into this wet/dirty egg we remembered them saying something about putting Tessa in an egg (I think) so I'm thinking it was probably the same one:) I'd like to see her picture...hint hint, Allison.

Kristin is so sneaky and candid...it rained, quite a bit, hence the wet dog look.

I love how Kristin had Annabelle just days later, yet you can't even tell she's pregnant in this picture!

We ended the trip with a stop at Cook Out to get some $1.00 "Big, double oreo" milkshakes, they were AH-MAZ-ING. My mouth is watering thinking about it now....

More to come soon, even if it is slightly out of order:(

Carleton the Graduate.

2010-05-25T14:37:00.001-07:00

Carleton's parents came to Durham for Carleton's graduation weekend. The first night they were here we went to Sweet Tomatoes...the place Carleton took me for our first date:) After dinner (since it was Winter time) it was pretty dark so he took me to the most beautiful sight in NC. Had he been clever he would've said that was me, instead he drove me here:

There was no bus parked in front of it, not hundreds of people standing out front taking pictures, and it was a lot darker, but you can still see how beautiful the Duke Chapel is.

The next day we went to Duke Gardens and the Law School so his parents could see why Duke's tuition is so high:) We then went to a really good Chinese Restaurant in Chapel Hill with my whole family (parents, sister and her fam, and my grandparents) and of course Carleton's parents:)

My great friend, Allison, let me sit in on one of her cake making expeditions (and even help!) So I used her recipe when it came time to make a graduation cake for Carleton's big day! It was 4 layers of chocolate/raspberry/chocolate buttercream/ganache goodness!

Here sits Carleton's fan club (those of us who went) waiting for graduation to start.

His graduation was really well done and quite classy!

I searched for Carleton's seat so I knew right where he'd be sitting and wrote him a special note. The girl sitting next to him was sad she didn't have a personalized message in her program, you're so loved, honey:)

Here he comes, here he comes! He was HEADS above all the people around him:)

So serious...

I was recording the guy saying his name and as I was trying to switch back to camera mode I didn't realize my flash was up so I didn't get very good pictures...I got much better pictures of his friends, go figure.

My parents say we kiss in EVERY picture, I don't think so.

See, here's proof!

Ernest, Carleton, Lana (his parents)

us with our parents

this looks a lot more us, it was supposed to be the fun/goofy shot, clearly nobody else wanted to be fun...ok my mom is sticking her tongue to the side, she gets points.

The J-Reubs (LDS guys...most of them)

With the ladies

ow ow

last picture, Carleton, I promise.

After graduation, we went home and divulged in that 4 layer chocolate/raspberry goodness.

Saturday morning we found out Karl was graduating on Sunday, rather than Saturday like we'd thought. So we headed out around 5am to catch both his graduations (MBA and Law) from William and Mary.

Look at that studly graduate with Elsa.

This picture just makes me smile.

for more pictures of Vera click here.

I'm SO proud of Carleton, and I'm so glad he's mine all mine. Love him SO much!

A WICKED good time

2010-05-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

Carleton and I went to see Wicked opening night at the DPAC. It was nothing short of INCREDIBLE. I'd read part of the book and was very happy that the play was quite different than the book. The three times I've been to New York I've wanted to see it but it's always sold out, so when we saw it was one of the shows in the DPAC season ticket pass we jumped at the opportunity. It was a great note to end our season ticket experience with (since we'll be out of town for our last play). I've been wanting to go back and see it pretty much every day since we saw it, it was that good. My friend Julie gave me the soundtrack and I can't help myself, I play at least one song every single day as loud as I can, I'm sure our neighbors love us:) I really just can't say enough amazing things about it, and can't wait to see it again!

Kristin's having a baby!

2010-05-07T05:53:00.000-07:00

I threw my first baby shower a few weekends ago for my good friend, Kristin. She's having a little girl in about a month!

See the cute little sign above her head, it says Annabelle (her babies name, obviously) I cut out a bunch of shirts and made puffy sleeves. I'm pretty sure Allison had little faith that they'd turn out cute when I started drawing my template, but I think they ended up better than anticipated;)

she got lots of cute clothes, blankets, bags, etc.

Allison made this REALLY cute piece of cake with strawberries

Kristin and me;)

Allison also made THIS cake, DE-LIC-IOUS

This is Allison, the mastermind behind the edible (and non-edible) art. She was a life-saver in helping me, thank you, thank you, thank you!

I think Kristin got some pretty sweet and creative stuff at her shower. One thing is for sure though, whenever I have a kid I hope someone makes me a cake as scrumptious and pretty as that one!

Sexy legs.

2010-05-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue. But I wanted everyone to see exactly HOW BAD his ankle was, he has a picture on his phone he took the day of where it looks like someone glued a grapefruit to the outside of his ankle, then put some skin on top. Still never figured out uploading that picture to the internet...oh well. It was MASSIVE. How'd it happen? Well, Carleton was playing church ball, up by 20 with two minutes remaining in the game. He doesn't jump while playing ball, when you're 6'6 and most of the guys aren't even close to that, what's the point? So he decides to jump to "take this other guy". Good job, honey, you got him. But joke's on you, he's the one who walked about without an ankle 4 times it's normal size!

I was on the other side of the gym and ran down, by the time I got there, it was already huge. Minutes later I said, sorry honey, but I gotta go shoot a wedding:(

He then drove his manual car home, genius.

My parents tried calling him but he didn't answer, so when he heard a knock he tried hurrying to the door. Being that bad wife that I am, I left some weights on our living room floor. With his "good" foot he kicks one, rips his big toenail up and starts bleeding all over the place, nice.

All this happened morning of March 27th. It is 1:45pm on May 6th and guess what, his ankle is still swollen. BUT it's looking much better, and it's only "stiff" and sore on one side instead of the entire thing, hooray! We're getting there slowly but surely:)

So, this leads to the title of the post. My husband has sexy legs, but don't think I'm biased, I'm not the only one who has voiced this opinion. MULTIPLE friends of mine have admitted how they've noticed he has some very defined, nice legs. Some have even gone so far as saying he's got the nicest legs they've ever seen on a guy. I've mentioned before if he shaved he could almost pass for a really tall woman because they're so pretty. I'm sure he LOVES that. I'm excited for the return of TWO ankles and running again!

Happy Easter... to Carleton!

2010-04-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

For Easter I got Carleton a bunch of red Starburst Jelly Beans (in the plastic eggs), Kit Kats, Oreos, Oreo Cakesters, and Cadbury Eggs. All in a cute basket with fluffy green Easter grass.

Carleton made me this:

He wanted to add celery but he heard my coming and with his sprained ankle couldn't hobble fast enough to finish. AND the chocolate is one that's leftover from a Valentine's day box of chocolates my mom got me, nice try, husband. Thanks for the, "you need to go on a diet" message for easter :p

I wanted to make this for my dad's birthday, but didn't have time and didn't want the chocolate to be soggy, so I made it Sunday for Easter. YUMMMMMM, thank you Allison for this delicious recipe. I used my mom's pie pan which was a couple inches bigger than any of mine. I didn't realize this until after I already made the crust, oops. I used three entire cartons of strawberries and expected it to be piled high, but again those few inches make a HUGE difference! Oh well, it still tasted phenomenal:)

I hope you all had a great Easter, and in Carleton's defense, he did say we could trade Easter baskets. He still hasn't opened the oreo cakesters which I'm dying to try...maybe tonight, wish me luck!

Did I say Happy Spring?

2010-04-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

I meant Happy April Fools Day:) After the phone calls and e-mails I received, I figured I'd just throw it out there that yes, that was a joke. But hey I did give you a lot of clues, the random "South Cobb" OBGYN, anyone from around here should know it would probably read UNC or Duke or something like that, and the date...2007, yes all of this was on purpose. I wanted to have a little fun on the holiday since I seem to always be the one suckered, so I decided hey why not; however, I did not want to get the rumor mill too carried away for those who might not check back to see my follow-up post (hence the subtle clues). My mom asked me a few weeks ago if I was pregnant because she'd heard from a few people, who had heard from several people, so again, no, just to dispel any rumors:)

PS- I was about to be REALLY sad if people started commenting, "I thought I noticed a baby bump" or "I totally called it when I saw you last", then the joke would've totally been on me. So thank you for not posting those kinds of comments;)

And because I find it impossible to post without a picture, here's one of Weston, I haven't posted on either blog yet.

Happy Spring!

2010-04-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

Worth the Weight.

2010-03-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

Carleton and I missed Taylor turning 2 when we were in Charleston, but we were here when Weston was born three days later on Friday, March 12th. We stayed with the other three kids for the weekend until Jes and Phillip came home Sunday afternoon. Mom and baby are well and we're so excited to have the newest addition to our family, Weston Hyrum Bush. For more pictures visit my picture blog.

Charleston.

2010-03-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for a picture overload, because if you look through this whole post, that's exactly what you're gonna get!

Day 1 we didn't take any pictures, I just thought wow it's so beautiful, I'd love to do a bridal shoot down here sometime! We walked to beach, it was a little to chilly for my liking, then we went to Ft. Moultrie, Carleton climbed on a cannon and scoped out cannons big enough to put Tessa in. That night we went to Poe's for dinner, it's mainly a burger joint named after Edgar Allen Poe and his burgers are named after his writings.

Day 2:

Here we are on top of Ft. Sumter, this was one of Carleton "must do" items. Interesting fact, the Civil War was started on April 12 (Carleton's bday), 1861 at Ft. Sumter!

Here we are on the Ferry leaving Ft. Sumter. On the way there we saw a TON of dolphins alongside the boat jumping beside us, when we were standing in the back there was one following us he kept popping his head up and blowing air out of his blow hole, so cute!

After Ft. Sumter we went downtown with John and Jack, had lunch at Sticky Fingers which was really yummy! We got BBQ and peach cobbler, mmmmm. I want some right now! Shortly after, we decided to split so John could go meet his wife and everyone else while we did a little sightseeing for ourselves. We walked a LOT.

I couldn't decide which way I liked the fountain better, what do you think?

Carleton was in love with the cobblestone roads

I'm not sure where we are in all these places...battery park maybe? Kristin, Carleton...a little help here?

I wanted some fun silhouette shots of the birds, but they were all pretty much gone by the time we got to them (there were dozens more just seconds earlier).

Carleton took this picture, I love the leading lines:)

Sitting, waiting for the rest of our group

Carleton told me all about the Hunley about 15 times by the time we ran into this so he HAD to get a picture, he is very excited to show his dad and see if he knows what it is.

When we were planning our trip, Allison whipped out her 1,000 places to go throughout the US and Canada, among those must visit places was Charleston. It gives you some things to do while there, one was to eat at Bowens Island Restaurant. We saw the menu, Carleton was sold from "Big Old Seafood Platter". Don't let the fact that this restaurant has a website fool you, it doesn't seem like a very legal establishment! We were a little ways behind the Gochnours, Ted was following the directions the GPS was giving us, even after it turned us onto a dirt road. We saw the Gochnours up ahead turning around saying they went a little further and there was pretty much no way a restaurant was up there. Well we ended up driving all the way down this dirt road and to our astonishment, there was a "restaurant" there. By restaurant I mean a place to order, then down wooden bridge/short boardwalk type thing, a wooden shed with netting over the "windows" and and heaters throughout. There was a black dog that kept walking by our table while we ate. I'm not even sure if there was a bathroom...outhouse maybe? Carleton recorded some of our drive back to the main road, but got bored with talking to himself so stopped before we even hit it. That's how long of a drive it was on the dirt road! I've tried posting the video for the past two days and after using a different web browser, it finally worked, ugh. Anyway...after we left Allison decided to fill us in on the fact that she saw a big rat by the ice bucket when we were ordering...good thing we got bottled waters! Aside from oysters they only served fried food, my crabcake had an entire crab claw in it. To their credit, it was quite the experience and they had mighty good fried shrimp! I wanted to wear my little black dress to dinner that night, SO glad I didn't get the chance to go back to the hotel and change!

Just part of the oyster massacre outside of the restaurant, it goes on a ways in both directions!

Day 3: Another of Carleton's "must do" list was the USS Yorktown...so here we are in that... it was a little complex

and just my size

but not Carleton's

The last thing a bird sees and the expression it makes before it dies

The stairs were SO narrow, my heels are pushed all the way back!

He got really into this, there are 5 other pictures of him doing different action shots

I just got in

Like I said, he LOVES this stuff and gets really into it.

That's the Yorktown and battleship behind us

The submarine was even smaller, we both had a hard time getting through those doorways

Boone Hall Plantation, the last stop on our trip. Can anyone...aside from Kristin and those that went on our trip name the movie that was filmed here...ok there's more than one, but it's a chick flick and it's only part of the movie, but still.

This is the oldest living, working plantation, and the most photographed! Here is Carleton showing us some cotton.

Our whole fabulous group!

Ted and Tessa in this picture=postcard material

We loved these trees

and this one

Here's the house...

John and Melanie

and their munchkins, Jack and Jonah

Jonah and Tessa

Ted, Allison, and Tessa

and of course, as to not disappoint any of our loyal readers, we will seal this post with a kiss :*

Baby Cake.

2010-03-01T06:56:00.001-08:00

Jesica is due with her 4th baby (a boy) in just a few weeks. She's been in need of a day out with the girls so one of the women in her ward and I put together and luncheon for her. We all got together at Chili's, chatted, ate, opened a few presents and had a great time. I made a carseat canopy for her with the colors she picked out, thanks to Ali for the pattern! I'll post a picture when she gets it on her carseat. Chantel (the very talented woman who taught me how to make the cookies) and I started planning on making a cake for this luncheon with a baby theme. She showed me some pictures and we decided on a block cake. All the cakes were made when I got there Friday just before 5:30, so we started filling the middle with yummy raspberry sauce, dark chocolate, and buttercream frosting, YUM! After making sure they were all perfect cubes (some of the tops had to be cut off since the filling in the middle made them a little rectangular) we started coloring the fondant. There were lots of colors we had to make. Some time along the way I cut my hand (I was using just a smooth rolling pin with rubber bands on the side, so don't ask me how) so Chantel and i switched jobs. I went to covering each side of the blocks while she rolled the fondant out (she was a lot better at that than me, I kept making it stick to the surface, oops!) A few hours, and a lot of delicious buttercream frosting, later we finally got to do the detailed decorating, that didn't work out so well and it was already after midnight, so we decided to switch all the very tiny detailed cutouts for the big letters, planes, bottles, etc. I think it turned out really cute though and we had a lot of fun. I was home and in bed just before 2:00am, but I learned a lot and had a great time. Thank you SO MUCH, Chantel for showing me the ropes, and letting me get a lot of hands on experience!

The top "B" block and the bottom "Y" block are the ones I decorated, when I told Carleton he said, "oh wow that's really cute", then I pointed out the tarheel I put on top of one of them and he said yeah, that part's not so cute. I know he thinks it is, biased as he may be!

PS- I start my first cake decorating class tonight!

L.O.V.E.

2010-02-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

This weekend we celebrated

Laughter

hOnesty

foreVer

Each other

Those are just some of the things I think of when I think of Carleton's and my relationship and the love we share. Ok enough with the mushy stuff... other things we enjoyed this weekend were good friends and food!

Thanks to Chantel for teaching me how to make these cookies! She shared her icing tips, bottles, sugar cookie recipe, everything to help this cookie making attempt run as smoothly as possible! I'm sure she would do a much better job, but this was my first time making the icing, and baking the cookies (with a lot of help from Allison and Kristin!) all from scratch! I wanted something special for the kids I teach in primary and decided on these! Friday night we met at Allison's around 9:30, we finished baking and went home just after 1am. The next day we started to decorate! Here is the piping:

Then we flooded and decorated them!

Inside this box are some of the most amazing truffles I've ever had...they're currently in my desk at work and I CANNOT stop eating them...I opened them last night, 36 truffles...pretty sure there's like half that left, oops :/

My daddy sent me flowers at work on Friday. He's a great dad:)

I hope everyone had a great valentines day/weekend/week and spent it with someone they love: a spouse, friend, significant other, dog, whoever!

Lovely weather for a sleigh ride together

2010-02-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

with Carleton:)

As much as he DID NOT want to take these pictures, he was a good sport and let me have my fun for a couple minutes while we froze in the snow. I was using my broken tripod to take these so we were on our knees in the snow in the close ups, COLD! This wasn't quite what I was going for, but you do what you can with a broken tripod, a timer, and two freezing people outside of our apartment looking silly!

MONSTER JAM

2010-02-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

Every year my dad takes my sister and I on a daddy/daughter date to the "Monster Jam" Monster Truck Rally. There were a few of the same trucks there as last year but at least 5 new ones, including Sampson:

Grave Digger was a seasoned pro, well he was there at least last year, I can't remember if he was the year before.

This video doesn't do the motor bikes, 4-wheelers, etc. justice, but they were awesome they did flips, they let go of their bikes 30 feet above the 30 foot hill of dirt. It was AWESOME. Of course we sat on the very front row, nothing but the best for my dad's girls:) Love him. We always have a great time together, even if the smell of the diesel was REALLY overpowering this time.

There was even a really really hoochy looking girl giving out the trophies and dancing (new this year) to make sure all the people who weren't there with their kids and spouses had a good time too...maybe next year they'll trade her back for the guy who was on fire and fell from the ceiling last year, he was A LOT cooler.

Thanks dad and Jes for another fun year at Monster Jam!

PS- the following week my mom, sister, and I all went to see Mama Mia for a mother/daughter date and it was a lot of fun too! The three of us went to see the movie when it came out in theaters, so when I found out it was part of our season ticket package at the DPAC (and that Carleton would NOT go) I tried really hard to get a third ticket next to our season tickets, and I did!

Bahamas video

2010-02-01T07:11:00.000-08:00

I'm such a dork! I just realized only half the video plays on here, oops! I guess it's too long for flickr? I just reloaded it a different way, sorry! All of this was taken with my camera (not camcorder) trying to dodge the splashing dolphins and such, sorry for the shaky footage!

Bahamas!

2010-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

You've been warned, there is a lot of reading here, and a lot of pictures too!

Carleton decided about a month ago that he wanted to go on a trip. He seems to always be looking for deals to go to some sweet place, and always asks, "do you want to go to X" and I say sure, do you, then he goes on about how he's not sure and I tune out. So when he asked if I wanted to go to the Bahamas and I said sure, then he started telling me dates and booked the trip I was caught somewhat off guard. I quickly sent in my passport to get my name changed and PRAYED like a crazy person that it would get back in time. Ok so I didn't pray only, I called and checked the web OFTEN to see if any progress had been made, then while in TN the week before Christmas, I got an e-mail saying it had arrived, yay!

Wednesday:

Come the morning of the 6th we lugged our stuff to the airport (thanks for taking us so early in the morning, Hilary!) and started on our cold adventure to Freeport, Bahamas. The airport in Miami didn't have heat, so it was REALLY cold there. When we got to the Bahamas it was cool, had there been no wind it would've felt really nice. The first day we just explored the resort, beach, market, and town, pretty much everything within walking distance. I did not take ONE picture, honest.

Thursday:

The next day it was warm enough to put on our swim suits and lay out, we placed our chairs so we wouldn't get nailed by the wind and it was great after the clouds let the sun shine through. We didn't have long on the beach though because we went to go see dolphins! It was soooooo cool. While we were waiting to get on the boat one of the workers said that we should stop believing in global warming and realize it's actually global cooling, because the Bahamas were way too cold to prove the other theory correct. She then went on to say we should go red (start burning trees) instead of going green if we wanted it to be warm the next time we visited. They were all decked out in gloves, sweats, toboggans, anything and everything to keep warm while the rest of us were in our swimsuits!

Anyway, the water there is the most amazing color, I didn't change the colors in these pictures because I wanted everyone to see how beautiful it is without a lot of enhancement. On our way to the dolphins we were in probably 30 ft. deep water and Carleton saw a starfish he said that must've been 2 feet wide, and the water was crystal clear to see all the way down, I don't know which is more amazing!

Once we got to the dolphins we were the first ones in, this guy came out of nowhere! I was more startled at first by all the little fish swimming by my feet than by him though. He was so cool, he splashed Carleton, kissed us both, let us pet his back and flipped to let us pet his tummy. He even did cool tricks for us, the list goes on! We also saw other dolphins and one mom and baby! they'd come out of the water side by side it was the cutest thing ever, I wish I'd gotten video or a picture of them.

One of the coolest things about the dolphins is that they take them for walks! They leave the inlet to go to the main ocean and they play, jump around, and swim freely, then when it's time to go back, they're the first ones back, they lead the boat jumping merrily all the way home. They know they're safe, well fed, and taken care of there, plus they're not in tanks or aquariums or anything, they could very easily escape. Another interesting thing is Ron Howard got a dolphin for his movie, Cocoon, after the movie he was like hmm what do I do with this dolphin, so he gave it to the Unexso (dolphin) people and he was their dominant male for years!

After we were done with the dolphins we went to go hold some birds, Carleton tried talking to this parrot who just about took his finger off. It was funny, I asked him to do it again when I was filming, but he refused. Here they're staring each other down.

We did more beach walking that night and while in the hot tub I thought to myself, there is no doubt, this will be the best day, there's no way it can be topped. Growing up I had dolphin posters, pictures, wood carvings, etc. in my room and bathroom, so this was like a life-long dream. I had my chance to touch one back in October at Disney World but chickened out, and have had nightmares about that ever since, so close, yet so far away. We got to spend the most time with the dolphins (because I told the trainers all the pictures I wanted) and it was AWESOME. If you've never pet a dolphin before, they feel like a hard-boiled egg, peeled.

Friday:

The next day we rented a scooter, drove 26 painful miles (Carleton's legs are so long I was halfway sitting on a metal bar and my knees and ankles hurt so bad from trying to hold on around him) to Lucaya National Park.

Now I have seen some GORGEOUS beaches in pictures, movies, on postcards, and some in person from our stops in Mexico and a private island in the Bahamas on our cruise. But nothing comes even CLOSE to this beach. We started out looking at some caves, they looked small, but went underwater for miles.

We then crossed the street to make our way to the beach.

We'd heard it was the most beautiful beach and thought, yeah I'm sure it's pretty, but the most beautiful beach....whatever. When we made it through all the trees we popped out to this (remember, these colors are not edited):

While on the beach we saw maybe 5-7 people the entire time we were there. I saw that some guy had found starfish and thought that was the coolest thing ever so I told Carleton I wanted him to find me one too! His reply was, "you want me to find you a starfish, baby? You got it!" Within two minutes of walking into the beautiful ocean he was turning back to me holding this up.

I was soooo shocked. Apparently my face really showed it. He said he's never seen me that excited in the entire time he's known me. I thought for sure he was pulling my leg...how? I'm not sure, not like he'd carried a fake one in the water with him, but still I'd never seen one aside from dead ones sitting on a shelf in a store. He turned into my hero (even more so) instantly. I looked for a long time but didn't find any:( I finally stopped and was looking down at my camera when I felt something hard against my toenail. "This is it" I thought, it's fate that I stopped right here and it's bumping my toe now. I looked down at the water and didn't see anything at first, then I saw it-a fish-and it was trying to eat my toenail! I jumped around frantically, holding my camera in the air until I was safely out of the water.

After a while we met up (he was walking out a little farther than I was) and decided to turn around, he said that he thought it was pretty picked over and we wouldn't find anymore:( Shortly after we did that I looked down and saw this!

Again, I was insta-happy! I call this my "proud momma moment picture", Carleton calls it my "proud murderer moment picture".

We enjoyed more time playing on the beach, running, dancing and spinning around. Two people, at that moment in time completely free of any cares.

Carleton went exploring further while I sat on the beach.

He discovered some really cool white trees that were all on their sides. He came to get me to show off his new discovery, I gladly went and on the way back to our towel and clothes found 4 more starfish! Well five, but one was missing a leg so we didn't bother with him.

After a couple hours of that paradise we decided we should head back since we had more than a 30 mile trip (we had to go an extra 4 miles to get gas, then back track) and we didn't want to get caught in any rain. We crossed the street and ran into this Canadian couple. They signed up to do a house swap but the people in the bahamas just wanted someone to watch their cat so they got to go there, stay for free, use their car and everything for 3 or 4 weeks, how sweet would that be! They told us about the Pirates of the Caribbean ship that was just a couple miles away, we had to investigate! A few miles and a couple dirt/gravel roads later we came across it! Half of the movie had been filmed there and when they were done filming, they just left the ship there. I thought that was kind of weird, but cool all the same.

I found a really cool conch shell (which the insides look gross, but it doesn't taste bad, at least in a soup-we decided we needed to try a bahamian dish while we were there-conch it was.) and Carleton found a purple....well I have no idea what it was, but it was really hard, and cool.

We drove back, then went to the grocery store and bought some pop tarts for $5. Food is not cheap there, that was our cheapest option as far as snacks and breakfast foods went. Then we went downtown to explore a little. We were almost hit by a couple cars and a delivery truck. The delivery truck and our moped met head-on as Carleton was pulling out of a parking lot and his vision was blocked by bushes. I FREAKED out, the guy in the truck swerved right, as did we. We went off the little road towards the bushes a little. Carleton will try to downplay this as much as he possibly can, but he wasn't paying attention and it almost ended up badly. PS in the Bahamas you drive on the LEFT side of the road. That is particularly confusing at traffic circles which there happen to be a lot of on that island.

I was relieved when we were in for the night and had our nightly hot tub visit. In the hot tub we met some people from Chicago, Switzerland, and Brazil. The Swiss guy talked us all in to jumping in the pool (it was practically ice water) going from the hot tub to the freezing pool (MUCH colder than the ocean) to the hot tub again was almost painful, but it (like the moped) is nice to say we've done once. That day might have just topped the dolphin day, it's hard to decide, both were so spectacular.

Saturday:

Saturday it rained:( we still went on a long walk that morning and went to the town, but most of the time was spent inside unfortunately.

Sunday:

Sunday was our last day there and we did a big walk, pretty much everyday we had long walks, but this one was the longest. When I get to venting about something apparently I can walk really really quickly without missing a beat in whatever it is I'm talking about. The walk back I had calmed down so it seemed A LOT longer. I found another really cool conch shell that we wouldn't have gotten if we didn't go to THE VERY tip, so that was an added bonus of going that far. We each brought some reading material to the beach, I wrapped up in a towel, plus all the warm clothes I'd brought with me, but still was cold. We did this two different times and finally gave up. We went to the stores later to walk around and see what kind of treasures we could find from the local sellers.

Carleton had convinced me that it wouldn't be very cold so all I needed was either a long sleeve shirt or a light zip up hoodie, I took both and was freezing a good portion of the time, particularly when the sun wasn't out. The last day the high was 60 and the winds were 25-35 mph! Carleton knew that in order to make me happy I'd have to get a few pictures I wanted. The one problem, there was nobody to take the pictures I wanted except a rock (over splashing water), a book, and a lot of wind. I was freezing when we took the pictures at night and I didn't have my thin (by that point smelly) hoodie on, by the time we'd taken a few pictures he said I'd just about worn out his good mood for pictures. I may not have gotten exactly what i wanted (the sun wasn't setting on our side and there were no rocks high enough or walls close enough to get the exact shots I wanted, but I still like the way they turned out) I think both our feet were completely numb too. We're such troopers;)

I just think he's so handsome, and I love his new jeans:)

Monday:

The next morning at the airport we gave them our checked baggage at the airport then had to go through security with our carry-on baggage and write down all the things we were bringing from the bahamas, we wrote shell, picture book, and starfish, then declared the value. As they checked our carry-ons they had to inspect each of Carleton's and my bags. I had a travel size thing of sunscreen in my camera bag, but it wasn't in a clear ziplock bag (it wasn't on the way there either but it didn't seem to matter). They found scissors and a fork in Carleton's backpack (also there on the way TO the bahamas) and took both of those. We then had to go to another guy who asked where we were going, for some reason I said "ch chi chicago" Carleton said no, Raleigh-Durham, then I started babbling something about about "en route to Miami", and the other couple we met who were from Chicago. It was still before 6 am. Carleton is sure thats what got us "randomly selected" to be searched in the agriculture department. We had our checked baggage back by that point, had to go unpack everything show all our shells and starfish, open everything and get fully inspected. Then we dropped our checked bag off AGAIN, went through another check (shoes off again) and got a full body pat down. 3 searches, 3 confiscated items, and 1 pat down later, we were ready to get on the plane.

This trip was AWESOME! It was the first trip we've had, just the two of us, since our honeymoon. We had a great time spending every waking (and sleeping) second together and being totally wrapped up in each other with basically zero distractions. I sure do love him and I'm glad he's mine forever:)

PS-I think I'll make a little (really short) video next week of a few of our adventures while we were there...stay tuned!

A night with the Kiddos!

2010-01-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

Jesica and Phillip wanted to have a nice, quiet night together, go on a date or just be together. Well the last time they tried to take such a night, my parents volunteered to take the kids. That was the last time Taylor ended up in the ER because before Jes and Phillip left, she tripped over Talan and hit her face on the fireplace ledge, busting through her lip and needed stitches.

This time we said we'd take them and made sure not to have any episodes like that. They came over and the first day we fed the ducks and geese, went to the playground, built forts, watched movies, had a great dinner, and just played.

That night Taylor slept with us...we tried moving her to the pack n play three times, she freaked out each time. After attempt number three she slept with one eye open. Anytime we would nudge her she'd start freaking out because she thought we were trying to move her (which we might have been). Carleton thought I was hogging the bed because he was almost to the edge, he turned over and saw me on the opposite side, edge of the bed, Taylors head on me and her feet on him. He decided to move the remaining two inches he had but that woke her up and she immediately stretched farther until she found him and pushed against him with her feet. I think she was just trying to make sure she knew where we both were at all times so she wouldn't be moved. Well since neither of us were sleeping I had the urge to get up and go to the bathroom; however, Carleton had been the one to attempt putting Tay in her bed so when I put her down she didn't want to be with just him, she thought he'd try again so she screamed. So there I lay for the next few hours (Carleton ended up going to the living room to sleep on the floor next to the kid who were on the air mattress, he didn't sleep either) unable to move or get out of bed. Our routine in the morning is typically wake up and eat within 20-30 minutes of getting up, having been awake for so long my stomach and head started hurting because I felt like I was STARVING. When she finally woke up for good that morning it was a relief to be able to get up, move, and EAT!

The rest of the day consisted of more playground time, playing with dominoes, and the girls taking pink princess bubble baths.

It was a fun weekend but Carleton and I definitely needed a nap that afternoon!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

This new years was a lot like most other new years for me. I can only think of 2 off the top of my head where I wasn't with family to ring in the new year.

New years is also Talan's birthday! This year he turned 4 and he's still totally into Buzz and most anything Toy Story related.

We started the evening with pizza and a birthday celebration for Talan. We were going to have sundaes but my mom made milkshakes so we decided we didn't need both and just stuck with the chocolate shakes. After the kids went to bed we broke out some games (Guesstures and Imaginiff, and continued playing the wii) I'd forgotten until a few months ago how much I LOVE guesstures, so that was a must for new years. My mom and dad especially have some funny acting skills...my mom's guesses were...interesting and totally off the wall most of the time, but we had a great time getting SMOKED by the guys anyway!

About half an hour or so before midnight we all started getting a little tired. I was laying on the couch (in my usual new years spot) while Phillip and Carleton bowled on the wii. A minute or so before 12 we found the channel broadcasting from NY to count down to the new year, toast with our sparkling cider and get our smooches. It was a fun night with family and yummy food!

Happy New Year, I hope 2010 is great for each of you so far!

Christmas Day

2010-01-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve celebrating Jesus' birth and reading christmas stories with the family.

Carleton wasn't sick for Christmas round two, thank goodness! We had a nice time, starting the morning off opening presents at our house. Then we headed to my parents house for a big yummy brunch, presents and stockings, and just had a somewhat relaxing day. With three kids around that are not taking naps, the most you can hope for is somewhat relaxing:)

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and remembered the reason for the season and took time to remember Him who blesses us all, everyday.

I had to post this

2009-12-30T14:23:00.001-08:00

I thought this was too funny to pass up...

Baby Fest 2009

2009-12-22T12:43:00.001-08:00

Christmas with the Clauss Family this year was referred to as "Baby Fest 2009" because of all the newborns.

Carleton and I headed to TN for Baby Fest Thursday after a long day of work for me, and a 7.5 hour final for Carleton. The rock slide that closed I-40 added some extra time to our drive, but all in all, it wasn't bad. For dinner we stopped at Taco Bell where I burned the top of my mouth pretty bad, but didn't let it deter me from eating my tacos!

The next morning Carleton woke up with a sore throat that I didn't think much of at the time. We sat on the couch eating pineapple when my mouth started really hurting. After a minute I realized I was not tasting pineapple, but mouthfuls of blood, YUCK! That burn from the taco made my mouth all red and white up where I'd gotten burned, I know, sick. After 15 minutes or so of spitting out mouthfuls of blood and dabbing the roof of my mouth with a paper towel it started feeling a little better. Carleton went and took a nap and was irritated because I was poking him thinking he was being rude not spending time with his family. After he got up we found out he had just over a 103 temperature. Sorry, honey. He didn't eat anything the rest of the day and was pretty much quarantined from everyone. He even wore a mask for the rest of that day and most of the next. Poor guy. He was so excited to see all the kids, but he couldn't even touch them or throw them around the way he was hoping.

"Christmas Day" was better. Anna, Karl, and family were finally able to get there (they attempted Friday but had to turn around because of the snow). Karl, Jen, Lana, Carleton, and I went shooting, it was Jen's first time and I think she did great!

On our way home we got stuck behind a big accident for about an hour. A mack truck hit a snow bank and completely turned over, hitting some trees and splitting open the trailer (spilling the contents of it on the interstate). We ended up turning off the car, sitting back and chatting.

Despite the less than thrilling traveling conditions, Carleton being sick, even coughing up blood at one point, we really enjoyed seeing our family and spending some quality time together. We have such a great family on both sides and feel so blessed to be a part of it!

more pictures of the little ones on my picture blog

Our little family.

2009-12-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning we left our house around 7, went to make sure all my tires were full, Carleton filled up three of them, then saw my right rear tire, which was completely flat. We turned around and went home, moved everything to Carleton's car and started warming his car up. Eventually we were back on the road, by 7:45 and rolled up to their house around 10:30. We had such a great time seeing everyone, it was especially nice meeting our two brand new nieces.

Anna was a wonderful host as always, she was the one that just had the baby, the reason we went up there, and she's busy cooking for all of us! Seriously, our family never ceases to amaze me!

We didn't know until a couple days before that Christian and Jen's family would be joining us there, so that was a nice surprise!

It was freezing, but they were good sports as I took a few pictures of each family...if you wouldn't mind voting on your favorites here and here, that'd be awesome!

And not that I didn't love the pictures we had taken for our one year anniversary. But I needed a few where we were both looking forward and smiling! So when we went up to Williamsburg on Sunday for our niece's blessing, I had Carleton sit down, tested the light, then passed my camera off for a few quick snaps! Please vote on your favorites, it's for a good cause, which I can't say publicly, but your votes are very appreciated!

I realize I never posted anything about my birthday or Thanksgiving. Truth is, both were great! I got to spend them both with people that I love and they took very good care of me, making sure my back was nice and massaged and my belly was full and satisfied. Thank you, family for making my birthday (and Thanksgiving) great! Reason for no posts on them individually: no pictures:(

Thanks for asking!

2009-12-02T12:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I got this e-mail which brought a smile to my day:)

Ashley,

I saw a photograph on the website http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/washington/gallery/?page=3 you took of the Washington D.C. Temple. I am making a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law were a picture is modgepodged onto wooden blocks. I wanted to use one of the photographs you took. I know that your released permission to the above site for users to use the photograph as a screensaver, but were I will actually be printing the picture I wanted to receive permission from you to do so. I will not be selling the product or making any profit from it. If you have a site where you sell your photographs for such use, please forward that site to me.

Thank you,
Lorianne

Who needs Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory....

2009-12-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

when they post the directions to making their delicious apples, along with all the ingredients on their website, and you've got great friends to make your own with!

All you need is a good clean crisp apple, we had granny smith (what they use at Rocky Mntn.)

Then you melt some caramel- by the time you're done it no longer looks like wet dog food

Then you did your apple and do the twirling effect to let as much caramel run off as you can

like this!

Spectators are always welcomed-she wanted in on the apple deliciousness

Next you layer on the white chocolate

mix cinnamon and brown sugar

place on the sugar/cinnamon concoction

and start the twirling/spinning movement again, this time, sideways!

Then ta-da DELICIOUS! I apologize for no pictures of us enjoying them, but they were too good to put down long enough for someone to snap a picture!

no this is not our child, but she's SOO cute, and we love playing with her at every chance we get...this was our entertainment for the night, watching Tessa's reaction to being in the punch bowl

yes, she has amazing eyelashes

I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back, because she was pretty tired of the punch bowl by this point...

Finally, safe with mommy and her two trusty fingers

It's a good thing it's late and there's no way I'm going to the store to buy caramels, because I'm really craving some sweet, sugary apples right now! Definitely will be doing this again!

PS- I'm happy to report, after many questions about when I was going to put up all my step-by-step posts, I have finally caught up...I think, I hope!

Roses

2009-12-01T14:39:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I went to Super Saturday with my mom and sister. I learned how to make pretty frosting flowers! We had a great teacher and made beautiful cookies too. I took pictures of my first to my last one, they're all on this plate, can you tell which is the first and which is the last? I went in a circle...

ps these flowers were supposed to last for three days max, these pictures were taken a week and a half after I made them, so they might not be as pretty as when I first made them

All this for what?

2009-12-01T14:12:00.000-08:00

Let me start by saying, I don't think of myself as one of those crazy twilighters, BUT I really enjoyed the books, they're a quick, fun read. The movies aren't great, but because I like the books I've grown fond of the movies, I just fill in the parts that are left out and pretend the acting is better than it actually is.

For my birthday one of my friends gave me some Twilight chocolates, from that, stemmed this idea...

A friend in my ward made some delicious oreo eyeballs for Doreen and Matt's halloween party, check out that post to see them. Anyway, they were so yummy I thought I'd make an apple (like Bakerella's apple pops) then I thought, that's really twilight, not New Moon. So I thought about making Moons, but figured people would be like what's with the yellow balls. So instead I made some "topaz/golden eyes" like the Cullens, and some paw prints for the wolves.

I started with red creme-filled oreos (the Christmas kind). I figured red was better than white for vampires, blood, you get the idea.

Wanna see this ground up goodness closer? I thought so, I did too, I wanted to keep going but alas, I waited until they were done to try them!

Here's the balls (oreos and cream cheese)

dipped in white candy melts

now the paw prints and eyes! They don't look as good as I would've liked, but it took me like 5 hours!

If you guys have read the books you'll understand all this stuff

The goody bags consisted of water bottles, the Twilight and New Moon Soundtracks, Jacob, Bella, and Edward chocolates (thank you, Allison!) mints, oreo truffles and pops, forks, etc.

Waiting in line, we only got there an hour early

At the end of the night, I couldn't wait to rush home to my one and only and give him a big smooch!

Buttons!

2009-12-01T13:30:00.001-08:00

I got the idea from a friend's blog to make these SUPER CUTE buttons! It was really easy, and a lot of fun. I went to Joanns with my 40% off coupon. I found the buttons I was looking for, then went to find some fabric. Well all I needed was a really small square, but unfortunately they don't sell fabric that way. BUT they do have really big reams of fabric that have little square samples you can take! So, with the help of one of the workers, I got a bunch of samples! My pack only had three buttons so I couldn't do too much, but what I did, I love!

I started with this

then....

and the final product looks like this (before you put it on a hair clip, necklace, or whatever else you choose to do)

And what as the total cost for this fun new hobby? I believe it was something like $2.17 for everything! Love things like this!

Thank you, Jenna, for the great idea!