Christmas 2009

This year, Nick wasn't able to get work off for either of the Holidays. We can't complain though because this is the first time they haven't given him the time off that he's asked for. So for both Thanksgiving and Christmas we weren't able to see either of our immediate families. :( We missed them dearly and know it would have been great to spend the holidays with them; however, considering the circumstances, we had a great Christmas and feel very blessed for everything we were given.

When Aubri and Daniel, Nick's cousin, found out that we weren't able to go home this year, they immediately made plans to make sure that we still had the best Christmas that we could without seeing our families. They invited us to their house on Christmas Eve where we enjoyed some great food and even better entertainment. :) We played games and had a very fun relaxing night. We haven't gotten together in forever with them, so it was SOO nice to see them and have a good time together. Thanks again for the invite Aubri & Daniel... we had a blast!! :)

Christmas Day Nick got home from work around 9:30 am. He IMMEDIATELY wanted to open presents! :) For once someone my age was even more excited than me. ;) He separated all the gifts into two piles for the both of us and then we each took turns opening each gift. :) We got so many gifts from each of our families and are so thankful for their kindness. Nick also got me great things!! (thanks love!) The one gift that totally surprised me from him, was a Hunting/Shooting game. :) One night we had dinner at this small bar and grill and they had an arcade game there. We decided to give it try while waiting for our food. It ended up being a pretty fun game that we got some really good laughs from! :) Well, Nick ended up finding this exact game at Bass Pro Shop. You simply plug in the cord attached to the gun into the back of the tv, set up the target scanner, and you're ready to play. :) After we finished opening our gifts, we opened the shooting game and gave it try... 1 hour later we decided that we should get ready for dinner and clean up! :) Thanks to BOTH families for all the fun, sweet, and thoughtful gifts. We missed you all so much and look forward to seeing you SOON (hopefully)!!!

For Christmas Dinner, we were invited to Laura and Rolly's (good family friends, Nick met on his mission). They are the sweetest people and we had such a good time there. They are always checking up on us, and making sure everythings okay. Nick thinks of them as our parents away from home. We had GREAT food, good company, and played some games there as well. And of course, they sent us home with half the food they prepared... so we'll have Christmas Dinner left overs from a dinner I didn't even have to cook! :) We loved spending the afternoon with them and are thankful for their friendship. Nick mentioned on the way home, that he was so glad we had decided to accept their invite because it was probably the best thing next to being home with our families!!

I took the camera with us both on Christmas Eve and Christmas day; however, we only got pics of us opening presents :(....

Our first Christmas away from home was not the easiest thing and we wished we could have seen our families, but our family and friends here made it easier for us and we thank them for that!! We hope everyone else also had a great Christmas!!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very

Merry Christmas!!!

Have a happy and safe holiday!!!

Officially Finished...

...with the Fall 2009 Semester!!!!!!!! O my goodness it is a GOOD thing too! I think that Nick and I were both about to loose it during the last 3 weeks. BUT, we stuck in there and finished. Nick had 3 final tests, 3 quizzes, one state exam, and two physical exams within the last two weeks. He hasn't gotten his final grades back yet, but knows he did pretty well on them. He now has his Fire Fighter II Certification!! WAY TO GO sweety!!

I had 3 Presentations (in front of local Interior Designers), 2 final exams, and 1 project that I just had to turn in NOT present. I have NEVER put this much time into school in my life. Not even in my art classes was it quite this demanding. That also had to do with taking 21 credits though, I'm sure. I have recieved most of my finals grades and have to say that I'm very happy I chose to put as much time as I did, because I think I might have pulled off straight A's! To some this may not seem like such a big deal (DANI), but with 7 classes, and always seeming to make this my goal for each semester (with it NEVER working), I have FINALLY met that goal! I cannot believe with as little sleep Nick and I both got, that we did not end up getting sick during the semester? We now have a month long break until next semester and have already been enjoying every moment of it. :)

For our FINAL presentation critique in my Studio I class, we did the presentation a little different. Usually, we would take our design project up in front of our entire class, the teacher, the program director, the dean of the school, and 6-10 Local Interior Designers. Well, our teacher gave us (and the Local designers, as far as I'm concerned) a break from the norm and we presented our final in more of a Gallery-style form. Each student set up their projects around the computer lab in the main part of the biulding, and then each designer (and family and friends that were invited) came around individually and listened to us present our designs to them. SOOO LESS stressful this way... it was actually a lot easier and funner to have one-on-one discussions with the designers. It was also A LOT easier to be told what was wrong with your design and WHY not being in front of a WHOLE room of people! :) Nick was taking finals during this same time, so I THOUGHT he wasn't going to be able to come listen to my presentation, but the sneaky little sweetheart he is, showed up and stood back behind me, listening to me, without me realizing for about 10 mins!! :)

Our teacher also took some pictures of us presenting and posted them afterwards and this is the one he sent me.

Anyways... enough about school... It's the holiday season and now that's what we are truly able to focus on.

Just to catch up a little.... even though we weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving, Nick and I still had a great one. We missed our families a lot, but we are blessed enough to have some family here that love us and always include us! (THANKS) We went to dinner at Nick's Aunt Vicki and Uncle Keith's. It was fun to see all of Nick's cousins and family members that came from out of town. After, dinner there, we went home and enjoyed the rest of the day together. I cooked my FIRST Turkey ever!!! In fact, I did the entire meal... turkey, potatoes, homemade rolls, salad, and a green bean mix, and 4 homemade Chocolate Cream Pies for friends and family (I do have to admit that those turned out better last year). But the turkey was amazing... :) I was very surprised at how easy it is to cook a turkey. When I was first cleaning it and removing everything, I was freaking out and was pretty grossed out too! :) My dad would have kicked my butt if he would have seen what a "girl" I was being about it all.

We also put up our Christmas tree that weekend, knowing if it didn't get done then, it would get done at all. We got a real tree again this year. It is very pretty and I just LOVE having it up. I kind of wish we could leave Christmas trees up year round because of the feeling and mood it creates in our home. :) We also put up some Christmas lights and wreath to decorate the small entrance to our condo; HOWEVER, because the HOA is retarded here, we were asked to take down decorations or we would be fined. WOW huh??.... yes, they are TOTALLY missing the Christmas spirit. And I really wanted to remind them of that, :) but I didn't.

Which brings me to my next point... We won't have to deal with the HOA here after the 1st of January because we are moving into a house!!! :) :) We are both VERY excited about that. No, we are not buying, just renting. Why rent a condo if renting a BIGGER space (house) is the same price, right? I will post pictures of it when we move in. We are NOT excited about the "moving" part... that's like the worst thing ever, don't you think? But it will be SOO worth it when we are all unpacked and settled in. We feel SOO blessed to have the opportunity to move into a house and have things working so well for us here.

I hope that everyone is having a GREAT holiday season thus far and continues too!!!

family

this is nick posting this time and i recently found out that i wasnt able to get thanksgiving or christmas off from work this year. im feeling pretty bad about that because i know that even though she wouldnt tell me lindi's pretty dissapointed about not being able to go home for the holidays and i am as well. i wish there was something i could do - i guess well see what happens. but just in case we dont end up goin home i wanted to let all our family know back in wyoming and nebraska how much we love appreciate and are going to miss them this holiday season.
im sure this happens to everyone this time of year but good memories and fun family traditions are starting to come back and stir up feelings that make you want to be home and around family. you miss things like tubing on the mountains, putting up the christmas lights and tree, staring at and working on a puzzle for hours, playing with nephews and nieces, driving back and forth making sure we spend equal time with all our family, sitting around the living room and just talking and telling stories, taking

turns making fun and getting made fun of, playing games, and watching the old classic christmas movies. i hope everyone knows how much we love them and that family will always be our number one priority.

even though we cant go home we are excited to spend the holidays here together and continue our family traditions with eachother and make some of our own traditions. were so thankful for the family and friends that we have here in las vegas. they have been life savers. were so grateful to them in reaching out and always inviting and including us in family get-togethers and activities. it has been a great opportunity to get so close to our family here. it really has been a blessing to have them here for love and support.

we hope that everyone has a happy holiday season and we hope to be able to get back home to see everyone real soon.

Halloween Happenings

Our Halloween weekend was fun, but also a little unusual for Halloween. :) We had a bunch of plans originally, but life happens and things don't always go as planned. We had awesome costume ideas, but we didn't even end up dressing up. :( We had planned to go to a Halloween party in Boulder City with Nick's cousins, but it didn't end up working out... which to be totally honest, was kind of nice for us because I had SOOOO much homework this weekend. (hence the reason I have not blogged forever) SOOO our plans changed to staying home friday night carving pumkins together and watching Halloween movies. It was a lot of fun and a very relaxing night together. On Saturday, I again did homework all morning, Nick took me to the temple, and then we met up with some friends for dinner and then headed to Jamie Johnson in concert. (ya, we didn't know who that was when we were asked to go... he sings "Should Have Seen It In Color") We only knew a few songs, but it was still fun to go and hang out with some good friends.

There were some pretty "interesting" costumes at the concert. Or as Nick would say, lack there of. While were walking through the Casino towards the concert, I mentioned to Nick that it was very easy to mix up peoples costumes with how they dress everyday. That's Las Vegas for ya!?!?! NOT my favorite part about this place. It truly is amazing what people go out in public wearing and even worse, they think they look good.

So like I said, not a usual Halloween for us, but it was still very fun and just what we needed... TIME TOGETHER!! My husband has been a very patient loving guy... he lets me leave to Wyoming for a whole week, then I get home and have basically lived at the school ever since. I keep telling him that I've been the worst wife lately because I'm always running back and forth to school and home and feel like I'm never home to do the things I usually do for him. I hope school slows down a little soon, so that things can be back to normal for us.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween!!

___________________________

This is for Jerry and Terri... The shirt that Nick "designed" online...

For all you who know the movie "it's a Wonderful life"

Addie Adele's Arrival

Addie Adele Weber was born on Wednesday, October 14th 2009, at 11:46. She weighs 6lbs 4oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

Yesterday, I flew into Casper, Wyoming for the week to be with my sister, Dani, while she is having her baby. You probably noticed it was an "I" not a "we". Nick wasn't able to come with me :( due to work and school. It will be a lonely week without him, but we're both staying postive. He is missed dearly by my family and I. Yes, I am also missing a full week of school which is a little stressful, but I turned in a lot of my work early before leaving, so that helps. Unfortunatly, my teachers weren't too happy with me leaving either (we won't EVEN go into that story), but family comes first in this girls book. :)

Today we finished putting baby Addie's room together and I have to say, it's my favorite room in the house. It turned out just perfectly!! We all made a group effort to finish the room, take pictures, and post it on mom's blog. We decided to ALL copy that post and paste onto our blogs. :) Don't mind the silly inside jokes as we were all wired and being silly as always when we get together!! :)



Hi!! This is a shout out from Dani's house in Lingle, Wyoming. Katie and I headed down to Lingle yesterday and picked Lindi up at the Casper Airport as she flew in from Vegas for the week. It only took us 2 hours longer to get to Dani's house from Casper because of the WONDERFUL roads, which were covered in ice... BLACK ice that is... did you know that black ice is like the devil?... It's true, you can't see it but the evil is always there! Anyways... back to the story... we made it to Lingle SAFELY around 12 am. :)

As you can see, my daughters and I are having a good time creating this post together and you will see the same one on all of their blogs as well. NOW... the reason why we're posting...

INTRODUCING... (the FINISHING touches)... ADDIE'S ROOM!!!!!!!
Note: The colors in the following pictures don't show their true hue.

I picked out fabric for pillows to be made for the nursery and was hoping to find someone to make them. I hit the jackpot when I thought of Brenda, she did an AMAZING job!! The pictures don't do them justice, they are adorable and we all LOVE them!!!!...




















































The above pillow turns to the other side and it is pictured in the second picture in the rocking chair...they are all so cute and absolutely perfect!!!! THANKS Brenda!!!!!

The following items were made by Michelle and the ribbons were added by Lindi today. The ribbons are the same ones that were used on the pillows and we wanted to tie them into the room...



































(I couldn't edit any of the pictures, because I don't have my computer...hence not soooo good...)

The following decor was provided by the talented Lindi...


















Lindi made the name...addie...








































Lindi helping...























The expectant mother, anxiously awaiting the big day which is this Wednesday!! In this picture, one can see that she is carrying Addie on the left side and in real life she looks a little funny!!! But she's always been a little special and we still LOVE her!!!























I'll keep you posted on the excitement from Lingle!!!

For Addie!!

My sister, Danielle, is having her FIRST baby on October 14th (unless that little sweet thing decides to join them sooner). It is the first baby on my side of the family and mom & dad's first GRANDCHILD... that sounds very strange. But they are going to be the BEST grandparents ever. I wanted to do some FUN things for Dani and their sweet "baby-soon-to-come", Addie. Since some family members have asked to see, here is what I did... I decided to first, make a couple of things for the nursery.

Here is a picture of the nursery so far. My mom helped Dani to make this corner super cute.

I'm showing you that, so this makes more sense! :)

They have a large blank wall on one side of the nursery where we planned to put these:

Simple frames with baby Addie's name and coordinating paper and ribbon inside. :)


Danielle had mentioned to my mom that she wanted a picture of the Logan, Utah temple in Addie's room. I used the same paper and ribbon for this tile and used modge podge to put it all together. It will sit on an easel in her room.

The next thing has nothing to do with baby Addie's room, but something I could NOT resist doing. When Dani had her baby shower in Utah, the one thing she did not get enough of were "Hair Things." SO... I did some simple research I tried my best to come up with a few fun hair things for Addie.

Here are the headbands... 9 different colors.
And here are 7 different flowers (with clips attached to the back of them that attach to the ribbon on the headband.) They're ALL made to mix and match so if the white flower matches the pink headband because of Addie's outfit, she is set. :) There is also 6-7 bows that also attach to the different headbands. These were SUPER fun to make and way easy. I already have a bunch of new ideas to make some more. ( I know there's probably enough as it is right?)

Dani just got this package full of goodies in the mail last weekend and was thrilled. I hope you like it all Dani, and that the frames will look good in Addie's room. Just comparing the pictures of the room next to the frames, it looks pretty good!! Let me know how it all turns out!! We can't wait for the arrival of Addie!!