My new kitchen table

When we very first moved into our apartment Daniel and I went furniture hunting at all of the student housed apartment complexes near campus. When students move in and out here at UCSB and they can't take stuff with them (or if they get evicted from their apartment like a lot of the cases were when we first arrived!) they throw everything "away" (which means they stick it out in a big pile in front of the apartment complex and it's first come first serve!). Sometimes you can get lucky and find some really awesome stuff which was the case for us when we first got here. We furnished pretty much our entire apartment for free!!

Most of the stuff I like, but there are a few things that seriously need to be upgraded #1 my table and chairs and #2 the computer desk. The computer desk was actually the first piece of furniture we got for our apartment. Daniel found it on campus and carried it by himself all the way across campus to where he parked the car. The next morning his neck hurt so bad because of the weird angle that he carried it at! Anyway, my mom decided to buy new furniture and asked us if we wanted her old stuff. Of course we did but the only problem is it's all still back in UT and we don't really have any way of getting it all out here. We're hopefully planning on taking apart the computer desk that she gave us when we go out there to visit over Christmas and bring it back in the car and reassemble the whole thing. But the table and chairs set that she gave us is just too big to bring out.

So....I bit the bullet and decided to buy a new table and chairs set with birthday money I've been saving up. I saw a set at K-Mart that I thought was nice and conveniently it was on sale this last weekend. Daniel bought it for me after his shift on Saturday and we just assembled it today. I LOVE it! It's a million times better than the one we use to have. Our old one was so off balance that we had to put 2 books under one of the legs in order to make it level! This one has 4 chairs (two more than we use to have) and is a dropleaf so it doesn't really take up much room. I'm really happy I got it. I really think it opens up my living room more and creates more space.This is what it looks like with the drop leafs down. it fits really well in the corner and opens up the room. Then when we need to use it we can just pull it out more and put the sides up.

The wood matches all of our other furniture in our house and I really like the cute little design on each chair. You can't see it but it's on the bars under the table as well.

Hurray for fun new stuff on sale!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was so much fun this year. We were able to sleep in and hang out all morning then we went over to our neighbors house and had thanksgiving with them. We were in charge of the turkey and the gravy which was seriously the easiest thing. I woke up in the morning shoved the turkey in the oven and left it until it was time to go. Then when we were ready to go over there I took the drippings from the turkey and made the gravy and we were off! It was awesome :)


Uh, yeah! This was Daniel's doing!! Again we had a turkey that was about the same weight as John and we just so happened to have an extra pan laying around from the last time we cooked a turkey so Daniel shoved him in the pan and snapped some pictures! We have way too much fun with this kid. Later in life I'm sure he'll think his parents are totally weird. He better get use to it because we'll be embarassing him for the rest of his life!! Bwa ha ha ha!!!


We had a good sized group of people from our ward there. Everyone brought a part of the meal and we ended up with TONS of leftovers...mmm thanksgiving leftovers!


This is the Hodnetts, then us, then the Sparks family. They just so happen to be our home teachers which is fun. We're really sad too because the Sparks are moving sometime after the new year to Boston. They are a really fun couple and we'll be sad to see them go.

It turned out to be a great Thanksgiving this year. I'm sure grateful for the food, our friends, and my wonderful little family I got to spend the day with. :)

BFOM Christmas Concert

So as many of you know Daniel LOVES to sing! When he was in his first years of college he and some buddies started up this group called BFOM (Brothas from Otha Mothas) an all male acapella group. After his 3rd year of college he left on a mission and was gone from college life for the last 4 years. The group pretty much died out while he was gone. Since he's been back he held auditions and started the group up again. Last night they had their first concert and I got to take some pictures!




They had a pretty good variety of songs. They opened with one of their BFOM classics "For the Longest Time" by Billy Joel and Daniel was the one with the solo. After that they sang "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel, "My Girl", "Take On Me", "Ducktales" the cartoon theme song, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, and a few christmas songs: "White Christmas", "Carol of the Bells", "Jingle Bells Medley", and then they oncored with "Silent Night".

I took my video camera with me that I was planning on setting up and leaving while I took some pictures of the concert but one of our neighbors came to the concert and offered to help videotape it. He was scared to hold the camera in fear of shaking it too much so he kept it on the tripod and tried zooming in and out and panning back and forth and every time it would squeak and look really choppy. I took over towards the end and took the camera off the tripod so only Jingle Bells and Silent Night came out decent! I totally would have posted the video footage of it but I don't have a converter to take the video footage from the camera onto the computer. Oh well, at some point I'll get it converted then I'll be able to post it. It might not be for a while but I'll get it eventually!!

Anyway, the night was really fun. The baby stayed at my neighbors house and slept the whole time! So all in all it was a pretty good Monday night. :)

Chamber Choir Concert

Last night Daniel had his first Chamber Choir Concert. It was really fun to dress up all fancy and leave the baby with a sitter and go out for the evening. Daniel had a 7 sec. solo during one of the songs which I managed to record on my cell phone. It's not the best of quality but whatever it still works.

Lucky 33!

Today I'm really excited because I realized that this is my 33rd post! Not that no. 33 is a major milestone of any kind but it just so happens that 33 is my favorite number, hence the reason I'm excited ;) So I've decided that in honor of this momentous occasion I'm going to list 33 of my favorite things...alphabetically!...

A-Apples and carmel dip! (for some reason I find it addictive! Plus I justify eating the carmel because I have apples with it! See?! Apples are healthy!!)
B-Beach (I hate getting in the water but I love to play on the beach)
C-Crocheting (I know it's an old lady thing but it's WAY fun)
D-Daniel (my awesome amazing husband!)
E- Eating a good home cooked meal (especially if my mom is cooking)
F-Flying home for the holidays (beats sitting in a car for 12 hours!)
G-Gardens (I have my own little garden plot here and I love to go out there and work on it.)
H-Harry Potter (I've never fallen in love with a series of books like I did when the Harry Potter series came out. I've read from book 1-7 all the way through at least 3 times now. I love them!)
I-Ice Cream (Starlite Mint to be exact)
J-John (my cutest littlest son John-John-John)
K-Kettle Corn (I like buttery popcorn too but there's something about the sweet taste of Kettle Corn that I love!)
L-Laying on the couch with my husband (either when there's a good movie playing or just to chill and spend time with him)
M- Movies (My top 3 are: Sleeping Beauty, Willow, and The Wizard of Oz)
N-Nephews (I love my two little nephews Logan and Tau...I miss my boys!)
O-Orange Creme flavored yogurt (I'm actually eating one as I type!)
P-Plumeria (my favorite flower)
Q-Quotes (one of my favorite things to do is quote movie lines with my sister!)
R-Rain (I love the smell of rain, I love watching it rain, I love dancing in the rain...I just love rain!)
S- Strawberries (my favorite fruit)
T- Three TV shows: Chuck, House, and The Office
U-Up do's (ok that one was a stretch but I really like to do my hair fancy sometimes, even though most of the time I just wear it in a pony tail! I would say my hair is my favorite feature about myself)
V-Victoria Secret lotion (yum! that stuff smells really good. I also like lotions from Bath and Body Works but mostly I like their hand soaps there)
W-Water (I like a glass of cold water way more than soda or even juice)
X-Xmas (Ok, so usually I don't like writing "Xmas" for Christmas but I couldn't think of anything else that started with an X that I like!)
Y-Yard sale-ing (nothing beats a good yard sale!)
Z-Zoo (I like the panda bears the best)

...ok I'm not completely stupid! I know there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, therefore I'll just add a few more things I love to make it to 33!

27- I love the color Red
28- I love going to plays more than going to the movies.
29- I love listening to good music.
30- I love it when my house is completely clean.
31- I love playing with my baby.
32- I love hearing the words "I love you" especially from my husband!
33- I love the number 33!!!

Family Pictures

We had our first family pictures taken yesterday. I thought they turned out pretty good...

Funny Faces!

Most people will post all of the really cute normal pictures they have to show how adorable their child is...Well I was looking through and organizing a bunch of pictures of John and I realized I have a bunch of really silly pictures of him that totally made me laugh!!...

Daniel's favorite superhero is Superman. In honor of that Daniel played around on photoshop one day and came up with this...Super John!

He started to goo at me which I thought was the most adorable thing EVER so I grabbed my phone and caught this expression! He was moving when I clicked the button so it's a little fuzzy, but hey for a camera picture it's not too bad!

I told him that he was holding a "Lemer" not a "Lion" but apparently he got a little confused!!

The glare of death directed at who knows what!

He just can't get enough of that pot of gold!

Wow...um...this one doesn't even warrant an explanation!

He really likes to stick out his tongue...again..and again...

and again...

and again!!

Sometimes he acts like a perfect little angel!

And other times he cries...

and cries...

and cries some more!!

But ultimately I think he's the cutest little guy in the world! And even though his hair is starting to thin out a little he still is amazingly adorable.

So there's my random blog post for the day!!!