A Little Christmas Cheer

Griffiths Christmas Eve Tradition:

The table is set, each place setting with its own cracker (pull it open to find a paper hat and a little toy)

Christmas Eve Dinner:

The stocking were hung. . . (Sean's parents' house)

Dang! We make the greatest nativity scene ever! Look at those cute little angels.

Present Time for Sean's Nieces:

Kayla got an awesome beading kit. . .

You really have to understand that Allie is a nut! She wanted a huge diamond for Christmas. Not a ring or a necklace. A diamond that she could hold in her hands. So Sean and I got her a gigantic diamond paperweight. She was really excited.

I saved the cutest reaction for last. Little Whitney. We got her a stuffed monkey. It was super cute and super soft. She LOVED it!! She squealed and giggled and hugged and loved that monkey! It wasn't just a momentary thing either. She brought that monkey with her everywhere and laughed every time she saw it!

I got Sean an iTouch for Christmas. This is that gift that we joke about getting if we win the lottery. You have to understand that we are poor students. We both go to school and we both have low-paying part-time jobs. We live in a teeny tiny apartment and pinch pennies while sticking to a tight budget. I never really should have been able to afford this. So I saved every little penny that I thought Sean wouldn't notice from January until Christmas. I even had my mom go in on it with me. I felt so awesome for getting him this gift and he loves it! He finally feels included in the very exclusive iPhone club of his dad and brother.

I wrapped the gift in a Victoria's Secret box, hoping for a nervous reaction. I video taped Sean opening the gift, but it really is too bad that he didn't react better. He is generally a mellow guy (unless his football team is loosing). I figured I'd post the video anyway for all of those people who really know Sean.

A Brand New Year

So here's the thing. . . It's a new year and there is this common practice of setting resolutions to bring out the "best" a person can be. I haven't really ever set a new year's resolution. I do remember once when I was pretty young resolving to eat more candy. But to be perfectly honest, I never felt the urge to make a drastic goal to improve myself. This year I have a resolution, a few actually:

1. Spend more time with my husband and less time worrying about schoolwork. Despite the common misconception that Elementary Education is an easy major. . . it definitely isn't. Last semester I spent more time on school, work, and more school. Sean and I had opposite schedules and it was a struggle to find "us time" that didn't include naps or homework.

2. Document EVERYTHING! Time is a precious commodity and I want to be able to remember as much as possible. (This really includes photos, blogging, scrapbooking, and writing in a journal).

3. Pamper Myself. Sometimes when I get caught up in the stress of school, I focus all of my energy on my classes and keeping my apartment in order. I have a bazillion hobbies and I love to create things. I am sad to say that I never once picked up my violin, or got out my sewing machine last semester. This has got to stop! I need me time or I am going to burn out.

4. Learn something new. Last year I learned how to sew and crochet (the Internet is amazing!). I love learning new things and branching outside of my comfort. I want to be a well rounded person.

5. Lastly. . .(I figure that if I keep it to 5, I might be able to achieve them) Think before judgement. My junior year in high school I decided that I would think 5 nice things about someone before thinking anything negative. The thing is. . . once you think "He/She is a child of God" There is nothing bad to say about them. I learned that everyone has something great about them that overshadows any negative. I was definitely a more happy and positive person by doing this activity. This also goes for things like food, classes, information, etc.

Now that I have posted to the world what I am going to do to change my life this year. . . I will definitely be held accountable. My main goal in posting these resolutions is really to add happiness to my already happy life. School adds stress and it is up to me to add the happy.

Pictures!!! . . .finally

School is almost over, and I finally found a minute to post some pictures. Sean and I woke up this morning to SNOW everywhere! We get a discount on our rent for doing the yardwork and shoveling in the winter time. . . so we did some shoveling. Problem is, it kept snowing and kept sNowInG, and kept SNOWING! You can't even tell that we did shovel this morning. It is December 5th and I should be expecting the snow, I was just hoping that it would hold off for a while. Oh well.

Thanksgiving pies! This is becoming a tradition. I love making pies, even though it takes so much time and effort. It feels good to contribute to thanksgiving.

Somehow, I managed to forget to take a picture of the gluten-free pie that I made. Sean's mom can't eat wheat so I made a pie, especially for her. I made the dough with special gluten-free flour, and it is a nightmare to work with, but I really wanted to make a pie that Donna could eat.

I am going to find a mini pie plate in the future so that I can make a smaller portioned gluten-free pie, because no one else eats it.

Carolyn was nice enough to lend me some dough stamp things. They are cookie cutters that also imprint the dough. My pies looked great this year!

Sean made me an awesome cake for my birthday. He was so proud of it! It looked great and tasted better. He won the opportunity to make me a cake for my birthday every year because it was so good. That probably wasn't his intention.

Just Beautiful!

Halloween Brownies!!!

Sean and I decided that we would decorate brownies to get into the Halloween spirit. We didn't really get to celebrate Halloween or carve pumpkins because we were both sick with the swine. . . not fun!

Crimson trail hike. . . our last hike of the season. It was gorgeous scenery and super fun! It skirted the tops of the cliffs and Sean got really excited to take pictures of him being a daredevil.

Sean made me climb down there. If I fell, I probably would have died!

Some really pretty scenery:

Sean was so excited to climb to this awkward pinnacle of sorts. He plan was to stand on top of it. I was afraid that he would fall, so he was only allowed to sit on it. Still a good picture.

I was scared. I am slowly getting over a fear of heights. Before this picture, I was holding onto a tree behind me, but sean made me let go.

Sean Being a Stud:

The hike is pretty steep, but it is definitely worth it!

Gorgeous View:

I'm so behind!

Let's just say that this semester has not been an easy one. I have had project, after assignment, after project, after work, after assignment, after paper. . . .I have not had any time to myself. I leave before the sun comes up and I don't get home until it goes back down. I'm starting to forget what sunshine looks like. Thank heavens my practicum is now over and I can focus on my projects. I just have to sit through next week's deadline for all of my projects and the week after for finals and I will finally have some time to myself! I have so many pictures to post and I really love blogging, I just don't have time. My goal is to get caught up before Christmas.

This last weekend was my 21st birthday!! Sean was at a football game on my birthday, so we pretended that Friday was my birthday. Sean made a beautiful cake (that he is very proud of) and took me out to eat at Chili's. I will post pictures of the cake when I get a moment to myself. Sean left right after dinner for Salt Lake to meet up with his dad and brother for the BYU game the next day. So on my birthday I sat in my sweats all day and worked on my Classroom Management project. Not even my birthday is a good enough excuse to forget about homework.

Thanksgiving is coming up and my famous pies are in the works. I am going shopping tonight for supplies and Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be my pie days. My family is so lucky. I learned great tips, tricks, techniques, and recipes from the "more distinguished" members of my ward last year. As a result, my apple pies are now requested by the greater population of my family. Sean doesn't like apple pie, but he loves mine. Now I know what you're thinking "Husbands have to say that they like their wives' pies" But when you husband eats 3/4 of a pie in one sitting, I don't think he is fibbing!

My AdOrAblE 5th Grade Practicum Class. . .

Today was my last day in Mrs. Kyriopoulos' 5th grade class at Edith Bowen. I didn't know that in 5 short weeks I could get so attached to every single student in that class. I was brought so near to tears when a student (that I never really thought liked me) gave me a hug at the end of the day and told me how sad he was that I was leaving. . .He even told me that I was his favorite teacher and made me promise to come back and visit. This individual comes from pretty hard circumstances and acts out a lot in class. It really meant a lot to me that I had made that kind of impact on him.

On a lighter note, I received the best-ever going away present from another student today. We had a guest speaker that brought some pretty cheap yardsticks for the kids to keep. One student's ruler broke in the process of goofing off among other things. When he discovered that it had broken off right at a "G" he wrote Mrs. next to it and gave it to me so that I would remember him.

I had such a blast with this class and I really am going to miss all of my kids!

I found this great website for blog backgrounds! if you are interested it is thecutestblogontheblock.com it has backgrounds, fonts and banners. I am a big fan!

The Beginning

I love my husband. . .I think he kinda likes the idea of a blog. He often catches up on Trace and Amber through their blog. So I finally decided to start one. It just so happens that one of my classes requires that I have a blog and while I created that one, I had a little extra time to create this one. Maybe this way, I can keep my family updated on life happenings other than just on facebook. A Blog just seems to be a little bit more personalized and something that I can add my creative flair to. I still have to figure that one out. I haven't started a blog before now because I decided early on that I would not have anything too interesting to say, or fun pictures to post until I had a baby. . . it just so happens that my life is crazy-jam-packed full of all sorts of fun things that people may want to know about. I still think that I will have tons more to say when I start to have children, but for now this will just be the "whenever-i-get-time-and-have-something-interesting-to-say" blog. I am going to give Sean access to this blog too, however, I doubt that he will ever have the urge to post something. I will wait to expose this blog until I can figure out how to customize the appearance.