so thankful

for Brandon. we've been through a lot lately and I'm glad to have him to do it with.

for my cute niece Emmeline


for my dad making an amazing Thanksgiving brunch of pumpkin french toast. and yes, that is ice cream on the table.


for an amazing Thanksgiving Dinner with extended family



and that it is officially the Christmas season! now I don't feel bad for listening to Christmas music and putting up the decorations. :) what are some of your favorite christmas traditions?

i need your help!

I entered my THANKS blocks (don't remember them? click here) into Michael's crafts "Homemade Holiday" craft contest. The more ratings a craft receives, the better chance it has of winning. If you liked the THANKS blocks and want to vote, click on the following link. It will only take a few seconds, and you can get all sorts of fabulous craft ideas while you are there.

http://www.michaelscontest.com/uploads/1440

(just scroll to the bottom of the picture where it has the snomwan outlines and you can click on 1-5 snowmen, depending on your rating)

"THANKS" mucho!

Recent Bargains

I've got an obsession. And its got to S.T.O.P now! I love searching the local thrift stores for good buys way too much. I'm making a goal to not go to one for a whole month. Its just so hard to resist good deals like this...and why do you care about them? Maybe you don't so you shouldn't read this post. But if you do, if you are like me and love seeing what good deals people find, it gives me hope that I can be that lucky person who finds a bargain. And today was jackpot!!

$1- craft pumpkin

$1.50-fruit bowl

$4-sign

$2.00-frame & candle holder

$1.50-halloween serving tray--perfect for our spudnut parties

$1.50-BOO tea light holders

+an easter egg dyeing kit and super nice wire wisk (sorry, no picture)

and...for the finale...WE BOUGHT A CAR!

We found a great deal through the LDS church. We are very happy to have found one and to have one less thing to look for. You'll have to wait and see it..

surgery update

Some of you have asked. The boy I married sure keeps our life exciting. Besides the tooth injury and surgery that happened earlier this summer, he just got ear surgery. He has a hole in his eardrum that has had 2 attempts of being fixed. We are crossing our fingers that the third time is the charm. He had to get a chunk of skin taken out over his ear and then they grafted it inside his inner ear over the whole. That is as many details as I can handle.

Brandon is recovering well from his ear surgery-despite the fact that it took a lot longer than expected. We were in the hospital for 8 hours yesterday. I don't know how we will ever have kids. I got so nautious listening to the doctor and being there that I had to leave 3 times or I would have puked.

We are having a great time just relaxing, sleeping, watching movies, playing games (Scattergories and Life are our new favorites) and being together. Thanks for all of your prayers and support.

Recent Pics

From our recent Spudnut Sunday...we made 109 spudnuts!

Brandon's grandparents came down from Oregon to visit. It was really fun spending time with them. Aren't Halle and Sawyer adorable?

Our Halloween night...inverse trick-or-treating

Confessions on a Friday

1. i smell like onions. i made a delicious omelet yesterday for brunch and all i smell is onions and I am pretty sure it is me. does this happen to anyone else?

2. i am wearing capris and sandals and i LOVE it. don't get me wrong, i am excited for snow and the holidays, but me and no sun is not a good combo.

3. pedicures are uh-mazing! i had a gift card to the aveda spa for a foot relieving pedicure. can i say wow? it was so relaxing being pampered for over an hour. thanks to omniture for treating me to this.

4.i love cheap, but classy home decor. and i will admit, i find lots of it and thrift stores. last week i went to 4 DIs. i found this for $1

and this for $1 (a very sophisticated and classy tv remote holder if i might say so)


and this for $5 (at big lots-another favorite store!)

i couldn't resist this basket. it just makes me smile. and i think that brandon is loving that my shoes are a bit more organized.

5. i can't wait much longer until this hottie gets home and we can go on a date together. car shopping is NO fun and way too stressful. i'm excited to take a break and have some fun.

Our Scary Halloween

(I had to post something happy. This is from our mostly-annual King family Halloween Hoorah)

I find it so ironic that the morning of Halloween I told Brandon that I wanted it to be a memorable day that we spent together. That it was. And so I have learned my lesson that I will never want a day to be memorable again...let me explain.

Around 1:30 we left our house and picked up Sarah to go up to Kaysville to hang out with my dad and little brother. We were having a great old time when about 3300 south, a red jeep cut us off, causing us to swerve to miss hitting it. It caused us to lose control and spin 3 circles, finally being stopped by the cement barricade in the median of I-15 and facing oncoming traffic . It happened all too fast and is such a blur, except remembering that all I kept saying was "Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh" as we were spinning. I just kept waiting for another car to run into us or for us to crash head-on into the median. You know how you always hear people say that there whole life flashed before their eyes? Well, I think I experienced that. All I could think about was not having Brandon or Sarah in my life and that there was nothing I could do about it. It was the most difficult feeling to not be able to stop the car or rewind time to make all of this not happen.

When we finally did stop, I saw Sarah sit up from the back seat (she had been covering her face to not see what was happening) and Brandon still sitting next to me. I asked if everyone was okay and we were. Our car looked terrible and had to be towed away. However, all of us walked away from the accident without one single scratch or bruise.

We are afraid the driver of the jeep did not even know what he caused. He just kept on going. But two very nice people stopped immediately after witnessing the entire event and waited with us to make sure they could make statements on our behalf. One man even collected all the dirty laundry that had toppled out of our trunk. We were all shaken up pretty bad from it, but they waited until we were calm and the highway patrol showed up.

Brandon said he always wanted to ride in a cop car and he got his chance as the patrolman drove us to the next exit where my dad picked us up:)

I have replayed this over and over in my head and all I can say is that I think that we definitely had angels protecting us. I know that our work is not over here and we still have great things to do. I am so grateful that we are all safe and alive. I am grateful for the fresh perspective I have on life and to be reminded of the things that really matter. Life can change in a second. I hope I can always treat others kindly so that if something ever did happen, I would never regret how I treated them.

Our Halloween did have a happy ending. We chilled with my Dad and Michael and even did some inverse trick-or-treating where we took candy to people. And we had a very fun and successful Spudnut Party yesterday. I'll post pictures soon.

For now, we are in desperate need of car buying tips. Yep, our car is not-salvageable. Where do we even start looking?? We are clueless when it comes to car buying.