Holiday Season 2013

We have survived and tried to enjoy another busy holiday season! It’s always a bit of a challenge to get everything in order for all of the events - luckily we both had some extra vacation days to use this past week ;)

~ We’ve had lots of snow this year ~ Loving that snowblower ~

We went to the annual Mefford family gingerbread house building activity and celebrated Spencer’s dad’s birthday. Becky and Todd have been in town and were able to enjoy the festivities with us. I decided to play photographer for the seasonal events. I never quite have the photos I want for my scrapbooking, and we have a better lens for these activities so it is easier :)

~ Paul’s family made a cute train ~

 ~ Isn’t my hubby cute?! ~

~ Me surviving the chaos! :) ~

Afterwards we celebrated my dad’s birthday. Everyone was in a goofy mood so we have some silly pictures. These are two of the normal ones! :) 

~ Love my sisters ~

Schoko opened up an early Christmas present so she could use her new shoes in my parents house! She hates wearing her shoes. She acts like her paws are broken; it’s so sad. But what she doesn’t realize is that it’s better than being left outside in the cold! While sitting down putting them on her I noticed the my parent's carpet was wet.  Apparently water had been leaking in from outside and it made quite the mess!

We spent Christmas Eve at the annual Mefford family party. The kids looked so cute all dressed up for the nativity pageant! Too many pics of them to decide what to share! :) Here Spence is showing off his new meat claws for his smoker.

~ My Family ~

We spent the night at my parents house and enjoyed a slow Christmas morning with them. Schoko got toys, treats, and bandanas for Christmas. She’s getting really good at digging into her presents!

~ Love my puppy ~

We then visited with the Meffords that evening before making the trip back home. It has been fun to see family and I have enjoyed being the photographer. I think I like hiding behind the camera. I find it’s a bit less stressful because I have a job to do, and it’s a great excuse to mingle with everyone.

~ Happy Holidays! ~

Puppy Potter

I wanted to dress Schoko up for Halloween this year, just for fun. I kinda got a little sewing bug so I started scouring Pinterest for Doggy Costume DIY ideas and found a couple of cute Harry Potter costumes!

Here: http://www.allfreeholidaycrafts.com/Halloween-Costumes/Harry-Potter-Dog-Costume/

and here: http://thyme-is-honey.com/2012/10/31/harry-halloween/

The first link has a great tutorial. I did change it up a bit so this is what I did!

1. I measured Schoko. She wasn't feeling well because she had just gotten back from the vet, and had some shots for her allergies. But she let me measure her... mostly ;)

2. The Shirt - I found one of my old gray t-shirts (similar to the ones she's worn before!) to use as the shirt. I then found one of Spence's old white collared shirts. I wasn't entirely sure how to do this part. The directions weren't too clear in the tutorial, especially because I didn't cut open the back of the shirt, and because my t-shirt wasn't a v-neck. How would you do the tie with a round collared shirt?

I cut out the collar that I wanted to use, and started pinning the t-shirt to it. In the front I made it into a v-neck by tucking more of the t-shirt under before sewing. Make sure you use a lot of pins because it gets tricky. You'll notice I have a little pucker in mine. I didn't mind because I knew the t-shirt would already look a little silly on the dog so no one would notice :) (except that I just told you, ha!)

3.  I didn't make a tie. I saw the other costume and realized I'd rather make a scarf! AND because the way I sewed the shirt, I couldn't really add a tie unless I really wanted to tie it around her neck. I opted out.

The scarf was pretty easy and it really helped everyone pick up on the costume! I cut the gold and maroon fabric into 6 1/2" x 4"squares. I then sewed the pieces together. I found it was easiest to sew every gold piece to a maroon piece, and then sew those pairs together. Then, I pin right sides together, and sew up the side. Then turn it out, sew the ends together, and voila! You have a scarf :)

4. The Cape! I cut out the fabric based on the dog's measurements, and then sewed around all edges for a clean look.

The hood was a bit tricky and I really didn't know how to make it. So, I cut a rectangular size out of both black and maroon, sewed the pieces together, and then sewed them together to make a hood. I had extra fabric inside the hood that I ended up cutting out along the seam. I'm sure you can find a better tutorial online, this was very makeshift!

Once the hood was in the right shape, I sewed it to the middle of one of the sides of the cape.

I then made two ties to sew onto the sides of the hood like this:

5. The Gryffindor Crest - You need to have the Gryffindor Crest on the cape and on the shirt to be a true Potter.  I used the pattern found here. I used my Silhouette to cut the different shapes out of the fabric with the amazing fabric blade. I then glued the pieces together with fabric glue, and glued them onto the cape and shirt. Easy!

6. Glasses - I loved the way the glasses looked in the tutorial picture, but they really don't stay on! Luckily I was able to quickly snap a few photos of Schoko wearing the glasses!

Happy Halloween!

Princess Puppy

I haven't posted a scrapbook page in forever and I just love the way this turned out! So, I thought I'd share it with you all.

Last year for Halloween I dressed my cute little puppy up as a princess! She was a rascally little 1 year old and didn't love wearing a dress. (She isn't the most girlie girl, if you know what I mean.) But, she wore it with a smile for her mama. Isn't she cute?! We had to get a little creative with her belts to hold up the dress… it wasn't exactly made for a dog. But, we made it work and I think she looked cute!!

Lately

It's been a while since I've bloggity blogged so here are a few updates of things we've been up to lately :)



For my brother Steve's birthday we went to Lagoon! (yes, a few months late, it was a post birthday celebration!) It was fun to hang out with my siblings and cousin. I think I must be getting old because the rides were really starting to get to me. I've never felt sick on a ride before but that pirate ship made me feel awful! I remember the days when I could ride all of the rides all day long and never get sick. What is happening?! Have we discovered the fountain of youth yet?! Help! haha...









We went to Red Iguana 2 and ate super yummy food for my best friend's birthday! I ended up getting verde mole chicken enchiladas. The sauce almost tasted Indian, it was a very unique delicious combination.  Plus it didn't burn off my tongue - YAY! Thanks for having a birthday so we could celebrate! :)

Our friend had a "Washed Up Super Heros" birthday party at the Tav on Friday night. I was having a difficult time deciding on a costume. The day of the party I had no ideas. So I asked the girls at work for their help and Whitney came up with a great plan - to be Thor - she decided that we must have the same hair stylist because mine is the same length/color as Thor's… I was not originally planning on making any sort of elaborate costume because I really wasn't feeling it. (Plus Thor who has lost his strength and turned into a girl was funny enough!) I didn't have a cape, and we all know how necessary capes are for super heroes so I went searching through our lovely Farmington stores. I walked into Ross and BAM right there in the front, with all the halloween items, there was a warrior costume for 12 whole dollars. I couldn't resist - I HAD To buy it! It was just too perfect...

Don't you love the PVC Pipe/Duck tape mallet?! hehe.. My cute husband made it for me, and he helped me modify the helmet to look more Thor like. He also helped create the circles. About the circles - they threw some people off. But EVERY Picture of Thor has these round circle things on his chest plate. Seriously, go Google it! I browsed through the images so that's what I did and it was a great conversation piece. Everyone asked what they were for - I don't know!?! It was never mentioned in the movie (that I can remember) but they are there! So please, if you know the purpose of the circles, please share!!

We also went to Antelope Island for a day - Spence and I decided it should be called Buffalo Island because there seem to be more buffalo than antelope. We were out there scoping out the scenery to see if there were good places to take Becca's senior photos. (I still can't believe she's a senior!!)

Schoko dressed up like a cowgirl with her bandana. I'm not sure what is up with her silly ears, but it's cute. What a cute, silly pup!

I was able to go to the UTAH vs BYU game this Saturday. My friend's boyfriend was unable to make it so I got to take his seat. (Super Lucky for Me!) It was a great game! I tried curling my hair with a flat iron for the game and it totally worked. Naturally, I had to document this so, I made Spencer take a picture of it before I left. Didn't it turn out cute?! And didn't he take a great photo!

Here are a couple of pictures from the game! :)

We won! Yay! It was quite a complicated ending. Here is a very brief summary. The game looked like it ended, so the fans rushed the field, but there was one more second left. So, the one second played while the fans were on the sidelines. The fans, again, rushed the field. There was a flag on the play and the refs deemed a 15 yard penalty for the fans running on the field before the end of the play… SO Here's a funny picture showing all of the fans waiting/watching from the sidelines!

We were sitting on the South End Zone so we got to clearly see the BYU field goal attempt bounce off of the right (East) post - confirming our win! 24 - 21 YAY! :) The fans got to rush the field for real this time! hehe…

I'm excited for FALL! It has been a great summer, but I'm ready for it to cool down a bit! I never thought I'd say that - because I love love love summertime. I really must be getting old :) hehe. I'm looking forward to my cute fall decorations, the leaves turning, pumpkin spice goodness, soups, and oh so many other things.

May Recap

This past month has flown by. I really can't believe it's already Memorial Day Weekend! This is a much needed break for me, we've been busy. Here's a quick recap on what we've been up to.

Spencer got a new job. He's now working from home and will more than likely travel a bit. We had to make a few trips down to Ikea for some office furniture, ordered a few things online, visited the office store, etc. He's now all set up and loving working from home. I think this means he'll want to leave the house more and be, you know, social. I'm sure working from home can get lonely so it's a good thing the puppy keeps him company ;)

I've been busy at work trying to figure out what my new job is really going to be. I'm not really sure yet but I know things are changing. I have to take another test. Uhg. I really have no motivation for it but it has to get done. Not fun.

We went to my sister's Utah Symphony/Youth concert where she got to play with the symphony. She was second stand of the first violins. Way to go Bex! She's way better than I ever was :) To put it in perspective, I was in the second violins, second stand (I think?!). SO she #1 - made first violins and #2 was the second best of that group. I'm so proud of her!

(This picture is awesome, for some reason I never know where to look when having my picture taken on a phone?! My eyes always look weird.)

Schoko is being a better dog every day. She still has her little moments when she wants to do what she wants and doesn't care what we want. Those are starting to happen less frequently. We went hiking with her friend Tika and it made me wish she had a buddy to run up the trail with. But we're not ready for that quite yet. I guess Tika will just have to come with us more often! Schoko has learned she doesn't need to meet every dog/kid/person on the hike. She even left some of the dogs alone when I asked her to! Here is a picture of us at our favorite waterfall up Adam's canyon. The water was icy cold. Thanks friends for coming with us!

Mom got her a new collar for outdoors. This way her cute pink collar can stay pink (not grey like it gets after being in the mud) and her new collar can get as dirty as she wants it to be! I think red looks good on her :)

I also went on my first outdoors rock-climbing wall. It was scary. I didn't make it up the first time because I was too scared to continue on. The second climb wasn't quite as scary so I made it to the top. Spencer is a pro and climbed it effortlessly his first time. Thanks Jarge for taking us! Here's a lovely picture of my attempt at rock-climbing.

The weather has been so nice that I busted out Schoko's swimming pool. She likes to scratch at the fish on the bottom of the pool and drink the water. She'll even put her whole nose in the water to cool of her face. It's pretty cute :)

I'm so excited for summer!

Learning New Things

Today after work I looked at my crazy dog who was anxiously waiting to do something. I could tell she needed some attention. So, instead of the usual frisbee game I thought I'd teach her something new. Frisbee is nice because it wears her out physically and it's her favorite thing to do. She is in love with her frisbee. It's kind of cute, she always knows where it is. If it gets lost, like on the neighbors roof, (oops!) she goes crazy running around the house looking up to find it. She will never give up trying to find it because it's her favorite thing in the world. I sometimes think she likes it more than me :) hehehe. Today she looked like she needed a mental challenge, not so much physical exercise. So, after a half hour of working with her she now knows how to "get on the porch" :) When I tell her to get on the porch she runs up and waits. I even threw that favorite toy and she stayed on the porch. What a good girl!

I think she's super smart because of how fast she figured it out! But she is still her sneaky self and tries to put her front paws on the second step, just to test her boundaries. I sometimes think she's too smart for her own good because she tries to find out how she can get away with things. I'm sure we still need to practice but she got the hang of it.

Photography Fun

We are participating in this year's Help Portrait - Ogden. Naturally we had to buy a new lens for our camera for the event, so we took the dog out for a photo shoot to practice. Didn't my hubby do a great job taking these pictures?!

We found a lost puppy during the shoot - he decided he wanted to be friends with Schoko, mostly...  ;)

He didn't have a collar so we couldn't call his owners. He was a nice dog and would sit when I told him to. So we walked around the neighborhood (he followed me because he knew I had treats haha) the direction he had come from from and nobody knew who he belonged to! The poor thing was very lost. After walking around a while we saw a car calling out a name and driving slowly. So I yelled out - did you loose a dog? Because we found one! The car came over and were so excited to find their dog!! It sounded like the dog was visiting and had wandered off. If we hadn't found them I'm not sure what we would have done! I thought about tying him out by the stop sign down the street hoping someone would find him... and then maybe calling animal services or something... what would you do?!

That was our "Black Friday" Fun!! I like sales but I dislike crowds more :)

Halloween Princess

So you know I just had to dress up my puppy for Halloween! Why not, right? The Friday before Halloween I had to drag my hubby to the store with me to help pick out a costume. I wanted a second opinion on if it would fit her and other logistical things that I sometimes choose to overlook ;) So, we went to Wal Mart and walked around for a while and ended up in the little girls section. Needless to say, we found the cutest princess-diva combo for this puppy to wear. She got to show off at grandma's house - she was so cute!! Here are some pictures and some narrative of what I think she was thinking... haha...

Mom, I don't want to be dressed up - I really just want to chase something! What is that?

You sure I can't go get that thing?! (Here you can see the dress and her cute belt!)

Okay I'll sit here if you say so...

It's tiring being a princess!

Can I go play already?!

Isn't she super cute?! I thought it turned out great, even if the dress ended up being a bit too small and we had to use that extra belt that came in the 2 pac for a harness type look.. haha.. I think she looked cute and maybe a little silly. But that just made it that much more fun! 

Happy 1st Birthday Schoko!

My puppy turned one last Wednesday, Oct 27th. To celebrate we went to Auntie Kelli's house so she could play with her cousins Quiggley and Fozzy. Here are some fund pictures of her birthday!

Baby Jett was in such a great mood! He loves his brothers!

How can you not love that face?!

Cousin Quiggley - Schoko loves her Quiggs!

Her Birthday Flair :)

Her Birthday Cake :)

 What Is That?! Her paw's up so it must be serious.

Can I eat that yet?!

 It looks so good...Yumm...

The puppies are being so good for their birthday treat!

Quiggley licked the peanut butter off before eating the bone. What a cute boy!

Schoko and Fozzy both ate theirs as fast as they could - almost in one big gulp!

She ate every last crumb! Yummy!

I think she had a good birthday :)