$310.82

Since our furnace hasn't been working this is how me and the dogs have been spending our days:


Both dogs have sweaters on, and even then Oliver was shivering. He's wrapped up in the blanket with only his nose showing. You see that furry thing by my right hand, yeah, that's him. It was 50 degrees in the house on Wednesday. I had the electric blanket on me the entire day. It was dang cold. So Tyler gave in and called the guy to come fix it. He couldn't come until the following day. Tyler came home that evening and spent another three hours in the attic and nothing.

So Art (our AC/heat/do it all guy) came over yesterday. Now remember that Art already cost me a pretty penny this year when we had to replace our entire AC unit back in June, and then when our ceiling fell down in August. So as you can imagine Art makes me money anxious.

I had every reason to be anxious.

He spent four hours in my house, and $310.82 buckaroos later and now we have heat again.

While I am glad to be able to feel my fingers again, I'm sad to spend yet more money on climate control. House... please stop being so expensive, and please stop breaking things.

When Art left I told him thanks and that I hoped to not see him for a very long time.

The doggies are so happy. It's like all of the sudden they're alive again.

Oh the joys of being a homeowner! :-D

FHE: Gingerbread house

On Monday night Tyler was at work a little late, but I asked him to come home by 8:00pm so we could have Family Home Evening. We've been trying really hard to do this on Mondays so we can get into a habit before we have children. Before he got home I prepared these sweet treat bags for our neighbors:


There is 5 truffles in each bag and our little card says "Happy Holidays! With love, The Winmill Family", and on the left side I have our address. As soon as he got home we went out to distribute these. Now I just have 35 more to go and all our neighbors should be good for this season. Don't you wish you were my neighbor!?

We had dinner and started on our activity. Making a gingerbread house. I had Tyler do the icing first.


We then sat down and realized that this thing was going to take forever and a half to do, but it was too late because the icing was mixed.

We put the walls up, then had to wait one hour to put the roof up.

While we waited that hour, we got the rest of the neighbor cards punched, and written, and also decided to do some Christmas cards. We weren't going to do them originally, but now we are. So I need to hurry up and get them done and out. I'm just waiting for the envelopes to get here.

We got the roof up and had to wait another two hours to be able to decorate. So we showered and got ready for bed, and hung out.

We started to decorate around 11:30pm and everything was going great until I handed Tyler the piping bag. He begged forever and a half for it, but I was afraid.


I gave him specific instructions to make sure he stopped sometimes and pushed the icing down to the tip and for him to keep the top twisted. He wanted to do the icicles on the roof.

I put the candies up on the roof and while I was taking this picture Tyler got up in a hurry and was all "AAHH!!"


This was the result of his rendez-vous with the piping bag:


Yes my friends! He dropped a good CUP of icing on top of April's head, Oliver's body, chair, and himself!!! Now normally I would have freaked out. Maybe it was because it was 1:00am and I was too tired to freak out, or maybe I've lightened up a bit. But I was laughing. Tyler was laughing. I was hysterically laughing. It was just too funny, because the dogs didn't care they were covered in icing, they were licking it away from the floor.

Little April not only got frosting on herself, but when she wiggled she splattered it over the walls and then proceeded to rub her icing covered head on the carpet. So we put the gates up in the kitchen and locked both doggies in there with us until we were done. They were definitely getting a bath!

Our finished gingerbread house (1:30am)







It's a good thing we don't have a cake decoration business. We'd be bankrupt by now.

Tyler gave both doggies a bath while I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.


I think we ended up going to bed at 2:30am. I asked Tyler if he was bugged with me. But he said he had lots of fun, and we did. It didn't matter we went to bed super late, we were just happy to spend time together.

Cooking Weekend

We had a slow weekend. On Saturday I went to school to take a test and Tyler ran some errands, on my way home I made a stop by Kohls just so I could waste my time. I keep going to that store and I always leave them and think that I really don't like it. It's just so messy.

When I got home I found Tyler up in the attic. It was 59 degrees in our house. He tried to fix the furnace for a very long time. I think he was up in the attic for 3 hours. He was never able to. I'm not messing with it.

I spent the rest of Saturday evening talking to Emily on MSN Messenger. It was fun and I'm excited to meet her when we're in Utah.

On Sunday we went to church and I got a new calling!! I can't share yet but I am super, duper excited! We came home and had lunch, did some cooking, and tried not to take a nap, but failed.
We made Oreo Truffles and Banana Bread. The truffles were a trial run for VT Christmas gifts, and neighbor gifts.







These are super yummy and so easy to make! It takes some time to coat them all up in chocolate, but it's worth it. We'll be doing batch number two for neighbors this week.

After the first presidency devotional we went over to Matt and Vernice's home to meet their little bundle of joy and drop off some truffles and the bread. Nathan is so sweet, and so little! It made me want to me a NICU nurse pretty bad, but I know med/surg is my place. It was nice to see them and check up on them.

McDonalds

I am a junkie.

I heart McDonald's.

I didn't eat all day today in anticipation of Tyler bringing me home some Mickey D's.

He came home with fries, coke, a quarter pound cheeseburger, a small chocolate shake, 4 piece chicken nuggets and sweet and sour sauce.

I've eaten everything but my shake. That's in the fridge for a later snack.

I think this one meal covered all the calories and more that I didn't eat all day.

I am dang happy!

It's currently 57 degrees IN my house.

Our heater is not working and we have no idea why.

The doggies are cold!

They spent all day cuddled up with me and the electric blanket.

I tried to light a fire and it only lasted 30 minutes. We're out of wood.

I still love cold weather! And I don't mind the temperature in the house!

I am still dang happy!

My Christmas List

1. 52 inch LCD Television

2. DSLR Camera

3. Wii Console

4. Wii Fit Bundle

5. Kitchen Aid Mixer

6. Kitchen Aid Food Processor

7. Crock Pot e-lume

8. Kitchen Aid Blender

9. Dyson Vacuum or a Roomba

10. Wood Floors

11. Wool Coat

12. Hydracoach water bottle

13. Unlimited Money to spend at Ann Taylor, New York and Company, Old Navy, Banana Republic, The Limited, and DownEast Basics.

14. A trip to Italy

15. A Greek cruise

16. Memory card for my camera

17. Wicked soundtrack and Mama Mia soundtrack

18. Yearly professional family pictures

Yes I realize I will not be getting any of these things... but hey! it's a wish list. :-)

And yes I realize I am very high maintenance.

Footloose, Glasses, and Starbucks

On Saturday Tyler and I went to the Garland Civic Theater to watch "Footloose" the musical! I was excited because I absolutely love musicals. I love them much more than plays. We were a little nervous since it is community theater and the last play was good, but not great. But holy moly it was so dang good! We were very happy and impressed with the actors and the quality of it all. They were all great singers and several of them had worked in NYC and graduated with BFA's (Bachelor of Fine Arts). I'm so glad we went. We ended up going to the matinée because we could get better seats. Here we are at intermission!



Afterwards we went to Carly and Kevins for a non turkey dinner and Carly and I went shopping while the boys watched football and played video games. We love hanging out with them.

Yesterday was my last day of psych clinicals. WHOO HOO!!! I am so glad to be done with that. Now class tomorrow, and two more tests and BREAK! YAY!

Today Tyler and I went to get our annual eye exams. We were both eligible for new glasses so we were pretty pumped. I also got contacts again because that is what I mainly wear, but I was in desperate need of some glasses so I could wear them when I wanted to, my eyes are tired of contacts all the time and when I start working I will probably be on the night shift so I'd prefer to have glasses for that. Both of our eyes have gotten worse, but mine were pretty bad... I'm not sure I was driving legally with my old prescription. lol We should be getting our glasses next Thursday. After the eye doctor we made a stop at Starbucks for some hot chocolate and hot apple cider. I love Starbuck's hot chocolate! Tyler headed to work and I headed to Ross and Target.


Have I mentioned how much I love our lives!?

Christmas is here!

As soon as everyone left on Thanksgiving day I started taking all my fall stuff down. The wreath went up on the outside door as soon as the last person left. I was ready. This year I've been seriously anxious for Christmas stuff, I'm not sure why, but I was so all our stuff is out!

We decorated on Friday, but the night before I cleaned up my nursing book cabinet that sits next to the TV where the tree goes. We had to move it to the other side of the TV and since my books are super heavy I had to take them all out before we could move the cabinet. Needless to say I also had to reorganize and de-junk the cabinet because that's what I do.

We got started on the mantle and had to wait one day before putting up the wreath because Tyler had to fix the brick holes.

Dear sweet hubby got the tree out for me. Thanks hubby!


Carly was sweet enough to help me fluff the tree up. Every year they come over the day after Thanksgiving and help us eat the left overs and we just hang out together. This year they got dragged into decorating. :-)

Ethan thoroughly enjoyed our decorating. He's such a funny little boy. We love having him around.

Our lovely tree!!! It's a little scraggly but it was $20 two years ago on black Friday. It works for us until we have money to splurge on a new fancy tree. :-D I really am just glad to have a tree at all. I told Tyler before we got out decorations that I didn't want to do the traditional red and green colors, I wanted it to be winter happiness because I love cold and blue, silver and white. After having Ethan around while decorating this year we've established that this will eventually be our "fancy" ornaments for the "fancy" tree that we'll buy that's in the "fancy" living room that is gated from the kids and we'll have this scraggly tree with ornaments that they can pull off the tree and not break or hurt themselves with.

Our fireplace mantle all done! Yes I absolutely have two stocking for our fur children. No I'm not weird. Yes I love our puppies! Left to right: Tyler, Thais, Oliver, and April.


Our little singing snowman that cracks me up, but scares April.


And lastly the door wreath!


We watched "The Forgotten Carols" on DVD in the breaks between decorating and had yummy leftovers and hot chocolate! It was lovely.