These are our confessions.

So we were running pretty low on TP on Christmas Eve (Friday), but we were so busy getting ready that we never got around to going to the store to restock. Then Christmas came (Saturday) and we spent the majority of the day at Jordan's parent's house and his grandparent's house, so there was no chance of buying some then. Then came Sunday. Completely out of TP, the roll was scraped clean. We had to go for the back up paper towel method (shudder).

Then at church while we were leaving to go home, Jordan went into the bathroom to give his hands their routine post-nursery scrub down. When he came out and starting walking toward the exit, he quiety said to me:

"I got us some TP".

"What?? From the bathroom?"

"yeah."

"You stole a roll?"

"No, just lots."

Jordan had filled his pockets with long strands of TP from church. It saved us yesterday. Judge all you want, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And having said that, I am now off to buy TP so this never has to happen again!

"...and these shoes are just her siiiize..."

What was one of the presents Jordan got me for Christmas?

CHRISTMAS SHOES!
How ironically appropriate.

Merry Christmas

From our cheesy wardrobe to your own.

Tulsa Christmas

Welcome to our Christmas apartment!

Our kitchen:
Our Dining Room:

Our single bathroom decoration: (Thanks, Charity!)

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

And now our living room:

Like the totally visible scotch tape? Nice touchOur bookshelf:

Our wall shelves

Our baby tree (and out loot!)

Our tree is very random, just the way I like it. I've never been a fan of themed, matchy matchy tree ornaments. I find them impersonal and they remind me of department stores. I prefer mine to have Elvis decorations, an ugly bear ornament from 20+ years ago, homemade popsicle stick ornaments from my nephew, etc.

Santa must be a Sooner fan! (Thanks, Alice)

It's really weird not to be in Washington for Christmas this year. I miss Seattle at Christmas time. Tulsa does not seem to try to decorate much. :(

Ugh.

I don't have one ounce of care about the following things:

Justin Bieber
Any of the "Real Desperate Housewives" of any city
The new movie TRON
Kate Whats-her-face, the future princess (does America realize that she is not going to be our princess?? I'm not so sure)

Woohoo!!

Though the weather outside is frightful...

The Jo's are feeling sooooOOOOooOOOooOOOoo delightful

(I'm a dork)

because....

WE BOOKED A CRUISE!!!!

We wanted to go on vacation sometime this spring, and I really wanted to go to New Orleans, so we found a 7 night cruise leaving out of New Orleans in May! Perfecto.

It leaves from N'Awlins:

Then goes to Costa Maya, Mexico:
Then to Roatan, Honduras:

Then to Belize City, Belize:
Then hits up Cozumel, Mexico on the way back:
Sigh, I can feel the warm water already. Jordan and I will be celebrating our second anniversary/hooray for being done with Jordan's first year of PA school. We can't wait!!

So...wanna come?

27 years young

Happy Birthday to my very own….

Back scratcher

Masseuse

Food Critic

Hair Stylist (true story, Jordan dyed my hair this most recent color.)

Super Model

Comedian

(Future) Sugar Daddy

Travel Partner

Musician

Teddy Bear

Hero

High-things reach/Giant

Chauffeur

Hamster

Body Guard

Magician???

Human blanket

Jock

Scholarship provider

Alarm Clock

Future Baby Daddy (VERY future- not announcing anything!)

and Best Friend

Thanks for being everything to me :)

Thank you for saying "yes", Pam

As I sit in my apartment in Oklahoma typing and internet surfing (or surfing the net, as the kids say), Jordan is sprawled out on the couch sleeping. He looks so cute, like a baby in a man's body....only not strange and creepy.

Looking at my sleeping beauty has made me think back to the spring of 2006. I remember there was a YSA dance that I wanted to go to, but I had a date that night with a guy. I remember thinking, Oh well, the dance would have been lame anyway. Well, that date was sort of lame. I forget what we did. Probably ate dinner and awkwardly talked about what I "like to do for fun" and what music I like to listen to (my two most loathed questions in the world). Anywho, the date ended at about 10:30. I called my friend Pam to tell her about it and just to talk. I mentioned to her that there was a YSA dance tonight that we missed that ended at 12:00 (or something. I don't remember the exact times so don't call the fact police. I just remember it was gonna end in like an hour, oook). I talked about how I would have rather have gone to the dance that night instead of my date. Pam said she had her pajamas on already. I figured at that point she would not be interested in getting all dolled up and going to a dance for the last 45 minutes of it but I asked anyway. It was more one of those "y'wanna" questions rather than a plea. Instead of saying she was too tired or feeling frumpy, she just said "Yeah!" and headed straight to my house. She was wearing sweats but she still looked cute. I was wearing my Napoleon Dynamite shirt that I thought was really cool at the time but now I look and think really?! Anyway....

When we got to the dance, we. had. a. BLAST! There were tons of people back from school and a bunch of sales guys there for the summer. On the last slow song, a charming stranger asked me to dance who introduced himself and said he was a salesman from OKLAHOMA. I immediately started cracking lame jokes that I thought were clever about him having to drive a cow there or something. For the record, he was making them as well. I remember thinking Oklahoma seemed as though he was talking about another country. I knew it was somewhere in the middle, but that was it. When he mentioned he was from Tulsa, I explained I had never heard of that city in my life and sarcastically mentioned that it sounded happenin'. (Oh, Karma, you cruel devil). Despite my stupid jokes I must have been somewhat charming because at the end of the dance he asked for my number and we started dating.

A few months later he introduced me to his best friend/roommate Jordan.

And then two years later I fell in love with said best friend/roommate.

And then two years later I sat in my apartment in Tulsa and typed about how I met my first Okie four years ago while my man-baby slept on our couch that we bought together as husband and wife.

So Pam, thank you for saying you would go to the dance with me. Little did either of us know it would cause a chain of events that would lead to me living in that mysterious land of Oklahoma (which is just north of Texas, by the way. I figured that out!) and married to my sweetheart.

Happy Girl Mission Anniversary

We have officially been married for a whole girl mission. 18 months and counting, baby! It's gone by so fast...

On a totally different topic- today an 8(ish) year old boy looked at me and asked, "Are you a grown-up?" Siiiiigh. I laughed and said, "Yes, but I don't look like one," to which he replied, "NUH-UH." Double siiiiiigh.

Happy Halloween!

From Wolverine...






and the Tooth Fairy....



Happy Haunting!

Costumes

I love love love dressing up for Halloween! I can remember every Halloween costume since I was three years old. This list is definitely a "just for me" thing, so I won't be offended if people get bored and stop reading.

Age 3: Pumpkin (the costume was later handed down to our dog, Tawny)
Age 4: Butterfly (I remember luh-huh-huving the wings for my costume and was convinced that if I tried hard, they could make me fly)
Age 5: Pirate
Age 6: Mouse
Age 7: Dragon
Age 8: Pippi Longstocking (one of favorite costumes ever. I was amazed at how my mom could make my pigtail defy gravity with wire. I thought it was the coolest thing ever).
Age 9: Pirate again. (I recall being upset that I had to do a costume repeat. Weird fact- it was the exact same costume I wore when I was five. Apparently I had not hit a much needed growth spurt yet).
Age 10: Belly dancer
Age 11: Hippi
Age 12: Cleopatra
Age 13: Dead cheerleader
Age 14: Baby (just like every other girl my age)
Age 15: Nerd (this was the first of several times I dressed up as this)
Age 16: Spartan Cheerleaders (my friend Deanna and I made our costumes, learned a bunch of Spartan cheers and performed them when we went trick-or-treating. This was another one of my all time favorite costumes!)
Age 17: Grandma! (This was the last year I ever went trick-or-treating. I know it seems old, but my theory is if you dress up and are in school, you can still go and get free candy)

Age 18: Princess. I just wore my prom dress and a dollar store tiara. This was my most boring Halloween ever. My friends all were attending crazy college parties and I was too scared to go YSA. The only thing I dressed up for was the primary activity that I had to help out at.
Age 19: I did the nerd again for one party, and then for the YSA party I was a tourist.
Age 20: I was a rocker chick? I guess that would be the best name for it. I had those fake tattoos and wore black stuff, so I was one of those.
Age 21: This was the triple costume Halloween. For our ward party I was a nerd again...
... and then on Halloween I had to take a midterm. BOO! I didn't have anything planned so I didn't bother thinking of a costume. I got home from school around 8:00 when these two nerdy boys in our ward rang our doorbell. They were both dressed up and trick-or-treating. I excitedly asked if I could join them . They gave me a look like "Uh...a girl is talking to us...not sure what to do..." but then agreed to let me tag along. I ran into my room, wrapped a towel on my head and threw on my bathrobe. So I was a...shower lady? Whatevs. I trick-or-treated and got some cereal, top ramen, and canned food. (So I guess THIS was my last year I trick-or-treated! Ha!) After that, I went home and took off my pathetic excuse for a costume when my friend Lindsay called and asked if I wanted to go to a party on campus. I threw on sweat pants, sunglasses, and rubber gold teeth and became a gangster-ish person? Anyway, we had fun and I enjoyed a night that went from having no plans and no costume to spending the whole night doing Halloween stuff with two random costumes!
Age 22: Princess Peach and Mario! Loved these costumes!

Age 23: Flapper

and Age 24.....

This is Halloween, This Halloween

I had a really fun time decorating for Halloween this year. Between living a mile away from Dollar Tree and my hoarding habits, I was able to make quite of few decorations for cheap! Here is a tour of our spooky home (warning boy readers, this is more of a girly post...or more like a post that only a mom wants to read):

Our pumpkin patch

My first Halloween decoration ever! I got it at BYU when I was a lowly student.

Our apothecary jars ( empty pickle/spaghetti sauce jars and plastic champagne glasses) filled with severed lady fingers, mini skulls, and spiders.


I know what you are thinking....

"Never more"

Our cute pumpkins. I got these on super sale a year ago and was so excited to put them out!


Our bookshelf

Complete with severed foot

Melted candles. These were CRAAAAZY easy to make. I bought flameless tealights for a buck and hot glued them to a TP roll. I always seem to have like 3 rolls somewhere in my house. Aw, sweet hoarding...


Moving onto our kitchen.

Our centerpiece for our table was Captain Hook's hand. I totally ripped this off of this one guy's blog. His looked 10X cooler. Oh wellzz.

The sign reads "The hand of the infamous pirate Captain James Hook found in the belly of a crocodile". Unfortunately, my burning the edge of paper skills are lacking so I burned off parts of the sign. Jordan was convinced that I was going to burn our apartment down so I didn't try to make another one.



My kitchen decorations were all recycled goods.

These:

became these:


My potions! I named them after the potions in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I have Deadly Nightshade, Worm's Wart, and Frog's Breath.

"Nothing's more suspicious than Frog's Breath."

Have I mentioned that I'm a hoarder?? Cause I AM! I am incapable of throwing out any jar with a lid. Luckily, that comes in handy when making specimen jars.

It has been fun spookying up the place. This week I have been busy creating our costumes. Those are to be revealed later. (Don't get too excited. They definitely look homemade!)