Merry Christmas

Since we spent Thanksgiving in Las Vegas, Carson and I stayed in Utah with his family for Christmas. But as we all know, Christmas is about the season, not just the day. 

Let's start with treats.

I made so many holiday treats I decided to write a 12 ingredients of Christmas song (you know...based off the 12 days of Christmas).

12 goodie bags

11 cups of butter (yeah...gross)

10 huge bars of chocolate

9 cups of sugar

8 cups of almonds

7 cups of powdered sugar

6 bags of kisses

5 shapes of sugar cookies

4 batches of toffee

3 rounds of pretzel treats

2 bags of m&ms

 and a giant batch of delicious buckeyes 

Let's just say I was busy...but I love baking, so this was all fun for me.

 The recipe for these pretzel treats can be found here...at my aunts' cooking blog. I love them because they are really easy and you can customize them for any holiday. 

 These are my MIL's famous buckeyes. Well...my version using her recipe. I didn't make them as amazing as she does, but I have been told that it will take me many, many years to master and these were pretty darn good for my first try. I was quite proud of myself. 

 Since they are Carson's favorite, I surprised him with a tower of them when he came home (at 10 pm on a Friday night) from his last final.

Oh toffee...

To me, Christmas isn't truly here until I taste some of my mom's toffee. She always makes this for neighbors and friends so I decided to continue the tradition here in Utah. 

Sugar cookies are another thing my mom always makes for Christmas. I made these to give as a little treat to our primary children...and to enjoy ourselves of course. 

 In the end, this was what our counter looked like. 

Bags of treats for primary kids and friends, two containers of toffee, two containers of buckeyes, and three containers of sugar cookies. Diet, what?

Okay, this one isn't really Christmas but our anniversary is exactly one week before Christmas. We decided to keep it simple since Christmas is so close (and we have a budget to keep!) but I surprised Carson with one of his favorite breakfasts...quiche.

And then he surprised me with a romantic dinner at Chef's Table and a movie. It was a great, simple way to celebrate our first year together. 

[Unfortunately we are terrible at taking pictures when we are together but insert cute, happy couple picture at Chefs Table here.] 

Next up...gingerbread houses. 

One of the favorite traditions in the Flake household is to make gingerbread houses. Now, I'm not talking about the kind that you make from a kit you found in the grocery store. Nope. I'm talking about homemade gingerbread, homemade icing, and a wide variety of candies. 

This year I helped my MIL make the gingerbread so one day, when we don't live so conveniently close, Carson and I will be able to continue this tradition. 

 It turned out pretty well for my first time.

 Carson got in on the decorating and was actually really good at it. 

 He also really took command when it was time to assemble the house. I guess that is the engineer in him. 

The front/side view of our candy cottage. 

 And the back view. 

And now for decor. 

As you know from previous blogs, we like to decorate around here. But, if you have ever been a student newlywed, you also know the word budget. So, we did what we could with stuff we had, bought a few little things, and made a little splurge on the tree. After it was all put together I loved it. 

 Our table centerpiece. Oh look...more candy. Just what we needed. 

 Stockings and a mini-nutcracker.

The tree and presents (kind of squished, but there). 

Now, Carson grew up in a family that always used colored lights. I grew up in a family that always used white lights. Problem. This year we compromised and used a single color light on the tree - red (it all matched very nicely). You can't tell from this picture of the tree, but its true. Around our windows we had lights too. It made for a very Christmasy feel.

And finally to end this marathon of a blog post, Christmas day!

We spent Christmas (and a few days before and after) with Carson's parents, his brother Ryan and wife Jess, and sister Audrey, her husband Tyler, and their two kids. 

On Christmas eve I got the chance to video chat with my brother whose is serving an LDS mission in Russia. I wish I would have taken a picture of the set-up because it was quite amazing. I was video chatting on my laptop with my mom on her phone. My mom (and the rest of the family) was video chatting with my brother on her computer. She held the phone up to the computer so I could see him and he could see me. Oh how I love technology. I'm glad to report that my brother is doing fabulously and is being well taken care of during this holiday season.

Right after I finished talking to my brother we all got a great Christmas surprise. Another one of Carson's brothers (Dallan) showed up with his wife and three kids to spend Christmas with us...without telling anyone. It was a lot of fun to have more family join in the celebration.

 Two of the surprise kiddos. 

The scene on Christmas eve. 

We had an amazing dinner on Christmas eve, followed by a touching family program. Then it was time for bed!

The kids set out cookies and milk for Santa, carrots for the reindeer, and cheese for the Christmas mouse. It's so fun having kids around at Christmas time.

Then it was Christmas morning.

 Merry Christmas!

Giving Thanks

This year Carson and I went down to Las Vegas to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. One of our family's traditions is going shooting out in the desert Thanksgiving morning (kind of weird and white-trashish...I know). We get to aim at old TVs, refrigerators, paint cans, glass bottles, and a variety of other things. This year the trash-hunting crew consisted of my dad, sister, brother, two uncles, one cousin, Carson, and me. As odd as this tradition is, it is something I really enjoy doing.

 My beautiful little sister.

 Little brother contemplating life(?) while waiting to shoot his brand new rifle. 

 Carson taking command of the shotgun.

 I tried out my uncle's new glock...but I'm not as good with it as I am with a shotgun...ha. 

Carson really like shooting the revolver...but its a little too strong for me. 

After shooting it was all about dinner preparations. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the table, but we had an amazing spread. It was a smaller group than we are used to during Thanksgiving, but it was wonderful to be with family. 

Carson and I have so many things to be thankful for. 

Loving families.

Amazing friends.

A cozy apartment.

Educational opportunities. 

The Gospel.

Freedom.

Each other.

Just to name a few. 

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, spending time with family, and doing a little Christmas shopping. I loved being in Las Vegas to relax and celebrate with my family. It made for another great Thanksgiving.

Fall Treats

One of my favorite things about fall is yummy fall food...especially treats. One of my favorite sources for ideas is Our Best Bites. If you haven't been to this site yet, or seen the cookbook, you should definitely check it out. 

First I tried their Streusel-Topped Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. These beauties. 

(I stole this picture from their blog since I didn't take a picture of mine...and now I am giving them credit for it)

BUT...I didn't make muffins. I made a cake. I used the same ingredients and the same recipe, but I baked it for about 40 minutes. It was delicious...it just didn't photograph well. I highly recommend it though!

Next I tried some candy corn sugar cookies. 

Again...their picture.  

Now for mine. 

I took this picture before I added the sprinkles to the yellow part. But I did that too. For some reason this picture is really yellow...but I promise part of the cookies were white. 

I turned some of them into a treat for our primary kids. 

They were a big hit. 

Now...on to thinking about Christmas treats! I already have a lot of ideas. 

Carson the "Projecter"

It has already been documented that I do a lot of "projecting" around our apartment. Recently, Carson has been getting in on the action. Thanks to his job at BYU he has access to all kinds of tools and welding materials, so his projects aren't the sewing, paper, or plant type like mine are. They are man projects. 

His latest - a weight rack. 

Remember a long time ago when I posted pictures of our apartment? And how I didn't show you most of our second bedroom because it was a mess? Well, part of the problem was a pile of free weights, gym bags, resistance bands, and an easy bar. Carson doesn't do well with piles. Or anything that isn't organized in general. So, he made his own weight rack to hold the free weights and bar. Everything else has a place underneath it - a perfect solution. 

Carson also put his new found engineering education to work as he designed the weight rack.

First he designed it all in CAD (computer aided design). 

Then CAD gave him this nice picture of it. 

Now all he had to do was make it look like this. 

I think he succeeded. 

What do you think? 

Much better than a pile of stuff.

Halloween

I love decorating...and Carson loves Halloween. Put the two together and you have a fully Halloween decorated apartment (or at least main room). The only problem is that our decorating styles are completely different. Carson likes his Halloween decorations to be scary, and I like mine cute and happy (and mostly homemade). Putting the two of them together is...interesting. 

I'll show you.

My idea of decorating.

Carson's idea of decorating. (I find this guy super creepy...except for the fact that the position of his left hand makes it look like he doesn't know the answer to my question)

My idea.

Carson's idea.

Mine.

Carson's. 

Get the picture? So all together our apartment is just a mesh of styles. Something like this.

Carson's on the top and mine on the bottom.

Even though it totally doesn't go together, I like it. It makes me get into the mood of Halloween (a holiday I have never really liked to be honest). Now I can't wait for Christmas. Who knows what the two of us will be able to put together.

From the Bookshelf

I recently finished this book.

The biography of our church's prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. 

I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading stories from President Monson's childhood and learning about all of the work he has done for the church. I feel so much closer to him after reading this and so blessed to have him as the president of our church. I know that he was divinely chosen for this time and that he leads us through inspiration from God. 

If you haven't read this book yet I highly recommend it. 

Up next...

I know...totally not even in the same literary category.

BYU vs. Utah

I have said before that Carson and his brothers are huge BYU fans. So of course they had to do something epic for the first home game of the season. I'm not trying to bring up bad memories of the game, (it is still a touchy subject in our house) but the dedication (insanity?) of these boys needs to be documented. 

The event started with a tailgate party at Ryan and Jess's house. 

The girls.

After dinner the boys began painting themselves.

Carson and Collin making sure their hair was as white as possible.

After a while they needed some help.

What would these boys do without their wives? 

The finished product. Not creepy at all. Right?

Even though the game was a disappointment, their hard work (and our awesome seats) got them several appearances on ESPN that night.

Carson says it was a fun experience but doesn't know if he will ever do it again - especially because of the outcome (he is more than a little superstitious when it comes to football).

P.S. I thought this guy was awesome.

Can you see the Y with the cougar on top shaved into his head? Talk about dedication.