*I Love Spray Paint*

Hi, my name is Jency and I am addicted to spray paint..... Wait wait... That didn't sound right... I'm not addicted to it in that way... What I meant to say is... Well, I do love spray paint but... I'm not addicted to it... Okay, so I am but... Oh, let me just show you jeez!

This is what I did for Halloween decorations this year... It's all I did, haha I don't get into Halloween too much. But, I had this idea in my head and I loved it. So Joey and I went to a little pumpkin patch and picked out a few smaller pumpkins all together for $2, then I found a can of $3 Gold Metallic spray paint and some fake spiderweb & black meshy stuff for $3, I borrowed my MIL's old metal chair and WALLAH. It was cheap, it was super easy & fast and guess what... I can use the pumpkins for Thanksgiving decor too!

Just a little tidbit on our Halloween just for recording and keeping my family informed: We got invited to our awesome friend's Carlie & Gabe's cute new house over the mountain for a Halloween get-together. It was so fun to spend time with them and our other friends since we had been so busy and anti-social lately! Joey & I didn't dress up, I didn't have time to come up with something, so we went as party poopers :) Now, it's our turn to have a get together at our house so I will have an excuse to get it cleaned, the bathroom fixed, the carpets shampooed, the mudroom tiled, new shades & curtains bought, all my canning mess organized and put away, and the storage room moved upstairs so I have a pantry/craft room again! I'm thinking Christmas party?!? 

*Thanksgiving Loss*

I lost 5 lbs over Thanksgiving break... how does that even work?  But, that's five down and 30 lbs to go to get back to how I was when I was at my ideal weight.... Yuck.  30 lbs... that's ridiculous AND embarrassing.  But, it's no secret that I've been gaining it like crazy since I met Joey.  2 years of nonstop splurging has finally come to quits.  I'm gonna do it.  I'm not setting a date or starting a hardcore, fast loosing program because I want my changes to become habits and a lifestyle.  So far so good and I'm feelin' great!  Totally recommend the healthy eating lifestyle!

*It's Just A Family Tradition*

Family traditions... we all have them.  Some are awesome, some are pointless, some are just plain embarrassing.  Since Thanksgiving is only a day away I'm going to talk a little bit about our family tradition we have during the holidays.  It's not something Joe and I just sat down and told each other about.  We learned about each others traditions the hard way.  For instance...  I LOVE that on the weekend after the week of Thanksgiving my family will go up to our cabin, stay a few days, and go CHRISTMAS TREE HUNTING!  Well, that turned out all fine and dandy (I'll talk about our tree and our new tradtion in a sec).  It was the 3 weeks until Christmas when I realized WHY my parents in law have a fake tree... Joseph is allergic... of course, I mean he just has to be allergic to one of my FAVORITE parts of Christmas.  Poor thing, we still are getting a live tree :)  Am I mean to say he'll live and deal with it for a couple weeks out of the year?  But, no he was the one who said I could have my tree.  It just has to be down and out of the house the day after Christmas, none of this leaving-it-up-until-New-Years business :)

Now that we are married we have decided to trade off holidays between his family and mine in correspondence with our other siblings.  This year it is Thanksgiving at the ranch and Christmas up with my family (minus my sister and her family in England... sorry I just have to give her a hard time every chance I get.  Love you sis).  Holidays at the ranch are an exciting deal... 2 grandparents, 7 couples, (minus TOM, little butt is staying in Nashville for the holidays where it's "warm") 21 children under the age of 15 (most are under the age of 8) WOW.  That house if FULL.  Never a dull moment though and I absolutely LOVE it. 

Thanksgiving
Some of the Thanksgiving traditions I've kept going from my family are:

- Lemon & Kentucky Derby Pies

- Turkey/stuffing leftover sandwiches

Joeys:

- Tri-tip roast along with the turkey

So, wow, I just realized we don't have many Thanksgiving traditions.  Which makes me sad because I was telling my mom that around here it's almost like Thanksgiving is skipped completely.  They go strait from Halloween to Christmas.  Hardly any decorations, nothing!  It's like a big dinner than WHAM the Christmas tree goes up and Christmas music comes on.  I need to get some more thanksgiving decorations, and when we have kids I think I'll do a little Thanksgiving lesson of sorts and find a good Thanksgiving book to read each year.  I do love that our Thanksgivings have always been about families.  When I say my prayers that has always been the very 1st think I say I am Thankful for... My family.  I'm so thankful that Joey is part of my family now.  My family is everything to me.

Christmas

Some of the Thanksgiving traditions I've kept going from my family are:

- Christmas Tree hunting week after Thanksgiving

- Decorating the tree for family night that next Monday while we play Christmas music and break out the egg nog with a little bit of nutmeg sprinkled on top

- Christmas Eve buffet (my mom makes the most amazing finger foods EVER)

- Christmas Eve reading of The Night Before Christmas

- Leaving out veggies and cookies with milk for Santa (This is for the kids when we have some).  Then after they are asleep "Santa" eats some of the cookies, drinks some of the milk, the reindeer nibbles on the veggies and Santa leaves a thank you note and some of his beard(cotton) gets stuck around the living room
- Joe & I each got a Christmas ornament on our honeymoon at Lake Tahoe just like my parents did on theirs in Hawaii.  Every Christmas once the tree is al decorated my parents each take a turn hanging their special ornament up high on the tree.  So we are going to carry on that tradition with our honeymoon ornaments as well!

- Joey aka: Santa leaves me a little "naughty clothing" in the toe of my stocking. I don't know what my parents were thinking making us kids think Santa was leaving Mommy lingerie but hey, it was cute... Not to mention Joey LOVED this idea :)

Joey's:

(This is horrible but I can't think right now of what some of his family's Christmas traditions are.  I'll remember and come back and finish this ASAP, right now I'm just gonna go ahead and post this!)



Here are the traditions we have started (or are going to start) for our little family:

Thanksgiving

- Find a GREAT Thanksgiving book to read each year

- I'm going to learn to make a different stuffing each year (Stuffing is my FAV part)

- Possibly make a "Thankful Countdown to Thanksgiving" chart where each day for the month of Nov. we'll write something down we are thankful for

Christmas

- (We started this last year) Do something weird for something like decorations, Christmas pictures or something that has to do with Christmas.  Like last year we cut down a funky tree that was like two trees in one.  We decorated one side all western for Joe and the other all hot pink for mine. (I'll post a picture when I can, I'm not currently on my computer).  Other ideas we have come up with is Putting some Halloween decor up on our front door, taking a whole bunch of Christmas lights and deer and just throwing them up on the roof and plugging them in, laying deer on the ground with red lights around them and have a Santa with a rifle in his hands haha... Those are all big IF's but you get the idea, something "weird and fun"

- Buying PJ's for each other and opening them Christmas eve

- (When we have kids) Make "Reindeer Food" out of Quaker oats and glitter. Then sprinkle it out in the yard so "the reindeer can find our house" and have a "magic snack"

I love the holidays and getting to spend time with the family.  Joe & I had a great year last year spending our first holidays together and I can't wait to spend them with him for the rest of forever and I absolutely can't wait to add some little ones to the mix and make the holidays extra special for them!

HAVE A VERY THANKFUL & HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

*I'm Thankful for my Family... and Dwight Yoakam haha*

This Thanksgiving was by far one of the best Thanksgivings ever... of course because it was Joey's & my first Thanksgiving together. The only thing that could have made this the best Thanksgiving ever is if Molly, Ben, Chris, Aline and their families where there! Maybe some day...... BUT, we had a whole load of people up at the cabin in Island Park, Mom, Dad, Eric, McCall, Ethan, Christi, Jared, Joey, Me and our Uncle Rupert, Aunt Karrie and their girls Jenna, Kaitlin and Shalane.

(Cousins!)

We all had a blast. The night before Thanksgiving Joey made an amazing Tri-tip roast. Thanksgiving Day we had mountains of dishes to stuff ourselves on and the day was filled with eating, playing games, stuffing our bellies, hanging out, pigging out, relaxing and... yep, more eating.

(Playing Thanksgiving football with a Sprit bottle! Haha)

(Me, Jenna, Shalane & Kait playing the Train game... The greatest game ever)

The next morning we got up early to drive up to the mountains and go christmas tree hunting. Joe & I found the coolest tree. The original tree had about 5 trees growing out of the trunk, so we cut it down to 2 trees... a "his" and "hers" tree. We plan on decorating the big side with cowboy and rustic decor for "Joe's" side of the tree and the smaller side all pink and girly for "my" side of the tree.

(Our Tree)

Right after we all found our trees and headed back to the cabin Joe & I packed up our things and headed on our 5 1/2 hour trip from Island Park to Wendover, UT to meet up with some friends and head to the Dwight Yoakam concert at the Peppermill concert hall!!! The drive was painful but well worth it! It was so much fun!

(This is the ONLY picture I got of our trip to Wendover, it's of Joe in the hotel room really getting into "Crocodile Dundee" on TV haha)

Then saturday we headed to Randolph to stay the night at Joe's parents house and sunday we finally headed back home to Logan. So all together in the course of one week we went from Logan to Rexburg to Island Park to Wendover to Randolph and back to Logan. JEEZ!

(Joey & Dexter at Monty & Diane's house)