Girl's Weekend

You know those friends who will just always be lifelong pals? They cry with you in the hard times, scream and dance with you in the happy times, and no matter how long you go without seeing each other, you always pick right back up where you left off? Well Lauren, Kaylee and Janelle are definitely 3 of mine. With all we have going on- new babies, husbands, Grad school, jobs, etc we rarely get to see each other for more than a dinner or lunch when we visit our parents every other holiday! We decided it was high time to spend some quality time catching up, eating , laughing, talking about the good ol' days, and just having tons of fun together! We spent the weekend in Utah at Lauren's gorgeous new house. Here are just a few pictures of our weekend, I wish I'd taken more!!


At my request we watched my favorite Christmas-time movie: White Christmas

We did a Christmas decoration craft and they all turned out so cute!


Finally, deliciously, Cheesecake Factory at Kaylee's request-and boy are we glad she requested it!

No Longer a Todd

They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I'm not so sure. We have had our Duke since he was barely old enough to leave his mum. Ever since then, we've been his family, and he's been ours. We thought we would have him forever, until he died in fact, which we of course dreaded, but that's the circle of life, right? The inevitable. But we never expected we'd have to give him up before that. With Adam graduating this upcoming April and us moving to Los Angeles where he has an internship (and indeed, we hope, a job to follow), we will be moving into a small apartment. We did a ton of research and found that in order to have a dog in an apartment, you have to pay an extra deposit, and extra rent every month. Yes Duke is worth it to us, but after living in a home with a yard where he can roam and do his business whenever he wants, living in an apartment for the foreseeable future would be tough for a pup.
After much denial and belaboring the moment, we put Duke on Craigslist (a very cute posting, if I do say so myself). We thought we'd do it now so we'd have plenty of time to choose a good family before April. We didn't quite expect what we got. Within 15 minutes we had our first call. Within 48 hours we had had about 10 calls. We know he's cute, but come on give us some time to come to grips! We met a few families and were NOT impressed. I mean I don't think we were asking that much! We wanted to find a good family with kids who would love Duke and raise him like we would. Pampered, yes, but simply keeping him clean, buying him bones now and again, keeping him trained and well-behaved, getting him to the vet once a year for his shots, etc. Not so hard, right?
Well yesterday, we found the right family. A mom, dad, and 2 adorable little boys. They live in an apartment for now, but are building a house that will be done this summer. The mom's father has a farm close to where they live where all the family takes their dogs to run around and play together with all the kids. I mean, come on, pretty good setup right?? This made things a little bit easier, I didn't feel quite so possessive and protective of him with this family like I did the others, and he seemed to really take to them the way he didn't with the others. But *sigh* it still wasn't easy.
You have to understand on what level we loved this dog. He was more than a dog to us. As I'm sure is no secret amongst family and friends a.k.a. most of you blog readers, Adam and I have been struggling for some time to get pregnant. Those of you who you who have or are going through infertility know what a difficult (to say the least) thing it can be to cope with. Well, Duke was my coping mechanism. He was always there to snuggle up to me when lonely, he was always attentive and worrying when I cried, and heck he was just something, someone to take care of (there's Adam too but he's quite self-sufficient!) So although it may sound very silly to some, Duke was our baby, the third member of our little family. And now he's gone. No longer a Todd. We had a good cry together, Adam and I, but it's time move on. So here's to you Duke, you'll always be OUR pup.

Thanksgiving Oh-Ten

Adam and I had a great Thanksgiving this year. We drove to Salt Lake and FLEW to San Diego. Boy O Boy was it great not to have to drive the whole way yet again. We spent the week with my family, immediate and extended. Although we missed Brandon, Melanie, Ty and Tyler, it was super great to spend time with Ryan, Rachel and Liam. We're lucky when we get to see them once a year, since they live in Alexandria, VA. We often feel sad that we miss out on so much of Liam's fun formative years, so Thanksgiving week was a really fun catch-up!

We did lots of eating, game playing, Rock Band playing, movie watching, and even went to sea World. We had a great time and can't wait for the next time we're all together!
Here's some pic-a-tures.


Everything Tanner did all week, Liam did. He just followed him around mimicking everything-it was adorable!







I spent all week trying to make him love me. This picture obviously doesn't show it, but by the end of the week he was just randomly saying my name in a sing-song voice "Tonna, Tonna, Tonna" and actually would come to me without being forced. AHH sweet victory.

Cue Snow

Last week we had another one of these:





Then on Monday we woke to snow that continued ALL day into the night, and was still snowing when we went to bed. It's snowed twice since then and our Fall wonderland has now become a Winter wonderland. Only a couple weeks longer and I can put up CHRISTMAS decorations!


I guess that means it's time to put this away...so sad.

There were TONS of birds just hanging out in the backyard, it was really kind of eerie...but then Duke came to the rescue and ran them all out.

Porter's Crafts

We have this craft store here in Rexburg that I absolutely LOVE. I have never thought of myself as being particularly "crafty", but something about being a housewife with little money and a home of my own to decorate the way I want it, makes me feel like doing crafts all the time. Porter's is my housewife safe haven. My sanctuary, if you will. When I'm having a rough day, feeling bored on a day off from teaching, or just feeling down-right low, I hop in the car and head to Porter's. I usually end up leaving empty handed because, as I said, we have little spending money for my random whims and tastes. But just being in that store with the smells of the candles, the little old ladies in their homemade work aprons asking me if I need any help, the soft music playing in the background, the holiday crafts and decorations that garnish the walls and aisles this time of year, and all the GREAT crafting ideas, makes me feel alive! I never understood the appeal of a "Super Saturday" until my first meeting with this happy store.

Yesterday on one such day I roamed the aisles of Porter's alone, just the way I like for maximum think-time and browsing, and found myself, as usual, in the vinyl lettering section. They always have such cute and sometimes inspiring sayings for rubbing on tiles, walls, paper, wood-anything! Yesterday they had a couple really great ones:

"EVERY TIME I SAY THE WORD EXERCISE, I WASH MY MOUTH OUT WITH CHOCOLATE"

"BE NOT AFRAID OF GOING SLOWLY; BE AFRAID ONLY OF STANDING STILL"

There were so many more that I just kept being tempted to buy that would make my home a vinyl lettering montage, but I resisted the temptation to take that step into mormon wife oblivion where once you've stepped in, your husband may as well kiss all his opinions on home decorating (and believe it or not Adam has quite the queer eye) goodbye.

Halloween

We're really not very creative when it comes to our Halloween costumes. In fact, this year we considered skipping it all together. But when it came down to just a couple days before our ward Halloween party, we decided we'd better do something. My parents brought all the boys in the family a dreadlock beenie thing from their Anniversary trip to St. Lucia this summer, so we decided we'd just use what we had and plan our costumes around that. Here was our process and end results of our uber-cheap, less than creative costumes this year:








Let me tell you those braids took FOREVER to do, and after sleeping in them that night and taking them out the next morning--frizz ball!!

Adventures of a Substitute Teacher

Chapter 2

"Mrs. Todd are you going to have a baby?"
"Not unless you know something I don't."

So....Do I burn my outfit...or is it time for that diet I've been putting off for 23 years?






You gotta love First Grade innocence...



...Or do you?

A Picturesque Sunday

This morning was Stake Conference. I really enjoyed the talks that were given and the music shared. Don't you just love when you have something on your mind--maybe a question or just something you've really been thinking about--and suddenly BAM a talk if given that addresses EXACTLY what you've had on your mind? A definite reassurance (in case you ever doubted) that the Father is mindful of YOU. Well here was mine today:

Proverbs 3: 5-6 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

D&C 101: 16 Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God. (I think in place of "Zion" we could substitute our trial or question)



When we walked out of the church building, we walked right back into our Fall Wonderland. Orange, yellow, red, and green leaves. Grey skies sprinkling cold rain drops. Yes, Fall is in the air. We got home, walked in the door, and were immediately greeted by the sweet aroma of Chili in the crockpot and pumpkin cookies waiting for us on the counter. We brewed a batch of Stephen's Hot Cocoa (the BEST hot chocolate EVER), got into our jammies, and settled in for the afternoon.



What's left of the agenda you ask? Chili and cornbread for dinner, and snuggling up in blankets for a movie. You gotta love Sundays like this!

Adventures of a Substitute Teacher

CHAPTER 1

This week was my first week substituting in Idaho Falls (Rexburg hasn't been at all fruitful for jobs). On Wednesday I was in the 3rd grade. All my teaching experience has been in grades K-3, so I knew what to expect of this 3rd grade. I had a blast. The class slugs laid eggs, I read "The Paper Bag Princess" to the class sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the carpet, and at the end of our day together there were many loving comments like: "No Mrs. Todd please don't go!" and "I wish you were my teacher!". I've always loved the young'uns!

Today I was in the 7th grade. I was a little nervous, but I thought Hey I babysit kids this age all the time! No big deal! Oh contraire...The day started off great. The kids were respectful and excited to have a sub. That was the first 3 periods. After lunch...all hell broke loose. Each consecutive period for the next 3 hours got noisier and more and more disrespectful. YIKES! Ok I may be exaggerating a bit cuz I'm tired and my feet hurt, but the basic sentiment holds. They were no 3rd graders! And let me tell you that I really hate to bring out Mrs. Todd the Hag, but every so often it must be done! I finally broke down and rose my voice- "If you're talking, you need to stop. If you have a question, raise your hand. That's it!" Then commenced the whispers just loud enough for me to hear all around the room "Geez, settle down!" "Wow she's mean". Darn. I did it.

Now before you think I'm an unfit teacher, let me tell you that by the end of the period they all liked me again and everything was fine. I helped them with their work, said nice things, etc etc and everyone was fine. There were in fact some "Thanks Mrs. Todd"s heard as they left the room at the end of the day.

The good news after a long day in the 7th grade-besides the paycheck-is that I intercepted a note! Oh yes. One of those-quick pass it before she sees even though she's looking right at us-type of notes. And if there were no confidentiality laws to my job, I would share..cuz it was a good one!

Gotta love pre-teen hormones.

Sunsets

I always held the snobby opinion that California had the best sunsets, hands down. Idaho could not possibly hold anything beautiful, right? Certainly not anything more beautiful than a California sunset. Well, I was wrong. I remember during my first year or 2 here in Idaho, when I would walk home to my apartment after a long day of stressful classes, I would stand in the quad at the center of campus, looking down on the valley as the sun set. Instant stress relief. *Sigh* Well they've recently built a new rather large building which obstructs my old valley view, and besides that fact I am no longer ever on campus. BUT we do have a rather lovely view from our front porch of the ever gorgeous Idaho sunsets.

The other night I went and sat on the back steps and just watched the sun go down. The few clouds were lit a brilliant pink with a backdrop of purple, blue, orange, yellow--you name the color, and it was present. I took a deep breath, looked heavenward, and whispered a soft prayer of thanks for my gift. Is it selfish that I consider every beautiful sunset a personal gift from the Father to me, His daughter.. especially when they're pink??

Well, even if it is selfish, I refuse to give up the thought. Here are some pictures of one of my gifts.