New Years

As we say goodbye to the year 2012 I can't help but think back on what myself and my little family has accomplished this year.  We had some major events happen this year.  Just to name a few:

• January: Carson started his job working part-time at Anglepoint 
• February: Busy busy with school
• March: hmmm celebrated St. Patty's day?? haha
• April: Carson and I graduated- Carson with his Masters in Information Systems from BYU and I with my Associates in Radiography!  We also celebrated James turning one! 
• May: I turned 26...really?  I'm closer to 30 than I am 20... I also took my Radiology Boards and passed!  Carson was offered a full-time position with Anglepoint.
• June: I started working prn at The Clinic doing Radiology and Medical Assisting.
• July: As we were building our home, we were blessed to not be affected by the Saratoga wildfire.
• August: We bought our house! 
• September: SWe ran our first half marathon- the Big Cottonwood Half Marathon.  Our community was hit by a devastating mudslide but we were fortunate to not have been personally affected.
• October: Took James trick-or-treating for the first time.
• November: Payed close attention to the election- we were bummed about the outcome but know the Lord is in control.
• December: Grandpa Pulver passed away. We celebrated our 5th Anniversary.  We also celebrated Carson's 27th birthday- he's getting old.  

Now, I am not one for New Year's resolutions but I will say that I am going to strive to be an overall nicer person and be more service oriented this year (and really, hopefully for the rest of my life).  I would like to make a difference in the world, my community, my family's lives.  To have a more Christ-like attitude.   

We are looking forward to what 2013 will bring us!  We hope everyone else has a great year!

Whoa December

Yes, December is a crazy month for everyone but it is even more crazy for us with celebrating Carson's birthday on the 17th and our Anniversary on the 29th.  We have the privilege of throwing those into the mix of parties, shopping, etc!

For Carson's birthday we actually attended his work party at Ruth's Chris Steak house.  This was our first time there and it was phenomenal...I can not even describe how good it was.  It was a delight getting to know Carson's co-workers better.  All are such great people and we enjoy being in their presence.  Before going to Ruth's Chris Carson opened his presents.  I surprised him with a really nice chess set and a vintage BYU shirt that he has been wanting.  We have played a couple games of chess and I will just say I am not a good contender against Carson.  There is definitely no challenge for him ha.

James was so fun this year with Christmas.  He is kind of starting to get it.  He knows who Santa is and can say his name (don't ask him to sit on his lap) but he doesn't quite understand what his role is in all this Christmas business yet. He loved seeing all the Christmas lights and decor.

Opening presents is hard work

For our Anniversary to celebrate our good ol' wooden 5th Anniversary we decided to do a little over-nighter get away up to SL.  This was the first time I left James overnight.  I have been kind of paranoid to ever do this- I know he would be fine I was just always worried about how I would do.  I can't believe I didn't do it sooner!  Ha, I handled it just fine.  It probably helped that it was just one night and I did miss him but the fun and freedom we had outweighed it :) We saw Les Mis (meh) and went to Ruth's Chris (it was so good the first time, we had to go back a week and a half later for more).  Actually we had already planned to go there and made reservations before Carson's work decided to have their party there.  Oh well.  It was delish.  We tried to stuff all that we could into our bellies but when we finally gave up we decided we would have them pack the left overs up and we'd find a homeless person in need of a good meal.  We gave it to a very appreciative homeless woman outside the temple/city creek area.  It felt good to do something nice for someone else and by giving a meal rather than giving cash, I knew my money was being put to good use.

We did a little shopping at City Creek

They had ice skating right outside our hotel.  It was beautiful with the rink and the lights on all the trees.

This month we also squeezed some time in for some Jungle Jims.  Laurie had a Groupon that she needed to use before the year was up.  Carson grew up going to this place and it was kind of fun taking James on all the kiddie rides.  He enjoyed spending time with his cousins.  And it was really funny watching Carson try to fit into the rides :)

James didn't like this one

And to end this post, I also went to a beading party this month and it was so much fun.  I was in heaven putting my creative senses together.  I came up with these two beauties.  I kind of like them :)  I gave them as gifts for Christmas but I think I need to make some more for myself.  So fun!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Tomorrow is December 1st...can you believe it!?  I love seeing how people decorate for the Holidays.  I'll share my decor.

We got started putting up our Christmas decor the day after Thanksgiving.  I used all that we had the last few years but added just a couple new things.

Here is how I decorated my "mantle" shelves.  I love my shelves :)

I went with a more muted white/cream theme with a few pops of the traditional Christmas greens and reds

I had everything from previous years but felt I needed something along the "Believe" blocks so I bought this garland at Hobby Lobby.  All their Christmas is 50% off this week!  Here's a close up.  I love the crystal-y winter look and love how it completes that shelf.  I then traded out my usual small wreath on the holder to the right of the "Believe" blocks with just a cute red berry one from Micheals (also 50% off).

I felt we needed a wreath on our front door.  I have been sort of looking around as I am in stores but I am not particularly fond of the traditional Christmas tree wreath look for my house.  As I was at Micheals shopping for other things, I ran across this one and had to take it home! It was exactly what I was looking for!  It may not look all that cute against an orange door but it is what it is :)

And a close up...I love close up shots :)  I love the blue beads and clear crystals in this and love how it's all glittered and frosted.

Here is our sad little Christmas tree.  We have had it since our first year married so about 4 years now and it's starting to fall apart.  It actually has been a good little tree.  I think we bought it for like 35 bucks at Target and it has served us well.  Next year we are thinking we will retire this little guy.

I love this Advent calendar I made with my MIL and SIL's last year...or was it two years ago??  It's in an old vintage Coca Cola crate.  Love.

We are almost done Christmas shopping!  I didn't hit my goal, to be completely finished by December 1st but what can you do?  I just hope I'm not one of those out Christmas eve scrambling to finish up...

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!

A Little Update About the Adults

I feel like we have had a busy couple of months lately, with moving into our new home, fairly new jobs, parenting busy-boy James, and just getting settled into our new community and church callings.

I knew owning a home would be hard work but wow, there really is a lot more to it than I expected, for example, sealing our front porch and backyard "deck" for the winter...what!? (I put quotations because I'm not sure if I'd go as far as calling it a deck per say, but we fit our grill on it comfortably and with it you can fit like two or three adults) And of course we still need to get blinds and a water softener...Okay, don't panic, we do have blinds (I guess you can call them that). They are those make-shift paper blinds that you get from Home Depot for like 5 bucks.  

At least we have privacy :)  

There are so many projects I have been wanting to do to make our home represent our style.  I also would just love to go out and buy a whole bunch of furniture to totally redo complete our family room and the same for our living room buuuut....budget.  

And then there's the daunting task of putting in a yard.

"It'll all come together in time, Rachelle...Simmer down." 

 I tell myself that on a daily basis :)

Carson has been super busy with his job and has been working long, crazy hours.  This has been a struggle for us both. I think we saw each other more when we were both going to school full time and working.  At times I feel like a single parent and often times I. Am. Exhausted.  I seriously don't know how single mama's do it everyday.  And I know there are a lot of my friends and family out there who have similar or harder situations than mine so I really can't complain.  

But really Carson likes his job aside from the crazy hours which won't last long anyway.  I am still working for a nearby clinic and am loving it!  And I am loving my most important job, being a mama to this sweet boy...crazy hair and all!

We are liking our neighborhood and ward.  I was called to teach Primary like two weeks after we moved in and currently teach the 11 year olds and really like it.  Carson is in nursery and definitely has his hands full.  We have 3 nurseries in our ward!  Ahhh

Despite being busy or overwhelmed, we are loving life and 

still have time for some fun.  

Halloween 2012

This year Halloween was so much fun!  Having kids makes it ten times more fun!

James is still pretty young to understand it all, especially the actual trick-or-treating part but he had a blast with all the Halloween decor, lighting the pumpkins, going to costume parades, parties, and dressing up in his puppy costume.

Since we are new in our area, we decided we would stick around our neighborhood this year so we could get to know some more people and also let James trick-or-treat around the cul-de-sac.  It took FOREVER! ha, I'm glad we only did our circle :)  He was way cute though.

I absolutely LOVE Halloween and plan to get way more into it with decorating now that we have a house of our own.  I did do a little decorating with my new shelves which I already previewed here.  And I also made this really fun Witch's Spell book.  It was super easy AND cheap! I got the idea from a very talented friend, thanks for letting me copy you Leslie!

Here's with all the decor around it

I also love to dress up.  This year since James adores puppies, I thought it'd be cute to see him go as one.  And of course I have to coordinate mine and Carson's costumes to go with James' so we went as veterinarians.  Plus it was easy since we have access to plenty of gear.

puppies heart sounds great

ward Halloween party

the lighting of the pumpkins

at cousin Addie's school parade

As I mentioned, James didn't get the whole trick-or-treating thing on Halloween day but we went to grandma and papa Cullimore's house for dinner the following Sunday and he saw their candy and all of the sudden had it all down.  He pointed to the candy and said, "trick or treat".  So we practiced for next year.  We went outside, he rang the doorbell, grandma answered, he said "trick or treat" and she handed him some candy from a basket.  He's ready for next year!

Now whenever he wants some candy he says, "I want trick or treat".  haha

James is a year and a half

James is growing up so quickly.  He is in such a fun stage right now too (I know I probably say that in every post I do about his growth).

He loves to snuggle

Carson and I will just sit back and watch him interact with his toys or whatever and we just laugh and wonder, what is going on in that little boy's head?  He'll sit and jabber (some of it understandable, most of it not).

He is talking more and more every day which is really nice.  Less communication frustrations for mom and dad.  I now know if he wants his water or his puppy or his binky- so nice.  He is also putting two words together more.  Some of our favorites lately are, "All gone", "Bye bye choo choo" or "Bye bye car",  "Thank you" (ah, what a well mannered boy...not sure where he got that), and my ultimate favorite that he just learned to say in the last week or two "Love you" - melts my heart.  But he does not give that one out freely- it is pretty rare :)  On the flip side, he's starting to be a little punk.  He has started to say, "No, mine" for everything.  He used to share so well but now everything is his and he says it with such attitude.  He has started saying names too.  He says, Cardi, Robert, Lala (Lisa), Kyle, Ada (Addie), and Elmo.

he loves playing with other little kids

He is getting really good at body parts.  He knows what all of them are when you tell him to point to them but he only knows how to actually say "eyes", "ears", and "feet".  He is obsessed with ears and earrings in particular.  He will move your hair out of the way so he can get to your ears to see if you're wearing earrings.

He loves to knock on doors.  He also loves to throw balls, and he actually has a pretty good arm.  He has learned to slide down small slides on his own.  He can climb up, sit down, and slide on his own.  So daring.  He likes to help mom clean.  He'll get a rag and wipe the floor or the table.  So helpful.  He loves books and has even learned how to say the color yellow from one of them!  When he's looking at an animal book, he'll bend over and kiss the little animals.  How sweet is that?

his new book reading spot

He has started becoming familiar with what we do when we say a prayer.  He will fold his arms and kind of close his eyes for a sec but then will just laugh at us through it.  Then when it's over he'll say,  "Amen".  And really he did this all on his own just by watching.  We never really prompted him to do that.  He also has this childrens book that Grandma Cullimore gave him of Christ and he knows where Jesus is and can kind of say His name.  Makes me feel like we must be doing something right I guess.

He has at least two molars on the bottom.  He may have some on the top, I haven't really checked and can't see those as well.  He is also getting his bottom canines...those have not been fun :(

He thinks it's funny to climb into his toy box

I think it's funny to take a picture rather than help him when he falls
in head first and can't get out :)  I snapped this a tad late.

In the last two weeks he has decided he's too big for a morning nap.  I really had a hard time giving this one up.  I cherished his morning naps since I used that time to get ready for the day.  It became such a hassle though.  Some days he would take a nap, some days he wouldn't and I would fight him on it.  Now that we don't do the morning nap anymore it actually hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.  I just either make sure I get up before he does or if I'm not able to, I just stick him in the shower with me and wash him off too.  He still takes his afternoon nap and it's great because so far most days it is around 3 hours long!  I am also finding that I have more freedom with just the one nap.  I'm not trying to get all my errands done during that limited time in between nap periods.

This little boy is the joy of our lives!  Love you, James!


By the way, as mentioned in this post, my foot was hurting after my half marathon...well, I took an x-ray and had a foot doctor take a look at it aaaand, it's fractured.  Haha so I'm supposed to wear this thing

Pretty darn cute.  It's a stress fracture which is pretty common with downhill races.  It has been healing up nicely the last few weeks and this was my last week in the little orthopedic shoe so I guess I can run again!

Let the DIY begin

Having a new home is sort of a bad thing...I want to decorate and make it our own and I want to do it all NOW!  I know we will get furniture to fill our empty house and we will acquire more decorations and such as time goes.  I have all these ideas but a strict budget now that we have a mortgage :)  I am really trying to be patient.

I have also become hooked on a few DIY blogs which doesn't help...but there are some really cute ideas that are great on the pocket as well so I decided to give one a try. I found this idea here and was really pleased with how fairly easy it was and how great it turned out!  We put these up in our living room.  I already had some of the supplies leftover from the builder (door frame molding and the paint) so it was an easy decision :)  And it only cost me $53!  They look so elegant too, hard to believe they were so inexpensive!

 I decided since it was that time, I'd go ahead and go straight to decorating my new shelves for Halloween! (I LOVE Halloween).  We don't have a fireplace so I figure these shelves can serve as my mantel if you will where I can switch out my decoration for the Holidays. 

Here it is all decorated for Halloween

A few of the decor were things I made but most of them were things I already had for Halloween or things I had laying around that I could use.  I got this whimsical owl vinyl decal from the blog I found the shelves on (I absolutely love that blog).  I was wondering what I wanted to do with it and remembered I had a decorative plate down in storage that would be perfect, and voila!  I thought it worked really well.

For girls night (while the men were at Priesthood) we made these spooky terrariums.  They were so easy.  All we did was buy a wood plaque (Hobby Lobby), a glass candlestick (dollar store), fringe (Hobby Lobby), spanish moss (Hobby Lobby), and a vase (Walmart).  We painted the wood plaque black then hot glued the fringe on and then also glued the candlestick onto the bottom for it to stand on.  Then you can fill the inside with whatever your heart desires.  So easy! The whole thing cost about $8!  I love the fringe on the base, it just screams old lady, haunted house doesn't it?

I also think these glass bottles add a lot of character.  The green one was from Hobby Lobby, I used the 40% off coupon so it was around $1 and the white one was from Walmart for only 97 cents!

I found the crow and the headstone at the dollar store. 

I also bought this vinyl decal from the same blog mentioned.  I already had the frame, I just adhered the decal right onto the glass then put purple (I know it looks blue in this pic, but it's purple) card stock in the frame.  That way I can switch out the colored paper.  The candle next to it I already had as my usual decor but I thought it looked good with my Halloween decor.  It sort of reminds me of a cauldron.

I'm having too much fun!  I have many more projects that I can't wait to get started on.