Bridal Shower Fun!

Better late than never right.

My bridal shower was a blast! I of course got there late. LOL! Kassi was doing my hair and it took longer than anticipated. Sorry everyone! My new family was so kind to put this shower on for me and Sister Hinmon was so wonderful as to let us have it at her place. Sabrina was even able to get away from her premi  little Poette just to be there for me.The food and games were so fun.Thank you so much for all the hard work and time it took to prepare everything. It was so fun. Sabrina and mom even made little cake bits in red and yellow. :) So creative!

Oh, and the clothespins that you see me wearing is another one of Tiffany's fabulous games. I won that one. Hehe!I think I had the advantage on this one  Each person got some clothespins at the beginning of the shower and if they said my name 'Sondai' at all even if they were talking to me,. if someone caught them they would have to give up their clothespin to the person who caught them. It was a blast and thankfully since I don't usually say my own name to people I didn't loss any clothespins and was even able to gather quite a few.

Fun games. Toss the cotton balls into the smaller  bowl blindfolded.

Yeah, I failed at this game. LOL!

L - R Ashton, Tanna, Amanda (sister), Sister Hinmon, Michelle P., and Alyssa

Sister Nuttall, Sister Brady, Sister Cooper (Some of the Bishop's wives from singles branch...love them!)

Michelle Pardee kicking butt! She played the game before!

Tiffany couldn't keep enough cotton balls in the big bowl fast enough for turbo Michelle here.

Ashton's first attempt

Cheater!! LOL she got creative...though you weren't supposed to touch the bowls with your hands.

Stephanie using the dumping method....didn't work so well.

word scrabble(I think that's what it's called) so intense. Stephanie, Kassi, Sister Haslem

Dottie and Grandma Seward. So nice to have you there!

Purse game. Who has the most in there purse wins. I actually one this game. Shocking right! Also we weighed our purses and Grandma Fern Seward won that one. :)

Present for Jake so he doesn't feel so left out. :) Used this gift a TON by the way Sister Nuttall!

Too cute! LOVE it! I wear it all the time. It saves my clothes...I'm a messy cook apparently.

Sister Brady's yummy homemade soap

Recipe book with Pictures. I love it!

Love an organized kitchen

Jake loves you Alyssa for getting me this book. Sweets is on the bottom of his food pyramid.

Everyone needs a toaster right!

Best knives ever!

Too fun. We used this for an indoor picnic a  month or so ago. I'm a dork,but it was so fun.  Maybe one day when Jake has a little more time we will actually be able to go to a park or better yet. CAMPING.

Came loaded with goods. :)

Dottie and Grandma spoiled us!

All that was from D and Gma. Thanks so much!!

Mom was a little distressed when I opened this gift from Stephanie. I believe she said something to the effect of..,' this is my baby boy your talking about!' Haha! Sorry mom! Love ya!

Yup! Stephanie was the only brave enough to embarrass me in front of my new family.

Oh wait! There's one more!

Ashton was so nervous about me opening the gift  it made me nervous.

She looks like shes about to puke! I love Tanna's face..'What did you do!'

You can't really tell but it's a box of condoms made into a smiley face.

Prego Test

Phewph! I'm glad that's over with....haha!

Thanks everyone for coming! For your love and support! It means so much.

Random Pics

I told you he used my eye mask :)

Cam and I

Little Poette

Date Night.Proof that I can win Jake once in a blue moon at something. J -0 Me -230

Date Night. Portland Boat Dance

Us at the temple, before we were engaged.

Date night. Jake was kind enough to paint my toes since  I can't with my back.

Bachlorette Party

Cassi coloring my hair for the wedding. She did amazing!

Look I'm tall enough

Mini golf anyone....and no I didn't hit anyone in the head with  my club

We're cool!

Red Robin....YUMM!!

Newlywed Must Haves!

Okay so there are tons and tons of things that newlyweds need. The obvious of course is those things to run a house hold, but I'm not referring to those things. I am referring to things more upon the lines of building your relationships. I have a couple of friend of mine who just got married about a year ago now and some of them have really struggled. My heart aches for them. I love them and pray that they will be able to get through these hard times. Trust me I am no where near the expert on dealing with the changes that being a newlywed brings but I have found a couple of items that have helped me and Jake thus far in our marriage.

The first wonderful find we bought before we were officially engaged. This being my second marriage I wanted to make sure I understood who I was going to marry. I am not very good and being able to ask the right questions at times, but this book helped emencly and we discussed what we wanted for our future. Before we were engaged we were planning our marriage. This is the course of action we took not only before but during as well. We discussed where we would live and if something happened to our parents what we would do. How we would spend money. What our goals were, our hopes, and dreams. This book helped us discuss these and many more topics. I was shocked at the detailed questions it gave. It was a perfect fit for Jake and I. By the time we were finished we knew each others strength and weaknesses better and now had a plan in which to improve our future, and to make our goals come true. If I had the funds I would give it to every couple I knew and will know that is seriously looking into getting hitched.

This is another book that I love. I actually owned it before I got married. It is great to read together as a couple but if your spouse is too busy it is still incredibly useful for you to read alone as well. It's very educational. Jake doesn't have much time for reading but I can ask him anything and he is more than willing to answer. This is something that I found important for myself because I didn't understand before reading this how exactly I felt loved, therefore if I don't know how am I supposed to help those around me know as well. Learn how you feel loved and learn how your spouse feels most loved and practice on doing those things for each other.

This is becoming a new favorite of mine. This was one of the gifts from my wonderful friend and maid-of-honor Stephanie. It is filled with cute 'couple fhe' discussions and activities. It even has some that you can include a couple of your married friends along. FHE in the church is so wrapped around kids it's so nice to have this book full of ideas that would just for the two of us. I know that after the first year of marriage I will have to get a little more creative on FHE night, but I'm so grateful for this book. Most of the activities cost little to nothing which is a must have for newlyweds such as ourselves. Every time we pull this book out we grow closer together as a couple. I LOVE it!

Product I love!

For one of our wedding gifts we got this fabulous stuff called Jelly Bath! I admit that I was a little shall we say  unsure about this gift. A nice thought I guess. Well a couple weeks ago I needed a nice relaxing bath and decided to try it out. I have to say that I was more than pleasantly surprised. You can't see very well in the picture but this happened to be strawberry flavored. I was surprised at how warm the fragrance was and the silly little girl came out as I watched the water turn pink. I played in the bath like I was a little girl again. It was so refreshing. It was super slippery so getting out of the tub was a bit of a challenge, but I would definitely enjoy another bath it this stuff. 

The Jelly texture. 

Since this was a gift I actually had no idea where it was purchased but I found this website www.jellybath.com if you are interested. Now that I see the price of this gift it will have to be a special treat to enjoy such a rejuvenating bath. Those of you who know me know the I squeak when I walk so this tells you a little bit about how much I love this product. :)

Framing Project

Since I have been looking at Pinterest so often and I have this new apartment to decorate to make it feel more like home I have been trying to come up with some fun home decor. Now because of Pinterest I now have some ideas on what I would like to do, but still little idea on how to actually do them. Well this time shockingly enough I used the ideas and gave it a little spin. Using some of the stuff I already had to make it a little more doable. (Gotta love budgets!) I was able to find the stencils for about $4 at Walmart, $1/ frame at Dollar Tree, scrapbook paper I had thanks to Mom Seward, mod podge probably cost less the 10 cents for the 1/2 cup I made.

I made sure that the frames had the ability to hang since I will be hanging this one the wall when I get the chance. 

I have to be super organized when doing project because if I leave or get distracted at ALL I forget what I'm doing and can result in a frustrating mess. So here I have decided the order in which I will use the paper. Each paper represents a letter to spell out FAMILY.

You can't see very well but I was able to fit all the letters I wanted on this one page. Yah! I also learned that since I take after my mother and have an unsteady had that it helped immensely to safety clip the stencil to the paper so that I could trace without messing up so frequently. Another thing is to flip each stencil so the lettering is backwards that way you do not have writing on the side of the letter you will be displaying.(A lesson learned a little too late, thankfully I used pencil to trace with.)When it comes to me and crafts the less I'm frustrated the better!! Well I guess that's probably the case for everyone huh. :) Once traced I then cut each letter out. I preferred the letter to be slightly bigger so I cut around the tracings instead of right one.

I then took the scrap book paper (it had already been used for the 'mail holder' I made earlier, so that's why it's pre-cut unlike the rest) and measured it to the mat that would go inside the frame to get the correct measurements needed. After making a 'master' I used it to cut the remaining five squares.

Also a lesson learned is that it's easier to use the back of each scrapbook paper to safety clip and then instead of tracing where I needed to cut make a dotted line. Once I finished measuring and cutting I then safety clipped each letter to the alotted page. Again a step most people probably don't need but for me and my forgetful mind it helps a LOT.

Next I then used the mat again safety clipping the desired paper. I then measure the distances to place each letter in the middle of each paper. I then made small markings with pencil at the corners of where the letter would lie.Then using my homemade mod podge I applied glue to the ( very Important) back of the letter. With care I placed each letter onto the paper as centered as possible. :)

Though if I ever do something similar again I will make a few changes to improve the outcome I am happy with the end result. I can't wait to hang it up. The more I get on my walls the more Jake and I seem to enjoy living here. Even if it is too much city for us. ;)

Pinterest Fun!

It's good I have Pinterest because I honestly couldn't come up with these cute ideas on my own. First of I tried to make some 'Homemade Mod Podge'. This stuff is amazing in the crafty world. There are so many projects that call for the stuff but when I went to the store I was shocked at how much it cost. I decided I'd have to wait another day to purchase that so I went home a little bummed to have to wait on a couple of projects I had been wanting to do. Then good ol' Pinterest came through and gave me a little recipe. I held my breath as I tried it out today. So far so good. SOooooo much cheaper than the Mod Podge you will find at the store.

Recipe: 1/2 water, 1/2 Elmer's glue. Mix together = Awesomeness!

This project is to hold our mail. I have a tendency to place mail anywhere in the house and then find it later which makes it a little more challenging to make sure bills are paid when they are due. This is hopefully going to stop that from happening now. Even though I found this idea on Pinterest I was unable to find the instructions on how to make this work. I improvised and trust me you can tell. Thankfully these pictures aren't too close up so you can't see where someone with a more creative background wouldn't have goofed. Either way it's cute and it works for me. :) First Mom Seward was nice enough to give me this small box of cheerios and also the cute scrap book paper. It took almost two full big pages to cover everything that needed to be covered. I cut the box the size that I wanted first.As you can see I then pulled the box apart thinking it would be easier to reach the inside of the box. Well it was but gluing the box back together ended up being the hardest part of this project.

I didn't cover the back part at all since it would be against the  wall/fridge anyways. Save paper that way. :)

This is actually the inside of the cereal box. Again to save more paper I just  mod podged the paper about half way into the box.

Isn't it cute! My cheap magnet clips wouldn't hold it up but I found other magnets that didn't the trick and will easily be able to carry the weight of added papers.

Oopsy!

You think since I've had a little bit of experience in the kitchen I wouldn't make such silly cooking mistakes. Well at least that's what I thought before the other day. I was in the middle of making some breakfast burritos which was a fail by the way...need your recipe Mom Seward!! While trying to grate some potatoes for hash browns. I ended up have a fight with the cheese grater and lost.

Ouch!

If that wasn't bad enough. One of my new favorite things to do before going to bed (when it's not super hot outside that is) is have a cup of herbal tea. Is calms me so that I can fall asleep quicker and it keeps me from wanting a little snack right before bed. Well I put water in the pot right as Jake got home from work. While talking to him about the day I completely forgot about my pot of water. Jake and I went even started a movie. It didn't last long until our fire alarm when off. (which worked fabulously, I'm sure my neighbors loved me cause it's was around 11pm) Though I have to admit I'm grateful for the warning because my poor pot was melting away.

Guess I'll have to buy a new pot.

Oh and I had a lovely blond moment. The pot was melted to the burner so we had to put it under hot water to cool it off to remove it so it would stop burning. After we successfully removed the pot from the burner I said something similar to... wait a minute how did the pot melt if there is water still in the pot?Yup, I'm that smart!



PS: Anyone have any suggestions on how to clean that burner I'd really appreciate it.