2013 in Review

There were so many memories from this past year that I don't want to forget. It was a year filled with so many firsts and new experiences. Here are some highlights from our 2013.

January: I got my nanny job. Can't believe I've been with this family for almost a year!
February: First Valentine's Day together! Which we celebrated 100 miles apart..
March: We had our first Easter together.
April: We got MARRIED!

May: Taylor started working at Pioneer. We went to Pennsylvania for a weekend, which included going to my brother's wedding.

June: Celebrate America was so cool!

July: Fourth of July in Grace. We made a day trip to Lagoon.

August: Summer fun was in full swing.

September: I started my fourth semester at BYU-I. We bought a new car, Max. Moved into a new apartment. Got our wedding pictures back.

October: Corn maze, cookies, and Pumpkin carving.

November: First Thanksgiving as a married couple.

December: Finished the semester with a 4.0 GPA. (halfway done with my bachelor's!!!) Celebrated our first Christmas together.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

Love, The Lloyds

Remembering Christ this Christmas

This year I have seen a big difference in myself as to what Christmas means to me. It has been less about presents or commercial things and more about Christ's birth. It has truly been a blessing to me with the trials that I have been facing. I loved this video.

And also this one.

It is all too easy to get caught up with the side Christmas that most of the world cares about. I'm determined to remember Christ in my Christmas this year and every year.

A different life..

I was so excited for Christmas at the beginning of the season, but I'd be lying if I said that I was still as excited. I was so caught up in the fun of decorating our home and buying presents for others that the fact that I'm not going home for Christmas slipped my mind more than it was on it. I have never been away from my family on Christmas, and being that I live on the other side of the country from them I know that it will happen a lot more. I thought that I would handle it just fine, but it's harder than I ever imagined. Want to know the fastest way to make me cry these days? Just bring up Christmas, and the fact that I'm not going home. It will do the trick. I promise.

I wasn't even born yet (or even thought of) when this picture was taken, but it sums up a Thomas Christmas so well. Train and town included of course and a tree completely filled with ornaments. 

I never knew how hard living away from my family would be. Taylor and I have planted our roots in Idaho Falls, and we don't have any intentions of moving for just about forever. Usually you move to where a job is right? Well Taylor has his dream job here, and he will have plenty of opportunities to make more money in this job. Allllllll of Taylor's family is out here, and I can't imagine being the person that rips him away from them. I truthfully did not plan on staying out here when I came out here for school, but inevitably it is that way.

Everyone else in Taylor's family that is about my age has their parents close by or only a couple hours away. It makes it hard because they don't understand. I am so very grateful for them, but my family is extremely different from Taylor's. I truly feel like you really can't understand this unless you have lived this way or are currently living this way.

My family is just so good great.

Nobody mentioned this part to me when I got married. No one told me how hard it would be to be one of the only members of my immediate family to live far away from home. I have a niece that I have seen only when she was born and when she was five and six months old. And when we eventually have kids they are rarely going to get to see their Grandma and Grandpa Thomas. That is so hard to know and think about.

I'm sure that someday it will get easier, but for now that is hard to see. Until then I will put on my brave face, and be grateful for who I have to spend my time with.This post isn't at all what I originally planned it to be, but sometimes you have to be completely honest and open.

I have an obsession

I think it is time for me to admit that I am obsessed with Grey's Anatomy. It all started my senior year of high school and has only escalated since. It is just so good! If you have never seen the show or gotten in to it then I strongly suggest that you do now. They have every season on Netflix so you really have no excuse :)

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I have watched the entire series twice, and still watch random episodes when there is nothing else to on. Don't judge me. I'm well aware that there was better ways that I could have spent my time, but then again I think I spent my time perfectly.

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I have gotten my mom hooked on this show as well. Which only makes my obsession that much better because we always text about our excitement of a new episode coming on, and then have a conversation about what happened the next day. Sadly though, the men in our lives just don't understand it.

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I know that the characters(or even the hospital) don't really exist, but at the same time I'm pretty sure that there is a Meredith and a Mcdreamy happily married with two cute kids and kicking butt at being a surgeon.

And while I'm on the subject of Grey's can we please talk about April's wedding dress on the winter finale! So pretty! I'm pretty much in love with it. She made such a great bride... At least she did until Jackson professed his love of course.

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I'm very sad that Sandra oh is done after this season, but she has been incredible this season. I secretly kind of love all of the fighting happening between her and Meredith.It's exciting. I can't wait to see how they do have her leave for good though.

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It is their 10th season, they recently celebrated their 200th episode, and they are still planning more seasons. As far as I know Shonda Rhimes has no intention of ending the series any time soon. I'm pretty sure that I will never be the same when it does end!

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February 27th can't come son enough..

6 Freezer Meals

I spontaneously decided to make some freezer meals this past weekend. We were already planning a grocery shopping trip so I figured, why not? I was planning to do more than what I did, but it turns out that I am fairly picky. I found all of my recipes off of pinterest.

I made..
Sweet and sour chicken
Chicken teriyaki
Hawaiian chicken
Hearty beef stew
Ham and scalloped potatoes
Honey garlic chicken

I didn't add peppers to any of the recipes that called for them because I don't like them. I had many of the ingredients already, and I halved some of the recipes. I spent about 40 dollars at Winco which would make each meal $6.67. At least two recipes (ham and potatoes and beef stew) will be enough for two meals for us. So technically it is 8 meals for 40 dollars. I still had leftover carrots, stew meat, onion soup mix, cheese, an onion, sauce, and honey.

 All of the food :) (the big white bag is potatoes that we got for free )

It was hard to figure out exactly where to start, but once I got going it wasn't too bad. Taylor chopped things up for me as I needed, and I filled the bags. I did the recipes one at a time rather than trying to figure out all six at once. I wrote on the bags what it was and how long it needed to cook for before I put anything into it. I figured I'll look up the recipe when I make them so I know if I need to do anything else or add anything rather than writing a ton of the bags. Pretty much every recipe said to take it out the day before and thaw it out in the fridge before cooking.

It really wasn't too hard, and now I have 6 meals ready at any time. I can't wait to try them!

Holiday Long Weekend

We went to my in-laws for Thanksgiving since Pennsylvania is a little too far. We left before seven so that we could see the parade when we got there. The boys enjoyed some NBA on the Xbox before the feast while the girls watched and prepped. The feast was scrumptious! I contributed some pretzel salad for the feast and  a pumpkin cake roll for dessert. They both turned out really good for my first time making them :)

After the feast the boys went dirt biking and the girls had craft time. Dessert was served, and then things calmed down a bit as Jordan and Kayleigh went to see her family and Sheldon went black Friday shopping with his cousins. We left a while later and took Taylor's younger brother, Nathan, home with us so that we could go black Friday shopping in the morning.

We woke up early and headed out in search of a couple of things. Taylor's mom and Sheldon met us a little while later, and we all had a great time. You know, the five of us in one car tired and cranky haha. But it really was fun.

Taylor and I couldn't help, but to enjoy our five dollar Monopoly game find later that afternoon. I ended up getting my butt kicked, but next time I'm going to take all of his money!

The rest of the weekend was spent catching up on sleep, and getting back to our simple lives. We babysat the kids I watch Saturday, and taught a primary class on Sunday. Having such a hectic couple of days made me so thankful for the simplicity that is mine and Taylor's lives.

One other thing that happened on Thanksgiving was that I got to open my Christmas present from Taylor and his parents early. Heck to the freaking yes my husband is the best! I was not expecting this gift whatsoever, but I am so so happy about it. It explained why he was making me wait until black Friday to buy this other nativity that I wanted. (I obviously don't want the other one anymore) I have wanted a Willow Tree nativity for a long time, but I never thought that I would actually get one. He couldn't have picked out a more perfect present for me. It was possibly the best part of Thanksgiving :)

I have to stop and admire this every time I come in or out of the apartment. I'm not sure that I'll stop doing that any time soon either. I just love it so much :)

Ornament Wreath

After Thanksgiving dinner the boys went for a dirt bike ride and the girls had craft time. We got our inspiration from this picture, and just kind of did our own thing with it. We really had no idea what we were doing, but they turned out well.

We started by tying and hot gluing the ribbon on since it gets covered by ornaments, and it would be much hard or possibly even impossible to put on after the ornaments were on. We did the letter next, but it can be done after your ornaments are on as well. The letter was a bit tricky since the wreath didn't touch the letter in very many places. You kinda have to work with a bit and just try to get glue in as many places as possible.

I started with one ornament and went from there. Just like the initial, the ornaments won't touch in very many places, but I also glued them to each other so they would be more secure. I didn't go in any certain order. I just did what i thought looked right, and tried to keep as much of the wreath hidden. I didn't cut the tops off, but I did turn them so that you couldn't see any of them. I did all of my big ornaments before I put on the small ones. Any gaps that I had between the big ornaments were covered nicely by the small ones.

The ornaments will make it heavy on one side so you should take that into consideration when deciding where to put your ribbon. Mine ended up being totally crooked when I tried to hang it up. Luckily, I was able to get some ribbon through a different spot that would make it hang straight. 

I think what I loved the most about these is that they can be done in so many different ways. 

Taylor's mom's wreath.

My wreath

Kayleigh's wreath (sister-in-law)

I believe that our wreaths were 18 inch wreaths, and our ornaments were bought from Target and Walmart. The snowflakes just happened to be in my box of small ornaments. The ribbon was some that my mom and I picked up last year after Christmas that was left over from my wedding. 

Mountains to Climb

A couple weeks ago in my early field class my teacher showed us this video, and I just wanted to share it with you.

It really made me stop and think what are the mountains that I'm climbing on, and who am relying on to help me climb them? My mountains are making it through the holidays and my first ever Christmas without my family, finishing this semester with the grades that I want to get, and other things. I also have hills that I am going over like dealing with things that people are saying about me or Taylor and I. There is always going to be something, but there is also always going to be help.

The mountains in my own life may be nothing compared to someone else's, but the fact of the matter is that they are still things that I am struggling with. I would never be able to reach the other side of the mountains and hills without the Lord. It is comforting to know that He is always there for me, and to have the gospel in my life. I can't imagine how much harder things would be without His love in my life. Whether we are climbing a mountain, going over a hill, or walking on flat land we are never alone. I will never give up my faith in Christ because I know the influence that it has. I am so thankful to have the gospel in my life, and I am even thankful for the trials that I face.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Jeffrey R. Holland. 

“Don't you quit. You keep walking, you keep trying, there is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon. Some come late. Some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end. Trust God and believe in Good Things to Come.”

Should Have Checked the Weather

This past weekend we went on a spontaneous one night road trip to Grace. We were planning on going riding on Saturday, but since some people don't know how to check the weather report it almost didn't happen. We woke up to a couple inches of snow, snow still coming down, and some full force winds.

Of course that didn't stop these boys so off we went. (thank goodness I brought my snowboarding jacket with me)

 This is how your supposed to drive right?!

Don't worry I gave Taylor back his goggles quickly and just looked down instead. Taylor loved getting to play around in the snow, and I loved seeing him happy.

The Rzr doesn't have a windshield which meant full on wind. It was SO stinkin' cold!

Once we got to where we were going I chose to ditch the Rzr for the nice warm truck. Wearing jeggings in the snow was not a wise choice. I could tell that Sheldon was dying to ride (he asked me every time we stopped if I wanted to switch with him) so I happily let him take my seat for the ride back.

This ride stressed the fact that I really need to get my own pink helmet and goggles even more. Or maybe I just want them really bad.. It was fun, but I think that I will be okay if we don't do it again any time soon.

Burlap Tree Skirt

I looked for a tree skirt at many different stores without finding anything I liked that didn't cost a small fortune. I was getting discouraged so I decided that I would make one instead. I remembered seeing a burlap tree skirt on Pinterest a while ago so I decided to try making my own version of it.

I chose to buy a round table cloth as my base because I didn't want to sew fabric together. I used a pot lid to measure the circle for the tree, and then cut a line down it so that I slip it around the tree. I found the brown and green burlap at Walmart and the red burlap at Hancock Fabrics. I got two yards of each color and had different amounts of each left over. I cut the burlap into 3 inch strips, and overlapped them just slightly. I chose to use hot glue rather than sewing it so that it would be a little easier. I didn't measure how far apart the ruffles were. Instead, I just did what I thought would look right.

I folded it over at the top, put a dab of hot glue, and then held it until it was cool enough that it wouldn't try to fold back over. I eventually resorted to a bag of ice to help the glue cool faster so that I wouldn't have to hold it as long. 

As you can see from the picture on the left there was many white spots that appeared from the ruffling. To fix this I would put some hot glue at the end or farther up by the fold to keep them down. It still kept the ruffle enough to look nice, but the white spots were gone.

I love the way it turned out. It looks great with our tree. I will warn anyone that tries this that it takes a long time to do. I probably spent ten hours off an on working on this. You will also get burlap all over your work area and probably on your clothes as well. Even though it was hard work it was definitely worth it!

When the boy is away the girl will...

.. watch way too many cheesy abc family Christmas movies and love every one of them. I'm talking like six movies in two days.. Thank you Netflix.

really high quality photo I know.

.. allow their counter to look like this while she works on their tree skirt.

.. go to her classes like normal. I figured if the boy had to go to classes then I should probably still go to mine.

.. break the side mirror off of their good car. (definitely the boy's fault for moving our bikes)

.. eat sphagettioes for dinner because she is too lazy to cook for one.

.. nearly die from a cold. Maybe I wasn't anywhere close to death, but it wasn't any fun.

Taylor went out of town for some training for work for a couple days leaving me to fend for myself. I would say that I manged it quite well. It's kinda fun to be away from each other for longer than normal. It makes you grateful for him being there all the time.

Jumping on the Thankful Train

Everyone has been doing their 'thankful days' on Facebook or their blogs, but I never got around to doing anything like that(because school is slowly sucking the life out of me). I can't let November go by without taking a minute to think about what I am thankful for.

I am thankful for my husband, and for the love that we have for each other. I'm thankful that he works so hard to support us, and I am even more thankful that he loves his job. I told Taylor the other day that Brei and Lehi want some ideas of what to get us, mainly you, for Christmas. His reply was, "Tell them to get something that you would love because as long as you're happy with it then I am happy." For real though, he says these things all the time. I hit the jackpot with this man.

I'm thankful for my mom. She truly is my best friend. She is the greatest person in the world, and I'm not saying that because I'm just like her. I love that I am exactly like her. I wouldn't want to be like anyone else. Living so far from her is never easy, but knowing that I can text or call her anytime makes things easier. She always takes the time to listen to me, and she has been the best role model.

Who wouldn't be thankful for this ghillie suited man and this wonderful grandma!

I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my dad, and the way he is. He's the most annoying, loving, funny but so not funny, caring dad in the world. I'm thankful that my family is growing, and that I have been blessed with awesome sister-in-laws. I don't get to see them often, but when I do it is always the best.

I'm thankful to have the gospel in my life. I'm thankful that I choose to attend church every Sunday, and to have the Savior in my life. It has brought me so much joy. I can't even imagine where I would be without it.

Even though I hate it so very much I am thankful that I am going to school. This semester has been my most challenging one, but I am so glad that I have the chance to get an education. I feel like I have learned more than ever before this semester, and I truly love my major. Let me just add that in four out of my six classes I have above a 97, the other two are above a 91, and I'm still working twenty hours a week. Yes I'm bragging, but I'd say that I'm earning that right!

I'm thankful that I have everything I need. Taylor and I may still have wants, but we have always been able to provide everything that we need. Big expenses have jumped out at us lately, but have been able to bounce back from them.

I'm thankful to have Taylor's family to spend the holidays with this year. They have treated me so well, and they make spending the holidays away from my immediate family a lot easier.

I am thankful for my health, and my family's health. We've had a bit of a rough patch recently, but we are all strong and doing just fine. I really don't think that I could be more thankful for that.

Pumpkin Carving and Decor

This October has been filled with so much fall fun. I'm sad to see it leaving, but I can't wait for October next year. I love getting to decorate my own apartment, and go on fall dates. We've fit in more batches of pumpkin cookies then we should admit to, watched Hocus Pocus, went to Dr. Slaughters, a corn maze, carved pumpkins, and made caramel apples.

Taylor takes his pumpkin carving very seriously. I don't think they would ever admit it, but Taylor and his twin compete to see who can can carve a better pumpkin every year. His pumpkin came out pretty cool. 

I chose a much simpler design, but sometimes less is more. I don't have the patience to do something intricate. I always forget how much fun it is to see your freshly carved pumpkin all lit up.

Taylor and I decided that we are going to get decorations little by little every year so that we don't have to spend a fortune all at once. This is what we have found this year.

We picked up these skeletons for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. They started out sitting nicely on the bookshelf and TV stand, and then Taylor and Sheldon moved them around. We came home one night after Sheldon had been in our apartment, and found them laying in our bed tucked in on each of our sides. 

Terrible picture, but I got the pumpkins at Target for a dollar each as well in their dollar spot.

I made this wreath back in September. It is the most expensive Halloween decor, but I like it. I bought ribbon at Walmart, Micheals, and Ebay which gave me such a wide selection to choose from. I measured each kind of ribbon, cut them the length I liked, and tied them on in a random order. The ribbon looked nicer when I first made it, but 35 mph winds haven't been very nice to it. The bats were super easy to make, and I love them. I traced a bat i printed off of the computer, bent the wings out a little, and hung them up with some blue tacky stuff. Now that the hard work is done I can't wait to use them year after year.

This 'Spooky' sign doesn't have a good home yet, but he has been working it on top of the stove. I found it for three dollars at Seagull Book. I love finding random cute decorations for super cheap. It makes them so much better.

Happy Halloween!

Drag Races

It is surprising that I have been with Taylor for over a year and a half now, and this past weekend was the first time that I went to a dirt bike event. His family is really into it and goes to/competes in hill climbs, races, and goes on trips to Nevada where they can ride in the winter. This was the first event that worked out with our schedule, and was close enough to not cost us a fortune. It was also the first road trip that we got to take our new car on, and he did great.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture that I took of us.. But it does show how gorgeous of a day it was. Sunny and sixty. Couldn't have asked for a better fall day.

Taylor's parents weren't able to make it at the last minute, but we did get to spend the day with his aunt and uncle and two of his cousins. It was nice to see some family since we rarely make it down to Grace anymore.

My view for the day

I wasn't very fond of the snowmobile racing. Too loud and annoying for my taste. We saw a terrible wreck happen to one of the snowmobile racers which was definitely the worst part of the day. Last we knew he wasn't in good shape, but you aren't going to walk away with just a bruise when you crash going 108 mph.. It made me very grateful that Taylor doesn't do any of this competing so I don't have to worry about something like that happening to him. 

My favorite part of the day! Yes, that is lawn mower racing. They went so fast.

Looking at this all day didn't hurt

We came home covered in dirt with sunburned faces. It was really fun, and I'm glad that Taylor got to go to something that he loves.