APARTMENT 37

Tyler and I made the trek down to Provo tonight for a weekend away with the Picketts. Also on the agenda: a reunion with Apartment 37. Nikki and I scurried over to Amber's apartment while our husbands Nintendo-ed it up in our absence. I haven't been in the same room as these two since my wedding and goodness gracious me I missed them. We pushed the couches together and talked of everything under the sun (poor Amber, she probably heard more than she cared to from us married folk) until 3 AM. We have all changed greatly in my eyes from that summer in 2009, but I hope we don't wait a whole year to gather again… ladies.

WE ARE BAKERS

It's official… Tyler and I are bakers. We do our best baking at night—late at night. It's probably one of my favorite things to do with him: dancing around the kitchen and making each other laugh while we put our amateur skills to the test. Sometimes our week can become a blur of work, eat, sleep, repeat; this is a way to just pause and enjoy a couple of hours of just us while tag-teaming a recipe late into the eve. Tonight's tackle was banana bread; our neighbor had an insane amount of bananas and graciously gave us two bundles of eight about-to-go-bad bananas. We ended up making four loaves and I must say they turned out swell.

ONES AND TWOS

Tyler and I wanted to do something special today for my little sister's birthday; turning twenty-one on 12/12/12? What a lucky dog! First, I made her this card (I thought it was pretty clever), then we made her fifty 1s and fifty 2s made out of sugar cookie dough and finally, we attended the party of the year in her honor, complete with a cake ball cake, cousins and friends. Of course, no birthday would be complete without the birthday girl receiving from my dear mother teal cowboy boots and a monogrammed belt buckle to boot (tee hee)!

HALF

This morning I woke up early to pick up breakfast for another photo shoot; for some reason it has been getting harder and harder to wake up in the morning. I did make it semi on time, and things went swimmingly. By lunch, a co-worker and I switched from photo-shoot duty to holding-down-the-fort-at-the-office duty. That didn't go so swimmingly, but thankfully I left right on time for my weigh-in. I only lost a half a pound, but I didn't expect much after my pizza cheat on Saturday.

COZY & ALONE

I had some work to do from home tonight; Tyler had to work late too, so it was just me, my mug and my lappy. Can I just make a small shout out to my wonderful husband? We both were done with this week at about 3 p.m. and he even offered to buy us plane tickets to Sydney so we could run away. We can dream, but alas we spent it glued to our computers.

SINGING SINGING ALL THE DAY

Every year our parents' stake does a neighborhood sing-a-long for the holidays, and every year they ask multiple members of Tyler's family to participate (they're so musical). This year they asked Tyler and last-minutely, Nicole, to take part in the production. I sat by my Dad and Tyler's family while singing the Hallelujah Chorus, among other Christmas favorites. Other singing events today? Tyler and I took the oldest nursery kids into primary today for singing time. They are so adorable and we will miss them terribly when we lose them at the new year.

BBQ CRAVIN'S

Tyler and I had quite the chill-tastic day. We spent the morning, mid-morning, noon day and afternoon vegging on the couch (don't judge, it's been a long week). By nightfall it had snowed; not enough to stick, but just enough to make everyone on the road a crazy. We had a hankering for some pizza; we broke down and braved the snow for an all-time favorite: BBQ chicken and pineapple. Also, we downloaded an iPhone game called twist lick dunk… an Oreo cookie ode. You get to unlock fun facts about every Oreo ever made. Did you know that there was a peach and raspberry cream one? I haven't unlocked the fact about it, but I am intrigued.