Ancestry Knows How to Throw a Party *Updated*

New Photo!

So my extremely awesome company, Ancestry.com, throws excellent Christmas parties every year. Even though I don't technically work for them, my company {Fold3.com} is part of their large umbrella of awesomeness, so I still get to go to their events. And now I get to take my hottie hubby with me!

I thought last year's was pretty awesome. Tasty food, music, SLEIGH RIDES. It was great. But this year's was extra superb! It was 40s themed {thus our get-ups in the following pictures} and it was sooo well done. The venue was the new Utah Valley Convention Center that was just built on Center Street in Provo, and let me tell ya, it is a jazzy place. 

The party started with a red carpet entrance {literally, there was a red carpet rolled out for us. Schmancy} and a photo-op next to an old-school 40s car. There were also lots of cheesy props like fake money and guns....so you could be an old-timey gangster if you wanted, I suppose. We were all decked out, like so:

We're ready to go! (Actually, these are all after we got back.
Let's just pretend.)

 ...and thus, we took that photo-op very seriously. As seriously as we take everything.

We went up the escalators into the huge ballroom, where a casino was set up. They had this AWESOME 15-18 year old jazz band ensemble playing, and they were seriously so good. Best in the nation for their age group, apparently. The music was super fun and lively. Good choice, Ancestry.

We ended up staying in the casino all night playing Blackjack, which I have discovered I quite enjoy. Our dealer, Aaron, was hilarious and let all of us at the table win a lot when he thought his wins were lame. He also could tell we {ok, I} had no idea what we {I...} were {was} doing, so he helped out a lot. And he was just funny. It was good times. Since the casino was obviously not real, we handed in our chips {a certain amount of which we were given to start with} for raffle tickets, which we could then enter into the prize boxes that they drew from at the end of the night. It was enjoyable and, of course, extra classy.

We didn't win any prizes. But we had cool outfits! See?

Had to point out the awesome swirl in me hair. 

 Here's another picture of us, because we're cute.

D'awwww...

I heard they also had a hypnotist, comedian, caricature drawings, a photo booth, and dancing, but we were having too much fun in the main room to ever explore those options. However, we did take a small breather for dessert, which was delectable. Mmmm, pie.

In case you didn't notice, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out my eye-blindingly bright red lipstick.

I was rather pleased with my makeup.

Look at the swirl! I was oh-so-proud. 

 How I got rid of the lipstick:

I made it blurry because he's so dreamy. Thus
the smooches. 

Anyway, my point is that I love LOVE love my job. I love the awesome things we get to do, working under a giant company, and I love the perks of actually working for a smaller, cozier company too. Best of both worlds. And I now also know that my husband is a good sport who will dress up with me! Win-win-win.

The Tree Hunt

Every year, faithfully, my family gathers to go hunt down a Christmas tree. At least, they should. Really this only began last year so I guess I can't say it's quite the annual event yet. This year, however, we continued this fine tradition and trekked up to Alpine to find the perfect Christmas Tree for both my parents' house and ours. We took Magnus along too, although he wasn't exactly helpful. 

Joe and Magnus, in front of what
ended up being our tree of choice

Spencer came too! He had fun, despite his face.
Also, he has a cool hat. 

Our tree! His name is Herbert.

Chatting in front of Herbert.
Magnus is probably eating dirt. 

I love this picture. Love it. Even Magnus turned to join in the weird-look fun.

This is the (almost) final product! As you have seen,  I finished the tree skirt underneath.
We have since added in the ornaments that my grandma has been making me every year since
my birth. They make the tree so much more homey! 

My parents seem likely to give up soon on going to the tree farm, but I hope our wee family keeps it up. It's just a fun, Christmas-y activity that gets us moving around outside! Nothing better'n that.

And just for fun, here's a picture of Joe on his first day of school riding the new FrontRunner train to work. Isn't he cute?

Tara Gets Crafty (& Tutorial!)

Ok, so, I use Pinterest. And by that I mean that I pin a lot of ideas for crafts, recipes, and fashion, and do almost none of them in actual life. But not this day! This day I decided I would make this "no-sew" tree skirt that I found and really loved. I must admit I fully expected it to look horrendous afterwards. After all....

...But it worked!

I'm also going to present it to you in the form of A TUTORIAL!! That's right. If anyone reading this wants to make this awesome tree skirt, they need look no further. All instructions shall be included here. Are you excited? I know I am! Here we gooooo!

{Disclaimer: This project is super easy, but really tedious. Make sure you have a good chunk of hours to spend, or else be content with having to finish this in installments. I didn't realize it would take so long, and it was horrible to have to stop halfway through! But the end product was worth it :)}

First, here's the picture I saw on Pinterest -- the inspiration for it all! :

Isn't that nice? The lady who did this one used burlap from Walmart and some scrap fabric she already had at home. It's lovely!

Ok. Things you'll need:
- Fabric! I chose burlap and a kind of shiny red fabric because I love the contrast between the two. Ya know, sorta shabby chic meets refinement. Very classy. I got 2 yards of each and had some extra left over. {I've also seen some variations that use more than two colors of fabric. That would be awesome! I'd maybe get a yard of each if you do 3 or more colors/fabrics}
- Old, hideous tree skirt that you don't mind updating. Or just an okay tree skirt. OR a circle of felt or similar fabric that you cut into a tree skirt shape. I got an old tree skirt at a thrift store for a dollar.
- A hot glue gun
- A whole, humongous bunch of hot glue sticks. Like, possibly one of those big bags with like 40 in them will make it. No promises.

Step 1!
Cut your fabric into strips. The bigger the strips, the fewer rows you'll have on your tree skirt. I chose to do 3" strips, they just looked like a delightful size.

This is my cut up fabric. What can I say, I'm amazing. 

Step 2!
Heat up the glue gun and lay out the tree skirt! {I'd also suggest you pop in a movie to keep yourself entertained.}Start gluing on the strips starting on the outside edge of the skirt. I did a long stripe of glue on the tree skirt, then quickly laid my strip of fabric along it, ruffling the fabric as I went. Once I covered the glue stripe, I did individual dots of glue under the top part of each ruffly fold (where it would be hidden under the next layer), just to keep it laying sort of flat.

Tree skirt halfway finished! You may want to
have a snack handy, it can get pretty tedious. 

Step 3!
There's really no step 3. That's pretty much it. It's easy peasy!
You could thread some twine or leftover fabric through the part where the tree skirt is open to go around the tree, so you can tie it closed and keep it from moving as much. I didn't care, so mine was left un-tied. I wasn't very particular about how perfect my rows were either, and it came out a little uneven. But you can't tell under the tree, and I just made the last layer work with what I had left of the tree skirt. If you're more exact-minded, you can be somewhat precise about where you decide to glue your rows, and it will come out much more even than mine.

I love it!

I love my beautiful tree!

So, maybe this will be useful for someone. That'd be awesome! If not, you can just enjoy my tutorial and mentally praise me for my dedication and success in this craft. It really did come out way better than expected. Usually I botch these sorts of things impressively well.

Joe and I went with the Grierson fam to get our tree at a tree farm! Isn't it lovely? Post on that to come later...

Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

To celebrate this year, Joe and I are going to be "that house" and hand out REAL SIZE CANDY BARS! No fun size here, no sir! I think we may have bought wayyy too much candy...then again, I don't think that was exactly an accident. Bwahaha.

In honor of the holiday, here is a clip from the movie I watch every October, Hocus Pocus!



Wasn't that fun? This movie gave me such an appreciation for the word "Amok."

In case you were wondering, Joe and I don't really have any cool costume plans this year. Or any plans, cool or otherwise. Although, I think we may go as Doctor Who and Amy Pond, if you even know who they are. Apparently I bear a resemblance to that lovely Scottish lass. I hope you all are better prepared with Halloween garb!

100,047 bonus points if you can name this obscure
Halloween movie! Hint, it's a Disney Channel original!

"Witch and ghost make merry on this last of dear October's days." -- Anon.

Awesomes

Sometimes you just have those days where you realize how silly you can be. And when I say silly, I mean something more like ungrateful, or ignorant, or self-centered. I am those things, sometimes in small ways and sometimes not as small. But anyway, today I realized that I have a lot of stuff to be grateful for, and I can find them easily if I just stop worrying about me and look around.

For example, I have a wonderful husband who is funny and super nice to me. He does the dishes every day. EVERY DAY. We have a chore-duty arrangement, but still. I do them now and then when I want to "be nice," but I should probably do them more often for him because he is awesome. Sometimes he fluffs my pillow while I'm getting ready for bed so it will be soft and poofy for me when I'm ready to sleep. He has woken up at 5:30 am to take the dog out every day for like a week, even though we're sorta supposed to take turns, AND even though he gets up for work 2 hours later. He does it so I can sleep. He does a lot of nice, small things to make me happy. And I can't remember him complaining about any of it. He is the best. 

I have an adorable puppy who is getting so good at listening to us and not biting our fingers off. Hooray for that! He was house-trained in like a day, he licks us (lovingly I assume) when he wakes up. He runs up to us when we come home. And today I watched a video that involved a pregnant woman crying about Star Wars {it just happens} and he came walking around the corner, looking very concerned. Yes, my puppy worries about criers. That's cute! 

I am healthy. What a great blessing. 

I have an adorable little house that has everything we could have wanted. Heating, cooling, a dishwasher, washer and dryer. Furniture to sit in/sleep on/eat on. Nice carpet. Nice hardwood. Nice tile. Nice neighbors!  An awesome ward. We aren't cold because we have blankets and hot chocolate, if we want. We aren't hungry because we can afford food and because we have awesome people who sometimes willingly feed us, just cause they can. We aren't bored because we have games and books and movies and shows and a puppy and friends. 

Speaking of friends, I have awesome ones. They call to see what's new in my life. They hang out with me and plan play dates and girls' nights and we laugh and have fun together. They have things in their lives that they worry about, or that are hard, and they still make sure that I'm okay. That is amazing. They are successful and working hard towards awesome goals. They are also caring, loving, wonderful people. They are great, great friends. {And gorgeous too! :)} Even the friends I have that I don't know as well are just cool people. Good people who try to be the best they can all the time. They're inspiring. 

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have THE best family ever. My grandparents stay in touch and want to know about my life. They show their love for their families and are great examples. My aunts and uncles are all pretty spectacular. My cousins are some of my best friends. They are hilarious and fun and always make me feel wanted. 

Just one of my amazing cousins!
Apparently I need to take more cousin pictures.

My brother is one of my best friends too. He always wanted to hang around with me even when I was kind of a jerk when we were younger {and maybe sometimes when we were older...} He always supports my efforts in art and writing, and sometimes he thinks I'm actually good at it. He is probably one of the main reasons why I keep trying to draw and write, in fact. He is funny and caring and has a good, loving heart. I always admired his way of showing his emotions without fear. I love my brother.

My dad is my hero. His willingness to serve and love everyone has always been super impressive to me. He is silly and smart and humble and works really hard. He makes it clear that he loves and respects his wife. He supports my brother and I in everything. The list goes on and on. I love my dad.  

My mom is a superstar. She has always done everything she can for her family, and her kids. She always cleaned up after us, fed us (and it was usually quite delicious stuff, in my opinion), bought us things we probably didn't need, but wanted, and took care of our pets even though we had promised to do it. She laughs and sings and smiles all the time. And to this day she makes sure to tell us she loves us all the time. She has done a million billion things. I love my mom.

My awesome family!

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting kinda braggy, but I mean it to be a list of "Awesomes" in my life. I hope I'll keep remembering all my Awesomes next time I complain about how I ruined my just-painted nails or how I have another zit or my hair is flat or I wish I had new shoes {all pretty vain things, on reflection} or something else silly and unimportant. Cause life is great, and no matter what happens there are always things to appreciate. 

Little Blue House

We bought a house. A little blue house, with a red brick driveway. How quaint is that? It is just over 1,000 square feet. It has a sprinkler system and AC. It has a dishwasher and a washer and dryer. It has arched doorways. ARCHED DOORWAYS, you guys. I am disproportionately delighted by those. It has hardwood floors in the bedroom. Actually, probably in all of the rooms, but the other ones are covered by carpet...FOR NOW. It has a beautiful backyard that is almost as big as the house is. Maybe bigger. Seriously, it's beautiful. And it has a garden. It has an awesome 76-year-old neighbor lady named Lola.

We love it!

Here are a couple of pictures:

Living room! Remarkable, truly. 

Other side of the living room! This is my favorite part right now,
because we just painted that blue wall (note the arched doorway!)
 and the baseboards, which used to be the same color
as the walls. It looks so good! Ah!

Kiiiitchen! It's like 4 times the size of the apartment one.
So great. And we have a TABLE!

The backyard. Sigh. Amazing. And leafy. 

That's all the pictures you get for now, because the other rooms are in a non presentable state. The office, in fact, will probably stay that way for a good many weeks(/months...)

Also, I got this amazing wingback chair for FIVE DOLLARS! For real! KSL is fabulous sometimes. I am going to recover it with no help whatsoever. What. So. Ever.

I am a chair!

Lies. Mom is going to help me. 

We also got this little terror. He's a (currently) 23 lb newfie-pyrenees puppy named Magnus:

Actually, he's pretty ok. I mean, just look at that white-tipped tail! 

Ah. Adorable, isn't he?

And to finish off, here he is cuddling with Joe. You're welcome.

Puppy likes him some tummy rubs

Cabining!

Much later than expected, here I sit to write about Joe's b-day trip with our friends Scott and Wendy to their cabin! Hooray for posts!

Here's the cabin! Ok, so it doesn't look like much, but how much do you really need? There are two stories, Joe and I and our friend Doug claimed the top floor, and the bottom floor was for the hosts, the kitchen, and....playing games! It was rainy almost the entire time we were there, so we did play A LOT of games. I always considered myself to not really be a "games" person, but I had so much fun! I have reconsidered games as an enjoyable past-time. I learned how to play Settlers of Catan for the first time, and despite losing every single round, I found it quite entertaining. We also played Monopoly Deal, which now that I think about it was also unknown to me before that trip. I love that game. And we also played HORSESHOES. Which, just so you know, I am a master of. Unbeknownst to me and the world, lurking inside me was a horseshoes queen, just waiting for her opportunity to rise and take her place in the ranks of accomplished horseshoes-ers. Who knew that throwing bits of metal at OTHER bits of metal could be so much fun?

That's Joe throwing his piece of metal. He was alright. :) Scott, on the other hand, has had way too much practice. That guy throttled us. Every. Time.

The other thing we did that weekend, besides playing games, was attempt to fish. I say attempt because it was beyond cold and I think one little fish was caught. But it sure looked pretty at the lake.

Mist-ical, no? (ha. ha.)

The men, fishing. I huddled up in the towels we brought
in case of swimming - ha! - and read my book. 

Joe eventually succumbed to the cold as well
and came to cuddle with me for warmth. 

We also celebrated Scott and Joe's birthdays which were both in the upcoming days that week. I already showed you the picture of them and the cake, so I'll spare you the repetition of the other nearly identical photos that I have.

And that was the trip! It was pretty fun, despite being drizzly, and we even saw a lurking moose on the drive up! You can't beat that, you really can't.

Birthday Boy

Well, Joe's birthday has come and gone. I dutifully took pictures so that I would be sure to blog about it, and here I am! Did I intend to do this back when he actually had his birthday? Sure I did. Am I proud that I'm even doing it at all, with my history of sporadic blogging? You bet your big burly biceps I am.

My "excellent strong man" turned 28 on July 22nd. Hooray, successful aging! 

My lucky man ended up getting three birthday parties, so it ended up being more like a birthday week. First, we got to go up to our friends' cabin and spend the weekend fishing, eating, playing games and having an intense horseshoes competition -- but more on that later.

The birthday gents. Scott is the one looking like
 a normal human. Joe is the one looking Joe-ish. 

Joe's actual birthday was a Sunday, and what he really-really wanted to do that day was to not do anything. So, we spent the day in our apartment, watching movies, playing games, and eating his favorite---key lime pie!

We planned ahead and bought some coconut shrimp for his birthday dinner, but after church we decided that "Bacon Spaghetti" just sounded ridiculously amazing and we had to have it RIGHT THEN! So I made some... a ton, in fact. So much that we ended up not wanting dinner at all when it came around. But Joe loves bacon, so he was happy! See picture below:

Happy Bacon Joe

I spent a lot of time decorating the apartment....

And then we had birthday pie! What we lacked in birthday candles we made up for with birthday ingenuity.

I walked into the room to find that pretty princess bow on his head. 

Horn-tooting time! I made that beautiful key lime pie. It was my first pie attempt ever (does cheesecake count as a pie?) and it was all eaten so I guess it worked out acceptably. I made an Oreo crust, which I suggested more as a joke, but Joe thought it was a brilliant idea so it was done. And it was pretty good!

Happy Key Lime Pie Joe. PS - isn't he cute?? :)

You thought I was lame for just decorating with a teeny white board, didn't you? Well allow me to redeem myself with this doozy:

I am so good at decorating!

The last b-day party was at my parents' abode. For dinner we had chickeny-pineapply-pepper skewers. We have had grill withdrawals so this was a spectacular remedy.

Yeah, the picture's sideways. Don't worry about it. 

One of his presents was the game Smallworld, which he was super-de-duper excited about. Adorably so. This picture accurately represents the several hours we spent trying to figure out the rules. Note Joe's face of dictionary-definition perplexity, my mom's eyes turned toward the heavens, and my dad's raptor hand. Actually, I'm not sure what the raptor hand is all about.

Mom's expression is the most accurate. She did that a lot. 

We did eventually figure out the game, and it's really fun. If you're into strategy games and don't mind 10 gazillion tiny pieces, this is (honestly) a great time for all. Just prepare to take more time figuring out how to play than you do actually playing. OR come play with us, and we'll teach you!

With the itty bitty pieces!

And here is his swag. I just got him a billion shirts, cause I'm domestic like that. He got Smallworld, Monopoly Deal, and a bunch of computer games as well. I think he was pretty happy :)

And now my husband is older. Thee. End. :)