Wrapped some of Eric's presents today. Yes, the ones I got on Amazon. We got wrapping paper and ribbon and bows at the dollar store. Cute huh? I can't wait for him to open them already!!!
November 29, 2011
Eric and I love our apartment. Really. The only thing we ever whine about is not having a dishwasher. We are the dishwashers. And fortunately, this is a rather mild load of dishes.
November 28, 2011
My Mom and Dad's early Christmas gift to us. I have always loved Willow Tree figurines, and Eric LOVES nativities. It was a perfect, beautiful gift! We've set it up in our living room and Eric insisted on arranging the animals so that they could all see the baby Jesus... which I got a big kick out of. We love this sweet nativity!
November 27, 2011
This is at my parents' house again. They have set up this lovely Christmas village underneath the grand piano and then built a train track that goes under the piano, around the couch, into the entry, back into the sitting room, under a chair, and back under the piano. It has 3 separate tracks that can all run a train at the same time. Pretty elaborate. I had a lot of fun watching Eric and my dad and my sisters play with it.
November 26, 2011
Today Eric and I decorated our own Christmas tree with these beautiful ornaments that Chris (Eric's mom) gave us. It was so much fun to pick out our tree together and decorate it together in our own home, and then cuddle and look at our pretty tree. Love!
November 25, 2011
Well, it's the day after Thanksgiving which means... CHRISTMAS TIME!!! We got to help decorate the tree at the Hammonds and sleepover that night. Every year my family has a race against the timer to see how fast we can assemble our Christmas tree. The timer doesn't stop until all three tiers are attached, the tree is plugged in, and all of the lights are working. This year they got a new tree... which made us take WAAAY longer than we have in previous years. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll beat the record of 52 seconds next year. :)
November 24, 2011
Alright I guess this is sort of cheating putting up 2 images today... but how could I leave out one of my families on Thanksgiving?! Eric and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving today... and we got to have 2 Thanksgiving dinners! One with the Hammonds, and one with the Merrills. It was a wonderful day! We are so grateful for our incredible, loving and supportive families. They mean everything to us and we love spending time with them.
November 23, 2011
If you ask Eric about Thanksgiving, he'll tell you how it's one of his favorite holidays and how it really gets to him that Chistmas steals Thanksgiving's thunder. So, I decided to make Thanksgiving fun and special this year. Here's the plan: Eric wakes up in the morning and there are a series of post-it notes on his end table that say "Good morning handsome! Today is the big Thanksgiving Thank-your-favorite-husband day!" I've written on about 30 post-it notes to thank Eric for lots of different things. I'm going to put them all over the house, and a lot of them will correlate with what they're stuck on. The lamp will have a post-it note that says "thank you for lighting up my life!" and so on. Some are goofy, and some are more sincere. I'm so grateful for my incredible husband. Hope he likes it!
November 21, 2011
This is FotoFly, the awesome photography studio where I work. That's Mike, he's one of our amazing photographers. I've been working at FotoFly for 3 months now and I really love it. We photograph mainly children and a lot of families. We also do bridals, couples, and seniors. Let me tell you, being a photographer at FotoFly is VERY challenging. There's a lot to learn, a lot to keep learning, and a very high standard. Getting the lighting right, the pose natural, and getting a smile out of one or more kids all at once can be tricky. But it has also been one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. I love working here. I love getting that perfect image that ends up making a mom cry. It's the best.
November 20, 2011
Packers game!! See that jersey? That's the one I mentioned earlier. Yeah, the "one of his most prized possessions" jersey. I'm wearing it. Yep, Eric let me wear... well actually asked me to wear his beloved jersey for the Packers game today. He even trusted me to eat while wearing it... although I think if he had thought that through with my spilling food track record he probably wouldn't have. Haha. It's been fun watching football games with the Merrills. I grew up without brothers and the only football I was exposed to was my BYU fanatic friends talking about games. Needless to say, I have a lot to learn. Lol.
November 19, 2011
Eric and I have set a goal to attend the temple every week. So far we've only missed once! We're doing pretty good. We love going to the temple together. It strengthens us indiviudally and brings so much strength to our marriage. We learn so much, gain so much peace, and always come away a little better. I love the temple.
November 18, 2011
Tonight Eric and I sat in the living room together and shopped for each other's Christmas presents online. We didn't plan it, it just sort of happened that way. I thought it was pretty funny. You can't go wrong with Amazon.
November 17, 2011
We shopped around for quite a while and finally found a screamin deal on a 6.5' pre-lit Christmas tree! Yeah!! $40 at Wal-mart. Get ready for some Christmas cheer!
November 16, 2011
This is one of those stories that's really REALLY irritating and not funny at all at the time... and then later it's kind of funny... but only a little. So being the kind soul that I am, I offered to deliver a CD from my work to a customer who I thought lived close to us. I talked to her on the phone and she said she lived in Layton. I said, "Hey I live in Bountiful, I could just bring it to you if you'd like?" She asked me if I was sure and then thanked me. She gave me directions and I said, "Oh yeah, I know right where that is. I'll bring it by tonight." So I drove home and got off on the highway 89 exit like she had told me. ...okay this is going to turn into a way longer story than it needs to be. Long story short, I thought Layton was right next to us... turns out this lady's house was like 25 miles further than I thought. When I realized what I had done, and that there were 2 different highway 89 exits I was kind of irritated. Then it got worse when I decided I'd go anyway. I spent about an extra hour driving around looking for this address at 10:00 at night. I drove 47 miles out of my way and I didn't even find the stinkin house!! I finally gave up and came home. Eric gave me a big hug and helped me to see that it really was pretty funny in spite of me being mad about wasting gas. The worst part is, Eric looked up where I had been on Mapquest when I got home and when I finally turned around to come home I was less than a mile away from the lady's house. Hmph. Well, Eric delivered her CD to her the next day on his way to school, so I guess it worked out. Haha.
November 15, 2011
A tribute to my OCD! This particular issue has been driving me crazy since we moved in. We don't have much hanging space, so when we moved in I hung things in our storage closet as well as on a movable garment rack I bought, just to get them out of the way and keep them from wrinkling. And Eric has laughed at me as I've been going crazy because half of my shirts are in one place, half of them in the other, and the same with my jackets and skirts. Nothing was organized, and nothing was in the right color category. Talk about a crisis. Lol. So today I finally had the time to organize it all. The shirts are now all on the garment rack, sorted of course by color, and the skirts and jackets have all found their home in the storage room. aaaaahhhh. OCD satisfied at last. ;)
November 14, 2011
This is one of Eric's most prized possesions: His Aaron Rodgers Packers jersey. Eric has been a Packers fan since he was 8 years old. He wore his jersey today because the Packers played. We went over to the Merrill's house for family home evening tonight and watched the game with them. And you should know... the Packers won. Again.
November 13, 2011
Fun basement apartment quirk #2: There is a drain ouside of our front door at the bottom of the stairs... which we discovered today does not actually drain much of anything. And so we, who have only been married for a month now, already have our very own SWIMMING POOL!!! AND, we're very excited for January to come around so that we can go ice skating on it! :D lol
November 12, 2011
I came home from another full day of work to find Eric had taken out all the trash, done all the dishes, cleaned the mirrors, vacuumed, and swept and mopped the floors. No one asked him, he just did it. I thanked him and hugged him and he said, "well I had a bunch of free time!"
"Yeah," I said, "but most husbands probably would have just played video games or watched TV instead." Thanks honey!!!
November 11, 2011
Today Eric made us the most amazing chewy chocolate chip cookies EVER. Seriously, these are my new favorite chocolate chip cookies of all time. And they're like my favorite dessert. My husband is the best!
November 10, 2011
Today on my day off I took an extended trip down to Salt Lake City to get a new drivers license and an updated social security card. I'm now legally identified as Tia Merrill. Yeah baby....let's not talk about how the DMV must get a big kick out of shooting people's driver's licence pictures at like 20mm so that everyone's face looks stretched. love that.
November 9, 2011
A comical aspect of our tiny apartment: Our bathroom is so small that Eric and I can barely fit in it at the same time. You could pretty much shower, wash your hands, and use the toilet at the same time. Plus, there's not an outlet anywhere near the bathroom sink. So, naturally the solution is to get ready in the kitchen; which I do every day. :) So we hung a mirror and voila! insta-vanity! I just think it's pretty funny that I do my hair and makeup in the kitchen. ...but then, I'm pretty easily amused.
November 8, 2011
Mommy-daughter date! Tonight my mom picked me up from work and we went out to dinner and saw a movie together. We had a blast talking and laughing. I love spending time with my mom!
November 7, 2011
Grocery Shopping: check. Unpacking: check. Write over 300 thank you notes... uhh... well we're working on it. So if you haven't gotten yours yet, fear not. We haven't forgotten you. Tonight's family home evening activity was writing thank you notes for a few hours.
November 6, 2011
Tonight we finally had our first Sunday dinner at home alone together. And I FINALLY had enough time to cook! I made "blackened" malibu chicken and squash. It was pretty good considering the accidental blackened part! Lol
November 3, 2011
Today, after 3 weeks of living at this apartment and working full time... I finally unpacked the LAST BOX!!! HOORAY!!!
November 2, 2011
After Eric teased me for a few days I FINALLY got our desk cleaned off. We are STILL unpacking things and it has seemed like so many of our things keep migrating onto the desk. I don't know how they get there. But now it's organized!
October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween! After everyone at work kept thinking I was Dorothy all day I was finally reunited with my Mad Hatter. :) No more confusion. We went trick-0r-treating to the Merrill's and to our good friends the Coleman's!
October 30, 2011
Ironically enough, right after Eric's picture of me freezing, my sweet new mom Chris gave me a nice warm fluffy white bathrobe that she wasn't using anymore. I don't think she knows that she SAVED MY LIFE!!!October 29, 2011
Okay... our apartment is FREEZING!! and Eric makes fun of me all the time because I run around at night shivering and trying to get warm in our bed. It was cracking him up enough on this particular occasion that he decided it should be the daily picture. Lol
October 27, 2011
I am Tia Merrill, fearless spider slayer. ...well, mostly fearless... sometimes Eric kills the really big ones... but in our nice cool basement apartment I seem to kill a couple of spiders and a beetle or two just about every day. This guy was nice enough to pose for me... right before I keeled 'im!
October 25, 2011
This is Honey and Douglas. Eric gave Douglas (right) to me on my birthday. He is dressed like Eric so that I could have Eric with me over our summer apart. :) So later on I gave him a build-a-bear I made: Honey (left). I finally found Douglas while unpacking and our bears are now best friends. They live on our bed. :)
October 24, 2011
SHOPPING!!! Normally I don't enjoy shopping, but this was a blast! We made a bunch of returns at Target and then shopped our little hearts out! We bought a whole bunch of stuff from our registry and some other necessities... like cleaning supplies, garbage cans and stuff. The best part was, we had a ton of gift cards to cover us at checkout.
October 22, 2011
This was a fun evening. Eric and I got together with our families and opened all of our wedding gifts! What a riot! We recieved so many generous gifts... and some rather... interesting ones. Haha!
October 21, 2011
Eric and I have committed to have a date night every week of our married life. On our first date night, I came home to find Eric making us a gourmet dinner! He made salsa chicken and pasta with fabulous salsa! It was DELICIOUS! Nice work honey!
October 20, 2011
We had a fun time looking through our guest "photo book" and laughing at everyone's fun photo booth pictures. We also opened about a hundred cards from our wedding! Good times.
October 19, 2011
First grocery shopping trip! And when you start out with no flour, butter, sugar, spices... well without much of anything... it gets a little expensive. Haha Don't worry, it worked in the budget. :)
October 17, 2011
We thought about going to Disneyland or on a cruise for our honeymoon... and ended up being really glad we spent several days in St. George instead. It was warm and we loved that we didn't have to go anywhwere. We just got to relax and be together without having to sightsee or be out all the time. Heaven!!
October 16, 2011
About 50 different songs run through my head with this one. I'll just leave you to sing your favorite. Fun picture from our honeymoon. :)
October 15, 2011
This was my wedding present to Eric. I spent more hours than I could possibly add up making an altered book for him. It's about 200 pages long and is a compilation of journal entries, photos, ticket stubs, etc. from the day we met up until our wedding day. The book is called 'This Day and Always: Our Story'. He loved it! :D
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