Cody and Erin

Small head, or giant bow?

2011-10-22T08:47:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, the bow is just too big....

I feel bad because I got all these really cute bows as gifts for Everly. But I can't bring myself to allow her out of the house in them. Maybe it's because she has a really small head?? Hopefully someday she grows into them.

Home Improvement

2011-10-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

We've lived in our house for 9 months now. When we bought it, we had all these great ideas for it. We decided we could essentially "flip" the house in the time we live here. Well, things take a lot longer than we thought they do, but we have accomplished some things. It's so fun to see our house transforming into what we dreamed it could be. Here's an update. Some things I have pictures of, some things I don't.

1. We replaced 3 doors. The two garage doors and the front door (which is now a glorious red color) As long as I can remember, I have always said that I wanted a red door on my future house. My sweet husband took the time to paint our new door the exact color of red I wanted. I loved the front of my house before, but now I really love it.

before:

after:

2. We replaced many light fixtures and painted 2 ceiling fans. (7 light fixtures to be exact)

3. The dining room. :) We gave this room a fresh coat of paint (which we did throughout the kitchen as well, and painted the baseboards. We also added some art to the wall. This is the best pic I have of it. Try to ignore the balloons and streamers.

When we bought it:

now:

4. I don't know what to call this, but we have these divider thingies in our living room. We have this one between the dining room and the living room. We also have two between the entrance of our home and the living room. I've always hated them because they are a dark ugly color and they closed off the space. So one night, Cody decided to just start cutting away the ugly pillars to see what would happen. Luckily, they turned out to not be structural so our house didn't fall down. :) Then we painted it the same color as the kitchen cabinets.

When we bought it:

In progress:

now:

5. The kitchen is a work in progress, but it's on it's way. We've painted the walls, replaced the door to the garage, replaced the curtains and started painting the cabinets. It's just a big work-in-progress. We've ordered the nobs that will go on the cabinets.

The unfinished side:

The new color:

6. The nursery (which you can read about in my previous post) just took up a ton of our time. Not to mention, we decided to do it during tax season which made it take even longer. But I do love this room. It's so pretty.

The nursery when we bought the house:

now:

On a side note, we also planted and took care of a garden (but,sadly, it died), took care of a scorpion problem (by spraying and sealing off all windows and doors,) fixed a broken air conditioner, fixed a super leaky washer hook-up, and took care of many other small problems. We are learning that things aren't as easy as they seem and owning a house just takes up a ton of your time. Our house is full of half-finished projects, as anyone who comes over can see. But we are still loving it and I get excited with every new improvement we do.

Eating!

2011-10-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

My baby can eat! I realize we introduced food a little early, but since Everly won't take a bottle (Which I'm totally OK with now, but that's a different story) I decided to let her start practicing eating rice cereal. I was afraid she would hate it, since she's really particular about the way she gets food, but she really did enjoy it! So cute and fun!

Then we needed a good bath

Sewing Bug

2011-10-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

I've caught a little sewing bug. I just want to make everything. It's really not good for me. Every time Everly goes down for a nap, I know I should be sleeping but I just want to sew! Mostly I make stuff for other people (and of course a few things for my baby.) So hopefully none of my future gift-receivers will look at this. ;)

Since Ev loves her's so much, I decided to make one of these for like every baby I know and every person who is going to have a baby in the near future...
Then, my cool friend Heather taught me how to make these pretty burp cloths. She gave me some for Everly and I use them all the time cause they're so cute.

But I couldn't stop there. I discovered Heat-n-Bond this week, and therefore had to make some matching applique onesies.

Then I went crazy with Heat-n-Bond

Oh, and I learned how to make these twirly ribbon bows. :)

My husband is 28...

2011-10-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, the 19th, Cody turned 28! Crazy! This year he just wanted to stay home and have BBQ hamburgers and cake. I couldn't handle only doing that, so I talked him into going to applebees for lunch and Everly and I decorated the house while he was at work.
Everly quite enjoyed looking at the balloons on the light fixture and it was sad when we finally decided to take them down.

At applebees!

It was fun to have Daddy home for a little bit in the middle of the day.

We don't usually do anything super extravagant for our birthdays around here, but we have fun in our own little way. Just having a day to relax and celebrate with family with no working around the house and eating what we want for dinner is great for us!

Tag blankets and leg warmers

2011-09-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have been in such a sewing mood lately. It's like I just realized I had a baby girl and want to make EVERYTHING for her. Last week, I got together with a couple friends and made these tag blankets as a service project. Well, I decided to try and make one on my own before I made them for other people and if it was bad I could keep it for Ev. It was bad, so I kept it for Ev. :) Best thing I've ever made. She LOVES it. She looks at it, chews on it, hugs it, etc... so cute.

THEN, the other day I came across these super cute "baby legs." (But I choose to call them leg-warmers because I think baby legs sounds stupid) I went to the store and bought a $2 pair os socks and made some! Again, so cute.

Today I was bored...

2011-09-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I made this:

It's not perfect or even close to it. I just had an itch to get out my sewing machine and sew something fun and easy. I've recently started looking at all my favorite sewing blogs again and realized that I actually have a little girl now to sew all those cute things for. For some reason I'm really bad at following patterns, but making things up as I go is easy for me. For this, I just took out one of Ev's existing dresses and traced around the outline of it. Instead of doing a zipper in the back, I did a button on the side. I also added the ribbons at the top instead of sewing it together. It doesn't fit her great, but it was a fun experiment!

nicknames

2011-09-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

At 2 weeks, Cody had pretty much settled on what he was going to call our child. Everly is "Peanut" to him. I rarely call Everly by her name, but none of the names I call her have stuck yet. What do you think? Here are some of the things that have come out of my mouth when referring to my baby.

baby
baby girl
pretty girl
child of mine
cutie pie
grumpy face
stinky butt
stinky bum
bum bum
boo boo
pumpkin head (and pretty much anything with the word "head" attached to it.)
button nose
princess
precious
my precious (sometimes in the creepy lord of the rings voice)
marshmellow

As you can see, none of them are quite right for her...

Growing Girl

2011-09-06T15:10:00.001-07:00

My little girl has already grown and changed so much! Cody and I were talking about this on our walk last night and we can't believe she's only been with us for 2 short months. It feels like she's always been here with us. She's a different person than she was the day she joined our family.

Welcome to the world!
Weighing in at 6 lbs 8 oz.

First day at home.

First fourth of July.

Going to church for the first time! 2 weeks old.

In Tahoe with cousin Ellie. About 3 weeks old.

About 5 weeks old.

Blessing day! 6 weeks old.

7 weeks old.

Here come the smiles!

About 8 weeks old.

At the park yesterday. A little over 2 months old.

Out for a walk today. She weighs 12 lbs 3 oz now!

Nursery

2011-09-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Since this was my obsession for most of my pregnant months, I thought it was worthy of a blog post. I always said that whatever kind of baby (boy or girl) I had, I wanted him or her to have an awesome nursery with green paint and white bead board. With help from Cody, we made it happen. My goal was to create a beautiful nursery without spending tons of money, and I have to say that I was extremely successful. I feel the need to take a minute and brag about my accomplishment. Behold..

The crib and changing table were used by a friend and we bought them both for $100. They are sturdy and in great condition. I love that the color of the wood is somewhere between super light and super dark. A little different than what's trendy right now. The blanket hanging over the side was made by Cody's Grandma Lowder who passed away a couple years ago.

The awesome glider was a gift from my Grandparents. I love it so much.

With my leftover fabric, some bias tape and an embroidery hoop I made the fabric bunting and the bird mobile.

I spent an afternoon with my good friend, Jessica, sanding and painting this old dresser.
My amazing, talented husband did (most of) the painting, and the bead board himself. We saved a lot of money by buying taller bead board and having it cut in half at the store. Cody made the chair rail out of 2x4s. He also put in the new doors for me.
My friend Beth helped me make these simple window treatments with some pink fabric and ribbon. The changing table baskets were on sale for $1 each at Walmart after Easter. I got my changing table covers at a 2nd hand childrens' store.

This is the sweet antique dresser before I painted it white. I found it at a second-hand store down the street called "Nana's collectibles." The nobs were in awesome shape and I liked the dark contrast against the white paint, so I kept them.

I found the mirror in an old woman's garage at her garage sale. She said I could buy anything for a dollar. It was yellow and old, but a can of spray paint and some goo-gone made it look brand new. The pillows I made one afternoon with fabric remnants (all the fabric I used came from remnants.) The picture frames were 25 cents each at a garage sale. I used the same can of spray paint on those.
A very organized closet thanks to the hanging pockets.
I found the lamp at, you guessed it, a garage sale for $2. I painted the bottom with craft paint and added the gem stones and ribbons from my collection.

I wish I had a before picture of the ceiling fan. The metal was a brassy gold color and the blades were dark brown. Cody spray painted both and it looks brand new.

10 months in New Mexico

2011-09-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

We have now lived in Hobbs for a whole 10 months. I wish I could say that the time has flown by, but it really hasn't. Not because it's been all bad, but because so much has happened since we've been here and our lives are a lot different now. Life has had it's ups and downs for the past 10 months, but I'm beginning to realize how we've been blessed since we've moved here. Hobbs may look boring and awful on the outside, but it really is a special little place. We've made more friends here in 10 months than we've made in our entire marriage. There is so much love and support here. I was afraid when we moved here that I would be the girl in church with the new baby that nobody knew. I was so wrong. We had tons of support and love from our friends here. I feel like I've lived in this ward my whole life. Anyway, here are some of the things you missed.

I survived morning sickness and everything else that comes with pregnancy. Maybe I sound ungrateful, but I did not enjoy pregnancy and I'm not going to act like I did. Thank goodness that's over.

We bought a house. Our new home has brought a lot of joy (and hard work) into our lives. We love our home and we've had a lot of fun making it our own.

We had a baby and have enjoyed her for a whole 2 months. We also took her to Tahoe when she was 3 weeks old and enjoyed spending time with family.

We've been married for 3 years now. We didn't do a whole lot for our anniversary because we had a new baby at home and it just seemed like too much work, but we did go out for Chinese food. :)

Time to Blog

2011-09-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't always been the best blogger. I've always said "We don't have any kids. There's nothing to blog about. Our lives are boring." Well, now we have a 2-month old child and it's time to blog. So here we go!

Thankful blog

2010-12-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like I really need to just sit down and write a thankful blog. I’ve had a really “boohoo, poor me” attitude lately, and I’m feeling a little ridiculous for that right now. So let me just tell you some of the things I am so thankful for in my every-day life.

- We’re having a baby and I’m one fourth of the way done! Yes, pregnancy has been rough for me, but I would never for a minute say that it’s not worth it. I am so excited for what is to come, and I love my little fetus.

-Cody. My dear husband Cody comes home EVERY DAY at the same time. At 5:15. It’s glorious. He NEVER has to stay late (I know this will change a little during tax season). His work is within walking distance. I could go eat lunch with him if I wanted to! He is the best husband. He takes such good care of me. And when he comes home at 5 and realizes that I didn’t do anything all day but lay around and watch tv, he is so patient and he knows that sometimes I need these days when I’m not feeling great. He doesn’t care that I don’t make his favorite foods anymore because they nauseate me, and sometimes I don’t make dinner at all and he just eats a can of chili. He is so much fun, and we have a blast just watching tv, or playing wii, driving around, going to walmart, or whatever else we think of to do in this small town. I love him so much.

-My new washer and dryer, my new tv, and our new wii. Enough said.

-Thankful that Cody and I both have good jobs. Today I went to sub for a full day for the first time since I’ve been sick, and it was great. The crazy kids distracted me from my issues and I made it through the day just fine! And because Cody and I have good jobs, we have a little more flexibility when it comes to money these days. It‘s about time and we love it.

-The people in my new ward. There are a few families from church who have really just gone out of their way to reach out to Cody and I. It’s so good to know that I have other girls here that I can talk to and hang out with if I need someone.

-A loving supportive family and good friends. Although I don’t live close to my family or my best friends, I can definitely feel their love. I love the phone calls, emails, letters and cards from people who love me.

Of course there are a lot of other little small things that I am thankful for every day, but these are the big ones. This is a really fun, exciting time for Cody and I and I really need to have a more thankful attitude. Thank you to everyone who has listened to me whine and put up with my negativity. I feel really silly.

Baby!

2010-11-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

I finally feel like I can tell people and blog about this! A few days before we moved I took a pregnancy test (well, I took a few just to be sure) and it was positive! We were so happy, but also a little surprised because it happened so quickly! We had to wait until we got to NM for me to find a doctor and go make sure it was real. A couple weeks ago we saw a doctor and it IS real. And yesterday, I got to SEE and HEAR my little jelly-bean baby on an ultrasound. The first time I went to the doctor the due date was June 19th, but yesterday at my ultrasound the doctor said that I'm not as far along as we thought and the new due date is July 3rd. That was a little disappointing because that means 2 more weeks of being sick (I've been pretty sick for a couple weeks.) But I know I can handle it and I'm doing it for a very good reason! I was planning on waiting a while before telling anyone, including my family. But I just couldn't wait. We ended up telling our families after we got a few positive tests. Both of our families are so excited for us and it's been really fun to share this with them. We feel really blessed for all the wonderful things that are happening in our little lives right now. New job, new home, new baby. Everything is coming together so perfectly all at the same time and we count our blessings every day.

My first positive test!

Here are some pictures of my little baby.... Cody thinks it looks a little weird at this point, and I kind of agree. :) But it was still exciting to see it and know it's there.

I was having a really crappy day being sick one day and someone knocked on my door and handed me flowers and a sweet note! It totally made my day/week! Turns out my best good cousin friend, Kiley, sent them. I love her!

Land of Enchantment

2010-11-02T15:17:00.001-07:00

Leaving Boise on Monday

(I would put in some pictures of our drive here, but there wasn't much to see. nothing I saw up to this point was worthy of picture-taking.)

Welcome to the Land of Enchantment!

Welcome to Hobbs

There's a lot of this...

Driving into town

There are our apartments!

Cody opening our apartment

And that was our move! So when we got here, we immediately noticed that the apartment was not clean for some reason... There were crumbs in the cupboards, the walls were dirty, the carpets hadn't been cleaned, the bathroom hadn't been cleaned etc. Since we needed to move in that day, they didn't really have time to clean everything. The only thing they cleaned was the oven. So instead of kicking us out to clean it, they agreed to clean a few important things and let us off the hook for cleaning when we move out! This is actually awesome, because I REALLY hate doing all of that when you are just trying to move. Here are some of the pictures I took upon move-in.

I know, really gross... But everything is good now. They feel really bad. She tried to tell me we came too early?! They had 10 days between the time we got the apartment and the time we pulled in. So I don't feel bad.

Anyway, right when we got here, the people from church came together to help us move in. It was really amazing how many people showed up. They moved in all of our stuff in about a half-hour. I've already made tons of friends here and I haven't even been here a week. They come over to visit me, they invite us over to their houses for dinner, and they call me to see how I'm doing. We were excited because we got to celebrate Halloween at the church party. I was sad this year because I didn't think we would get to do anything. So it was really fun. It was a little bit of a challenge to recognize everyone at church the next day because they had been dressed in their costumes the night before. lol :) I'm so thankful right now to be a member of this church. I had instant friends because of it. Anywhere I go, It's the same and it's something familiar and comforting. Without it this week, I would have been really lonely and probably second-guessing this move.

Big Changes

2010-10-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

See the little green star on the Texas border? That is going to be our new home! Hobbs, New Mexico.

I've been waiting to blog about this until plans were completely solid. So now that I know that we're actually leaving in 6 days, I can tell the story.

It all started back in August when Cody graduated from grad school and started applying for jobs. We applied ALL OVER the place. Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, etc.. We even got quite a few interviews and SECOND interviews for jobs in places where we really wanted to live. We even looked for houses in some places. Cody would study for his CPA exam (which he's doing really well on by the way) and I would go to work, come home and help him look for more jobs to apply to. It was a little tough because we decided against applying to the "big 4" for a couple of reasons. Cody wanted to work for a "medium" sized firm where we knew he wouldn't get lost in the crowd or work ridiculous hours etc.. But this decision made it a little tougher to find a job.

So one day, I was on the internet just googling accounting firms all over the place when I came across this firm down in Texas and New Mexico called Johnson, Miller and Co. I looked at the place where it talked about jobs and it said, "call for more information." Since I was so determined to just find Cody something, I decided I would call. SO, I called the branch in New Mexico first, knowing nothing about the area. A secretary answered the phone and I asked if they are hiring any entry-level accountants this year. She said, "I'm not sure, let me ask." So then she connected me with the partner. I wasn't expecting this and I was a little embarrassed that I was doing this for my husband. Because if someone is going to be talking to the partner it should be Cody. BUT, I just told him all about Cody and how we found his website and where we were from and everything. He was a little confused about how we found his firm, but he was happy anyway. He asked me to have Cody email him his resume. So Cody did that night.

About a week later, that same nice man called Cody and asked him if Cody and I would like to come out and see the area and interview for a position. We never turn down interviews OR free trips, so we went! We spent one night, one day, and one morning there. We learned a lot about the area. The partner was nice enough to arrange for me to meet some of the other girls from church there. It was the most helpful thing he could have thought of. Those girls told me EVERYTHING. They told me what they love about the area and what they don't love. Then the firm took us out to lunch. We asked a lot of questions and really thought about if we could live there and be happy.

On October 8th (about a week and a half ago) we got an offer from them. It was a good offer. Better than anything we're going to get for an entry-level accounting position anywhere. We were really excited and relieved to have a job and we went out and celebrated a little :) ....

BUT right before we got the offer, Cody had an interview with a firm in Boise that he also really liked. They had already scheduled him for a second interview. We decided to wait and see what happened with that firm so that we could decide between the two if it came down to that. It was really hard to wait and not know if we were moving or not. It took until the last minute to find out that there was no offer from the Boise firm, and then we immediately called Johnson, Miller, and Co. and accepted the offer.

That was on Friday. And we are moving on Monday, in 6 days. Cody's first day is November first! While we are sad to be moving so far away from family, and we don't know a single person there, we are still really excited and feeling blessed to have a good job at a time when so many people don't have one at all. It is going to be an adventure for sure! Some people are pitying us a little because we have to move to New Mexico, but this is our choice, and what do they know?? They've never lived there and neither have we. We might love it and stay there forever! We can make a home anywhere, and We'll have each other and that's all that really matters. But really, I will probably end up loving it there. We always find things we love about the different places we live. It's also exciting this time because we KNOW we will be there for a long time and it feels good to know that we won't have to move again in a year. And we get to buy a house! and everyone is already saying they are going to come visit us there. Anyway, we're really excited.

A little about Hobbs....

As you can see, it's right on the Texas border. About 8 minutes actually. The closest big cities are Lubbock and Midland Texas. When you come visit us, you can fly into either :) There are currently about 38,000 people in Hobbs. For you Idahoans, we decided it's about the size of Twin Falls. Not too big, not too small. They have everything we need right there in Hobbs. It snows every once in a while, but not really. Summers are mid 90s, winters are in the 60s. It's very flat there. People say it's a lot like Texas if you know what that's like. Hobbs' thing is oil and natural gas. A lot of people that live there have jobs that have something to do with the oil field. As far as schools go there is one gigantic high school, 3 middle schools and 12 elementary schools. Yes, I can teach there! There is a Junior college there and a 4-year that also offers some masters degrees.

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Zion Slide Show

2010-10-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Watch my slide show and be amazed

Luck

2010-07-12T19:49:00.001-07:00

Luck has been on my side lately...
example A

A few weeks ago I was watching the news and they said that they were having a pizza and a movie giveaway. They said to get online and enter, so I did. A couple days later I got an email from fox12 news that said that I won! I was like, wow, I never win anything! It was awesome. We ate five free pizzas over the next couple weeks. We didn't like the movie they gave us, so we took it to wal-mart and exchanged it for $13.

example B

I have been listening to the radio a lot lately. A few of the radio stations are giving away tickets to the Boise Music Festival. I thought it sounded like fun, so I decided to give it a shot and try to win tickets. I had the number of my fav radio station in my phone and I would call every once in a while. It was usually busy the whole time. Well one night I was home alone and I decided to try and call Nathan the DJ to get tickets, and I won! I have never won anything off the radio and it was so exciting!! You don't think you'll be one of those weirdos who scream and get freakishly excited about free tickets, but I ended up to be one of those people. haha. I was jumping up and down in my living room by myself. So Cody and I are going next weekend to see Bret Michaels, backstreet boys, and a bunch of other bands.

www.boisemuicfestival.com

example C

Cody and I were going for a drive the other night exploring parts of town that we never go to. We were driving down the street and I look over and see this, literally calling my name:

I was like "Cody! Stop!" I made him pull over so I could run inside and see what it was all about. They said that the next day, I got to come into their kitchen and make a pizza of my choice for free. Of course, I couldn't turn down this offer. So the next night we went to Flying Pies and I made my own pizza! It was a really fun experience. I made my pizza along with the other Erins, but the other Erins were not very nice.

I actually feel like blogging right now...

2010-07-12T19:34:00.001-07:00

I actually feel like blogging right now, which doesn't happen very often. So I'm taking advantage of this feeling and updating.

I graduated! I actually graduated in December, but I didn't get to walk in commencement until April. My family came to celebrate with me and it was so great.

Cody's family came to stay at our house for Easter!

Kiley graduated! I was able to go to Kiley's graduation and spend the weekend at her house. I was so happy to be there and hang out with my cuz.

Landon, Cody's brother, graduated too! We were glad we could be there with him to celebrate.

We spent a weekend in Island Park with Cody's family!

I lost 20 lbs!
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ZACH GOT HIS MISSION CALL! He has been called to the Georgia Atlanta North mission! We are all so proud and excited for him.

I got a new job as an intensive behavior Interventionist (IBI). I do developmental therapy with kids who have developmental disabilities. I love my job. :)

Cody is DONE WITH SCHOOL! AHH! Cody and I are completely done with school forever! We can't believe it!

And we have recently been enjoying the beautiful summer weather.

A lot of exciting things have been happening since the last time I blogged. We are excited to be done with school and to be moving into the next chapter in our life together. :)

my smart husband

2010-02-28T09:39:00.001-08:00

Cody was selected by the college of business and economics at BSU to be a student spotlight for February and March. The professors chose one student out of the whole accounting program, and they chose him! I'm so proud of him. He works really hard to do well in school. You can see the student spotlights here: http://cobe.boisestate.edu/blog/2010/02/09/february-march-student-spotlights/

Resolutions

2010-01-03T10:07:00.000-08:00

I've never been one to really make new year resolutions. I don't know what's gotten into me, but I was really excited to make some goals this year. :) And since I believe that the more people I tell about my goals, the more likely I'll be to actually achieve them... here they are!

-Get a teaching job
-Always write thank you cards for everything
-Keep in touch with old friends better
-Learn to sew and sew at least 10 projects
-Always have a place to volunteer
-Work out at least 4 days a week
-Pay attention to what I eat

Unfortunately..... Fortunately.....

2009-12-22T21:07:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately.....
Well, we were supposed to go home to California on Monday, but the weather over donner pass was too bad for us to go. Sadly, we decided we needed to wait for Wednesday :(

Fortunately....
My best cousin friend in the world was here in Boise with her family for Christmas! She came in Sunday night, and we weren't going to be able to hang out very much. But now we could! So we had a treat day! We made about a thousand cookies and built gingerbread houses! It was a much needed wonderful cousin day. Cody and Jeff tried to help, but they weren't as enthusiastic about the whole thing. :) So in the end, I was glad we had to wait a couple of days to leave! :)

peanut butter balls

snow balls

carmel chocolate cookies with white chocolate on the top! yum!

sewing time with grandma

2009-12-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

For the past few days my grandma has been in town! She's been staying at my cousins' house, but I was over there all day yesterday and today. I recently got a sewing machine for my birthday, and I had my first pattern and material all ready to go, but no one to teach me! So my wonderful grandma helped me through it! We had fun. Turns out the "easy" pattern I chose (with help from a Joanne's lady) was not as easy as I thought. It looked easy to me, but I was wrong. It involved scallops and gathering, which are not really beginner things. But with a little help from grandma, I think I did pretty well!

a slow start..

2009-12-09T18:55:00.000-08:00

So I finished student teaching, and I was pretty excited to make some money subbing! But here I am...sitting on my couch... not working. There are hardly any sub jobs and I am having a hard time finding enough productive things to do! I've only had 3 days, and they were all last minute, emergency sort of things. I feel a little guilty for sitting around so much. I was expecting to get sub jobs almost every day and stay pretty busy. So I'm not sure if it's just a slow time of year for subbing, or if it's going to be like this for a while. Hopefully it gets better soon...

Baby it's cold outside

2009-12-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

It's cold outside! The other day we woke up to a thick layer of white powder over everything! It is really pretty here with all the trees around. I drove Cody to work, then when I got home I decided to take a walk and enjoy it. It's beautiful, but freezing. And it hasn't gotten any warmer. The roads are hard to drive on and I'm always afraid I'm going to slip and fall. And I get tired of putting on 5 layers to walk from the apartment to the car. Too bad the snow isn't warm. :)

Cody hates putting lights on the tree. haha. here he is being frustrated.

23!

2009-12-02T12:04:00.001-08:00

Thank you to everyone who made my birthday special! It was just me and Cody here, but all the phone calls and presents from my family and friends made it great! I had a good day just hangin out by myself. :) I slept in, watched TV, put up some Christmas decorations and it was wonderful. I went to Walmart and went to lunch at Fuddruckers to get my free birthday lunch! I ate an 8 dollar salad for free! It was awesome. Then for dinner, I met Cody at Chili's! Then after dinner I blew out the candles, ate cake and opened my presents! Thanks family for the purse, the cookbook, and the Christmas platter! (My family is also paying for us to come for Christmas!) Thanks grandma for money for my SEWING MACHINE!, the fuzzy blanket and the PJs. Thanks Carla for the card and the money! Cody got me my sewing tools and money to go get a pattern! :)

A few happy things

2009-11-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to write about a few things that have made me happy lately.

1. I'm done student teaching! I finished on Wednesday. I can't believe I'm completely done with school. I had a great experience and I loved my kids and my teacher, but I am happy to be done. It was stressful and exshausting. Although it was difficult, I now know that this is what I was meant to do. It's nice to know for sure that I chose the right profession. This is also nice because now I will be making a little money for the work I'm doing.

2. We went to Rexburg for Thanksgiving to visit Cody's family! It was really fun. We left right after school on Wednesday, and stayed till Sunday. Thursday, we had a good time eating and visiting with family. We ended up having 10 pies to eat because of lack of communication. Cody's aunt and uncle, Jed and Vicky, and their four boys came over. I loved playing with them all week. The littlest, Rayce, is only a few months old and he's the cutest, best baby in the world. We had fun playing with him. On Friday we woke up early in the morning and went shopping. Cody and I did some shopping for each other, and we helped Cody's mom and Vicky shop. It was fun helping Vicky shop for those little guys. While Cody did an excelent job of hiding everything he bought for me, I managed to accidently reveal all the presents I bought for Cody. oops. :) On Saturday, Jessica (my sister-in-law) and I had an awesome day of doing Christmas crafts. The boys were good helpers, helping us sand. On Sunday, Cody and I visited all the Corbridge relatives in Aberdeen. They conveniently gathered for lunch so we didn't have to go a lot of different places. It was good to see everyone there. Sadly, we forgot to bring our camera on this trip, so I dont' have any pictures. :(

But here is a picture of the crafts we did. Cody's mom did the nativity.

3. Happy thing number 3 is that my birthday is tomorrow!

4. This actually happened a while ago, but it still brings me joy. Cody refinished our table. We didn't have a table, so my parents gave us their old one that's been sitting in the backyard for years, exposed to the elements. It was old, and yucky, and there was paint on it. The chairs were in really bad shape too. They were basically falling apart. Cody is amazing and he made it look like this:

I love it so much. He also did the leaf so we can use this table for years to come, when we have several people that need to fit.

5. Jessica and Dakota (Cody's brother, and his wife) were sealed in the Salt Lake temple. It was amazing and I was so happy we could be there to see that.

6. We went to a Boise State game. We figured we should go while Cody was a student and he got a free ticket. It was awesome, but it was SO COLD! They won of course.

2009-10-14T21:03:00.001-07:00

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Update

2009-10-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

I've decided it's time to stop pretending I don't have a blog. A lot has happened since the last time I blogged, so this post is dedicated to catching up. :)

Cody got into Boise State!

We had our first anniversary and went to see wicked!

We went to Tahoe with the fam

We moved to Boise!

I'm student teaching, and I'm going to be a real teacher soon!

That's pretty much it! We really like Boise so far. We live in a really cute apartment really super close to the Boise river. Cody rides his bike to school on the greenbelt along the river. He's really liking school. He got into the graduate assistantship program, and his tuition is covered for at least a year! So that was a huge blessing. I'm really busy student teaching at Trailwind Elementary in Molly Gustavel's fifth grade class. I'm teaching full days now for the next six weeks or so! Life is great. :)

Camping

2009-06-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we were invited to go on a little overnight camping trip on mount diablo with a few of the couples from church. The entrance to the park is only about 10 minutes from us, so it was really close and easy. It was really fun to get to know some of the other people in our ward a little better. The next day we drove the rest of the way up to the summit, and after that went to "rock city." When I was little, rock city was one of our favorite places to go, so it was fun to show Cody.

It took a while, but here we are

2009-06-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

We finally have a blog! Since we've been engaged, friends and family have been telling me that we need to have a blog, and now ten months into marriage, i've finally done it. It turned out to only take about 5 minutes to create. :) . Anyway, Cody and I got married August 9, 2008 in the Oakland California temple. We live in Walnut Creek now. Cody just completed an internship at a firm in San Francisco and is now a BYU-I graduate in accounting. We are heading to Boise in August where Cody will go to school at Boise State for a masters in accounting. I am a major in elementary education. In Boise I will (hopefully) do my student teaching in the fall and then finally be done! We love living here in the bay area close to family and we will miss it a lot, but we are optimistic and excited to go on to new things! I will try my best to keep up on the blog thing and keep everyone updated!

Erin