December

Brayden ended his semester with awesome grades and was glad to get a break from school. I had to work the week after Brayden was done with school so we got about a week and half break down in Utah. Here are a few highlights from our break...

We got to have dinner and play games with my brother Matt, sister-in-law Emily, and niece Mariah. That girl is so stinkin cute. She was making some cute faces for me.

Christmas was great with Brayden's family and both Nicole and I got an ipad mini!

 Family Picture on Christmas Day

 Mia Rockin' out on Brayden's new Dre Beats headphones

 Brayden's Grandma Jones rockin' Brayden's Celtics hat.

 We celebrated our 1 year anniversary! Hooray!

October and November

So it is a new year and i have not blogged in over two months. One of my goals for this year is to continue to get better at taking pictures and then blogging about it. So here is a brief update of what we did in the months of October and November.

In the middle of Ocotber we got to meet our sweet new niece, Mariah Rose. She is such a little doll.

We didn't really do a lot for Halloween because Brayden was busy with homework but I did make these cute candy corn sugar cookies.

In November I had a random urge to make homemade cupcakes and frosting. I then had a little fun decorating them. As you can see I made a good decision to NOT become a cake decorator. haha

Over Thanksgiving break we also went to a Jazz game and had pretty good seats!

Our niece Mia had fun copying Brayden and decided she wanted to play some video games too! haha

Life Lately

Well it's been over a month since the last time I wrote! I definitely have been thinking about different things to post about but just haven't ever sat down to write them down so this post is going to be a little mix of everything.
Brayden and I are now officially back in Idaho and we are loving our new apartment. It is a definite upgrade to our first apartment we lived in up here. Brayden is working hard in his classes and currently has held onto all A's. So proud of him! Since it was a bit of a last minute decision to move back up here it was a little hard to find a full time teaching job so for now I am working part time as a Title 1 paraprofessional. This means I go into classrooms and work with students who are a little behind and need some extra help. So far I've enjoyed it and am starting to get to know the students I work with better. I am hoping that it will turn into something more full time but for now it has been awesome to have so much time to prepare and cook dinner and get other things done around the house.
 I feel like Brayden has appreciated my extra time as well because I have cooked a lot better meals than when we were first married. haha I am absolutely LOVING the "Our Best Bites, Mormon Moms in the Kitchen" cookbook that I got from our wedding. Every recipe that I have tried has turned out great! One that Brayden had been wanting me try was the chicken cordon bleu. I finally made it a couple weeks ago and it was delicious!

 Some of our other favorites from Our Best Bites are the Alfredo Artichoke Chicken Pasta Bake and the French Dip Sandwiches.

One day when I was blog hopping I saw a recipe for peanut butter cookies. What caught my eye about this recipe was that it was 3 ingredients. SO EASY! It's always nice to have some easy recipes especially when you are having a sweet tooth. 

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

this makes about one dozen cookies 

 

Directions:

Mix ingredients together

Roll into balls and place on greased cookie sheet

Dip fork into sugar (so the fork doesn't stick to the dough) and smash the cookies like so

Cook on 350 degrees for 7-9 minutes  

Let cool....

For only being 3 ingredients they turned out great and really satisfied my sweet tooth for that evening.

In other news, we have a new niece! She is soooo adorable! We got to meet her this past weekend and I can't wait to see her again.

Beautiful Mariah Rose

Summer Highlights

Sadly, summer is ending and Brayden and I are moving back to Idaho tomorrow. We are excited but sad to leave family. I'll post some pictures once we are settled up there. So, I thought I would post some of our favorite things we did this summer and that we'll miss while in Idaho.

Eat this sandwich....

 This is one mine and Brayden's favorite summer lunches. It consists of a slice of pastrami, a slice of turkey, Havarti cheese, and a couple slices of avocado. Pop this thing in the toaster oven and it is oh so good.

Hanging out with these people....

Brayden and I got to hang out with his best friend Jordan and his wife Natalie a couple times this summer. Our joke was that if one of us was at Cafe Rio we would most likely see the other. Not even joking but this happened probably about 90% of the time. We also enjoyed playing games and having movie nights with them. In this picture we went to a drive-in movie together and played games before the movie started.

Hanging out with these people as well...

We also got to hang out with Jenna's brother Matt and wife Emily. We got to play games a couple times and Matt and Brayden went golfing one day. We are soooo excited for their little girl to come in just a couple weeks. We definietly will be making a trip down to meet our new niece!

And hanging out with these people as well....

Since living in Brayden's parent's basement this summer we have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with his family. It has been so fun being able to spend time with them and getting to know them better. In this picture we had a girls day to the farmers market.

We have had a great summer but are ready to move on to the next chapter in our life in good ole' Idaho. We'll keep updated on our adventures up there!