Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone and I truly do love this time of year. For the third time in a row I participated in Black Friday and ladies, I must say, it has gotten a bad wrap for no reason. I mean yes large crowds and there are a few crazies but you get those on normal shopping days too. For the most part I have seen people be helpful and kind. Telling each other where the best deals are, hanging onto something for you when they saw someone else putting it back. People are genuinely nice and I love it. I got a Bosch and I baked bread for the first time and it turned out wonderfully!

I am so grateful that Nathan and I have both been able to keep our jobs during this rough economy, and we are able to afford our lovely home. I am also grateful for my loving husband who has taken over the dishes and the laundry (seriously he's awesome) because I have felt so overwhelmed with everything on my plate. I know I don't blog and I haven't gotten to see many people lately, so I just want to say thank you! Thank you for being understanding, and thank you for being willing to come to a BYU game so I could see multiple people at once, even if I was so tired that i couldn't hardly visit with anyone. Thank you for understanding that I still love and appreciate all of you even when I can't see you very often at all. I feel like I'm going crazy because we rarely find time for friends and so when we do it's usually a party because we would like to see as many friends as we can at once.

I'm very grateful for my Heavenly Father who continually reminds me of my worth, and for a loving husband who will snuggle with me and let me cry when even I don't know why I'm crying. The past few months have been hard for me, I definitely overbooked and wasn't prepared for what I was up against, but it is starting to ease and I feel life will start to get back to normal. So again until that happens thank you for understanding and for being supportive of me. I really appreciate all of my friends and family. I will eventually figure out my schedule and be able to spend more time with you all.

Best You Tube EVER!

So I was just leisurely Facebook stalking when I found this beauty! Seriously I freaking love it!



Hope you enjoyed it!

Love,
Carrie

Playing Catch-Up

Alright I've been seriously bad with the whole blogging thing, after this post you will realize why.
So first of all, we have an exchange student, his name is IckHee and he is from Korea. He's 17 and a junior in high school. This was a very last minute thing. We had even decided not to put our application in when Yeon (she's over the program here) called me and said she really needed someone to house a student. After saying no a second time and Yeon, calling me again from Korea we decided that we do have an extra room and we might as well house a student. So two weeks later we picked Nick up. His English name is Nick. Alright for those of you wondering, you pronounce IckHee just as it looks, the first thing said to Nick when he was introduced to my family was as follows, 'So if you guys adopted him his name would be Icky Gross.' Why yes, yes it would be. :) But alas we are not adopting him, only being parents for nine months. It's the reverse of a pregnancy! It is very weird and difficult to have your first child be a teenager, but Nate and I are realizing that yes we both parent the same way and that has been kind of nice. Nick is very fun and we are very much enjoying him being around.

Secondly, I am still working full time. I do love my job, I have a great boss, and I love my coworkers. It's weird to think that I've been at Alexander's for over three years now and just over two and a half years in accounting. Not really much to report here except I have been able to really get a lot done and I rarely have to work overtime, which is awesome.

Thirdly, this also has to do with my awesome Boss, but I have been instructing the Orem High Pit. I have missed marching band and was able to work out a simple schedule with Joy to allow me to work with the Pit. I love it! I love the kids, I love the music, and I love the nostalgia of it all. The only problem is that even though the time commitment isn't incredibly huge when you put it together with everything else, it can be a little overwhelming.

Which leads we to my last big endeavor, I am going to school full time, and it's over the Internet so I'm teaching myself through the classes. It has been intense and a little overwhelming. But I truly love the program and everything about this college. I can't wait to finally be done with school and be able to start teaching math.

So that pretty much sums up my life, full time work, full time school, full time wife and 'mom', and part time music teacher. Toss in a few extras like church callings, and personal time and that is a perfect recipe for neglecting a blog. :) Hope you enjoyed the catch-up, I'll try and be better now.

Oh also the leaves are perfect outside for some beautiful family pictures so if you want some done just let us know, you can have a 25% discount just because you read my blog. Check out Nate's site here or his blog here.

Mirror Blog

I have decided to try yet a new thing on Facebook and added Mirror Blog. It pulls my blog posts straight from my blog so all my friends on facebook can see them and comment. If I like it and people seem to be reading my blog on here I might keep it otherwise adios.

P.S. I wrote this from facebook and it updated my blog, sweet!

Great Deal!!!!

I have decided I truly LOVE deals, and coupons. If you aren't on twitter you should be, just to get these deals. You can follow a bunch of people that link you to coupons all over the web, plus blogs! Blogs full of money saving tips and menu planning on a budget. I love it so very much! Another great site is www.frogzog.com you can search for coupons for anything, then share it on facebook, twitter, or even have it texted to you so you don't have to waste the paper to print it out. Just text it to yourself and then show them the text when you get there. So as I continue to find great deals, I'll try and include them on twitter and here on my blog or facebook. They will all be under the same label 'Deals'. Also you really should look at www.savvyshopperdeals.com and try out the Shopping wizard. My new find is www.recipekey.com you can list everything in your pantry and fridge and it will tell you what recipes you can make. It will also show you ones you can make with only buying a few more ingredients. When you use stuff just take it out of your pantry and voila you can make meals with what you have! You can also add recipes, so family favorites are involved.