Sunday

Josh and I spent this evening watching Gone With the Wind.

Scarlett is nuts, but I love her. And I have to say, this is my favorite movie of all time along with Funny Girl.

Both of these are seriously film at its greatest. If you've never seen them, get thee to Blockbuster immediately.

Projects

Since we got married, I've been trying to make our little apartments home-y, but we don't have a ton of extra money to spend on decor. So, I did a few fun projects.

The first big project I did were the pillows I made that I wrote about last year. This year for my birthday, my Mom gave me a sewing machine. My first project with the sewing machine was to jazz up the brown pillows to match the ones I made.

I'm in love with this broach...

For a centerpiece for the kitchen table, I put some fabric in an old frame my mom had.

For our coffee table, I made a little runner out of some of my mom's extra fabric.

Our computer desk had this weird area of blank wood, so I put on some pretty lacy wallpaper and a frame (that I got from, you guessed it, my mom) and lined it with brown fabric edging.

This last one is one of my favorites! When we first got married, we bought these super cheap (I think they were $5 each?) black floor lamps from Wal-Mart that have cheap plastic shades on them. They get the job done, but aren't much to look at. So I bought some hemp and wound it from base to top around the lamp stand. Then I bought a little bit of lace and wrapped it around the shade at the top.

In this first picture, it's hard to see the lace, but you can see the hemp.

Here's what it looks like when it's turned on:

Publish Post

They were all pretty easy to do, and so fun to make!

Josh is a Quarter-Centenarian

This year, Josh turned 25! Crazy. On the actual birthday, poor Josh had to work a million hour day (and that's only a slight exaggeration....) and I had to work 10 to 10. So we had to settle for celebrating Josh the next day.

For our birthdays, the celebrated always get to pick where they want to eat, and Josh picked Outback. No complaints from me...

For one of Josh's presents, I bought him tickets to the Jazz game. So, after our delicious steak dinner, we headed up to the Energy Solutions Arena.

We were so incredibly high up in the stands that my nose is still bleeding, but it's fun just to be there. And, in honor of Josh, the Jazz beat the Timberwolves.

Josh was a little disappointed because his favorite Jazz player, Deron Williams, was injured and didn't play. And then just a few games after this one, Deron was traded so Josh will never get to see him play with the Jazz again. Sad.

When we got home, Josh opened up all his presents, one of which was his own set of temple clothes inside his brand new temple bag! Yay for no more renting! And he got...

...a new wedding ring! He had been without one since he lost his around Christmas 2009. This ring isn't quite as expensive as the first, but it's so nice to see him with a ring on his hand again!

There are only two of us, and Josh isn't super into cake anyway, so we opted for a small birthday cake that could barely fit all 25 of the candles.

Now to see what the next 25 years will bring!

JoEllen's Wedding

On January 8th, we got up and went to the Salt Lake Temple for JoEllen and Tanner's wedding! They had a beautiful sealing ceremony, and then we headed outside in the freezing cold to greet the newlyweds.

JoEllen's dress was gorgeous. I LOVE lace.

All the Benson siblings, minus Jocelyn (or "the luvs", as Josh calls her).

JoEllen and Tanner with Fred and Janeice.

Josh and me in front of the Temple. SO COLD.

Me, Stephanie, and Jenessa (who is pregnant now! Yay!)

The incredible cake. Have I mentioned I love lace? And on a cake?! I've learned to do a ton with weddings in the last two years, but I have never learned how to make wedding cakes, and I really, really want to.

The incredible centerpieces. On gorgeous pin tuck toppers.

The reception was at Sundance. Here is a view of the whole room:

The entire Benson family except for Suymey and her kids. Suymey had just had cute baby Rhyslan a few weeks before, so only James able to make the trip out from Texas.

The father/daughter dance:

I think this picture of the first dance is SO cute:

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Runia!

JoEllen's Rehearsal Dinner

The night before the wedding, we were able to go to JoEllen and Tanner's rehearsal dinner at Thanksgiving Point. I have to admit, whenever I go to other venues, I always have to scope it out to see the difference in how they run things in comparison to Aspen Landing and The Canterbury Place. And I was VERY impressed with Thanksgiving Point.

The floral centerpieces were gorgeous!

Here is Josh with our nephew, Liam, and his brother, James, is next to him. Liam is OBSESSED with Josh. Whenever Josh is in a room he crawls over to him and starts trying to climb up his legs. When other people hold him and Josh is standing nearby, he reaches for Josh. Fortunately, Josh is just as crazy about Liam.

I wish I could eat at Thanksgiving Point weekly. The dressing on the salad was ridiculously good, and the pesto chicken was incredible! I love pesto, but I rarely get to have it.

After dinner, everyone told hilarious stores about JoEllen and Tanner. The best part was probably when Tanner's brother got up and said that he always wanted Tanner to date JoEllen back in high school because he never really liked the other girls that Tanner dated. Right after he said it, we heard this mortified laugh from the front table...coming from one of Tanner's ex-girlfriends. Oops...I guess Tanner's brother forgot one of those ex-girlfriends was in attendance...

It was a great way to kick off the wedding festivities!