Christmas 2014

TWell, another Christmas has come and gone. I can't even believe that.

This year, we decided to stay in town for the holidays. As sad as that made me to not be in California, it has been a great time for Brandon and I to be selfish and just hang out together. We won't have time like this for a LONG time. We've just done some things together.

After Steve and Karen left (more on that later), we settled into a routine. We watched a Christmas movie a day, played board games, and planned our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shenanigans.

We have had fun incorporating our individual family traditions into our own tradition. One of Brandon's family traditions is to have a "smorgasbord" of appetizers on New Year's Eve. All of my favorite foods? Sure why not! Here was our miniature version:

Spinach and Artichoke dip, pigs in a blanket, little weenies, a cheeseball, and pina coladas. It was heavenly.

Christmas morning, Brandon woke up early. I mean, 4:05 early. Luckily he knew better than to poke the sleeping bear at that hour, so he went back to sleep until about 7. Since it was my last Christmas to have any form of sleeping in for basically forever (7:30, not really sleeping in), I appreciated it. Side note- we also had a talk about no matter how much earlier he gets up than the kids on Christmas morning, he is NOT allowed to wake them up. Once they start to stir, we can wake them all up. But just because Dad is more excited than the kids does not mean he gets to wake them up at Odark'thirty.

In case you were wondering, here was the size of our Christmas tree:

For $10, I will take a 2 foot tall tree! It sat on a little side table that we had, and we just took it down in about 30 seconds. Beautiful.

We were blessed with some wonderful gifts. Even Tiny got some! Here is my favorite, from Mom:

Seriously? That tiny swimsuit has me dying. So cute. She got plenty of outfits from grandparents and great grandparents, and we have about 150 diapers stocked up already.

We also received some books and a set of "Killer Bunnies", a pretty fun card game. It has only caused one "discussion" so far, because someone (ahem) wanted to change the rules. We got past that though.

And! Since I'm 5 years old apparently (or it's my maternal instincts kicking in) I wanted a fish for Christmas. So Brandon bought me fish food for my stocking, and then we picked one out today. His name is Norbert... A pretty little red betta. With our $2 IKEA plants, we have a little ecosystem going on for less than $30.

We also got to talk to Dallin!! Yayyyyy, it was so fun. And he had a decent connection this time, so we spent the whole time actually talking to him! He looked so happy, and good. Even if he doesn't wear bug spray...

For Christmas dinner, we really wanted to help make someone else's day better. So we had our 4 young missionaries over, as well as an investigator. After Austin didn't have a Christmas dinner last year in Rimouski, I told Brandon that no WAY would we not let the missionaries have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. We also had an investigator over, who was a very nice man from Chicago. What better way can we spend the holiday season than by sharing our blessings? It was also cute to see how excited all the missionaries were, because they got to talk with their families on our laptops. I don't remember seeing them this animated before.

I love Christmas time. It is so great to think of how because of Christ, we can have all our blessings. And to think of how we have another little spirit coming our way is amazing! She will be here in 4 months, which is crazy.

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

PS- I tried to crochet stockings for everyone this year. I only finished one, and this is what happened:

It looks like a club foot. I think I'm going to burn it.

Unemployment.

So, I've been applying for jobs. Obviously. I've applied to probably over 60 jobs at this point. I did have three interviews this week, so we'll see how those go.

I know it's only been a week and a half since student teaching started, but I feel like it's been forever.

Cons: The obvious. No money coming in on my end.

Feeling like I have no purpose in life.

Rejection over and over again.

 BUT, the greatest pro is that I am not stressed. Brandon said he loves my "not in school" self. And I agree.

Saturday night we walked for 2 hours, just talking and laughing our heads off. It's so awesome. I feel like this time before work starts and kids come and whatever the future has in store for us is going to be a great memory for us in upcoming years.

But for my to-do list this week:

-Go to the temple (it can't hurt my chances of getting a job, right?)

-Run/continue my 30 days to flat abs workout.

-Apply for more jobs.

-Crochet (Brandon is being so polite with waiting for his blanket, but this is what I have so far:)

It's only 1/4 of the way done.

-Wait.

I am open for business!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/CamillesCrochet

There's only 2 things on there, but it's going to be awesome! I'm planning on making millions this way... obviously. 

I found out how to make coupons on there, and I might make coupons for people who read my blog. Mainly for publicity. Stay tuned.

Valentine's Day 2013- Twoo wuv.

So, this is a little mushy but it's ok. 

Brandon has basically carried me thus far through student teaching. He has made dinner most nights, which I know is surprising to some women. In addition, he'll get up about every other day to make me a bagel and send me off at 7 A.M. Some other student teachers have made frozen dinners so their husbands can survive, but I think it's the opposite for us. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he just lived to help me out. But he's in the hardest semester of his BYUI career, and he's just that nice. I'm very grateful for his help, because otherwise I would not have survived this far.
Fast forward to this week. Poor boy has been sick for the first time since 2010. He was blessed to not get sick when he was working nights, and I know that was not a coincidence. But, he started to get sick around the 12th. And you know what his biggest concern was? Making sure I had a good Valentine's Day. I told him to not worry about it, and we could celebrate once he was feeling better.
I woke up on Valentine's Day and walked to the kitchen to find this:

He had snuck out after I went to bed the night before, so I could have this when I woke up! Of course my allergies started acting up... ahem ahem. There was also: a can of guarana (my favorite soda), a bag of s'mores Goldfish, and lots of boxes of conversation hearts. It was so sweet of him.
In addition, being at an elementary school on Valentine's Day is much more fun and less destructive than Halloween (see here for more details). This may be because the children are thinking about what they get to give, instead of what they get to receive. I got plenty of valentines from my students (and not a single one spelled Giullian right... not that I was expecting it). I brought red velvet cookies for my 4th grade math class, to keep up my end of a deal. I also had spend the last week working on this for my 1st grade class:

I was worried that after crocheting 23 hearts, I would get there and there would be 24 kids. Luckily, I counted right. And Mrs. Stanger made sure they knew how cool it was that I MADE them. Which, I appreciated so that they wouldn't say it's stupid, but it didn't take that long per heart. Just the combined 23 of them took a while. I got lots of hugs and "I love it!" from them.
While getting dressed for Valentine's Day, I realized I don't own much pink. I decided to do something about that, and used the heart pattern for a headband:

I was worried it would look stupid, but kids said they liked it.

We're still holding out on Brandon's recovery to really celebrate Valentine's Day, but it was a good day to remind me of how much I love that guy. He is so thoughtful, and gets me through everything that I think is too hard to handle. I'm very lucky to have him.

More Elder Murphy Sightings

This week, my mom forwarded the mission newsletter to us. She said that there was a picture we wanted to see... sure enough, we found this!

Austin said he loves his blanket, and so does his mission president. I said I'd make one for him at a discount, but there's no way I'm making that for free again haha. Nice to know it's being appreciated!

Also, last night (Wednesday) my mom told me to check my email. I did, and there was a video taken by a member of our favorite elder and his companion. It was very sweet to see, as we haven't seen that mug in 8 months. If you think you can see it, you'll be sorely disappointed. That's just for us!

All about Dane.

I've been waiting to meet Dane since Alyse called and said they were going to have a baby. So, if I seem a little bit excited to be around Dane... deal with it. It's a meeting a year in the making.
Pardon the pun, but our family went gaga for Dane this week. So much so, in fact, that there's a whole blog post just about how much we loved him... with tons of pictures.

When we went to the airport, everyone jumped out of the car as soon as it had stopped and ran to go see Dane. He has a ton of hair, and is in the phase where he will smile at everyone. My dad, being the proud grandpa that he is, snapped this picture:

He was smiling at Cole, as you can see.

The whole way home, we talked to him and smiled at him and pretty much did our best to entertain him. The only time he cried was when my mom turned off the lights... we turned them back on and his lip was sticking out. She felt bad.

I gave Dane his Christmas present of a hat I had made, which I admit I am quite proud of!

It's monstrous (again, pardon the pun) on him, but he'll be able to wear it for a long time now.

At Grantie's homecoming, Dane was nice- generally. I got to bring him out during the 3rd hour, and we spent time bonding. I made him laugh, and also tried to get him to go to sleep, but he's a fighter. After his post-church nap, we all took turns sitting by him so that he would talk to us. I've never heard a baby talk that much in my life. He just has lots of good things to say, I guess. My dad caught this moment on the camera too:

He was laughing so hard when I'd blow a raspberry on his stomach, I wish we had caught it on video. But then he started to get fussy, which is the time we decided he needed to get acquainted with his uncle Brandon... it didn't go over so well.

Brandon's making the face because Dane was stiffening up and basically being an infant who was tired and hungry. Don't worry, they get along better later.
We decided that Dane needed to meet the missing family member. We pulled out Austin's senior picture, and Dane talked to him for a good couple of minutes. He just wanted to tell him how cool he was.

He didn't respond that well to "Candy Dallin"... we didn't catch a picture but every time he looked at Dallin his lip would stick out.
Alyse busted out Dane's NYE outfit, and we loved it...

See? Both happy... sort of!

The last full day we were there, Dane was tired and didn't want to sleep. I took him and walked into my room. I was planning to sit on my bed and rock him, but as I stepped on the trundle bed he stopped crying for a second and got really quiet and still. I bounced on the bed one more time, and his eyes started to close. After about 4 more bounces, he was completely out. What a good little guy. They said I could put him in his carseat, but I just wanted to snuggle one more time before I had to go back to Idaho. So he stayed asleep for about half an hour.

Little guy.
We walked around Balboa Island, and Dane got his first experience of the West Coast.

He sure loves his mom.
He likes to be bounced a lot, and rocked, and all sensations of falling and moving. He's going to grow up to be an extreme person!
Before we left, we couldn't resist getting just one more picture with Danie.

I was bouncing him in this picture... he would laugh then wait for the fall again.

There were some other things we did during our time in Irvine, but this was the best part. We loved being around little Dane, and can't wait to see him in June! I loved just being able to be an aunt, and hear him laugh and talk and smile and make all sorts of cute baby noises.

Meeting Cohen

So, we got to spend time with Gabrielle yesterday, and meet her little guy Cohen. It was good to see that she's happy and is being a good mom to this little guy.

He's so cute and squishy. Yes, those two go hand in hand. I gave him his Mike Wizowski hat, and she got a couple of pictures of it... Is it bad that I'm super proud of this? Oh well, it's cute!

This one shows off the hat more.. it's too big but I intended it to be that way.

He's such a sweet baby. Next time I see them will be in March, and he'll be so big!
I'm grateful that Karen let us borrow her car and drive it up there. It was our first day in California, but that was when worked best for Gabrielle and you don't mess with a baby's schedule.
More updates later.

My first completed hat.

Finals what?

This is Mike Wizowski! I can't wait to take a picture of it with a squishy little face underneath it.

On my break.

I've been dreaming of this break for a long time. I'll get to do the things I want to now! And we'll have 2 1/2 weeks of spending time with family to do that.

I've given myself a couple of projects to do in the meantime:
I can't post pictures of the hats, because then I'd have to give the copyrights to them. But here are the models.

-For baby Cohen (Zaugg):

Gabrielle wanted a Mike Wizowski hat for her baby. I've been trying to do it all semester, but now I'll actually have a chance. I'll take a picture of him with it when it's actually done, but this is an approximation right now.

-For Dane:

I found a super cute pattern for a Cookie Monster hat. It has two little cookies on the end of the braids down the side.
And for Brittney Bodine's baby girl:

She wants a pouf for her baby girl. It's pretty big, and is super fun to do.

PS 3 more days of college. Can you tell I don't want to do my final projects?

Worth it.

I've been working on the baby blanket for Dane, and it finally got to him in North Carolina. This morning, I got this picture from Alyse...

Maybe it's because I love that boy so much, but it made all that time worth it. I love you Dane!

PS This totally put me as the front runner for favorite aunt. Just saying.

Synopsis of Summer 2012

So, summer is coming to a close. The more I think about it, the more nauseous I get. The only thing keeping me going is 1) knowing I get to see "baby boy" after the semester ends; and 2) it's my last semester of classes! I'm sure that my Kindergarten Practicum teacher (despite the fact that he is what's making me nauseous) will help me get ready for student teaching in January.

Anyways, just to sum up our experiences in the summer, I will list off the things we did with pictures. The italicized one are from our "Rexburg Bucket List"... we're almost done with it!

1) "Dark Knight Rises" midnight premiere

(Our only picture from the night. The flash was really strong.)

Then Dallin came into town! And while he was here...

2) Wind caves hike with Mikey

3) Big Judd's

 4) Saw Ririe, Idaho

 5) Rexburg Rapids (for free, which made it better)

6) Twin Falls, the temple, falls, and Grandma's childhood homes

 7) Rigby Lake... we didn't get a picture but we will!

8) Family Reunion in Aspen Grove... just some highlights.

 The one picture of us from the week.                    4 Murphy girls... and baby Austin!

Dad being a balla. Obviously.

Then Bethany came back to Rexburg with us!

8)  Bear World

9) Drive-In Theater... Bethany and I did not get pictures but it was great.

10) St. Anthony Sandbar

11) Birthday party for this little guy:

12) Celebrated one year of marriage together in Logan.

13) Job hunted (and finally got one, thanks to Dianne!)

14) Celebrated my birthday, and made it great thanks to Brandon.

Dinner:

 Cake:

 15) Finished my baby blanket for the little guy.

It's going to be a great semester! Terrifying, but great. And Brandon put in his 2 weeks notice, which is a miracle. I get my husband back, and it means we can actually go places now on the weekends if we need it.