Pre-Christmas Partying

In case you didn't know, I LOVE the whole Christmas season. I love the sights, sounds, spirit and festivities. Sammy and I were fortunate enough to take part in a lot of pre-Christmas activities that helped us get into the holiday spirit.

If you live in Utah, visiting Temple Square for the Christmas lights is a must each December. We headed up to Salt Lake with our good friends Whitney and Scotty. We had a fun stop at The Pie for some yummy pizza then had a great time wandering around ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the lights.

Another highlight was hosting the Cheetah Christmas Party. Each year we draw names for a gift exchange and gather for a jolly time together. All the ladies came, brought food to share and had fabulous time.

Another weekend Sam and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert with David Archuleta. We brought along Sam's grandma, Kenna Faye, and all three of us loved the evening! The choir was great and David Archuleta was outstanding! We even grabbed a little hot chocolate after the show which is always a must with Christmas activities.

Lastly, Sam and I decided to break up our drive down to AZ and stopped for a night in Las Vegas. We spent a little bit of time wandering around the strip; I loved the Christmas decor in the Bellagio.

We made it safely to AZ. We have loved seeing our families and celebrating Christ's birth. More posts to come (and since Santa Sam bought me a new camera for the holiday the new pics will be much better quality!).

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December means Christmas is near!!!!!! Sam and I bought a temporary addition to the fam for the remainder of the month and I love him so much. We got a Christmas tree! It is a real Noble Fir (Sam was adamant about getting real tree so he can smell it). I had so much fun decorating it while jamming out to my favorite Christmas tunes. I always loved decorating the tree growing up and one of my favorite things at home during Christmas is my mom's grand tree! It's large and in charge and oh so beautiful. I think our guy is pretty special too though.

Oh, we woke up to this last week.....

Yes, it's cold. But Christmas is so soon and we get to go home and I cannot wait. I've already been thinking about everything I want to do like smother my nieces and nephews with hugs and kisses, eat Guedos, shop H&M, enjoy warmer weather, laugh with our fams, see how happy Sammy will be when he can eat Native New Yorker....I can make an extremely long list, but I'll stop now. I think my coworkers might already be tired of me jabbering about how great Christmas will be and how I love this season and how I can't wait to go home and how Christmas music makes me so happy and how excited I was to get a tree...

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR! :)

Playing Mom and Dad

Last week Sam and I got a weekend's worth of practice parenting. Sam's cousin Lauren and her husband Casey took off to San Diego for the weekend so Sam and I took over as Mom and Dad for their two boys, Dax and Madden. We watched movies, played games, baked a cake, played with toys, ate ice cream, wandered through Petco, ate pizza and read books. We had tons of fun, but by Sunday afternoon we were exhausted!

We hit up Dairy Queen for some ice cream. Dax wanted "white ice cream with sprinkles". I think we ordered something a little too big because when he saw his cone he exclaimed, "Oooohhh!!!! Oh my!" haha. Yes, he ate it all.

Annnd Sunday morning we woke up to this...
Yesterday there was a major blizzard warning. All schools/colleges were closed and I was sent home from work early to make it safely back home. Good news is, all Provo got was little flurries. Bad news, this morning on my drive to work it was 10 degrees. Tomorrow temperatures are expected to climb up to 15! This Thanksgiving I will be thankful for heaters and the days we have warm weather (among other things of course!)

Have a happy turkey day everyone!

Birthweek

Yes, I love celebrating not only my birthday, but my birthweek.... which so happens to be the week after Sammy's birthday (our bdays are actually only 4 days apart), so it's just an all around, fun celebration time.

Last Monday I was sooo excited to get to see my cousin Shauna and her little fam! She lives in Colorado and they were in town so of course a meet-up was mandatory. Her darling girl, Bradli, was not wanting to be a part of our pictures below, but at least I still got Shauna and Brooke.

Wednesday was my actual birthday. Sammy did a homemade version of Kneaders french toast (better than actual Kneaders - can you believe that?!) in the morning. It was so yum. I had a full work day and even had a work dinner that night - but it was at the fabulous Sundance and I knew I'd get to celebrate more over the weekend, so I didn't mind too much. On Saturday, Sam and I spent a little time at the mall (thank you Nordstrom half-yearly sale for falling on my bday weekend!) My cousin and his wife, Brooke, (pictured above) met up with us for dinner. We love getting to hang out with them; I took a picture of the cute couple at dinner, but found today that it was no longer on my camera. I think someone is guilty of being a little sneak and deleting it... (Matt?!!) Oh well, here's the new 23 year olds....
Sam was a total babe and decided that he needed to bake me a birthday cake. I assured him this was unnecessary, however he pulled out all the cookbooks and decided he was going to bake a carrot cake (this was his first time baking a cake, that wasn't from box) And bake he did. All from scratch. And it was so yummy!
After dinner we had friends over for more celebration. Cheetah pic was necessary, of course.
I love birthdays. Now that mine is over, I'm already on the countdown for Christmas. I can't believe it's right around the corner, annnnd Christmas is definitely a month long celebration! :)

PS. Is it sad most of my bday explanation includes food? Ah.

Birthdays, BYU, and Boo-day

Birthday #1: If you read my previous posts, you know that October 21st was my BFFs birthday. I was able to gather some of my girlies and make a cake delivery to Maeg on her birthday...

BYU: The following day Sam and I got to go to the BYU game (thanks for the tickets Papa and Grandma!) Even though I'm an old alumni now, I still love going to the games. Cougars won so all was well!
BOO-DAY: Halloween is a HUGE deal at my office, like HUGE. Every department has to decorate their work area and it is mandatory to dress up. The entire day is spent eating food, playing wii games, costume parading and having everyone's kids come through the office to trick-or-treat. Here is witch Allison with BP Oil worker Heather and Princess Jasmine (her real name is Jasmine so the costume was quite appropriate). I love my work girlies.
Everyone goes all-out for costumes. I can't even begin to describe how creative and hilarious all the costumes were, but I thought I'd share this one with you...
On Saturday, Sammy and I hosted a Halloween party and it was so fun! We had a few couples over and served chili with bread bowls...

Sara's (aka Gilly from SNL) husband came later because he had work.

We served up a little witch's brew (homemade rootbeer)

And we had everyone make their own caramel apples. These turned out so yummy with all the different toppings! (I'm still eating caramel apples and it's becoming a problem) This adorable pair of cheetahs got right to work with the apples...

I was a Ute fan and Sammy was a Zoobie (he was really proud of the braided belt he found). Just a little bit of reverse rivalry.
Giant's pitcher, Brian Wilson, and a hot tiger were in attendance as well.
And the night would not have been complete without Tink and Peter.
Birthday #2: Annnd of course since it was this man's special day we sang to the birthday boy with candles on his requested pie. Sam was against having a party for him, but a Halloween party was OK. :)
With the costumes, food, games, fun, friends and so much laughter I think it was a successful night! Thanks friends for partying with us!

One Year Older and Wiser Too

Happy Birthday to You! (Sammy that is).

Yes, Samuel Brett Nielsen is 23 years old today. When we met, we were just little babes at 18 years old! I remember making Sam a birthday card and buying a Pez candy thing for him on my way to see him in American Heritage class on his 19th birthday. (He loves Pez...I learned this year that his Pez love is inspired from Seinfield - another thing he loves) I had no clue at that point in my life that my American Heritage buddy would later become the love of my life. Maybe I should've sensed the foreshadowing since the only class I ever got a C- in was the only class I ever had with Sammy. That class was really hard, but I may have also been a little distracted by my cute friend who would always save me a seat and doodle funny pictures or notes in my notebook. Good news is, I still graduated college just fine and I still get to flirt with that cute boy. Isn't he so handsome?

I am so grateful for Mr. Nielsen. He always makes me laugh, plans fun activities for us, cooks for me, sings musicals to me (really!), motivates me and makes me feel loved. Sam is a wonderful husband and I know he will be a great father (when the time comes. No, I am not announcing anything...) He is always mindful of others and willing to serve. I don't think anyone who has ever met Sam could find a reason to not like him (unless you were on his opposing football team).

I am so happy to know this man will be mine for all eternity! I can't wait to see the things he'll do to make me laugh when we're 80! I LOVE YOU SAMUEL!

Happy Birthday Sister Olsen

Last year I published the post below in honor of Maegan's birthday when she was still serving her mission. Now that she is back, I decided to post again so she can see it :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY BFF! And yes, I will be seeing her on her birthday this year....

If you know me, you know my best friend Maegan. At least that's how it has been since the 3rd grade. Today is her birthday and I won't be seeing her because she is currently serving as a missionary at the Salt Lake City, Temple Square Mission. Last April, I stalked and found her in between the 2 sessions of General Conference. Check out this hot missionary...

Our birthdays are two weeks apart. Early in our friendship we figured this equation: Her birthday week + 2 weeks between + my birthday week = 1 month of blissful birthdayness This season has always been our favorite time of the year.

Let me tell you a few things about this friend of mine.

The first week of third grade I was sitting in class when the pretty blond girl saw my CTR ring and said, "Are you Mormon?" I replied, "Yes."
"Hey me too! And look, I have the same CTR ring!"
Best friends ever since.

In junior high and high school people would joke that we were pretty much the same person. It was known that MaeganandAllison were always together always doing the same thing. We didn't mind, we liked it that way.

Maegan is the best best friend anyone could ever ask for. She's always got my back. We have that best friend bond where if one starts crying, the other starts crying. And we can understand each other without even saying much.

Maeg and I love doing anything together. One of the biggest blessings was coming up to BYU with her. I was scared out of my mind to leave my home and high school friends, but with Maeggers by my side I knew all would be well. And yes, we even moved to Hawaii for a summer and jumped out of an airplane together.

We both love a good outfit, even if it's 80s inspired. We are each others main fashion consultants and love to dress up, no matter the occasion.

Put us together anywhere and we'll have a good time. Maegan's enthusiastic hysterical compassionate loving trustworthy and spiritual personality is one I will never get bored of.

Maeg was present the first night I met my husband. Ok, she is still an amazing best friend regardless of this fact, but I just love that I can say that.

Maegan has helped me be the person I am today. I have always counted her as one of the biggest blessings in my life. Most of our major goals in life we share and we have always kept each other in line along the way. She is so solid and I have needed her all 14 years that I've known her. I have missed her a whole lot while she's been serving her mission (especially at my wedding) but I couldn't be more proud of her. She's a real gem.

Happy Birthday Maego!