Our Christmas (Out of Order...)

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas. It was a great Christmas, and I am such a little kid when it comes to Christmas! We had some of my family come up and stay with us Christmas Eve, and then we went over to Derek's Family for dinner, all of us. It was wonderful! The first two pictures are from us hanging out before hand.

It was fun having some little kids for Christmas, I forgot how cute it was. But we had to get up earlier Christmas morning than we usually do. My husband does not like to wake up early...

those two little dollies in front of the tree Bekah made in like one day for Kristen and Baili. They turned out so cute!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, yesterday was my 30th birthday. All year I have been a little bummed about turning 30, but now that I am (and can't avoid it anymore!) I think I'm ok with it. It also helped that it was a great day for me.

I had so many well wishes from friends and family all day long, that it really made me feel good. some of my sisters made a special post about me in their blogs and said such nice things, I feel so grateful for my wonderful family.

Here a a few highlights on my day and I did.

This is the present Derek got me. I actually opened it Chistmas evening because he was to excited to give it to me to wait for my actual birthday. Many of you have heard me mention my favorite bath and body store: Lush Cosmetics (lush.com) Well, he got me the motherload! They have different gift packages, and this is the biggest with the most variety in it. Many of the items I have never even used before. I was so excited about it!

Here is the cute husband making me a cake. He likes to make the double round cake to show off his culinary skills. I chose funfetti this time.

Another gift from Derek. He "claimed" that the florist at Safeway just gave it to him because she heard it was my birthday! Funny guy. After he finished the cake we went out on a date. We went to a nice place to eat, then hung out at Barnes and Noble until it was time to see our movie, "Marley and Me." I have read the book and I would recommend it to all of you to read. It is well written, and I thought they did a perfect job adapting the movie. It was just as I pictured it. I really enjoyed it but, maybe bring a tissue.

On they way to the mall we saw this bus. Who do you think rides in this bus?

Well, now I am embarking in my 30's. Someone at work said, "thirty, flirty, and thriving" Well, here I come!

Thanks again to all of my wonderful friends and family for thinking of me!

I delivered a baby!

Last night something pretty awesome happened: I delivered a baby by myself. Now, many of my coworkers have delivered a baby before, it occurs often in the job of a labor and delivery nurse but in my three years it hadn't happened yet... until last night. I like to think that I'm pretty good at getting the doctor there in time. An hour before the patient delivered I called the provider to let them know the patient was ready to start pushing. Then 30 minutes later to see if they were on their way because she was doing so well. Then, just as we were going to wait until we saw the provider because it was close...the patient got sick and started throwing up. Well, that did it, and I barely got gloves on in time, and delivered a healthy baby girl all by myself, with two of my wonderful coworkers that came just in time to help after she was born. It was so smooth, and I did things automatically like I had done it before (I guess all the times my eyes saw it transferred it to a physical memory). It was such a rush, and I couldn't stop grinning afterwards.
One of the midwives is always hinting and nudging me to go back to school to become a Certified Nurse Midwife, and though I have been hesitant to go that direction, this was an experience that has gotten me thinking...maybe someday.

As a ps on the weather it is suppose to snow another 4-8 inches both Sunday and Monday. And on top of that it is still FREEZING!!!! The "high" today is 3. I think a White Christmas is in the bag....

Snow Day!

Well, I'm sure many of you have heard that Spokane has received some snow....yeah, try two feet! The roads are terrible, because there is the deep layer of snow, and underneath it is a sheet of solid ice. But, it is really pretty to look at. We both had the day off, so we took some pictures. We got one we both liked to make into a card, that hopefully we'll get out sometime in the next few weeks.

My mom gave me this hat a few years ago, and it makes me laugh.

It comes to just above my knees!

When Derek fell back the snow caved in on him. You can see how it is still several inches above him when he is lying flat.

Some kids came over and started throwing snow at him while he was lying there. Derek retaliated. I think he got the last word...

Spouses and Christmas Trees

I was cleaning out my purse today and found a newspaper clipping that I meant to quote with the last post about getting our Christmas tree. I thought it funny, so here it is (This is quoted from "The Slice" section of the Spokesman Review):

"A slice reader noted the similarity between Christmas trees and spouses.
'Both look incredibly good when you first see them and it isn't until you make a commitment (both financially and emotionally) and get them home that you begin to notice the flaws. the only thing you can do is try to turn the bad side toward the wall.'"

Haha, I thought it was cute. Hope you enjoyed it too!

Catch-Up

All right everyone, here are some pictures, that don't really go together, but different things we've done in the last few months. I took the pictures, intending to blog about it before, but hadn't gotten to it. Well, now I am!

Here are a few pictures from the fall when we made caramel apples. When we go to Seattle we stop a chocolate store that makes these incredible caramel apples with all kinds of gooey, yummy extra layers and here is us trying to duplicate a few of them. They turned out really good, but don't look as pretty as the ones we buy!

We learned by trial and error that the caramel is really, really thick and sticky and even though we had wax paper down it stuck to it like crazy so we had to pick it off. Very tedious work! And we'll make our caramel next time. This time we reheated the little caramels.

My husband is better at putting up with me taking his picture for the blog's sake.

Our finished products: all have a caramel layer, then some have were dipped in oreos, some half white/half dark chocolate, white chocolate and toffee, and then just chocolate.

Next of our activities has to do with a Men's Health Magazine subscription. Derek has recently taken a subscription to it, and I like it because he sees recipes like this:

and wants to make them. This is just one of the many recipes he has cooked for me since reading that magazine. All of them are pretty healthy, and very good. some other meals were fish tacos (actually they were really good!), and some shrimp stir-fry. This meal was called the Big Kahuna burger. The recipe is here: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=guy.wisdom&category=mh.weekend&conitem=e18ab3b874664110VgnVCM20000012281eac____

This last weekend we went out to get a Christmas Tree. I love December because of Christmas and family time. I admit that I am like a little kid when it comes to Christmas morning. I love getting together with the family and all the many things to do leading up to it. I love especially the wonder of the Savior coming to earth in all the humility of a newborn baby, born in a manger. It is a special, wonderful time. And it also happens to be the month of my birthday. So, anyway back to our Christmas tree shopping. We went to Greenbluff, to a tree farm. there wasn't a lot of selection, but we found one that worked for us. It still needs to be decorated, but I'm hoping we'll do that tonight, and i'll post some pictures when we do.



We dont' have any snow yet. It was a beautifully sunny, but cold day.



this was facing the sun. I had my eyes closed until just before we took the picture and I could barely keep them open for that few seconds. Too bad the shadow is in the way...
As you can see these trees aren't quite ready yet. They need a few years yet.

Found one! It is tall enough, but just barely... I supervised.

A few days ago I came out of the gym and everything had a pinkish look to it. I thought about that phrase, "...through rose-colored glasses..." I hurried to grab my camera. No special effects, this is really what the sky and everything looked like!

Stay Tuned...

I have a whole bunch of pictures that I plan to post and update you all on the Wood Household. So don't give up on me yet, and stay tuned...