Is Tash cooking again?

I have the greatest roommates in the world, Candace and Natasha. This blog is going to highlight Tash and one of our favorite things about her. Let's just say our fire alarm has gone off maybe 2 times, each of which occurred due to the master culinary skills of Tash. Don't get me wrong, she is not a horrible cook, she is really good in fact and always goes all out, she just always seems to turn on the one burner that has something left from the last time she cooked :) We love her for it! She's going to kill me for writing this too! Here is a picture of the last cooking/fire alarm experience:

Please note the completely redneck way of keeping the windows open to let the smoke out-she is from Alabama.

I am my Grandma's granddaughter. . . so my mother says!

My roommates think I'm crazy, probably everyone else too but I have a lot of fun decorating for holidays (which is the reason for the title of this blog). I don't really go all out but just little things. My good friend, Holli, makes 'flowers' for Valentine's Day that I have done every year since she showed me. The flowers are made with one cinnamon, sugar coated heart on the bottom, a Mother's Butter Cookie in the middle, and a cherry gummy heart on top. So here it is:

We'll see how long it lasts on the table!

*If you decide you want to make these let me know. Mother's Cookies have gone out of business but I have 2 more boxes if anyone wants some! There's just nothing else I've found that works as well.

Tis the season. . . to get engaged?

I'm not sure if I was just completely out of the loop last year and didn't notice or what is going on this year but every time I turn around I hear about a new engagement. I guess when the Holidays come around you either break up with your significant other so you don't have to worry about a gift or decide it's time to take the next step. So to those of you who made it through the holidays-congrats! The only month without a wedding until June is April so let me know if I'm missing someone :)

The Update of a Lifetime!

Some may have noticed the status "updated 7 months ago" relating to my blog-who has time to update it more than once every 7 months anyway??? So, you're in for a surprise because I am now sitting down to update you on some of the major events from the last 7 months-or at least the ones I can remember and may have pictures of :)

The Findlay Family Christmas Party

Just wanted to show a couple fun pictures of our annual Findlay Family Christmas Party. As you can tell by my uncle, it must have been a party:
This was the best part of the party-we noticed my cousin Nathan's little boy, Jackson, start twirling in the middle of everyone as we started cleaning up. I had to shorten it because it went on for so long but I started taking the video a little after he started:

I'm pretty sure just watching the video made me dizzy! The original video went on for over 4 minutes before my camera ran out of memory. Not sure why my mom was vacuuming-should have wound him up with tape and let him have at it!

Redneck Gingerbread House

Maybe you've seen the email floating around with redneck pictures on it. For some reason I think my Mom thinks I'm a little redneck-I guess spending 3 years in Cedar City could do that to a person. One picture I always loved-the Redneck Gingerbread House! When I got set up through a lady at work on a date where we were going to make gingerbread houses, I thought it would be the perfect chance to try it out-and show my date who I really was ;)! He was pretty excited to do it too so it was a joint effort:

Christmas Tree Hunting

We thought it would be way fun as roommates to go cut down our own Christmas tree for our house. We'd heard a lot of people going up to Preston and getting permits so we planned to do it the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Like most plans, they fell through and with Tasha leaving to Salt Lake for the Thanksgiving Break, Candace and I decided to just get it done.

We both got off work early the Friday after Thanksgiving so we borrowed my Dad's truck and headed north. After picking up a permit in Preston we headed for the hills. Spotting the perfect tree on the horizon we began our hike. After being chased by a moose, crossing two rivers, and nearly catching frost bite we arrived at our tree-which ended up being 15 feet tall-oops! Well I hope you didn't believe that story but I needed something good to tell. We actually ended up buying a tree at King's in Preston-lame we know. We did end up using the saw to cut off the end but that's all we can claim to our tree cutting adventure.

Not a bad tree for picking it out while it was wrapped up!

It was almost a little bit too full but it looked great in our front window, what else matters?