Christmas!

We had an awesome Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with the Green side of the family and then Christmas day with the Hatch side. We are so incredibly lucky to have such fun families. I absolutely love being with all of our family. There's nothing better than being surrounded by people that love you and make you laugh.

On Christmas Eve the Green family festivities include:

Christmas stories. Aunt Mindy read one.

And Casey's dad read some more.

Then a game for the kids.

Finally we all changed into our jammies and got ready for Santa to come. Emersyn and Carly were too excited to go to bed!

Then on Christmas morning we all got up early to see what Santa dropped off for us.

Santa spoiled us this year!

In the late morning we headed to Provo to spend Christmas with the Hatches. To our delight Santa dropped off presents for us there too!

And Grandma got spoiled with the cutest grandkids, some of which aren't pictured.

Things I love Fridays – Super Skinny Serum

I used to work at a salon in the mall during my first year at BYU and while I didn’t love the job duties I did love all the free and cheap hair product that I got! I still have a collection of hair product that I got while working there. I tried almost all the popular professional brands of shampoo/conditioner/styling product and Super Skinny Serum was my favorite. It was by far the best selling product where I worked too.

Why I love it:

-Smoothes and Softens Hair. It has silicone in it that prevents frizz and makes hair shiny.

-Reduces Hair Drying Time. The silicone helps to protect hair from heat damage and it actually helps to dry hair faster too.

-You only need to use a tiny bit. A bottle lasts about a year or longer. You only need to use a dime-sized amount.

Carly Potter

This cupboard is Carly’s favorite place to play now.  I know that if I put a latch on the door I probably wouldn’t have to constantly clean up pasta off the floor, but the time she sits in there playing is precious time to me. I’d rather clean up pasta than toilet water.  Whatever works right? Plus I think she’s dang cute sitting in there.  She fits perfectly.

CTR 8

Al, Andrew, Matthew, Megan, and Oriana (Avery not pictured)

I had a Christmas party for my Primary class yesterday.  I used to have 10 kids in my class but just a couple months ago my class split.  I love these kids so much.  I will miss them tons when they move on to Valiant 9! 

Things I love Fridays - Jimmy Eat World

I’ve decided to start up a new weekly post called “Things I love Fridays.” I know that it doesn’t really have a great ring to it but I knew that I’d forget to blog if it was on another day.  It will include totally different things every week. 

This week is dedicated to my favorite band, Jimmy Eat World.  They are my absolute favorite.  I’ve loved them since I was given one of their CDs for my 16th birthday by one of my best guy-friends.  I’ve never gotten sick of listening to that CD. 

Here’s my favorite song of theirs. It’s called “For Me This is Heaven.” I couldn’t find the music video, so you get to listen to the song while staring at them!

1-year pictures

Thanksgiving

We had an incredible Thanksgiving.  It was so fun to have so much of Casey’s family with us.  Casey’s parents along with his brother, Tyson, and Tyson’s wife, Jami, flew in from Utah.  Then Casey’s sister Tearsa, her husband Ben, and kids Cole and Elise drove up from Des Moines. 

 

I was a little worried about hosting Thanksgiving because I had never cooked a turkey before, but after a chat with chef extraordinaire I gained confidence in my turkey-cooking abilities and pulled off an awesome feast.  I brined the turkey overnight.  I had never heard of brining turkeys before, but now I will never cook a turkey without brining it first.  It made it taste amazing.

Here’s Casey posing with the turkey brining in the bucket, and yes that is a belt around the bucket.

 

Just about ready to go in the oven!

We had a monumental Thanksgiving dinner, all the kiddos napped the entire time!

 

Carly got so exhausted at the end of each day after playing with her cousin Cole and chasing him around the house.  She loved to cuddle up to GG and fall asleep. 

Casey’s dad, aka The Deal Master, with all of his Wisconsin treasures:

We had an awesome time.  Thank you everyone for making the trek to visit us!

There’s Something about Carly

This morning Carly and I took the car to Scrub A Dub to get the oil changed. One of our Scrubbadubbers kept laughing at Carly and told me that Carly’s hair reminded him of a scene in “There’s Something About Mary.”

Yes, this scene…

Hmmm, maybe I should remember to do her hair before we go places? In my opinion, I’ve always thought that her hair looks like Turk’s more family friendly, naturally-styled hairdo.

My baby is ONE!

Last night Casey and I stayed up late and reminisced about the day Carly was born. I got emotional thinking about how much joy this little girl has brought into our lives. I love her so much!  She has the cutest personality already. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to get to spend everyday with Carly.  I honestly can’t believe how fast this past year has flown by.  Last year at this time we finally got to meet Carly.

It was so fun to have a day to celebrate Carly.  I could tell she knew something was different about today.  She woke up and couldn’t stop pointing at this banner that I made for her.

She saw her presents and after some coaxing from Casey and me she finally opened them.

Then tonight we had some friends over to celebrate.  I made a cake for Carly that was rainbow inside.  She didn’t know what to do with the cake and with all the people staring at her!

After a few seconds she went crazy eating chunks of cake.  She loved it! She still doesn’t have ANY teeth but she sure could get that cake down fast.

It was awful to clean up but I’m glad she had fun eating it! I made a bigger cake for the adults that was also rainbow inside. 

 

Thanks everyone for making it such a special day for Carly!  Also, I am so grateful to our amazing friends who have been like our family while we’ve been living here in Milwaukee.  I honestly get teary-eyed thinking about how much I love and appreciate our friends here.  They have been like Carly’s aunts and uncles this past year and they have taken such good care of us.  We love you guys!

Winter wear

I bought this sweater last winter at Old Navy for $5.  It was too good of a deal to pass up.  I have never worn it because the sleeves drive me crazy.  They are really wide and a weird length (I just grabbed it and bought it without trying it on).

So I decided to make it into a sweater dress for Carly using the tutorial here:

It was really easy to make.  It only took about an hour to do everything!  I cut the large sleeves off the original sweater and cut them up to fit Carly’s arms.  Then I cut the collar of the neck to make it smaller, and then sewed everything together.  This has been my favorite creation.  I love it!