Kylee Feet

For Christmas my mother-in-law wanted me to take a picture of Kylee dancing on Jareds feet so Kylee could give it to her mom, Kathy. I thought that the picture turned out super cute. I love her little chubby feet. We decided that they should take a new picture every 5 years and then take one on her wedding day. Anyway, Kathy loved it and I thought it was such a cute idea.

Cutting Down the Tree

The first day that we got to Oregon we went out to cut down our Christmas tree. Darren's family was nice enough to wait for me to get there before they got their tree. We went to a Christmas tree farm and picked out the very best tree. It was pretty cold and rainy but it was still fun. There were so many trees and they all smelled so good! It is funny how the trees don't look very big until you cut them down and bring them inside. I took my turn trying to saw down the tree, but I could barely get the saw to budge. Who knew cutting down a tree was so hard? Anyway, it was a fun new experience and we got a beautiful tree.

Early Christmas

This Christmas we spent up in Oregon with Darren's family. Before we left, my mom mailed us our presents so we could open them at our house and not have to haul them home from Oregon. We skyped my family so they could watch us open our presents. It was a fun little night and we were excited that we got to open our presents before Christmas. My mom and dad made us our own set of chimes and a chimes song book that we were pretty excited about. We also got a Chipotle gift card to use in Oregon. We went there 3 days in a row! I love Chipotle. Darren got some new razor heads, and a new shower head for our shower. I got some facial stuff and a frosting thing that I had been wanting. My mom also sent a few presents for us to open in Oregon. One of the presents was all of our old family videos that had been put onto DVD's, edited and organized. It was seriously one of the best presents of my life. I am so glad that I can watch our old family videos now and I know that they will be able to be preserved. It was a great Christmas present!

Darren and I also exchanged gifts and he got me a Sea Glass book that I have been wanting and I got him some cologne. 

It's Christmas at the Smith House

We decorated for Christmas about two weeks ago. We actually had our tree up before Thanksgiving but we didn't decorate it until the Monday after. We both love Christmas and I love how homey our house feels with all of our Christmas decorations up. We won't be having Christmas in Rexburg this year but it is still fun to decorate and have our own tree. We are going to be spending this year in Oregon and we leave on the 15th. All we have to do is get through finals first!

We even put up a mistletoe! :)

Our Refinished Chair

We bought a chair quite a while ago at DI and we wanted to refinish it. It took us such a long time to do because there was so much sanding! Darren worked so hard and spent so much time on our tiny balcony sanding our chair. He also took off the big hunks of wood that were on the sides of the chair and on the bottom. I think the chair looks MUCH better now. I didn't really help with the sanding, even though I wanted to. The chair was just too stubborn and no matter how hard I pushed I couldn't sand any of it. Darren just must be really strong. My job was to work on the cushions. I took the old cushions apart and used them as a pattern to make the new pieces. I learned how to sew piping in the process and I think they turned out pretty good. Just don't come over and inspect them!

The actual chair was I think 25 dollars but I can't remember exactly. It was definitely near there. We also didn't spend much on fabric at all since we found this great place in Idaho Falls that sells upholstery fabric for cheap! Serioiusly cheap, I am talking as low as 3 dollars a yard, and it is on the wide bolt. Our fabric was 5 dollars a yard but that is not bad at all considering the upholstery fabric is 40 dollars a yard at Michaels and that is what we initially looked at. I was so glad we found the cheap fabric store or else it wouldn't have been worth it to refinish the chair. We could have just bought a new one if we had to spend a lot of money on fabric. 

Here is the before and after:

 We still haven't put the little things back in the holes on the left picture (I have no idea what they are called). We are working on sanding and staining all of the little plugs to put back in the holes, so don't mind the little holes in the picture.

Overall, we are very happy with the chair, and it is very comfy to sit in. Here is Darren relaxing from all of his hard work!

Darren's 25th Birthday

Darren turned 25 a few weeks ago! His birthday was on the same day as the election, so we were pretty depressed when Romney lost. I think I have mostly gotten over it, but it was very sad for a few days around here. Since we were too busy on his actual birthday watching the election coverage we decided to celebrate his birthday all week, we actually ended up celebrating it for two weeks. Me and Darren always say, "In this house..." and then we make a statement about what we believe in our house. So during his birthday we decided that in this house, we celebrate birthdays all week long. On his actual birthday, November 6, he opened a few presents and we got some barbeque from his favorite place around. It is actually a little restaraunt in a gas staion, so it is a little bit ghetto but those are the best places. Then, on the Friday after his birthday we went out to Applebees with a few friends, and with a giftcard that he got from his sister. After dinner, we came back to our house to have dessert. Darren requested "Darren's Delight" which is really called Cherry Delight, but has been nicknamed Darren's Delight in his family because he loves it so much. For Darren's birthday he also wanted to see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. We didn't go until last weekend because he asked for movie tickets for his birthday and they didn't get here in time to go during his birthday week. So this past Friday we went down to Idaho Falls and did some fun Christmas shopping, went out to dinner, and then went to see Skyfall. I have been known for not liking "boy" movies very much so I was not that excited to see the movie. I don't know what it is that I don't like about them. I mean I like boy movies like Adam Sandler movies, and I love shows like 24, but I guess I never really got into superheros and movies like that. However, I was really surprised that I loved the James Bond movie. We even watched another James Bond movie with our friends the next day. I know Darren is pretty happy that I like James Bond movies now.

Funny side note: I just found out that my great grandma used to love the James Bond theme songs. She   played the organ and after each new James Bond movie came out she would ask my aunt to go buy the sheet music for the theme song and then she would play it on the organ. I think it is so funny to picture a little old lady playing a James Bond theme song on the organ. I never met my great grandma but I was thinking of her while watching the movie.

Family History, I am Doing It

This semester I am taking a family history class. I took a family history class a few years ago in my ward, and since then I have really learned a lot more about doing family history work and I love it. I am obsessed actually. I always used to think people who were obsessed with family history were weird. But now I get how they felt about it. There is something so fulfilling and satisfying about finding your ancestors, learning about them and doing their temple work. I get so excited to see birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, and census records with my ancestors on them. There is just something so fascinating about learning who your ancestors were, what they did for a living and where they lived. It's addictive to me. A lot of people think that their family history work has all been done, but that is never true. There is always more work to be done. People also think that they don't have time to do family history and they will work on it when they are old and retired. That's not true. There will never be a time when you are not busy and you can always find an excuse to avoid doing family history work. Family history work is very time consuming, but it is one of the most worthwhile things that I can think of doing.

This past conference, Elder Scott gave a great talk about doing family history. He said, "Do you young people want a sure way to eliminate the influence of the adversary in your life? Immerse yourself in searching for your ancestors, prepare their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple, and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As you grow older, you will be able to participate in receiving the other ordinances as well. I can think of no greater protection from the influence of the adversary in your life."

I love how he said that he can not think of a greater protection from the adversary. That is amazing, really if you think about it. When people are having hard times they often turn to the scriptures, they might pray more or read uplifting books. All of those things are great, and we should do all of those things, but how about trying family history. When we are researching our ancestors we are more protected from the adversary's influence. I love that. I think that all of Elder Scott's talk was so great and I know the church is really pushing family history. A few weeks ago, we had a letter from the first presidency read over the pulpit. It was also about family history, and it was encouraging members to take their own family names to the temple, or to do ward members family names. There is such an emphasis placed on family history, yet no one in the church seems to heed the council to get started. In my family history class today, I learned that only 3 percent of each ward is working on family history. My teacher said family history is the most failed thing in the whole church, and I can really see why he said that.

There is so much people can be doing to work on their family history. One of the greatest services you can give is doing indexing. Indexing takes records from all over the world and transcribes them so people can find their ancestors more readily. No one gets anything out of indexing for themselves, but you are offering such a service to others.

I love the work of family history, and I have already learned so much from my ancestors. My ancestors have sacrificed so much to allow me to be where I am today. I am thankful for them, and I know that there are so many souls who are waiting for their temple work to be done. Doing family history work has made the spirit stronger in my life, I know that it is the Lord's work. I am also thankful for all of the knowledgeable volunteers and missionaries who are working in family history centers ready to help people with their family history.

So, in the words of Elder Scott, "This work is a spiritual work, a monumental effort of cooperation on both sides of the veil, where help is given in both directions. Anywhere you are in the world, with prayer, faith, determination, diligence, and some sacrifice, you can make a powerful contribution. Begin now. I promise you that the Lord will help you find a way. And it will make you feel wonderful."

Do your family history, and give the great service of indexing. It will change your life.

October

October flew by! Darren and I have been so busy with school and work and I haven't had much time for anything else! Okay, we have done a few things, but there has been no time for blogging! We went to the hay maze a few weeks ago with some friends and it was really scary! It took us about 45 minutes to get through and I screamed a whole lot! 3 years ago, Darren and I first held hands in the hay maze. I can't believe we have been together for over 3 years! We also carved pumpkins this month. Darren tried to carve a Mitt Romney pumpkin but it did not turn out so well, so we don't have an "after" picture. We ate quite a few pumpkin desserts this month, and on Halloween we made mummy pizzas, ate lots of candy and popcorn, and watched one of my favorite movies, Hocus Pocus. Holidays seem so boring now that we are married and lame. I guess they will become more exciting when we have kids. 

If your name is Amy Smith or Linda Smith, well actually any of the girl Smiths don't read anymore because your Christmas present is on here!!

Also, during the month of October we have been working on refinishing a chair. We are sort of obsessed with refinishing furniture and we want to buy so much furniture we see at DI we just have no room for it in our house. We have been really wanting a chair though, and we found the perfect one a few weeks ago. It is quite a large piece of furniture, but it rocks, literally it's a rocking chair, and I love it. Here is a picture of the before...

It's pretty ugly and it looks like it belongs in a hunting lodge. We have done SO much work on this chair, well Darren has done so much work, especially sanding! I have sewn one of the cushions, and I am working on the other one. We have stained it twice but we are going to give it one more coat. Because we don't have anywhere to stain it except a little balcony, we thought that we would stain it inside. We tried to put it in our extra room, but the chair is too wide and it could not fit down our narrow hallway, so we stained it in the kitchen. We thought we were going to die from the smell, and we were both getting really bad headaches so we slept with our sliding glass door open when it was snowing outside. We just kept the heater on in our room, and it was fine. It did take a day to reheat our whole house again but at least we didn't pass out from the fumes! It seems like we have been working on this project forever, but it is almost done!

Really, Amy or Linda don't read anymore!

Lastly, this month, I have been working on making hand stamped jewelry. I have been in love with hand stamped jewelry for a while. Darren bought me a necklace 2 years ago for my birthday and I love it. I decided that I could make it, and so I asked for an early Christmas present and my mom got me all of the supplies to make hand stamped jewelry. I wanted it as an early Christmas present so I could make Christmas presents for my family. I have really enjoyed doing it so far, and with a little practice I think I have gotten pretty good. Here are two of the pieces I made so far.

So, that is what we have been up to lately. We are also super into politics so you can find us listening to talk radio or watching the news. We have turned into our parents. Darren's birthday is November 6th, and guess what we will be doing? I hope Romney wins, it will be a good birthday present for Darren!

There's a Mouse in Our House!

So 2 nights ago I decided I wanted to work out. Darren and I were on the floor doing push ups and when Darren looked up all he said was "Oh. My. Gosh." I thought that he was going to be looking at a huge spider because that was a regular occurrence at our old house and that was his usual reaction. I immediately got tense at the prospect of a huge spider and hurried over to get on the couch. I kept asking "What? What? What do you see?" He finally said there was a mouse running across our kitchen. I could not believe it! A mouse?! So we sat on the couch for a while not knowing what to do and then Darren saw it again run back across the kitchen! We went to walmart and bought some mouse traps but so far there has been no action. It is the weirdest thing because there has been no evidence of a mouse getting into our food and I haven't seen any droppings. We think he just got lost on his way home and wandered through our apartment, and hopefully he is gone now :) It is weird to be so scared of a mouse because they are so small and kind of cute but it is just startling when they scurry around so fast. I don't want to kill him, so hopefully there are no more mouse sightings! We will see!

Alan's Visit

Alan came to visit us last weekend. It was fun to see him and he came bearing gifts. He brought us a beautiful end table and a beautiful orchid from Darren's parents. I love, love the orchid. It is so pretty I just hope I don't kill it! Kaitlin came over to hang out with us a few times and we ate lots of food and played some games. Overall, it was a fun weekend and when we came home from church and Alan was gone, there was a little something framed in our kitchen to remember him by.

A Real Man

Alan, Darren's brother, came to visit for the weekend and he brought an early birthday present for Darren from his parents. Darren has been wanting some power tools because he is sick of putting together furniture and hanging things with dinky screwdrivers. He now feels like he is a real man...and he has already put his new toy to work!

Our First Day of School

San Diego

It was so nice to go home for a few weeks and see my family and vacation! We did a lot of things but mostly we spent time around water. We went swimming a lot, and we went to the beach a lot. We went to the beach almost every day to either swim, hike or hunt for sea glass. I have a new obsession. I am OBSESSED with sea glass. When I close my eyes I see sea glass and at night I dream about finding a piece. Darren and I, with the help of my family found over 300 pieces of sea glass in just a couple of days of looking. I am sad I don't live near the ocean so I can look for it everyday. I guess that could end up being a good thing. Darren also tried surfing for his first time ever. He was actually pretty good! We also had a sand castle building contest, and buried Darren in the sand. We made him be the tourist! Besides going to the beach, we ate a lot of California burritos, bean burritos and Chipotle bowls. We also went rock climbing one day and we watched a lot of prison break with Gage.

I already miss San Diego and my family, but it's good to be back in Rexburg and I guess we even kind of missed it while we were gone!

Darren's New Found Hobby

Darren and I made a very unexpected trip to Rexburg this summer. We were just planning on going from Portland to San Diego and then staying in San Diego until school started. Things changed when we got a call from the apartment complex that we have been on the waiting list for. They said we could move in but we had to move in now or we would  be put back on the waiting list. We didn't want to risk being put on the waiting list again and so we made a trip to Rexburg to move out of our old apartment and into our new apartment. Darren's dad was really nice and came to help us move. We drove to Rexburg one day, moved out the next, then drove home the day after. It was a very quick trip and a ton of work, but I am glad we were able to get all moved, and I like our new apartment much better! Because we were driving back to Rexburg we thought it would be a good idea to look for furniture on craigslist. Rexburg doesn't have a very good selection of furniture around and I knew I wanted a sofa table so we bought one in Portland. We found this one for 20 bucks and it was the perfect size but it was ugly. We decided to refinish it and make it more our style. The furniture piece is solid oak and weighs a ton! It is nice to actually own a quality piece of furniture. Here is the before picture:

This is Darren and I right before we spent all night sanding. It literally took all night to get the old finish off. The table was very stubborn! After we got the table all sanded down, we gave it many, many coats of stain. Darren loved every minute of it! I loved it too, but I think I am just not as patient as Darren is. I think Darren has found a new hobby. He is now always looking around for things he can refinish.

Here is the after picture. Doing this project was so rewarding! We love this table and it is by far the most beautiful piece of furniture in our home! It took a lot of work but we had a lot of fun doing it, and hopefully we will hold onto this lovely piece for a long time!

The Rest of Our Oregon Trip

We did so many fun things while we were in Oregon. We went canoeing, rafting down the river, we went to mount hood and did the alpine slides, and we just hung out with family. It was a nice, long vacation! Here are some pictures of the fun things that we did.

Oh, there was also lots of sleeping! Haha I love these pictures:

My Birthday

My birthday was on a Sunday this year and I got to celebrate up in Oregon. After we went to church I got to open presents. I was spoiled by everyone but especially Darren! He got me all of the things that I wanted, not just 1 thing like I told him to get. I got two new pairs of shoes, some shirts, an applebees giftcard and a new scentsy. Oh, and my camera that I got a little bit early.  Darren and Alan's old first and second grade teacher, Mrs. Hightower, came over for dinner. It was fun to get to know her, she is a very sweet lady. It is cool how Darren's mom has kept in touch with her over the years. 

Overall it was a great day and I am finally 21! Even though this birthday doesn't really mean anything to me, like it does to other people, I actually feel older this year. I feel like now when I tell people my age it doesn't seem so young. I also feel like over this past year I have grown in so many ways and have changed a lot. I am grateful for the past year and what it has taught me. I am glad I got to spend my last year and my special day with Darren. He is so good to me!

Grandma Belva's Surprise Party!

Darren's family threw a huge surprise party for his Grandma's 78th birthday. They thought that to throw a surprise party for an 80th birthday would be too obvious so they decided on 78 instead. It was a whole weekend long extravaganza and lots of family came into town. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet more members of Darren's family. On Friday we had the initial surprise and we hung out and played games and ate dinner. We also watched a video of Grandma Belva's life through the years with all of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. The next day we had a family softball game and then we went back to Aunt Lisa's house for lunch and to hang out the rest of the day. Darren's cousin Jason had a slack line so we all tried slacklining and it was super hard! Jason also gave grandma clippers for her birthday present so she could cut his long hair because she hates it. The rest of the day we hung out, ate dinner, played lots of games and ended the night watching a movie outside with the projector. It was a very busy fun-filled weekend with lots of excitement! Here are some pictures...

Blackberry Picking

We have been very busy playing these last few days in Oregon. On Friday before we went to Darren's grandma's big surprise party we took Kylee blackberry picking. Blackberries grow like weeds here in Oregon, in fact they are weeds. We walked down to the end of his street and then up to an elementary school and just picked blackberries off of the random bushes. We got a lot of blackberries and Kylee really liked them! I would just pick off one of the little balls and she would roll it around on her tongue and laugh and laugh. It was really cute how much she liked them. I thought that her face would be stained but she drools too much so the stain just washed away. Anyway, she is really cute and it was fun picking and eating blackberries with her and Darren. 

Golf Tournament

Every year Darren's uncle hosts a golf tournament through his business. Darren got to play in it this year because we were here in Oregon. His team got 3rd place! Woot woot!

 I only got to see him golf for a little bit, but after everyone finished golfing there was a big barbecue lunch and of course there was lots of playing with the baby.

Darren and I got a new camera from his parents for part of his graduation present and my birthday present. So far I love it, and good thing Kylee is around so I can have a photography subject to practice on. 

Kylee

I love being in Oregon and getting to spend time with Darren's family, especially my sweet niece Kylee! She is such a precious little baby. She is always happy and always smiling and laughing. It is so much fun to be around her! I call her Smiley Kylee because she never stops smiling...I guess until you try and take a picture of her.

 Yesterday we went for a swim together. She really likes to swim, but she got a little bit cold so she didn't last very long.

 After Kylee bailed on swimming Jared and Darren had a contest to see who could do the most underwater flips in a row. Jared won. I don't know what he is doing in this picture...showing off his muscles? Or celebrating the win?

Road Trip

Alan, Darren's brother, took these pictures in the car when we were driving to Oregon. I just found them on my camera and thought they were pretty funny. This family is a hoot!

Brynn's Open House

The day after Darren's graduation Brynn and her new husband Trevor had an open house in Pocatello. Darren and I got to stop by on our way to Portland. I am so excited that I got to go to her open house because I wasn't able to go to her wedding and it made me so sad! Brynn was a beautiful bride, and there was plenty of yummy food! Brynn is one of my best friends and I miss seeing her so it was great to spend a few minutes with her.