Happy New Year!!

Hey everyone, just stopping in real quick to wish you all a super happy new year!! Hope you enjoy however it is you will be spending it! We are going to our friend Devan and Kelly's. (Really good friends from when Travis was growing up). We usually hang out with them and a few other couples. Last year we played pictionary and poker and ate yummy snacks!! It should be fun! It will definitely be nice to have tomorrow off!! Still trying to think of some new years resolutions!! I will try and take lots of pictures tonight so I can post them!!

Crap! I still need to post stuff about Christmas! I have been slacking because I took lots of pics and I dont have them with me to add to the post! I promise I will get them posted soon :) It was good times!!

Once again, have a FANTASTIC new year and be safe!!

P.S. So, I think today I am just being SUPER picky! I'm not sure what the deal is, lol. I do know that I looked through a million blog templates on http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/ but I didnt find ANY that I really liked! I guess this one will have to do for now. (Travis would just laugh at me if he knew I had a hard time picking one. He is fine with the plain color ones, or even..better yet...the default ones, lol) Anyway, if you happen to come to a site that has come pretty cute ones, you should definitely send it my way so I can look through some more!

THEY DID IT!!

This weekend was a very important one when it comes to football!! The Minnesota Vikings needed a win against the Giants -OR- the Bears needed to lose against the Texans. Well, guess what happened?? BOTH OF THEM!! The Vikings score was 20-19! Longwell kicked a field goal during the last couple of seconds for the win by ONE POINT! By the time he was kicking the field goal, we already knew the Bears had lost, which meant...the Vikings CLINCHED THE DIVISION and we are in the playoffs!!! How nice was it though to end with a win against the Giants? So freakin nice! Our poor neighbors, I am sure they hear us every Sunday! The vikings have not won their division since 2000. It has been 8 years!! It's about time! We play the Eagles next week at the dome. First game of the playoffs :) Here we come!!

P.S. A LOT of people ask Trav and I if we liked different teams when we met and the answer is no! As crazy as it seems, we were both die hard vikings fans when we met. It couldn't have worked out any better! ;)

I am going to post pictures because well...it is a pretty big moment for us :)

Haha after Longwell kicked the field goal to win the game!

Ryan Longwell!

Peterson running in for a touchdown!

Tarvaras Jackson, our QB. I hesitate to even post this picture because of what happened during the beginning of the season, but he has come back and been a huge asset!

Taylor doing what he does best!!

Our boys!!

PS...Christmas pictures soon to come!!

A little piece of Grandma.

Everyone needs a happy/sad/teary post on their blog, right? Well, here is mine.

Growing up I have so many memories with Grandma and Grandpa Smith. I remember when Kassi and I would sit on their TINY coffee table while Grandma and Grandpa would feed us fruit cocktail...delicious fruit cocktail. They would tell us, once we got older that we looked like little birds with our mouths constantly wide open, waiting for our bite of fruit cocktail.

I remember the MANY times we went on rides. We would load everything up in the little white toyota, Grandma and Grandpa in the front, me and Kassi in the back where the cab was. It was all carpeted and comfy and Grandma and Grandpa would always pack it real nice with lots of blankets and pillows and games to keep us occupied and yummy snacks of course! I remember we would play "I Spy" Yes. I Spy, in the back of a truck just big enough for us and a few bags of fun stuff. Believe me, there was plenty of things to "Spy" :) We would go aaalllll over in the mountains. Different mountains, different parts of Utah, we would drive around and stop here and there to fish, look at beautiful trees/waterfalls/and sometimes when we got lucky, animals!! My personal favorite spot was Lambs Canyon! I would always request to go there!! I am so thankful to have grown up taking part in these adventures and I can thank my Grandparents 100% for passing them down to me. Now, this is a HUGE part of what we do. We absolutely LOVE to fish, LOVE to camp, LOVE to explore. Thank you guys so, so much for starting me with this and teaching me so many things about the outdoors, and FISHING!

I remember after taking our little rides up into the mountains, when we pulled back into Grandma and Grandpa's house, Kass and I would pretend we were sleeping just so Grandma and Grandpa would carry us in the house.

**Story I should/shouldn't share about one of our trips**
It's one of those stories you tell when someone asks you "What is the grossest thing you have ever eaten?" Everyone has one of those stories, right? So, mine was on one of our trips to the mountains. We were at Lambs Canyon :) Grandpa took us on a mini hike and I kinda wondered off just a little bit. I remember going up to my Grandpa and saying "GA PA, look!!! It's WHOPPERS!! :) Next memory is him saying NO! CA CA!! and slapping said "Whoppers" out of my hand. Turns out it was moose poop!! I tell this story because I can always think that I never ate any, right? I mean what little girl would find whoppers and actually try one? None that I know of :)

I remember always picking on my little sister and Grandma saying that one day she will grow up and get me back. haha.

I remember the talks with Grandma. She is/was one of my all time favorite people to go to for advice. She always knew just what to say. She could make anyone feel better.

I remember Grandma always telling me how proud of me she was because of my personality. She said I always thought about everyone else and I could sense people's feelings and I always cared so much. One time she told me I was intuitive. I didnt want her to think that I didnt know what it meant so I hurried and wrote it down and looked it up in the dictionary as soon as we got off the phone. I'm sure I pretended like I knew what she meant. I wish I could remember that part of the conversation. I bet it was pretty funny.

Grandma was such a fantastic cook. Every year for our birthday's she would make us a "birthday dinner" of our choice. Anything we wanted. There was one exception. She wouldn't make enchiladas. She said she didn't know how and wanted it to be a really good birthday dinner. I kept asking, year after year for about 4 years it seemed like, lol. (Poor Grandma) FINALLY, Grandma gave in. She said she would attempt to cook them. We show up for dinner and it smells DELICIOUS!! She takes it out of the oven when we get there and we start to eat. They turned out perfect! So, so yummy!! Her trick? Apparently she had called La Puente prior to us showing up and informed them that she needed a pretty large order of enchiladas...she went and picked them up and brought them home and put them in her own pan...so clever! haha...she admitted it at the end of the night because I told her I wanted those for every other birthday dinner!!

I remember Grandma being one of the biggest Vikings fan ever. She loved football. She wrote down EVERY single game and wrote the scores at the end of the day. I felt so grown up when she let me read the scores to her so she could record them. She trusted that I would read the right scores and I loved it so much. Again, this is something that is now a huge part of my life. We absolutely love football and keep up with all of the games/scores.

There are so many other memories that I am so thankful for :)

My Grandma knew that her time with us was close to coming to an end and she would talk to us about it. At the time I was young and scared. I didnt want to believe her. I didn't want to think of the day when she would leave me. And so I didnt. I prayed and prayed that it wouldnt happen. But it did. It happened right before my graduation. I got the call at school, I was a Senior in Oakley High at that time (In Idaho) and left right away to come to Utah to see my Grandma one last time. It was really, really hard. It still is really, really hard.

Tonight we went to Grandpa's house to visit and get some Christmas stuff he said he and mostly my Grandma wanted me to have. There was a box full of memories. I hurried home and set everything up at my place. I am so excited to have this part of my Grandma here with me, especially during this season and once again, I feel so trusted and so grown up to have these things here with me, in my home. It seems like it was yesterday that Grandma had them in hers. They are all beautiful and I will always and forever remember the little memories that comes along with each and every decoration. If you would like to share these memories, here are the pictures.


My Grandpa told me tonight that Grandma bought 3 of these angels. One for me, one for my sister, Kassi, and one for my mom.

Her wings close over her, or you can keep them open! Isn't she beautiful?

This is so awesome to me. Look at all of my other angels that I had previously bought. She just matches so perfectly :) Good choice Grandma!

I LOVE this Nativity scene in the globe. I remember when Grandma would put this out around Christmas time. We weren't allowed to shake this one. I just love it. P.S. I shook this one tonight...shhh...don't tell ;) I just had to do it! I've always wanted to! It also plays Christmas music, isn't that so awesome?

So pretty!

This little ornament is so great! It is a nativity scene carved in wood! Love it!

This is the one that got me tonight. This is the globe we were allowed to shake with Grandma's help. It is/was Santa and a little boy. It is very old. One of the first decorations I remember my Grandma putting out. One year the little boy became unmounted, lol. My Grandma wanted to just get rid of the globe because it was broken, for some reason I did not want her to get rid of it! I begged her to keep it out. It is/was my favorite globe. Now, I know the reason. It is so, so special to me. Broken boy and all :)

It's snowing!



I am obsessed with candles. Everyone who has been to our house can pretty much tell. Funny that my Grandma/Grandpa picked this Santa candle out for me before knowing this.

This is another one that got me. This is another one of my favorites. If you turn the angel around in a circle, it is a musical box and it sings a Christmas song. We were never allowed to touch this one because of the type of glass it is. (It's the type that finger oils REALLY show up on) Grandma would always turn this one and show us. Now, it is in my house. It is so weird for me to imagine having grown up so much that Grandma's decorations are in our home. So special.

We all love and miss you so much Grandma. Merry Christmas! :)
This was a very long, but necessary blog. I needed to do it. Thanks for reading!

It's almost Christmas!!

As I've said before,

I. Love. This. Time. Of. The. Year.

Everyone is just so kind and thoughtful. For the most part. There are some exceptions when you have shoppers who procrastinate and shop at the last minute and think that they are going to be the only ones in the store shopping and therefore are irritated when they find out that 90% of the population is doing the same thing. I am not an irritated shopper, but I see a lot of unchristmassy things happen with said shoppers.

Anyway, other than those shoppers, everyone is so kind during this season. Now I have a story to prove that point! So, Trav and I are driving home from my grandma's house the other night and we were talking about renting a movie from Redbox. So, we go to Redbox, pick our our movie (Fred Clause, which was fantastic btw) and run the debit card. We have had this debit card for a long time and it is time to order a new one but the last time we ordered a new one, it took about 2 months total to get it finally, so it's not just a simple process. This current card will work every once in awhile but sometimes it just doesnt work at all. Well, this was one of the times where it wasn't going to work at all. I feel so bad thinking about it but there was a lady who pulled up and got in line behind us, patiently waiting to rent her movie and neither of us turned around and apologized for how long we were taking because we just kept trying to run the card over and over, because unfortunately, that is the only thing that makes it work. After we had been standing there for about 10-15 minutes trying to run the card, and freeeezing! We decided to just forget renting the movie and let the lady behind us get her movie. We both went back to the car and I remembered that we had a rebate card that still had $1 or $2 on it so we decided to give that a shot as soon as the lady had picked her movie and left. So, we waited in the car. While we were waiting, she walked over to us with a movie in her hand...Travis rolls down the window and she says "Here you go. I just rented it for you guys. I could tell you were having some troubles with your card or something." What a NICE thing to do. She rented it for us, on her card. Not knowing us....never even seen us before, yet, she rents the movie for us just because she could tell we were having problems. Thank you so much lady, you are so awesome. Put me in the holiday time spirit that much more! Next time I promise I will turn around and apologize because after she did that, we both felt worse for not doing so the first time! The world needs more people like that!

Other than that, it is so fun to get family together that you don't normally see very often. I love, love, love decorating for the season! I love that even though it is close to Christmas time, you can go into Robert's or Michaels and all of their Christmas decorations are 50-75% off instead of being super high priced because of the demand. I love the snow and how it makes everything look so pretty! I love the crazyness of Christmas day, going to 3 or 4 different dinners, trying to squeeze them all in but still enjoying every minute with everyone! It is just so much fun this time of year!

We put our tree up this weekend and I took a few pictures! Enjoy :)

I think we are going to go look for a bigger/better star. This is the one we had last year. It just looks so tiny compared to the tree, lol.

New tree skirt! $10 at Roberts :)


Part of the villiage, btw...it is extremely hard to do a village on the tree skirt that already has decorations!! (It is something I will continue to do though, passed down from my Grandparents) any ideas?

Our tree!

And again!

Close-up of part of the village

The other side of the village

I know, I know...Thanksgiving comes first...

...but how am I supposed to NOT think of Christmas when I am doing stuff like this?!

I made these little message cards today for "candy cane grams" I will try and post a pic of a finished one once we get the candy canes! I hope they turn out cute!

Just another busy day at work! :)

All about Trav

I stole this...or was tagged I guess, from Laura!

My best friend!

hahahahaha....good times at the Planetarium! (Trav is on the left)

What is his name? Travis Jay Smith

How long have you been together? We have been together for 3.5 years now! However, we have known each other for 11.

How old is he? 22

Who eats more? It's probably about the same...

Who said 'I love you' first'? Aww...him. :) It's one of those stories that you see all of the time in movies...Talking on the phone, or face to face...guy mumbles I love you, girl hears him but still says "what" to make him say it again...haha, yeah. I was that girl :)

How tall is he? Uhm...probably about 5' 7"...is that how you write it? lol it looks weird to me.

Who can sing better? Depends on who you are asking the question to. We are both very competetive so we would both probably say ourselves, lol. I am going to say him though. He will openly sing...like when we are playing Rockband. I won't.

Who is smarter? It depends on what kind of smart. I am better with the computer and that kind of stuff. He is TONS better with History, and Science, and sometimes common sense stuff, lol. He watches the science channel, animal planet, history channel, and all of them religiously though!!

Does he do the laundry? We both do the laundry, thank goodness :) The only thing he will not touch are the towels. I am pretty picky about how towels are folded so he leaves that for me.

Who pays the bills? Me. He will remind me, but I do all the budgeting and all that.

Who sleeps on the right side? He does, so I can be by the alarm clock.

Who mows the lawn? When we have a lawn to mow, he does.

Does he cook dinner? ONCE in a while but most of the time it is me.

Who drives? We switch off..mostly him.

Who is more stubborn? Travis! haha. Just kidding...we are probably both about the same, which is bad!

Who kissed who first? Travis kissed me first :)

Who asked who out first? Travis again. Man...I should have made some sort of attempt too! I feel bad now, lol.

Who has more friends? That would have to be me. haha. I'm definitely the more social one of the two of us.

Who is more sensitive? Isn't the girl always the more sensitive one?

Who has more siblings? Me for sure!

Who 'wears the pants'? I think it is about the same.

So, now you know a little bit more about the man I love. Feel free to consider yourself TAGGED if you read this ... or anyone who wants to do it, ... so you can tell us about the man you love!

A day at work...

One of the things I love about my job is that it is something new everyday! In the training department, we don't have a WHOLE lot on our plate so it leaves us open to doing these types of things. Or things like training the entire call center on something in...one day. Or things like taking calls when we are super busy. It is nice. Don't get me wrong...we have our things that need to be done everyday and some days there are not enough hours to get everything done but the days like today are so much fun!

I spent 90% of my day working on these. We found the pics online, printed them, cut A MILLION of them, and then thought up cute things to add to make them even more festive. We are going to have a big Christmas tree in our breakroom and these will be the ornaments, after the operators take one and write something good about someone else on them! Awesome right?

Anyway, to start the trend, we wrote them for each other after we finished:



It's hard to see all of the designs unless you click on the picture and make it huge, but we made stockings with glitter...that got ALL over our desks, and floor :S. The vaccuum crew will love us tonight! :) haha, little bows, snowmen, Christmas trees, and little gingerbread men!



I probably won't post again until after Thanksgiving so have a wonderful Turkey and crazy shopping day!!

Our new sweet babies!

What do you think about my little new baby Mini Jessica ?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?



What do you think about my little new baby Mini Trav ?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?


Not too sure where the RED hair is coming from? lol...beautiful, aren't they??

The one about the best dog in the world!

This is Trey! Our pitbull. He is going to be 3 years old in June and we have had him for the entire time. We got him when he was about a month old. He is really special to us and has an awesome story behind him! Trav and I had been talking about getting a dog for a long time. It was mostly me that wanted him, but Travis never really said no. So, WE had been talking about getting a dog for a really long time :). Travis went to hang out with his dad for a weekend so Kassi and I went to Idaho to go visit some old friends. While there, my best friend Mari said that her parents just got a dog from somewhere that they really didnt want because they already had too many. She said she didnt know what kind it was but that it kind of looked like a pitbull. Well, I BEGGED her to take me to go look at it. A pitbull was exactly what we wanted. So, we go look at him. I get there and he is curled up next to the stairs, all by himself. He had something wrong with his leg and you could tell when he would get up and walk, he limped every time. We still don't know what it is. The doctor said as long as it is not getting worse, he is okay. We take him to the park and play fetch with him and keep him very active so we have noticed a significant change in his leg :) Anyway, so I picked him up and instantly fell in love. I had to have this dog. So, on our way to Target to buy him everything he needed and start the spoiling process, we are on the freeway and we look over and notice a "hott guy" I am obviously with Travis but Mari was single so we start to tell her MARI! Look! She agreed that he was hott, grabbed a piece of paper from my car, wrote down her number, and MY name...haha I have no idea why. I told her that what if they started to seriously date, how would she explain that she wrote down MY name because she didnt want him to have hers?! So she crosses out my name and puts her name hahaha...then sticks it up to the window. So what does said hott man do? He picks up his phone and calls it right away. Keep in mind...this whole time we are driving side by side. Mari's phone starts to ring and she looks at it and says "Oh my god guys, what do I do?!" We're like uhh...probably answer since he is watching you freak out right now! So, long story short...she answers, they talk, they hang out. Fast forward a year and a half. They are married with one kid and another on the way! Isn't that adorable? ALL because we went and picked up Trey!

So, there is a little bit of a background on the best dog ever! I really should post some younger pics of him, because I have a million! But here are a few very recent ones that I wanted to share!

We bought him a bone last night and gave it to him after he ate. At first he was SO stoked! You could tell after a few minutes though that he looked scared. He knows he is not supposed to chew on anything in the house. Haha, apparently he thought that was the same for his bone. So Travis gave it to him again, because he dropped it and went to the other side of the room, and kinda played with him for a min to let him know it was okay. Once we passed that point? He would not let go of it. He LOVED it and finished the entire thing in about two hours, lol. I thought it was so cute how he took it to his bed and just chilled with his bone.




This was the HARDEST picture to get! I had to say his name like 5 times and FINALLY he looked up like what the hell do you want?? I'm busy!

This was a few nights ago. I noticed he was shivering cuz he was cold one morning when I woke up to get ready for work! :( So I tried to put a blanket on top of him to see what he would do. He woke up, looked at me, and went right back to sleep...SO CUTE!!

How do they do it?

So we just got cable/internet/phone hooked up through Comcast. I cannot tell you how excited we are about it. At first I was just excited to not go through DirecTv anymore...which is a WHOLE different story that is very long so I will just give you the moral of the story. DO. NOT. GO. THROUGH. DIRECTV. No matter what they offer you. Sometimes it is free gas, sometimes it is first 3 months for free, sometimes it's pretty words to tell you you are getting the best possible deal! Whatever it is, NOT worth it. (This answers the question to the title of the post! They BEG and BRIBE their customers!)

Anyway, back to Comcast. They come to install the cable yesterday (We've had internet and phone through them for a couple of weeks now) and Trav and I were just messin with it when we got home last night. Turns out 1) They provide HD, for free. Which by the way Trav is obsessed with. I wont talk about the 2 hours he spent flipping from one channel in HD to another that was NOT in HD saying Babe! Look at the difference, can't you tell?? OH man, I can't believe we have gone all this time without this! Wow, look at the floor on this one, then on this one! Look at his face on this one, then on this one. Haha, good times. 2) They have DVR service, which is one of the main reasons I initially went with DirecTv. I had NO idea Comcast had that as well! 3) They have on demand so you can basically watch a movie whenever you would like to. You can watch MUSIC VIDEOs and hook it up to the stereo so it sounds and looks great. We love and watch intervention all of the time and guess what?! It is on demand! Anytime we want to watch intervention, BAM...it is waiting for us on channel 1! 4) It is cheaper than DirecTv and you get more channels. 5) They have NO contracts at all and no installation fees but they still have promotions going all of the time because I think they love and really care about their customers! 6) and maybe my favorite feature, we have freekin karaoke on our TV!!! Singing party at my house soon to come!

We are so excited, haha probably too excited for just a silly cable switch. If anyone is thinking about which company to get their cable/satellite through, we would definitely suggest Comcast. :)

p.s. Comcast, if you read this post...I think you should pay me a little. I just TOTALLY sold your service!

Update...

Happy voting day everyone!! Let's 1) vote and 2) cross our fingers for Obama!

I have been pretty busy these past couple of weeks but I wanted to write just a few things. Halloween was great. We all hung out at Grandma and Grandpa Wooten's house. Grandpa made a big, yummy pot of chili! We played games and passed out candy all night! Probably my favorite story from Halloween (and it is a hard one to beat...but we will see what happens next year) is this:

Two little twin boys walk up to the door. (Our first trick or treators so I jump up all excited to give them some candy!) I open the door and they just stare at me and say nothing so I say to them "What do you say?" These two little boys didn't say anything to each other, or even look at each other as a matter of fact, but at the same time said "You're Welcome?!?" We all started laughing and their mother, standing in the driveway behind them starts to laugh so I say "Trick or....?" and they both say "TRICK OR TREAT!" Haha, it. was. adorable.

Grandma, Auntie Tammy, Auntie Kristine, and I went to Wendover Sunday/Monday. We all drove out there with the intentions of coming back Sunday afternoon by 5 so we could have a birthday party for Grandma, Kassi, and Uncle David. (Yes, I know. We are procrastinators when it comes to birthdays in the Wooten family. You might be thinking...is it normal to have 3 people's birthday's at one time? Well, yes. The answer is yes.) Anyway, so we are in Wendover having a great time. It comes time to leave and well, me and Auntie Kristine arent ready yet! Honestly, when can you be READY to leave Wendover unless you are completely out of your spending money? So, I call the bus and find out that there is one that takes you back to Salt Lake and it leaves at 10pm. PERFECT! Grandma and Auntie Tammy go home, and Jessica and Auntie Kristine stay! The first hour sucked because for some reason the ATM wasn't reading my debit card and Grandma left with my purse, which had my money! Finally, I was able to get some cash and then I played off of $20 for the other 2-3 hours. I had a blast and am ready to go back!

Another piece of important news: AUNTIE KRISTINE EXTENDED HER TRIP!! She will now be here until the 12th of November! YAY :)

We started a tradition...

If you've read this blog, you might know that we (well mostly I...Travis does enjoy it though) are obsessed with carving pumkins. We always have so much fun! Well, my aunt is down from Alabama for a few weeks and I thought it would be fun to get together as a family at grandma and grandpa's house and carve pumpkins! We laid a huge sheet down in the living room with a vynl table cloth and newspaper on top of it and carved away! It was so much fun. We decided that from here on out, every Halloween, this is what we are going to do.

Here are some pictures that we took. I took one of everyone's pumpkin, then a few of the group. Some of us used stencils, some of us stayed original and did freehand, and some of us. Well, Mariah, decorated Grandma's for her :) It turned out adorable. What a fun night!


My pumpkin from Monday night.

Alexis's cute lil punkin

Look at all those pumpkins!

Mariah/Grandma's pumpkin

Pumpkins from Monday night. (Megans, Megans, Auntie Kristine, and mine.)

Harley's (with the help of Uncle David)

Mariah's (With the help of Auntie Kristine's)

Scott (Katie's bf)

Kassi's

Mine!

Katie's

Auntie Kristine, Mariah, and the pumpkin

This might be my absolute favorite picture. Alexis had no idea what the lady on the TV was doing behind her. Turns out, they were doing the exact same thing! lol

Kassi had a growing pumkin seed in her pumpkin!!