Monday, February 25, 2013

Texas country!

A few weeks ago our friends Evan and Lindsay took us out to their family's land just north of Dallas.  Our dinner group friends K.C. and Sterling came too!  We thought dinner this month would best be spent around a fire.

 Getting the fire started!

Sweet Jensen all wrapped up for the weather!

Sean was loving driving his new truck all over their land, it was over 100 acres, it was crazy!

It's been forever since I've been on a four-wheeler, I forgot how much fun it was!

Funny story: right after I posted the picture of both of us on the four-wheeler on Facebook, Sean's Mom commented on it, and begged us to wear helmets (Sean's brothers P.J. and Nate, and our sister in law Telisha got in a really bad four-wheeling accident).  Not even twenty mintues later, Sean comes riding back looking like this.  Lesson number one: listen to your mother. Lesson number two: don't drive a four-wheeler like an idiot. He was going too fast (weird) and went over a hill without seeing what was over it, flipped over the four-wheeler, rolled his ankle and sprained his wrist.  Yup, that's my 27 year old (grown up?) husband.
 

Of course we had to bust out the Sequence game in their "Bouse" (Barn-house), which was really sweet!  Evan and his family built the house all by themselves!  It was amazing!
 

That's right, I'm driving the giant tractor!
 
What do you think about this for our Christmas card next year? 

We had such a fun time out at Evan and Lindsay's family's land!  We're so grateful for our new and amazing friends in our new ward, we love them all!  It's so nice to be in a ward where EVERYONE is our age, and the older people are actually the minority...crazy, I know!  More and more good times to come! :)
 

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!

Sean and I hosted our first Ugly Christmas Sweater Party this year!  Too bad that two holidays have passed since then, but we all know I'm slow at the blogging business! It was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping to make it a yearly tradition!  Sean and I love to entertain, and what better way to bring in the Holidays, then to dress up in an ugly sweater?!  It was a lot of work putting together all the food (next year I'm thinking we won't make everything--simplify), even so, I think it turned out pretty well!

Here are some of the pictures of some of the goodies Sean and I made!
 A pretty Christmas wreath of piggies-in-a-blanket.

 Sean made this bomb snowman cheeseball.

 A view of some of the treats.

Some Christmas style popcorn and pretzel M&M's.

 Boom baby!

A tier of chocolate.

 Snowman cupcakes with TONS of sparkly sprinkles.
 Christmas wreaths, Santa hat brownie bites, and more.
Yeah...we all gained 10 pounds.

 Pretzel M&M's...probably the easiest treat ever!  I will say, the circular pretzels were super hard to find...but totally worth it!

Christmas style carmel corn, this was probably my favorite treat. I may or may not have snacked on it for weeks after the party...

Chocolate dipped pretzels smothered in sprinkles.

Chocolate covered reindeer nutter butters...these were a little tricky, the first ones we did looked a little deformed.

My sister-in-laws Michelle and Telisha make DELICIOUS crinkle cookies...and I tried to imitate them with a Christmas twist.  Tried is the key word!

Christmas wreaths, delicious!

Santa hat brownie bites, got this gem from Pinterest!

Our "Christmas tree"rice krispie treats, don't hate on our Laffy-Taffy star!

Snow-man cupcakes close up :)

 I made some "ginch punch" with green sprinkle coated glasses.  Yum!

 Some festive dinnerware, of course!


 At least one of the boys smiled, thanks Scot!



 Showing off their festive wear.

Some pics of the fun...

Pano view of the party games!



 Sean and Ben were getting pretty cozy by the fire.

Nikki was so nice and brought her fancy camera and props, and we had a photo booth!



It was our first photo booth here at the house, and I thought it was fun, some of us had a little too much fun! And yes, Sean is wearing a woman's Christmas vest that I picked out for him.  He parted/gelled his hair all on his own though...


Holly and Scot won the best 'ugly' sweaters.  Scot's sweater lit up with a switch he had in his pocket, and Holly had all of her family's faces on the elve's faces, awesome!


Kirk and April had some pretty sweet sweaters too, and as always were the life of the party!


Mark and Cori brought their adorable newborn baby girl, Andi. She slept through the entire party like a champ!


Gerret and Sarah came too!  Sarah saved my life (as usual) and helped me a lot with the party.


Nikki and Ben were our rock-star photographers. And check out the sweet props Nikki made for the photo booth, she's basically amazing!



Trying out some more of the props, loved them!


 Oh boys...

 The girls!

Holly, you crack me up!

 Daniel holding baby Andi, he was a little scared of her...but it was pretty sweet.


Daniel came by at the end of the party after he got off work and stole some food...basically his weekly ritual. :)

 Sean continued the sweater humor, and wore his sweater to church the next day.  He ditched the turtleneck and parted hair, but still got plenty of laughs!

Thank you everyone for all of the help!  Sean was an absolutely amazing help making everything, I couldn't have done it without him.  This was the first party with members of our new ward, and we loved it!  Hopefully many more to come over the years.  We're so grateful for all of our new friends, and especially for the ones who love to party with us! :)