It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It's been too long! I can't believe that I haven't posted for over two months. I thought that while things have slowed down so much, I had better get a post in before the year is over! It's been quite a year...well, semester!

Finals were last week-and boy, was I stressed! Plus, I had to take my nearly four-hour long PRAXIS that Monday of finals week in order to get admitted into the teaching program. I'm just relieved that it's all over. I got straight A's (by the Lord's grace!) and passed my PRAXIS. So now, all I have to do for the next few weeks is lay around (now that work is over as of Thursday) and sip hot chocolate! Sounds great to me!

Over the break, I've been going to bed early, sleeping in late, watching The Office and The Brady Bunch on DVD, and crocheting a lot! I'm almost done with my first afghan! It's already as tall as me...Mom says after this last scane I'll be done! I've also started on a scarf. I'll have to post a picture of the afghan when I'm done. Unfortunately, I'll never amount to anything like my mom when it comes to crocheting, but it's fun!

These past few months, besides slaving over school work, it seems as if I've done a LOT of babysitting! I still love doing it, even though I'm a college kid now. I always have my camera in my purse, and naturally, kids meander through my purse when I'm babysitting. Thus, I have some pictures!



Riley and Gillian-we've spent a lot of time together lately, partly babysitting, and partly hanging out with their cool Mom! (Amy)


I've been babysitting at Gretchen's so her and Dave can teach a class in their home for some people in their ward. Here's just a handful of my beauties!

From Left: Sadie, Tyrza, Savannah, and the Little Briana!

Sadie has been my buddy for years. I can't believe she's about to start kindergarten in the fall! She helps me keep track of everyone when I babysit!


I also helped throw a few more wedding showers this fall, one being for my great friend Sarah at ASU. We've had classes together since our Freshman speech class and have been buddies ever since. We threw her shower at the BCM on campus, and it was a blast!

Here's my beautiful Sarah! She got married December 13th and is relocating to West Memphis. I'll miss her so much!


I'm dressing Tiff up as a bride--with TOILET PAPER! It's a favorite game at showers, I've found!

The 4 Toilet Paper Brides! Had to hurry and snap the picture before they fell apart-literally!


Yesterday, I decided to begin Project Cleanup and cleaned my entire room! It took all day-and I was thoroughly exhausted by the evening, but it looks pretty darn good...for now!

A clean room!

A clean, organized, and color-coded closet! *gasp*

A CLEAN COUNTER! That's the best miracle of all!

We'll see how long this lasts... ;-)


Although this has all been exciting and eventful...I have saved the best adventure for last. As most of you have heard, there was a mouse in my dorm room at the end of this semester. His name was Jerry. He was UGLY! He was FAST! He could outsmart me at ANY trap! (I tried three different kinds!) And sadly, I found that he loved my peanut butter crackers...oops!

So, after a week of trying to capture him, I had almost given up. I had accepted that I had a new and terrifying roommate. (Dad tried to tell me that he was more scared of me than I was of him...but you didn't see how scared I was!) Then, the Monday morning of finals week, I awoke to a text message early in the morning from my suite mate. It said, "Uh, the mouse is caught in one of your traps!" I replied, "Yay! Which one?" Like I said, I had three different types of traps set: a mouse cube (that would just trap him in a cube until I could take him outside), a trap where I wouldn't have to see him if he was dead-it would just indicate to me that he was caught, and the classic snap-trap. Of course, she replied, "He's in the snap one. It looks pretty gross." Knowing that I would have to be the one to take care of it, I sat in my room for about a half an hour trying to gather the courage to do it. Finally, I took a deep breath, a broom and pan, and found this:

I know the resolution is awful, but I had to take the picture with my phone. He was flat as a pancake, folks! Pretty gross! But I swept him up, took him outside, and that was that! RIP my dear Jerry! You made my life exciting for about a week!

I hope y'all were entertained by reading about my life. Probably not, but it was worth a try. Other than all of this, I have been spending PLENTY of quality time with my sister...she's a nutcase!

Here she is...what a beauty! Actually, since school has let out, she averages about two showers a week, and hasn't changed from that outfit in a few days. HAHA!