Thanksgiving 2015 + Temple lights!

For almost as long as I can remember I spent Thanksgiving up in Utah with my mom's side of the family. And it is a biiig family. Which means a looot of fun!

I haven't been able to have Thanksgiving up here for the past few years just due to school or work. But now that we live up here there is nowhere else to go! 

This was Josh's first Turkey Day with the Cleggs. I was so worried he was going to be overwhelmed and that it would all scare him off. But let me tell ya...he did just fine!

Remember how I said it was a big family? Well there was 55 people there, plus children. And some of them weren't even able to make it! It gets pretty crazy. But the good kind of crazy, of course!!

My mom usually drives home the day after Thanksgiving. This year she decided to stay through the weekend! Which meant she would be here for the lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake City! I haven't been to see the lights there since I was probably 5 years old. So I don't remember much!

So my mom, Josh and I drove up to SLC to check it out! And oh man...it was awesome. First of all...any Christmas lights make me freak out because I love them so much. Just imagine how I was feeling when nearly every tree around me was filled with lights!! It was beautiful!! This is definitely going to be a new tradition!

I am so excited for this Christmas season! I love celebrating Christ's birth. The whole season is filled with so much love! Josh and I get to start new traditions for our little family and Josh's birthday is Christmas day! It's so much happy all in one season!

I sure married the right guy. (Especially because he not only puts up with my Christmas music dance parties...but he gets up and dances with me!)

Audrey Jo

Normal Rockwell

I really love being in Utah with my mom. Every time we would come up for Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July we would do super fun stuff with her sisters. 

Last night we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Normal Rockwell exhibit at the BYU Fine Art center. It was so fun! I vaguely remember going to a similar exhibit with his art when I was young. Actually...all I remember is that my two brothers and I all got to pick out a print of one of his paintings to hang in our bedrooms!

My mom and I love puzzles. We even have a puzzle of one of his paintings! I think it was the puzzle we did the most out of all of them.

I think it is just such a cool painting! I mean...a triple self portrait...that's pretty awesome!

At the beginning of the exhibit they had us watch a 10 min video about him. In the video it showed some of the actors he used to paint and the process he would go through to get just what he wanted the art to look like. It was so cool to see the actual painting in the exhibit and see all of the detail that was described in the video and all of the effort he put into those small details. And boy...did he put a ton of detail into everything!

Anyways...I love Normal Rockwell and think he was such an awesome artist! 

Josh wouldn't let me take pictures in the exhibit. But my mom snuck these of us ;)

I'm convinced we can't go more than 30 seconds without one of us doing or saying something weird...

Audrey Jo

So Very Thankful Part 3

1. Temples
I had the wonderful privilege of flying down to San Diego Saturday morning to see a life long friend get married to her love! My mom picked me up from the airport and we drove right to the San Diego Temple just in time for the sealing. It is so wonderful and special to see my friends be married for time and  all eternity. It always takes me back to my own wedding day. Josh always makes fun of me because I didn't cry during our sealing but I cry at all of my friend's weddings. I think it is just because I know exactly how they feel and I know all of the wonderful blessings that come from getting married in the temple. Marrying Josh on January 16 inside the walls of the temple was the best decision I have made!

2. In N Out

 So I'm 90% sure that my mom's favorite restaurant is In N Out. We use to go there all the time! I have not eaten there once since moving to Utah! Today we drove back up to Utah together and we always stop in Vegas for lunch. Apparently my mom found a new In N Out there! So naturally...that is what we had for lunch. And let me tell you...it was so good! I am always so grateful for delicious food that is inexpensive! (I'm super picky so don't judge me for my lettuce, tomato, onion free cheese burger! It's still yummy, I promise.)

3. Cupcakes
Yes, I know. Two about food this week?! Yes. Two. So I'm not sure at what point it became our thing to make the cupcakes for weddings...but we have been doing this for years! My mom was given a delicious cupcakes recipe that everybody loves so my mom gets asked to make this for different weddings then I help her decorate them. I love it! I love being part of these wedding in small ways. My hands sure cramp up while we're frosting 300 cupcakes though! It's totally worth it though! I was so grateful to be able to help my mom with this for the wedding this weekend!

xoxo

Audrey Jo

So Very Thankful Part 2

1. Friends
I have the greatest friends. And what I love most about these friends is that they have been around for so long! Some of them since Preschool! And Josh and I have always had a lot of the same friends...so that's pretty cool too! One of these amazing friends is a photographer! She offered to take pictures of Josh and me. We were so excited! This took place yesterday behind the beautiful Provo Temple. She sent us little teasers yesterday and I am so in love with them already! Here is my favorite one so far!

Isn't she awesome?!

2. Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I seriously do not remember the last time I have eaten chocolate chip pancakes. I love them! So why has it been soo long?! So I decided to make them for Sunday breakfast this morning. They were absolutely delicious. I put so much whip creme on top of them. It was magical. I think I put whip creme on more breakfast items than dessert items. I'm totally okay with that though.

I didn't take a picture of my breakfast this morning though. I dove in and ate it too fast for any of that picture taking nonsense (hehe).

3. Late night snacks

Josh and I are kind of obsessed with Netflix. Have you noticed? We just love having "our show" and being able to watch it together at night after work and homework are all done. But what is Netflix without a late night snack?! Our cravings change all the time. Like all the time. Popcorn, M&Ms, ice cream, Oreos, even yogurt. There are just way too many choices. Yesterday we went to the grocery store to (only) fill up our 5 gallon water jug and get a quart of vanilla ice cream so we didn't bother getting a cart. Josh went to go fill up the water while I grabbed the ice cream. We like to be efficient like that. Until I saw that there was a sale on Oreos! The only thing was that you had to buy 4 packages of them. I think I stood there for a solid minute deciding if I should do it or not. Obviously, I got the Oreos. I finally made it to the ice creme isle and saw that there was a sale on ice creme! 3 for $10! So obviously I got 3 things of ice creme. Now this because a problem when I realized I didn't have a cart. So I walked through the store holding the 4 packages of Oreos and the 3 cartons of ice cream. When Josh saw me he just started shaking his head. I probably looked like such a fool. But now we have lots of Oreos and ice cream! What could be more exciting about that?!

Mmm:)

xoxo

Audrey Jo

Is it Christmas yet?

So I love Christmas. But who doesn't, right?
Well now that I'm married I have to have my own Christmas decorations and why spend money on them when I could just make some?

So I made some Christmas lights! I think they are stinkin' adorable! I get so carried away when I made something that I like. I seriously have like 10 of these made in all different sizes. It's a problem!
But I mean come on, look at how cute they are...

I just love them. They will be all over my home for the next 2 months. 

And lucky for you...they are in my Etsy shop: AudreyCrochets!

So go check it out!

xoxo

Audrey Jo

Wednesday Rants

I think we should all be allowed to rant freely about whatever the heck we want. So I'm going to devote this post to the random thoughts and rants I have had this week:

This week I brought snacks with me to Stake Conference. Why? Because I we woke up about 45 min before it was suppose to start (whoops) and I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast! Also. Why are kids allowed to eat during sacrament meeting and I'm not? So I ate my little snack! We were also sitting in the very back so it's not like everybody could see me.

Apparently Fall is over. There were little snow flurries for a couple days last week and yesterday it was for reals snowing. Yes, I am that silly girl from California that ran outside 5 times during the work day just to stand in the snow. Who can blame me? This is so new to me and I love it! I would walk back into the office with little snowflakes on my scrubs, a bit smile on my face and they would just laugh and roll their eyes at me. Oh well. I got to play and that makes me happy:)

Josh's flag football team lost their second playoff game. (Thank goodness for double elimination!) They did win their 3rd game though! And I have never seen a group of guys get so excited over a flag football game before! It was adorable. The wives are practically frozen while watching the games. And the wind chill does not help one bit! But at least it wasn't raining or snowing while sitting there, right?

Jake invited Josh and I to another $5 Tuesday movie last night with him and his friends! We saw 007 and it was awesome! I'm sure it would have been more awesome if I actually kept up with all of the James Bond movies but it was still pretty cool. I was almost falling asleep the entire time though. It was rough. But that's what I get for always agreeing to see the 10:30 pm showing with them! We got home at like 1:30 (it was like the longest movie ever) and fell asleep so fast! And we didn't wake up until 9:30. Josh has class at 10. So that made for an exciting morning!

Speaking of 007...Josh has been singing the theme song nonstop today.  While pretending to be a spy. 

Josh got us annual passes to Disneyland for my birthday. Since moving to Utah we obviously haven't been able to use them. Which totally sucks. I was hoping we were going to get lucky and be able to go to Disneyland when we head home for Christmas. Buuuut...the dates we are home are all blacked out. Yipee. I guess that means we have to plan a trip to head home when we are able to go to Disney!

I made cookies! On Sunday Jordyn told me she had a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast. From that moment on I was craving cookies. So I went home and made some! Chocolate peanut butter with chocolate chips. Uhh yum. They were delicious. I took some to work on Monday and they were gone so fast. I was very glad I didn't bring all of them to work with me so I could still eat some for dessert! Here they are!

Don't they look delicious?! Cause they were!

Xoxo

Audrey Jo

Monday Meals

So I have always tried to plan out my meals for the week or hopefully a couple weeks in advance to reduce trips to the grocery store and to save money.
Let's be honest. It doesn't always happen though I am getting a whole lot better!

I use to just write them down on a sticky note to remind myself what I had planned. But sometimes the sticky note gets lost...or Josh doesn't feel like eating what I had planned for that night.

When we moved up here to beautiful Provo, Utah my mom had given us a gift card to Tai Pan Trading Co. to start decorating our new home with! Definitely in my top 10 favorite stores! I brought Josh along with me because sometimes he has an opinion on that kind of stuff. He spotted this giant menu chalkboard and fell in love with it. So I let him buy it for us! And it has been so amazing! Every Sunday night I clean off the board and write what I have planned for the upcoming week. This helps because he can see and anticipate what I'll be making for the week. It makes me a whole lot more accountable for dinners! It also  would be pretty hard to lose it if it's hanging on the wall in our kitchen!

SO! This is the menu for this week!

Yeah, yeah, I know I spelled burrito wrong. I was just waay too lazy to redo it.

Remember a few posts back when I talked all about how I love simple things? Well I feel like this week is the perfect representation of that. I mean think about it:

I pre-make my dough and just freeze it so all I have to do is pull it out of the freezing in the AM

Breakfast burritos? Eggs. Cheese. Sausage. Bacon. Tortilla. Salsa. DONE.

As long as I keep using store bought Alfredo sauce this meal will continue to be simple.

I have the best stroganoff recipe that seriously only takes like 10 minutes. I love it.

Chicken Cordon Bleu may sound fancy...but that's because you don't know that I crock pot it. 

Okay so my stuffed shells recipe isn't so simple. But it's delicious. So who cares.

Every other week my extended family gets together for Sunday dinner. So I don't have to cook:)

Told you it's simple!

So tonight I am planning on putting a little bit of sauce, a lot of cheese, some pepperoni, and some bacon on my pizza. What do you put on yours??

xoxo

Audrey Jo

So Very Thankful Part 1

I absolutely love November! Everybody is starting to get into the Holiday Spirit and I think people are generally just happier this time of year.
November is especially awesome because it is a time of year we can focus on what we are thankful for. It is so easy to get caught up in the world thinking of all of the things you want and "need" so it is so refreshing to have an excuse to sit back and just be thankful.

So here are a few things I am thankful for this year:

1. My husband

This year has been one for the books. The main reason being that we were married mid January and got to start our eternity together. That was a day that I waited years for. It was a beautiful sunny (80 degree) day in San Diego and it could not have been more perfect. Being married to him has been the best time of my life. It's so cliche...but I love getting to hang out everyday with my best friend. He is the greatest!


2. School

(Josh is working with BYU recruiting and gets to go to ALL of the home games!)

I know, I know. School sucks. But it actually doesn't! This year I graduated from medical assisting school and have started working in the medical field. And I love it! School is the worst while you are attending it with all of the studying and hours spent in class. All I could think of the whole time is how I just wanted to be done so I could finally start working. Now that I'm working I miss school! I love learning new things that are relevant to what I'm studying. I could seriously sit in an anatomy class all day long and be so happy. School is also what brought my wonderful husband and I to Utah! Soon after we got married he applied to BYU and got accepted! We made our trek up here and we have loved it ever since! Especially because we get to be close to so many of our friends!


3. Medicine

This past week I have had a serious case of "the dizzies." Friday when I got home from work I was completely exhausted so I went upstairs to lay down until Josh got home from school. While I was laying there...not moving at all..I got way dizzy! I thought I was going crazy and just really tired so I shrugged it off and I was fine the rest of the night. But this kept going all week! Throughout the day I would get dizzy while just standing there or walking around. Pretty much any time I would do something that normally wouldn't cause somebody to feel that way. I was fed up with it so I made myself an appointment to be seen while I was at work. (It is so nice working at a doctors office!) We still couldn't figure it out but we tried a few different things and ran a couple tests. (Everything came back normal!) Luckily my case of "the dizzies" is going away. But it is just such so wonderful knowing that whenever we feel sick or that something is "off" with our bodies there are usually ways to figure out what is wrong and how to fix the problem. Not always...but usually! I mean...medicine is always changing and no two bodies are the exact same! I just love medicine. But maybe I'm bias ;).


So the plan is to give a short list of things I'm thankful for each week because I love November and everything about Thanksgiving!
What are some things you are thankful for this year??

xoxo

AudreyJo

Wednesday night lights

For the past 2 months Josh has been on an intramural flag football team through BYU.
It has been so fun for both of us: he gets to play football with his friends while I get to watch on the sidelines with the wives! 3 of which are my friends!
Sometimes it is more socializing than football watching. But how can you blame me when you're sitting with 3 friends and an adorable baby girl!!

So my man's team has been doing so good. They lost only 1 of 5 games. After those games they get ranked to determine what division they will be in for playoffs.
They started in the middle division and got ranked to be in the top division for playoffs! Woo!!

And tonight was the first playoff game! They played a team the had played a few days ago. Apparently this team was wanting a rematch. Well. They got it!

And guess what...we beat them again! And this game I even paid attention (almost) the whole time!
Okay...so I might have only been paying attention because I was too cold to move. But that is beside the point. For reals though. It was fah-reezing. I was wearing so many layers and I did not feel like it was helping at all! I seriously do not know how I am going to survive this Utah winter. How is this only Fall?!

Their next playoff game is this Friday night! Which means another freezing cold hour of football. Yay. Josh is so amped already which makes me pretty dang excited!

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo

Audrey Jo

Simplicity

You know what I'm a fan of? Everything simple.
Really...how awesome would it be if everything were short sweet and too the point? Obviously not everything can be like this. And a lot of things are so nice when they're beautiful and elaborate.
But I still like the simply things:)

The past couple of weeks I have been such a lazy wife. (Kind of.) I have been cooking such simply meals that only take 10 minutes or things I can just throw in the crock pot before work. Or Ramen Noodles-because they are seriously the easiest ever...even if they are terrible for ya.
But do you know what I realized? I don't have the try to be a fancy chef every night!
Josh is perfectly happy eating hot dogs good on the stove for dinner! Or spaghetti and meatballs! Or cereal! Pretty much as long as he gets fed...he's a happy camper. Also...this totally saves on the grocery bills!

I have also decided that I don't need to spend an hour getting ready in the morning. I'll be honest...the only time I have every spent that long getting ready was for a high school dance or my wedding. But still! I put on as little makeup as I feel necessary for the day, throw up hair up in a pony tail-because even if I leave it down when I get ready...it's up in a hair tie before 10 am. It just happens. The hardest decision I make when I get ready is what color scrubs to wear for the day: gray, purple, or blue! I put a lot of thought into that part of my morning. Not spending a lot of time getting ready makes my mornings so much more enjoyable. I don't (usually) have to rush out the door and I'm able to relax and enjoy my mornings.

One of the things I love most about my life with Josh is that we are awesome at not getting caught up in the world. We have simplified our life so that we aren't going around spending money that we don't have or buying things that we just don't need. We have spent such great time together without any distractions from outside sources. I mean, obviously we love watching Netflix. But we are able to spend time together on weekends or whenever we watch our shows and just enjoy each other's company with a home made meal, hot cocoa, and a nice cuddly blanket. It is those simple nights and weekends that I love! And it makes real date nights that much more enjoyable. Even going out to dinner or seeing a movie together is such a treat and seems so special.

I don't know about you all...but I think I picked the best husband out there! He is okay with me simplifying everything to enjoy the beautiful extra time I have in this wonderful life of mine!

So really...you all should just take a step back and simplify! Because it is one of the best things we have done!

xoxo

Simply Stephens

Happy Halloweenie!

So I always love Halloween and always want to get way into dressing up but I never actually do. I'm always the kind of person that gets their homemade costume ready the day before or the day of Halloween.

Not this year folks.

Apparently I chose the perfect office to work at because they go all out on Halloween.

Last year they all dressed up as characters from Harry Potter and the pictures looked awesome!

This year when we were trying to decide what to dress up as there were quite a few ideas thrown out. Some of them were: Lord of the Rings, Super Mario, Peter Pan, and a few others. We eventually decided on Disney Villains. And I was so excited! 

Naturally, in my mind I decided to dress up as Scar, from The Lion King. Because they aren't enough human villains apparently (HA!).But really. I was so excited. I had it all planned out in my head!

Luckily I work with an incredibly talented artist that was willing to paint my face for the day!

I woke up nice and early to do my hair then headed to the office so she could paint my face before patients started to show up! It almost took an hour and it was so worth the time of not moving, not smiling, and not itching my face.

She did such an awesome job! Like...patients didn't even recognize me!

(Keep in mind these pictures we all taken on different camera phones!)

Every year they block out schedules and shut down the office for a few hours for all of us to head to Malawi's Pizza for lunch. They Have a giant tree in the middle of the restaurant. So naturally I take a picture by it in my "natural element."

 This is the amazing artist herself as Ursula. Can you believe she made those tentacles herself?! She for reals is amazing.

So here is the whole gang. You'll find:

The evil step sisters and her mom with Lucifer the Cat, Captain hook, Dr Callighan, Jafar, Cruela De Vil, Yzma, Ursula, Darla, the old hag from Snow White, Mother Gothel, and Gru with his minion. (With a couple pirates in there too.)

And we were totally not all ready for this pic by the way. I mean, how easily can 18 people and a baby all be ready for a picture at the same time?

So basically, this was the best Halloween ever! Well...best day-before Halloween ever!

So what are we going to be next year?!

xoxo

Simply Stephens