Happy Weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend everyone! I just finished my last class that I have to go to until after Thanksgiving Break! I am so excited! All of my classes got canceled for next Monday and I don't have classes on Tuesday... (*cough* except my dance class that I am skipping to go out to lunch with David *cough*). So I am free! Hello Thanksgiving Week... here I come!

Anyway... to catch you up on some things... my invitation design company is coming a long fabulously. Here is one example of the stuff I have done so far. Isn't Carli adorable. She has been such a good friend to me for so many years. (Her older brother and I were best friends in high school and I seriously considered Carli like a sister.)



Its been crazy to try and get a whole business up and running while trying to go to school and work and get ready for student teaching next semester(and all of my other projects). Not to mention the professional camera I bought a while back. It was the perfect opportunity for us financially, but time-wise I haven't been able to take advantage of it as much as I had hoped. I have taken some pictures here and there, but haven't been able to really put aside the time to do anything. But this weekend I am going to go out with some of Davids friends and take some pictures with them! I am so excited! They did a little post on their blog about our wedding reception, you should click on over to the Flint's Blog to check it out. They are so sweet. Consider this my shout out to a husband who has been so supportive of me since the day we met and whose love and kindness has only increased since we got married last June.

Happy Weekend to you all!

Best Husband EVER.

I just have to say, I have the BEST HUSBAND EVER.

On Sunday, while we were hurrying to get ready for church on time I was struck with a brilliant idea. I called out to David and said, "Last one ready for church has to make dinner AND CHOOSE what they make!" He immediately agreed and we continued getting ready at our even more frantic pace. Without him knowing I took his wedding ring off the counter in the bathroom and kept getting ready. I was about to declare myself the winner when David shouted "Ready!" from the other room. I finished slipping on my shoes, and started putting on my coat while he was saying that he won and said "Are you SURE?" He saw the glint on my finger and realized that I had stolen his ring. He was appalled that I would sink to such a low level (which, lets be honest... he should have been expecting it.) He adamantly stated that he was still the winner because I had cheated. I laughed and figured that it had been worth a try.

Later that evening I was sitting in the bedroom doing something on the computer when I heard noises in the kitchen. This is what I came out to:

David was making dinner for us! He made some delicious chicken (You should try this recipe, you just coat your chicken in butter and then put seasoning salt and thyme on it. SO GOOD.) as well as my favorite au gratin potatoes.

Doesn't that look SO good?

What other husband would make his wife such a delicious dinner even though she cheated in order to win the bet? I love this boy!

Our Life in Pictures (Part 2)

Lets hear it for Halloween! The best holiday of the year! This year David and I dressed up as Percy and Marguerite Blakeney (remember THIS post? We just LOVED the play.) David made an outstanding Scarlet Pimpernel with all of his "Froo-froo" and "sink me's". It was fantastic!

Me as the ever so intelligent AND beautiful Marguerite.
(What is Halloween worth if you can't dress up to be beautiful AND intelligent!)

Here I am with my darling "Pimpernel." He was even so good to wear a ring with a little diamond flower on it! He looked SO good! I'm sorry there isn't a better picture. I took some with my new SLR camera, but I don't have them with me. Maybe I will add them to this post if I can find them.


Halloween was the last time I saw Hayli before she left on her mission to Argentina. If you want to see some of the mission pictures we took before she left click HERE.
What would poor Cookie Monster do without her friends Winnie the Pooh and Elmo? Good thing we had the whole gang there!

David and I party hopped all night, and ended up hanging out with Kayla at her apartment. Here is the beautiful hippie herself.

What a great day. No wonder Halloween is my favorite holiday.

Our Life... in Pictures...

I finally remembered to bring both mine and David's cameras with me today. (6:30 o'clock is just so early to have to remember things that aren't absolutely necessary...) You know what that means! A massive post full of pictures of the random happenings of our lives. Hooray! Haha. Some of these pictures are from all the way back in September. We will start with my Birthday!

Here I am with the wonderful Jello-Cake that David made for me. You can see the David took the time to write out "Happy Birthday" with the strawberries, but you should know that he also carefully wrote "Shan" with the candles in the middle of the cake.

I don't remember EXACTLY what happened. But I am sure that David provoked me! Regardless of the cause, we both ended up with whipped cream all over us.

This was one of my fun projects from the semester. Kayli called me up one Friday afternoon and asked if I could help her made a poodle skirt by that night! We ended up making two poodle skirts for her and her friend to wear to the homecoming dance that night. It was a blast, but we BARELY got them done in time. They were frantically getting ready in my bathroom while I was finishing the ric-rac leash. We finished about the time their dates were supposed to be picking them up. They both looked beautiful!

I don't remember exactly when this was taken. I think that it was while playing the High School Musical Board Game that I got from Hayli for my birthday. So hilarious. If anyone wants to get together and play... I promise it will make for a night of laughter!

This beautiful orange rose showed up after a long, exhausting, horrible day. David is such a kind and thoughtful husband. Oh, how I love that boy.

Look closely at the vase that the orange rose is in. Now look at the picture below.


This was another of my many projects of the semester. I saw this cool crackle technique on a blog that I stalk and had been looking for a project to use it on. I decided the glass vase would be perfect! I painted it brown then coated it with Elmer's glue. Before the glue was dry, I covered it with white paint. Wha-la! It was awesome! I loved the way that it turned out. (I have a better picture of it, but blogger wouldn't upload it. Sorry!)

You may be wondering what David is doing in the above picture. Well... you see... Logan is cold. Especially when it is snowing outside, and even MORE especially when your heater doesn't work! Out heater had been blowing out cold air for a couple of days, but when it started snowing we knew we were in big trouble. We finally deduced that the pilot light was out. After 15 minutes, a trip to the neighbors to borrow a lighter, and a quick consultation with Google our heater was back in action! Now our apartment is nice and cozy!

Stay tuned for "Our Life in Pictures" Part 2!

The Crazy Peaden Life...

Hey all...

Things are pretty crazy around here. David and I have been SO busy lately that I haven't had time to do much of anything else. I can't believe that it is already November. I only have three weeks left of classes! Holy moly! There is a light at the end of the tunnel... but unfortunately... all of my hardest projects/assignments are yet to come! There may only be three weeks left, but there is a TON of stuff to get done in those three weeks!

These are some of the things that we have been up to:

• David has been working really hard on a group presentation that he has to give today in one of his classes. He is so smart. He is going to do great. However, as soon as he is done with this presentation he has to get to work on another group presentation. Go David!
• I have been working like a crazy lady on a bunch of different wedding invitations. I haven't really advertised my business at all but I still have had enough people to keep me really busy! I am excited to get this Graphic Design business up and running. Things have worked out really well so far, and will hopefully just keep getting better. I will let you all know as soon as I get the website up so you can go and look at the different examples that I have posted. It's going to be sweet.
• Oh, oh, oh... HALLOWEEN! I loved Halloween. David and I dressed up as Percy and Marguerite Blakeny from the Scarlet Pimpernell (pictures will come soon... I promise!)
  
• I haven't done much with my new camera, there just hasn't been time! But I did finish Hayli's mission pictures, and they turned out great. She is in the MTC now... I'm so happy for her!
  
• I'm working on a HUGE sewing project for my Independent Study class. It's coming well... but I have a long way to go.
  
• I TAKE THE PRAXIS EXAM THIS WEEKEND! This should probably be listed as #1 in the level of importance right now. This is a standardized exam that I have to take in order to do my student teaching. If I don't pass... I don't student teach... and I don't graduate. Needless to say.. I would appreciate any prayers on my behalf! I like to think that I have already put in most of my study time throughout the last four years. This is a content test to make sure I know what I am talking about while I teach. I feel confident that I will do well. :) At least I hope so!
• We have been working hard on getting our Thank You cards written. I promise... they ARE coming. We were told that we had one year to get our Thank You cards out by some people and told six months by others. We are going to try to get ALL of our Thank You cards out by our six month mark! I promise we are working on it... just be on the lookout for a thank you card from us within the next month!
  
• David and I are taking a Ballroom Dance class this semester. We have learned the Fox Trot, the Tango, the Waltz, the Rumba and the Cha Cha. It is so much fun! Watch out world, the next Fred and Ginger are on the loose!
  
• School work has been killer and will only get worse before it gets better. Right now I am working on a huge teaching portfolio, a Backwards Design Unit plan for one class, three other Unit Plans for another class, a 50 minute presentation, three research papers and two sewing projects. Wow! Wish me luck!
  
• David and I both have part time jobs that we are working right now. They are both wonderful jobs and we are so grateful for them... but twenty hours a week of work on top of everything else just compounds the busyness!
  
• David and I love to spend time with each other. Being able to drive home from school and work knowing that the rest of the night we will be able to be together is the best feeling in the whole world. We have now been married for over 5 months and have loved every second of it. Before we got married, we heard from many different people that the first year of marriage is the hardest. If that's true then I can't WAIT for next year and the year after that and the year after that etc... The last five months have been the happiest, most peaceful of my entire life!

With all the things David and I have going on in our lives, we are so grateful for the wonderful love and support of our dear friends and family. Thank you everyone for everything that you do! We are so grateful to have you in our lives. The love of people like you, and especially the love and support of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is what makes our lives so full of joy and peace. We love you all!

(ps. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I promise to get some up ASAP! Oh, and leave your e-mail address if you want to be added when this blog goes private. I am waiting a little bit longer... but it will be coming soon!)

Going Private.. Sorry!

Hey all -

The time has come for David and I to turn our blog private. You see, I am in the process of launching my Graphic Design Business and that blog will be ready to go within the next week or so. We are hoping for a lot of web-traffic to that blog, and we don't want other people accessing our private blog. We figure that as soon as we started having kids we would have to go private anyway, so we are just getting a jump on this.

I haven't been looking forward to going private, because I think it is so convenient to see when people have updated. There is no endless checking up on blogs who may or may not have updated. This brings me to some good news!

I have created a "Pre-Blog"! This is an idea that I got from a friends blog. Go here: www.peadenpreblog.blogspot.com/

So here is how it works:

Whenever I post on our private blog, I will create a post on the pre-blog with the title of the post so you all can see when we update. Perfect solution right? We can keep our blog private, but you can still see when we update!

All you need to do is add the pre-blog onto your blog roll and we will all be set!

Oh, and either e-mail me your e-mail address (shantel_elise@hotmail.com) or leave a comment if you want to be added. Thanks!