She Said YES!

I am trying to get myself out there more for practice and to hopefully build up some kind of foundation for when we start having babies and I have to work from home. This is my most recent venture for Minted.com. I don't just like... I LOVE, no...LUST for things on their website.

This is for a Save the Date contest they are having....go vote for me!!

Vote for my design on minted.™ see more from Sarah Nelson vote for me! Check out my competition in Christmas cards and Save the Date cards at Minted.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

So despite all efforts to remain put in Utah for Christmas and avoid the chaos of traveling, the pull of our family was just too strong. Especially when your dad offers to pick up the tab for your plane tickets (thanks Dad!). So we went back to Allen for the first time in a year to spend some time with the family. Unfortunately having a wedding and super long honeymoon doesn't bode well for having a lot of paid time off left over at the end of the year, so our trip was ridiculously short...okay it was 5 and a half days, but with BOTH of our families there that IS ridiculously short! But we had a ton of fun and it was really nice to be back home. The Nelson's house was like a non-stop party the entire time we were there. I don't know how Mom Nelson kept sanity having so many people at her house every night. Every day was like a buffet in the kitchen and playing games all day and night long. It was amazing....however I don't think my metabolism was very appreciative of the extra work it had to do that week. Of course my parents house was nice. There is something just bizarrely comforting about being at your childhood home. My mom LOVED the Christmas gift I made for her and my dad. It was portraits of each of the kids that are supposed to be hung right next to each other and it spells out our last name. Thanks to the always amazing Jared Cook for his help with this one.

While we were in Texas we also got to see Brandon and Shauna's new apartment, which was super cute. It makes me lust for the day when we live in a non-hobbit home. But all good things come with time...and LOTS of time if your husband wants to be an Optometrist ::wink::

One of the coolest things this Christmas though was getting to spend Christmas with little kids (Michael's youngest siblings are 8 and 4 years old) and re-experience the whole Santa part of Christmas. It's been a long time in our house since Santa hasn't had the presents pre-wrapped underneath the tree weeks beforehand for all of us non-believers. It also was a huge reassurance of what an amazing daddy Michael will be. Have you ever seen those Sing-A-Ma-Jigs? Well let's just say that Lorie is a much better mother than I will be because I would have never bought these semi-obnoxious toys for my children knowing I would have to listen to all day. When you squeeze this stuffed animals stomach it's mouth opens and it makes a noise. When squeezed really fast many times in a row the noises make a song. Michael was no less than infatuated with this toy for the first 5 minutes of it's unwrapping. His 4 year old sister EmmaJane had to ask her 24 year old brother if she could finally play with her new toy.

Another awesome part about being home was it gave me the chance to try out my new camera. Have I mentioned that I LOVE my new camera? Because I LOVE it. I think trying to tell everything would just be too hard, so I'll cap this off with some photos of all the happenings and Christmas-ness we experienced on our trip.

A Very Nelson Christmas

Christmas is hands down my favorite holiday and time of year. I love how wonderfully cheery everyone is. I love all the twinkling Christmas lights against the snow (or this year, the lack thereof). I love hot cocoa, Christmas carols, garland wreaths and the excitement of finding the perfect gifts.

Our apartment is tres petite, so this year we got a tree to match (a whopping 3 footer) and threw up a few strands of Christmas lights in our entryway. I also made a sparkly wreath for our front door (blog coming soon).

Here are a few pictures of the Christmas Spirit in our home and life this year.

December Visiting Teaching

With all the craziness of December and tons of holiday DIY projects I have going on, my visiting teaching handout unfortunately fell way on the back burner. So there is no cute matching treat or anything this month, just a quote from Elder Ballard that I really enjoyed from the message in a Christmas-themed handout. I have been so crazy this month that I actually took my paper cutter in the car and was using it to cut out the handouts on my way to my girls' houses. I guess over-committed is not a word in my dictionary....or safe driver...

Christmas Tags

A friend at work asked me to make her custom gift tags for her gifts this year. I could not have been more happy to get my burst of Christmasy design out and onto the screen. This is what I came up with...

Print double sided, cut, hole punch through red circle and string with red satin ribbon onto a gift wrapped in brown parchment paper and voila! Designer gift wrapping on a budget :)

To You & Yours

Beautiful Photography by Jared Cook

Beautiful Design by Sarah Nelson

Beautiful People as Ourselves

To all our friends and family that we love and who help make this time of year so special.

Take That Martha Stewart!

So I got this crazy idea in my head that for the holidays we would hand deliver a bunch of our cards with sugar cookies. The problem with this idea (that my husband was too kind to point out) is that we have SO much family in this area that this idea would mean 15 plates of cookies. In my head I knew this, but it seemed doable...and of course Michael would never tell me that it was a huge task/maybe I should rethink it. Primarily probably because he knows I'm as stubborn as not one, but TWO mules. So yesterday I baked just under 100 Christmas shaped sugar cookies and frosted them....and all in 2.5 hours! Take that Martha Stewart!!

This is 5 of the 15 plates

On the flip side though, I never want to see another sugar cookie as long as I live.

However, Michael and I had a great time singing and delivering them to our friends and family throughout Utah county. He is so supportive of my craziness and I love him so. We sang "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" when we delivered them and he was the echo part...every time what he said was different and hilarious.

Manti Temple

So my wonderful husband is so very patient with me and my little whims that I get. At the beginning of November we had Stake Conference, and in it they mentioned temple attendance and increasing your personal attendance to the temple. I immediately poked Michael's leg and whispered, "Hey! (poke) We need to go to the temple more! (poke) We are going this week! (poke)" So being the sweetheart he is he didn't even skip a beat before he said "okay, what day do you want to go?" We pulled up our schedule on his iCal and I immediately remembered why spontaneity is no longer a noun used in our lives. We had something every. single. day. But on Saturday, we had been on the fence about attending a wedding clear down in Manti...and that's when I exclaimed "That's it! That's when we are going to the temple! We will go to Ian and Mariah's sealing and stay for a session!" And once again, being the sweetheart he is he didn't say "I have tests and work and blah blah blah." he said "we can make that work."

So Michael was able to get off of work and set aside time so we could go clear down to Manti (an almost 2 hour drive!) and spend our day at the temple there...and boy was it worth it. For anyone who hasn't had the privilege of going to this temple and lives within a decent vicinity, you NEED to go. It was BEAUTIFUL. Michael kept telling me "You're going to love this temple...I can't wait to see YOU see this temple." I wasn't sure what he was talking about until we went inside and it was pink everywhere! Absolutely amazing! And if it wasn't pink, then it was teal! (Only my two favorite colors in the entire world) Plus the artwork was incredible. I couldn't stop gawking almost the entire time we were there.

But more than anything, it was so amazing to be able to attend a sealing with my dear hubby and listen again to the promises and blessings of our own temple marriage. There wasn't enough room in the sealing room for everyone to have a chair, so Michael and I opted to stand. It was so wonderful to be there with my eternal companion's arms wrapped around me and to know that I get to be with him for all eternity. We spent all day in the temple and even had lunch in the cafeteria with all the little old temple worker people.

Side Note: Nobody else in the entire Manti area that attend the temple must drink grape soda. I wanted a grape soda in the cafeteria and it was in this little fridge with two sliding doors that overlapped in the middle. And the grape sodas were SMACK in the middle. No matter which door you opened a door was still covering it!!! It was blasphemous and laughable. However, Michael managed to fenangle things around and pry one of them out for me.

Anyways, it was a wonderful day and such a strengthening experience for our relationship. I have never felt more close to anyone in the whole wide world than I felt with Michael that Saturday.

I love the temple and LOVE being able to go there to feel the Spirit. You can't help but get great clarity and perspective when you are there. I am so grateful to have a worthy Priesthood holder for a husband who takes me to the temple often. The Manti temple will now always hold a special little piece of my heart.

Me and My Michael.

My crazy, big kid of a husband, who saw these stairs and had to run to the top.

The beautiful Manti temple.

Justin + Juli

Michael has a totally awesome old roommate named Justin that he is friends with.

Michael and Justin cuddling on our couch.


...I'm gonna get in trouble for posting this one...

Over the course of our relationship we have had a ton of laughs and memories with Justin and his girlfriend Juli. A few months ago they (finally) decided to get engaged and are set to be married in the Salt Lake City Temple on December 20th. ::Hooray::

There have been some weird uncontrollable circumstances that keep throwing a hitch in them solidifying their plans and consequently they STILL don't have their invitations out. They will be moving the reception to January to give people enough notice, but since they are still in a pinch I told them I'd help them out and design their invitation. This way they can use a quick turn around printer that I have used and get their invitations out asap. Their colors are black, gold and red...so after talking to Juli about what she wanted, this is what I came up with yesterday evening.

Chore Chart

"Come my little friends as we all sing a happy little working song
Merry little voices clear and strong
Come and roll your sleeves up - so to speak - and pitch in
Cleaning crud up in the kitchen as we sing along
Trill a cheery tune in the tub as we scrub a stubborn mildew stain
Pluck a hairball from the shower drain to that gay refrain of a happy working song"

Doesn't that song always make you feel happy and like cleaning is so fun and easy? Too bad in reality there aren't a bunch of critters who will come and clean my house for me while I look cute and dance around.

Recently Michael and I decided to make a chore chart for our home. We have gotten so busy lately and are good about surface cleaning everything, but keep letting the deep cleaning fall to the wayside. So to avoid allowing this as a perpetual habit we listed all the chores we need to do weekly and monthly and split them up as fairly as possible. The end result is supposed to be a sparkling home even down to the baseboards. And I have to say, so far it is working. We had to do the monthly + weekly chores this last weekend and boy howdy was that awful. But it shouldn't be that difficult again considering the fridge hadn't been cleaned out since JUNE! The idea is that by keeping on top of this stuff each month we never have to do a really nasty spring or winter cleaning.

Anyways, since I am a complete aesthetics snob when it comes to my house, I couldn't allow our handwritten piece of notebook paper or even a typed up word document to permanently hang on the side of our fridge. So I made this simple, 1950's inspired chore chart, printed it on card stock and glued magnets to the back. Thought I'd share it.


C'est magnifique, no?

Je Suis Une Chaise

This is a text message conversation I had with an old roommate today.


It made me laugh and happy because of the following reasons:

1) I love picking over the DI and thrift stores and it is scarily amusing that someone who knew me for two months pegged this so easily.

2) If I were a piece of furniture I'd TOTALLY be a recovered vintage chair. Or a sofa...depending on how lazy I'm feeling at the time.

Harvest the Valuable Pieces of Doctrine....

The months following conference are my absolute favorite for visiting teaching because there are so many awesome talks crammed full of amazing stuff that you can pick from to share. I personally fell in love with the "Forget Me Not" talk by Uchtdorf in the Relief Society session, but since EVERYONE probably loved it as much as me I am having to refrain from using it. I still have a few of the talks I want to re-read before I settle on which one I will share with my girls this week.

I did however finish my handout for this month. I saw a handout idea on another site that said to "Harvest the Pieces of Conference" so I just rephrased it a bit and put my own flair on the handout to go with it. So it's a two part handout, it has the cute little saying and then a page of key quotes I liked from this past conference. So here it is for you to use and enjoy! It's intended to be printed as a 5 x 7 and given with a box of Reeses Pieces...get it? Harvest the "Pieces". ::wink::

::Happy Birthday:: Card

I've had this design itch recently that I just can't seem to scratch. Hence my visiting teaching handouts and the one soon to come for November. So when a friend's birthday was coming up I just had to make the card myself :) Here it is for all to bask in it's glory and use if you would like. If you want to print it card style then do the page set up landscape with the image on the far right. Then print, fold, trim.

All Hallows Eve

I have always loved Halloween. As soon as late September hits and I start seeing all the purple, black and orange in the grocery stores I start to do little cartwheels in my mind. My mind rejoices over the familiar smells from cheap synthetic fabric, fog machines and the aroma of all your favorite candies marinating in one bag. Plus Halloween always meant that my birthday was just around the corner.

This year I lacked a yard to put fake spider webs in and we don't really have a front porch for a carved pumpkin, so I was feeling unusually unfestive. So when one of my dear friends Amanda told me she was having a Halloween party I left her a voicemail insisting it be a costume party. And guess what?! She decided to make it a costume party! It probably was of her own reasoning, but I like to think it was the persuasive devices I employed that brought about the final decision.

I was so excited to get all dressed up and Michael and I had the perfect idea. Mario and Luigi! We wanted to do this costume last year but our old singles ward said it was "cross-dressing" and wouldn't allow it at their party! Boo! (no-pun intended) So this year, we were all over it. I went a few weeks before Halloween to the DI to find some overalls for our outfit. After Amy supporting me through nearly an hour of painfully searching the DI for overalls and costumes all I had to show for it was a pair of womens overall shorts. I don't think Michael would have been too happy with this even though he told me to get whatever I wanted and we could dress up however I wanted. So sparing my husband's thighs from that public humiliation, I resorted to picking through the costume section of DI and I actually found a gem. It was a pink, black and white womens pirate costume for only $8! Anyone who knows me knows A) I love to thrift and B) I LOVE a good deal. So of course I was all over that. I also found some weird leather/netted hat thing for Michael and figured we could piece the rest together.

Unfortunately I figured out my costumes so far ahead of time for Michael and I that I forgot about poor Toby. The little guy's costume was thrown together only an hour before the party. I had a bee costume that he had worn when he was smaller. This is a picture from Halloween of 2009 when he was buzz-tacular in his little get-up:


When I put Toby in this costume this year the little stinger was like 2 inches away from his butt...a wee bit too small, but it still fit. So I was like, sure this will work. Easy and done! However when Michael came to see what I was doing his face turned all twisted and weird. And he said "Get him out of that! He looks miserable! Look at him!" Toby, ears back and tail tucked, looked up at us and stood awkwardly as if trying not to touch the costume even though it was on his body. He refused to walk anywhere even when a treat was dangled in front of his nose. Michael was absolutely mortified and said Toby looked "pathetic and ridiculous! He doesn't even resemble a bee! Where are his antennas?!" The scene suddenly evoked childhood memories from the movie "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie is forced to put on that humiliating pink bunny pajama outfit and his Dad is outraged.

I could just hear us as Mr. and Mrs. Parker in my head:

"He looks like a deranged insect!"
"He does not!"
"He does too! He looks like a black and yellow nightmare! Toby are you happy wearing that?"

So we decided to go an alternate route and make Toby a rapper. Our inspiration was Nelly. Michael was much happier with this idea. I don't think it turned out too bad considering how quickly we threw it together. And Toby seemed to feel a lot more confident as a tough rapper dog ::wink::

The party we went to at Amanda and Jared's was a ton of fun. They always know how to put together a good shin-dig. I even made a pretty intense pumpkin roll to bring that was a hit. Jared and Amanda (after years of persuasion and a little bullying) finally dressed up as Pam and Jim. Overall the night couldn't have been more of hit! Here are some pictures to wrap it up and show off all our awesomeness.

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

Birthdays are always great, but I have to say that my birthday this year "takes the cake." This year my birthday fell on a Saturday which meant I didn't have to go to work or partake of any non-birthday, normal routine-ness. We had the whole day to celebrate ME! ::wink:: What really made this birthday exceptional though was everything Michael did from sun-up to sun-down.

There is absolutely nothing better or more nostalgic than waking up to the smell of delicious bacon frying in a pan somewhere within the confines of your home. That was the fantastic aroma that floated into my room and forced my eyes open on the morning of my birthday. Michael fixed me a yummy breakfast of all my favorite breakfast items. Cinnamon toast, sausage with syrup on it, bacon, scrambled eggs and orange juice.


He asked me if I wanted my gift now or later, so of course I said "Now!" So he took out his phone and showed me the cutest pair of boots. He had taken some pictures I had on Pinterest of boots I liked and searched all over the mall to find ones that were the most similar. My jaw hit the ground almost immediately. Michael doesn't just hate shopping...he loathes it! It is the vain of his existence. So to find out that he had spent a couple hours doing nothing but searching every store in the mall for womens boots was the best gift of the day by far.

Michael then forced me to go take a relaxing shower and get ready while he cleaned the entire house. It was amazing!!! When I finally exited the bathroom my house sparkled and smelled so clean. It was like I had some super awesome self-clean mode on my house....or a really sweet husband who worked really hard :) Then he had me relax and watch TV while he cleaned the bathroom and shower and got ready himself.

Next, we went to the mall and I had the sweet gratification of getting the boots my little heart so desired without having to do all the work and annoying searching. I also got a new pair of flats for work because it was buy one get one 1/2 off and Michael was very persistent that I must need a second pair -lol-

(These are my beautiful new boots)

After that he took me to GameStop and I got to pick out a new game for the Wii! So I picked Epic Mickey. Equally easy and artsy...equaling a very Sarah-esque video game.

(notice the paintbrush in his hand?...like I said, it's a very Sarah game)

He was very cute about the whole thing. He wouldn't tell me where we were going when we were inside the mall. He just kept looking at the mall maps and pulling me along. He would even fake me out by passing a store and then yanking me around back into it really quick. Then we got me some new lotion from Bath and Body Works and afterward went to the coolest candy store ever. I can't remember the name, but they have all these fantastic candies I remember from when i was a kid like Milk Maids, Root Beer Float Barrels, those Caramel and Creme German candies and every other kind of candy you could ever imagine. You take a little basket and put however many of each candy you want in the basket. Then when you're done they weigh the candy and you pay per oz...kind of like all these yogurt places nowadays, but with CANDY!

For lunch we went to Jamba Juice which j'adore or for those non-French speaking readers, "I adore". Then I played my new video game with Michael for a couple hours whilst we sipped away on our smoothies. I even wore my new boots the whole time because I didn't want to take them off! Once I got the hang of it and was okay to be left alone Michael slipped off into the kitchen to make my surprise dinner. I wasn't sure what he was concocting in there but I knew I smelled Worcestershire sauce and garlic, which you can basically put on mud and I'd be a fan of it. But of course, being the magnificent chef that Michael is, the meal was way better than mud. We had delicious steaks, lemon and garlic asparagus and herb roasted potatoes + sweet potatoes. It. Was. So. Yummy.

I was then forced to continue playing my video game and to pick a movie to rent while Michael cleaned up. Knowing the chances for me to watch a chick flick without hesitation are far and few between I picked "Something Borrowed" for us to watch. After going to Red Box to get the DVD we came home and put candles on a tiny carrot cake Michael got for me (my favorite), sang Happy Birthday and ate our cake with Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.


I don't care if everybody else in the world thinks those things are disgusting together, but I enjoyed every bite because they are my favorites!! The movie was surprisingly good and if had Jim from The Office in it so of course Michael and I were fans. In the middle of the movie I got one last birthday surprise which was my favorite snack in the entire universe...homemade guacamole. Mmmm. I think I gained about 5 lbs on all the stuff Michael fed me all day, but it was so totally worth it.

I know that was a very long and rambling blog, but the jest of it is this. Awesome husband = Awesome birthday. The best part was that he had thought out every little part and that's what I really love most. Is telling that someone really thought about you. Thank you dear for the best of all 24 birthdays I've ever had :)