I Love Christmas Time!

Today I made Snicker Doodles for Scotty... He may not be getting very many :/ They are really yummy!

Here's the recipe if you wanna try em out. (Mom's recipe)

Snicker Doodles

1/2 C softened butter

1/2 C shortening

1 1/2 C sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 C flour

2 t cream of tartar

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 T sugar

2 T cinnamon

Blend the first four ingredients together. Then add the rest, except the T of sugar and cinnamon. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and roll the cookies in it. Bate at 400 on an ungreased cookie sheet.

The recipe didn't specify a time amount... I think I did mine for about 10 minutes. And I ALWAYS turn my oven down lower. I think I baked this around 365 ish.

In other news, we are doing nothing out of the ordinary. We bought a REAL Christmas tree and it smells SOOO good!!

And we're going to Washington for Christmas. We leave in just 10 days and I am beyond excited! We'll be there for over a week and it's going to be so nice to spend time with my family :)

Who Wants to Buy Me A House???

Oh, what's my favorite holiday, you ask?

CHRISTMAS!!!!!

However, I am VEHEMENTLY opposed to Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. One of my favorite Bean family traditions is the day after Thanksgiving festivities. Mom leaves at 3 am (or some other ridiculous hour) to fill up Santa's Sleigh. The rest of us stay home and help Dad put up the Christmas lights, which usually turns into Nikki and Dad putting up the Christmas lights.

Then, the first Saturday of December is dedicated to getting our Christmas tree. We take it home, Dad puts it on the stand and gets the lights strung. And then on Sunday after church, we all decorate the tree together as a family. I love it! Since I've been away at school, I haven't been able to help decorate the tree and I miss it dearly.

Anyway, back to what I was saying.... about being vehemently opposed.... I came home from work just now for my lunch break and OUR APARTMENT IS ALL DECKED OUT FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

AAAHHHHH!!!!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas decorations! (Just ask Eric, he'll tell you I'm sure) But I can't handle it before Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving almost as much as I love Christmas and I don't think it's fair to poor Thanksgiving. All you people that already have your Christmas decorations up: Whatever, to each his own. I just think my landlord should have ASKED me before he put a wreath on my Window and garlands with lights down the stairs. It depresses me that I will be renting for the next 20 years or so. I want complete control!

I'm sure I'll be glad when it's Christmastime that our landlord so generously decorates our 4-plex. I will be! But for now, I'm annoyed. My cute Thanksgiving Welcome sign hanging on my door now looks ridiculous. It clashes. But I refuse to take it down.

On a happier note, I'm at home, eating my lunch, watching A Baby Story. *sigh* I love this show. :)

Happy Halloween!!!

I wasn't sure if I was going to get our costumes done in time for Halloween. This week turned out to be INSANE! Eric has been studying NON-STOP for his classes, particularly Organic Chemistry. We didn't even go to our ward Halloween party :( so I didn't really have much motivation to try out the awesome idea I had.

Nonetheless, Chantel went shopping with me on Wednesday night to get the supplies. And Saturday I woke up with a very strong desire to just do it. So Nikki came over to keep me company and help me out.

This was the result:

In case you can't tell, my inspiration came from this picture:

I think Eric's part of it turned out GREAT! Mine was a little more challenging. But as long as I was standing next to him, people go the idea. We were definitely a hit at the party we went to! Eric LOVED being Wall-E! He definitely got into character very well.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with his costume, but I spent way too much time and effort on it and I REFUSE to throw it away!!

2 Years Isn't THAT Long, Right??

On Wednesday I went with my parents to take my little brother to the MTC. Scotty *cough* Elder Bean will be serving in the California Anaheim mission, Spanish speaking for the next 2 years. Being there with him on this day was so important to me, but so very difficult. I am so incredibly proud of him for all that he has accomplished and for the person that he has become. It was touch and go there for awhile, but Scotty is a great example to me. He has a very strong testimony of the Gospel, he's extremely charismatic, and he is surprisingly a very good public speaker. He did a GREAT job at his farewell, as I've already mentioned, and I can't wait to see what he does out in the mission field over the next 2 years!

I love you Scotty!

Oh, Scotty and I have been planning on doing the Amazing Race for several years now. We're doing it when he gets back. We're both fairly confident that we can win the whole thing. He told me to wait to have kids until after that, because it will be easier to do it if I haven't had any yet :)

Hot & Cold, Black & White, Opposites Attract... Right?

When Eric and I see eye-to-eye, we really agree! But when we don't, well... it's a little rough.

For example, where will we live after med school?

Of course my vote:

The beautiful GREEN state of Washington!

But Eric's vote?

The not-so-green state of Utah. (all you Utards out there, don't get me wrong, some really great things have come out of Utah. It's just not for me.)

And when it comes to our cell phone service?

My vote will ALWAYS stay loyal to

But Eric seems to think he has it better with

I don't know what he's thinking!

But the most important question of all....

WILL OUR KIDS BOARD, OR SKI?!?!

I just don't know what we're gonna do!

We've gone to Parks 3 times in less than a week! I got new boots, and Eric's dad was nice enough to buy him new skis and bindings! Wow! He is WAY excited about his Nordica Enforcers. (Seriously, check his facebook status.) I have to admit, they look pretty good. He also got a new beanie from the Buckle this weekend that we both actually love.

Every time talk of the Mountain comes up, we're sure to have a discussion about what our kids will do. Classic to Eric form, he INSISTS they will be skiing. Surprisingly enough, I'm more of the compromiser in the relationship. Today I suggested we tell them "You can be cool and board like Mom, or you can be cool and ski like Dad!" Eric says he agrees with that idea, but he usually says that just to appease me. It won't last. (How do I know you ask? BEFORE we got married, he said we could live in Washington. Now he's insisting on Utah.)

But there is one thing we agree on....

WE CAN'T WAIT TO HIT THE SLOPES!

And of course, we love each other, very much :)

And we're extremely disappointed in our team. I can't even talk about it right now.

I forgot to mention....

I just pulled out my letter from the advertising department from my purse. It was the only scrap of paper I had in my purse while I traveled to Washington this past weekend. Since I am so forgetful, and knew I would forget this moment if I didn't write it down, I recorded a memory on that envelope right when I got to Outback for dinner with my family on Friday night. I'm so glad I did because I completely forgot about it in my post last night!

So (this isn't the part I would have forgotten) Eric and I were happily sitting together on the airplane, almost ready to take off. The last 2 people to get on were a mom and her young daughter--probably somewhere around 7 years old. Of course Southwest is retarded and there are no assigned seats so all that was left for them were middle seats in the back of the plane. The girl began to cry. So Eric and I decided to give up our 2 seats so they could sit together.

I ended up sitting between 2 construction workers who were going home for the weekend. They were nice to me and very friendly, but definitely rough around the edges. They were appalled when I ordered water and offered to buy me a drink. I politely declined. I think they may have offered me more than that had I not mentioned that my husband was sitting across the aisle. I tried really hard to make my ring as noticeable as possible.

Anyway, I wanted to tell my family the story, so while we were waiting to be seated at the restaurant I began with, "I sit by the weirdest people on airplanes!"

Without missing a beat, my 10-year-old sister Cassie said, "Well you do sit by Eric these days!"

We all laughed pretty hard. Good one Cassie!

Thank goodness I wrote down what she said... It makes me wish I was better about writing in my journal. :)

A Maze and A Missionary

Thursday night we went out on a date with our good friend Michael. Eric set him up with one of the freshman girls from his group when he was a Y-group leader of New Student Orientation this summer. It was kind of funny, but we all had a really great time!

Before we picked everyone else up, we took a picture of us being so excited that I got into the advertising program!!

At Cornbelly's in Thanksgiving Point. We had a great time and there was lots to do! We weren't so good at the corn maze though... We went into "phase 2" and ended up coming out the entrance of Phase 1. Oops! So a Corn Cop showed us where to go to get out and back into Phase 2 again. After going in circles and passing the same signs like 10 times, we ended up coming out the entrance. At least it was of Phase 2 this time! :)

Then we played some tether ball! Eric had never played before, but just like always, he was a natural and creamed us all. *** correction: Eric just informed me that he had played tether ball before. My bad. He was amazing regardless :)

Just us...

Gotta love the self-timer pictures!

This past weekend, we went up to Vancouver to go to Scotty's mission farewell. I only took one picture, but it is precious. Saturday night we went to dinner with some of our really close family friends. Ben and Alexa's youngest, Avery is 11 months old and I got to hold her through almost all of dinner. It was so fun to feed her and play with her and make her laugh. Eric took her from me right at the end and he was SO CUTE with her in his arms. If I didn't already want kids so bad, that would definitely have made me want one. Now I just want one even more!!

Isn't she ADORABLE?! Oh man... I was in heaven!

And of course, the reason we went... My little brother! He did such an AWESOME job on his talk and I was so proud of him! I definitely cried during the farewell. I'm going to miss that kid so much. But it will be fun when he gets back from Anaheim because we will be able to speak Spanish together. Plus, Scotty and I are planning on competing in and winning the Amazing Race. We're looking forward to doing that when he gets back. :)

Here he is with his best friend, Sam Beck. Sam is serving in Ghana and he reports to the MTC on Wednesday. They had a triple farewell with one other kid from the ward. It was really neat to see.

I love you Scotty! I can't wait to see what amazing things you will do on your mission and in the future!!

DiSnEyLaNd!!

Last weekend was a BLAST! I absolutely LOVE being with my family and I am so glad that we all got to go to Disneyland together one last time before Scotty leaves on his mission. Who knows where everyone will be when he gets back and our lives are even crazier?? Anyway, here's the weekend in pictures. My mom has the better ones, so maybe I'll add some after I get back from Vancouver this weekend.

Cassie, Katie and I at breakfast Thursday morning. We got to go upstairs to the concierge lounge for food whenever we wanted. Our room keys let us in. It was great!

My weirdo brothers... Boy do I love them! :)

Waiting to get on Screamin' for the first time. This is definitely one of my favorite rides! I scream the WHOLE time because I'm having so much fun!!

Waiting for the parents at some point or another... They were probably buying pins for Jody.

Courtney and Cassie. She is growing up so fast! :(

Me and the kiddos on Grizzly River Run. Ready to get wet!!

Oh Jody... Such a 12-year-old boy!

Jody and Cassie were such troopers!! This Disneyland trip was definitely very different from any of the previous ones where we all went because Jody and Cassie are finally old enough/big enough to enjoy all the "big kid rides". We drug them all over those parks, day and night. They never complained a bit and kept right up with us! It was great to see them transitioning into becoming friends with the rest of us kids. The older 4 of us have become a lot closer in the last couple years as we have grown up and it is so fun! Anyway, my dad and I were buying Churros one night. It seriously took like 5 minutes. Cassie fell asleep in this position while she was waiting! Poor thing! But then we all went on Splash Mountain, the last ride of the night. It was great!

This was Dad's idea and we all loved it! I love my siblings!!

Happy Birthday Scotty!! Mom bought him this cute hat that was definitely made for little children, but he wore it like a champ and got happy birthday wishes from total strangers all day long.

One day at about 11 am, there was no one in line for the Grizzly River Run. We love that ride when all 8 of us are there because we take up an entire raft. So we decided to go on it. Twice. We got SOAKED! For some reason, I don't look all that wet in this picture... I think my back got it way worse. Anyway, Katie and I figured out how to dry out.

2 years ago, they wouldn't have been caught dead in the same car on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Aww, how precious. :)

Cassie and I realized when we got home that our hair was OUT OF CONTROL! Haha, that's what you get for staying in Disneyland for 16 hours straight! We didn't get back to the hotel on our last night there until nearly 2 am. But it was totally worth it!!

Our matching Minnie t-shirts. (Cassie and Nikki got theirs shortly after we took this picture.) And please don't mind my ridiculous looking hair. It doesn't air dry well. Obviously.

Here it is folks....

I tried to scan and post my letter, but it didn't work. So I'll just tell you.....

I GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE ADVERTISING PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!

In case you can't tell, I'm ecstatic! I can't believe it! I am SO relieved! And so excited to start the program next semester!!!!

Only bad news is, I told Eric if I didn't get in, I get to have a baby. He never actually agreed to that, but it looks like I won't be going that route anymore. :) Heavenly Father always knows what's best!

Momma called the Doctor and the Doctor said....

No more monkeys jumping on the bed! Oh and by the way Courtney, you have swine flu. Awesome. I definitely don't recommend it to anyone. All that talk about taking kids to swine flu parties--STUPID!!! It sucks! I missed 3 days of work this week. Momma also used to say "be careful what you wish for." Last week I woke up early one morning to get ready for school and I thought to myself, "I just want to stay in bed." I wanted to lie around all day and be lazy and not do anything at all. Well, I got what I wished for. But one day was more than enough. Day 2 was awful. I wasn't supposed to go anywhere because I was highly contagious, but I couldn't handle the couch anymore so I decided to go to the grocery store. We were out of milk....

Bad idea. I think it took every ounce of energy I had left in my body. Pretty sure I almost passed out in the middle of the cereal aisle. Hopefully I didn't infect anyone. I learned my lesson anyway. Don't go out when you're sick.

The worst part of it was the coughing. I have been coughing non-stop for almost a week now. Nyquill and Dayquill have become my bff's. 

Well yesterday I was feeling better and we had tickets to the afternoon session of general conference. So Eric and I made the trek to Salt Lake for the afternoon. Our parking pass ended up being like 2 miles away from the Conference Center. I was wearing heels. Really high ones. And we were running a little late so we power walked to be certain that we were in our seats 30 minutes prior to the start of the session. That did me in. So on the way back, I walked barefoot. Gross. Oh and p.s. I brought tissues with me since I've been having nose issues too. I decided a small packet wasn't enough so I brought a bag large enough to fit my entire box of Kleenex. Thank goodness for Kleenex with lotion! My nose sure appreciates it. :)

Anyway... after the session (by the way, Eric and I both fell asleep for awhile) we went outside and wanted our picture taken. We stood there for about 15 minutes, waiting for the perfect person to take our picture. Yes, there were TONS of people, but we wanted a great picture. (Really, I think both of us were just not in the mood to ask someone to take our picture. I eventually gave in and this was the result)

It was worth the wait.... For some reason we have no pictures of us lately.

My favorite part was walking down the street afterwards and seeing all the protestors. One guy had a shirt that said: "Ask me why you're going to hell." Hilarious.

On a more somber note, Grandma Bready passed away last night. She has been suffering for awhile so it is for the better. We are so grateful for eternal families and for the knowledge we have that we will see her again. Unfortunately, the funeral will be on Saturday so Eric won't be able to come to Disneyland with my family. I would have stayed home as well, but it's our last family vacation before Scotty leaves on his mission so I guess Eric and I will have to represent one another with each of our families.

Hopefully everyone is enjoying conference. Is anyone else getting the message of love?? :)

I Have An Obsession....

I watch this show EVERY SINGLE DAY. In fact, I plan my lunch break from work around when this show will be on. (2 pm on TLC, in case you're wondering) I'm pretty sure they have 2 full hours of it every afternoon, but I never have that long of a break.

I don't know what it is about it that I love so much. Well, let's be honest, it's the babies. I LOVE BABIES! And yes, I want one SO BAD! But there are several reasons why this won't be happening for awhile:

1:

I need to graduate!! I'm kicking myself for taking so long to choose my major. I just applied to the advertising program. If I get in, I will only have 27 credits left before I graduate! Yay! So.... that's not too long to wait, right? WRONG! Because of reason #2:

I work. Full time. Which is GREAT because I absolutely LOVE my job! But, it makes going to school a little more difficult. Right now, I'm only taking 5 credits and only one class actually on campus. Next semester, I'm going to bump it up a notch. With such great motivation (baby?!?!) I think I should be able to handle it.

And #3?

My wonderful husband, the handsome devil that he is, just doesn't think it's time yet. Normally, I'm always right. But in this case, I have to agree with him. I want to make sure that when we bring another soul into this world that it's done at the right time on the Lord's time table. Heavenly Father knows best what we need. I feel confident that He will let me know when it's "time." :)

So for now, I'm content to wait. I love being married to my amazing husband and I'm totally fine with just spending some time with him for now. Although I'm not really seeing him very much these days. He pretty much lives with Mr. Benson and Mr. Lee. I guess I should start joining him.

I'm happy watching other parents welcome their beautiful babies into this world. Plus, I learn a TON! Not to mention, I do reBLOGsearching and read tons of moms' stories about their deliveries and pregnancies. I found out this weekend that the first four of my mom's six kids all came naturally! Wow! Way to go Mom! With Number 5 she decided to try the epidural, but it only worked on HALF of her body. Talk about pain!! Then Jody decided to get himself stuck anyway and he had to be delivered via emergency C-section. So Cassie came via scheduled C-section. All my new knowledge is pushing me towards the decision of wanting to do natural child births. For those who know me, you know my pain tolerance is basically non-existent. But I'm pretty sure I could handle it. I guess I have awhile to decide though, right? :)

Hopefully someday I'll have as many as my mom had (or more?) and I'll look back at this and laugh.

(So anyone with kids that needs a babysitter, let me know! I would be happy to spend some time with your little ones!!)

The Application Is In!!

For the past few weeks I've been working on my application to the advertising program. Hence why I haven't blogged in awhile. I wanted to wait until I got accepted (hopefully) before posting this, but I figured that if I don't get in, I probably won't post it at all. :) So here's the commercial I made. It's supposed to be a self-portrait of sorts, in as creative a way as you can come up with. Eric helped me out a TON with this and I couldn't have done it without him!! He is so good to me :) Anyway, please let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C81t5ebw7v8

How We Do

This is going to be somewhat random, but I just wanted to share a few pics from some of my highlights of the summer. I'm trying to keep my posts short and sweet so I don't get overwhelmed by all the missed events. :)

This is from our trip to Washington for Memorial Day Weekend. We decided to take the canoe out on the creek behind our house. I had never actually done this before and it was SO fun!! We had a BLAST! We even went twice it was so fun. Katie was so scared the whole time due to the Beehive kayaking accident she had when she almost drowned a few years ago. Actually I guess it's been more like 5 years. We were so proud of her for coming with us! Even if she did scream the whole first 10 minutes ;)

Anyway, this is a picture of us going through the grass. I know you can't tell, but we actually WERE on a creek, it was just more fun/adventurous to get stuck in the grass.

And this one is of Eric and I 4-wheeling with the Breadys a few weeks ago. We went last weekend too, but we didn't actually get any pictures that time. I LOVE 4-wheeling!! I'm so glad the Breadys are nice enough (and close enough) to take us with them, even though I ride passenger most of the time.

OK, story time! Eric broke my car!! :( This picture is from our trip to Moab. A few weeks before that trip, we went camping in the San Rafael Swell and hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon/played in Goblin Valley. When we got there on Friday night, we pulled off the road to camp. When I say we pulled off the road, I mean we pulled off the dirt road into the "wilderness" to find an existing fire pit to use for our campsite. I had done this my freshman year of college, but couldn't really remember what exactly we had done. Anyway, we realized very quickly that we had pulled off the road too early. There had been TONS of rain in Utah for the 2 or 3 weeks previous to our trip so there were lots of washes and ditches in the sandy dirt. As we were making our way back to the road (mind you, it was nearly dark), Eric totally hit a ditch and we bottomed out in it! I was so scared! (I even let a bad word slip from my mouth, but let's not dwell on that). Luckily we were going fast enough to get back up out of it and not get stuck, but it was bad. The car appeared to be fine. That is, until we got to Moab. Eric got the oil changed in my car the day we left and they re-filled the washer fluid there too because I was out. As we were on our way to Moab, we tried to use the washer fluid but it was still empty! We made a few comments about the stupid guys that work at Jiffy Lube that can't even remember to fill the washer fluid. No worries, we'll just stop and buy some at the gas station. Well, as Eric was pouring it in, he was simultaneously getting splashed on his feet. The washer fluid was going in one end and out the other! After a few minutes of investigation, we realized that it had broken when Eric hit the ditch at Little Wild Horse. Sad day, and I have YET to get it fixed. :(

Us at the end of the trail by Delicate Arch. We asked someone to take our picture. Apparently he didn't realize that the most important part of the background was the actual arch we had hiked to see. :)

And last but not least, I have recently discovered the joys of shooting a gun! OK those who know me well are probably freaking out at the thought of me having  REAL gun in my hands. But don't worry, this experience was incidence free! Even with me along! I actually really enjoyed myself. I preferred the 22 with the scope on it to the shotgun that kicked back so hard my shoulder was bruised and I had an instant headache. Plus, let's be honest, without the marks in the middle of a scope telling me where my shot was going to hit, there was no way in the world I would have ever hit anything with the shotgun. Clay pidgeons are just not my thing. Baby steps. I'll get there someday. Eric says he wants a handgun for Christmas. Yeah, and I want to go on a $10k shopping spree. Not gonna happen. Sorry! :)

Starting Fresh

OK. so I have a confession. I'm a blog stocker! But I haven't posted since September... I tried to do a post the other night complete with pictures and captions and the works, but I realized I had WAY too much to write about. So forget the last ten months (even though they were absolutely amazing and SO key). I'm starting fresh. Maybe once in awhile I'll post some pics with stories from some of our adventures this summer.


Anyway, here's what we've been up to this summer (last weekend was the first one all summer that we actually slept in our own bed!)

• Vancouver for Memorial Day, complete with canoe trips on the creek and Nertz of course with the sibs
• Several trips to Southern Utah - St. George, Moab, Zions, Little Wildhorse Canyon, Goblin Valley - LOTS of hiking! :)
• Vancouver again for the 4th of July (my FaVoRiTe holiday)
• 4-Wheeling with the Breadys
• HAWAII - we spent almost 2 whole weeks on the beautiful island of Oahu with Eric's family, and I just have to mention that we swam with wild dolphins. That was definitely the highlight of the trip!

We also got a calling in our ward... Marriage and Family Enhancement teachers! ha! We're FAR from experts, but it's fun nonetheless.

And the last couple nights, Eric has been playing Lacrosse again for the first time with the men's league. So fun to watch! Last night he scored a sick goal!!

I'm still working at Fillmore Spencer as a legal assistant for Randy. I love my job and all the girls I work with. Eric just scored an awesome job on Tuesday that he will start next month. He's going to be working at a preschool for autistic kids. The people interviewing him were so impressed by his interactions with the kids that they offered him a job on the spot! I'm so proud of him! :)

Well that's all for now. Tonight we're going to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house so maybe I'll have a picture to post tomorrow!