A Christmas To Remember

Sadly, we'll have to try to keep all of these memories since I FORGOT my camera!!! So I dedicate this widget to my sister-in-law Shelly who took these pictures. We have been having a BLAST here with our families this good Christmas season! All of our nieces, nephews, bothers & sisters are all here and we can't ask for anything more....well maybe that our nieces and nephews will stop growing up and that I had my camera!!, but it has been wonderful and full of snow!! West Jordan (my family) has at least 12" and Pleasant Grove/Cedar Hills has pretty much the same amount. Needless to say we've had a white Christmas. We have had alot of fun playing in the snow (sledding with the Steiny family is a long standing tradition), shopping (hello Park City!!), eating and eating and eating, games (video/board and the like),gingerbread houses, step aerobics (I was sore for three days) & playing with our nieces and nephews .....soooooo adorable. We hope that your Christmas has been just as wonderful and we are looking foreward to celebrating New Years (Candace, if you get this will you bring my camera down....I'll call you!!)and yes, I got my hair cut. Love to you all!!

The Steiny's Year In Review

(to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Passing through the months, there’s so much we can say,
started the year off great, but unemployment got in the way.
Life continued on, there’s so much that we’ve done,
We hope your year has been as great as we share our year of fun!
Oohhh…

Elder’s quorum, enrichment board, church callings are great,
Jeanette gave us another niece, she was born on 8-8-8! Hey,
Jana and Brent tied the knot, AJ and Lindsey too.
We spent so long away from Burns, our ward thought we had moved!

Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Parker’s little Crocs,
Ryan’s 10-year class reunion anything but rocked!
We went to Bear Lake, raspberry shakes were oh so fine,
Michelle freaked out while riding a horse for the first time.
Oohhh…

We came home, here to Burns, back to daily life,
Reffing soccer, blogging blogs, cooking with the wi-ife.
Subbing here, subbing there, subbing everywhere,
Doing everything we can, to not pull out our hair.
Oohhh…

Yoga days, card swap nights, gardening a lot.
For Halloween we had two heads, a la Michael Scott.
Things are good, things are great, things are just the bomb,
Merry Christmas, Happy New year, go to thesteinyfamily.blogspot.com!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Love the Steinies!!

Oh Christmas Tree!

So the day after Thanksgiving, and still digesting the dinner from the night before, The Steineckert family decided to take a trip up to the National Malheur Forest to find the perfect Christmas tree. It was a perfect day. The air was crisp, cool & with no snow yet we were able to pick whatever tree we wanted without wading through snow to get it. We looked at a lot of trees and right before we turned around to go down another way ....we found her...Zola, the perfect Christmas tree. We cut her town, tagged her & brought her home. Doesn't she look fabulous!!! With the house full of the pine tree scent.......it's begining to seem alot like Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

There was much to be thankful for this year!
#1. Family. Ryan's family came up to be with us this Thanksgiving. It was wonderful to have a house full. Watching movies, puzzles, games (I've learned that singing my clues really gets me no where!), cooking & eating!! It was soooo much fun. We are always thankful for visitors!
#2. Food-a-Plenty! Ryan & I loooove cooking together and it was soooo much fun to cook with him and my sister-in-law Allie. Our turkey was rubbed down with butter and herbs......aaaahhhh so tasty! We also had our sweet potato balls - if you don't like sweet potatoes you NEED to try Paula Deen's stuffed sweet potato balls:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/sweet-potato-balls-recipe/index.html
Our apple walnut salad was great, but the cranberry vinaigrette on top of it was devine!!
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Walnut-Salad-with-Cranberry-Vinaigrette/Detail.aspx?prop31=1
And of course dessert and since it's Thanksgiving it must be pumpkin!! This year I tried the beautiful Turtle Pumpkin Cheesecake!! A total winner. And, for the pumpkin haters in our family (Ryan hates the stuff) Bubba's Buttermilk Pie.
http://www.recipezaar.com/Turtle-Pumpkin-Cheesecake-332592
#3. Ryan. I'm so grateful for Ryan. He truely is the perfect husband & I love him more than anything!
#4. All of you my friends. I love you all and hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

My Inner 14 year-old Michelle

So a group of my friends & I took a trip to the "Big City" to go see Twilight on Friday! It was so much fun! Talking, shopping, talking, eating, talking & then....Edward. The gals that came with us had T-shirts just for the occasion. Rivka's (blue shirt) said: What do you mean that Edward isn't real?, Shyanne's(middle): I (heart) Edward and Shelby (far right): Edward is mine (and on the back) Just call me Bella. While I think the book is a billion times better than the movie (what book isn't?); I am glad that I went- it fulfilled the little 14 year-old Michelle in me! The week before I got to see High School Musical 3....what can I say? I want it all!!!!! I thought the soundtrack rocked (to both movies) so you are listening to "Bella's Lullaby" from Twilight & "I Want It All" from HSM3

I did it....I really did

That's right I did! ....I listened to Christmas music BEFORE THANKSGIVING!!!! Many of you that know me are probably picking yourselves up off the floor - Michelle listening to Christmas music!?!? And BEFORE Thanksgiving!?! I know - totally not me, but I did .....and I enjoyed it! I don't know if it's because I'm putting together our Christmas cards, busy planning the Relief society Christmas party, or the fact that I really wasn't up to celebrating it too much last year, but I am totally excited for Christmas this year - I'm totally in the mood! And today I couldn't help myself from listening to some Bing Crosby - it was fun.
So if I have created some ripple in the cosmos or jinxed some kind of holiday law (which I know that there is one & before now I really upheld it)...it's my fault. I did it.
(BTW: Yahoo Music has a host of holiday music stations. I personally enjoy "Holiday Lounge")

Happy Halloween!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful, spooky & candy filled Halloween! We had a bit of fun too! After seeing the Halloween episode from The Office Season 2 (that's right! We are totally employee's of Dundermifflin) where Micheal has a second head; we were instantly inspired to do the same thing for our costumes this year. It took about a week to complete the full thing, but we had a lot of fun doing it!! Pumpkin carving was second on the Halloween-To-List. We grow our own pumpkins (alot cheaper than buying, but you need ALOT of room for the plant) and this fall we had an early frost so, we only had one orange pumpkin and the other three where green!! Lots of good ideas though. The Frankenpumpkin is mine, the Calvinpumpkin is Ryan's and I designed the Headless Horsman Pumpkin head and Ryan executed it. Next year? I'm thinking of David & Posh Spice Beckham.....better start working out.....