Merriest of Merries

This Christmas season was really great. It wasn't officially our first Christmas together but last year we didn't really do anything for it since our wedding was the week before. It was so fun to decorate and get each other gifts and such. Anywho, so we drove around for ever trying to find a Christmas tree lot, commmmmon Logan, seriously we had to buy our tree from smiths.. Lame. I mean I'm not bashing on smiths or anything, but down in my home land, sandy, there are lots galore! Alas we bought a cute little tree (6 footer) and brought her home. We watered her and dressed her up and yet... a few days later pine needles are falling everywhere. Poor little tree just didn't quite have what it takes. We left her up anyway and it's actually still up... we just don't have the heart to take her down. Although our tree was a slight disappointment it still looked and smelled amazing. There's nothing like walking in the door and smelling real pine :) mmmmm. I am really stuck on having a live tree. When we were little some of my favorite Christmas memories were going to pick out a Christmas tree. Although many of our journeys included mass hysteria, It was always such a fun time spent with the family.
One year my parents had some friends that had land that they let us go cut down our own tree. Does the movie Chrismas Vacation come to mind anyone? It seriously echoed that first scene of the movie. Everything went wrong. We were in the middle of a blizzard, trying to find where we were supposed to go. Finally we just pulled over and decided to cut one down... we got it all up on the top of the van and my dad forgot scissors to cut the twine. My mom hesitantly let him borrow her little cross stitch scissors and of course they ended up dropping into the ten feet of snow below. Classic. When we got the tree home it took up (in my little childhood mind) half of our living room. and to quote myself "we kids loved that tree." It was a year to remember. We stuck to Christmas tree lots after that. Every year we had some huge melt down at the lots trying to decide on a tree. People wanting a skinny tree, or a really full tree. My mom crying because she hated that we were all fighting. In the end my Dad always pulled us all together and made us choose, and make up. I look back and love all of those memories. It's always the ridiculous ones that make things memorable.

So I made this paper creation a few weeks back and thought it would be a fun tree topper? It worked perfectly! 

 I love decorating for Christmas. I love the advent calendars, the trees, snowflakes.... all sorts of fun things. It just helps me get in the mood for the holidays. My grandma gave me this little bear ornament. It reminds me of my grandparents house on Christmas. My grandma made these and has a bunch of them on her tree :) We always go over to their home on Christmas and have their amazing spiced beef. My parents have tried to figure out how to make it for the past couple of years and it has a pretty intense process. I don't know if anyone can quite do it the same as they do. It is so delicious.  My grandpa has to serve everyone their spiced beef. It has to be done the right way. You get a piece of bread, not just any kind of bread. Its nice and thick wheat (not sure of the brand...) he puts a few thin slices of spiced beef and onions (and if you ask for no onions, you'll get the eye... and then receive a few on there anyway) He then pours the juices from the beef on top. I think I am drooling just thinking about it. We also enjoy, my dads incredible potatoes (not anything like funeral potatoes). Always perfection. Grandma Jean's maple cookie's (Marcus's fav) Tammy's million layered jello, cracker dip, and soooooo much more. Its like another Thanksgiving!

I think ornaments have so many memories that go along with them. My mom always gave us ornaments and little Christmas trinkets as part of our advent calendar adventures. We had advents all over our house and we would spend every night leading up to Christmas going around the house doing the advents together. (also lots of crazy memories of fighting about who's turn it was and what not.)

This ornament was my first one. My mom got us all really unique first Christmas ornaments and she gave me this to hang on our tree. I love it! If you look really close you can see my name and birth date on it.

This beauty goes a few years back. I made a module of can cubes when I was first up here at Utah State and it has kind of fallen apart over the years, so I thought they would make fun Christmas tree ornaments? I thought the dr pepper can was fitting to show...

I love these sparkly green snowflake ornaments... I just love green. It was fun to go out with Steve and find some new ornaments for our tree. They looked great on the tree.

Another thing I love about Christmas is the cookies! We used to make all sorts of fun Christmas cookies when we were all at home. My favorite are candy cane cookies. They were always so fun to make because we could all help out! And they are delicious. So I mad a couple batches this Christmas. Ive never done it myself before but they turned out great! Steve and I had fun making all sorts of random candy canes :) My parents also gave me a copy of my grandmas cookie cookbook that most of these recipes came from. I am so excited to make some of them!

I love to wrap. Its a strange obsession but I really do. When I was younger I was always designated the wrapper. My dad and brothers would come to me to have me help him wrap my mom's gifts. I would act like I was annoyed and hated it but deep down I really loved it! I found some fun stuff at Micheals this year and had some fun with it. I also made some little cards to go with the gifts.

Here we are Christmas morning I look awesome. Not as cool as Steve in his Santa hat, that yes, he wore the entire day :)

 My mom has cross stitched us all these beautiful stockings... and I forgot to take a picture, they are so wonderful tho. I always loved opening our stockings on Christmas morning. Santa (aka daddyrom) always does such a good job at putting fun things into our stockings. I love my parents so much. I am so grateful for all of the fun traditions they created for us when we were young. My favorite Christmas tradition was on Christmas eve we would always sit down and read Christmas books together. My parents have some beautiful Christmas books and it was good for us to think about the savior and read different stories that relate to him. It was always helpful to get us out of our greedy moods, even if it was only for a few minutes. This year we didn't have Marcus with us for Christmas. Marcus is one of the most Christ like people I know. He is so gentle and giving. There was definitely something missing without him there this year. I hope that I as time goes on I can be more like him. This Christmas was so great to spend time with family and enjoy the things that really matter.  I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a new year 2011!!!

December Eighteenth

        One year later.....

Please allow yourself to laugh at the picture above. hehe I love Steve so much! It is so funny how many people don't recognize Steve with all of his facial hair and long hair.  I really don't mind it, I think he looks great! What's even funnier is that a guy he works with thought he was 33 years old... (oh and another fellow employee told him he thought I was somebody's little sister, like 15 years old). Anyway Saturday the 18th was our one year anniversary! First of all I cannot believe it has been a year since that day! It's crazy, even though it feels like we have always been together.

So as luck would have it we had two family Christmas parties planned on our anniversary. We stopped by both of them and stuffed ourselves. Then we went to check into the hotel we had reserved. Steve ran to check in, while I lazily sat in the car. Ick it embarrasses me to admit what a girl I was being.. anyway Steve ran in and one of my friends from high school, Jaten Mcgriff. He was working the front desk! I love that kid. He was such a good friend in high school to me. He is in my brothers program at the U and is really good friends with him now. Small world! So he gave us a sweet and a free breakfast (which was amazing!)

We ended up eating some of our wedding cake which was delicious! I was certainly surprised. My best friend Lainie's mom made it and she is an amazing baker, let me tell you. It tasted great, and that's after a year of sitting in a freezer. We had it wrapped 14 times (7 tin foil layers, 7 plastic wrap layers) It turned out to be a really fun day!

So after we went swimming at the hotel we came back to our room (starving) we noticed at the elevator that someone had left a perfectly good dominos pizza there... to waste! Oh my gosh it smelled good. We were very tempted to eat it. How gross right? Well....................You can stop worrying and thinking we are some disgusting dumpster diving crazies. We didn't eat it. Man it took some will power, we passed it several times during the stay and every time got more difficult to resist. Who throws out half a pizza? Stupid. Anyway we had a great time. I feel even closer to Steve then I was before. Allow me to get mushy here for a sec. I love Stephen so much. He is such a wonderful husband, and friend. I've never met a more gentle and kind guy in my life, and I couldn't be prouder of him. He works so hard for everything in his life. He is smart and humble and I love his little quirks (come on we all have them).  Can't wait for this next year :)

All nighter print extravaganzas

So I finally am finished with finals!!! I use the word finished lightly. I still have a lot of work to do on my prints. My projects just took up more time then I had anticipated. My woodcut project was mighty large. I really like whats happening with it, but it isn't finished. I will post some pictures soon, once I have it finished or at least closer to finished then it is now.

I have spent the last two weeks barely sleeping. I spent a few nights staring at my computer creating that website and working on my portfolio and then for the past week have spent countless hours in the printmaking lab. I love it though. I have a couple of really great friends that I've made and its so fun being there working together and getting advice and ideas from each other. (not to mention all the Diet DP we share) I'm such an addict but I love diet DP I swear if you try it you will be surprised how good it is. I would not have survived finals week without it! Anyway several of those nights (I think at least 5) I was at the lab until 4:30 working. I posted about my huge block (which is 3' x3') My muscles are so weak and tired from carrying and carving that thing. I would go home and feel so stiff and just fall into bed feeling like I would die in my sleep. Standing, carving, lifting, cleaning... for hours at a time.

So last night Lisie, Alisa and I stayed in the lab ALL night working on our projects for our advanced print class. It was madness I tell you. We didn't leave until 7 this morning as the sun was coming up. It was good to have company but by the end of the night we were all going crazy. Its quite funny how strange things happen when you are tired. I just end up saying really bizarre things. Alisa kept falling asleep in funny places, once while researching reading a print book and also I caught here sleeping standing at her drawer. It was hilarious. Its been a long couple of weeks for us all. It feels so good to be done with this semester. Things were really stressful and busy, so it feels great to be done. It is really feeling strange that I will be graduating in the spring. I don't know what I will do with myself. School has been my life for the past umpteen years. I really do enjoy school and I love art and design. I am seriously considering getting a MFA when we move for Steve to go to grad school. I love how much more I appreciate design and art from what I have learned. Why ever stop learning? I sound crazy, maybe that's the tired talking? Who knows. But I am excited for the time I have left and what's to come. Now time for relaxation. I love this time of year and I can't wait to finally be able to enjoy it!

24 packs of Dr pepper can get you through a lot of things

So finals have been pretty rough but I've made it through two and have two more to go... I have a lot of work to do...

My first final was my portfolio class. Ive been trying to get it all put together. It is so much more work then I ever thought.  Its coming along tho so graduation is seeming more and more real. Which is so strange!

The past two nights I have been slaving on my Flash website. Oh my gosh it is crazy how confusing and frustrating it can be but in the end I pulled it off (something I really didn't think was possible) I just work well under pressure. Its funny, this is exactly how my Dad operates. I keep realizing how much I am like my Dad. (Which I am so proud of, I look up to my Dad so much. He is one of the most intelligent and loving men I will ever know) Anyway so I have realized how much I get done in the crunch time zone. I had a couple of weeks to do this assignment and I just wasn't happy with my design. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, considering all I went through to get it to actually function. Pretty much 2 straight days. I slept like 6 or 7 hours over the past couple days. Not advised, but hey that's how I do it.  Here is the link to the site. Check it out :)


http://www.fall10.graphicinterfacedesign.com/students/mhorrock/flash/

This is a little sneak peak at what im working on next for my woodcut printmaking class. Im pretty excited about it! Its a 3'x3' woodcut block.. Its going to have multiple reductive layers... crazy I know (as you can see I am throwing down the diet Dr Peppers... I bought a 24 pack this last weekend and it is almost gone... Steve has only drank a few...

Anyway wish me luck!

The Peacemaking Vacuumer

 

Marcus. My little brother. We have been best friends since I can remember. Our whole lives you could say. It has been so great to see him grow (literally as well as emotionally and spiritually)  When I was a senior in high school he was shorter then me (5'4") by the time he graduated high school he had grown to be 6 feet tall, and the tallest person in our family. I don't have any idea where that came from.  

Marcus is leaving on a mission on Dec 8, which is Wednesday. I cannot believe he's going to be gone in only a few short days. Marcus is one of the most patient people I know. He is always the peacemaker. One time at a family dinner we were all arguing (Romriell style, everyone yelling at the same time and talking over each other.) So as the argument progressed we were suddenly startled by the sound of the vacuum down in our family room... what? Marcus was down in the family room vacuuming. If you know Marcus you know that he is not one to just break out and start cleaning on a whim. I think he was just trying to drown out all of the ridiculousness that was our dinner conversation.  Needless to say we all just started laughing and forgot what we were even fighting about in the first place.

When we were little Marcus and I would play with our beanie babies (a family obsession) It's funny because he always played along and loved it (or so I thought). He told me the other night that he just went along with whatever I said. Bossy old me told him what to play and how to play it, and sweet Marcus just went along with it to make me happy. As I think about all of our years growing up together I can honestly say Marcus was my first best friend. Kind and selfless, he always put my feelings first. A true friend. As he has prepared to leave on his mission to Germany I have watched him. He has matured more then I could have ever imagined. I have seen a light in him that I haven't seen in many people.  As I kept putting off saying goodbye, I couldn't help but get all emotional. As much as I know how important his mission is, I'm selfish and don't want him to be gone. There are so many things that I wish I could say to express how much I love him. Goodluck Marcus, I'll miss you more then I think you know.

Woodcuts

I've been slaving over all of my final projects, one of which includes a 3'x3' woodcut... Its insane and I don't know what I thought I was getting myself into. We will see how it turns out. I have another week or so to finish. Maybe ill post some photos. Anyway I came across these beauties and thought I'd share. They are so intricate, I love all of the patterns.. I am such a nerd.

http://www.harabuhouse.com/decor/accessories/indian-wooden-print-blocks-large-set.html

sorry my posting has been sparse, my finals might kill me this semester. More to come another day.