I'm Moving

Well... I'm not technically moving, but my blog is!  I got married and needed a new blog url :-)  So if you'd like to continue to see what I'm up to, check out kimberlyandmatt.blogspot.com.  Also, I've started a Picture a Day blog - kimberlyhudson365.blogspot.com.

Yes, I Know...

...I am going to be one of those moms.  I have been blogging for over 5 years now, and have faithfully followed many friends and family members' blogs for just as long.  At this stage in my life, most of my friends have kids, and I notice how their blog posts are mainly focused on their kids.  At times I have thought, "But I want to know what you're doing, not just what your kids are doing!"  Well, here is my first (of what I'm sure will be many more to come) post all about Kylee.  I can't believe I will be a mom in 11 days!

For Christmas, I bought Kylee gymnastics classes - her classes started a couple weeks ago and they will go through the beginning of June.  The first day we went was "show night" and was for all the parents to see what their kids had learned over the last 20 weeks.  My original plan was to drop Kylee off at gymnastics and go next door to my gym for my bootcamp class, but I just couldn't leave her on her first day, especially since all the other parents would be there cheering their kids on.  I was a little worried how Kylee might do since she hadn't even learned any of the things the kids were demonstrating, but she did great!  She wasn't shy at all and was excited to perform for all the family members in attendance.  Here's a little video of one of her "performances."

This last Monday as we were leaving gymnastics, Kylee told me, "I loved that.  Thanks Kim."  Ahhh, melted my heart.

I had this last Monday off work because it was a holiday, so I got to spend all day with Kylee.  One of the things we did was paint her bedroom.  We decided she probably didn't want one orange wall (although we're already brainwashing her to love Boise State!), so we had asked her what color she wanted to paint her room. She said white.  Perfect.  Three of the walls were already white, so we painted the fourth wall the same color to match.  We had decided to let her help paint since it was her room - we thought if she helped decorate her room that it might make it an easier transition.  Anyway, she had a lot of fun and I decided to post this little video too.  I love that you can easily see where Kylee painted.

That night we made gingerbread men cookies.  One of Kylee's favorite bedtime stories is the Gingerbread Man.  She loves helping by saying "Run, run as fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." every time we get to that part of the story.  Here's a picture of some of our gingerbread men, and a little video of her helping "read" the story.

18 Days... and Counting!

I can't believe I'm getting married in 18 days!  I hope these last 2 1/2 weeks go by as quickly as the last 2 1/2 months have gone.  I am so excited to marry Matt!

I've had several people ask me lately how the wedding plans are going and if I need help with anything.  Even though we just set our date a couple weeks ago, I had a lot already planned.  Like our invitations... I think I had these designed before Thanksgiving (thanks to pinterest!) and ready to just plug in a date once it was set.  I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

I will still need to make wedding announcements to send to those who aren't coming to the actual wedding ceremony, but I still have time to do that... realistically, I will probably send those out after we are married!

Our photographer is booked, we've sent in our deposit for our post-ceremony dinner venue, I've ordered my cake and bouquet, I have my dress and will get it back from getting altered this Thursday, I have my hair and nail appointments booked, we have our marriage license and appropriate church documents... I think we're ready!

Only 27 more minutes and I'll be able to say 17 days :-)

Driggs Family Vacation

The week between Christmas and New Years, I joined Matt and Kylee and about 50 people from their extended family on a vacation in Driggs, Idaho.  I was told we would be staying in a cabin.  I was picturing sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in a room with 10 other people.  Instead, this is what we pulled up to:

Okay, this isn't exactly what it looked like... there was a little bit of snow on the ground, but this is the same style of cabin.  And the inside was incredible.

High-end finishes, beautiful wood beam ceilings, plush furniture, tons of bedrooms with walk in closets and luxurious bathrooms.  Seriously fabulous.  We had three cabins between all of us, and I even had my own bed.  I shared a room with Kylee and got to experience a tiny little bit of what it will be like having a kid sleeping in my house.  I got to calm her down after she had a bad dream and get her a snack when she woke up hungry.

The three days we spent in Driggs were great!  I got to know Matt's family (I only had to repeat everyone's names in my head a hundred times to make sure I got them straight), played games, ate delicious food, watched some BYU football, and celebrated and early New Year.  The trick will be if I can remember Matt's relative's names at our wedding in a couple weeks :-)

We Set a Date!!!

Since both Matt and I had been married before, and because we wanted to get married in the LDS temple, we had to go through a process with our church before we could set a date.  I had heard all sorts of time frames, from just a few weeks to six months all the way up to a year.  I had no idea what to expect, but it was important for us to get married in the temple, so we decided to wait it out and see the process through.  Starting the week or so before Christmas, the first thing I did when I got home every day was check the mail.  I'll be honest, I was pretty disappointed when we didn't hear anything before Christmas (we had decided that would be a pretty awesome Christmas present).

On December 28th, we headed out of town to spend a few days in eastern Idaho with Matt's extended family.  It was lovely (I'll post more about our trip later)... but the best part (for me anyway) was Friday evening when Matt got an email on his phone from his stake president that we had heard back from the church and could move forward with our plans to get married!!!  I literally started crying.  It was such a relief to know that everything that needed to happen had happened and that we would be getting married soon!  We had already decided on a tentative date of February 2nd (hoping we would hear back in time to move forward with our plans), and now that date was realistic!

I called the Twin Falls temple the next afternoon (December 31st) on our way back home to Boise.  But I didn't get through to anyone.  Instead, I got a recorded message that the temple was closed through January 16th for cleaning and would resume normal operations on January 17th.  Ugh.  Seriously?  How was I supposed to finalize plans and send out invitations without confirming the day/time with the temple?  I was SO disappointed.  I texted my mom letting her know what had happened.  One of the members of the Boise temple presidency lives in my parents' ward, so my mom called them to see what they thought.  They called the Twin Falls temple president for us, who made a special trip back to the temple that afternoon, and got us all set for a 1:00pm wedding on Thursday, February 2nd!!!

I am so thankful for everyone who helped us get to this point.  I can't believe that I could be so lucky to meet Matt, and I can't wait to be his wife.  We will be married one month from today!!

2011 Fitness Recap

2011 was a great year for me as far as fitness - by far the best I've ever had.  Here's a recap:

• I went to the gym 177 different times.  That doesn't include the almost-every-Saturday morning training sessions with Brandee that took place at my house or the park and doesn't include any of the times I went running in my neighborhood or on the greenbelt.  All together, I know I had over 225 workouts during the year.
• I ran over 300 miles throughout the year, including getting a PR on a 5k (24:46), 10k (52:14), and half marathon (2:10:25).  I successfully completed the goal I set at the beginning of the year to run one 5k each week... I missed only three weeks - two weeks in March when I was sick and one week in April when I was in Africa.
• I lost 13 pounds and have maintained my weight within a couple pounds for the last six months.
• I lost 25 inches (10 different measurements).  My biggest accomplishment was losing 5.5 inches on my biggest problem area - my abdomen.
• Probably one of the things I am most proud of is my body fat percentage.  I successfully dropped from the "acceptable" category to "athlete" and have maintained at 19-20% body fat since June.  My goal for this next year is to get to 18%.

Here's to another year of health and fitness!  I hope that 2012 will be just as successful in maintaining an active lifestyle.

Dashing Through the Snow

For Christmas this year, my parents took the family on a sleigh ride with Bogus Creek Outfitters.  It worked out perfectly that the one day we received a little skiff of snow here in Boise (Tuesday, 12/27) was the day that we had reservations (Bogus still has basically no snow, but they received just enough to cover the ground that day).

We got there a little early, so took advantage of the snow by doing a little sledding.  We all bundled up and Matt pulled BJ and Bryce behind his car for a little hooky-bobbing, and I pulled Kylee around in her sled.

Kylee was pretty excited when the horses arrived.  We took the 20 minute sleigh ride to a warm cabin where we had a delicious dinner of steak and prawns, complete with live music and cowboy poetry.  We had a lot of fun - thanks mom and dad!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas - I know I did!  The day started out with a beautiful Christmas program at church.  I liked that Christmas fell on a Sunday because we were able to really start the day off the right way and remembering why we celebrate Christmas!

After church, we took the annual "stair" picture... this year's picture included a laptop as we skyped Mandi and family.  It was sad not having them here with us, but I love that technology allowed us to feel like they were part of our Christmas morning.

My favorite part of the skype was that Hailey put on the cape I had sent her and said "Super Hailey to the rescue!"  Ahhh, I sure miss that girl.  Then of course came stockings and breakfast and presents, followed by a nice long nap and dinner with the fam. 

Matt had to work yesterday (I counted down the hours until he was off!), so I was excited when he and Kylee showed up at my house just before 8pm.  Kylee squealed with delight when she saw what Santa had brought her, and immediately needed her food (she already had a shopping cart with food at my house) and her baby so she could be a "mom" and cook us all sorts of delicious treats.

She wasn't super interested in opening other presents at first, but then she really got into it and wanted to open my presents and Matt's presents as well.  I can tell that I'm going to enjoy Christmases more than ever from now on.  Seeing how excited sweet Kylee is over everything made my day.  Well, that and her great dad and my wonderful family...  I'm looking forward to an entire week off work and spending time with those I love :-)

I Found it on Pinterest

I think there are some people that are getting tired of hearing me talk about Pinterest, but I have really grown to love it since I first posted about it!  The reason I love Pinterest (over something like Facebook) is that I actually use/do/try some of the stuff I post on my boards.  For example:

• We decided for a Young Womens activity to spotlight the 9 missionaries serving from our ward and then write them letters.  We had wanted to do a care package, but didn't have much money in our budget for shipping.  I found these adorable paint chip snowmen on Pinterest - they were practically free to make and didn't cost any extra money to mail along with the letters we wrote.  

• For another Young Womens activity, we made these cute snowman candy bar wrappers.

• The Young Women were in charge of activities for the primary children at the ward party.  I searched on pinterest, and we ended up making these M&M wreaths and these paint chip tree ornaments (can you tell I like the paint chip crafts!?).

• I made this delicious peppermint mousse brownie trifle for a holiday party last weekend.  Yummy!

• I play WordFeud on my phone with my dad and my coworker Mandy.  I pretty much get creamed every time, but I immediately thought of them when I saw scrabble tile coasters on Pinterest and decided to make some of my own. Merry Christmas dad and Mandy :-)

• I couldn't figure out what to get Jen for Christmas, so I simply looked on her Pinterest board and decided on this custom fortune cookie necklace.

 I could go on, but I'll stop there for now... you get the idea :-)

WordFeud

For the last seven or so months, I've been playing a game on my phone called WordFeud with my dad and coworker Mandy.  I thought it was such a coincidence a couple weeks ago when the words they played correlated!  I couldn't figure out the screen capture on my phone, so forgive the crummy picture, but I thought this was such a coincidence!

Gingerbread-mania

Sunday was our annual gingerbread house making party.  I love carrying on these Christmas traditions, and it was extra special with Matt and Kylee :-)  Here are the finished products:

And speaking of gingerbread houses, my mom is pretty amazing.  She never just makes enough houses for our family.  She is always making extras for other families who would have fiun making these houses too.  One of the families my mom often makes houses for is the Tanner family.  One of the Tanner girls got an article published in the Deseret News talking about how new traditions helped their family after their father passed away - and she mentioned my mom and the gingerbread houses.  Check it out!

Christmas Run 2011

Saturday was the annual YMCA Christmas Run.  I ran the 2.5 mile race with Beki and Bryce and my parents walked the same course.  I always run this race "just for fun" - I never know what the weather is going to be like, and I don't really care about my time.  I know I could have run quite a bit faster (I told my brother just after the race that I thought I could have finished in sub-20 minutes), but I enjoyed the time with Beki and Bryce and we finished in about 23 minutes.  I just found out that I finished second in my age group... by one second!  I KNOW I could have run two seconds faster to finish first in my age group!  Maybe next year :-)

And one of my favorite parts about this race is that everyone dresses up.  Several months ago I bought long BSU gloves and leg warmers for this race, and I had been looking for a BSU tutu.  I hadn't found a tutu, so decided to bag that thought until Wednesday when Kris told me she had made a BSU tutu for her race day outfit.  She offered to make me one as part of my Christmas present.  I loved it!!

Me & Kris with our cute tutus!

Idaho Steelheads

Now that football is over, I actually have to make plans for the weekend!  Jen and I had been talking about trying to make it to a Steelheads game, so we made it happen last night.  She was even able to score us some free tickets through one of her patients!  The Steelheads lost, but it was still a fun night.

I just have to mention one more thing.  A couple months ago, Jen and I had conversations with David and Matt about our favorite desserts.  We were surprised when both David and Matt said they like apple pie.  Jen and I prefer sweeter desserts... like chocolate satin pie, and apple pie would be toward the bottom of both our lists.  Anyway, Jen found a recipe on pinterest for apple pie bites - they have a glaze over them (making it sweeter than normal apple pie).  I made these apple pie bites for dessert last night (we had dinner of chili, cornbread, and salad before the game), and Jen and I both agreed it was the best "apple pie" we've had.

Christmas Craft Project

Mandi: Christmas Present Spoiler Alert!!!

While I was visiting Lisa earlier this year, she made a really cute cape for her niece for her birthday.  I loved the idea and was able to get the pattern from her before I came back to Boise.  I decided then (yes, back in March!) that is what I would make for Hailey and Tanner for Christmas.  I put it off and put it off, but finally made them yesterday.  I made them reversible... Tanner's has a letter "T" on one side and a superman logo on the other side.  Hailey's has a letter "H" on one side and a princess crown on the other side.  I am not super crafty (at least when it comes to sewing!), so I was pretty proud of myself :-)  Here's a picture of Tanner's cape (I only remembered to take a picture after I had wrapped Hailey's).

My Mom Loves Me :-)

Here's a text/email conversation I had with my mom this week:

Me: Will you email me your roll recipe? Thanks.

Mom: Are YOU making them? Just curious when... because I have to make them a couple times in the next little while - I didn't know who was making them or when or how many... if I can help, let me know.

Me: I need to bring rolls to a potluck for work tomorrow and was thinking about trying to make some.  I am not sure how ambitious I will be tonight... I may end up buying some rhodes rolls.

Mom:  Well, I am actually making rolls tomorrow for a Bishopric dinner, I am wondering if BJ could bring the rolls down to you tomorrow... or something like that?  The recipe makes a lot - how many do you want to take - and what time do you need them?

Me:  I was planning on bringing a couple dozen and would need them no later than 11:15.  Just let me know.  I'm happy to do something else if that won't work out for you.

Mom:  BJ will bring fresh baked rolls to your work.  Do you want jam?  I have 3 different kinds!

*********************
Yes, I know, my mom spoils me.  But the rolls were delicious - a big hit!  Thanks mom :-)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Andrea, Lance, David, Jen, Jared, Brooke, Candice, Jared, Matt

No, it doesn't look like Christmas outside (with the exception of all the Christmas lights), but it looks like Christmas inside my house!  And it is really starting to feel like Christmas with the annual First Presidency Christmas devotional and my Christmas fondue.  Once again, we listened to the words of our leaders and then filled our tummies with deliciousness.  This year, we had both chocolate and caramel for dipping.  But I have a TON of leftover.  Not sure what I'm going to do with that since Brandee has challenged us to not gain a single pound over the holidays (she weighed us at the end of October and will weigh us again the beginning of January). 

Gray is a pretty color, right?

Yes, I like gray.  But not when it's in my hair.  Over the last few weeks, I have found two gray hairs.  They were each 2-3 inches long - I promptly pulled them both out of my head the second I found them.  I really am not liking this!  I'm not old enough to have gray hair... I don't even have any kids yet!  Good thing I have my great hair dresser Savanah to help me cover up any gray she finds.  I much prefer my brown.

I Might Look Ridiculous...

... but I sure stayed toasty warm at last night's Bronco game :-)  Here's a picture of me and my dad at the game.  I was wearing thermals, two pair of socks, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, beanie, coat, scarf, mittens, and had hand warmers and toe warmers.

My dad joined me for the last game of the season.  It was kind of bittersweet... it was nice to have our first shutout of the season, but it was senior night and it was sad thinking that was the last game those boys would be playing on the blue.  This year's senior class has had an amazing run - a record of 49-3 over their careers.  Let's hope we can make it an even 50 wins with our upcoming bowl game!

Speaking of bowl games, the BCS frustrates me yet again.  Seriously? Number 23 West Virginia gets a BCS invite over #6 Boise State?  Oh well.  We should be used to that by now!  We will head to the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas and I'm sure our boys should stomp all over Arizona State (6-6).  Great match up, huh?

And one last picture from earlier this season - Jen joined me for the Air Force game in October.

Now That's a Bed!

Matt and I bought an early Christmas/Wedding present... a new bed!  It was fun trying out a dozen or so different mattresses and then picking out a bed to go with it.  Everything was delivered and set up yesterday, and I had the most wonderful night's sleep last night.  It's a king bed, and it pretty much takes up my entire bedroom, but I love it.  The white bedding with the mahogany bed look even better in person.  I still need to get another euro pillow - I didn't think about the fact that I would need three to fit across the bed instead of the two I always kept on my queen... For now, sweet dreams!

Popcorn Anyone?

This weekend, Matt and I took Kylee to see the new Muppet movie in the theater.  Kylee was extra excited about getting popcorn.  I know that her eyes are closed in the picture below, but I had to share... look at the size of the popcorn container compared to Kylee!

I loved watching Kylee during the movie.  My favorite was when she would dance in her chair to the music.  Love this little girl!