The battle continues..........

It all started a couple weeks ago. It was around 9:30 at night and out of the corner of my eye I see a mouse. A nasty, dirty, disgusting and dang fast little mouse. I ripped the house apart, tipped the couch over, even took out the weapons (brooms and mops), I even went outside and got the cat. The mouse ran right under her (the cat's) little nose and all the stinkin cat did was meow! I sent my hubby to the store for some mouse traps, he bought two and only one of them worked. Finally we decided to just go to bed.

Well it had been like two weeks, and we hadn't seen the pesky little creature so I thought we were ok. Nope.............I was wrong. A couple of days ago I was in the computer room blogging and all the sudden I hear my husband yelling. Yep, the mouse was back. So off he went to go buy some more mouse traps.

Today, finally we caught something..............it was a little bigger then we expected. He was sure cute though, I almost hated to get ride of him!

Just so you don't all think I'm a horrible mother, this was one of those sticky traps that the mouse gets stuck on (a little mean if you ask me, but it's what the hubby bought). I had the trap behind the Television where I thought the kids wouldn't be able to get to it, I was wrong!

So the battle to find the mouse continues, any advice???

Christmas Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year with their families. This year Christmas was played down quite a bit at our house and to be honest it was really nice. Luckily there was no last minute gift shopping, just last minute gift sewing. I started making a tent like 3 or 4 months ago for my kids and finally got it out on Christmas ever and finished it at about 6:00!

Christmas morning was great, the kids let us sleep in until about 6:30. That about killed my 7 year old who came into our room twice during the night saying she couldn't sleep. It's hard to be too upset because I remember well that same feeling of excitement.

My oldest with her Littlest pet shop (or something like that) and her crayola artist set!

My youngest with his wagon and blocks. He thinks he's supposed to just empty it out and sit in it.

My four year old with his Lego's. Honestly he could care less about the Lego's, he's really in love with the batman PJ's he got on Christmas eve. I had to sneak them into the laundry today!

Not the greatest picture, but here they all are just before heading to my parents house for the rest of Christmas Day!

And then we made it too my parents. My mom has done such a beautiful job decorating her house for Christmas this year (and every year). I had to show it off. Here is the chandelier in her dining room.

The Christmas tree (you probably figured that out on your own)! I love the wide ribbon that she has put through it.


I love this chandelier in her entrance way. I think I need to go get me some garland for next year and use in the little chandelier in our dining room!

This is my favorite decoration of my mom's. It's a nativity set that my Great Grandma made for her, is is absolutely beautiful. I love how she has it displayed on this shelf above her front door. She probably puts it there to keep is safe from the grandkids!

Yes, she puts me to shame, isn't this garland on her mantle gorgeous!

And there you have it, Christmas at Our Cozy Nest (and my parents)!

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to tour some of the incredible historic towns in the neighborhood live in. Come back and I'll be showing some of the pictures I was able to sneak!

Gift for the Neighbors!

Of course I'm making gifts for the neighbors at the absolute last minute possible. I always wait to do stuff like this until after the house is clean, the laundry folded, the driveway shoveled, I could go on.......... So, it never happens and I end up doing it at the last possible moment.

My friend lent me her book called Soups in a Jar. I thought they would make cute gifts for the neighbors. Here is the recipe if your interested.

2 T. dried minced onion

2T. chicken bouillon granules

2t. dried celery

1t. pepper

4 C. wide egg noodles

Pack into a jar with the spices at the bottom. Then tie a note to the jar telling how to make the soup. I'm too lazy to type that up, but if you click on the picture you should be able to see it ok.

I probably won't get around to posting before Christmas, so Merry Christmas to all of you. Thank you for you sweet comments and your friendship. I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday!

Love,

Nicole

It's Our Anniversary!!!

I'm actually a couple days late on this, but I definitely did not want to miss out on telling my sweet and wonderful husband Happy Anniversary. We have been married for TEN WONDERFUL years!

This year he spoiled me and took me away for a night. He took me to my favorite restaurant The Cheesecake factory. He also have me this beautiful anniversary band! Sorry, the picture isn't the best! I saw this "tag" on my friends blog and thought I would do the same to share a little more about the wonderful man I'm married to.







Where did you meet? Me and my husband met while we were both attending Snow College in Ephraim Utah. I actually met him my first day there at a Family Home Evening Activity.

How long did you date before you were married? We dated for a year before he served a 2 year LDS mission and then once he returned home we were married four months later!

How long have you been married? Ten years on December 18th

What does he do that surprises you? Every once in a while he swears. It's not very often and so when he does it really surprises me, I think he does it just to be funny and shock me.

What is your favorite feature of his? Definitely his eyes. I've always thought the shape and color of his eyes was gorgeous. I also love how in the summer he tans so easily, unlike me! This might sound weird, but I also love the sound of his voice, it's so deep!

What is your favorite quality of his? His honesty, he is the most honest person I know. He couldn't tell a lie if his life depended on it.

Does he have a nickname for you? Just the normal ones like sweetie or hun!

What is his favorite food? I would have to say anything cooked at home. He's not a big fan of going out to eat.

What is his favorite sport? I'd have to say Football, but I'm not sure if there is a sport he doesn't like!

When and Where was you first kiss? Oh boy, he took FOREVER to finally kiss me. I think he was pretty determined to not have a girl friend before his mission, I sorta messed up his plans. We'd been dating for probably eight or nine months before he FINALLY kissed me at a park in Ephraim on a cute little swinging bench.

What do you like to do together? Just about anything. Be both enjoy going to concerts, movies out to eat, it's just great to get out once in a while and spend time together.

Do you have any children? Yes, three!

Does he have a hidden talent? He played the trombone in college, but I don't think he's picked it up since. He has wonderful voice, I'd love to see him try out for the Tabernacle Choir some day. He also plays the piano and organ.

Who said I love you first? I think it was him. When he was on his mission he had his mom send me some roses for my birthday. On the card it said I Love You!

What is his favorite type of music? That's a tough one. We both like lots of different types of music. Probably the only types we don't like is Rap or Hard Rock.

What do you admire most about him? Everything, I'm serious he is such a good man! He treats me so good and he is such an incredible dad. He is so intelligent and such a hard worker. He has such a strong testimony of the gospel and is truly devoted to it. He makes me want to be a better person. I love that he has such a deep knowledge of our Religion and that he loves the scriptures. I could go on and on, I don't think I could have married a better man!

Do you think he will read this? Yes, but only because I will show it too him!



Happy Anniversay Sweetie! Thank you for ten Wonderful years!

More Christmas Decorations

I know your all just dying to see the rest of my Christmas decorations, especially since you know how grand it's gonna be because I told you how everything fit in a diaper box. I have been pleasantly surprised how much just moving things around and tying a pretty ribbon here and there, and of course a little spray paint made my house look a little more like Christmas.

Here is the shelf in my dining room!

I usually hang this sign outside, but I decided this year it was needed inside more!

Remember these candle holders that I bought from the dollar store?

Here they are spray painted black. Now I'm wishing I would have bought more of them to spray paint!

There were three of these on a garland for six dollars, the price was right so I bought it and took it apart so it was three separate little decorations and glued some ribbon and berries on it.

This clock I think has found a new home. Before it was up high were no one really could see it, I think it looks better here on this shelf and seems to work with the Christmas theme.

I made this forever ago when me and the hubby were first married. The pattern was called "Tall Paul".

Hey, this one was easy, I just flipped the page!

Clementines are Christmasey arn't they???

Maybe next year I can put a garland on this table, but for this year it's finished. I can't believe this is the only lamp in my house. I love how cozy it makes my home feel, I have it on almost all day long!

I bought this at a local crafty store. It used to have another box on top that said "Bless our Home". It was a little to tall for the space so I took one box away and added the Merry Christmas, a little ribbon and one of those pine cone things from the $6 garland, oh and antiqued the lids a little with a brown stamp pad.

I filled this little jar with some old vintage cookie cutters that I'd collected from garage sales. And then just tied some pretty ribbon around it.

And there you have it, my not so extraordinary Christmas Decorations. It was fun to move things around and find new uses for things though. Like I said in an earlier post it's Christmas Decorating on a Budget!

A long overdue Thankyou and a new Holiday Tradition

So FOREVER ago, some of my sweet bloging world friends nominated me for an award, and me being the SLACKER I am have taken forever to blog about it. I hope that me taking forever doesn't look like I don't appreciate these sweet awards because I definitely do. It makes my day when some leaves me a sweet little comment saying that they have an award for me, it makes this whole blogging thing worth while.

Soooooooooooo, on to the awards!

This first one is from Tonya over at More than enough.

For this one I am supposed to tell you 6 things you might not know about me.

1. I am a twin.

2. I have a guilty conscience like you wouldn't believe. If my kids have half the guilty conscience that I have I shouldn't have any problems.

3. My Dream would be to someday play with the Orchestra at Temple Square, yea it's a big one, but hey I can dream right!

4. I love Candy! I usually have my husband hide the kids Halloween Candy from me!

5. I don't have a sporty bone in my body, that with the love of Candy doesn't work that great for me.

6. I'm a bit of a clean freak, especially when it comes to floors and my baseboards. I just can't stand to have scuffs on my baseboards, I probably touch them up 6 times a year, weird I know!

Ok, I think I get to nominate two people so here ya go...........

Beth over at Aunties with Advice - If you want to see a beautiful wedding you need to go check our her blog, her son just got married and the pictures are beautiful.

Mimi Sue over at Mimi Sue's Cottage
I am so excited, I get to meet her in real life this Tuesday. She is so sweet and set up a home tour for me and my friend of some of the historic home's in our neighborhood. I will definitely be taking the camera along for this one.

The next award is from Lisa Ann over at Life with Lisa Ann and Katie over at Ritch in Love.

Well, after three years of Spanish in Junior high and another two in college, I still have no idea what this says but I'm sure it's something sweet so I'd like to pass it on to...........

At Home in Georgia - you'll have to go check out her Christmas mantle, it's gorgeous.

Melissa over at 320 Sycamore - She has the cutest blog that she designed herself, she has the cutest ideas and is about to have baby #5, how could I not admire her!

Thanks again to all you sweet blogging friends for the awards!

Oh, I almost forgot I was going to show you our newest holiday tradition.

My husband picked up this gingerbread house kit from the grocery store and we all had so much fun making it. I've never made one before but the "kit" definitely seems like the way to go!

Christmas Decorating on a Budget!

First off, if your wondering what happened with the giveaway..........well, I decided to hold off on it until January, I really am sorry. I had only gotten like 4 comments on it in two days so I thought maybe if I waited until after the holidays people might be more interested.

I've been trying to get my house decorated for Christmas on a really tight budget. I used to babysit my niece which gave me some fun money, but they fired me. Not really, my brother n' law (their dad) just watches her now. So..............no fun money for me!!!



I think this is the first year I've really decorated all that much for Christmas because all my decorations from previous years fit in a Luv's diaper box. I REALLY wanted a big beautiful mantle garland like the Nesters or Kimba's but this just isn't the year. So here is what mine looks like!

I used a lot of ribbon this year to try and make things look more like Christmas. I decided the garland needed a little something more so today I picked up some curly looking twig stuff from Walmart and added it. (Ya like how I never know the real name for things)

Here it is after the curly twig stuff, I though it helped!

And the other side of the mantle. Now, if this were my dream decorating job, I would put some vinyl lettering of that said And the stockings were hung.................... And then hang my stockings below with some cute little hooks, but I'm a slacker and we don't have any stockings. I've just never found any that I really loved, I probably just need to make some.

Here is my nativity scene that my parents gave me. They gave me a few pieces at a time over a couple birthday's and Christmases. I really do love it. I found the background at our local craft store for like nine dollars.

And here is the Christmas tree. The decorations used to be a little more strategically placed, but my almost two year old likes to do a little decorating of his own.

These are a couple of my favorite ornaments that I bought last year from a store called Rod Works.

I'm loving looking at every one's Holiday decorations! I'll be back later to show the rest!

Problem fixed, I hope!

Warning: This is a really, really long post, with way too many pictures!!!

Ok, know that you've all been warned, here it goes. First off sorry it's been FOREVER since my last post, and that I've been HORRIBLE about visiting all of my blogging friends. I think my computer had a virus because it was running way, way, way slow. I'm crossing my fingers that I've fixed the problem and everything will run fine for a while.

I thought I'd give you all a run down of our Thanksgiving weekend, it was a little crazy but fun.

We spent Thanksgiving day with my family. I was in charge of a apple pie, the rolls and a cauliflower casserole. I was pleased with how the pie turned out so of course I had to take a picture.

That night me and my mom and sisters went and saw Twilight. It was pretty good, definitely low budget and Jacob had really bad hair, but I do hope they do others.

Friday we spent at my in laws. It was nice and relaxing!

Here is my sister n law and her sweet baby twin boys!


Saturday was a little crazy, I had two concerts to play at with the flute choir I play in. First I had one at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake. It was fun to play there and the building is gorgeous.

Sorry, not the greatest pictures, but you get the idea!

Did I tell you how beautiful this building is. They have it decorated so beautiful for Christmas.

Check out this tree, and you thought decorating your tree was a pain. A lot of brides come here to get pictures taken since it's just across the street from the Salt Lake Temple.

I had to get a picture of the ceiling. I will never complain about cleaning the windows or light fixtures in my house again.

That night we played at another concert in a beautiful building. This is a old historic tabernacle near where we live. Every year they have a big Nativity Celebrating. There are different musical groups that perform for two days and then they have a room full of hundreds of different nativity scenes.

They even have little children that take turns being in the live nativity.

I didn't get any pictures of the nativity scenes, but check out this quilt.

I loved this cross stitch, it was so simple and beautiful.

Have I overloaded you all with pictures? It was a fun and crazy event packed weekend. I hope you all had a great weekend also.

Come back tomorrow - I'm having a HUGE giveaway!