yesterday i did something fun.  i was driving home from work and could find NOTHING to listen to on the radio {i even tried out the country stations, but still…nothing}

so i pressed CD and i realized that i’ve had the same cd in there for the past 6 months and i want to gag when i hear those songs.

so i opened my old school cd case and randomly flipped through my burned cd’s and picked one.  and to my pleasant surprise the song that came on was by “harry and the potters”.  i almost forgot how much i love that band.

in case you have never heard of them or their music,  watch this video.  it will make you feel 12 again.  and then it will make you feel embarrassed because you actually like this song.

told you so.

i don’t even know if that is how you spell sneak peek….maybe sneek peak?  or sneek peek?  or a combination of some sorts.

anyway….i am not really one of those people that dresses up their dog.  i like to think that i am saving his pride by not making him wear stupid dog sweaters and winter coats.

but last night after the groomers, we saw this little hat for sale and thought “eh?  $3.00?  sure!”

so tomorrow, this little pirate is going to be running around the house looking like this:  {spoiler alert}

come on, that is kind of cute.  the only drawback is that now chase & i are in the “people who dress up their dogs for halloween and other stuff” club.  don’t make fun of us…it’s still a fresh wound.

There are lots of reasons why Lindsey is my favorite person in the world, and this is definitely one of them.  I go this in my inbox today:

- transfered all of our music over from chase’s mac to the home computer

- made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to take to our visiting/home teachees

-cleaned the whole house

-did the dishes {twice}

-did a load of laundry

-made belgian waffles for dinner {and ate way too much of them}

-watched “the office”

-went to the craft store to get more supplies for my projects

-went to big lots to stock up on their christmas wrapping paper, etc that was on sale

-delivered/doorbell ditched our home/visiting teachees and left the treats on their doors

-fought about the temperature in our house {i was SO hot and he was SO cold and he wanted the fire AND the heat turned on…..what???……he had to choose between the two haha}

-got the room ready for Sadie {our friends puppy} who will be staying with us this weekend

-snuggled and watched some of the Battlestar Galactica movie

-tried desperately to stay awake until midnight so i could register for byu classes

-didn’t quite make it and ended up going to bed around 11:40

wow.  what a night.  for the first time in a while chase came home and had NOTHING to do.  no freelance work.  no homework.  no other work.  it was incredible.  we spent the whole night just doing whatever we felt like doing.  is this what normal people feel like?!  i hope that he has more free nights like this because i had a blast.

i’m sure nobody cares about all these home updates, but i’m posting it for my mommy, so ignore this if you must

last night while chase was at BYU, i thought i’d try my hand at painting again.  didn’t work.  so he re-did everything when he got home and voila!  we now are the proud owners of a chalkboard wall.

it’s not entirely done yet {hence the “stage 2″ title instead of a “finished” one}, but all that needs to be done is to let it sit for 3 days and then prep it by running chalk all over it to create a thin film of dust.  {i guess that makes the future chalk drawings easier to erase or something}

but for all intents and purposes, c’est finit!

here are some pics to document: {posted for mom}

more pulling of the tape

with the microwave and stove put back into their rightful places

and the finished product!  {minus the actual chalk, which is still to come}

wow, i’m way too excited about this but i have to post pictures of round one of our painting experience.

after taping, i tried to start the whole painting thing with the roller, but was quickly informed that i was pressing too hard, which made it so the paint didn’t stick to the wall

that is when chase the painter took over.  he is really good with that roller, lookout.

but really, he was such a good sport, i made him paint the WHOLE thing.  i was worried about doing it after my first few minutes because i obviously wasn’t blessed with the painting gene.

and while chase was slaving away actually painting, this is what i was doing on the other side of the wall

and baxter was a good sport too.  since we were too busy to play with him he just laid on the kitchen floor by our feet watching us

ya, i know.  i’m one of those people that treat their pet as a child.  so what?

anyway, we finished the first coat and it looks really good.  these are some pictures i took this morning after it had the whole night to dry

now on to the second coat tonight!  i love this home improvement stuff!

so i’ve been planning this great surprise for my parents for christmas.  we booked a really great photographer up in logan, eric richards, to take some shots of just my siblings and i.  well we went up last weekend to take the photos, and that night while at dinner with my folks, chase starts talking about “today the photographer said….” and that was when my surprise came to an END.

sometimes chase’s head doesn’t fully think things through before he says them   but i still love him, i guess.

anyway, here is one of the pictures that we got sent back already.  i can’t wait for the rest to come!

here’s a little teaser for the smith kids portraits

i forgot to blog about something……..the mission reunion at the beginning of this month.

haha.  for those of you who know me pretty well, you know that my ex went to the same mission that chase did.  and this reunion would have been the first that we were all at together.  you can’t even imagine how fun that would have been for me. 

no, really, the reunion was very fun.  i got to meet a lot of the people that i only hear about from chase’s mission because they made special appearances from hawaii and china.  it was fun to see chase get so excited when he saw people that he thought he might never see again.

the only awkward part was walking in and having various newly-returned missionaries stare at me like i was the plague.  i even got a few points and whispers.  let’s just say i was the celebrity of the night

but here are some pictures that we took with one of chase’s favorite people from his mission, jonathan tan:

anyway, i digress.

this past weekend was really fun.  we headed up to logan {i miss that place SO much} to spend the weekend with my family.

as the oldest sibling i have been planning a fun surprise christmas present for my folks and me and the smith kids took care of it this weekend.  i can’t wait to see how it all turns out.  props to me for actually doing something for my parents for christmas rather than just giving them homemade cards

also we invited over these goons {two of my favorite people}

and watched 17 again.

i have to say that i never thought chase would’ve watched a zac efron movie with me.  but he LOVED this one.  he even said that it’s been a while since he enjoyed a movie so much.  so we recommend it to you!

ah, it was a lovely weekend.  hope that yours was as relaxing and wonderful as ours was.

ah, the joys of being an hourly worker.

and today i feel like this