Christmas collage

Instead of writing a huge long drawn out post to describe my fabulous Christmas break I've decided to just post some pictures instead (collages to be exact)! 

But here are the highlights:

*we spent 10 days in Washington with my family!

*my main man turned 24!

*we got to spend some time with our cute nephew and the rest of Brian's family!

New Years is next...hope it's happy!

a few things to say

You missed us huh? (well mostly just me since Brian doesn't blog but you get the point)

Well things have been busy around here lately!

we got some new flooring! A huge improvement to the old stuff. 

We also got a new (old) table that actually has chairs.  We can finally eat dinner at a table and not the couch! Yessss

To celebrate all of the six months we've been married we went to Salt Lake last weekend to watch BYU play Oregon and then went to The Red Iguana (has some yummy Mexican food). Our seats for the game were super crappy but hey that's cool.

And finally, just the other day I was having a Cup of Noodles for lunch and I got the hugest piece of meat EVER. SO naturally I took a picture of it for you to see.  Here she is (the picture doesn't do it justice).

Besides all of this great stuff we just have finals starting tomorrow.  I have a final at 7am. You might be wondering if this is a joke, but no, no it's not a joke.  All I can say is that a week from today we will be living the life (in front of a wood burning stove) in Washington for 10 DAYS!!!!!

Yessssss

Have a happy week!

we're getting by...

Welp we've been running low on toothpaste for roughly two weeks now.

Somebody's lazy.

Yes I have brushed my teeth twice everyday for the last two weeks.

There's a few good brushes left.

(don't worry about my dirty looking tiles...it's permanent)

Happy Tuesday

6 months

Brian and I have been married for six months today :)

He surprised my with these!!!!!!

I love this guy :)

Also check this sweet song out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qea3lLr5qQ

Happy six months my dear xoxox

turkey day!

This yeah I had my first Topham Thanksgiving and it was great!

We of course had all the Thanksgiving usual plus probably 30 pies (this is not a joke)

We ate, watched (too much) football,payed games and then ate again!

I got a couple pictures from turkey day!

Brian left me to play football at 8am so on his way home he got me a turkey day balloon!

 (it has little leaves on it but it's hard to tell). 

And of course I look bald in the second picture but whatever it's cool.

Hope you had a yummy Thanksgiving :)

on the weekend

Welp it was a cold weekend.  It snowed :(

This means that I had to wear all of this to the 8pm BYU game:

Chill Chasers (thanks mom!)

Leggings

Long sleeve shirt

Sweatshirt

Columbia Fleece

North face coat

Sock + another pair of wool ones

Scarf

Earmuffs

Gloves

and a fleece blanket

Needless to say I looked about 30 pounds heavier than I really am.  It was great. NOT.  

SOOOOO freezing I wanted to die.

I'm a wimp and I hate the cold.  I can never get warm (net even in all that junk^)

Then we went to a friends and ate popcorn and star bursts and watched Zoolander (I fell asleep of course)

and that's pretty much it.

Happy Sunday

love him

I'm just sitting at home all alone thinking about my cute husband who is stuck on campus taking a molecular biology test. 

Bad deal.  

Anyways I love this kid :)

He hates this picture so don't tell him I put it on here. Ok thanks!

Happy Monday

taco eh?

Today one of my second graders called me Mrs Taco. It was so funny I almost died.  It went like this...

2nd grade boy with a crush on me: "look how good I'm cutting!"

Me: "Oh yeah that's so great!" (we all know it was pretty rough)

2nd grade boy with a crush on me: " Mrs. T...T...Taco, look at my spider!"

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha so funny

Just a genuine mistake :)

Taco, Topham- one in the same

Oh ps I'm teaching in a second grade class for the next three weeks for my program at BYU...it's a great time!

this is real people

Here is my husband watching Boy Meets World. 

This is not a joke....Mr. Feeny is right there!

 (oh and Bri's hand is on the left shielding his face from the shame).  

He begged me to watch the Halloween episode with him last night.  

Mostly  I just looked at pinterest then fell asleep sitting up. 

love me so pumpkin

I made the yummiest pumpkin cookies this afternoon with the some cream cheese frosting. 

SOOOO GOOD

They look a little lumpy, I know, but they are sooo delish!

Seriously try them...they're easy to make!

I'll give you the recipe:

2 1/2 C flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C butter

1 1/2 C sugar

1 C canned pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Direction: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt; set aside

In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar.  Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla to butter mixture until creamy.  Mix in dry ingredients. Drop cookies on baking sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly

Bake for 15 to 20 min. Frost as desired!

I usually bake mine for about 12 min. Check them at 10 min, they're cakey cookies so you can tell easily when they're done. I frosted mine with cream cheese frosting and I usually add some cinnamon and nutmeg to my frosting for something a little extra special.

Enjoy :)

Happy Saturday and happy Halloween!!!!

a little bit of goodness

This weekend was pretty swell.  Here's what we did...

Flag football (Friday and Saturday)

Laundry

Tests :/

BYU football

SONIC (cheese sticks and an orange soda for the lady, a slush for the mister)

Movies with friends on giant Lovesac COUCHES (what?????)

Dexter

Ice cream (don't worry we each bought our own gallon)

 We probably had the crappiest seats in the world and BYU spanked Idaho State so shortly after this photo I took a little nap on the bleachers. Impressive, I know.

Every Saturday the Sonic special is 99 cent cheese sticks. The greatest I know. We just always wind up there between 2 and 4pm.

This is where it's at people. Did you notice that I've devoured half the carton in 3 days???

Welp hope your weekend was great and that Monday doesn't super suck:)

 Mine will be great because my sucky class is cancelled. YEAH!!!!

mostly I'm not a fan of this day of the week but...

Today was a good day (for a Thursday) mostly because I got some gelato at costco...yeah baby!

now I should be studying all of this :(

(it actually is front and back, thanks for asking) 

but instead I've decided to paint my nails

take that OPI

also I learned that my heater vent acts as a great nail dryer...who needs the salon anyways

(yeah I know I broke down and turned the heat on.  I was freezing people)

I seriously think I have ADD... wish me luck on this whole studying thing

(oh and don't mind the crappy cell phone pictures)

super suck

Today I was on campus for 12 straight hours (even had to sleep in my car for a bit). It super sucked.

That's all

OH! I heard you wanted to see what my house looks like!

So here's the thing. Brian and I are lucky enough to live in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom HOUSE! It's really great....we have wayyyy too much room.

Come stay

We're thinking about holding gymnastics classes in our living room.

Brian's parents own the house.

The deal was...we paint the WHOLE house in exchange for cheap rent.
Let me tell you...painting is the worst. 

Especially the ceilings. 

But we're basically done and decorated so here are a few pics!!! (it's much cuter in person. trust me)

Living Room:

Told ya it's huge...pull out the leotards friends

 Kitchen...not too exciting

 Dining room table with no chairs :)

 Here's my bathroom...it's small so hard to get a great pic. Just notice the green and blue tiles...they're great.

The 2 spare rooms, the master bedroom and spare bath aren't pictured cause they're just not that exciting.

Well the master bedroom is exciting...just kinda messy at the moment.

PS....it costs a ton to heat this place 

(that means we're ALWAYS freezing and sleeping in chill chasers, socks, sweatshirts and 10 blankets), 

and yes we did paint-mostly just creamish :/ 

and also there are too many spiders in this place.

Happy Tuesday :D :D

I know, I know

I thought this might happen.  When my dull life of full time work consisting of tasks that could be done in 20 minutes, but stretched out to 8 hrs ended, so would my blogging. 

I didn't want it to come to this but school has taken over my life. end of the story.

To  make up for my lack of blogging here are some pictures of my husband (from the first week of September, don't worry about it)

Also here's what else we've been up to:

School

Work

Tests

More school

Buying some steak

Being sick :(

Hopefully I'll keep this blogging business up. 

introducing...

The newest member of the Topham family

Phantom Scoot Ma-Goot Topham

Scoot for short

We just can't get enough of her (Brian thinks she's a him but he's wrong)

She saves us so much money and we feel cooler than everyone else on the road when we take her out

She's dependable and is the perfect addition!

So everybody...let's have a round of applause for Scoot Topham!!!

Happy Thursday!

Off to Idaho for a wedding tomorrow...should be fun :D

PS...Scoot is the treat I was referring to on Monday



fail

We had a definite fishing fail this weekend.

We took a trip to Utah Lake (and sweated in the heat for roughly 2 hours) just to watch some fish jump 5 inches from our poles. Such a tease.

I gave up pretty fast and spread Mexican Blanket (Brian's smelly blanket from Mexico that has a permanent home in the back of the car) out on the sand to do some reading which I did enjoy.

Not only did the fishing fail but so did our picnic dinner. The miracle whip was to warm for me to eat by the time we got there so I had to throw my sandwich in the lake when Brian wasn't looking (except it floated back to the shore :/). I had munchies for dinner instead.

Finally after we sweated a little too much Brian said we could go home!

Here are some fishless pictures:

THE CUTEST!

Brian scammed out of this "funny" pic right at the last second. mean.



Stay tuned...you're in for a real treat later this week!

the hardest thing about being married

before I start... a cute wedding pic for you!

...having a last name Topham. I went from Bell, as easy as it gets, to this tongue twister.

(I bet half of you don't even know how to say it huh?)

Don't get me wrong, I love being married and love being a Topham but it makes life a little bit harder:)

I went from the beginning of the alphabet to the end

from one syllable to two

from a name that you can't mess up to one that you can in more ways than one.

This conversations happens a couple times a week:

excited congratulator (prob made that word up): "and what's your new last name?!"

me: "it's Topham"

person: "hmm Topin, thats interesting"

me: "no it's actually Topham"

person: "OH Topun, sorry about that"

me: "not quite, it's Topham (really emphasising the UM sound)"

person:"well how do you spell it"

me: "T-O-P-H-A-M"

person:"OH! TopHam"

me: "NO, it sounds like Top-UM"

person: "OH I'M SO SORRY! I've got it now, Topham"

FINALLY!!!

What's really awkward is when this conversation is happening in a whisper, like at church.

 Most of the time I just stick with Topin. Makes eveyones life a little easier.

Welp happy Friday!

just some new stuff

So there's nothing too exciting going on around here but I'll tell ya what we've been up to anyways.

We are attempting to make out huge house not look so empty so we got some new (used) couches that I'm in love with and hung some stuff up on the walls. The next project is to hang our HUGE mirror above my new couch!!! It's getting there :)

I made a new headband! Super cute and super easy to make

 (don't mind my ugly head)!

For the instructions click here!!!!

(ps- I didn't sew the last rectangle piece of fabric...just used some hot glue cause it was wayyyy easier!)

Also I made these yummy little treats! I saw this idea on another blog and thought I would give it a try...took like 15 mins.

SO EASY!

Mini Rice Crispies with some strawberry frosting on top!!!

And finally, Brian and I did the Sundance Moonlight lift ride last weekend and it was soooo cool! Here's the only horrible picture we took :)

So other than all of this junk, we're just hanging out, playing tennis and not wanting school to start!

Happy Wednesday :)



happy tuesday

Just wanted to say thanks for letting me share this moment with you. They did this for about 10 minutes, pretending no one else was around. Wrong.

Only at BYU



some quality time in the great state of Washington!

We went to Washington last week and had a blast hanging out with the fam!!! In a week we managed to make it all the way accross the state! Here are a few pics. or a lot...

1st Stop: Seattle

We flew into Seattle, got picked up by my Grams then hopped on a ferry so we could hang out with my aunt and cousins for a few!



cute cousins :)



my favorite aunt. she's a hottie, I know

2nd Stop: Lake Chelan

We drove to Lake Chelan with Ian after our afternoon in Seattle and stayed for a week! It was so nice to be at a real beach and hang out with my sisters and the rest of my fam! We went fishing, rode horses, shot guns and hung out by the water:D (I accidentally only got a few pics. Lame, I know)

Skritt and Philly :)



this kid LOVES the blog!



all the girls and the boys!

3rd Stop: Colville

By the end of the week we finally made it back to Colville! We were only there for a day and a half  but it was still great. I got my license changed (officially Chelsey TOPHAM!) and ran a million other errands and then went to Crystal Falls.  We ate some salmon, chicken and steak for dinner then went to bed and flew home the next day!

GLORY!

So that's all.  Hope you enjoyed :)