Date at PF Changs

Last night=quadruple date at PF Changs with some of our married friends.

It was so fun.
Sorry in advance for the dark pictures.
PF Changs lighting is hard for a little iphone.
(yes, my iphone camera will still be used frequently even though I now own an awesome dslr.  The iphone is easier on little date nights like these;) )

Okay, so T&A and me and Taylor both ordered chocolate cakes.

We didn't realize until the cakes came out that there was a MAJOR size difference.

Look at this!

Ha!
Our cake quickly became a community cake, since there was no way Taylor and I were finishing it on our own.  It was one of the highlights of the night.

 So...Tay and I randomly and completely last minute decided to throw a NYE party tomorrow night.
We invited lots of couple friends.
We're pretty excited.
Wish me luck.
I have one day to prepare.
Ha.

It's almost 2013!
New Years Resolutions?
I'll share mine soon :)

Christmas Photos 2012

Here are some photos from our Christmas shoot.

Since I sent out our Christmas cards extra late, I will post a picture of the actual Christmas card in a few days.

I just don't want to share that quite yet, since some people have yet to receive it. ;)

But here are some other shots from the day:

Oh, and here's us just picking out a tree...

Found one!

Our banner pictures didn't quite work...it was a pretty windy day.

Our photographer is awesome.

We love her to pieces.

I hope everyone had a merry christmas!

We sure had a lovely one.

 Love, the Gilberts

My new face.

Yep, this what I look like 24/7 now.

My husband is awesome.

Taylor got me a dslr for Christmas!

I have wanted one forever.

And he was sooo sneaky about it.

A few days before Christmas, there was a new present under our tree.

To Kelli, Love Taylor.

It was clearly a wrapped ring box.

Jewelry?

That was my best guess.

I mean what else do you put in a ring box?

Then, when it was time for me to open that gift on Christmas morning,

his family was suspiciously excited.

I didn't quite understand.

Why would they all be excited over jewelry?

And when I opened the ring box,

it wasn't jewelry that greeted me.

Instead it was a clue:

I didn't want to believe it.

But then Taylor had his brother bring out my real present.

A canon dslr.

And I'm officially obsessed.

It's safe to say that I treat this camera like my first born child.

It comes everywhere with me, and is hardly ever out of my sight.

And here's a cute little video Taylor's dad took of me opening that tricky little ring box.

Dear Taylor:
You are the best.
So sneaky.
And I love you.
A lot.

A few more Christmas posts to come :)

For now...

It wasn't until yesterday that I started feeling 100%.

It felt like forever of feeling blech.  

So, unfortunately, I don't have the greatest pictures to share from Christmas.

Since I wasn't feeling all that hot, I wasn't thinking too much about picture-taking.

I was putting all of my energy to convincing myself that I felt okay.

I do have a few Christmas posts coming soon.

But for now, this check-in post will have to do.

We are doing well...Tay is doing his best to avoid the "plague" going through Utah.

Seriously...everyone is sick.

It even made the news!

It's called the rotavirus. Look it up. Some nasty stuff.

The past few days there has been some crazy snow.

I don't think I've ever seen this much snow.

It's been fun to cuddle in front of fires, do puzzles, and spend time with family.

Here are a few pictures to satisfy the mind:

 As soon as I walked outside, I realized how stupid my shoe choice was.

Sperrys in a snowstorm?

Yep, I'm definitely from California.

ha.

When we opened the door last night, this is what I saw:

Holy cow. SO MUCH SNOW!

It was so fun having my first white christmas.

I'm stuck indoors, because Taylor hid my car keys.  He's too scared of me driving anywhere in the snow. Ha! He has good reason...

Look forward to some Christmas posts coming soon...

Taylor got me a dslr!  

I am one happy girl.

Christmas spirit.

I have been such a procrastinator this Christmas season.
I have been so busy with teaching,
that I decided to not worry about decorating or Christmas shopping until I started my winter break.

Well, luck would have it that on my second day of break, I became extremely ill.

It started on Friday morning at 3:00am.

I woke Taylor up and told him I didn't feel well.

The next thing I knew, I was over the toilet.

It wasn't pretty on either end -_-

The worst part though was that I couldn't stay conscious.  

I kept blacking out.

I don't remember much of that night.

Other than hearing Taylor yell, "Kelli! Kelli! Wake up!"

over and over again.

And it took so much effort to come back to his voice.

Then I would be back in bed.

Then I was back in Taylor's arms in the bathroom trying to reach his voice.

Over and over again.

It was a nightmare.

I remember Taylor's dad coming over to give me a blessing.

(such a sweet father-in-law...it must have been 6 in the morning?)

And I remember seeing Taylor look pretty worried a few times.

Then, Taylor was taking me to the hospital.

His mom came and helped.

(I have the best in-laws)

The doctor gave me a huge shot in the hip.

And then I was back in bed and slept throughout the rest of the day.

Of course, in between, was more throwing up and more passing out.

Taylor keeps telling me things that happened, but I have no recollection.

Taylor said that at one point--in the middle of throwing up--I joked, "It's the haircut!"

I don't really remember this...but now our running joke is that I am Samson...all of my power was in my hair.

I tried to get moving yesterday morning.

I knew that it would be my last day to get the presents I had procrastinated.

How awful would it be if Christmas came and I had no gifts for my sweet husband?

So we went out for a couple of hours.

But by the end, I wasn't feeling so hot.

I slept for the rest of the day.

Every couple of hours, I woke up feeling so guilty:

Christmas was in just two days.

Our house was hardly decorated.

I hadn't finished Christmas shopping.

Our house was a mess.

How awful am I?

Then, this morning happened.

I woke up and went into the kitchen.

I couldn't believe it.

Our house was decorated.

Our house was spick and span.

There were presents under our tree.

I started to tear up.

After taking care of me all night and day long,

after cleaning up my throw up,

after catching me over and over again when I passed out,

after carrying me to bed and trying to get me to come out of the black out,

after taking me to the doctor's,

after giving me medicine,

after making sure I was hydrated,

after calling the doctor a few times because of weird symptoms I was having,

after making me soup,

after multiple grocery store runs for medicine, gatorade, and milk (apparently I really wanted milk? ha),

after little sleep...

my sweet husband cleaned our whole house.

Finished my Christmas shopping (for people other than himself of course).

And decorated for Christmas.

Seriously. This happened.

This is what Christmas is about.

My husband just gave me the best and sweetest gift he could have ever given me.

Love, service, selflessness, and charity.

This is why this man amazes me over and over again.

This is easily the best Christmas I have ever had.

And I haven't opened a single wrapped present.

I am so grateful this season for Taylor Ray Gilbert.

My husband and very best friend.

He even updated our chalkboard to make it festive ;)

I did it!

I chopped all of my hair!

Okay, this isn't the greatest picture, but you'll get the idea :)

It actually wasn't that hard of a decision.

I was SO bored with my long hair.

And I was ready to try something new.

Plus, hair grows back right?

And mine grows pretty fast, so I'm not too worried.

I figured that if I did it really short, I'd get to experience everything in between.

I love it!

It is so fun.

Except, I now have a case of phantom hair.

I'll try playing with my now non-existant long hair, and be confused for a second as to where it is.

Ha.

Taylor LOVES it. I think more than he liked my long hair?

Anyways, it's fun and new.

Sometimes still weird. But...trying new things is fun!

Yep, be proud.
I did it.

My favorite thing.

Cuddling in bed while both of us read is one of my favorite things ever.

Especially last night: window open with snow falling.

I love this life we live.

Apologies

Sorry for the lack of posts!

It has been a crazy week.

But I am happy to report I have the next two weeks off of work!

Hoorah!

So things should be slowing down.

Here's just a quick post:

The other evening, Tay was asleep in the living room like this.

This is right before I pounced...

And post-pounce picture.

It was pretty funny.

Even though I felt semi-bad for waking him up.

I just couldn't help it.

Christmas is around the corner.

I am so behind on so many things.

ugh!

Tomorrow may be a big day...

thinking of chopping off all of my hair?

I'm pretty nervous.

We'll see if I'm brave enough!

Isn't he cute?

Yeah...he still does cute things like this.

Love!

Nuisance

I can't wait one day to have laser eye surgery.

Contacts are getting more and more annoying by the second.

This morning on my way to work, my contact fell out on the freeway.

I squinted with one eye the rest of the way to work,

 as I swished the contact around in my mouth (so it wouldn't harden and dry)

Gross, right?

Seriously gross.

Sometimes we contact-wearers have to resort to serious measures.

ha.

Contacts are a nuisance.

That is all.

Finals Week

It's finals time for Taylor.

(no more finals for me!)

I surprised him with this "finals survival kit."

With just a few of his favorite things.

(okay, the deodorant and gel are not his favorite things...he was just out of both, so I figured he'd be excited that I restocked for him).

Can you see the tie next to the nerds?

Last week, I accidentally washed one of his ties :/

Even though he has a billion+one, I figured I'd replace the ruined tie.

Well...to be more honest, I was at Banana yesterday and I saw this one and fell in love.

Plus, it was on sale. win-win-win.

Can't wait for his finals to be over!

Feel good day.

Yesterday, I received not one, but two thank you letters.

From two of my students!

It seriously made my day.

I've had a long week---the students are getting antsy for Christmas break.

So they've been extremely chatty.

But reading those two letters put the biggest smile on my face.

It feels so GOOD to be thanked and appreciated.

Which is why I went home and wrote a thank you letter to someone I appreciated.

Spread the cheer, right?

That feeling has spilled right over into today.

Plus, it's Friday.

So yeah, it's a feel-good day.

doTERRA Christmas party

ugly sweater christmas party.

three of my favorite things all compiled into one

(ugly sweaters, christmas, and parties :))

Here's me and Tay.

More pictures to come later.

Oh, and trust me...you can't tell here, but my sweater is pretty bad.

Can you believe I've NEVER done one of these photobooths before?

I realized this about 2 weeks ago, and Taylor couldn't believe it.

But then I got to cross it off of my bucket list because they had one at the Christmas party!

These are seriously my favorite pictures ever. ha.

Hanging on the fridge!

This boy.

This boy.
He can sing, play the piano, and play the guitar.
Even though he likes to keep these little tidbits hidden from the world.
He's mighty good.
And I LOVE more than anything listening to him sing and play.
I was lucky enough to sit and listen to him the other night.
Favorite thing ever.

I secretly took a video of him singing.

But he saw me recording, tackled me to the floor, and then deleted the video.

Dang.

Maybe next time?

Waking the monster.

Almost every night before I fall asleep, Taylor asks me to make sure to wake him up the next morning before I leave for work.

I leave for work at 7.

Taylor likes to get to work early, but he can pretty much get there whenever he wants.

(pretty spoiled, isn't he?)

Every morning when I try to wake him up, he does one of the following things:

1. puts on a puppy face and asks to sleep for a little bit longer

2. says, "I actually went to sleep really late last night, so I'm going to sleep in a little."

3. insists that he is awake but just laying in bed to stay warm

4. signs in ASL "sleep more please"

5. tells me really nice things like "you're beautiful, I love you, I'll miss you today," gives me a kiss  goodbye, and then stays in bed.

My reactions to these things (in respect to the order above):

1. Taylor's puppy face is killer. I can never say no to his puppy face.  Which is why I've told him he's only allowed to use it twice a month.

2. Well, if he went to sleep late, then he shouldn't wake up early.

3. Great, my job is done!

4. ASL is a straight way to my heart. And he knows it.

5. How can I pull him out of bed when he was just so sweet?

Since he doesn't really have to be to work early, I figure it's not a big deal to let him keep sleeping.

Then, when I see him later that evening he will always say,

"Kelli! I told you to wake me up this morning!"

"I tried! But you..." Then I proceed to tell him that he did one of the following five things.

Taylor: "I will do and say anything to stay in bed.  You HAVE to wake me up!"

So the next morning, I am determined to wake him up...until he does one of those five things.

Then I'm pudding.

And I leave him laying there, because he looks so cute!

(p.s. for #3, he does stay in bed, but he goes back to sleep)

This routine (trying to wake him up, failing, and then the same conversation every night) has been going on for awhile now.

The problem is that sometimes he really does end up staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning doing homework.  And I never know if he is telling the truth or not when I try waking him up.

Finally, last night, I had a brilliant idea.

I made a sign.

Green on one side.

Red on the other.

And I hung it by his side of the bed.

I told Taylor: "At night, before you go to sleep, you flip the sign to red or green. Green means "wake me up" and red means "let me sleep."

Whatever color I see when I wake up is the one I will follow...no matter what.

Don't laugh at the ghetto-ness of this sign.

I seriously made it in 2 minutes last night.

And the ripped red paper was the last piece of red paper I had, so I figured it would have to do.

I made sure to include an oath on the green side:

"I, Taylor Ray Gilbert, promise to love you no matter what means you resort to, in order to accomplish the above task."

This morning was green.

And man alive, I used every force I could to get that boy out of bed.

AND, I succeeded.

I think this sign thing will do its job just splendidly.

Thankful tree.

A couple of weeks ago, our ward passed around little paper leaves to everyone at church.

Everyone was supposed to write something they were thankful for on the leaf.

They put all of the leaves on a paper tree that hung on a wall in the church building.

Such a creative idea!

Last Sunday, I was reading all of the thankful leaves when I saw this one:

And guess whose leaf this was?

That's right.

Mr. Taylor Ray Gilbert.

It just made me smile.

Hey, Taylor?

Even though I didn't write your name on my leaf... (whoops)

I'm pretty dang grateful for you too. ;)

My new favorite quote.

I think I have a new favorite quote almost every week.

But I'm really loving the one that keeps running through my mind this week.

I feel as if it has such a deep and powerful meaning:

"There are three things that will never come back: the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity."

Trying to be extremely careful of what comes out of my mouth.

And trying to take advantage of every opportunity to serve during this Christmas season.

Triple date with matching wives

A couple of weeks ago, we had an FHE night with two great couples.
The whole night was so funny!

To START, all of the girls were wearing matching red pea-coats!
Complete accident!
And me and Mads were wearing the same shoes!
Funny, right?

Taylor's mom was nice enough to let us borrow her Acadia, so that all six of us could squeeze into one car.

The gas tank was almost on empty, so she gave us her card to fill up the tank.

So, first stop: gas station.

Taylor pulled up to the gas station and got out to pump the gas.

A few minutes later, he gets back in and pulls to another pump.

He had forgotten his Mom's pin and the pump locked because of too many incorrect guesses.

We all laughed, and then I handed Tay my card, and told him just to do it with our money.

Well...a few minutes later he gets back in and starts to drive to ANOTHER pump.

We all burst out laughing.

Poor Taylor just couldn't get those pins right ;)

So, finally at the third pump, I told my poor husband to stay in the car while I pumped the gas.

We definitely gave him a hard time about it. ;)

Tarahumara is all of the way in Midway (about a 35-45 minute drive).

About halfway there, Dusty asked Taylor, "Someone checked to make sure it's still open, right?"

Taylor confidently said, "Yeah, it's for sure still open."

Well...I'm sure you can guess how the next part of the story goes.

We finally got to the restaurant, and it was CLOSED.

After driving all of that way.
It was so ironic, we couldn't help but tease poor TayRay.

Luckily, Taylor's family used to have a cabin in Midway, so he knew another yummy spot nearby to fill our hungry tummies.

We ended up at Spin Cafe.

And man!

It was delicious!

We enjoyed some yummy food, and afterwards had gelato.

We sure do love good friends and good food.
Hoorah for an eventful and extremely fun night!

That dang husband.

Same night as this night.

Right before we left for our date, I wanted a picture of us.

Tay kept making funny faces right before the camera flashed.

Which resulted in me laughing and having a funky smile in the pictures.

We had to keep retaking them.

But that dang husband wouldn't stop making the funny faces.

So finally, I resorted to this.

Much better.

Behind.

I am way behind on blogging!

I have so many posts that I need to finish and publish.

I will try to get a few up tomorrow...or at least one. ha.

With this wonderful season upon us, Tay and I have been so busy jumping from one thing to the next.

This next week will be full of work and church Christmas parties.

PLUS, a Christmas play this weekend in ASL.

Love that Tay and I can share the love of this beautiful language.

Did you know we plan on teaching our kids ASL?

Can you just imagine little signing toddlers?

It will be adorable.

Ha!

Anyways, posts coming soon!

It is way past my bedtime.

So, goodnight!

And YAY for it being DECEMBER!

23 days until Christmas!!!!

And I already have a lot of presents purchased.  

But only one so far for Mr. TayRay...purchased weeks ago, actually. 

 I have it secretly hidden away.  

I think I found the most awesome hiding spot for gifts this year!

Pretty proud of my sneaky self.

Memories and sweet words.

The other day, I stumbled upon some love notes Taylor wrote me while we were dating/engaged.

They were the sweetest notes in the world.

And it made me tear up a little while reading them.

Any of the scoffers who were baffled that I was engaged after dating a boy for 2.5 months...all they'd have to do was read these notes...and then they would instantly understand!

Today, I am grateful for memories and sweet words. 

Puckered lips

Every morning before I leave for school, I climb back into bed to kiss Taylor goodbye.

Right as he hears me climbing into bed, his lips immediately "pucker" for a kiss.

It always makes me laugh.

Sometimes I wait to see how long his half-asleep self will keep his lips puckered before I finally do kiss him goodbye.

So far, the longest he's laid there (keep in mind, he's half asleep, eyes closed) with his puckered lips, waiting for me to kiss him, is 48-hippopotamus-seconds.

This is easily my favorite part of every day.

Winter time.

This was our dinner tonight.

Yummy soup in a yummy bread bowl.

Winter is upon us.

A super glue story

On Sunday morning, I was teasing Taylor relentlessly.

All in good fun, of course.

Even though he pretended to be sad (puppy face and all), we were both laughing.

Then, right as we were about to leave church, Taylor pointed to a bottle of super glue on the counter and asked, "Hey, will you pick that up for me?"

Me: "Why...?"

Taylor: "My hands are full."

His hands were full, but I was more inquiring what he wanted to use it for.

So, I picked it up for him.

He started to unbutton his dress shirt, and said, "Here...I just need some right here..."

I just looked at him with a sincerely confused face.

Then he pointed at his heart and said, "To put my broken heart together."

Haha! I still laugh just thinking about it.

I was laughing so hard, I had tears.

This boy is so dang clever.

He is always keeping me laughing.

At least now you know the cure to a broken hurt. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A post of the whole day will follow!

But here's a picture of me and my love on this special day.

This Thanksgiving is with the Gilb fam.

Happy turkey day!

today=my friday

Last day of school for the Thanksgiving break.

I'm excited for the long week!

I have lots of things planned.

And the best part is that TayRay gets the rest of the week off too!

I woke him up before I left this morning and sang to him: 

"Today is our Friday, Friday, Friday!

Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

Then I tried to pull him out of bed.

I was just so excited.

He laughed, but didn't get out of bed.

Ha.

In approximately one hour I will be officially celebrating the start of this holiday!
Hooray for (fake) FRIDAY!

Incentive Trial

I tried something new with my students this term.

Instead of having "punishments" for bad behavior,

I have been using "incentive/rewards" for good behavior.

This is what I said at the beginning of term to my challenging classes:

"If we can get everything done that we need to and if we can stay on schedule, then the day before Thanksgiving break, I will allow you to watch a movie.

This means that if I have to stop every five seconds to tell you to be quiet...you've lost the movie day."

I was so surprised how well it worked!

All I had to say when they got riled up was:

"How much does your movie day mean to you?"

And then they would quieter faster than you could believe.

Today is their movie day.

And they SO earned it.

Which makes me not feel bad about losing a day.

Because we are AHEAD of schedule!

Whoo!

Incentives work!

I brought about six school-appropriate movies for them to vote on and choose to watch.

Why did I bring so many?

So I wouldn't be stuck watching the same movie four times today.

BUT, ironically, all three classes have voted on the same movie.

Blindside.

Ha.

Guess my plan didn't work too well after all... ;)

Oh well.

I'm happy.

They're happy.

It's a good day.

Our weekend.

Friday:

Night out on the town with the Gilb fam.

He's got creepy eyes. But man! He's a handsome man.

Oh, and then we ended the night with some funny faces:

 Saturday:
We went to our good friends' wedding.
Mr. and Mrs. Mitch Oldham!
They were beautiful!
And it was a lovely sealing.

Then we got to eat this yummy food at the luncheon.

 This picture makes me laugh.
Tay was in deep conversation with his Mama.
But it kind of looks like he is posing. ha.

We had fun plans on Saturday night, but then I got sick. :(
So I fell asleep at 7pm and slept until 9 the next morning! Geesh...

Sunday:
I was still feeling a little nauseous, so we took it easy.
church, yummy dinner, and we got to see the lovely Kelsey Briggs.
More about her here.

Hey, guess what?
Only two days of work and then I get the rest of the week off!
Loving this holiday season!

today is...

Friday?

No.  THURSDAY.

But for some reason I keep thinking it's Friday.

And then I get slightly depressed that it's only Thursday.

C'mon week...give me my weekend!

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I just saw it on my computer and thought I would include it.

Sometimes we are nerds together ;)

Courage.

Amidst the craziness of the world, I love when I come across something truly uplifting.

Lines from this poem have been running through my head all morning.

It takes courage
To refrain from gossip
When others delight in it,
To stand up for the absent person
Who is being abused.

It takes courage
To live honestly
Within your means,
And not dishonestly
On the means of others.

It takes courage
To be a REAL man or a TRUE woman,
To hold fast to your ideals
When it causes you
To be looked upon
As strange and peculiar.

It takes courage
To be talked about,
And remain silent,
When a word would justify you
In the eyes of others,
But which you dare not speak
Because it would injure another.

It takes courage
To refuse to do something
That is wrong
Although everyone else
May be doing it
With attitudes as carefree
As a summer song.

It takes courage
To live according
To your own convictions,
To deny yourself
What you cannot afford.
To love your neighbor
As yourself!
  

I absolutely love this.  I strive to emulate this kind of courage in my daily life. Spiritual enlightenment for the day!