Chicken Noodle Soup

All growing up, about a week after Thanksgiving, my mom would make turkey noodle soup with the leftovers from our feast. I would come home from school to the delicious smell, and know the moment I opened the front door that it was turkey noodle soup day. And somehow, I always got lucky enough to arrive home just in time to sneak one of the uncooked noodles Mom had just rolled out on the cutting board. That's right, she made everything from scratch, even the noodles. 

Fast forward a few years and now I have my own little family, just Tom and I, but I still wanted to share this tradition. But we didn't have our own Thanksgiving, so there were no turkey leftovers to use. Fortunately, Costco has those awesome rotisserie chickens for just $5, so that put us in business.

I texted my mom to ask for the recipe of the soup, but the response I got was, "Sorry, I don't have a recipe, but you can call and I'll tell you what I do."

So I called, and found out that homemade soup from scratch was going to be a lot easier than I anticipated! All I had to do was basically boil the chicken carcass and make the noodles--who knew! My mom did :)

I'm so grateful to have a mom that passed down such fun traditions and a love for homemaking, and Tom sure appreciates it too!

Tom

I just wanted to write a quick post about how amazing Tom is. 

Yesterday was just one of those days. The littlest thing, good or bad, would set me off crying, which is great when we're attending a baby blessing, a fast and testimony meeting, receiving pictures of beautiful new baby nieces, getting ready for Tom to go out of town for work this week, etc.

Tom was so good to me all day. He helped me take a nap in the afternoon and just took care of my every need.  But as it came to 8:30 PM, I was still a big mess. We decided to go to bed early so that I could try to sleep it off, but I just couldn't get rid of my tears so that I could sleep.

Finally, after an hour of this, with Tom doing everything he could to cuddle and soothe me, he got up out of our warm bed and ventured through the cold house to dish me a big bowl of mint chip ice cream and then turned on The Emperor's New Groove.  The effect was almost immediate: my tears dried up and I was able to smile and laugh with my husband. 

Without even asking, Tom knew exactly what would cheer me up. And it's even better that he didn't have to ask, because I wouldn't have been able to tell him what I needed if he had asked. 

I am so blessed to have an awesome husband who knows my needs and wants even better than I do and who is patient with my emotional outbursts.

Thanks for everything Tom, I'm looking forward to eternity with you!

Busy Saturdays!

Today was a pretty crazy day! We started at 7 am filling hundreds of water and Gatorade cups for the runners of the Provo marathon. Friends from the ward were super awesome to help out at our water station and had a blast handing them off to runners as they went by. The race turned out super awesome, big shout out to Denny and Ceci and Hilary for your crazy hard work!

After the marathon we hit up Denny's for a quick brunch and then headed over to the Rugby National Championship match, where the Cougars fought hard to the last minute for their victory against Cal (who have 26 national championships under their belt!!?!). Another shout out to our buddy Ray who played amazingly well!!! (He's #3 in the pictures).

We picked up some groceries on our way home and then finally put our new Utah license plate on the car (sad sad day).

Now we are camped in front of the tv watching the Ducks play and waiting for the volleyball national championship game to start, where BYU will be competing for their second championship in a single day.

It's been a crazy busy day, and we are both feeling it (Tom especially as he is still working through the issues with his back), but it has been so much fun and was so worth it. I hope we still feel that way tomorrow!

BYU Rugby

We spent the afternoon today at a BYU Rugby game, to support BYU and to support our friend Ray who is one of the captains. We played Washington Central or someplace like that, and womped them! It was a fun game, and the weather was absolutely PERFECT. Seriously, we couldn't have asked for anything better.

This win will take us into the championships next week, which Tom and I just bought tickets for. We are looking forward to watching the team defend their title as champions!

Sunday Morning

With church not starting until 2 in the afternoon, we have some quality time together on Sunday mornings. Today we're playing "Break the Ice" and watching conference talks from last weekend.

Doesn't get much better than this!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas!

Last night we went to temple square in Salt Lake to enjoy all the beautiful Christmas lights! It was so much fun to be there with the Valgardsons and Liz! Also included is a picture of our meager Christmas decorations, which will hopefully get better as the years go by.

Sunday Dinners

Probably about once a month, Tom and I plan far enough ahead that we can have a really nice Sunday dinner. This happened a couple weeks ago, and we even pulled out our triple crockpot to execute it. (We were SO excited when we got the triple for our wedding, but it took us awhile to actually use it. Now we want to have parties and use it all the time!)

We made a roast and carrots on the far left, mashed potatoes in the middle, and something called brownie cream cheese pudding cake on the right. Other than the cake getting a little scorched on the edges, everything turned out amazing! (And even the cake was still delicious)

Now we are feeling much more excited and willing to try new things!