Holiday Sweaters...Kitty Style

**Simba, sporting the classic white look


**Panther, styling it in a burnt orange to compliment his complexion


WHAT DO YOU THINK DON'T THEY LOOK HOLIDAY CARD PERFECT???

Fund the Future

Fund the Future is an event that the school I work for puts on at a beautiful restaurant in Salt Lake. They do this event to raise money for tuition assistance to have children attend our school that might not be able to afford it otherwise. The night is a formal dress night and they put on a silent and live auction for participants to donate money to the cause. It was a fun night and the class project my kids did to auction off ended up selling for, $400.00 which Sophie and I were so excited about! The dinner was amazing and the night was packed with lots of laughs and surrounded by good friends.It was fun to get dressed up and have a good last Autumn night out.

**Sophie and I


**Our hilarious table
From Left:Nanette, Kelly, Alia, Sophie, Me and Maria


**Alia, Sophie and I

Swine Flu...Really???

So early on in November Joe was diagnosed with the Swine Flu, which he blamed on me for getting somehow... even though I never had it not got it after he had it, but whatever! I think he concocted this sickness from the incessantly coughing rug rats we take care of at church, because we are called as nursery teachers (Booooo). So anyway I had to deal with the never ending whining and coughing and gagging for almost 2 weeks straight... I felt bad for the poor guy but really he brought it on himself by being such a Germ-Nazi all the time, that the one time he didn't sanitize he got sick hahaha! Now today he is alive and well and sill uses like a bottle of sanitizer a day insisting it helps! Whatever makes him sleep at night, right? ;) LOL

*Here he is in all his sick Swine Flu glory!

Saying Goodbye is so hard to do...

Last month at my work we had a dear co-worker Susan move. Susan has been with us at the Montessori for 2 years and kinda acted as a grandma to everyone. She is such an awesome teacher and I just love her to pieces. She was given the opportunity to move to Vermont to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren and decided to take the opportunity! We ALL will miss her so much and think about her all the time! Good luck Susan in all that you do in the future!
The picture above was was her last night here in Utah and taken at her farewell dinner at the Olive Garden.
People in picture from left: Megan, Alia (both toddler sun's teachers), Robyn (Montessori Owner), Evi (red class teacher), Susan, Diana (toddler stars teacher), Marissa, Sophie (Toddler Moon's teachers), Nanette (Toddler's head &Sun's teacher), Brenda (Yellow class teacher), and Sheila (Blue class teacher).

We love you Susan and will miss you so much!

Better late then never...

So I know this post is extremely late however,it is still in the right place for time in events in our life that have already been posted because i haven't had time to post anything else either. So besides the pesky date that is at the top of this post, it is right on time.
Sophie (my co teacher at the Montessori AKA "the English girl" because she just moved here from England like 4 months ago)and I decided we really wanted to go see Thriller at Kingsburry Hall (at the U of U) for our fun Halloween festivity. Since I go to the U and students get buy one get one free tickets I was all about going( who doesn't like a good deal?) So Sophie and I decided to meet up with my boss form the dance studio (Alisha) and some other people, and go eat at the PIE and see this AMAZING performance!The dancing was fa-nominal and the entertainment was funny, the makeup was scary awesome and the whole show all together was fantastic.I loved having a night to hang out with Sophie. We are becoming great friends everyday and we find out we have more and more in common all the time. It is so much fun to finally have a friend in Utah here that is a girl and likes to do fun stuff like this or just hang out!
Here is some pictures of our fun night together! :)

*This is a picture of all the creepy actors that were walking around scaring people before the show. They would totally invade your personal space and make you feel way uncomfortable, but that's their job so they were doing it awesome.They would crawl over the chairs and even sit or climb over people that were sitting in the chairs, as if they were real ghosts. I also thought their make-up was amazing it looked so real!


**Sophie and I










**Opening Number to "thriller"

A few week's past...

Well...so I forgot about posting this because The wonderful picture was trapped on my camera and not in plain sight to remember to post about it but oh well here it is.. better late then never!
So a few weeks ago Joe and I were delighted to be able to go to my sisters play "A choirs Line" at the pioneer theater in salt Lake City.I felt so privileged to be able to go to this musical because it is one I have always wanted to see but Joe and I never would have been able to afford going if Ashley was not in it. This theater company is a professional company who hires majority of their cast straight from the Broadway cast and pays them a lot of money to fly out here and live here for 2 months during the run of the show. Ashley (My sister) was one of the lucky few who got hired into this 20 person cast as well. They only take about 5 actors or actresses from the salt lake area to be in this production and the rest are from the Broadway cast. It was very exciting to see Ashley work side by side with all these amazing actors and really get an opportunity to showcase her talents in an outstanding venue. Ashely played a main character and sang a whole song with one other guy which was so funny. She did an awesome job and we were so proud to be able to see her in this production. Congratulations Ashley!

**Picture of Me, Ashley and Joe after the show!

The type of weekend i'm sad has come and gone...

So after a relaxing fall break and beautiful fall weather, Joe and I thought we would make the most of my time off school and work. We went to Gardner village were we enjoyed the fun festivities and adorable costumes people were wearing as they walked around in the cooling fall breeze. The shops were filled with all those fun decorations and exciting atmosphere of the exhilarating fall activities there are to do this time of year. Below are some pictures of Joe and I enjoying the day and walking around the cutest shops ever and amazing Halloween decorations that were everywhere.





After coming home we thought we would top the evening off with watching "The Proposal" and...



Baking these yummy for our tummy fall/ Halloween cookies...



As well as laying back on the couch and eating this Halloween favorite treat!



After relaxing and enjoying our weekend thus far we spent our Saturday night watching "The Couples Retreat" with our friends Jessie and Mindy. We HIGHLY recommend this movie to any couple that just wants a night of fun and plenty of laughs. Great Movie and well worth the theater price! After watching our movie we went out to dinner at Rumbi (witch feed me for the next days lunch as well) and was much needed and well deserved after an eventful week and weekend!



Happy week all!

This Week...

This week was a busy one! I made it through the last week before fall break and am so excited to have next week off of school. I'm so happy to finally be able to just catch up on papers and so forth. This semester has by far been the most stressful and difficult semester of school I have taken yet, and I am very excited for it all to be over. I found out on Tuesday that I for sure graduate with my BS in Human Development and Family Studies & Early Childhood Education This May!! I even turned in my graduation application, so it's official!
I have been sick all week and am just thankful that for work I survived enough so I could make it through parent teacher conferences yesterday. I was very happy and glad to report my parent teacher conferences ALL went really well and that every parent is happy with how their child's education is going thus far!! yay for Sophie (My co-teacher) and I!!!!
We also found out some exciting news in our family this week as well! Joe and I were delighted to get the call from his sister Cassie and her husband Dave, that they are welcoming a new member of their family, to make a family of four. They have one child right now, David. So either a future boy or girl is going to join their family May 9, 2010 (The same weekend as my graduation)!what an exciting time May will be!
Congratulations Larsen family on being pregnant!


That's all for now have a good week everyone! :)

Oh how I love these.... hahah

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
ENJOY!!!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

(In video- Marissa, Joe, Mom Gardner, Dad Gardner and baby Mathias) hahah

Update....

So Its been a little while since I have posted and this is because there is literally nothing new going on in our lives right now. I'm ridiculously busy with school and work and Joe is busy at work everyday! We have been trying to catch up on so many shows (Psych, Hero's, So You Think You Can Dance, etc...) and it seems we don't have time for that either! :/ I love to be busy but am very ready to graduate in May and finally not come home from a full day of work to a full night of homework, or devoting my weekends to writing papers and hating math, instead of relaxing and having fun. Well... this week at least we get to do one fun outing together, to my sister Ashley's play at pioneer theater, "A Chorus Line"! I'm very excited about this so that should be fun! Ok well I guess that's it...until next week...maybe :)!

Oh ya...HAPPY FALL!!!

Never Forget...

9/11

Thank You, to all those men and women who everyday, fight for our
FREEDOM!

Finally A Post About Our Apartment!

^Above is a picture of part of the kitchen and living room. This is what you see when you first walk into the apartment from the front door.

WELCOME TO OUR HOME!!!

So we have been married for about 4months now and living here almost 5 months and I haven't posted anything about our house so here it is. This is the most wonderful apartment in the perfect location and such an awesome community of people here in the complex. I love living here and I couldn't ask for a better place for Joe and I to build and start our life together. The apartment has everything we needed and wanted and even lets us have our adorable kitties. So here is a tour of our apartment, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

**This is a view from the front door and looking to the right at our living room

**Entertainment area in our living room

**Our door out to our patio. This is on the west wall of our living room. On our patio we have plenty of room where we eat breakfast on Sunday mornings and I keep my bike. We also have a huge storage unit where we keep most of our food storage and extra (tons of toothpaste that I buy on coupon) storage as well as Christmas stuff, camping stuff, Joe's tools, winter tires, etc...

**Our living room view from the kitchen facing west.
**Our living room/entrance. (view from the kitchen)

**Dining area
**Kitchen

**Laundry room/ extra storage (view from kitchen-there is a door that is on the south wall of our kitchen and in that door is our laundry room entrance.)
**West side of kitchen/peek a boo window (looking out of kitchen)
**East side of kitchen/ pantry
**Peek a boo window(looking into kitchen)
**Hallway
**Pictures in the hallway on east wall
**Bedroom #1 -Guest room/Office (view from room entrance looking right onto the north wall)
Joe's computer and all our degrees in various stuff
**Part of computer and guest bed (view from room entrance and looking at the north-west corner)
**west wall/ guest bed
**South wall/ guest amenities and stuff
**East wall and bedroom entrance/ exit (directly across the hall is our bathroom where we will be headed next)
**Bathroom front entrance looking at our bathroom shower/ bath and
**This is the sink and mirror that I call (Joe's area) in our bathroom
**extra storage in the bathroom as well as our built in litter box area in the wall
**Bedroom #2 Our room (view from back (south) wall in our room- So entrance door into room would be on the right side of the picture)
**Joe's dresser I repainted and made look amazing
**South wall/bed in our room- Picture taken from front entrance door of room
**West wall and window- Joe's dresser would be on the right side of this picture by the window

**East wall and entrance into walk in closet
**closet
**In our house we have a unique thing that is a full sink and counter in our closet (which is what I call MY area) This makes it really cool because all my clothes are in the closet and all the rest of my stuff, like tooth brush, makeup and hair care stuff is in there too by my sink. So I can get ready in the morning and not wake Joe up and limit opening and closing doors early in the morning PLUS when he is getting ready I can get ready at the same time without having either of us getting in each others way. THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART OF OUR HOUSE!
**More clothes in our closet. (which if you know me, our closet is big enough to hold ALL my clothes, shoes, purses and PJ's AS WELL AS Joe's clothes! And there is still plenty of room to have the sink and move around comfortably-That is what I call an amazing closet)

WELL I HOPE YOU ENJOYED OUR HOME AND HOPE TO SEE YOU COME VISIT SOON! :)