here's those "major changes"...

 A little more like major pain, but alas...

After much hemming and hawing, I have finally come to the conclusion that my life needed a change, and to do so included a change of blog-scenery.  Basically, "little red" was getting old, and it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

So for all further time and eternity (or until the next time I change my mind, hehe), we will be located at

frecklesandrouge.blogspot.com

I know, the name sounds totally random, but there is a good explanation for it (sort of) and that is on the new blog.

Make sure to change your links if you have us on a blog roll, or in your Reader. Thanks mucho!

major changes.

Hey everybody! Just letting you know that a major change is soon to come to this blog. I'll let you know about it as soon as I can!

I can't wait to share it with you! kara.

Husbands Say the Darnest Things

(I'm totally ignoring the fact that I haven't written in weeks, and bring you instead a snippet of humor from the Land of Husbands. Enjoy.)

We were laying in bed when I reached over and tickled Hubs.

He started yelling "Help! Assault and battery with a deadly weapon!!!"

I stopped and looked him in the face, and sputtered through my giggles, "What??"

"A deadly weapon! You know, feminine wiles!"

Blank stare from the wife half of the bed.

"Feminine wiles: the ability to suck the life from a man through torture and inhumane means!"

Because as a wife, yeah, I'm THAT awesome.

My husband has a problem. 

He likes to lose things.

Important things.

Not things like the newspaper, or last month's gas bill.

VERY important things.

Like wedding rings.

Like HIS wedding ring.

Multiple times.

And guess who's always the one who finds it?

Yes. His TOTALLY awesome wife.

So when hubby told me that he lost his ring AGAIN two months ago, my shock was fairly uneventful.

Meh.

And when he also asked for a new wedding ring for Valentine's Day, I went searching through the nearest K-Mart for the best ring that $15 could buy.

Even then, I had a hard time spending that much cash on something I knew would be lost next week. So I didn't buy it.

And when the lovely wife was doing laundry last week, guess what fell out of the dryer?

The infamous ring.  That just won't stay lost.

So when Valentine's Day came around, guess what I decided to give hubs for his totally awesome gift?

Oh yes. 

I re-gifted to my own hubby.

Best Valentine's Day EVER.

Yeah. January is boring.

So I thought that since the holidays are over, I should probably get around to updating you on our "normal lives" and what we're up to.  And since I'm all about lists, that's how you're gonna get it.

1. Thomas graduated last month from massage therapy school so we're trying to find him a job...so if any of you know of anywhere that is hiring massage therapists, let us know...

2. I started school again last week. Last semester, wahOO!  Now I'm down to 15 weeks left! Yay! In a way, it kind of feels like being pregnant because I'm counting it by the weeks. And no, I'm not pregnant yet either. But it sure seems like everybody else is these days...but that's another post for another day.

3. I've spent this whole holiday weekend just catching up on projects around our house like putting up plastic on our windows, and installing Windows on my Mac, and ordering a part for my busted washing machine, and making a Facebook group for my graduation/commissioning, and creating a family budget that works, and cleaning out our back room so Thomas can give massages, and...and...and...

So really, that's about it.  I will spend every day at school and Thomas is out scouting for jobs.  Exciting right?  Hopefully after graduation (15 weeks!), we'll have more exciting things going on, like traveling across the country!  Yay!

Update #4

Whew! We're near the end of these updates!

christmas!

Okay, so we're not your typical family, if you haven't guessed that yet.  Most of our Christmas traditions (with my parents, anyway) are pretty much exactly opposite from your standard Christmas. For example, on Christmas Eve, we don't cook dinner. We order in dinner. The reason for this is back in the day, when I was in the first grade, we bought a house over the Christmas holidays, in order to get out of our travel trailer that we were living in (geez, does it seem like I live in trailers a lot??).  The previous owner of the house said that they would be out of the house on Christmas Eve, and when we went to move in on Christmas Eve, they were still there. I guess they needed a few more hours.  Well, not having anywhere else to go, we went to the local McDonald's to get dinner.  When we got back, the owners were gone and we got to move in. My parents piled all the presents in a corner of the empty living room, and we had Christmas. Every year since then, we always go out to eat (or order in) on Christmas Eve. For awhile, it was McDonald's. Then we did Wendy's. Now we're on our like 4th or 5th year eating Papa Murphy's on Christmas Eve. Yummy.

The second strange tradition we have that is different than most is that we open all of our presents on Christmas Eve, and we each get one from Santa to open on Christmas Day overnight, plus our stockings.  The third difference is that we eat our big Christmas dinner with the ham and the potatoes and the works, on Christmas Day.  Pretty sweet right? I think it's because we wanted to stretch the Christmas fun over two days, but that's just me. :)

These mixed up traditions actually work out pretty well when you combine that with Thomas' family, who does Christmas the traditional way, meaning that we get the best of both worlds, on both days! His family does the big dinner on Christmas Eve, and opens presents on Christmas Day, and my family is opposite! I really like it that way. But you know, we are a little weird.

We like it that way.

(L-R: Kara, Kerstin, Devin. The three siblings. We've got three more siblings but they weren't there. I'm the baby, if you can't tell by the way I'm being treated...)

A little pre-event fun with my niece, Austyn, in a giant stocking.  She's very photogenic and the closest niece/nephew around, so she's going to be in a lot of these pictures.

We can't help it, I'm sorry.

Four full grown adults shoved on one little couch.  There was much love going around.

(L-R: Kara, Thomas, Kerstin, and Tommy (Kerstin's bf))

Thomas gave up on the couch and went to sit on the floor.  He also got some much needed clothes! Thanks mom!

Grandpa and Austyn sorting out everybody's presents. She took to opening her presents in the other room because it took too long to carry them over to where we were all sitting.  Lacking the spirit of the season? Perhaps.  Highly efficient four year old? Definitely.

This little princess is spoiled beyond belief. By the time we were all done opening presents, she still had half of hers to go. These two dresses were her favorite.

I may look strange in this picture, but I actually was pretty excited about this present. My dad picked out a ring that says "Love Life" on the outside, and then "Be Brave" on the inside. Me and my dad are really close so it meant a lot to me that he chose that out for me.  It definitely sounds like something he would say. :)

As you can probably see, my brother, Devin, isn't in any of these pictures. That's because he didn't show up on Christmas Eve. But he did come on Christmas Day for the big dinner. Here he is with his girlfriend Sabrina, and her three kids, opening their presents.

Recently, Austyn has fallen in love with a TV channel called Sprout that I have never heard of before. Anyway, during the commercials between shows, they teach sign language. So here is Austyn teaching Great Grandma Sandy the signs for "create" and "garden".

She told us to take a picture of her "crazy face."

I wanted to show off one of my new Christmas presents -- new glasses!  Yes, I bought them for myself, but they were desperately needed. I was still wearing my glasses from high school, which meant that the prescription was WAY out of date. I got this pair, and a second pair for under 70 bucks, including frames and lenses.  Sweet! I bought them online from a place called EyeBuyDirect.com for super cheap. And I love them!

Well, that's all folks! Merry Christmas from the Clark/Jarvis/Snell/Petersen family!

(Yeah, we're a little bit of a mixed family...but we like it that way.)

Update #3

Now we're getting into the fun stuff!

december 18:

I spent the week between the end of finals, and December 18 on campus, doing work. I think I forgot to mention that in November, I ran and interviewed for the cadet wing commander position with my detachment at ROTC, and I was selected for the position.  It's a really awesome opportunity to stretch my leadership skills and refine some others that could use some help.  So I basically spent a week (while Thomas was still at his mom's) at the Det, working on all this stuff that has to be ready for spring semester.  It definitely kept me busy!

At the end of the week though, it was all about the hubs.  He graduated from massage therapy school!  We went to Temple Square before the graduation and his awesome sister Cindy snapped a few photos of us and him.

That is totally my scarf...he stole it.

And here's my cornball trying to be dramatic.

He was really done taking pictures by this point. :)

Sorry, it's super blurry, but it's the only one where I don't look like I'm on drugs.  Camera flashes make my eyes droop really bad so I look like I'm tripping on something.

Now on to the fun part of the evening! We went up to the U, and Thomas finally graduated! Yay! Here's some pics.

About to be called...

Walking across the stage...

Receiving his diploma...

Really excited to be done!!

I was going to post the video of him walking across the stage, but then I realized that they announce his full name and I'm not a huge fan of letting the whole world know my husband's first, middle and last name.  Oh well. Suffice to say that it was AWESOME and I am SO proud of him! :)  If anybody needs the skills of a licensed massage therapist, give us a call or email!