Sunday Dress

If I had a Christmas party to go to here's what you'd find me in! I would love to have a sparkly gold skirt, or green! Or a sparkly shirt, love me some sequins. But I don't. In fact as I was looking for something Christmasy I realized I don't have much green... or red.... I've got plenty of every other color but not a whole lot of Christmas going on. I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with though, a Christmas outfit all from my little ol' closet, no shopping required.

Dress: F21

Belt: F21

Tights: Thigh High Compression socks!

Shoes: Top Shop

Earrings: H&M
Linking up with Shanna, The Pleated Poppy and Alison

Tales of the Traveling Corset

One of the best gifts given this year was......

Can't beat that.

My great grandma's corset makes it's rounds in the Portela family. It's the eternal white elephant gift that we all can't wait to get on our birthdays, graduations, or sometimes for no reason at all. At times it will make it's rounds quickly, other times it will disappear for months, driving my Grandma absolutely crazy wondering where it is. A couple years ago we started taking pictures of the lucky recipients in said corset and made a book that travels along with it. Pictures of your grandpa in a corset, priceless.

So we took my great grandma's corset for a little trip into the mountains, where of course, we had a photo shoot of our own.

Gently sliding the corset down the rope :)

Hail to the Victors

After failing to get a good family picture at Temple Square we tried again the next morning. Again, we were ridiculous and decided that it would be a good idea to do this outside, in the cold, without our coats on. Chad was determined and we all decided to buck up and do this thing. And do it we did. Pretty adorable if I do say so myself.

Christmas 2013

Oh Christmas, you were wonderful. We headed up to Provo on Tuesday afternoon just in time to go out to our favorite sushi place. The parents were good sports and treated us all to one of our favorite dinners even though it wasn't necessarily their favorite.

Ashley had to work Christmas and the day after, sad day. So we hung out and chatted, slacklined, watched a horrible movie (R.I.P.D. anyone?), ate cookies, grocery shopped and counted down the minutes to when she would return :)



We opened presents and stockings and all of us kids were absolutely spoiled. It was fabulous. Not to mention the grocery shopping trips mom took us each on to restock our pantries. Merry Christmas to us! I was dancing around WalMart like a little kid the entire time! In addition to Christmas spoiling I have a birthday in January so I also got a few extras at Target, hello polka dot jeans!

Speaking of birthdays, my dad's is the 27th. So there was even more celebrating! Dad took us all to Salt Lake where we shopped our hearts out at the new mall. After he reigned us all in we went up to the Joseph Smith Building and ate dinner at the very top, overlooking the Salt Lake Temple. SO FUN. Afterwards there were multiple attempts at pictures at Temple Square but it was cold and Tay and I may have had a hard time holding still. We managed to pull our ish together for some pretty awesome pictures on Saturday though.

We saw Enders Game (loved), ate our hearts out at Chuck-a-Rama, and played Pictionary until Dad couldn't take it anymore. The boys escaped at one point to go climbing at a gym and do some shopping of their own at REI. While the boys slacklined the girls got crafty and did some easy sewing projects. I can now crochet a square... and a rectangle. Bam! We all got our craft on and decorated our own ornaments this year, it was a good time.

Hopefully you guys had a wonderful Christmas and could spend it with those you love doing and eating all the other things you love. In other words, hopefully you had a great Christmas love fest like we did :)

Whoa Baby

Apparently I got everyone all excited thinking that there was a baby in our immediate future.


"We have one particular present we think everyone will really enjoy"

Texting my mom "I have 2 sewing projects for us!!! I made it almost 29 years and now I need to learn".


Sorry guys, this was not code for I'm having a baby.

The sewing projects: Making headbands to hold back all my crazy hair when I climb and crocheting a scarf... for my dog. ha.

The present? We bought ourselves a slack line at the Pawn Shop before going up north and were overly excited about it and using it with Pat (He had jokingly got us a Intro to Slacklining dvd a while ago). It was awesome and provided some great entertainment.



And sometimes this happens.

In short, there's no baby. Although I wouldn't mind getting another puppy.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We hope your holidays are full of fun, family and lots of cookies!

 

 

We are letting the teenagers take over our house while we party in Provo with the rest of the Portela clan. Chad's hoping the snow will magically melt and we can rock climb and we have one particular Christmas present we think everyone will really enjoy. Get excited peeps. We'll catch you after the holidays :)

Wild, Wild West

I was a binkie girl when I was little. And while I don't actually remember my binkie I do remember my toy rifle. Confused yet? Stay with me... I was finally old enough to where my parents knew it was time that the binkie went away. In exchange for all the binkies, they took me to pick out any toy I wanted at the toy store. Out of all the dolls and barbies, stuffed animals and games.... I chose a toy rifle. And I loved that toy! I remember "loading" it with pea stones pretending to shoot all the bad guys. I was packing up my room at my parents house after getting married and my toy rifle was still there under my bed. Best. Trade. ever.

The rifle didn't make the cut to move and live across the country, unfortunately. It's still at my parents, or Chad was a sneak and got rid of it. Either way... I promise there's a point to this rambling. When Ash and Pat were here they were able to stay an extra afternoon after the parents and Tay left. So I took the afternoon off and we headed out into the desert... to shoot guns :)

Chad and Pat were the most excited to go and shoot, I was mostly excited to not be at work. I really didn't think I'd be able to hit anything.

Wrong.

When a pop can gave us trouble and no one couldn't manage to hit it, I did. After the boys failed attempted to hit anything with one of the guns, I was the only one able to hit a can. I was slightly excited, it was a good time.

By the time we were done, we were freezing and I was asking Chad when we could get one.

Sunday Dress

 Chad surprised me with these rockin' yellow tights in my stocking for Christmas! Yellow is my favorite color so I was stoked. Also super exciting? My new hat that was also part of my "stocking" presents from him.

Yesterday we headed down to Vegas. We weren't able to get each other Christmas presents before Christmas so we decided to go after! We spent the whole day shopping around the city and took advantage of all the post-Christmas sales. It worked out real well. I ended up with this lacy blue dress and another lovely shirt. Chad got an awesome new bag for school and for his camera, and a stylin' new pair of boots for only $20. Can't beat that my friends.

Dress: F21, Belt: DownEast Basics, Tights, Shoes, Hat: Target

Since my birthday is also coming up Chad bought my present for that as well! I may or may not have worn my birthday present around the rest of the night ;) I'll show you all my lovely gift when my b-day actually rolls around. Clearly we aren't very good at surprise gifts. For stockings this year we each headed into Target with a budget, went our separate ways, met at the front of the store and hid our purchases from each other all the way home. Then we immediately ran inside and showed each other what we had found! It's how we roll.

Linking up with: All things Alisa, Your Whims Wednesday, Rae, What I Wore Wednesday, Sunday Style, Rubi , Transatlantic Blonde

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

I'm not the only awkward one in this marriage.

Awkward:

• Almost running over an ax in the road. Why is there an ax in the middle of a 5 lane highway? We pulled over and Chad moved it.... to the back seat of our car, so it can impale us if we get in an accident of course.
• Remember how I ranted and raved all about the horrible drivers here in good ol' St George? I'm starting to understand why, in drivers ed they don't actually drive, they pretend to drive using simulators. Yeah, cause that's the same thing... The doctor's daughter keeps failing the simulator because she's too afraid to drive over 4 mph.
• Patients wandering around the office. We have a fake tree blocking the doorway to our front office from the back office. Some crazy lady tried to squeeze past the tree to where I was THREE TIMES the other day. I told her she couldn't be back here and she looked so confused. Then she tried 2 more times. Seriously lady, take a hint. A big tree sized hint.
• Patients showing up on the wrong day crying about whatever crazy is going on in their life and me being like "well.... I guess we'll see you next Tuesday then...."
• My grandma's reaction every time she remembers that Chad and I are vegetarian. It's seriously the most offensive thing we could have done to her. Her face is priceless every time.

Awesome:

• CHRISTMAS!!! Duh...
• Getting your financial aid adjustment to finally go through since you make a whole heck of a lot less now.
• Eating your weight in Christmas cookies
• Heating Pads
• Instant Dry nail polish
• The Next Iron Chef

I'm sure there were many more awkward moments over the Christmas break but frankly I was too excited to have everyone here and celebrate to even remember!

Any awkwardness over your holidays?

Christmas in the New Year

 We celebrated my dad's birthday on Thursday, I had to work.... boo. So after a strenuous day of chillin' at work answering a few phone calls my family picked me up and we headed out to eat. We decided to go where everyone could find something... Golden Corral! We had to accommodate 3 vegetarians, the grandparents and their meat loving tummys, and the rest of my family who is a little less particular :) A buffet was perfect!

We ate waaaay too much. And then we finished it off with cotton candy! Dad got sung to and then we headed back home to the grandparents.

Friday I only had to work half a day so we of course had to celebrate the birthday more with a second buffet! Chinese this time. It was a little bit of a drive to get there but it was my favorite. We ate soup and shrimp and noodles and loved every minute of it. This will have to be our dinner stop after Zion's National Park from now on!

Ash and Pat left us Friday afternoon. Jobs are the worst (ok, not really, but they are around the holidays). Then late Saturday night I got a phone call from Ashley.

"Are you alone"
"Uh, no"
"Ok, go into the bathroom so no one can hear!"
.....
"We are driving back down to St. George!!! BAH!!!"

Chad, Tay and Mom tried to get the secret out of me but I didn't tell! I'm a horrible liar though and couldn't stop smiling. They were convinced that she was pregnant. They got in around 2:30 Sunday morning. After church that morning all the kids headed over to the granparents. Everyone was very surprised to see Ash and Pat, we had just said goodbye!

The rest of the weekend we played cards until we couldn't play anymore! Mom and Dad took us grocery shopping, we almost had to get another cart! The boys played pool, grandpa whooped them all! Mom and I finished someone else's puzzle at the clubhouse in my grandparents neighborhood, and we swam soaked in the hot tub! We sneaked in a trip to Cafe Rio, bought goodies for half price at Kneaders and had the biggest shakes we could find! Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to us!!!

Monday morning the parents and Tay headed back down to Vegas to catch their flight home. We said goodbye and did the ugly cry. It's always the worst to say goodbye. We had an awesome week with them and a great Christmas!