Ice Cream

I have told Steven many times that ice cream will change for him once he tries Blue Bell. The stuff is amazing! He didn't really quite believe me... Until now. It's some good stuff!

I love Texas.

The End.

Funny Conversations #3

Steven: Do you think it would ever be worth it for you to have a maid?
Abby: I don't know....
Steven: I was just thinking I wouldn't want you to be slaved to the house. I'd much rather have you slaved to the children.... o.O

(Obviously, he did not mean for it to come out like that.)

WOOHOO!

WARNING: May sound boastful, but we are just excited.

Steven took his DAT yesterday. The waiting is over! And even better than that--the waiting was worth it! He got a 23! For those not familiar with the DAT, the scoring is weird (in my opinion). They have 6 different sections.
Section and Highest Scores available:
PAT (Perceptual Ability Test)--30
Reading Comprehension--29
Quantitative Reasoning--30
Biology--29
 General Chemistry--28
 Organic Chemistry--30

Then they take two averages from those scores:
Science Average: 30
Academic Average: 30

The latter doesn't make sense because mathematically if you got a perfect score on all of the above, then it wouldn't be 30. They do, however, compensate that somehow.

So there's your background. Here's Steven's scores.
PAT (Perceptual Ability Test)--22
Reading Comprehension--23
Quantitative Reasoning--18
Biology--26

 General Chemistry--23
 Organic Chemistry--26

Science Average: 25
Academic Average: 23

You might be thinking compared to the top scores, he didn't do so hot. But there's something else funny about the DAT. It is a bell curve system. Once you get past 21, it is harder to go up a score.

Percentile:
PAT (Perceptual Ability Test)--96.2
Reading Comprehension--94.5
Quantitative Reasoning--75.8
Biology--99.6

 General Chemistry--95.0
 Organic Chemistry--98.1

Science Average: 99.6
Academic Average: 98.3


So in Layman's terms: He got in the 98th percentile. Basically guaranteed a spot somewhere.

So, of course we celebrated!

I love him.

The End.

Funny Concversations #2

We had lots last night, but of course I can't remember them.

But here's one from this morning

Steven: Let's dance to the music.
Abby: *looks down at feet--shoes* Grabs his hands and steps back (He always steps on my feet-and with shoes? Ouch!!!)
Steven: That's a big set of scriptures.

Ha! Get it? "Book of Mormon space"

DAT

It's here; it's here! As of 30 minutes ago, Steven is taking the DAT. I cannot tell you how happy that it's going to be over! Steven has been great to make sure I have been getting some attention for the past 5 months (appx), but I am still so excited. I just wanted to write somewhere that I am proud of him no matter what happens. I would imagine he would kick its trash, but you never can be too sure, ya know? This dedication, knowledge, and wisdom he has shown not only in the past 5 months but his whole educational studies is amazing. Anyway, just for your sake, I won't sit here and brag about how wonderful he is (for me).

THE END

P.S. I thought I should mention that I know without the gospel in our lives, this wouldn't have been so good. The priesthood is such a blessing.

10 days 10 hours 10 minutes and 10 seconds...

...until the best Holiday ever. I cannot wait to be with my family.

So... I couldn't find a picture of the time my family was last together... but it was 10 years ago!

Convenient, eh?

I was looking on google for a sub picture =P but nothing seemed to fit. So you are left reading this without a pic. Sorry!


P.S. I was not sitting there watching my countdown. It just so happened I came on to listen to my music when it was like 10 days 10 hours and 15 minutes... and I thought, hey! :) I do have somewhat of a life. hehe

Dinner

I thought I would share a pretty cheap winter meal with you!

We got some Philadelphia cream cheese (there's really no other way to go) for $.50/package. We had 12 and used them for bagels and such, but one of my favorite ways was this:

^^You can see it a little better in this one although it's darker.


Soup! I love soup! I love them because they can be so fast and so warming during the cold winter months.
This particular recipe is adopted from Kelsey. It is basic, so you can make it that way or add whatever you'd like.


I think we used about 10-12 potatoes peeled and cut into bite sized pieces. Boil until tender.
Add:
2 packages of cream cheese (and we usually use any that we have opened as well)--melt

1 can of chicken broth
1 can of corn

This time, we added some opened frozen peas--It was about 1/2 of a bag.

We had this tonight and invited our neighborly friend, Jonathan, over. His wife is out of town, so we have been inviting him over. It's been fun! I'm so sad they are moving to the "west side" of town.

Steven and I have figured that it is about 4 dollars to make this. It gave us 7 servings tonight and we have extras (probably 3 more?)

Enjoy!

Still got it!

So, I frequently use Skype now that my mom lives in Switzerland. I was calling today when I caught myself doing something crazy. Anybody who is familiar with skype will now that when you are calling it will make a tone. Like a phone ring except it's just straight. I was sitting there singing dissonant notes with it while waiting for Sarah to pick up. After a while, I was like what in the world am I doing? I haven't done something this musically dorky for quite some time.

Best part is... I enjoyed it. It brings me back to the high school days (over 2 1/2 years ago. WHOA!). It makes me want to go back memory lane and post a bunch of pictures, but I'm like many of you I have papers to write, tests to study for, and things to pack!

For your Christmas Gee WIz File

So, I was looking at the Twelve Days of Christmas lyrics in hopes to make a cute idea out of it (which you might see some posts following about it). Anyway, I was looking up on google (where else?) for them and I clicked on like the first site that showed up. I really enjoyed it particularly because in church we talked about traditions and what we want to start in our homes. We talked about the symbolism in all the traditions Americans do and how we should teach the symbolism to our children. Some were new and some were reminders. Examples:

Christmas Trees: Eternal Life
Christmas Lights: Christ is the only source of true light
Green and Red: Eternal life and royalty/blood (atonement)

Anyway, here's what I found

Religious symbolism of The Twelve Days of Christmas  
(The 12 Days of Christmas)

1 True Love refers to God
2 Turtle Doves refers to the Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", which gives the history of man's fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the sacraments
8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming refers to the points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

 True? I don't know. I thought it was interesting though....

Funny Conversations

I keep making a list in my head of funny conversations I have with my marvelous husband that I get a good chuckle out of and think you guys might like, too. Unfortunately, I have forgotten a lot of them, so I'm just going to write them down instead of making just one post with them. These will be my funny conversations post series. Enjoy!

Me: (sitting with my computer just staring)
Steven: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I don't know, I just can't find the willpower to do my Book of Mormon paper."
Steven: "Why don't you take a break? That way you'll be motivated afterward to start it."
Me: (sad face) "You know that doesn't work."
.......
......
....
Me: "I know what will make me happy!" (walks over to cupboard and fridge and starts pouring milk)
Steven: "Do you want me to get the Oreos?"

Haha. He makes me smile. That is exactly what I was doing.

 Is there anything better?

Is there anything better?

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Now that it's December I can proudly boast that I am excited for Christmas. I love the spirit of giving! I love the decorating! I love the music! I love the laughter and cheer! I love the colors! I love that this list could go on forever. These are some of the things I've been doing and enjoy!

We made ginger cookies with our neighbors (different than the Bessey's :) )

My favorite are at the bottom--Steven's paystation controller and my skeleton there's an mathematical one, and the before and after Grinch

 Decorations for Christmas

Includes: Stockings made by my Grandma Nan for Christmas last year and some window sticky things that aren't all that visible.

 My wreath up on my front door--A huge thanks to Spencer for figuring out a way to hang it. We don't have space for anything big to hang over the door.

 I spent some time this week wrapping presents. Love it!

 And this is our Christmas tree (with our JOY blocks) that we decorated the day after Halloween. :) We figured we were going to be gone for Thanksgiving and leaving for Christmas.After decorating it, we decided we need to buy some more color! I thought the silver and blue were cute but definitely blend in with the white lights.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Beauty Tip #1: Smile

I have been busier than normal lately. Today was my relaxing day. We had to write a hypothetical grant request for one of my classes. It has been consuming a lot of my time; I'm most definitely not complaining because Steven has to take the DAT in less than 2 weeks! Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's so close. Needless to say, he has been studying a lot more in the past couple of weeks, so I'm happy to keep myself busy with stuff.
In my spare time, I have been relighting my candle of love for makeup. I don't really do it that often because money is tight, I don't have time, blah blah blah. This "channel"on youtube is done by Julie. Some of the makeup is somewhat dramatic, but I have found you can tone everything down to suit every day needs. She also has some hair things and some wicked nail designs. It makes me wish I had nails that would grow up to be strong lil' fellas.

Her #1 tip about beauty is to smile. How true is that? At first I thought it was odd how smiley she was, but it kind of catches. So, my challenge to myself and anybody willing is to smile, even though it may not be that hard during the holiday season.