Christmas gifting

At least 4 weeks before christmas...

me "What should we get your parents for christmas?"
Rillz "I don't know"
me "What about Idaho coffee or something?"
Rillz "No, they have the best coffee in the world. Don't worry about it. We don't need to get them anything."
me "Ok then..."

The morning 4 days before christmas

Rillz "I need to get my parents something"
me "You said we weren't getting them anything"
Rillz "Yeah, but we should... What about a bag of coffee or something?"
me.... no comment.....

Lesson learned.

Breakfast Cranberry-Walnut Quinoa Cookie and x-mas gift

I was reading Bon Appetit magazine yesterday and saw a recipe for Breakfast Cranberry-almond Quinoa cookie and said I must try that! So I did.

I had to make alterations to what I had on hand. Used white flour instead of white whole wheat flour, used coconut extract instead of almond extract and used walnuts instead of almonds.

These turned out so yummy! Definitely a good breakfast cookie. Not very sweet and kind of bready. I was just so curious because Quinoa in a cookie?!? But, yes, it really is tasty and a nice consistency.

This is a christmas gift I made for my 2 best girlfriends. I found the mason jar with a handle at goodwill for $ .25 a piece. Etched the beehive in the glass with etching cream. Kristi found the honey dippers for $2 a piece at a craft fair that she was selling jewelry at. A normal mason jar lid wouldn't fit so I started raiding the lids in the fridge to find something that would fit. The one in the picture came off of a salsa jar and the other one I made came off a mustard jar. I just spray painted the tops black. The salsa lid already had that cool yellow design on the side so I left it. So for a couple bucks and some change... I have a nice x-mas gift to give.

The most wonderful time of the year...

I love christmas!! We have so many traditions as a family.


*The Caldwell night light parade. We always eat taco soup before the parade and apple cobbler after. So Much Fun! It only gets better with all the babies!


*Christmas Eve is when we get together with my family. A movie and then a breakfast dinner together. And, also, opening the sibling and parent gifts that night.


*Christmas day in the afternoon we always go to my Great Aunt Nancy's house with the Hollingsworth relatives. We play an awesome roll the dice gift game and just really enjoy the company of everybody!

Waiting for the Caldwell parade to start... Brecken didn't have gloves so Heidi loaned him some. They fit just right ;)

Me and my daddy!



Mom, Heidi, and Cami Girl

Me in front of the huge lit up tree in Caldwell

Mom and Dad in front of a bunch of lit up lights along the water.

Christmas decorations are always fantastic to look at and I am strict about the day after Thanksgiving my decorations are out of the shop and ready to put up! They need to be up for the max amount of time!

My christmas tree looks a little sad in this picture. But at night... I love it. I decided to use the old fashion c9 bulbs on it and put less ornaments. (Mainly because I got lazy hanging ornaments). I didn't even try to put the star on top this year because our fake tree is just to tall and goes right to the ceiling.

My stockings

A random shelf I decorated. I just used stuff I had laying around the house or extras of stuff in the x-mas boxes and kinda came up with this look.

Love my bear advent calendar. Just like the one I had growing up! It is ugly but full of memories!

Two days ago my boss saw these light up reindeer that they never use and asked if I wanted to take them home.. Ummm, YES!! Rillz, I, and the dogs went out in the cold this morning to assemble them. I love them!

Aren't these great! We put them closer to the front door because we don't live in the best neighborhood and I don't want them to get stolen.

Rillz staking the reindeer down so they don't blow over. These things were SO easy to assemble!

Miss Malu helping in the front yard. Yes, she has a coat. She gets so cold so quickly and just starts shaking. So Malu gets a coat.

Little Simon boy.

Jersey... she was let out in the front yard with no leash for the first time and did GREAT! She stuck around the whole time. She has been a great addition.

Also, Pandora on my phone has been AMAZING! I put it on the She and Him Christmas channel and just love the tunes! Oh I love christmas music but the radio x-mas channel gets a little boring. Pandora is truly fantastic!

Christmas is in exactly one week! Crazy. Still no snow in Boise, Idaho (which is a little weird for this time of year). But snow or no snow... Merry Christmas everybody!

Locks of Love and Deep frying a turkey

Two things on my bucket list that I did this last week. Donate my hair to locks of love and deep fry a turkey.

Yep! I always wanted to donate my hair to locks of love. I grew it out for 3 years. This week I decided it was long enough and time to donate it! My hair was just long and unmanageable.

Long hair (obviously)

I will miss it. This has been a long time in the making!

I got it cut today. At first, while in the salon, I didn't like it. I LOVE my hair stylist! He asked how I liked it and I told him I wasn't sure. Looked boring. He became kinda sad. I felt really bad. When I left the salon and looked at it at home, I started liking it more. I think it was just such a big difference to me I didn't know what to think. Now, I am loving it!

The back! It feels so healthy and soft! Loving it.

I hope some child loves their new wig made out of my hair!

Bucket list #2: Deep fry a turkey. Ren and I have been wanting to do this for 2 years now! It finally got done! I don't even like turkey but I really wanted to try it deep fryed.

Finished product

Tasted the same to me. But still fun and bucket list item checked off!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

New addition to our Rivera family

So shortly after returning from Hawaii we were informed that our tenant in Rillz's house was planning on taking a new career path and moving out. Luckily, he is not moving his stuff out until his lease is up at the end of January. His new job is going to be keeping him on the road a lot. Why I am telling you this story... because he had a dog. A boxer. Unfortunetely, to his sadness, he had to get rid of his boxer. He knew that we had a boxer and are dog lovers. So, he asked us first if we wanted her. Rillz and I talked about it and it took us a whole 2 seconds to both agree that, yes, we wanted her! And that is how crazy Jersey joined our family.

Jersey is 1 1/2 years old. It was nice when Malu finally matured 6 months but now we are back to having a nutty puppy.

The first day we had her she got out of her crate and caused A LOT of mess. Pulled all of Rillz's shoes out from under the bed. None of mine but luckily she didn't ruin any of them! She ate 2 bags of corn and cabbage. She pooped in our extra bedroom. She tore my coupons and binder. Re-arranged our living room furniture. And the kicker was she peed on our bed! Uh. We needed to get her a new crate ASAP! So we did. Everything has been better.

Goofy picture of her and her crazy tongue.

Malu teaching her how to sit and stay


They play under the coffee table.

We call Jersey MJ (Malu Junior) because she does all the exact same things Malu did at that age. We are starting to just love her.

They lay with each other every morning while I get ready for work.

Welcome to the family Jersey.

Spaghetti squash and other stuff

Now that I have 1/2 my wedding finally posted, before I start on the other 1/2 (just like the first half, it will probably take me month to get that post done) I decided to write about some random things first.
Spaghetti squash! Heidi had told me how awesome spaghetti squash is and I have seen it on others blogs frequently. I always thought "I hate the taste of squash. And all squash is the same... nasty". Well, at the store last week I decided to pick one up. Not even sure why. I guess curiosity got the best of me. Rillz made it last night and we made spaghetti sauce and meatballs to put on top. LET ME TELL YOU!!! I basically ended up just eating the spaghetti squash by itself. So good! Has a nice nutty flavor and what a good substitute for noodles. Definitely a keeper. Rillz said he used spaghetti squash for all sorts of things in school. He even sprinkled sugar on it and then deep fried it. REALLY?!? That is on my to-do list now. Deep frying is the best way to make something completely healthy into something deliciously unhealthy. Anyways I highly recommend Spaghetti squash!


I am a little embarrassed to say this but... Rillz and I are actually pretty dang excited for the new Twilight movie to come out. We didn't read the books but have watched the other movies and come on, you have to complete what you started right?!? So watching that movie will be a must for us.


Can you believe November is half way over? The Delilah radio station has already started playing Christmas music 24/7. I have tried to listen to it but it doesn't feel quite right yet. What happened to the tradition of starting the 24/7 Christmas music on Thanksgiving? I think that date is way more appropriate. So, therefore, I will be holding off on the all the time Christmas station. Which is big for me because I LOVE Christmas music!!! Which, Thanksgiving is only a week away. Crazy! That's all for now.

Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam

We heard this version on Sister Wives and LOVED it! Thought I would share.

Wedding Day Part 1

Wedding preperation/ceremony...

The day began at 4:00 A.M. Arlene and Marlou were arriving to start on hair and make-up. Both moms, Girlie, Kristi and I were getting hair and make-up done. Kristi and I didn't start our sessions until 6:00. So we just sat back for a couple hours laughing and talking with everyone. Arlene and Marlou are so good at what they do! They made us all look and feel so beautiful! The day before Marlou asked if me and Kristi wanted fake eyelashes. And Kristi said "Yeah, if it doesn't make me look like Bambi". Living in Hawaii, Marlou doesn't see deer like we do in Idaho and responded "What you don't want to look like a stripper". Haha! So the next morning we joked about having eyelashes like Bambi... the stripper, not a deer.

My shoes and earings were found online after intense searching. The shoes came from somewhere international and smelled so funny when I got them. I loved both of them! The garter... such a weird thing to me. Rillz wanted to do the whole garter toss thing so the day before the wedding I went and got one. Odd concept to me. Oh well.


Our rings in the awesome pokey flower!

My wedding dress in the hotel lobby. The photographer had the hotel staff hang it for her.

Girlie getting her face put on by Marlou

Doesn't this picture look like Kristi... The first time I looked at it I had to re-look. It is me, not Kristi.


But here is Kristi with Arlene getting her prettied up

Girlie all done and waiting. She was crackin me up!

My mom looking like death at this moment. She was a 4 a.m. appointment. Barely awake

Getting the dress on...

My mom already to go! Doesn't she look beautiful!

For some reason I like this one...

The guys were getting ready and I heard from my photographer that they were pretty funny! As you can see, they were busy putting each others shirts on and on backwards. Davy happened to have those goofy glasses in our wedding colors for each one of them to wear.

I happen to think Rillz is handsome :)

Why do boys have it so easy to get ready. It's light out and they get to just chill for a while. The girls started getting ready when some of the boys just got back from the bars.

Davy getting ready...

Elmer getting ready...

Rillz spending time on his hair. I wonder how nervous he was ?!?

The hotel is about 5 minutes away (in car), in a normal city, from Kaka'ako waterfront park (the ceremony place). But, when there is a huge floral parade that morning and a farmers market at Kaka'ako, that we found out about the night before, it could take a good 45 minutes. Yep, took about 35 minutes to get there. And luckily the farmers market was nothing to worry about.

Thanks to Davy, we had a live guy playing the songs we chose during the ceremony on acustic guitar. That was SO beautiful!

While guests waited he played: A Simple Love Song by Anuhea

While the bridal party walked down he played: Better Together by Jack Johnson

While I walked down he played: E Ku'u Morning Dew

When the ceremony was over he played: I honestly can't remember right now. Haha.

The ceremony was nice. Reverand Michael Nelson married us. He had kind of a weird vibe. When he started saying his speal he said "Thanks for all being here for Aurelio and Cindy on their special day". Yep, Cindy. He didn't think it was very funny when I looked around and said "Am I at the wrong wedding? Anyone here named Cindy getting married today?" I thought it was HILARIOUS! It's his fault he didn't know who he was marrying at his 9 a.m. appointment and deserved to be embarresed. That sounds mean on my part... but it was still funny!

Exchanging rings


Elmer and Kristi

Davy and Girlie

Brent walked my mom down

So happy!

Just Married!


It's the reverend marrying Aurelio and Cindy... haha

Me and my dad walking down. (Obviously these pictures aren't in the order that everyone actually walked down).

Gracie, the flower girl, walking down with mom and dad Rivera

Brecken, the flower boy, walked down with Jeff.

Nana and Nan walked down together

The aisle decoration

Hooray for being married now! We then took pictures... and more pictures! It was a lot of fun. Our photographer was found on Hawaii craigslist. At an awesome deal I must admit. Of course coming from craigslist I was quite skeptical. We met with her, Lora, a week before and after meeting we were way excited. Lucky us, she really turned out great! Our reception started at 12:30 so we figured we had lots of time between to do all sorts of pictures. Well, time ran out FAST. At 11:30 we were getting phone calls saying "get your butts headed back to the hotel". The parade was in full swing and the exact route we needed to take back. We didn't hire a driver or anything so we actually rode back with the photographer. Haha. It took an hour to get back! Yep remember the "should be 5 minute drive in a normal city" thing. Driving in Hawaii 85% of the time sucks!

So we got back to the hotel and then the reception started...
I wanted to post a bunch of other pictures but loading pictures on here sucks and takes forever lately. Everytime I try I get a whole 4 pictures in an hours time. This will never get posted if I keep trying. Now to start the endless hours on the reception details. Enjoy! :)