Friday, September 28, 2007

I have an announcement to make...

Two announcements really!!!!

Firstly, I just found out this morning that my sister Kirbi is pregnant with her SECOND girl!!!! Congrats Kirbi, Joe, and BIG sister Lillabeth!!! I am so excited for them!!! And I know Lillie is super excited as well!!! The baby is due Feb 26th and I am already planning my trip to Boston the first part of March. :)

Secondly, I found out last week that my brother DJ, and his wife Amy Jo, are expecting their THIRD baby in May!!! Congrats to them!! They already have two adorable Hinchey Boys and I can't wait to find out what they are going to have, although, my bet is another boy!!! I'll be in AZ for two weeks in November and I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with my adorable nephews, Cole & Jake!

I love being an Aunt, it is honestly the greatest thing in the world (so Far)!!! I know that when I have my own kids I will think that actually being a mom is pretty spectacular!!! Until then...Hooray for siblings with kids to spoil and send home!!!! :)

Pictures of my niece and nephews on the Hinchey side:
Lillabeth Ann Mason (Kirbi & Joe's First Girl!) She'll be four on Dec. 6th
David Cole Hinchey (DJ & Amy Jo's oldest boy) He just turned two on Sept. 22
Jacob Nelson Hinchey (DJ & Amy Jo's 2nd boy) He'll be one on Dec. 7th

Friday, September 21, 2007

Lunch Date...

Matthew's been super busy lately and it seems like I hardly get to see him. He's always working late on homework and catching up on deadlines for work. We went on a cute lunch date today to the University Mall Food Court. I know it's romantic, but it was convenient for both of us, as Matthew's work is just down the block and I had an excuse to purchase some things at my favorite store, Forever XXI. We had a great time just getting to spend a little time together and I took a few pictures of us (I'm still loving our new haircuts, & I can't get enough). I am TOTALLY in LOVE with my husband, as it should be! He is so wonderful and I am lucky to have such a hard working, adorable hubby! :)



More Hair Pics....

Just a few more photos of mine and Matthew's haircut!!!Sportin' the FoHawk!
Baby Drew and Uncle Matthew
Auntie Em and little Drew
Posin' in the work place

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The NEW Hair

Okay, these aren't the BEST pictures, but you get the idea. I'll post cuter ones soon! :)

Matthew BEFORE the haircut.

Both of us POST haircut.

Close up of my hair cut...again, not the cutest, but I DO love the hair!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows


I've finally finished!!!!! Last night at 10:30pm I finished the Harry Potter series. It was a great book with lots of unexpected surprises, but naturally I would have had things work out differently, as I'm sure most readers would have!!!! I will recommend this series to everyone I know! Hooray for Harry Potter!!!!!!

Saturday, September 15, 2007

More Invitations

I've had a few people ask me to do more invitations/announcements. The first is a sample for a family in my ward who is expecting their second little girl in a few weeks. I love this one, and hope I get the chance to do it for them. We may tweak the final print a little, of course it will actually have a picture of THEIR baby, but wanted to post my new design. This family loved the idea of a Lady Bug theme and wanted to put "Our little Lady has arrived" on the announcement. I didn't want to go too over the top with the lady bugs, so I just kept it simple.



This is a Baby Shower Invitation to my Sister-in-law's baby Shower. I went all out on this one and came up with another new design. I LOVE it!!! It took quite a bit of time to make 40 of them as there are 5 different layers, but I still enjoy doing it!! Hopefully everybody else will enjoy these as well!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

My Honey....

Matthew wakes up with crazy hair most mornings as it's getting so long. I had a headband lying on the kitchen table on Saturday Morning and this was the outcome...


crazy morning hair + sillyness = my husband!!!!!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

I finished it!!!! In about 5 days I read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Man, this series is GOOD!!! I am eager to start on the seventh installment tonight. My plan is to be finished by NEXT Tuesday, which should be easy! AHHHHHH!!!! I don't want it to end, but I'm eager to find out how everything turns out!!! :)

Monday, September 10, 2007

Happy Birthday...to ME!!!!

My day started off like any other day...I went to work and started catching up on work from the day before. Around 9:00am I received a call from the receptionist telling me that I had something at the front desk, I needed to come down as soon as possible to pick it up and then she said, "and it looks like it's your birthday!" After I hung up the phone I started picturing this HUGE arrangement of balloons, who else would she know it was my birthday. I was thinking to myself that I wanted to kill my husband for embarrassing me and making it look like I was still in high school.

I took the long walk down to building H to pick up my "something". To my surprise it was NOT a huge bouquet of balloons, but a beautiful bouquet of flowers with just three balloons attached, one that said Happy Birthday on it and a sweet note attached from my honey!

The rest of the day was just perfect. I went to lunch at California Pizza Kitchen with some girls from work and then doddled the rest of the day until five o'clock rolled around. When I walked in the door, husband was playing the Happy Birthday song from Emperor's New Groove, he had my cake and presents on the table!!!!
I LOVE my cake!!! I want to say that it's the first time I can remember when I've had my name on my birthday cake. It was white cake with Bavarian Cream filling and Butter Cream frosting...I LOVED it!!!!

We left almost immediately after walking in the door to a BBQ with my Best Friend, Lindsey from College (her and I share the same birthday). We had watermelon, and shish kabob skewers. It was so delicious!!!!!
Lindsey and I sharing our Birthday together!
Our Best Friends from College: Lindsey, Kara, Me, Jessica
Me and my honey on my Birthday!
After a little time at the BBQ, we headed up to the hospital to meet our new nephew. He is so tiny and beautiful...I still can't believe they had a little boy (both Nate and Jill thought they would have another girl). We spent about an hour at the Hospital and then headed home for presents and cake & ice cream (my favorite part of birthdays).

Some presents I received: 4 shirts, Settlers of Zarahemla, a cute RED purse, camping gear...including a tent, sleeping bags, and camping utensils, and of course my flowers and yummy cake!!!!

My birthday was so wonderful!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!! :)

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

After being "on call" for the last several weeks as the top runner to watch my niece when my sister-in-law went into labor, I was hoping the baby would come on MY birthday. I received a phone call on Thursday morning notifing me that Jill was in labor and I needed to come over to watch my cute niece Grace. Nate and Jill headed to the hospital around 9am and were sent home around 11:30am due to the fact that Jill was still at 36 weeks and they wouldn't do anything to induce labor. They sent her home to be more comfortable until she was a little farther along in the labor process. They returned to the hospital about 2:30pm and I continued to watch Grace, hoping that we would soon find out whether I had a new niece or nephew (Nate and Jill decided not to find out what they were having)...

Andrew Nathan Allphin was born at 5:15pm on Thursday, September 6th, 2007...just one day shy of my 23rd birthday. He weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz. and is 17 inches long. He was 4 weeks early and has had a few breathing issues but he has dramatically improved and should be home with his family today!

I am so extactic to have another nephew in my family, and I am even more excited that I know have a NIECE and a NEPHEW close by that I can spoil and hang out with.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

A month later.....I FINALLY finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I had a hard time with this book, possibly because I'd seen the movie twice before reading it, so I knew the major events that would transpire. The book seemed long and drawn out, although Rowling is still an amazing author I also had a hard time with Harry and his moody personality. I was happy to finish my book on Thursday Night because it means I am that much closer to finishing. (I've already started on the 6th installment, and I seriously can't put it down!) I'll keep you posted on my progress.

The day in the life of an Allphin...

On Labor Day...the Allphin's got together and did just that....we labored to get corn ready to freeze which is a longer process than I wanted it to be. Growing up as a city girl, I didn't know much about fresh food grown in a garden...I still don't know much being married to a farm boy, but I'm sure learning. The process of freezing the corn is as follows:
1. You Shuck the corn (
to shuck corn = pulling the husks down the ear and snapping off the stem at the base).
2. You clean the corn (to clean the corn you take a rag of sort and wipe from the base of the corn to the tip, cleaning of any extra "fuzz" that didn't come off with the husks).

(Grace, my adorabl niece, cleaning the corn)
3. You blanch the corn (to blanch the corn you dip it in boiling water for 3 minutes...you must time it or it won't be right for the freezing).
4. You cool the corn (to cool the corn you place in tub of sorts with ice and cool it until it sinks to the bottom of the tub or giant ice chest in our case!) :)

(my niece loves to help, she's bobbing for "acorn")
5. You cut the corn (to cut the corn, you take cob in one hand, knife in the other and shave the kernels off the cob, making sure you get all of the yummy goodness in the kernal bowl!)
6. You bag the corn (to bag the corn you measure about 4 cups into 1 quart size freezer bags and label the corn according to the year in which you freeze it!)

7. You freeze the corn so you can eat yummy "corn on the cob" ALL year round!!!

We bagged roughly 90 bags of corn, with more left to do....in this instance, I am happy I married a farm boy and I wasn't too upset about laboring for the wonderful corn that we will have all winter long! YUMMO!!!

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Emily Jane Creations

The newest addition to my portfolio. I did these baby announcements for my High School dance teacher. Tiffany has been such a wonderful influence in my life. I have loved staying in touch with her over the past years. She had twin girls about 18 months ago. I did her girls' 1st birthday invitations and was very excited when she asked me to do Tatum's baby announcements. I always love creating new invitations/announcements. I also enjoy seeing the excitement on my clients' faces when they see the finished product. It's even more rewarding when I do this for family and friends!

BYU Cougars!!!!

Matthew and I went to the BYU football game with his parents yesterday. We enjoyed seats in the North End Zone and are hoping we get to go to more games with his parents (they have four season tickets). Hopefully the weather will cool off soon and we'll get to see a couple of home games before it get too cold. The game sold out and had over 64,000 in attendance. We love that BYU won!!!! Go COUGARS!!!!

The field from our seats

The view of the numbers that have been retired at BYU Lavell Edwards Stadium

Matthew and I braving the heat!

The sun was making it hot most of the day. Especially with our with our navy blue shirts on! We ARE fully invested!