Merry Christmas

I just love Christmas! Here's what went down at the Chatwin's this year

Christmas Eve, family and friends came over for soup and yummy treats and the kids did the nativity scene.

Christmas morning opened presents and ate a delicious breakfast.

Isn't little David such a doll?

Emma and I have matching headbands now! 

This year I decided to make the kids blankets for Christmas with matching pillows. With a little bit of guidance from Stacie and my Mom here is how they turned out. I'm pretty proud of myself.  I usually don't have a lot of patience for sewing.

This was my first big sewing project but not the last cause I also got a sewing machine from Santa! I'm so grateful for a wonderful family and good friends to spend these holidays with. 

8 weeks

I've made it through the first 2 months of nursing school!!

Here are some things that I've learned so far:
I'm not as smart as I thought I was
Nurses in Nevada aren't very nice or helpful
I don't like old people
I'm paying a lot of money to teach myself

And now for the positives:
I still want to be a nurse
14 more months
And now I get to enjoy 12 days of winter break

Musicals

Sometimes I wish my life was a musical. I wish when I was walking down the street or in my car people would start dancing and singing along with me. I'm slighty obsessed with Glee these days although I shouldn't be cause it's getting kind of raunchy. But the music is awesome! I love musicals. Hairspray, Grease....love them! They are happy movies that just make you smile and want to sing and dance. So if anyone wants to

choreograph a little musical number with me let me know. :)

I love treats

I have a problem. All I want to do lately is bake and drink diet coke and not work out. I made peanut butter popcorn yesterday....delish! I crave mint oreos, haagen daz chocolate peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (Nestle has the best recipe), brownie/cookie dough bars, oh my gosh I'm getting hungry. Any sort of chocolate and pb combination is pretty much amazing to me. I think baking is my stress relief from school. I can't wait till I'm on break so I can do some holiday baking!! In the meantime I'm going to force myself to work out so I can do all that baking!

In other news

For Thanksgiving this year, my family and I went to California to visit Grandma. I love going to visit my Grandma. I wish I could convince her to move to Las Vegas. While we were there, she pulled out some old pictures for us to go through. I just love old black and white pictures and I love seeing what they wore back then. Here are a few...

This is my grandpa. My grandma keeps this picture of him on her dresser.

This is my Grandma's family. She is the bottom right with those red hot lips.

This one is my favorite. My Grandma in a cute little bikini and toned arms and legs! Classic! Everytime I brought up this picture she would blush. I told her she should have this framed but she just kept rolling her eyes at me.

1st week down

It's official. I have completed my first week of nursing school. And let me just tell you that this has been by far the longest week of my life! If this is how the next 16 months are going to feel than I'm in trouble. But really I'm so happy that I'm doing this. This had been a dream of mine for forever and now it's becoming a reality. A reality that now my life is consumed by textbooks, lectures, modules, labs, clinicals..blah blah blah. And don't worry, you know that picture I posted of all my textbooks, well I've added to that stack. Turns out some books were left off the list. Everyday after school I come home and read, read, and read some more. But I really like my classes so far and all my professors are really nice and helpful and I've made some fun friends. And a lot of the things I'm learning about now are sort of a review for me because of my CNA experience so I can't really complain.

But I will complain about how much I miss my roomies and my bf. I went to McDonalds the other night to get a diet coke and it just wasn't the same. Stacie and Whit weren't with me and to top it all off, Bowen wasn't either. And when I told the guy who took my order how bummed I was that Monopoly is over he didn't seem very amused. I just know that Bowen would have given me a funny remark.

Home Sweet Home

I made it back to Vegas safe and sound. I left cold/snowy Utah for 70 degrees and sunshine. Not to bad.  It's been a tad hectic already trying to get organized and running a bunch of errands for school and my sweet nephew David had surgery today. He was a brave little 2 year old and all is well now.

So I went to pick up my books today. Are you ready for this?? 

 $965.16 and 37 pounds later here are my books for just semester 1!

On a happier note, I've been really excited about something for the last few weeks and I'm sort of embarrassed about how excited I've been. A few months ago my Mom and I were shopping and we stumbled across some cute bedding and we both fell in love. And the sweet Mom that I have surprised me with it for my birthday! I found out a few weeks ago that she got it for me and I'm been really anxious since. Who knew some pillows and a duvet cover could make me so happy. Isn't it cute??

PCMC

 Today was my last day of work at Primary Children's. Definitely a bitter sweet day. I worked as a Patient Care Tech on the Children's Surgical Unit for a year almost to the day, where I took care of a lot of post-op kids and cardiac kids.  I have absolutely LOVED this job. Working here has definitely solidified my decision to go to nursing school. I have had some amazing experiences and seen some awesome things. I have definitely come to appreciate how blessed I am. Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by sick kids every week but it truly is a miracle when a healthy baby is born into this world. My absolute favorite was taking care of the little heart babies. They are just so special and so tiny and sweet and I always jumped at the chance to hold and feed them. Everyday I'm amazed how resilient kids are and the good attitude that they have (most of the time). There is nothing more heartbreaking than to see a little child in pain but I'm so thankful that I played a small part in their healing process.  Talk about a rewarding job! Everyday when I left the hospital I felt good about myself and happy that I was able to serve others.

Some things I will miss: holding and playing with the babies, getting to know families and their stories, my co-workers, night shift sugar rushes, searching the hospital for wagons, busy days when I barely could squeeze time in for my 30 minute lunch and my feet ached by the end of my 12 hour shift...I could go on for awhile.

Some things I won't miss so much: waking up at 4:55 am for a day shift, going to bed between 6:30-7:00 am after a night shift, messing up my days and nights, hearing about kids that I've taken care of that have passed away (definitely the worst part of my job), 1:1's,  and I could get graphic but I'll just leave it at that. I am a CNA after all, but not for long :), so gross stuff comes with the territory.

But all in all, I can't say enough good things about my experience's at PCMC and I'm just so appreciative that I was given this opportunity to help and serve those who needed it.

Monopoly

I'm a sucker for advertising gimmicks and my latest is McDonald's Monopoly. Let me just say that never in my life...well minus when I was in Europe...have I ever consumed more McDonald's than I have in the last 2 weeks. Some how I've convinced myself that eating a large fry, spicy chicken sandwich, and a medium diet coke is ok to have a few times a week.(the diet coke is daily :/)  BUT...the large fry comes with 4 monopoly pieces and the diet coke is only a $1 so how could I not get the fry and the dc right? The spicy chicken sandwich is just a guilty pleasure. Yes my cholesterol I'm sure has increased significantly and I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to diet coke now. But how could I miss out on a fun outing with the roomies and depending on the night Bowen (our favorite McDonald's employee) takes our order. Only a few more weeks to enjoy the monopoly soooo I hope I win big to make up for this unhealthy streak.

I gave in...

So here I am. I gave in and started a blog. It's my last few weeks here in Utah and I'm spending most of my time savoring my last shifts at Primary Children's and getting ready for Nursing school. Anyone out there want to give me a second loan?? On a more serious note, I'm really excited about this new chapter of my life. To say that I'm excited to be living close to my nieces and nephew would be an understatement. To say I'd be missing Bernie (my roommates Saint Bernard) would be an overstatement. More posts on that later. Summer came and went but Friday Night Lights is still going strong. I have converted to being a Tim Riggins fan. I have a lot to do before I leave Utah but most important is Lonestar Taqueria. It has been my favorite go-to restaurant here in SLC and has been the usual roomie lunch date. Speaking of roomies....I sure will be missing them. Shout out to Stacie and Whitney. Anyways starting in about 4 weeks my posts will mostly consist of my Nursing school endeavors and my nieces and nephew. Since they are just about the cutest things alive. And no I'm not biased. Welcome to my blog.