Photo A Day {Part II}

16. Cooking

I have to admit - Daniel does 99.9% of the cooking in our house.

And DANG if he isn't an amazing cook. So I don't mind at all. :)

17. Exercise

Walking at the walking park

18. Someone [I] spoke to today

Sister Marinn

19. Lost

I lost my keys in my purse. Again. Then I found them & put them on the bed so I wouldn't forget.

But I forgot.

20. Stairs

21. Slow

cutting out fabric takes forever

22. A room

Our dining room to be exact

23. Yellow

24. In the background

See those mountains? I love them.

25. Culture

A huge part of my family culture is attending church.

26. Entrance

to the store where my all my money goes to die.

27. 10 minutes [walk] from home

28. Hallway

29. Lucky

Pardon the blurriness, but I count myself lucky every single day that I have this man in my life.

30. Cluttered

31. Dangerous

Me with a hammer? Oh yeah. :)

Photo a Day is put on by Fat Mum Slim. It is SOOOO much fun to do. It doesn't take much time or thought because I just write the list down and look at it in the morning when I wake up. I love having a fun way to document things that I do throughout the month. It forces me to look at my activities in different ways.

Here is the link for the September list. I am going to use my phone to take each picture for a new challenge.

Halloween!

Ok. It is August. But I walked into my garage the other day and saw my boxes of decorations and got SUPER excited to decorate for Halloween.

I have to admit, I don't like Halloween normally. I don't particularly love dressing up - I blame that I grew up in a place where it often snowed on Halloween & so my costumes were always covered up by coats, which is lame. I don't like the 'scaring' thing and parties are often a little overwhelming and overkill.

I'm not sure what it is, but I'm really sad that I have to wait for a whole month longer before I can decorate for Halloween. Because, to be hoenst, if I decorate for Halloween in September I'll end up decorating for Chirstmas in November. And that would definitely be too much. ;)

Am I crazy? Is this a pregnancy thing that I didn't know about? Maybe it's nesting... after a fashion. Anyone else feeling the urge to get ready for Halloween? Or any other holidays?

What I'm Grateful For Today

Sometimes I get an urge to make lists. I love making lists. Shopping lists, baby name lists, family lists (like listing my cousins or nieces and nephews), movie lists, etc. etc. etc. And I have really felt the need today to make a list of the things that I'm grateful for.

-- Sundays (even though today is Wednesday) - I love that there is a whole day dedicated to R&R. I feel so energized after Sunday. It is an amazing thing to me.

-- The power of the priesthood - I had a rough day on Saturday and it was so amazing to ask for a priesthood blessing and feel immediate relief and peace that I knew was coming straight from God. It's one of the most amazing things ever.

-- Being pregnant - You guys, I thought that I would hate being pregnant. I always told my friends when we talked about our future families that I wanted to skip the pregnant part & just have the baby. But there is nothing that I would trade or that can compare with the incredible feeling of knowing that my body is miraculously growing a body for another spirit inside of me. I love feeling her move around and watching her respond to my voice & touch. It's beautiful and incredible and mind-blowing. I am grateful for this opportunity. Period.

-- Family - I didn't think that I would enjoy living as close to my family as much as I do. I love it. I am just barely beginning to see the benefits and blessings and fun that can be had living near them. It's such a blessing.

-- Daniel - Of course no grateful list would be complete without mentioning my Best Friend and Husband. He is the kindest, greatest, and biggest support. He makes me happy every single day and I am more in love with him every day. I love that he is a part of my life now and forever. He is going to be the best Daddy ever and I can't wait to keep going through life with him. It is always an adventure.


What are you grateful for today?

A new school year

Well. It has happened. All the kids have gone back to school & Taylor went off to college.

School busses are driving around town and evenings at my parents house now involve backpacks & homework.

But not for us. No. This year we are not doing school. This is because we have both graduated (so Daniel isn't going back for his Masters for a year or two) and I am not teaching because I'm having a baby instead.

99.9% of the time, I am perfectly happy with this decision and don't even really miss it because I had such a perfect year last year and I'm grateful for the experiences that I had. I loved teaching and I loved my class and I would love to do it again someday, but now I am ready to love a baby and stay home instead.

.01% of the time, I really miss teaching and going back to school. Right now I don't have much of a schedule and I miss the stability of working and the love of being with kids every day. I miss being there for my kids and watching them grow and learn. I miss the fun I had setting up my classroom & getting everything ready for the new year.

So instead, I'm channeling that into the fun I'm having setting up my baby's room & getting ready for her. I'm learning to love not having a schedule and things that I have to do while I still have the leisure. And I am so thrilled to be there for our daughter and watch her grow and learn.

And I'm looking at all the cute school stuff and making mental lists of things I could someday buy and use while wishing my siblings good luck in their school careers, being very grateful it isn't us this time. :)

How do you feel about the start of the new school year?

Another Quilt

This time a t-shirt quilt for my dad. He gave me shirts and I put them together and quilted it in less than a week. I feel really good about that. It was fun to work on and I think it turned out pretty good. The back is very soft, and it's thick enough to keep you warm if wrapped up tight, but won't get too hot.

Yay for quilting and fun projects! I love having fun crafty things to do. :)

Dan the Buildin' Man

Since I showed off my cool projects yesterday, I thought I'd show off the ones that my loving Husband has been working on for me. His are a lot bigger than mine, but don't take as much time because he is awesome.

First, I know I mentioned the cubes yesterday, but I neglected to give Husband the credit. He went to the store, carried them out, brought them home, and built them just for me. He's the best!

The next project is just a little more exciting - it is a crib for our baby girl!!! We were so so so blessed to have a ward member & friend of my mom's ask us if we had a crib yet. We said no, and she said she was looking to sell her granddaughter's crib for $40. We took a look at it, loved it, and bought it. I say we were blessed because all of the crib mattresses we found were $40, not to mention that the cheapest/best crib we had found was $90. Since we got both the crib and the mattress for $40 - we saved a lot of money. It is so nice to know that we are being watched over and taken care of.

This was putting together the crib in the living room while we watched a movie.

This was Daniel's grumpy face when the crib wouldn't fit down the hall, around a tight corner and into the doorway and we realized we had to take off a side so that we could get it into the baby's room. For the record, my face was pretty grumpy, too.



And this is when we finally got the crib into the baby's room and put back together. Yay! Now it is sitting quietly in the corner, waiting patiently for some sheets, blankets, and a baby to sleep in it. Well, the crib is waiting patiently. I'm not. ;)

Yay for fun projects!!!

Projects!

Lest you think that while watching all those Disney movies last week, I was nothing more than a bump on a log, I want to show you two of the projects I worked on. The third project was family history, which I'm doing more of. But these two projects are more fun to take pictures of and show to all of you:

Project Numbero Uno:
A baby quilt that I started back in 2008 with scraps from a quilt that I made in a quilting class in high school. It's far from perfect, but I think it's pretty cute anyway. And I'm proud of it.
I should probably mention that my lovely sister Larissa is the one who did the freehand flowers around the outside. I'm not good at freehand, so I asked her to help me out and she did a beautiful job. :)

Project Two:
A t-shirt quilt that I started back in 2010 when I realized that I had way too many t-shirts taking up space in my drawers that I was never wearing, but didn't want to get rid of because of sentimental attachment. So I cut them up and put them together. This quilt is not pretty to look at, but I blame the fact that I used a yardstick and scissors and tried to measure it and make it as straight as possible. Not easy at all. But it is really comfy and I like it.

Now I am working on a t-shirt quilt for my daddy. He saw mine and liked it and brought me some shirts almost immediately. I am planning to do a much better job with his than mine. I will show you when it is finished. It won't take three years like the one I made for me. ;)

Oh. Speaking of sewing. Look at the cool cubes that we bought for our baby's room that I am using part of for my sewing materials. I like it. Finally some organization instead of plastic bags. Hooray!

5 years ago...

I posted about my little brother going to college last week, and then as I thought more about it, I realized that five years ago this very weekend I was doing the same thing.

It was weird to me to be told about my 5-year high school reunion that happened this summer (that I didn't go to), but that is not nearly as weird as me realizing how long it has been since I started college.

On the day I moved, I was nervous and exhausted and stressed. I was nervous about meeting my roommates - what if I didn't like them or they didn't like me; I was exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before; I was stressed about living away from home for the first time.

I arrived, my family helped me get moved in and a little unpacked, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room. I was terrified. I occasionally heard people coming in and out and got brief glimpses of two of my roommates, but I used the excuse of putting my room together to avoid leaving and having to interact with anyone. Fortunately, later that evening, my roommate Aimee Jackson (yes - we are now related. crazy much?) invited me to go to a movie with her and some of her friends. I fell asleep in the car, but I was so grateful to her for inviting me and breaking that initial barrier.

Turns out, all my roommates were amazing girls. Aimee, Kendra, and Winona have been the most amazing girls to have in my life, and not just during the two years that we all roomed together at Snow College. Even since then, talking with them and hanging out with them and supporting each other through school and life has been incredible. I can't believe that it's already been five years. At the same time, it is hard to believe that these girls have only been in my life for five years. I feel like they have been a part of me forever.

Amazing how God does that sometimes, right? Love you, Ladies and I hope I get to see you soon. :)

26 years of love

picture via

Today is my parent's 26th wedding anniversary. That is a long time to be in love with a person. :)

I am so grateful for my parents and the wonderful example they set to me of love, devotion, friendship, and staying true to sacred covenants. It is very obvious that they love each other very much and our family has been very blessed by that. My parents are such amazing people - caring and supportive of each other and each of us kids. I hope that someday I can be more like them.

I love you very much, mommy & daddy. Happy Anniversary & many more to you! xoxo

Off to College

Today this Little Brother of mine is heading off to college. My parents & siblings took him down to Snow College (my favorite college to attend, personally). We didn't go because I didn't want to spend seven hours in the car in one day. So Hubby and I are doing other fun stuff today. But more about that later.

This week, Little Brother wasn't working and so we spent a lot of time watching Disney movies. Out of 50 (in 2010) animated movies, we watched 25. We skipped a few that my parents don't own, but went in chronological order of release date from Snow White all the way to Lilo & Stitch. Cool, huh? Maybe just really nerdy? Or both of those. It is a blast for me to watch Disney movies with my siblings and get all the jokes - we still catch things that we've never noticed before, as well as relive incredible memories of spending time together when we were younger.

Well, since Little Brother is going to Snow College, my biggest piece of advice is: Don't be afraid to leave the room, meet new people, and HAVE FUN. The only people I know of that haven't enjoyed Snow College have been those that have stayed in their room the whole time and gone home frequently (no matter the reason). It's hard to be comfortable in a new situation, and our whole family is really shy, but I'm hoping that having gone on a mission will help Little Brother be more willing to step outside his comfort zone and have fun.

I'm really gonna miss Little Brother. It's been great to have a summer with him. I haven't since 2010 because he went on a mission. I love him bunches & bunches and I hope he has a wonderful, new experience. :)

Good luck, Little Brother! I will see you very soon. We will make a trip to Manti and go to the temple and go out for pizza at Roy's. Yum. Love you!!

Photo A Day {Part I}

 

1. Landscape

2. something beginning with 'N'

Novels! Lots and lots of novels.

3. incomplete

baby's room definitely has a long way to go...

4. fresh

I love days when we celebrate fresh outlooks on life. This was on our anniversary - a fresh start for a new year.

5. early

6. this means a lot to me

family. nuff said.

7. A sign

8. Peek-a-boo

Look. You can see my toes! Sorta... :)

9. 2 o'clock

2 o'clock found me doing family history transcriptions.

10. Beverage

Water. Always drinking water.

11. I LOVE doing this!

12. Macro

Taking a picture of my pins.

13. Fast 

This is the fastest we've ever done the registration for our car - normally we wait til the last day of the month.

14. Trash

15. The best

My three current best books - my scriptures, an inspirational read, and my journal :)

Photo A Day was created by Fat Mum Slim

It is lots and lots of fun to do! If you've never done it, you should. :)

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Today is my dearest mommy's birthday. Because I love her dearly, I thought I would make a list of some of my favorite things about her.

- she is kind, thoughtful, and sweet

- she still takes care of me even though I am married and don't live with her

- she cooks the best food. dinner & goodies & everything.

- she is exceptionally talented

- she loves me and the others of us in her family unconditionally

- she has a testimony of Christ

- she is my mommy first and I love her so much for that

- she is also my friend and I love her for that, too

Happy Birthday, Mommy! I hope you have a great one and know that I love you very very much. :)

25

The number 25 is important for several reasons:

- it is the age of dearest Husband

- it is one-quarter of 100 or a century

 - it is half of the number of animated Disney movies made

- it is how many students were in my classroom as 'mine' throughout the year last year

but my personal favorite?

- it is the number of weeks I am into my pregnancy :) yay!

i HATE spiders

There are few things that I really truly don't like.

One of the things that I hate more than anything are spiders. Big, small, black, brown, whatever. They are GROSS.

Unfortunately, we seem to have a collection of them right now. Over the last day or two, about three have appeared in random places. I was wondering if we have holes in our window screens and that's how the spiders were getting in because they've been pretty small little buggers. I checked, though, and didn't find any. So I decided to borrow my mom's spider poison to spray around the house because I really don't want spiders in the house.

I got so mad as I was moving furniture and things next to the walls and I found a bunch more. By a bunch I mean four. And apparently one of them had some babies in one of my boxes because there were at least three teeny tiny ones crawling around in there. Ugh. It made me want to cry.

So. The point of this story is to ask for any advice for getting rid of spiders. I'm hoping the spray will help a lot, but... Just in case. Any advice would be very greatly appreciated. :)

Also, I hope that you have a fantastic weekend! We will be watching lots of Disney movies - one of my favorite things to do.

Today is the day!

Dan the Ice Cream Makin' Man is coming home tonight after being gone for the week. He and my dad went out to Draper/Layton to do some in-store training. I guess Layton has the coolest ColdStone ever or something like that, because that is where they have sent both Husband and my dad for different store trainings. Apparently it's also busy like, all the time.

It's been great to talk to Daniel on the phone this week and listen to how excited he is about everything going on in the store. He's made ice cream and waffles (for cones & bowls), he's done cleaning & customer service, he's done inventory and book-keeping, and he is even using lingo. Like "working on the stone", which apparently means serving ice cream. He has been having a blast. I'm so proud of him and so excited that he has loved this week. This is a job that he'll be doing for awhile, and I am SO GLAD that he loves it.

But I am also glad that he is going to come home because I have missed him oodles and oodles this week. :)

St George

Note: Silly pictures are to follow due to spending the weekend with my parents & siblings.

We spent Friday & Saturday in St. George with my family. We went down to see a couple of shows at Tuacahn. It was a blast. A lot of our time was spent in the car resulting in very sore backsides after long drives & then sitting to watch shows. The best kind of fun, right? Oh yeah.

We saw Mary Poppins first. It was incredible. I was so pleased with the entire thing, though my favorite parts were definitely watching 'Supercal' and 'Step In Time'. The choreography for those numbers was outstanding and I loved it. The next day we saw a 75-minute presentation of Mulan. It was perfect. I don't think it would make a good full-length show, but it was great the way it was. Both of these shows were enjoyed between eating delicious meals, going swimming, and shopping. Yay for travels!

I love travelling with my family - Daniel especially, and getting the opportunity to go with everyone to have such a fun weekend was great. It was a very welcome break and trip. It was also probably the last big one we'll take for a while since things have started picking up for Daniel with work and things. We are so glad we got to go to Idaho a couple weeks ago and St. George this last weekend. We are loving summer.