I love Christmas!!

Joels Bday

We celebrated Joels Bday last Sunday

His mom made an AMAZING cherry chocolate cake

Look how cute he is blowing out his candles :)

In other cute news....look how adorable Miley is

I had a 10 page paper due in my Ancient Egypt class

and I kept pushing her out of the chair so I could type

and she just kept jumping right back up

and cuddling in anywhere she could

haha love her

(haha look at those ears! they look so big when her hair is short)

I think her new name should be batty

Other ridiculously cute things...

My nephews

I love these little guys :)

aaawwwww

brotherly love :)

ha Talons face is so funny

and jack looks like a little angel

On that same sunday we went up to my grandmas house

for the Randall Christmas party

It was so fun and great to see cousins/aunts/uncles

that I havent seen in forever, and Joel hadnt even met

Pictures to come soon

**In other real time news, I just gave myself the biggest, nastiest, gnarliest

paper cute you've ever seen....son of a!**

25

Its Joels Birthday Tomorrow!!!

(saturday)

Whish him Happy Birthday!

:)

Thank You Mother Nature

Joel and I both had the day off yesterday

It was my day off, and Joels work closed due to the "blizzard"

It was such a good day

Sometimes I get focused on all the hard things in my life

(school, work, etc...)

But yesterday was a good reminder to focus on the good things

(amazing husband, warm home, cute puppy, yummy food)

This guy makes me unbelievably happy

And all those negative things just dont really matter :)

Deep breath....and release...

I have been so stressed lately

whether its work or SCHOOL or callings...

I. Feel. Stressed.

There are days where I just want to stay in bed

ALL day

and I lay there and think,

"I hate school. I hate my job."

and, "Why cant I just teach the sunbeams again?!"

All of these negative thoughts have been swimming in my head lately.

Id like to give some enlightening story about how I got past this...

But there is none.

I still feel this way.

Urgh.

BUT.

I did have a really fun girls night with my friend Stephani on Friday.

It was so nice to go out and have fun

and have some girl time.

We went to the Center Stage Playhouse

and it was great. Loved it.

and recommend it.

Writing this reminds me

I didnt even blog about our 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY.

Which was on Nov. 14th

I am terrible

I didnt take any pictures of our tip to Salt Lake where we celebrated

We went to an improv comedy show which was AWESOME

and did lots of shopping.

It was a great getaway.

Seems like we've only been married ONE year, not two.

craziness.

on a random note...

look at that little tongue sticking out.

such a cute baby!

AND.

i am so grateful for a husband who loves our nephews so much

It makes me so excited to have our own kids

(sigh)

Its coming!!

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!

YAY!

Does anyone know how to make one of these?

I want one.

Halloween

For Halloween we went up to Blackfoot to see Stephanie and the boys...it was so great to see them! Then we went to Joels parents and had a vampire dinner which was super good, then watched ghost busters haha its so cheesy I love it.

Our friends the Wickhams came by for dinner- love them!

My "hot dog" (she hated it)

My amazing sister in law steph, love her!

Little Jackie boy :)

Brett and baby talon

Miles, Joels dad and little jack

Miles, Jenna and the two cutest nephews ever

and my favorite for last :)

I love love love Halloween

BUT

now that its over I can start thinking about

CHRISTMAS!!!

(decorating for christmas is my favorite)

Childhood

2 weeks ago I went up to my grandmas house in Grant (north of IF) to visit and decided to take miley for a walk down through the fields. I havent been down them in years, and it brought back alot of memories.

This is what is left of my childhood treehouse. We used to come to my grandparents house almost every summer growing up, and most of that time was taken up with adding on to our ridiculously sweet treehouse. When I was about 14 my grandmas 90 year old neighbor was burning her weeds and the fire got away from her and ended up burning down our treehouse.

Since then I havent been down the fields to see what was left, and it was really sad. Growing up we used to swim in the ditches and ride our bikes through the fields and down to the convenient store to buy candy. It was crazy to go back after forever and see it :)

Miley was such a good sport and posed for me in super windy weather :)

What a good day

Currently cleaning my house and making brownies to this playlist...

Sink or Swim- Tyrone Wells
Hazy- Rosi Golan
I Dont Wanna Wait-Rosi Golan
Winter- Joshua Radin
Yesteryear-Rosi Golan
Closer to Love- Mat Kearney
Shine-Rosi Golan
Endlessly- Green River Ordinance
Slide- Rosi Golan
More-Tyrone Wells
Been a Long Day- Rosi Golan
Song in My Head- Sherwood
Think of Me- Rosi Golan
Stay- Safety Suit
Come Around- Rosi Golan
Almost Lover- A Fine Frenzy

And im loving it.

days off are the best.

And I would be MORE than happy to burn anyone a cd of all of this amazing Music, because sharing good stuff makes it that much better!!

and P.S bath and body works has all of their holiday soaps 6 for $20! yay for Fall!!!

HOT

So I have this really great friend, who happens to not only be awesome, caring, generous and fun...but also very photogenic.

I drug her up a mountain and made her pose for me in the 80 degree heat

and she didnt even complain...

basically shes the best.

So hopefully she wont be too mad at me for posting these, because she told me

"you better not post these on your blog."

ha love you stephani :)

This last one is my favorite

haha this isnt even a pose, I just caught her in the act

haha I told her I was going to frame this for tyson

because she looks all seductive haha

doesnt she????

Physics

So I am taking a physics class this semester.

and

i think it goes without saying, its terrible.

yuck.

But we were talking about how gravity in the universe keeps everything together...

and how if the moon were just and INCH closer, or farther away

we'd basically be screwed.

how cool is that?

Joel and I decided we are going to go through the Gospel Principles book each night

(this book)

and discuss the questions it asks

and the other night we were reading and it asked the question...

"What are some things that testify to you that there is a God?"

For some reason I thought right back to physics.

The fact that our Universe is PERFECT- is something that shouts, there is a god.

Joel brought up a good point that some people think that things, like physics...

are a way to explain that there IS NOT a god.

How backwards?

God has a perfect knowledge of EVERTHING

we discovered physics because he made it!

haha

anyways, this was kind of an Ah-Ha moment for me

this book is awesome, and we've only gone through a few chapters

but I already feel like im learning a lot

a delightful afternoon read

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This book is one of the best books I have read. At first when I started reading I didnt know what to think because the whole book is written in letters between the characters. But it turned out to be awesome!! I grew to adore the characters and the stories that begin to weave as the letters are written back and forth. The book takes place right after WWII ends and I loved that it taught a little history while entertaining. It is a pretty short read and I would recommend it to ANYONE who likes to read :) (even boys, there is a little bit of a love story but NOTHING cheesy and sappy like twilight...ha ha im trying to get Joel and my dad to read it)

playtime

I got camera happy on Sunday

and even made people stand in for me

thanks julie jenna and joel :)

I want to l i v e and l o v e

So I stole this quote off of a friends blog, but when I read it I HAD to post it.

I LOVE IT

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someones garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."-Marjorie Hinckley

When I read this I was like ah!! because it was a smack in the face.

But a good one.

I feel like sometimes I get really caught up in what clothes I have, or dont have, or the fact that "everyone" has a new car and I want to trade my 1998 honda for a shiny new one, or that the johnsons house is decorated cuter than mine. or Im thinking, what can I do to make some money on the side so I can buy seasons of One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl and Modern Family, or poor me because Im working full time and taking two really hard classes.....BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Instead of coming home from work and vegging on the couch for an hour, Im going to start doing anything nice I can think of for someone else.

At the moment all I can think of is taking someone yummy sweets....what else can I do for people when they dont ask? If you have some fun service ideas PLEASE let me know.

I am going to try to be more like Sister Hinckley.

AND if YOU need any help with ANYTHING, LET ME KNOW.

(seriously, ask me.)

and just for fun here are some pictures of

things i love :)

(Mr. Darcy. this is my favorite scene in the movie, the cinematography is amazing)

(one of my faves of joel)
(This is my new bed set that is coming...it makes me happy)

(Rainy days= cuddling)

(This is a book im reading. I adore the characters, more about it when I finish)

(how could you not love that face??)

(I love this pose...watching his ball intently...haha so cute)

(I love cupcakes, and Halloween, so naturally I love these)

(after I went to the temple the first time, such a good day, love our family)
(Fall beautifulness)

(baby jack, one of my favorite pics of him)

(just saw this movie, LOVED it.)

(Hatch Family Chocolates in Salt Lake, BEST HOT CHOCOLATE EVER)

(I hope that someday Joel and I are this cute- LOVE them)

Another really good quote to end this long random post. I dont even know who said it, it just came to me ha ha

"Never let a problem to be solved, become more important than a person to be helped."