Easton's Blessing

The main reason for our trip up to Utah was to bless Easton with all of our family and friends there to support and see him. My parents were so sweet to host the big party for us in their home! All of our family members were also so nice to help bring parts of the yummy lunch! We had pulled pork sandwiches, salads, fruit, desserts, chips, and homemade root beer!

Ryan was amazing and gave him such a beautiful blessing. He said he was really nervous beforehand, equal to the nerves he had on our wedding day, but you'd never know it! He sounded like he had done it a million times and was a complete natural. It was so amazing to feel the spirit so strong in the room with everyone there to share it with.

I was HORRIBLE with the camera this day...I could just kick myself! I didn't get any picture of all the cute decorations my mom and sister and I spent so much time on, no pictures of the food...and WORST OF ALL (ugh I can't even believe it) I didn't get any pictures of Easton in his outfit on his blessing day, or a picture of all three of us. I'm the worst mom ever, I know!

Anyway, I DID take cute pictures of him in his blessing outfit a couple weeks before, and they turned out adorable! Here are a couple,

and this one is TOO funny! He was way far past the point of done!

My sisters, cousin and Aunt and friend Mel all chatting after lunch (this is the only picture that shows some of the cute decor. These table clothes were on all the tables)

Easton got a little tired throughout day, and had to go down for a nap, haha so sweet and sleepy! (this is his blessing outfit!! go me!)

My dad was so good to play outside with the kids all afternoon, as well as the awesome Uncles...way to go guys! Thanks

Jack and Easton wore post blessing matching outfits. We tried to get a picture, but Jack was more interested in the kids playing behind us, at least they look adorable still!

some of our best friends were able to come for the blessing, and we are so glad they were there! The Davis' and The Watts'

And last but not least...the future best friends! This is Easton with his cousin Chase who is just 3 months older than him. Chase is taller, but Easton is heavier, haha! It's been a lot of fun to compare these two little buggers!

4 years

Today is our anniversary. Four years ago today I was on my way to the Logan Temple, getting my dress on, and waiting to go up to the sealing room and marry him forever! My Grandpa was our sealer, and he let us go into an empty sealing room for about 10 minutes before our own sealing, to just sit and be together. That was the greatest ten minutes of the day. I remember sitting together, trying to take it all in, and both being so excited.

Today is a lot different than that day, with Ryan at school all day and me home with a baby...but I wouldn't change it for a second! That day four years ago, with all it's planning and fanciness, has brought us so much happiness in days like this, to just hang out at home, eat a home cooked meal and watch a movie on the couch.

Ryan still makes me so happy every day, that's never changed! I'm so lucky to be married to such a hard worker who will provide for me and our kids for the rest of our lives. I love him so much and I'm glad to be his wife!

Day 29

My Testimony of the Gospel

Since this is a more personal subject, I'm going to keep it simple.

I believe in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I believe that we have a living prophet on the earth today, and his name is Thomas S. Monson. I believe that through the power of repentance that I can be forgiven of all my sins. I believe in the power of sacrifice through tithing. I've seen it work in my life countless times and give me many blessings. I believe in the sacred sealing ordinances of the temple, that I will be able to be with Ryan and my family for time and all eternity, a gift that I view very very precious and irreplaceable. I believe that Jesus Christ was sent here to this earth, and he died for us, and was then resurrected so we may live again. And that He lives today. I can't wait until the day I get to meet my Savior and my God and greet them! I love the Gospel and all the blessings it has given me in my life, the truths that keep me going when times are tough, and the amazing blessings I've seen it give others as well.

Jack's baby blessing

This past Sunday, my brother Clark blessed his adorable son Jack. He and Annie decided to bless him at my parents house with close family invited. It was so much fun and so special to be there and feel the amazing Spirit that the power of the priesthood can bring, and to be able to be a part of his special day. We're so glad that he has been born to such amazing parents and especially that we are able to be a part of his life. He is such a special spirit!

gratitude

This week has been an emotional whirlwind for me. And when it all comes down to it, I just realize how blessed I really am. I'm so lucky to have a supportive and loving husband. I'm so lucky to have friends to talk to that are so understanding. I'm so lucky to have family members near me that are full of words of wisdom and experiences to share in comfort. I'm so grateful to have the spirit of the Gospel, and the comfort it brings. I'm so so grateful for hard things in life, that I know happen for a reason, and teach us to be stronger and better people. I feel like after this weekend, my testimony and my heart have grown immensely and that I will be a better person for it.

Hard things in life happen for a reason, and we need to embrace them with a smile on our face, and ask, "what good things can I take from this experience?"

I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father, and the love he has for me. I know that he and my Savior know exactly what I am going through, and I can feel their presence near me more than ever!

I am just grateful for this.

Mormons on the Tonight Show!

This was on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien the other night, and I thought it was so funny! enjoy!

...follow the yellow brick road...

tonight we had a Relief Society activity that was so much fun! We didn't know exactly what we would be doing when we got there, this was the invite:


When you walked into the church, there was literally a 'yellow brick road going around the church. and when you went into the gym you walking into Kansas. We had a yummy home cooked meal, by Auntie Em :) (pulled pork sandwiches, BBQ chips, salad and lemonade)


After dinner, we all followed Dorothy around the yellow brick road and went to 3 classes taught by none other than the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tinman!


The Scarecrow spoke about how when we do our visiting teaching, we need to have a brain, and know what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Not just for ourselves, but because it is our calling as women of the church to serve our Father in Heaven and fulfull the calling he has given us to support one another.

Next stop on the yellow brick road was the Lion. He (She) spoke about having courage to go visiting teaching. That no excuse is a good excuse, we all need to have the courage to meet some one new in the ward, and make a new friend! She even wrote an adorable poem to go with it:

"What makes you pick up the phone and call? Courage
What makes you go visiting teaching at all? Courage
What makes you go meet someone you don't know?
What makes a friend from a foe? Courage
What makes you take the time to visit? Courage
What makes you no give up when it doesn't work you planned-dist? Courage
What makes you listen to the still small whisper?
That will end up helping a sister?
All this combined will make you a great visiting teacher!
COURAGE!"

The last stop on our adventure to Oz, was the Tinman. He (again She though) talked about how we need to have a heart, and sincerly care for our sisters that we teach. It was amazing the example that she used. She asked if any sisters had been having a bad day today, one girl raised her hand, and the Tinman asked her to come forward. She asked her "how are you?" and really listened to her answer as she explained, and then turned to us, and got choked up, and said, "Everyone, I am so excited to introduce you to MY sister. She is amazing." It's so true, how excited do we get to talk to our own immediate families, but when we ask how anyone else is, do we really listen to their answer? It was a very powerful message. She taught that we are all sisters, and family, and come from one Father, and we need to be actively engaged in each others interests and be truly careful towards one another.

After we finished up in the Tinman's class, we headed into Oz! While we were in all of our special classes, the presidency had transformed Kansas into Oz, complete with a rainbow of cupcakes and balloons! It was such a great night, and was topped off with a special message from Bishop Price!



I feel so blessed to be in my ward, I love all the girls so much and have so much fun anytime I am at church!


Here is a picture of all the cute characters! We had the bad witch and the good witch (Glenda) who followed us to each class on the yellow brick road giving us words of discouragement ("don't go there" "you don't have time" "it's just 'assign a friend' not real friends") and then encouraging words from Glenda ("don't listen to her!" "you'll receive countless blessings!" etc.) They were all so cute! And all did an AMAZING job playing their roles!

Humanitarian Project

For our ward enrichment activity this month, we did a humanitarian project for the Haitian orphanage Chances4Children (www.chances4children.com). My niece Savannah, and nephew Jordan were adopted two years ago from this orphanage. I had my sister come and speak to us. She did such a great job, talking about their experience with adoption, she had a slideshow with adorable pictures from when they picked the kids up, and most of all, talked about how important it is for everyone to understand that we are all Heavenly Father's children and He loves us each so much no matter who we are or what our individual circumstances happen to be.

We made two quilts that night and we'll be sending them to the orphanage for the cute kids to enjoy and help them to feel loved and comforted. It was so much fun to do this, I think the quilts turned out great, and we all had a fun time getting to know each other better, and knowing that we were doing something with a good meaning behind it!

Thanks to everyone who helped put this together, and my mom and sisters for coming up to support me and help set up the quilts!

FHE jars

Tonight I hosted an enrichment activity at my house, we made Family Home Evening jars, and they all turned out so good! We had about 17 girls show up, which was a great turn out! It was so much fun, everyone brought their own jars, they were all so different, and decorated so cute when we were all done. These are so easy to make, and the make GREAT gifts! You can go to this website here and get the printable paper slips, and then you just cut them out, fold them up, stick them in a jar, decorate it, and you're done!

Here are some examples of the final products, I told you they were cute!
this one is mine:

this is an extra one I made:

(I don't know why these two are so much smaller, maybe because they were taken on my phone, either way...)
this is my neighbor Kara's, where I got the idea:

this is one that I made for my friend Jessica, and cousin Taryn for their wedding gifts:

Memorial Day Weekend

Well Ryan and I both enjoyed our long and relaxing weekend! We may have enjoyed it a bit too much because going back to work this morning was very difficult for both of us!

We started the weekend off in a great way...a classic summertime bonfire! We went up to Smithfield Canyon with our friends Kevin and Tera and roasted marshmallows and starbursts (mmm, if you've never tried roasting a starburst, you must do it next time you're camping!!!)




On Saturday, I had our May Enrichment activity to put on, and it was so much fun! We planted the flower seeds into the flower pots we got from our husbands in church on Mothers Day, we also had a taste-testing/recipe exchange. We planted all the extra pots for the girls who couldn't make it to the activity, and who weren't in church that Sunday (If you're reading this, and you're one of these girls, then please let me know! I have a whole tray of these pots at my house, haha!)


Sunday, we spent the day taking long naps and listening to the rain outside pouring down! It was a great Sunday! We have been really busy the last couple weeks, and haven't had a Sunday at home for long time, so it was great to be able to come home from church get in pj's, and just stay in all day! Later that night, Kevin and Tera came over to celebrate Kevin's birthday with us (it was on Saturday). All we really did was eat this cake I made, it was so cute! I tried to make a baseball cake for Ryan awhile ago, and it was awful! Luckily Kevin's worked out (although getting the red sprinkles all the way down the sides of the ball was quite difficult!)


Then on Monday, Ryan got up before me and made a delicious breakfast of waffles with strawberries and cream, and some scrambled eggs! Then he went to play basketball with some friends, and I stayed home and cleaned my neglected house. Then we took Ryan shopping for some new clothes, and hung out at Sam's Club and picked up a hot dog and soda combo for lunch (I wish baseball fields had a hot dog and soda for $1.50!!!) Then later that night, we went to Wolverine and Costa Vida with Kevin and Tera again!

It was a great weekend! Now the rest of the week should go by pretty quickly, we have 2 weddings to go to, and Ryan has 3 baseball games this week (Tonight, Thursday, and Saturday if anyone is interested in coming!)

p.s. I just had to post pictures of my cute garden, it's only been a week since I planted these seeds and I can't believe how much they have already grown! I think all my plants loved the rain on Sunday as much as we did....check out those beans and lettuce sprouts!!!!

Craft Night

Last Thursday, my friend Danielle hosted our Enrichment Craft Night. It was so much fun!! She came up with the idea of making wreaths that hang on a painted wood plaque, and are hung with a ribbon. So many girls came from the ward and we all had such a great night of just hanging out with fun girls! She took a bunch of pictures so I'm going to steal some and show all of you!

a collage of some of the creative ideas....they are all so different, but so cute!

me with my wreath!

Kari with hers...

Danielle...our cute hostess

here we are just painting away

Temples

Tonight Ryan and I are going to meet with our Bishop to get our special temple dedication recommends. On Sunday, the new Draper Temple will be dedicated.

In our stake, each ward will go to church for only 2 hours instead of 3, and then at 4:00, each ward will be able to come back to the church and watch the broadcast of the dedication. I'm so excited to attend, because I've never actually seen a temple be dedicated. On Sunday, our stake counselor told us, that for that time period, our stake center will be treated as if it is a temple itself, they will be checking for each persons special recommend before they are able to enter in, then we will be seated and be able to watch as the events take place!

I really can't wait, I think Sunday will be such a great day! I added a video I saw on youtube, of why the LDS church builds temples, I think it's a really neat video, as it interviews people who aren't even of our faith, but can still understand and respect our temples.

spiritual saturday

Today my family came up to Logan to visit Ryan and I and see our place...but mostly to go to the temple. We all get together about once every 3 or four months to have a temple day together. It's so special to be able to go with my whole family. So far we've been to the Ogden, Salt Lake, and now Logan Temples, next on our list is the Bountiful. Afterwards we all went out for a FEAST at Fire House Pizzeria, it was delicious, we ordered way to much food, but it was oh so delicious! We had such a fun day and can' wait to do it again!

Reflections of Christ

Lately I've been seeing a lot of commercials on TV for this book about Christ's life, and they've made me fall in love with it. I went onto Deseret Book's website to look for it, and I found this video which is a slide show of picture from the book, and set to music from the c.d. that goes with it. It just happens to be one of my favorite church songs which makes it even better! So if you have about 6 minutes to spare then go ahead and enjoy, it's beautiful!

...one happy family

the most exciting thing we did this weekend was get to go the bountiful temple on saturday afternoon to see my sister and her husband sealed there adorable kids that they adopted last september. it was so awesome! we love them so much and are so glad that they are a part of our happy little family! congratulations welling family!