27 things....

27 things I have learned in my 27 years of life.

1. People come and go, but for one reason or another (Good or bad) they leave an imprint in my life and change it forever. Past, Present, and future. Changes happens so fast sometimes I want to stay where I am. I am in a good place.

2. Life is too short to waste on regret

3. "life happens when you make other plans"

4. It takes forever to get to the age 18, but it flies by after that. It gets to the point you still feel 18 but your sore back, and spots of gray hair, and kids saying "MOM" says otherwise.

5. To be the best is doing your best. Your best and my best won't ever be the same but it's the effort you put into it that matters (As in parenting)

6. Hard times will hit, hope you take these as a learning lesson with one or more of the following : grow stronger/grow closer/ or grow apart from that which is troubling you

7.I would much rather be the victim then the one doing the hurting.

8.I knew God loved me when I met my husband.

9. We all have weakness's & trials... be open and help others when you can get yourself on your feet

10. People are here for only a short time, don't waste your time on being upset, offended, or hurt because all of those are a choice. Learn to stick up for yourself, and let what others say (good or bad) go in one ear and out the other no matter how horrible it is. (easier said than done.)

11.If feeling down, go help someone it will pick you up and make you happy

12. Look at the bright side of every negative in your life. Smile.

13. Sing a song to your kids and tell them everyday how much you love them. Write down the cute things they say You never know when it will be your or their last day

15.learn about other people you don't know much about (someone in a nursing home, someone of another faith) and try to make a difference

16. You are not going to hell for not being perfect. Just be you and do your best. Really that's all it takes to be a better person and live a better life. Learn what perfection and hell really means before jumping to conclusions.

17. Don't sale yourself short from what others tell you. If others leave and not like you, just realize God loves you.

18. You are not stuck up because you have self esteem, infact those that don't wish they had it

19. Say your sorry first. No matter what. Right or wrong. It will save a lot of grief.

20. The only person you can change is yourself, but you can be a shoulder to lean on in times of needs.

21. Having babies is a beautiful thing

22. Being married is a beautiful thing

23. Getting along with family/siblings/ in laws/ is a beautiful thing & blessing

24. We all fall down in life, but it's never too late to get up and start anew.

25. Treat people the way you want to be treated, Even if the person doesn't like you. They will either be way confused or you will kill them with kindness.

26. Don't be a mooch off of people. Do your best and put others first. Loose yourself and you will find yourself

27. Be open, honest, and loving to everyone,and in every aspect in life. learn to take constructive criticism without criticizing.

27? wow, I remember being 17 and thinking 21 was old. I remember being a babysitter and thinking the mom who was 26 was so old. Funny thing is I feel like just a couple years ago I was starting to move out and go to college. Only a couple years ago I was playing pranks and attending High school. Just a couple years ago I came up to my mom's shoulder. Man time flies.

Today I have learned that a lot of people really do care!

Easter

"I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me
Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died"



(to watch the movie scroll down to turn off the music on my blog at the bottom of the page) I am so thankful for my Savior, not only did he die for me, He lived for me. He showed me how to live my life. He SUFFERED Everything that we have felt. He has felt the sickness, the sins, the pains of hurting, the heart breaks, the mental illness's EVERYTHING. Isn't it wonderful to know that all we have to do is come unto him? We don't have to be perfect we just have to do our best. There is no way we would be able to make it back to Our Father in Heaven without our savior. I don't know about you but I miss my Father in Heaven and I rejoice knowing I can be with him again. God's plan is simple. Many times I look at these pictures and see myself in them. How Great a God to love me even when I disappoint him. One of my favorite Hymns is " How Great Thou Art" among many other ones. But it reminds me of my Grandma who passed away ten years ago.

When Christ shall come,

With shouts of acclamation,

And take me home,

What joy shall fill my heart!

Then I shall bow

In humble adoration

And there proclaim,

"My God, how great Thou art!"

ramblings, easter

For Easter I have grown up where we find our hidden Easter baskets in the morning. With my family we continue this, but also watch "The Lamb of God". In primary a few years back we got some Easter eggs and inside was the story of Jesus and his atonement/Crucifixion. I know that some other religions have these for sale/ and this website tells you how to do it yourself. I also saw that on Sugardoodle they are doing The Week Before Easter ideas. I think it would be fun to find scriptures and have the kids go on a Easter Egg hunt for their baskets, and not only have candy in there but also fun pictures of Christ. I think I'm going to get the pass along cards punch a hole in it and tie it up as a new book for them. Last year my sister had this cool idea for dying Eggs, This is her picture that you see. I am also surprised at how many people are checking out my blog. Normally I think I am the only one. Leave a message even if I don't know you if you want to be able to stay reading it once I click it to Private agian. Today I am 8 days till I am OTR I am getting pretty nervous.....

Faith loves to be outside. Every morning she grabs her shoes and coat and heads for the door. She has many tantrums because she can't go outside. She reminds me of Hannah at this age!! Now she throws fits if I put her in the car. If she could, she would run to the park and play all day long. I do however love playing " Im gonnaa getcha" with her and see her big smile. I tried taking some pictures and this is what I got.

I took Austin and Faith to the dR for checkups and his kindergarten physical. We found out he had 20/40 vision and for a kindergartner they need 20/30. I took him into an eye dr to be sure and he is actually 20/40- 20/50 vision. He got to chose out some little tiny glasses. Now he really is going to look like his dad minus the beard. The lady was trying to get him to buy these ugly blue glasses, I was thinking... oh no! Luckily I told him he looked really good in the ones he got! They should be coming soon. Poor kid just got diagnosed with Chronic Asthma which goes hand in hand with his ecxma and now has to take a breather twice a day, then on top of it he has bad vision. .... Ahh the joys of parenthood.

Trent and I have joke going on.. (At least one of me thinks it's a joke jk) that I have a split personality ..... We call her Jezebel. The song you hear from puddle of mudd when you click on my blog, is all about her. What are some funny jokes that you and your family have going on? Puh lease tell me I'm not the only schizophrenic psyCOE out there. Hmmm I think Im changing my blog name now... P.s All the songs on here are songs that remind me of my hubby and I

Today was my pre-op with Dr. Warnock. I am so excited I can't stand it. I have joined a group of other women going in for BR and have had a lot of questions anwsered. Some people can get away with other types of surgeries and let it be hush hush, or they can lie and say they fell down the stairs and end up with a new nose or something. But I am open about this on here because this is well, my blog, my life. 2 weeks and counting.

Remember how I told you about my friend who was making hats so she could earn money for invtro? Then I told you later she found out she was pregnant on Faith's birthday and she was Faith's great friend? Well she finally had her little angel! Her name is Ava Lyn and she is so cute with dark hair and chubby cheeks. It is fun to see how excited their little family has been. My friend Holly and I were able to go visit her at the hospital. Congrats Wilkersons!

Let My People Go...

Today I have been making crafts for our Enrichment Auction night, I will show some when I am done. But afterwards we did a continuing FHE on Moses. Last week we watched "The Prince Of Egypt" (I love that show) and then I told the kids about baby Moses, the evil King, the princess that found him and so on. We also talked about how God works in mysterious ways. Moses' mom was able to be his wetnurse. I told the kids she was able to nurse him as a baby. Then we went on talking about nursing which was off the subject but Austin kept saying the cow fed him... This week we talked about him finding God, the burning bush, the red sea, and the ten commandments. Austin said some funny things but now for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Afterwards I put on Princess Bride for those two to watch. They had their beds ready in the front room, Capri suns, and fruit snacks. I have come upstairs to give Faith a bath and I can hear those two giggling and laughing it makes me smile. You do realize your getting old however, when you see Westley and Buttercup and they no longer look like adults but kids!

Oquirrh Mountain Temple 2010

As I mentioned in an earlier post, our family is trying to go to all the temples in Utah this year. We started out with our first temple being The Quirrh Mt Temple. The kids loved it! The kids had been to this temple when there was the open house and had been inside. Austin kept saying he wanted to go back in it. I had a cute picture of the three of them but for some reason can't find it. A nice guy asked if he could take our pictures, and as we were leaving Trent and I tried to take one of us by ourselves... and as you can see didn't quite turn out.

Some interesting Facts about the Oquirrh Mt. Temple:

The Oquirrh Temple and the S Jordan temple are the only two temples in the world located in the same city - also same zip code.

Like the St.George temple the top (angel Moroni on this temple) was struck by lightning and had to be re done. (I know some of you reading this will be thinking two things depending on who you are.. First one - See the Mormons are crazy God is sending them a message- or b. Brigham Young Got his way with the St.George Temple, and Pres. Hinkley got his way with this one.)

Dedicating this temple was a birthday present for Pres. Monson since it was his 82nd birthday that day!

For the first time in Utah history, church was canceled so people could attend the dedication.

I just added a video music thing to my blog. If you scroll down you will see it. Go Watch " I can only Imagine" I found this video and man did it give me the chills. How many times are we that guy and feel like someone is helping us along this path in life? How many times is God carrying us because we can't do it on our own? How many times are we the runner and obstacles are placed in front of us so we can become stronger and have the courage and umph to go on? What an amazing video. That man has lived more than I have. The song afterwards " I wanna grow old with you" is the song Trent and I danced to at our reception :) (Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog, just before the shaker and you will see the videos. Click on the music one you want)

CU

While Trent is at school I have decided to take some lessons of my own. Thanks to good ole' Youtube (and Gina' my sister in law's Idea of how to learn on it) I have started singing lessons. I have learned that I am breathing the wrong way. Yes there is a way to breathe and I have been doing it WRONG! The first three lessons are all on breathing techniques. You may find it silly I am doing it online, but I think I am more willing to sing aloud when no one is watching. I will also sometime in the year take a math class online (something I have always been afraid to do and waiting until I go back to school but why should I wait to pay for something I can do for free now?!) I am also learning how to make fondant. Not just any fondant, but Marshmallow fondant! Looks tedious to me, but yummy! The other big thing I am doing, and maybe you have seen the show "Julie and Julia" and how she learned to cook. I am going to learn how to prepare and cook a .... you guessed it a TURKEY. To some this may seem simple and silly, but those of you who know me... this is a big thing. First off for some reason I don't like the way a chicken, turkey or any other animal looks unless it's cut up and ready for me to cook. I have learned that turkeys have the neck and "giblets" Within the cavity of it's body that I am so lucky to be able to find. Today I bought a meat thermometer and next week is my first shot at it. With anything I try, it always takes practice. I hope this turns out somewhat right. I have learned a lot about turkeys I didn't know. For instance it takes more than 24 hours to unthaw a turkey. It takes 24 hours per pound and a half. Most turkeys take Three days to unthaw in the fridge. Well, here goes nothing!!

Yummy!

I have been taking this Celestial University to heart and going for the doctorate. We will see how it goes, but so far I have learned how to make bread as I was mentioning before. Here is everything I have made the last three days all with one recipe. Breads, breadsticks, rolls, calzones, pizza, crazy bread, Cinnamon rolls, Cinnamon bread, Italian bread, cream cheese braids, chicken broccoli braids and so much more I haven't yet tried!!! I met the woman who invented this up in PG. She was a nice lady and told me they do classes for 20 bucks. I want to learn how to grind the wheat and make the bread that way. This way we will never go hungry in our food storage, in fact we might even just get fat from all the bread if we had to live on it!! If you ever want to take a class, we could go together!

My Faithy

right before we got in the hot tub, we painted our toes to match~! She even will blow on the paint so it will dry, can you say "girly girl"





Faith is getting so big! She loves " babies, Cats, dogs, mommy, daddy" and she plays preschool by pointing with the counter stick to the alphabet like I do when I am teaching. Funny thing is she can say letters of the alphabet. Faith loves to be outside, every morning she gets her "Shoes" so she can go with Hannah outside. Poor little thing gets crushed when she realizes it's way to early and cold to be outside yet. Faith is now in nursery, and the nice thing is she is already used to it since we have been in there her whole life!

Today is my 8th anniversary!~ I remember this time 8 years ago, I was making a scrapbook and couldn't sleep. I was so excited for the day. It was a snowy day but by the time we were done being married around 2 the snow stopped. That was one of the happiest days of my life. Today I can't sleep because my little girl woke up after Trent had to run out the door for work. I have seen people post the facts about the years gone by so I Wanted to do the same.

In our eight years of marriage there has been 2,760 days
3 kids = 27 months of being pregnant, 36 months of nursing and getting up in the night. 7 (and counting) straight years of changing diapers.

4+ years of schooling, three companies, 4 moves, many friends!

8 years of laughs, joys, giggles, tears, hugs, and talks!

I love you Trent with all my heart and soul, you are my best friend, my shoulder to lean on and I look forward to the many more years ahead!

CU

For enrichment we are doing Celestial University. This is something where we do things in our life and pass them off in our books (kinda like personal progress) I have already begun and I tell you, I already feel happier. I went over to my sister in laws last night and learned how to make her amazing bread. You use something called Soy Lecithin. It is EASY and I learned how to make crazy bread, pizza, Cinnamon rolls, and pretty much anything you want with this dough. I guess it was a secret recipe and she showed me how easy it is to do in my mixer. I had a neighbor begin to show me how to crochet. That is pretty tedious for me, but I want to learn how to make her little flowers she puts in her girl's hair. We will see how it goes. I want to take a singing lesson, learn how to make homemade noodles, learn how to decorate fondant cakes, make some crafts and pants I have seen, learn a lot more about guns and handling them the right way ( A Lot of people don't hold their pistol's the right way. If your hand is underneath the handle of the gun it is wrong) and much more. I know friends/family who can show me all this. I would also like to learn kickboxing/self defense moves (wow I sound like Napoleon) but I think it would be fun!

I also have an idea for a Wizard of Oz church activity - On each table I would put up cute little Dorothy shoes ( I have some Hannah used to wear for Halloween) and then have cute little toddler costumes of Dorothy (Again Hannah has one) a lion (my friend made the cutest little lion costume ) Tin man, and scare crow. I would then tie it in how we are all trying to make it back "home" and we want to see the wizard "Because, because of all the wonderful things he does" (how we want to come closer to Christ) we are all on the path of life (yellow brick road) and how we need friends. Some of our friends need courage, some don't have a brain (MEANING- we can all learn new things, for instance my post right above, learning. ) Some need more of a heart (aka a friend) You could even tie this in with Visiting Teaching, Celestial University, or just sisterhood. We all have our trials and people (or monkeys, witches, and more Oh my) try to thwart us off our paths. Yeah kinda a stretch but I think if you could pull it off it would be way cute. On the table you could even put little cute bottles of bubbles or something. Lol

I FOUND THIS Picture some woman crocheted for her enrichment night... Wow. but I thought it fit perfectly for my post... maybe a little offensive so I will make it really small... It's a scarf.
Trent was going to go to Montana for work and be there for about six months~ However, the work is paying for him to go back to school to learn welding! NOW he won't leave until August and this way he can get more schooling for free! He starts Monday and won't be coming home until ten from now on during the week but hey it's free schooling and I am very proud of him! I also am finally, FINALLY, going under the knife for a reduction. Many of you will be surprised that I tell you this,but um, when you see me your probably going to notice so it's not a surprise. Now there are people that get other surgical procedures done that they can hide, but honey this is something that cannot be hidden lOL. I am so excited, nervous, and ready! This will be my 27th birthday present! I go under April 6th! Wish me luck.

(now this is a cool picture from HERE.)
I am on the enrichment committee, well for a while I was the enrichment committee and there were three leaders. I tell you what, when you get me started talking about anything tole, Wedding, Princess, Girly, Sparkly I go on and on and on. Problem is I think my ideas are way over board sometimes so it's nice when others think the same way I do. We are doing a service auction for our Relief Society Birthday. The president wanted to have a birthday banner and one of the new enrichment committee members!! whu hoo! Said she had a birthday princess banner from her daughter. We then decided to do "Daughters of a Heavenly King" and I said to get tiaras with old fashioned looking temple pictures *Cause they sometimes look like castles right? lol* and then do pink cupcakes with the silver ball candy on them and toile everywhere. We will see how it goes, and when your on a budget it doesn't always turn out the way you expect, but it is always fun! So if you are reading this make sure you come!! I guess they did a service auction before and some people auctioned off to do massages, nails, hair cutting *of course if that is their talent because I could auction off hair cut but no one would want it Im sure. I would tell you not to purchase my service is that was the case* and some offered babysitting or some craft they made. It should be fun.

Life as I once Knew it.

Many of you have been asking how I have been surviving not being on facebook. Can I tell you that I thought I would be dreading and having a hard time not knowing what was going on with people? Well as much as it is hard to have to put my shoes on, get dressed, and walk down the street (ok I lie, DRIVE down the street) or WALK next door to ask how people are, I am actually enjoying SEEING people?? As hard as it is now to dial TEN digits on my phone to call a friend and chat for a while, at the same time trying to find out where Austin went to play, is actually refreshing?? I have been doing the things that people used to do when technology wasn't here. No wonder they were so much more happy. When anything you consume is too much it becomes an addiction and checking my facebook ten times a day here and there was an addiction. I have also started to be careful of my sugar intake (Did you pass out?) and get ready for it... exercise. Yeah p90x makes me hurt in muscles I didn't know I had. I have been scrapbooking my kids scrapbooks, cleaning things that needed to be done ever since we moved here. I am reading books. Now don't get me wrong, while I am happy, I am also trying to stay on that path of being happy and not let it go away. IF you have a bad day, try getting off the Internet, go play tag with a kid or write in a journal. The steps start small but they are worth it!!

A friend of mine is not of my faith, but she wanted to start a bible study. I decided it would be a good idea to take it with her and feel her love. I am so glad I did. We are learning "Psalms of Ascent" and really you can't go wrong with the psalms! We are both Christan's, so it is more of a woman's get together to learn how much God Loves us and has mercy for us. It has been fun and interesting to learn things I have never really sat to ponder about before. We are learning some of the Hebrew and Jewish History and it is pretty much right on with what our bibles say. (You know how much I love learning history!) I use the King James Version and I am enjoying my Friday mornings getting together and feeling a knit friendship with her. I enjoy the lady named Beth Moore who is the author of this study. She symbolically states that coming closer by reading and pondering the scriptures is like taking a step higher to Christ(As you see in the picture)As the picture, the girl is taking steps on the ancient temple. Some things I have enjoyed learning is that God is there for us even in our little trials that may seem so small to others and ourselves, but God loves us and is with us if we allow it. He will not forsake us. Just as in Mose's time when people had to put the blood of a lamb on their doors and stay within, they were kept safe, Christ is the door and those within we are safe. I truly feel safe within the walls of the scriptures. In such an evil world we can see that God does love his children and hurts when others hurt them. We need to be careful not to hurt others because when we do through gossip, judgments (no matter how small) we are hurting his child, and he too hurts with them as he does with us when we are down. "They way up to God is down" So get on your knees and ask for his help. Those are some of the things I have enjoyed out of this lesson. We may believe different things, but the point of the lesson is to love all as God loves us all is something we can all be unified in.

Families a Journey to Forever

This year for our family Home Evening, we decided we want to take the kids to all the temples in Utah and get their pictures by it. I made a poster so that when we do visit the temple we can put a star sticker by it. The kids are really excited and this will get us out to visit different towns in Utah.