My little Dragon

Boston LOVED Halloween. We saw this Dragon costume and he ran up to it and started "Ooing." I thought it was so cute that I just had to get it. He loves it and has pretty much been wearing it for the last two days, hood and everything. We took him to the houses on our street and after about 3 houses he got it. He started running between the houses, ran right up to the front door and knocked. When they opened he would point to the candy bowl, I would say "take just one." He would take one, and drop it in his candy bucket, smile, and run to the next house laughing the whole way. I loved it! It was a Halloween to remember!


He was fascinated by the Jack-O-lanterns and had to be right by his dad the entire time he put the candles in.


When we got home he stood at the door and begged to go back out. We had to bribe him with candy to get him stay in.





He had so much fun with Broderick and Chris eating candy Obviously. I let him pick three pieces and go at it. He was up for a while on a sugar high afterwards, but he eventually crashed I'm sure dreaming of next year.

Kiersten

This is my sister-in-law Kiersten. She is beautiful and sweet and we love her! Boston gets so excited every time she walks in the room. I can't believe she's a senior this year. When Chris and I started dating she was 10. 10!!! I can't believe how quickly time goes. Anyway, here are some of her senior pictures we did. She is beautiful! We love you Kiersten!

The Role of Governement....

Last night I went to a big band concert with my mom, grandma, and sister. It was so much fun! One song was about what it means to be American, and I realized halfway through that I was uncomfortable listening to it!!! The moment I realized that I realized what an effect everything has on me. That so much of what we hear about the Governement and America seems to be numbing. Patriotism seems to be looked down on as something that is wrong and ignorant. The idea of America is changing so rapidly (I Have felt this for some time) but I also thought it wasn't really as bad as I thought. That it wasn't a big deal, and people, the American People, wouldn't let things get so bad.
Then I had my moment of feeling uncomfortable with a patriotic song and I realized we, the good people of America, are not doing anything to protect patriotism and what our county stands for.
My cousin sent me this talk and it is eye-opening and incredible. This is what she had to say about it.
Hi family and friends who I adore and love,

This morning I listened to one of President Benson's talks. The one that jumped out to me was:
"The Proper Role of Government."

This is one of the most profound speeches about government that I have ever heard or read (and I love political books and lectures!). Such marvelous brilliance, clarity, and foresight.

Please take some time today to listen to it or read it.

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1636

I echo her sentiments and am asking you to please read this. With Elections coming up, especially right now, it is imperative that we are prepared and know exactly who and what we are voting for. It's going to take some time, but I plan on going through my VOTE UTAH information pamphlet I received and looking up each candidate to find out what they stand for. I also plan on reading each of the Amendments so that I know what going on.
Last time I voted I knew about one topic, and wanted to vote on that. This time it's not enough.
Listening to President Benson's talk really opened my eyes to how close we really are to socialism and becoming everything our forefathers fought against.

Sorry to be on a soap box, but this is something that has been on my mind lately and I really felt like I've had my eyes opened and am no longer willing to be a complacent citizen.

Three Things

We had a great and very inspired lesson today in Relief Society and I thought I'd share it with you all.
We talked about three things we need to Cultivate in our lives to become more of who we want to be. if you want the definition: Foster the growth of/prepare for/work the soil/nurture/tend/educate/teach/refine/consciously pursue/focus on/bestow time or attention for self-improvement or for the benefit of others/advancement. President Hinkley used this word all the time when addressing the Saints.

1. Happiness. Happiness is something that the majority of us truly have to cultivate. We have to work on it daily. We choose it. Elder jack deJager said "Words such as reap, restored, and desire imply that happiness is a consequence, not a reward. We are restored to a state of happiness when we have chosen to live according to the plan of happiness. Our joy in God's kingdom will be a natural extension of the happiness we CULTIVATE in this life...Striving for happiness is a long, hard journey with many challenges. It requires eternal vigilance to win the victory. You cannot succeed with sporadic little flashes of effort." So what do you DO to bring happiness in to your life?
Some people said serving others, one woman said "do the opposite of unhappy people", some said smile even if you don't feel like it, and so on. As I was listening to what other people were saying I thought about what brings happiness into my life. I've noticed there are three things that can really impact my happiness. First, a clean house. When my house isn't clean I feel gloomy. I also tend to snap at the people I love a little more. Second is exercise. If I don't exercise I feel yucky and lethargic. And I tend to snap at the people I love a little more. Third, is my relationship with my Heavenly Father. When I'm ignoring it I'm annoyed easily, and tend to snap at everybody.
When I have these three things in order I am truly much happier, and easier to be around.
So I want to think about the things that help you to feel happy and start doing them!

2. Holy Ghost: What effect does the Holy Ghost have on you? Does it make you angry? Mad, depressed or scared? NO! It "inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature...inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, charity, develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation and social feeling. It invigorates...strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves. In short...marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being." Parley P. Pratt.
What are you DOING to Cultivate the Holy Ghost in your life? These last few days I turned off the T.V. and just enjoyed silence. At first it was semi-annoying since Chris was gone, but soon I was able to have some very special experiences and even some personal revelation. I'm thankful for that. Have you ever met anybody that exudes the Holy Ghost? I have and it's amazing to be around.

3. Temple: You need to Cultivate a love for the temple. Think about this. As you attend the Temple you are inviting the Spirit into your life, and if you have the spirit in your life you will be happy. That is a fruit of the spirit. Maybe you say you don't have time to do a full session once a week. Do Initiatories. There are some other things you can do that take less time but you still receive all of the blessings. This is something that I have to work on. I love the temple, but it took multiple trips for me to love it. The teacher asked us What are you SACRIFICING to get there? That hit me. I'm not sacrificing anything. I go when it's convenient. Our teacher said that she was going once a month, and at the same time struggling with some things in her life. So she took it to Heavenly Father and asked Him what to do. She felt the question of sacrifice asked to her. She decided one of the things she could sacrifice was sleep. Yup. Sleep. She gets up once a week at 4:45 am, and is home by 7:30 am. To me that's amazing and inspiring. So I'm thinking of ways that I can get to the temple more often, and if not with Chris then by myself.

I know this is a long post but I felt like it was worth sharing. Sometimes we feel like something is missing in our life and I really believe that as we work on these three things we will find that we feel more complete and fulfilled. Suddenly what we feel is one of life's gargantuan problems becomes more like an average thunderstorm and conquerable.

I'm really going to try to work on these three things. I'll let you know how it goes in a month. :)

Dear Whoever is listening.

Dear all who want to listen to me vent.

Have you ever felt like when you really commit to something life throws everything against you to make you fail?

It happened to me this last week. I need to get out of my weight slump I've been in all summer so I started doing P90x and really trying to be careful what I ate...then the weekend happened. Boating (Yay!) but Pizza and ice cream through a wrench in that day. It's ok, I've got a little wiggle room, I'll just do better tomorrow.

So I start the day off cleaning, forgot to eat breakfast. Oh well. Today is going to be a big food day (conference & Priesthood) so I'm going to make good decisions today. Lunch with some friends at zupas. Dinner at Cafe Rio with the in-laws and I cut out the tortilla, 3/4 of the dressing, sour cream, cheese, and tortilla strips. The workers looked at me like I was crazy. lol. I don't care, I'm being healthy. At least I thought.
Then to my grandma's house for dessert. Yes I taste the three different kinds of soups there, but I've eaten so all I do is taste.

I made a peanut butter & chocolate pudding cake for dessert, which lucky for me didn't turn out the way I had expected, so I only had a little of that. My mom's peach cobbler was to die for, so I helped myself to a little more of that, and then topped it all with ice cream. Yeah I know. Not a great thing to do if you're loosing weight.

I thought I had done pretty decent for myself at the end of the day, all things considered. I ate two salads, a small sandwich, and some dessert.

I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale to find out that IN ONE DAY I gained 3.5 pounds. Ok, I know you're all laughing to yourselves thinking 3.5 pounds? Who cares? That's nothing to stress about. Since when did you become obsessed over something so little.

To the average person not trying to lose weight, 3.5 pounds is no big deal. But to the person who is struggling to lose weight that's an extra 10500 calories that we have to work off! 3.5 pounds takes me about 2.5 weeks to burn off. Lame. After my zupas trip i had spent 26 of my 25 points, cafe rio added another 9 and everthing else put me at a grand total of 76 points for the entrire day. No wonder I gained a couple pounds.

I'm now officially boy-cotting zupas since they don't offer Nutritional info and if you really want it you have to search forever online to find it or find the nearest thing. Zupas I love you, but you are dead to me for the next little while. I feel so betrayed. But mostly by myself.

I know better than to assume that a salad and a small sandwich with no cheese is a healthier option than a burger. Lame. Well, today is a new day and I'm starting over. I think I'll start a weight counter on the side, and post it every week so you all can help me shape up.

Thanks for listening,

Love me.