I found a cd with my bridals on it. I haven't seen these for a really long time and I thought I'd post a few...or many:)

So that you all think I'm not just about me there are some with Chris and I before we were engaged!

*Disclaimer* After I posted them for some reason they are squished and make me look fatter than I was at the time...I still like them though. I just thought you should all be aware of that fact...not that it really matters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People amaze me.

Not in a bad way (though that happens sometimes too). People amaze me in a good way. For example I have this friend who I saw today (you know who you are) and I would love to shape my life after her. She is always such a positive person. She's on bed rest and will be for at least 7 more weeks...:D. She is not allowed to even sit up. She is on her side all day and she is finding projects to keep her occupied and has the best attitude. I'm sure she has moments where being on bed rest isn't her favorite, but I bet all she has to do is think of those adorable twin boys growing inside her and she's excited to be on her side again. She's even hand sewing them quilts! Amazing, I love her positive outlook on life and her ability to not let herself get down.

Another person that I try and model my life after is my husband, Chris. He works so hard, and it's incredibly rare if a complaint ever escapes his lips. I find myself complaining all the time. I wish I could naturally be more like him and just keep my thoughts to myself and press forward, but sometimes I get stuck in complaining mode. Once you start, the complaints become like a thick mud and you really have to make an effort to get unstuck from them...then you complain about your lost shoe in the mud or how dirty your feet are and POOF you're back where you started. I know that he gets annoyed by things, but he keeps it to himself and tries to look at the positive. If he can't find the positive he just puts his head down and gets to work.

Another one of the people that I try to model my life after is my mother. She is the most hard working person I know. She just keeps moving forward and works her tail off. She is constantly going. In the process she manages to touch many, many people's lives. I have had many people come up to me and tell me what a positive influence my mother has had on them. I would like to have people say that about me someday.

So these are my thoughts as I go to bed tonight. I have been blessed to be surrounded by so many people who I respect and admire. I would name all of you individually but that would make for an incredibly long post. I'm thankful that Heavenly Father has blessed me with so many people who are better than I am in so many ways so that I can look to their positive examples and try to pull out the good so that I may become a little better...or a lot better.

Anyway. Thanks to all of you.

Love Sundays.

I love Sundays. I made the resolution to not do homework on Sundays and just spend time with my family and take some time for me. So far so good. On Sundays during Boston's nap I read a book from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I just started book two today, and I'm enjoying them. We took some pictures of Boston yesterday, and so I thought I'd post some of my favorites. :)














This last one is easily my favorite!

Happy New Year!

Wow the blog has suffered lately. I'm back in school which is super fun...
I spent $650 on books...also super fun. But what am I really excited about?

Boston is on a schedule! He goes to bed at 8:30pm and sleeps until 8am! It's a miracle I never thought I'd live to see. If you would have asked me a month ago I would have told you that I'm used to never sleeping and had come to terms with never sleeping again, but wonder of wonders, it happened! 8am awake, 10am tired 10:30am nap 1-2pm wake up 3:30 Second nap, 5pm awake 8:30pm out cold. It's heavenly!
And because I have so much spare time I have now cleaned my house to the cleanliness of a model home, and I have mastered the art of cooking. OK, fine. Neither of those are true. My house is in decent shape and I dream of become an iron chef, but amazingly my free time is eaten up by working out, homework, prep time, and my husband. I'm ok with that.
On another good note, I joined weight watchers a few months ago and so far I have lost 25 lbs! Wahoo! I plan on losing an average of 2 lbs a week. That's my goal at least. We'll see how it goes.
Chris is completely 100% done with school and is so much happier! He says almost every day that he still feels like he's on Christmas break. They asked him to focus mostly on expanding Europe which he is super excited about and therefore has been putting in 10 hour days...and he still says it feels like a vacation. I guess that's what happens when you love your job.

As for New years Resolutions we have a few. One is no TV on Sundays. We love this. It's so nice to just hang out and play as a family on Sunday. One of our other goals is to go to the temple every third Friday of the month. In all honesty we feel like the Lord has blessed us so much over the last couple years and has been forgiving of how busy we've been. This year we really want to strengthen our faith and really do our best to obey his commandments so that we may receive more blessings.

We hope that all of you had a wonderful new year, and that this coming year brings more blessing and adventures than the last!

I should be baking...or cleaning

...but I'm blogging. :) Both my boys are asleep and who knows how much time I have to myself. I should be getting some treats ready for the neighbors or cleaning up the mess from my baking adventure this morning, but I decided I'm a little overdue for some pictures. Chris is officially done with school! Wahoo! I survived the first semester of my program. Can I get a Woot Woot? Lame I know. lol. Since Chris works with Universities he is basically off for the next two weeks. It's honestly our favorite time of year because we get to just hang out together. I am completely and 100% done with my job, so now I get to just focus on being a mom and a good wife.
We are super excited for our first Christmas as parents and in our first house. I've had be careful not to go overboard on presents and decorations and I'll be honest I've probably spent a little more than I should have. Oh well.

Boston officially has two teeth and loves to bite everything! Here he is holding himself up while biting on our kitchen chair. When he was done biting the chair he couldn't figure out how to get back down to the floor and panicked. It was really funny.



Every year we go to my grandma's and make gingerbread houses. I think ours turned out pretty well this year. Chris did a great job of putting it together.


My big splurge was on those cute stockings. I bought 8 plus 8 stocking holders. Now I don't know if we will have 6 kids, but I figured just in case there are any surprises, or maybe if one gets destroyed or even if we have visitors we'll have enough. Then there is our tree. i was so worried that Boston would constantly be trying to pull it down on himself, but he's more interested in the train we have around the tree. And last is my cute cookie jar. Chris stole it for me from his work party. Whoever was sitting at the table didn't take it and I was waiting to find out if I could have it, and when I told him that I wanted it and that nobody was claiming but I was waiting around just to make sure he picked it up and walked out. Wow.


This is what happens when I let Boston try and feed himself. I have to give him an extra spoon and an extra jar so that he can try and feed himself while I sneak in actual bites in between. This day he caught on to my little scheme so I surrendered and gave it all to him. Probably not a good habit to get into on my part, but he's just so cute I can't help it.




This last weekend we went to Temple square with Chris's family. It was freezing, and Boston lasted for about 30 minutes, but it was totally worth it. It was super foggy and everything looked amazing. The pictures don't even do it justice.


So that has been our month so far. I LOVE this time of year. :) Happy Holidays!

Feliz Navidad!

I know you were all incredibly worried and wondering "what happened to them, has school finally go the best of them? Has Boston taken over their lives so completely that they don't have time for anything else? Will they still be sane for Christmas?"

In answer to all of your questions...Yes. Yes to them all. School has gotten the best of us, and basically we've surrendered to Boston. His stuff is constantly over the house. In the middle of the night when we get up to get his bottle (yes, I said we, Chris has begun to help in that department) we trip over some musical toy that always almost gives us a heart attack every time it goes off. As for being sane for Christmas, we think we will have time to recuperate from the insanities of life by then...so we'll be sane as we normally are, which probably isn't saying much. lol.

School has been crazy busy with projects due that were so big I had to go to my mom's for the weekend just so that I would have time to do them. Chris kept Boston home and I didn't see them for what felt like a week. We both have one week of the semester left, and Chris just has one week left all together. we are both so excited for him to finally be done.

Neither of us has had much time to really enjoy the Christmas season yet, but at least our Christmas tree is up. Luckily Boston is more interested in other things so we haven't really had a problem with him trying to pull it down on himself.

Well more updates to come and some pictures. :) It probably won't be until I'm done with the semester, but I felt I owed you all a little update.

October in Pictures

So I've got some catching up to do and some funny things have happened, but today I don't have much time to write, so mostly I will be catching you up through pics.

First, with Boston being one of the most active and opinionated children on the planet this is the only way we can get any cleaning done.



Chris turned 25 in October and requested that I make him a double chocolate Ghirardelli cake...from scratch (Natalie, you would love this one!). So I get on to his friends blog and follow the recipe exactly. The batter was super runny and the directions said that it made enough to fill two cake pans. Which it did. In fact as I was filling them up to the top I thought "Wow, this looks like a lot. I swear you're only supposed to fill it 3/4 full, but I'll do what the recipe says and just dump all of the batter in here." So 15 minutes after putting in the oven I smelled burning. I opened up the oven and saw that the batter was spilling over, so I grabbed two cookie sheets and stuck them underneath, but it was too late, with in 5 minutes my house was completely filled with smoke and my oven looked like a chocolate volcano had erupted (the pics really don't do it justice.)


if you want to see what the cake is supposed to look like and how to make it, click here.

There was no saving the cake. I had to start completely from scratch. I did, and saved the rest of the better which now know to use as a third layer. The frosting was a little melty and I now know to let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour before attempting to frost the cake.

Here is Chris blowing out his non-existent candles on his cake,(he hates candles. I made him do this like 6 times.
Our families came over and we enjoyed the super chocolaty cake and a wonderfully rich cheesecake courtesy of Chris's mom. Not good for someone like me who is really trying hard to eat healthy.


Boston loved the shiny bag and the tissue paper. Who needs to spend $ on presents when this is more entertaining?

Last of all here are some pics of Boston in his Halloween costume. He wasn't up to cooperating this day, and so these are the best ones I got. I might try it again when he's in a better mood.






So that was basically October in a nutshell.It really was an exhausting month, and we're glad that it's done.

I am now looking forward to thanksgiving, snow, soup and sweaters. :)