for the win

blehhhhh i feel like i haven't blogged in such a freakin long time when really its just been 2ish weeks.  i try to blog like, once a week but lately, ABSOLUTELY nothing has been going on.  it's brett's last semester and he's been working so hard in school.  he's doing his capstone and emphasis class at the same time and it's been kicking his butt.  it is of course his hardest and busiest semester ever.  most days of the week he's seriously gone from early in the morning to about 5pm.  then he meets with some classmates to work on homework together for a few hours in the evening.  i try not to complain too much about not getting to see him often when i think about my friends' husbands who are gone for loooooong periods of time.  i could not handle that.  

some recent and exciting news for my family is that my youngest sister erin just became homecoming queen!  i'm SOO proud of her.  she's grown up to be such a beautiful young lady who has become so outgoing in school and has become quite the popular one (darn her), which is more than i can say for myself.  we moved to WV when i was just starting 9th grade, kyla was starting middle school, and erin was in elem. school.  i felt like i was thrown into school hardly knowing anybody.  i was super shy and was just a band nerd.  thank goodness for the church, where seminary helped me to make friends with my fellow lds peeps.  but erin got to grow up with her friends and she became the ultimate band nerd yet she was cool.  she was drum major for 2 years, being head drum major for her last year of high school.  i love her so much and know that she'll do awesome things in her future.  she wants to be a fashion designer of some sort, so i can see her designing some hot stuff.      

congrats again doll.  you do the family proud.

but no matter how cool you are, i'll always know how much of a dork you were, are, and always will be.

love you tons hunny bunzz ♥

a baby shower for gwen

the time had come where i got the opportunity to throw one of my best friends a shower (a bridal or baby shower that is.) and so for my first party to throw, it was a baby shower for my bff gwen.

well i actually co-hosted the party with my other bff katie and thank freakin goodness i had her.  having someone else to plan this with was a huge stress reliever.
here's some of the delicious highlights of the partay!

we made/slaved over cake balls!  this is my 2nd attempt so i'm still working on perfecting them.  we tried putting them on lollipop sticks like the fabulous bakerella but it just didn't work! arghhhhhh it was so annoying.  whatever, perhaps next time.

check out this baby i made!  pretty sure its one of the most amazing yet annoying things i've ever made.  this is just one of those things you look at and say, "whoa i never thought i'd make a watermelon baby carriage."  i just have to say, i'm so proud of myself.  is that so wrong?

katie and i made this freaking cute diaper cake.  we tried the "smooth icing" look and it was really fun figuring it out.  and i think it worked out beautifully!  katie and i, not experienced in buying diapers, didn't realize they were green till we opened the box but we figured it didn't look too bad.

some of the games we had was the "find the small safety pins in the rice" game and it turned out to be a lot harder for the girls than they thought.  i remember playing this game at some relief society baby shower i went to years ago with my mom.

another game we did was decorating onesies!  we bought just enough onesies for each girl to decorate one.

   throwing this shower helped give me confidence knowing that i could maybe throw more of these in the future.  now all we're waiting for is for baby sienna moa to arrive!

i found it.

i just found the bestest, my most favoritest, and cutest picture i've ever seen.  (i know some of the words i used to describe this sweet pic doesn't exist but it's so true)

elephants are my ULTIMATE favorite animal and looking at this makes me wanna snuggle with a baby elephant.  the little boy is adorable too but the baby elephant has won my heart.

happiness is...

"We all search for happiness, and we try to find our own "happily ever after."  The truth is, God knows how to get there!  And he has created a map for you; He knows the way.  He is your beloved Heavenly Father, who seeks your good, your happiness."

-Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf

to me, happiness is...

1. showers of kisses from brett

2. watching ROCKY

3. tan lines

4. game/movie night with best friends

5. seeing my family

6. cocoa bean cupcakes

7. sunshine

8. hula dancing

9. conquering a new recipe

10. a really good hair day

he's my cherry pie

remember those cherries i told you about 2 posts ago?  well i attempted to make a cherry pie!  it was my first attempt at making a REAL pie and it didn't go too bad.  i was very excited...

it started bleeding in the oven.

oh, my little bleeding heart.

so we just got back from a little vacation to island park and yellowstone and it was just perfect and relaxing.  we went with our bffs steve and gwen and we stayed at one of her friend's cabin.  we went all over creation, west yellowstone, yellowstone park, and the grand teton park.  i felt like we saw alotta nature.  i also got to take gwen's maternity pics!  it was just for fun and to give me a little practice using ailinh's sweet camera she let me borrow.  (thanks girl!)

whenever i look at this paint pot i really wanna dive in.

seeing old faithful wasn't as exhilarating as when i first saw it when i was younger.  but brett's never seen it so now his dream has come true.  haha jk. 

            i'm loving life, lovin my man and have been learning to love nature.  it's not as horrible as i always thought it was. 

2 year

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!!

WOW. 2 years i've been married to my homeboy. you know, our anniversary is like our own holiday. i just get excited knowing that i get to spend the whole day with brett looking back at fond memories of how we got together and our first date, etc. i thought it was so cute looking back on our 1st year anniversary post and what a giddy little girl i was about my marriage. of course i'm still MADLY in love with my husband. i still have my giddy (can't believe i'm married) moments but i feel like our love has grown a lot deeper. i can safely say we're not honeymoonin it anymore and we've gotten to learn SOOO much more about each other than when we first got married. and i know we'll find out even more in the future.

here's a cute story from our wedding day.

our wedding song is "yellow" from Coldplay.

i can't listen to that song without crying...

so anyways, as we started our"first dance as a couple" brett started singing the words of the song to me. he's the kinda guy where he really wouldn't take the time to learn lyrics of songs like i do.

and right when he started singing i immediately bawled. i couldn't stop crying and i just lost it. i thought it was just one of the sweetest things he's ever done. i think it was also hitting me that i'm married, and that i found a man who truly loves me and i truly love him back.
he's my best friend and i don't ever wanna lose him.
he's stuck with me!


so to celebrate this momentous occasion we had dinner at our fav restaurant in idaho falls, texas roadhouse, and then went and saw a movie.
being young and poor that's really all we could do for our anniversary and it was just perfect.

then we came back home and watched our wedding video and couldn't help laughing at ourselves and getting a little teary eyed from our beautiful day.
i love seeing the differences in brett and i since our wedding day.
(yeah brett's hair is SOOO short! too short for me in fact. he seriously just cut it like, last week. he's gonna grow it out and he better keep it a little longer!)
we went back to where brett proposed to me on that fateful day.

sheesh i love him.

hi ho cherry o!

during the 7 week break from school our ward has been combining with another ward. a girl from the other ward told the relief society of her old bishop who has 2 cherry trees. and he needs people to come pick the cherries pronto, before they all go bad. i know i JUST wrote about me being allergic to cherries but i can't help myself. i remember when i was younger my aunt linda had a huge cherry tree in her backyard and my sisters and i got to go pickin. and when we were done we would give our loot to our grandma, who turned those cherries into the most delicious cherry jam ever!

so brett and i took steve and gwen out with us and it was so fun!

we didn't come at the most perfect time and some of the cherries were a little wormed through, picked at by robins, or just really overripe. but we still got quite a lot.

while picking the little red beads of fruit i kept thinking about the kiddie game hi ho cherry o! i really don't remember how to even play it but what i DO remember is putting the little plastic cherries in the cardboard trees and then putting the cherries in your little plastic bucket. anyone remember this game??

so being allergic to fresh cherries and i don't really feel like risking botox'd lips again, i wanna either make an awesome cherry pie (the bishop gave us a really good recipe) or i wanna make a sweet jam. i don't know, i just don't know.

but i sure am excited!