…

Yesterday and today have both been really bad days.

Too emotional for my own good… and for Josh’s. Poor husband.

Have a good weekend!

6th Birthday!

Today was my sister-in-laws birthday. You know the one… from this post. She is 6 NOW!!! So ridiculous. I met her when she was barely a year old, and now she is 6! In two more years she could be getting baptized! It’s crazy. The last one in Josh’s family to officially become a member of our Church. It’s a little exciting. And a little sad. And… also a little frightening because… well… her getting older also means that I AM GETTING OLDER! And, I really don’t want to get older. I like my age. :o) So much.

SO for your enjoyment, I took some pictures. :D They are mostly of her dancing. She loves to dance. And the first two pictures are my favorite. For serious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(thank you instagram app!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And these are just regular iPhone photos.

She had a great day, and so did we! :o)

p.s. still waiting… :}

Happy Monday!

This morning… after I went for a run at 7 in the morning {yeah, you are really proud of me, right?} and after taking a shower… and AFTER waking up Josh so he can get ready for work… I read my scriptures. I am trying to be better about it. But after all that… I read something special {this is the best thing I could find on it… otherwise it was all anti-Mormon jargon. So dumb}. In my special something, there was a specific line that I knew I was supposed to read today. What I read, it meant that as long as what I wanted was good, and righteous, then I will get it. For sure. It was a promise made to me LONG ago.
So, I don’t need to fear. BUT… I probably will… because I am human. And I am a worry-wart. But, I know that what I want, I will get. Because it was promised. I just have to be worthy of it.

So, how can I go about doing that?! I have no idea.

Food for thought… :o)

5 years

Today, I celebrate my 5th year as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Normally people don’t celebrate when they were baptized, because a lot of the members were baptized when they were 8 years old. {For Josh it’s been nearly 20 years!}
But I went through a lot {not as much as some people I know}, but it was a trying time, and I am so glad to be a member of this amazing Church, and to feel and see the impact that joining has had on my life. All for the best. I feel closer to my Heavenly Father, and I know for sure that he loves me, and that he has a plan for me.
I love my Husband, and I love that he is a strong member of the Church, and can help me in my times of need.

I am really happy to be a member of this Church. :o) It’s amazing.

Aunty Lara & Uncle Josh

Today, my sister in law texted me.
“We have some exciting news!! We are having another baby!!”
I am SO EXCITED for my brother and his wife!!!!

We love them very much. They are awesome!! We just got to see my brother a week or so ago, but without my sister in law and their first child, Joelly. I MISS them. So much. Joelly is adorable, and I love her so much!


congratulations Erin and Aaron!!!! And also, congratulations to you, Joelly. You will be an amazing big sister.

This will be my 7th Niece or Nephew. I have 5 Nieces, and 1 Nephew. I am hoping for another boy. :)

Random…

So, I spent the night at my friends house on Monday. She is moving in with her boyfriend this weekend ALL the way up in Sequim. So lame, because now… we won’t be able to have slumber parties anymore. At least, not just “girl time” slumber parties. Now… we are going to have “married people slumber parties”.
It’s weird because she is getting married in November. I know, I am already married, so it shouldn’t be weird… but it kind of is. Her mom cried on Tuesday morning when I was leaving because she was so happy that I have been coming and spending the night, helping Liz with her wedding stuff (I am her Matron of Honor after all) and that I have been Lizzy’s bestest friend since the 2nd grade. It’s been like… 16 years or something crazy ridiculous like that. The longest friendship that I have ever had, and I hope that we are able to be besties for the rest of time. And probably eternity, too.
She is marrying a boy who is an inactive member of my Church. It’s pretty awesome because, I would love for her to become a member. She doesn’t want to, though… and that’s okay. Maybe… MAYBE someday. ;) And, the best part about her being my best friend (me being a member), and marrying her awesome future hubby (being an inactive member)… is that when she is alllllll moved into her apartment, her next door neighbors, are going to be the MISSIONARIES! Yes, that’s right. It’s awesome. Coincidence? I think not. Signs from above people.


I found these old pictures from High School! Haha! The first one, we just got done swimming in her pool… or we were about to go swimming… one of the two (notice how sunburned my arms are…?!) and the second one we are at PLU for our Christmas choir concert just goofing off. Nothing new there! :o)

Anyways, what’s random about this post? Nothing really… OH! except for the fact that I had a dream last night I was at Disney Land, riding on Splash Mountain. It wasn’t weird, except for the fact that the ride suddenly flipped around and we went down the BIG slide backwards. It was so scary. I almost had a heart attack when I went on it like a year and a half ago. I couldn’t even imagine doing it backwards. AH!

Tuesdayish we will know if this month was a fail. :o)

FOR SERIOUS?!

Josh had an interesting day at work.
The last like… 5 minutes of his shift at Kohl’s, he got to do a return for a customer. As Josh is telling me this, he describes what the customer looks like. Tall. Thick/Muscly. Tattoos. Thug-like. And he describes his girlfriend as “the type of girl you would see on Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift” Which makes me laugh. Then he says:
“I put my hand in the Kohl’s bag to take out the return items, and he mentioned that there were only two items, but I see a third item, and I grab at it… only to realize that I grabbed the trigger of a hand gun, and it was pointing right at me. I had a moment of panic, and then I took my hand out of the bag and started freaking out silently… and I pulled the bag away from the register and myself and assessed the situation. The guy was nice enough so I said ‘uh… did you uh… know… that uh… there is a gun in your bag?’ and the guy looked at me with a shocked expression, and his girlfriend too, and they started freaking out and apologizing and saying that they didn’t know it was there and it was really embarrassing. And I joked about it… I said ‘I promise you I will give you all of your money back if you don’t shoot me.’ I laughed, they laughed. But it was so scary, I thought I was going to die.”
My poor husband. But he survived, and that’s all that matters, right?!
Not only that, but he called me after the incident, and begged me to go to McDonalds to get a Dr. Pepper. (it’s his addiction… haha) and I said “Okay…!!” Because, he really wanted one and he had a scary moment. But, the drive through was SO long, and the inside was also a long wait, but not as long as the drive through. He decided to stay inside and get his “drug of choice”. It took forever, but finally he was able to leave, but the usual road that he takes to get home was blocked by Fire Trucks and Ambulances! So he had to do a U-Turn. But I guess there was a BIG accident… like so big people were coming out of their houses to take a look at it to see what was going on. Josh said that whole neighborhoods were outside looking at what was going on. Which makes him comment “Maybe, all of that stuff at work was supposed to happen so I would get stressed out enough to have  Dr. Pepper. What if that was me?”
Which worries me because I had a really bad anxious feeling all day.  I was taking a shower and could hear people talking outside of the door and I thought that they were going to tell me something happened to Josh. Weird, right? I had WEIRD anxiety about my husband. All day. Until he came home. Now I feel better.

Have a great rest of your weekend, though!! I just had to share all of that before I forgot about it. :o)

more siblings

I am the WAY youngest of 5. Both of my parents {along time ago} were married, had two children, and then gotten divorced by the time they met each other. They got married, and two years later … I was born. But my mom had a boy and a girl, both were way older… 17 and 15. And my dad had two boys way older… 15 and 12.
It was always okay having siblings being way older than me. I mean, I knew they were my brothers and my sister, but I didn’t really hang out with them much, and they really never came over very often. I mean, they did, but it wasn’t ya know, exciting. I don’t know. But now that I am older, they think that I am so cool, and they actually want to hang out with me.

ANYHOO. My dads oldest son,  Aaron, the one that is 15 years older than me came to visit today. He is down from Alaska {where he lives with his wife, Erin [I know… they have the same name. we refer to them as A&E.] and their SUPER cute almost 2 year old, Joelly} buying supplies for the house that he is building up there. They are sort of almost done with it.

Well, actually the reason why I posted this is because I am so thankful for my siblings being so much older than me. I am pretty sure that there was a reason why things turned out the way they did for my parents previous marriages. It was so I could be born and so I could learn from my siblings how I wanted to live my life. They are very good teachers. ;) And so are my parents. I love my brothers and my sister. And I love my parents so much.

Siblings

I want to have a lot of babies one day, so my children can always have somebody to play with. I think that it will be amazing. Josh is so lucky that he had a trillion people to play with all the time.
The baby in the family is HILARIOUS! Of course, she’s not really a baby anymore, she is pretty much 6 years old but still, the baby of the family! Her and Josh have a funny relationship, and they love playing with each other. When she was a few years younger, Josh used to pull his hoodie around his head and tie the strings and run around the house chasing her. It was hilarious. They would run and scream for hours doing that. And we all got a good laugh out of it, too.

Today, she was playing in our room on a chair that we have. It’s a gamer chair {you sit in it, and play games… it’s actually really comfortable. I use it to play the Xbox} And so she was rocking back and forth in it trying to see how far she could go. She was having a great time. I have a picture.

She’s a funny girl.

One more funny story. Today while I was baking some cookies the baby, we call her B, went up to another brother, John, and balled up her small fist, and punched her big brother right in the bum. Not only was it in the bum, but she somehow managed to get her fingers… in his bum. It was a funny site to see, and he jumped, and she giggled… then ran away as fast as she could.
Oh to be 6 again.

I can’t wait until my little ones are silly like that. Of course, it might not be silly at the time. haha

Bosom Friend

Today, I got to play with one of my besties. She is amazing. A convert, like me. Married to another one of my besties {he introduced me to the Church :)}.
She drove all the way out here from the town I used to live in until I moved to this town. Blah. AND she brought her baby.
My friend basically got pregnant like… 2 seconds after she got married. Not really, more like 2 weeks or something awesome like that. She has been married for just a little over a year, and has a 4.5 month old baby boy. He is seriously to die for. I probably would because he is so stinkin cute.

Anyhoo…

She came over today because both of our hubbies were working and we didn’t have anything to do, and she graciously bought pizza for ALL of my husbands family. Which was super nice, because… there are a lot of kiddos in this family. Anyways, we left her super-cute sleeping baby at my in-laws house so we could get pizza. And we came back after buying 4 family sized pizzas {holy moly!}
Baby wakes up, and husbands dad picks him up and baby is SO super happy to be awake and to have loves from a bajillion different people. I had never seen him so happy right after he wakes up from a nap before. I mean, of course he is always happy to have woken up from a restful slumber, but it only lasts for so long until he is hungry again. He was giggly and snuggly with pretty much everybody in the whole family, and we ate and had a good time and it was so fun watching all the kids interact with her little boy.
Then I thought, ‘oh dang. I really need to have one of those stat.’ And right after I thought that, a few of husbands younger siblings said, “HEY! you two need to have a baby now!” Don’t I know it.

Anyways, I am so happy that I got to visit with my friend. I feel like it’s been ages since we have seen each other, even though it was only a couple of weeks ago. Did I mention that she lives 13 hours away? That’s FAR AWAY! But her and her little family are visiting for the month of August because her husband has a whole month off of school! woohoo!
I feel like she truly is my “bosom friend.” If you have seen Anne of Green Gables, you know what that means. And if you don’t have one of those, then you should really get one. They are amazing.

Sometimes…

Do you ever get so frustrated that you just want to cry and throw a tantrum…? Does that happen to anybody, or just me?
Like… when things aren’t going your way, do you just… act like a 5 year old and be really naughty?

Seriously… I am 23 years old, and I got so stinkin frustrated last night that I cried and whined and threw a tantrum… and even said mean things. Then I went out into my car fully intending to drive around to get over it, but instead I sat in it with my keys in my hand and cried. Then I prayed. Then I calmed down. Then I went inside, apologized (in that little kid kind of way with a monotone voice and tears in my eyes) and went to sleep.

Sometimes… I amaze myself at how childish I can be when I want something so bad and it’s not happening. And this tantrum didn’t really even have to do with wanting a baby! But it did make me realize that I am far from patient enough to even have a baby. Maybe that grows with time… right? haha

Cast not away … your Confidence!

“…there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there has been genuine illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don't give up when the pressure mounts. You can find an apartment. You can win over your mother-in-law. You can sell your harmonica and therein fund one more meal. It's been done before. Don't give in. Certainly don't give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness. He wants everyone to be miserable like unto himself. Face your doubts. Master your fears. "Cast not away therefore your confidence." Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you.”
-------- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. BYU Devotional March 1999

A friend posted a quote on her Facebook from this talk, and I looked it up. It is exactly what I needed to hear read today. I have been feeling a little down all morning about having a baby, that maybe I just should give up because it’s impossible. Oh, how I love the Gospel and the happiness it brings me. :o)

You can read the rest of the devotional here!

Soul Surfer

Has anybody out there seen that movie?! Seriously, I just watched it today, and it was SO GOOD!!! Talk about a movie that teaches you about faith and not giving up no matter what. It was So.Good.
I pretty much cried during the whole movie. Which, if you know me, isn’t anything new because I cry all the time about everything haha. I even cried during that super bowl commercial with the little kid who was dressed up as Darth Vader and was trying to start the car… the one where his dad pushes the button and it starts? Yeah, that one (see the commercial here). I’m just a big baby haha

The weather has been so nice here lately! Pretty much 80 degrees every day. Which is weird, because I thought that the sun forgot about us. The rest of the country is experiencing heat waves and sunshine, but this little pocket of the country has only gotten clouds and rain this whole summer. It’s so nice to experience something different. :o)
Josh took me on a picnic yesterday to a park nearby that has a lake and a nice little walking trail. So we spent some time together for my birthday (he had to work on my actual birthday) so it was really nice just to get some alone time with him.

Month two is on, and we are really looking forward to it. ;) TMI? Oh well. hehe

Another Year!!

Well, today… it’s my birthday. I am the big TWO THREE {23}.
It’s not that old, really. I just don’t like birthdays anymore. I don’t really want to grow up. I just don’t think that I can. Ya know that song “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a TOYSRUS kid!” That is me. :o)

WELL! This past year has been full of struggles and sadness, but that is life, right? But this year is going to be so different! It’s going to be fun because, I am going back to school!! :D And, Josh and I are going to get pregnant. For serious. July has come and gone, and there is no bun in the oven (which is okie dokie!) but this year, my 23rd year of life, there will be a bun in the oven. I am sure of it.
Josh and I are having so much fun being married and enjoying what life has to offer, though. We have two snuggly cats, and we are so blessed to be able to live with his family to save money. Like seriously, so blessed. Super, super blessed. It’s tough out there, and we are lucky to have moved here when we did.

Anyways, this is a short one because I have things that need to be done. Have a great day! I will see ya tomorrow I hope!