Out with the old...

I usually never have a cell phone longer than a year cuz I drop it and break it, or my cat knocks it in the bathtub, or I get pushed in the pool unexpectedly (actually -that one's Edward). Amazingly the phone I have now is three yrs old! A few buttons have popped off and there's makeup caked between the keys (gross I know), so I decided it was time to upgrade. I was going through my old saved text messages before I transfer everything over and the ones from Edward make me smile. I decided just to post them for memory sake (this is the closest thing to a journal I have going right now), even though some of them won't make any sense to anyone else reading them :)

*Sweet your like every other dummy in the land. (I shredded my T-mobile Rebate card cuz I thought is was a credit card offer -they said people accidently do that all the time.)
*On Valentines he sent me a pic of Sylvester the cat holding a boquet of flowers. He says I'm like Pepe-Le-Pew (the skunk) cuz I chase him around the house and smother him. Seldom happens ;)
*Pray 4 your soul
*Off to the temple w/missionaries c u later
*Should love your husband he bought it
*Thats a sweet T where does one get such a fine garment? (I sent him a pic of my dad concentrating hard on a scrabble game, and my dad happened to be wearing a T-shirt Edward got him :)
*How's the kissing booth workin out? (I was helping my Mom with her nursing booth -there was no kissing :)
*I'm back stage with Jack Black (He really was!)
*Good. At least we wern't the only dummies up at 4am (We were up taking care of our friend's kids while they were at the hospital having another baby :)
*Welcome to the jungle baby
*Rise and shine little girl
*Way to be old school. Where r u?
*Have a good time. I love u. No speeding! (Taking off for another trip to Page to see my fam. I'v gotten a lot of tickets.)
*Way to do your patriotic duties
*Good morning wef a (nickname -pronounced "weefay" = means "wife".)
*Do u want me to get u a Harry Potter book?
*I 87 hundred dollars love u
*3 down, an eternity to go. I super love u. (On our third anniversary)

Good Books

I have always enjoyed reading. However, when I finish a series or author I love, I get this sad feeling like I've just lost a friend. It's like I've finished eating a really good cake and I'm craving more, but I know I'll never have any ever again. (Silly analogy I know.) And then the thought goes through my head that I will never be able to find another book as good, I always think I've already read all the good ones ever written. You can never trust the book store people, they always recomend dumb crap (Soap opera style). I mostly stick to reading young adult books cuz they're safer, or maybe cuz I havn't grown up yet :). I want to teach my kids to love to read, and I decided to start a list of some of my favorite* books growing up! If you have suggestions to add, or any recommendations of good books to read now (I'm kinda in a slump), please let me know =)

*The Boxcar Children (Loved the first book, but tired of the others quickly. Too happy go lucky.)
*The American Girl Books (I read about all the dolls they had at that time, from Samantha to Addy.)
*Nancy Drew mysteries (I read all 54 of the origionals in 5th grade, I liked that we had the same name!)
*Little House on the Praire (Don't read the sequel "Rose" about Laura's daughter though -it was depressing!)
*Summer of the Monkey's
*My side of the Mountain
*Treasure Island
*The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Hucklberry Finn
*Little Women
*Harry Potter books*
*G. A. Henty books
*Little Lord Fauntleroy
*Lorna Doone
*The Princess Bride (also a good movie :)
*Anne of Green Gables (ditto)
*Pride and Prejudice ( " )
*Jane Eyre
*Mrs. Mike
*Where the Red Fern Grows
*Rangers Apprentice (My brother Buzz's favorite books, and I think they're good too :)
*A distant Prayer
*Three against Hitler
*Number the Stars
*Twilight Series (I also enjoyed reading "The Host")

I can't think of anymore really good ones right now, but I'll add to the list as I read and remember :)

My Dear Sweet Grandma passed away today.

My Grandma has had Parkinson's Disease for quite a while now, and she has been really suffering of late, so it is really a blessing that she was able pass on. She had been telling my grandpa lately, "Why can't I just get out of this old and broken body?". I know that she is happy to be with her parents and her brother now. I have a testimony of Christ's ressurection, and that one day we too can be reunited with our bodies forever. I have a testimony of Eternal Families, and am so gratefull that Heavenly Father loves us all so much, and blesses us with such hope! I will miss her so much. She is such a wonderfull, spiritual, and amazing woman!

I lived with my Grandparents for a year while I was in school, and my Grandma was my best friend! She would sleep out in the living room in the recliner, and sometimes I would sleep on the couch. She loved having her head massaged and her hair combed, so we would stay up late, me scratching her head to help her tremors go away, and her listening to me chatter and babble on and on about this and that. It was like a weekly slumber party! My Grandma has such a great sense of humor. One time the dishwasher melted a cup, so that it was shaped more like a triangle. My Grandma picked it up and said, "Your Grandpa is going to love this! Finally a cup that will fit over his nose when he drinks!" Another time I was having some chocolate milk, and my grandma asked me if I wanted her to hold it for a minute so it was "mixed real good" (because of her tremors). Edward's favorite is when one time I was telling her about a friend of mine who is Hopi (Native American) and whose parents fixed an arranged marriage for her. My grandma said. "Well, I guess they just 'Hopi' for the best!" And her cute little 'tee hee hee' laugh was so infectious!

My Grandma was a very talented woman. She loved to read and was a grammatical expert. She helped me edit my school papers several times. She got her Bachelors in "Large food quantity production" from BYU, which came in handy later when she had 10 kids and lots of visitors! She taught me how to cook, and her special recipe for french bread, Edward is very gratefull to her for that! She was an amazing seamstress. I still have the baby blanket she sewed for me. She sewed the outfits my dad and the twins are wearing in the photo to the right. But most of all she was loving, patient, and kind, a wonderfull wife, mother, and grandma, and a disciple of Christ all her life. Her testimony shone out of her and touched all who knew her. I love you Grandma!

Stuffing Everywhere….(and not the Thanksgiving kind)!!!

In Oct. Edward and I went to San Antonio to visit his Parents. We had a really nice time -I love them so much! While we were there Edward found his old teddybear he’d had when he was a baby out in the shed. It was dirty with holes and stuffing coming out, but I told him I would try to restore it. He was so nostalgic with the thing, everytime some stuffing would float out he’d catch it and poke it back inside, trying to keep "teddy" whole.
When we got home I just stuck "teddy" in the laundry room so I could figure out what to do with him later. Well somehow he got caught up in a blanket that I threw in the wash, and when I looked in the machine there were millions of little crumbly pieces of stuffing everywhere! I decided to bundle up the blanket and take it outside to shake. I don’t know if I was thinking it would all just blow away in the wind or dissolve or what, because when I was done there were little pieces of stuffing all over the back yard! It looked like it had snowed! I got a mental picture of Edward trying to pick up all the little pieces of his bear and put them back inside the little limp body and I panicked! I got the vacuum out and using the attachments I started vacuuming it all up. I saw the neighbors in the two story behind us watching me, I’m sure they were wondering why this crazy lady was vacuuming her grass! Anyway, all the evidence has been disposed of, and when I go visit my parents after Thanksgiving my mom said she’ll help me put new stuffing in "teddy" and sew him up. I always seem to make so much more work for myself!

I have a thing for "Edward's"!

I bought the book Twilight awhile back because I've heard so much about it I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about, but I kept putting off reading it because it sounded kinda dumb to me. I think because I was so determined not to like it, I hated the first chapter and almost didn't read anymore. I say almost because it hooked me after that and I stayed up till 2am reading! (Yup, I got 4hrs of sleep last night, the hardest thing about being an adult is telling myself when to go to bed). I've only read the first 150 pages, but so far I looove the Edward character! I even went back and re-read the Edward parts at lunch today before continuing on :)

When I think about it I always like Edward characters. I love Edward Rochester in the book "Jane Eyre", and the Edward in "Sense and Sensibility". When I was in college my 3 roomates all left to go home for a three day weekend. (I lived to far away to go home, and I had an old car running on hamsters that wounldn't have made the trip anyway.) So I had a movie marathon and one of my roomates had an edited (TV recording) of Pretty Woman. I must've watched that 3 times that weekend cuz I loved the Edward guy, I even went to the mall and pretended like I had Richard Gere's credit card (the part where she goes shopping) and I tried on everything I liked at Ann Taylor and Bannana Republic just for fun. (I couldn't really buy anything).

Of course I think the hottest most charming Edward is the one I married! I love reading in my journal about our first dates. He still makes my heart flutter!

Crazy Gato!!!

Katie LOVES lucky charms! Whenever she hears me pour a bowl she skids into the kitchen. She waits till I turn to the fridge to get the milk, then she'll hop up on the counter -paw out a few marshmellows and race off before I can scold her for being up there.

There is one corner in our family room that has a potted palm tree, and today I noticed a stinky smell whenever I got close -so I've been shampooing the carpet in that corner like mad -but it still stunk. So I got real close and sniffed everything to figure out where the odor was coming from, turns out Katie pooped in the soil there! (I know it was her -she's devious) DISGUSTING! Now everything is cleaned and fabreezed, and I'm wondering 'Does anybody want a cat?' J/K

The mad "hat"-ter family!

My dad is very light skinned. He freckles in the sun and burns very easily -so he never goes on any outdoor adventures without one of his floppy brimmed straw hats! (He was pretending to be a pirate on this rafting trip last yr -that's why he has the goofy eye patch on, he even talked in Pirate lingo with words like 'matey' and 'aaargh' :) I appreciate the fact that he is skin cancer conciouse now, but when I was growing up I was always a little embarrased that he insisted on wearing his farmer John's hat, and he often tried to get us to wear one too! I love my Dad so much!.........Now to preface the next picture I need to explain a little about my brother Jay. He is one year younger than me and has low functioning Autism. He is the sweetest boy and I love him so much! He has a hard time understanding the purpose of things. For example, my mom taught him how to empty the dishwasher -so then he started putting all the dishes he found away in the cubbords -clean or dirty, and regardless of whether you were done eating your meal or not. All he understood was that "dishes go in cubbords". So she tried to reverse it by teaching him how to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher -but then he started taking clean dishes out of the cupboards and precaroiusly trying to balance /stuff them all in the dishwasher. Needless to say, he was quickly excused from helping out with household chores (mabey he's secretly a geniuse!) He understands that "hats go on your head" so anytime he finds one he'll put it on -and my brothers have a lot of baseball hats! My mom found him asleep in bed like this one night and I thought it was pretty funny :)