Ummm-I mean, 8 Amazing Years

Ok-so you'd think since we got married in 2000 I could easily remember how many years it has been. I guess not! Thanks Brit for bringing that to my attention. Did I mention I had a ton on my plate right now-where is my brain?

9 Amazing Years!

I was suppost to do this post on December 16, our Anniversary, but do I ever get the tribute on the right day for anything? We got married on a blistering, cold day nine years ago the day after finals at BYU-Idaho. I always dreamed of a spring wedding, but as all of you know, horniness gets the best of us and we all play it smart by having the wedding sooner! Even though our wedding day was freezing, it turned out beautiful and everything I could have asked for. The pictures in the snow with my white wedding dress in front of the white temple were beautiful (if I wasn't so lazy, I'd pull out the album, scan in the pictures, and show you all-besides, I don't want to see how skinny I was back then-too depressing!).

It truly has been an amazing 9 years full of love, children, personal growth, relationship growth, excitement, and happiness. Jim is the perfect husband for me and the best daddy to his three girls. God knew what he was doing when he "got us together" in his mysterious ways even though I wasn't trusting at first. Every other man I know could never be as good a husband, to me, as Jim. I love him and am thankful for him everyday. (Yes he changes diapers; yes he does the dishes; yes he cleans the bathrooms, bedrooms, family rooms, the kitchen, and dusts-all better than me; yes he can fix things; yes he bathes the girls; yes he cleans up puke-the kids' and mine; yes he wraps presents; yes he watches chick flicks with me; yes he keeps the yard mowed, trimmed, and weeded; yes he watches the girls when Mom needs a weekend away; yes he takes them to church by himself-and tries to do their hair; yes he works hard everyday to make a nice living for his family) Yes he does have faults, but he truly is one of the most selfless, caring, loving men I know, and I'm glad he's mine!

We usually take a weekend getaway in SLC for our anniversary every year filled with shopping, pampering, and eating out. This year we went to the Carrie Underwood concert on the 7th row on the floor. It was absolutely amazing-that girl can rock and has one of the best voices I've ever heard. We've been to several concerts and her's was the best one! We were six people away from her and I think I have a new girl crush. She's so hot! We had such a good time and felt young again screaming and singing along with the crowd. (Thanks mom for watching the girls. They always have such a good time with you, and I never worry when they're in your care.)

This video does not do her justice. She sounded way better!

Happy Belated Halloween

The snow has been falling the past two days-Beautiful!!-and I'm afraid winter is here to stay. Since I'm forcing myself to catch up, and we usually have snow on Halloween in Idaho, I thought it was a good day to post about Halloween this year. What awesome weather we had this year for trick-or-treating. I bundled my girls under their costumes and was planning on having to throw on coats and gloves, but we actually got hot without the outer layers. It was perfect!

I had great aspirations of coordinating our entire family as the cast of Wizard of Oz (Jim-tin man, Me-Glenda, Ashtyn-Dorothy, Jordyn-scarecrow, Avery-lion) but time slipped away and costumes became scarce. I'm planning to do this next year and convince my mom to make all our costumes! Ashtyn and Jordyn picked out princess dresses-of course-and Avery settled on the most adorable pink dinosaur costume. One problem: after seeing Ashtyn and Jordyn in their pretty dresses (which Avery is obsessed with right now-if they don't twirl, she isn't interested), Avery did not want to wear her dinosaur. Good thing we have a ton of dresses in the dress up box, and Avery was happy to be Cinderella. Crisis avoided! I think they make three beautiful princesses!

I also took the easy route on pumpkins this year and found these cute "accessories" at good 'ole Walmart. They were so easy, and the girls loved them. We did end up carving the Mommy and Daddy pumpkins (yes, mine is the fattest) but kept it pretty simple. All in all a great time!

Raining Leaves

Okay! I have no excuse for not blogging the past two months other than I've been extremely busy. (But who isn't?) I've spent more time on the computer working than I have since college. Just no time for blogging. My freelance writing career has really picked up and I've been working on two different books for different clients over the last couple of months. I've also done a menu, some website editing, and will finish up another book over the next few weeks. It's been so awesome to work in my degree, stay at home, and get paid really well for doing something I enjoy. The writing has been challenging in several ways, but I have learned a ton and am gaining more confidence in my abilities. Hopefully soon I can work on my own books so I can someday be an author on Oprah's book club (ha, ha-but seriously one of my dreams!).

I have so many things to blog about that have been going on in our lives, but I don't know if I will ever catch up. I haven't even done my girl's 1st day of school or Halloween. Pretty pathetic! Because I want this to blog to be a journal to look back on in the future, bear with as I will probably be posting a lot of past events that I want to record for history (Ashtyn's surgery, Thanksgiving, Halloween, school, CARRIE UNDERWOOD concert-just to name a few).

I can't believe Fall is over already. We had such a nice-weather Fall this year and I wanted it to stay longer. We have a huge, huge tree in our yard that dumps tons and tons of leaves each year. One particular windy day, I remember Jordyn saying "Mommy, come here. It's raining leaves." She was looking out the window and it was seriously raining leaves. We walked outside and couldn't see around us cause leaves were falling and swirling in all directions. It was pretty magical! (Until we spent 5 hours raking those leaves into piles a few days later!) I wish the world would stop like that sometimes and let us just stand in the beautiful, swirling leaves with our children and enjoy the moment. I don't do that often enough, and those are the moments that children cherish and remember!

Hope you all have some time to enjoy the magical moments of the Christmas season these next couple of weeks. I absolutely love this time of year. Children's smiles are bright, their minds are innocent, and they show us the type of love that our Saviour's birth was all about.