Sibling Love.

Anyone notice any similarities?

"I couldn't help but notice that you caught the bouquet. My name is Nick"

Saturday was Jean and Sean's wedding! The day was SO busy. It all started at 445 when I got all ready and headed to their new apartment where Amber did Jean's hair and I did breakfast and her makeup. Jean's ceremony was at 10 so she had to be in Draper by 9- and leave her apartment by 820. I was trying to take as many pictures of the day as I could but as I got busier it started to slip my mind. Here are some pictures from the getting ready part of the morning.What a BEAUTIFUL bride! :)

After Jean was ready Ambs got herself ready. I was all done so I just hung out and took pics:)


After Jean was all ready I stopped by the store and IKEA with Sam and headed up to the temple. It was a cold day and is SO windy by Draper. We were all freezing- I wasn't able to get any pictures there. At 130 was a sweet luncheon at the location of the reception. Jean's dad gave a nice speech and Sean sang a beautiful song to Jean. I think it was called "God Bless our Love". I cried.

That night at the reception we took a few pictures, decorated the car that Jean and Sean drove away in and consumed a disgusting amount of various cakes and desserts. They decided not to do a garter toss because Jean's dress was fitted almost all the way down but kept the tradition of the bouquet toss. Resulting in the following picture and title of this post.Yes, a boy did come up to me and say exactly what is in my title. I'm pretty sure that my "wow, that's awkward" look on my face scared him away though.

one more with the bride-Jean was so beautiful. I really wish I had gotten a picture with her dress and everything.

I really hate getting flowers right before I leave. I had to leave two bouquets in Alabama the day after I got them to travel back to Utah during the summer. I came home on Sunday and really wanted to bring these on the plane with me. I brought them up to the airport in the car and then decided that it wasn't a good idea. Regretfully I had to leave them:( But i took a dark (it was 7am) picture with them at the last moment in the car...You can hardly see them, but it was the best I could do.

The wedding was beautiful- even if depressing to see one of my last single friends go- and I wish Jean and Sean all the happiness in the world. They both deserve it.

Here Comes the Bride....

Tomorrow is a very very special day. Six years ago tomorrow I was my sister's maid of honor. Tomorrow I have the privilege of being a bridesmaid for one of my best friends:) Looking back, at the tender age of 16 I was a less than satisfactory maid of honor (lets just say its a good thing that I'm the younger sister. When Rachel is my maid of honor she will not have the excuse that she had no idea that a maid of honor had duties of any kind). To make up for my below par bridesmaid past I intend to be prepared it every way for whatever may make Jean's wedding day the best it can be tomorrow. First of all I will be waking up around 445 (in 5 1/2 hours) so that I can be all ready and get to Jean's new apartment by 6am- yes, in the morning. Then as Amber is doing Jean's hair, I thought it would be nice if I made everyone breakfast (I am constantly hearing stories about starving brides). Jean needs to be at the Draper temple by 930- its about 45 minutes away (wow we're spoiled! There are two temples even closer to us than that one!) Since I can't go to the actual wedding I was thinking I'd stop at the grocery store on the way and get some sort of easy to eat snack. Hopefully I can do a really good job tomorrow and everything will go really well! I'm so excited for Jean and happy that she found such a super guy to marry!
Last weekend Amber and I threw Jean's bachelorette party. As you may or may not know I LOVE making unique cakes. Its one of the funnest things I can think of. Here is a picture of the cake I made for the bachelorette party. It was a huge hit. The girls saw it one at a time and the facial expressions were priceless. When Jean saw it she actually screamed....and although it came with some threats we were able to get a funny little picture (which I don't have) of Jean posing with this thing on her- like those bikini t-shirts. priceless.

Field Trip!

Often when I am watching the kids I like to take them fun places just so that Parker can learn and get out and see new things. Normally I take them somewhere right after Parker's preschool. We've been to Barnes and Nobles many times to read books, on picnics, to Grady's family garden where we picked peaches and looked at all the different growing veggies, and to Weinerschitsel (a fast food restaurant which Parker has always wanted to go to because their sign is a huge W-Parker's favorite letter). Sam's family has two female blue chihuahuas- one of which was pregnant and had its puppies. Parker LOVED Beverly Hills Chihuahua and would often watch a special feature that would talk all about Chihuahuas. So when Sam's family's puppies were a couple days old I decided to take Parker over to see them. The mama dog got a little feisty with Parker but after we had her under control we had a really good time. Parker also had fun playing with Sam's 7 year old brother, Daniel. Here's a picture of Parker with a puppy and then me with a puppy. Their eyes aren't even open yet!

I saw it!

The other night, a little after midnight, I was at home in the kitchen talking to Kristi and Daryn when everything lit up outside. It was the weirdest thing ever! It was literally like day time out there! We got a flashlight and started looking around outside. We were all pretty creaped out and thought we were the only ones who saw it until we saw this on tv the next day.



Here's another pretty good video showing how bright it got outside.

Check This Out!

FOOD! + Halloween

Recently Ashton has been really interested in food. Whenever I would eat in front of him he would lean over and look really wantingly at the food I had. Sometimes I would even notice that he would make a chewing motion with his mouth as I ate. I never knew whether I should laugh because its so cute or feel bad because I was rubbing it in that I got real food. :) Either way, this was the face I got during meal times:)
This is a picture of Parker eating his dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets during the same meal. He was a little jealous that Ashton got his picture taken so I took one of him too. If you look at Ashton on the side you can notice that he's leaning way over at me still staring at my food.
When Ashton's mom is home she's started feeding him rice cereal. I haven't given him anything other than milk yet, mostly because I'm not sure if Kristi is regulating when he eats solid foods or not. Sometimes I watch her feed him though. Its really interesting because babies don't really know how to eat. Its strange to think about learning to eat. I'm such a natural now... :) Anyways. Its funny because he tries to chew the entire time the spoon is going in- which of course makes it harder for any food to actually make it in his mouth. Then he tries to grab the food and shove it in with his fingers but he doesn't always find his mouth. It's pretty funny. The result is this picture...
HALLOWEEN!
I really hadn't planned on doing anything for Halloween. I knew I'd be working that night so I just assumed I'd only do that and then go home. Hmmmm. let me give you a little background story first. As you may or may not know I started working as a driver at Papa Johns about a month ago. On my first day the boss had a boy named Sam train me. I thought he was cute but was way too scared to talk to him too much cause normally when I do something stupid comes out and then I just feel like an idiot around a cute boy for the rest the time we work together. Needless to say, I was not at all friendly during training or the first few days at work. After I started getting a little more comfortable around him we'd maybe smile at each other or I'd make a face at him or something. Either way, he was fun to work around and a welcome break to the older man without teeth that works there who is constantly over my shoulder and telling me what to do. After a while I started checking to see if Sam was there as soon as I got to work- he normally was:) The last couple days he worked with me I would try to get on any job he was doing during while we were both in the store. Well, last Saturday was Sam's last day to work with me before he moved to a different store. It also happened to be the fateful day of the BYU-TCU game. I'm one of the only LDS people in my store. Everyone knows I'm such a huge BYU football fan so I was getting a lot of harrassment for how the game was going. That night while I was on a run I got a text from a number I didn't know harassing me about the game. Turns out it was Sam and he had gotten my number off of the schedule. I was pretty shocked because I really hadn't thought he'd noticed me at all- let alone that he'd take the time to find my number and text me. So that night we texted throughout work. The next day, Sunday, was our first date. We went geocaching and had hot chocolate. Anyways, we've been dating since then. For Halloween we decided to be Zombie pizza deliverers. We didn't take a picture of me but here's Sam. I did his makeup:)

We worked that night but got off early enough to do a little trick or treating, go by one of my old bishopric member's homes, and go to a party at his friend's house.

That Sunday we went to church and went to his family's house. Sam was a goth in high school so i thought it would be funny to have him try on his old clothes for me. The other funny thing is that these two pictures are the ones I've sent my mom of him. No, mom, he does not normally look like this:) He's actually pretty normal:)

What Happens in Vegas....

On Friday I drove down to Vegas to see mom and dad. It was a really short trip. I was probably only awake in Vegas for like 7 hours, but it was a good 7 hours. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM and then saw KA- a Cirque du Soleil. It was AMAZING!
That night we went to bed pretty early because I had to take mom and dad to the airport a little before 445. After taking them to the airport I started the six hour drive back home. If you've ever wondered what Vegas looks like at 445 here's a sneak peak. Sorry the pictures are so bad. I take all of them with my cell phone because I lost my camera's battery charger in yellowstone in April. Anyways, the roads were so clear. A lot of the time I was in Vegas I couldn't see a single car going either way. All in all the trip was good:) Lots of traveling but really fun.

A Couple Things

One thing that I've thought was funny about Utah ever since I moved here is how the rain actually makes things dirtier. I know in Alabama people hate to wash their car right before rain because it takes the shine away but that hardly compares to what the rain can do here. We've had a couple rainy nights recently and as I walked out to my car I glanced and saw all the dirt that the rain left on my car. Look at this! It was literally a pile of dirt. Because of the mountains we have really bad air pollution in the valley. When I was student teaching there were days that the kids weren't allowed to leave the building during recess because the air quality was so bad. We depend on the rain to clean it out a bit. It just made me giggle:)

Second random thing. A month or two ago Jean recommended for me to read The Hunger Games. She told me I'd love it. I finally went to the library a week or two ago to check it out and there were about 130 holds on the book. Despite being pretty poor at the moment I bit the bullet and bought it at Barnes and Noble. Jean WAS NOT kidding! This book is amazing! I would recommend it to anyone. Its on a young adult reading level and is so intense. The last two nights I got in to bed around midnight and couldn't put it down until around 1:30. I still have around 100 pages left but as soon as I finish typing this blog I will be back in my book:)


Last of all, I start my new job today! As you saw before I'm already a nanny 3 days a week but I picked up a job delivering pizzas for Papa Johns:) Really putting that degree to use! I'm going to be borrowing Grady's GPS for a while so I can find the homes. I'm also a little nervous because I hear delivering pizzas can be a little dangerous. Cross your fingers for me! Anyways, I'm excited to have something else to keep me busy. Life is good.

My new life

Since graduating, and especially since starting nannying I've found a lot of extra time on my hands. So, I thought I'd start this baby back up! First let me introduce you to my boys. Here's a picture of both of them. The older one is Parker, he's four. The baby, Ashton, is about 4 months. They are so much fun and keep me on my feet during the three days a week that I watch them. Parker is SO smart! Right now I'm teaching him how to read. He has about 70 or so words that I've taught him how to read but his curiosity is constantly making him want to read more. Whenever we're in the same room he asks me how to spell different words. He also can read many words by just sounding them out. Yesterday he asked me how to spell tornado and I sounded it out for him to spell and he got it right! I'm excited to start reading actual books with him. Parker loves cars, tornados, and making things. He also LOVES the School House Rock DVDs that I have. One day a couple weeks ago we were watching a cool cake show on TV and Parker asked me if we could make a cake. I suggested making Lightning McQueen because he loves cars and this is how it turned out. We had a lot of fun with it! Parker is also such a funny kid. If its his parents' day he is always hanging out with me, but if its my day he hates seeing his parents leave. To be honest I think he wishes we could all be here all the time. Parker also loves to hang out with me and my friends. One thing Parker can't handle is when I go in to the bathroom. I'm not used to locking the bathroom door because I never did back home. Since moving in, I've learned better. When I first moved in Parker would stand outside of my bathroom and scream my name and bang on the door when I was in the shower until I would come out. He doesn't do that as often but yesterday it happened again. I decided that if I could just ignore him long enough he'd probably go away until I came out. After a while he stopped yelling my name but when I got out of the shower I looked down and saw this! I couldn't help but laugh and take a picture! SO CUTE! My bedroom doesn't have a lock on it so Parker comes in and out whenever he wants. I can handle it, I just have to stand up against my door when I change my clothes if I know that they're home. Another thing that Parker likes to do is wake me up in the morning to eat breakfast with him. Its not so bad because that way I don't oversleep in the mornings. Its fun to be loved:) One more cute little story about Parker. He goes to preschool at noon every day. So while I get Ashton all ready to go out and make lunch for Parker and me I have Parker change his own clothes for preschool. The other day he was changing and came out looking like this. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he couldn't wear his mask to preschool but luckily he didn't even try. Funny little boy! Now, on to Ashton. Ashton is probably the best baby I've ever met. He hardly ever cries. He's happy as ever in his little bumbo- that chair that helps babies sit up. I can tell that when Ashton grows up he's going to be very smart because whenever I look at him he has this look on his face like he knows what is going on. Its pretty funny! He's also a very smiley little man. Here's a picture of him sleeping. The boys really love each other. Parker always wants Ashton to be awake so that they can play. He also loves to make Ashton smile at him.

This last picture is a little update for people back home. A few weeks after being here and having my hair pulled out every day by Ashton I decided to chop my hair off (I thought something new would be fun too). Here's the new do. :) I like it. Its so easy to do. It looks pretty cute curly too. I'll have to make some more updates soon. Maybe a couple things about Europe or something. We'll have to see. I hope y'all enjoyed!