Day 28 - This Is Gonna Get Hairy

Let me just start off by saying that this is SUPER embarrassing for me.  I've never really cared a whole lot about my hair, but going through all my old pictures, I decided to show you my hair through the years.  These are pictures of pictures so the quality won't be the best, but I'm sure that won't be what you remember about them.  Don't worry, I'm cringing right along with you:

Young and innocent.
 
Every young girl requires accessories.

The curse of the natural curl.

The result of wearing pink foam curlers to bed.
 
Keep in mind, this was the 80's.

When a good perm goes BAD!

The beginning of the perm years, there are many more to come.

Trying to straighten the curls.

Don't stare directly into the shirt, I had a tiny cow girl phase.  It wasn't pretty.
 
I know, it's pretty scary. Tame that mane woman.

Ah yes, may I introduce you to the "Utah Claw" 
 
The claw rears its ugly head yet again.

There, I feel better now. 
 
Mushrooms anyone?

Finally a Senior.  We're skipping the braces years, that a post for another day.  On to married life:
  
Long hair doesn't really suit me I think.

Flat!  Yikes!
 
That's closer to how I am now. 

That's me now.  I think I can honestly say that I spend more time brushing my teeth than I spend doing my hair, as you can obviously see.
So that's my hair through the years, yes ladies and gentleman, I've tried it all.  However, I take comfort in the fact that probably all of you have the same embarrassing pictures hidden under your bed.  Right?

Day 29 - A Lesson Learned from Chapstick

My whole life I have had eczema.  Dry skin, dry lips, dry hair.  Needless to say, I think I have spent more on lotion, conditioner, chapstick, and oatmeal baths than I have ever spent on shoes.  The lesson I've learned from this: stick with what works.  When I was a child my mom introduced me to this:

It worked great!!  I had moist lips.  However, when I got into middle school, I leaned more towards these bad boys, you all remember these beauties right?
 
Mmm.  Dr. Pepper lip gloss, Orange Crush, Root beer.  Yes, my lips were a flavorful smorgasbord.  However, it left my lips feeling waxy and cracked.  High school, I decided to take a more "sophisticated" approach to my moisturizing needs:
  
Still, my lips were mostly shiny and nothing else.  So for my college years I went back to old faithful . . . good old chapstick.  Every now and then I'd get a whim and purchase something different which just didn't work as well.  You'd think I would learn my lesson.  Last week I gave in to some clever marketing ploys and bought this:
 
After about two days of shimmering lips that were cracked and dry, I realized that I am just a plain old chapstick girl.  That is the only thing that works for me.  Lesson learned, I will no longer buy shimmer, burt bees, or any other lip product other than chapstick.  From now on, I will be a plain, old, boring chapstick user.  But by gum, my lips will look fabulous!

On The Road to 20-10

Today marks the 30 day mark until I turn 20-10!  Eeek!!  I'm getting old.  So I figured I would commemorate with 30 blogs of photos, lessons learned, tips, or just useless information (lets face it, there's a lot out there).

Day 30 - I entitle this day:  "How cute"

That's me at 3 months.  Chubby and cute.  Jeremy looks a little like me eh?

9 months old, if I only kept the blonde hair.  Blondes apparently have more fun.  But I'm still adorable.

Natural curls look great on a 1 year but an almost 30 year old has a heck of time getting her hair to stay straight.  Thank goodness for flat irons.

Stay tuned for more 30th birthday fun.

Birthday Bash!

Yesterday was my sister-in-law's birthday.  Happy Birthday!!!  So we decided to have a combined FHE and a little birthday dinner.  On the menu was Matt's famous marinated turkey.  Everyone LOVED it, especially the twins.  Isaac was shoving turkey into his mouth while pointing at the stack wanting more.  They can really put it away.  So then it was cake time.  I knew Sharon wasn't a big chocolate fan, so I had mom make a cheesecake.  When I got home from work, I went over to get the cake and I discovered that my dad had cut some pieces out for him.  See:

Sorry Sharon, you can't trust my dad when it comes to food.  So we lit the candles and sang the traditional birthday song:
 
Then we headed downstairs for a fun FHE game.  During conference, I kept listening for talks to plan family home evenings around and of course Elder Bednar's talk was perfect.  Allowing our children to act rather than be acted upon.  So I got a template out of Primary manual and made a life size version and chutes and ladders.
 
We talked about choosing the right and the consequences for right and wrong choices.  Then we lined them up and they started to play:




They would roll and then they had cards with choice on them.  They would get to move forward or backward depending on what choice they made.  It was a blast.  They wanted to keep playing it over and over.
 
It was a fun night and hopefully they'll remember to make right choices.  Happy Birthday Sharon!  And thanks for giving us a reason to celebrate!!!  :)

Doing Our Duty

Conference was amazing!!!  We left for Salt Lake on Friday April 2, which was my parents 39th wedding anniversary.  Happy Anniversary to the bestest parents in the world.  To celebrate we went out to dinner and then the kids had a little tradition of their own:


Saturday morning we watched conference from the hotel room.  Oh how those speakers testified to my soul!  I feel energized to plow my way through this messy world and make it a better place to be.  An emerging theme started to arise from the speakers:  Teach in the home, testify in the home, make home a haven from the world.  Saturday afternoon Jenny and Justin went to conference with my parents and Matt and I watched all the kids.  More messages of early warning signs, the difference between lust and love jolted me to be a better mother, wife, and friend.  It was amazing!!
Jenny and Justin took the kids home Saturday night after the Priesthood session and Sunday morning we were up and headed to the Easter morning conference session.  It was cold:

but the Spirit of the Savior's resurrection engulfed all of temple square and the conference center.  

We only saw 1 protestor.  Sunday morning was amazing.  The choir was beautiful.  We were in our seats in time for music and the spoken word.


The speakers bore amazing testimonies of the Savior and the importance of teaching the gospel in the home, being an example, and doing our duty as parents. 
As we were driving home, Matt and I talked about the things we want to be better at, some of them include:
1.  More focused scripture study.  Matt is making a spreadsheet of gospel topics and scriptures to read each day.
2.  Teaching our children at the dinner table.  Mostly we talk about what they did at school and throughout their day, but we want to testify of the saviors hand that is prevalent in each of our lives, so they will be able to recognize it more readily.
3.  More family time.  Yes we have family home evening, but with Matt in school we need to plan more outings as a family when we can. 

It was a great weekend!  And I realize that each of us need to do our duty as parents, mother, wives, friends, daughters, and members of the church.  I hope all of you found something to improve upon this weekend, and that each of you found the peace and joy needed to boost you up for the next six months.