Advanced reading material

Aidan loves to read. He is always getting books down and either reading them to himself or asking one of us to read to him. I found him sprawled out on the floor with a book one day, and I couldn`t help but be amused (and proud) when I saw what he was reading.

**For those of you who are not Mormon, that is a Book of Mormon. It is another testament of Jesus Christ.

Five minutes peace

This past school year, my nephew Colton(who is 8 months older than Aidan) stayed with us for 4 days a week. Four or five times a day Aidan and Colton would stop being destructive long enough to watch about five minutes of a movie before they would be at it again. Here`s one of their rare quiet moments.



They`re so cute.

He does everything his Daddy does....

Aidan has known for awhile now that if he opens Bryan`s bottom dresser drawer and stands on it, he can reach whatever is on the dresser. He does this frequently, and this is always the first thing he does:

Random silliness

Aidan is really good at coming up with silly things. He entertains himself and others quite well. I`m not sure why he thought wearing this hat over his eyes was so funny, but he laughed for like five minutes at it.

Playing catch up

Bryan`s parents came for a visit in January while the temple was closed for two weeks. They stayed a few different places, visiting various family and came and spent about five days with us. We were so happy they came for a visit, especially Aidan.

Day 20-A talent of mine

I originally was going to go with my ability to do any kind of voice when reading to kids. My nieces and nephews love it. But I wanted to include a picture of me reading to them, and I couldn`t find one. So I decided to go with me being to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, about anything. Bryan reminded me yesterday that he considers this to be a serious talent of mine because I always do it and it`s not something that just anyone can do. I`m always striking up conversations with someone in the same aisle at the grocery store as me, or the person behind me in line at the drugstore who is eyeing my coupon binder, or the woman with Edward Cullen on her tshirt or purse; I can always find something to talk about with anyone. Working for years with the public definitely helped me with this, but it stems from the fact that I`m my daddy`s daughter. If you know my daddy, then you know what I mean.

Day 12-Something I bought recently

We gave Aidan this last year for Christmas. BEST.MONEY.WE.EVER.SPENT.

Philips 7" Dual Screen Portable DVD Player (PD7012/37) - Blackâ : Target

Day 11- A photo of me taken recently

This was taken back in December at Jackson`s 7th birthday party at Monkey Joe`s.

Day 10- A picture of me taken over ten years ago

My scanner won`t cooperate with me tonight, so I have given up on it for now and I`m just going to use a picture from nine years ago. It`s close enough. This picture of my daddy and I was taken at a church youth function here in Columbia.

Day 9- Pet Peeves

1. Whining (For example, Aidan`s new thing is to tell me. "I don`t want to" in the whiniest voice he can muster, anytime I tell him to do something he isn`t interested in)

2. Idiot drivers (I`m from SC, enough said, these are plentiful around here)

3. When someone rolls their eyes at me or suck their teeth at me

4. Selfish/fake/egotistical people

5. Living a long distance from my beloved Publix.

Day 8- Something I Crave

Day 7- A piece of art

The Storm by Jim Booth

My awesome husband gave me this on our wedding day. I had wanted it for years, and every time we saw it somewhere I told him that I wanted to own a copy of it one day.




Bryan`s grandfather Bebop painted this one. It`s called San Francisco Evening.

Day 6- A fun fact about me

I skipped a day. Whoops.

I`ve been having trouble coming up with a fun fact about myself, so I recruited people.

Bryan said I should say I sing Sesame Street songs to myself in the shower. And yep, I do, when I can`t get them out of my head, which is often.

I have never been able to wink.

I always turn on one of the Twilight movies or This Is It when I am cooking dinner or doing housework.

DAY 5- A Favorite Quote

The first one comes from my paternal grandfather, Bestefar.

At every family dinner, as soon as the prayer blessing the food was over, he would say in a booming voice, "Eat hearty, folks!"

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
— Maya Angelou


"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

I`m a Beautiful Blogger!

My awesome cousin Laci nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. Thanks Laci!

The rules of this tag are to share 7 things about yourself, and then nominate 5 other beautiful bloggers.

My 7 things:

1. I want to learn 3 languages, Portuguese, Italian, and Norwegian. I want to learn Portuguese so my dad and I can converse in it. He learned it when he lived in Brazil for 2 years. Now he lives in Mozambique, another Portuguese speaking country. My reason for wanting to speak Italian is that I think it is just such a beautiful language, and when I visit Italy someday, I want to be able to understand what people are saying. My reason for wanting to speak Norwegian is that my paternal grandfather spoke it, and over the years he taught us various phrases in Norwegian and would also tell us stories and sing to us in Norwegian.

2. I love to take pictures, and want to own a really awesome camera one day.

3. I really want to have two daughters close together. I`m hoping this will make them great friends and that they`ll want to do a lot together.

4. I love tiramisu.

5. I am SCARED TO DEATH of the dark. Recently a friend reminded me that I always slept with a light on as a teenager. I still do. Ya`ll can laugh at me. I think it`s funny.

6. I am SO ticklish that it`s not funny. I really hate to be tickled. Someone has to barely touch me in one of my ticklish spots and I squirm away and start howling with laughter. This irritates Bryan a lot. He can`t even hug me without me laughing and trying to get away because I think he`s going to tickle me.

7. I want a Yukon Hybrid if I ever have enough youngins to fill it with.

I nominate:

My cousin Shay
My friend Stacy
My cousin Vanessa
My cousin Hillary
My friend Lacey

They were all chosen because they are all awesome. I love reading their blogs. Narrowing it down was difficult, though. I have a lot of awesome family and friends.

Day 4- A Favorite Book

Read them if you haven`t.

I think he might be smarter than me....

I left my laptop closed on my bed one day, and came back in a few minutes later to find this...



He was trying to find Chip and Dale on YouTube. He was doing pretty good, he got the internet up.

Day 3- 20 Favorite Things

1. Double stuff oreos
2. Anything by Tom Petty
3. Reading(especially Twilight)
4. Listening to Aidan laugh
5. My mom`s homemade mac and cheese
6. Water slides
7. Gamecock basketball
8. Bath and Body Works Lavender Vanilla Body Wash
9. Scrapbooking with my mother in law
10. Glazed pound cake
11. Scary movies
12. Sewing
13. When Bryan comes home early from school.
14. My friend`s chicken bacon ranch cheeseball...YUM-O.
15. Exercising with my sister or friends
16. Singing primary songs with Aidan before he goes to bed
17. Shopping
18. Visits with my grandmothers
19. Singing in the car
20. Watching my parents play with their grandkids

Christmas 2010

A free slideshow by Smilebox

These four awesome people were greatly missed, but we were able to talk to them and let them watch over a webcam.

Day 2- A favorite movie

These are the two best movies ever...









But these 3 are so awesome I couldn`t leave them out.

Day 1- A Favorite Song

There`s no way I could narrow it down to one song, so I`m going to go with these:

30 Day Blog Challenge

A couple of my cousins are doing this 30 day blog challenge and I could use something to make me blog every day, so I`m going to do it myself.

30 Day Challenge
Day 01 — A favorite song
Day 02 — A favorite movie
Day 03 — 20 favorite things.
Day 04 — A favorite book
Day 05 — A favorite quote
Day 06 — A fun fact about me
Day 07 — A piece of art
Day 08 — Something I crave
Day 09 — Pet peeves
Day 10 — A photo of me taken over ten years ago
Day 11 — A photo of me taken recently
Day 12 — Something I bought recently
Day 13 — A talent of mine
Day 14 — Some place i want to go
Day 15 — My celebrity crush
Day 16 — A favorite food
Day 17 — My worst habit
Day 18 — Dream house
Day 19 — My future wedding
Day 20 — A hobby of mine
Day 21 — A favorite recipe
Day 22 — A favorite joke
Day 23 — A video
Day 24 — My day in great detail
Day 25 — A favorite photo
Day 26 — A funny (true) story
Day 27 — A child I love
Day 28 — A place I love
Day 29 — A person I love
Day 30 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days

Jackson`s 7th birthday

Jackson`s 7th birthday was at Monkey Joe`s.

This slideshow design made with Smilebox

Edventure In The Winter

All winter long at Edventure they had a winter exhibit with a polar bear, a snowmobile, a room where you could play with stuffed penguins, ice fishing for wooden fish, and a bunch of other fun stuff. Aidan couldn`t choose between the ice fishing and the stuffed penguins for his favorite thing to play with.

Slideshow design generated with Smilebox

Backtracking a little bit...

BOO AT THE ZOO 2010

Last Halloween we took Aidan to Boo at the Zoo for the first time. Our awesome friends Tammy and Xavier went with us. There were candy stations set up everywhere, a haunted carousel, a haunted train, a bubble machine, and we were able to feed the animals in the barn. It was so much fun, and better than trick or treating.

Customize a free digital slideshow

Zoo trip

Before my parents left, my mom took Jill and her kids and Aidan and I to the zoo for a few hours(Jason and his family had somewhere else to be that day.) It was a gorgeous day, perfect weather. The new wallaby exhibit was up, and we all enjoyed being together.

Free digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

And they`re off....

On November 1st, 2010, my parents left for another 18 month mission in Mozambique. Aidan and I picked them up that morning and drove them to the airport, where Jason and all four kids and Uncle Les were waiting for us. They went to check in, only to find out that Mama had a ticket for their first flight, but Daddy did not. So Daddy sat down and called the lady in Utah who had made all their travel arrangements, and she said she would look into it and call him back. Finally, she did, and during a couple more phone calls over about the next hour, different solutions were discussed. They could hang around at the airport until mid-afternoon, and fly out then, or fly out the next morning, both of which would result in changes in their itinerary and the loss of their World Traveler seats(which Mama was NOT happy about.) Apparently World Traveler seats are bigger and more comfortable, and they were going to be on a few different flights, and some of them were lengthy. Finally they were put on a flight leaving in the early afternoon, so Jason, the kids, and Uncle Les went home and Mama and Daddy and Aidan and I all went to lunch at Ruby Tuesday`s and then back to the airport. Somewhere in the middle of lunch, it hit me that this would be the last meal I would have with my parents for 18 months. But I was determined to enjoy it and not be sad like last time, when I cried anytime I saw someone else start crying. But I`ll blame that on being pregnant. So after lunch we ran an errand for Mama and then it was back to the airport. This time we just parked at the drop-off zone, unloaded their luggage, said our goodbyes, exchanged hugs and kisses and I love you`s, and then they had to go in. They are such awesome parents doing an awesome work. So proud of them and so lucky that they are my parents.

Overdue Posts

I have so many things that I want to blog about that are so overdue, so here they all are, starting about last November with Mama and Daddy leaving.