. baby p .

i'm one lucky girl. i got another niece {well, honorary aunt status} in july. i got to photograph this beauty and hold her while she slept that night. this girl is gorgeous, half hawaiian with the perfect tan, but so is her mother. such a wonderful woman, one i inspire to be like. congrats l* & k*!

see? i'm a lucky aunt.

.. a little man ..

so i don't have my own kids, i just have cute nieces and nephews. 3 nieces and 1 1/2 nephews, my sister is due this month with nephew #2. after the race last week we went to cody's parents house to spend time with the family. we had a BBQ, with ribs, chicken, salads, corn, rolls and friends. how can you go wrong? every year in the summer my in laws set up a metal framed pool in the backyard. my nieces love it. like love it. i spent about 2 hours sitting out by the pool watching them show me all their tricks and being pretend dolphins, whales and turtles since mermaids aren't real. my adorbs nephew decided to stand up against the pool and throw everything he could see in. leaves, shoes, his sippy cup, life vest you name it he tried and throw it in the pool. he is adorable, and i love him, even if i am just a big scary person to him right now. maybe one day i will be the cool aunt he wants to be around :). 

{ adorbs nephew c* }

love him

.. a race, a first ..

{my race number}

so a few months ago my mother in law talked to be about doing a 5k with the family. i told her i was game. it could be loads of fun. so i started training. my plan was to run all of it if i could. of course that is when work got the craziest and i got the sickest. my body was rebelling, but i was determined to try. on saturday the race was on, the whole week building up to it there was trash talk between cody and his brothers about who would win and all that jazz. it was bound to be a fun one. we got to springville high school on saturday at 7am. we stretched ate a granola bar and chatted, and the nerves hit. i was so nervous. but i was doing it. i plugged in my ipod and made sure i was good to go and it was on. i did great until about the end of mile one, where we hit a huge hill. i tried running up most of it and only got half way, cody pulled me the rest, but after that it was all good. i ran the whole thing, with only that small bout of speed walking up the hill. quite an accomplishment. i admit, i shed a tear - i was so proud of myself and being able to reach my goal. we finished in 38 minutes, not super fast, but that is okay with me. we placed 2 & 3 in the family competition. cody's little brother beat us, he did it in 23 minutes. It was fun and we have plans to do it next year. 

{cody and i after the race, i was pooped.}

{me, e*, mom}

{ brothers : c*, j*, r* and cody - one brother d* didn't come}

{boys will be boys..}

{ family }

{from left to right : beverly, kristy, j*, amy, mom, e*, cody, me, dad, r* and w* - there are 3 missing from this one, codys brother c* and his girlfriend e* and c* cody's brother j*'s girlfriend}

and don't you worry i was sore for about 3 days after, and took a 3 hour nap that afternoon. you heard me 3 hours. yum. 

.. an old man's celebration ..

over memorial day weekend i had the chance to go up to my grandparents house and celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday. he is wonderful and grand, he is awesome and hilarious. we surprised him and told him we just wanted to come visit since we had a free day, little did he know that everyone - minus a missionary and my brother m* and his wife e* - showed up for lunch and a birthday celebration. 

we had pizza, salad and cupcakes. naturally cupcakes rule. 

{ here is the whole crew that came, big family huh? }

my grandparents have 5 kids, 12 grand kids and 1 great grand kid { soon to be 3. no i'm not prego, but my sister and my cousin m* are}

{ gramps, gg, uncle steve, uncle scott and my mom }

{ we tried to do a group hug picture, all my uncle could do is choke my gg and laugh! }

{ my handsome gramps and gorgeous grandma (hence the gg) }

These people are wonderful, I am so glad that I have such a wonderful family that I could share this with. so here is to you gramps, happy 80th birthday. hope it was great and wonderful to celebrate. the one great gift he got was the birth of his first great granddaughter on his birthday.

Happy birthday!!

.. le circus for bebe ..

so as you might have seen from my baby shower preview, a few weeks back my sil e* and i threw a baby shower for my sister k* who is due with a baby boy this month. don't worry there will be baby pictures here when he comes :). we decided on circus for the theme and went to work planning. we planned and worked on it for about 2 months. phew! but all the hard work paid off, the end result was so cute!

{ game at the door, it was guess how many circus peanuts go around her belly}

{ after the game, another game! matching mommies with babies. and part of the spread, cupcakes! }

{ chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing, yum! }

{ pop of color with napkins }

{ fun little spot, we gave the suckers to the winners of the games }

{ no circus is complete without popcorn! }

{ drink bar, we had these little sodas and mini waters }

{ treat bar, we had little baggies and candies for them to take home, yum! }

All in all it turned out great, she got a bunch of cute clothes and goodies and we can't wait until he gets here. With any luck it will be in the next few weeks, she is already making progress - dilated to a 2 and 50% effaced. Almost baby time :)

congrats k*!

.. a birthday girl indeed ..

This beauty is my mother. Her birthday was on monday, and this week seems to be escaping me at every chance it gets. So naturally I missed a post for her. So this will have to count for a mothers day and a birthday post. This lady is one of the TOUGHEST women I know. She has been through so much and still manages to have a good attitude about life. She has always been a wonderful support and there when you need a shoulder to cry on. She is excited for any adventure you are getting ready to take, even if she thinks you are crazy for it. She is a wonderful seamstress and can fix, mend or create anything. Serious. She has always been a loving person that I know will love me day in and day out, even when I drive her crazy. I love her sweet little quirks, like when there is some tidbit of information she calls everyone on her "calling tree" and in a specific order until everyone knows and don't worry she has 1/4 timers {alzheimer , but only part way} and she will forget that she called you and then she will tell you again when she sees you. Or how every time we have a foreign exchange student for the first 2 days she speaks english with a japanese accent, so cute. This lady truly is the best. 

Thanks Mom for being so wonderful and for giving me the best gift ever, life. I will forever look up to you as a great example and am so glad to have you in my life. Happy birthday, and Happy Mother's day. 

Love 

me

. a graduation trip .

so i feel old, my youngest brother j* is graduating from high school this year. it is strange. after much debate cody and i decided that we would take j* on a trip of his choice for his graduation present. he chose washington dc. so it was on. the week we decided to go, cody ended up scheduling his check ride {this is for another post} so he couldn't go with us so he could study it up. so the last week of march it was on. here are some pictures from our trip.

so day one we got into baltimore around 5:30, by the time we rode the train into down town and then to the hotel we were starving. 

{ticket}

we had breakfast at 8 am utah time and that was the last meal we had. so we trekked to capitol city brewery, it is amazing and waited for a table. it was the best meal. j* got a bloody nose in the middle of dinner, and had to have a tissue up his nose all through dinner. 

{bloody nosed j*}

we walked around and just ended up going back and go to bed. We were pooped. 

{this rad fire station is next to our hotel, it is historic like one of the first in the city}

the next morning we got up and ran to the national air and space museum and walked through that and the museum of natural history. 

{national air and space museum runway, this is for cody}

{the spirit of st louis at the national air and space museum}

{mammoth at the natural history museum}

both so cool. after the museums we went to potbellys sandwich works which is also delightful. we then decided to hit up all the monuments. we started at the jefferson and walked to fdr, mlk, lincoln, korean war, world war 2, and the washington monument.

{MLK memorial}

{washington monument at night}

{at the lincoln memorial}

{washington monument from the lincoln}

{the cherry blossoms at the FDR monument, it was the 100 yr anniversary of the blossoms!}

 by this time we walked to the white house and checked that out and then we went to dinner at the hard rock cafe. yum! after this we stopped in to crumbs and got some cupcakes to try and headed back. the cupcakes were delicious!

{crumbs}

the next morning we tried to get into Ford's theater but the tickets were sold out. sad. so we decided to shop instead. we checked out a whole street and ended up finding the spy museum. it was pretty cool, but we didn't have time to go through it so we just checked out the store. 

{watch out for the gnome}

then we headed back packed up and headed to the airport. 

{us on the way to the airport, it was j* first time on a subway, don't mind that he smiles nice and i am retarded. it was a day}

since we travel standby we have to wait to see if we can make it. turns out we didn't. but we had to make a backup plan. we flew to nyc for the night, our chances of getting out were better. so we got to nyc, checked into a hotel and then went to times square. we ate at hard rock and walked around.

{us at the hard rock, apparently i only have one face}

 j* started to get sick so we headed back. turns out the express train we got on turned into a local at night and what should have taken us 30 minutes turned into 2 hours. killer. we got to the hotel around 1 and we had to be up and out to the airport by 5. 4 hours of sleep yum. 

the next day we got up and to the airport and we didn't make the first flight so, we got breakfast and then j* crashed on the floor on our luggage. i spent time watching a set of birds eating crumbs left behind by the most cute girl. 

{ the little birdie who brought me 4 hours of entertainment}

we made it on the second flight home and lets just say i am still not caught up on sleep. 

but it was a blast!

happy graduation j*!

and if you didn't hear, he got a full ride scholarship to UVU that can be renewed if he keeps a 3.0. he starts this fall!

. my dodgeball life .

so lately i been feeling a lot of stress and pressure and felt like life has been sending me through a dodge ball game.

the week started with a parking ticket. in front of my own house. for not having my car registered, which is was, which they also knew cause they ran my plates i just hadn't put the sticker on. perfect.

it was followed by a strange back spasm, cramp that was really painful causing me to not be able to sit up straight or work out. this ended with me in the dr office only to find out that i had shingles, again. i first had them when i was 16 at girls camp in the summer, peachy. oh and in case you were wondering the chances of you getting them twice, 1 in 5%. really? splendid. 

i did get saved from that one due to a wonderful 'sister' of mine who gave me doTerra oils, which I was kind of scared of at first but it ended up with me not having a breakout rash and the pain gone in 4 days. wonderful!

and not to mention, i had my yearly check up the day before the shingles appointment with the OB/GYN so it was just a week filled with topless dr's appointments. how lucky am i? come the next day i was confused that i didn't have an appointment to strip down and freeze. 

and then lastly... this one has just been around. so i don't know if it qualifies as a dodge ball. i have wanted a baby forever, growing up i knew i wanted at least two {you can't have one they will be a brat, and while we are in this little side note- when i was younger i was planning for like 5, yes to answer your question i was crazy and insane}. I had a life plan, you know how you think things will work out. just in case you are thinking about making one, i will save you the effort.. don't. things never go the way you want. Maybe just set goals, they are easier and you are less disappointed when they happen then if you planned for them. I first brought this 'plan' to Cody's attention when we got married. here was my plan..

get married - 21

finish school - 25

first kid - 26 

second kid - 27 to 28

if we thought about a third.. had to be before I was 30. 

{I didn't want to be the grey haired grandma when my kids are in high school, and i want them gone so i can travel and still be young.}

well, I am sure you have done the math.. I am not on that path except that I did get married at 21 and I graduated at 25. Now I am 27 1/2 and no kiddo. not even preggers. Cody did make it clear that he wanted some things completed before we started thinking about kids. And I was on board. He did want me to be done with school and him almost done - check. He wanted us to have good jobs - check for me, he has one lined up for when he is done so semi-check. i also wanted to have the first kid in my family, and i got out done on that one. My sister k* is having a boy June 22. so, here is the struggle. I want one, I am flustered that I haven't done this already. I kind of wonder if I am meant to be a mom, or if it is better to just not. I have a jealousy problem with my sister being pregnant and not to mention most things with her are a competition so i kind of don't want to have one or get pregnant while she is, could cause family drama. oh, i am not getting any younger so this is going to be difficult, on top of the fact that I have back problems which makes it that much harder. and sometimes i feel like life might just be easier if i didn't have one. Oh and practically everyone I know is either pregnant or just had a kid. But we decided recently that we would start to try. to think about having a kid and prepping for that. We are both scared, cody is borderline petrified, but i think we can figure it out, maybe. Any advice on this one? I don't know how to overcome the feelings of jealousy and how i don't know if i want to do this at my age and if i can - kind of feel like i missed the boat on this one.  oh and can you guys stop getting pregnant? it makes me feel loserish. Thanks :)

{yeah, you don't have to answer.. just venting here to the cyber world here.}

. jet+mom-dad= boy's trip to vegas .

so last weekend cody and my brothers went to vegas to go to the St. George air show.  I definitely wanted my brothers to have some bonding time, and I was okay not going to the air show. I have been slammed every weekend for the last few weeks with baby showers, wedding receptions, speaking at conferences and family gigs. it is intense. that and jet likes cody way more so i was hoping by being home he would maybe like me more. 

{it kind of worked by the way, the second cody came home, i was dead to him}

so I voted to stay home and just relax. 

They left friday afternoon, and we were on our own. I worked until 5 and then came home. We live with my parents, so it was me and my rents. when i got home, we decided to run an errand to the fabric store - i am crossing another thing off my list, making a skirt by myself - and then to get cheap tacos, my dad's favorite. we were off. we ran and got fabric and tacos and were back by 7:30. we ate dinner and then decided to watch Puss in Boots. which I can say was actually pretty good. after all this excitement jet and i headed down to bed. 

he passed out in about 20 minutes and i decided to catch up on my grey's anatomy. i was like 4 episodes behind. so i watched 2, and then called it a night. the next morning was st. patricks day. we ate breakfast and then grocery shopping, do you like my dad's green? you could get a prize at the store if you were wearing green, he used the canvas shopping bags. clever.

 after which i got to sewing my skirt, i almost finished it. we had stake conference so we got ready for that by going to dinner at 4:45. I felt like a 60 year old lady, so lame. after dinner it was conference and then home for dessert and mille bournes with erica and watching march madness. {how are your brackets??} then bed, i finished up the last 2 episodes and then called it a night. the next morning we had part two of stake conference and home. i had been feeling sick all weekend, like ear ache and sore throat so i laid down for a nap, 4 hours later i woke up to dinner and people in the house. and snow.

wow. Cody got home just after dinner and boy were we excited to see him. 

so in the end, i relaxed like i wanted, jet was my friend for a few days - nice change, and cody had fun. success.