So Thankful

With Thanksgiving coming up, I just felt like it was appropriate to think about the things that I'm thankful for. There are so very many. Here are just a few.

• Family - I couldn't live without Michael and Jessica. They are my strength and they make me understand what true love really is.
• The gospel - I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am so grateful for the peace and knowledge it gives me.
• An education - Finishing my college degree was a little bit of a challenge at the end, but I'm so glad that I did; it was well worth it.
• Being an American - I know that I take for granted the fact that I live in this country. We are so blessed to have all of the wonderful benefits that come along with that.
• Nashunda - She's a good little car. She has a lot of miles on her, but she's treated us well and (hopefully) will for a few more years.
• Mascara - It's the wonder makeup product. You can put it on and feel semi-ok about leaving the house. :)
• Flip flops - It always makes me smile to put them on, especially during winter time.
• Cameras/pictures - I love looking back on all the great memories I have.
• The Internet - I couldn't live without it. Need I say more?
• Contacts - I feel so trapped when I have to wear my glasses (weird, I know), so I'm so glad I have my contacts instead.
• Law school is almost half-way over - I don't think I need to expound. I am soo happy about this one.
• Hot pink nail polish on my toes - It is just fun.
• All of the things listed in "My Favorite Things" in the sidebar of this blog.
• Parks - Who knew they could be so much fun?
• Snow - I didn't realize how much I missed it until we decided to spend Christmas up where there will be some.
• Stars - I've always loved staring up at them. Soooo pretty!

Well, there are lots more. But this is good for here. I am such a blessed, lucky person.

New tooth!

Jessica (finally) has a new tooth. She got four all at once last summer and then nothing. It's the bottom right one. She hasn't really been anymore cranky than usual, which is nice. She's a good girl.

As far as other news goes, there's not a lot. Michael is busy prepping for finals. But he's liked his classes a lot this semester, so I'm feeling good about it. I'm just busy with the day to day. We're excited to have some time off next week to relax with family.

Bragging about Jessica

I can't help but brag a little bit about everything Jessica has been doing lately. She just amazes me so much. I'm a mom, I have a right to brag, right? :) First off, she's kind of using sentences now. Not even kidding. Every night after her bath she waves as the water goes down the drain and says, "Bye bye water." And then tonight at dinner she said, "Mo peas (more please)." And she's always saying words that I have no idea how she picked up.

She's also big into coloring. So we're working on colors. She knows "purple" really well (her Grandma Hales must be so proud) and she gets "yellow" right most of the time. She's also become really interested in letters. Every now and then I used to point to letters and tell her what they were. So she started going up to words and saying random letters. It usually would go something like, "A O O Y A O." So I made her some simple letter flash cards and she is just amazing me. She knows A, O, and H (kind of). She gets them wrong a lot too, but she gets them right often enough that it's not random.

She's also physically "smart" too. We have to fold our chairs whenever we're not using them because she's learned to climb on them. If we turn around she'll be up on the kitchen table grabbing whatever happens to be left there. Or she'll start playing with the laptop. The other day she managed to break off one of the letters on the keyboard. Crazy girl. She also likes to climb up on the back of our couch and look up at the pictures on the wall. She gets so excited when she sees people she recognizes.

Anyways, she's lots of fun and Michael and I both feel so blessed to have her in our life. I wouldn't trade this for anything.

Just a few pictures

Here are some cute pictures from Halloween that I just got. They're way cute.

I actually didn't take this one, even though it looks like it. I was just trying to get Jessica to look at the camera.

Jessica cracks me up in this one. She sure is happy about something. :)


Hmmm... maybe we need to cut down on the Sesame Street.


When Jessica finishes her breakfast she goes over to Michael and likes to share whatever he has left. And of course she wants to hold the spoon.

Someday...

It's pretty hard during this time in my life not to do a little bit of thinking about the "somedays." The things that, in the future, I hope to have or be. So here's a few of them.

Someday...

- A house
- A yard
- A neighborhood without shopping carts in people's yards
- A headboard and footboard for our bed
- More than one bedroom
- Non-folding chairs around our dining room table
- A haircut and color from a real salon (i.e. not Great Clips). :)
- Or even a haircut from Great Clips would be ok, at least in the short-term "someday"
- A real pearl bracelet
- Nice pans, where the non-stick surface isn't starting to scrape off
- More kids running around
- Learn to play the guitar
- Have a washboard stomach
- A car that I never worry about (NaShunda, our '94 Camry, is great. But she's getting to be an old lady).
- Gas less than $2 a gallon (a girl can dream, can't she?)
- Gas less than $3 a gallon
- A new surfboard for Michael
- A gym membership, and time to use it
- No more student loans

Wow. That list really isn't too long. I guess I really am super happy with my life right now (but I already knew that). :) I'm excited for all the fun changes the future will bring, but I'm also having a whole lot of fun in the present.

Vampires and turkeys

I've known for a while that I talk in my sleep. It doesn't happen very often, especially not anymore, but apparently it does still happen. But I'll get to why that's pertinent in a second.

A few days ago I finished a book called "Twilight." When I first heard about the premise I was beyond skeptical. Girl meets vampire. Vampire wants to suck girl's blood. Girl and vampire fall in love. And even after finishing the book and explaining it to Michael I have to admit it is very cheesy and dumb sounding. But it is so not. I love this book! The name of the girl is "Bella" and vampire boy is "Edward." Which brings me back to the whole "talking in my sleep" thing.

When I woke up this morning Michael looks over at me with such a cute, almost laughing, smile. "Why were you making snow with Edward?" I guess sometime in the night I started talking about how I had made snow with Edward (the vampire) and I was very upset because the judges only gave us 6/10 on our snow. Wow. I don't even remember having a dream last night, much less such an exciting vampire snow-making dream. Michael is so good to put up with my craziness.

In other news, I finished decorating for Thanksgiving yesterday. My decorations for all holiday, are limited, but this was especially so. So I did a little bit of improvising. I found Thanksgiving coloring pages online and colored them. Then I "laminated" them with packaging tape. White-trash? Yes. But it turned out ok.

But I did have a few non-homemade things. So I put those around our place too.

And of course no post would be complete without a few pictures of Jessica. These are of some super funny faces she makes now. We haven't been able to get them on camera until these. But they're still not exact.