i am a liar.

yes, it's true.

remember how i said i wasn't going to eat desserts or candy during the week...

well, i failed... and i failed fast.

i had cadburry mini eggs at lunch on monday! and i just finished a delicious brownie. so yeah, i am doing awesome (not). so i thought i should confess. sorry, i am not that hard core... but maybe some day (and hopefully next week) i will be able to avoid desserts during the week regularly. we will see...

for easter

along with TONS of candy, my parents gave each of us kiddies this painting:


painted by Ashmae
i also have her love birds painting. i am obsessed!

the salt lake temple has so much meaning to our families. my parents got married there, jeremy's parents got married there, and jeremy & i got married there. what a perfect gift!

week 2

another round of photography homework!
week 1 here

point of view shots:

initial shot

other perspectives

less is more shots (of my office):

initial shot

better initial shot (well, i like it more...)

reduced shots

so what do you think?

it has come to an end

lent is OVER! as of yesterday.
i was tempted to throw in some Jewish traditions and
end it on saturday at sundown... but i held strong.

i can now eat all the desserts and candy i want!
although that is a terrible idea.

my first treat of choice were these cadbury mini eggs:



and later i had some peanut butter pretzel bites i made for the occasion:

both delicious choices!

lent really opened up my eyes to all the junk i eat. i used to eat dessert after every meal. it was not good. i am going to keep up the "no desserts and candy" mentality during the week and allow myself to have dessert on one day of the weekend... life is just better that way.

He lives!

Empty Linen
by Emily Harris

The linen which once held Him is empty.
It lies there,
Fresh and white and clean.
The door stands opened.
The stone is rolled away,
And I can almost hear the angels singing His praises.
Linen cannot hold Him.
Stone cannot hold Him.
The words echo through the empty limestone chamber,
“He is not here.”
The linen which once held Him is now empty.
It lies there,
Fresh and white and clean
And oh, hallelujah, it is empty.


HAPPY EASTER!!

and he's a college grad!

hurray!

after the twins received their diploma covers (the actual diplomas are mailed out later),
we all headed to Malawi's for pizza. DELICIOUS! their dessert pizzas looked amazing!

what a fun day!

jeremy... you graduated from BYU! i'm so proud.

my new favorite flower

the ranunculus
(rah-nun-kew-luhs)


[from here]


[from here]

moving on

jeremy takes his last final this morning. yay! then his summer fun (and mine too) can officially begin. no more homework! no more homework! update: HE'S DONE!!!!!!!

it is also jeremy's last day of work today. he has been working at the mtc since august of 2007. we met shortly after and started dating in october of 2007, so he has worked there as long as i have known him. weird! i am so excited for him to be done. it has been a GREAT job for him. he loves teaching the missionaries spanish and he will probably miss it (at times), but really the teachers have some crappy schedules. he has always worked monday nights, sometimes another night in the week, every saturday, and then at least one weekend night - always! some semesters friday, others saturday, and one semester both. i have been sitting home boyfriend-less, fiance-less, or husband-less at least one night every single weekend for our whole relationship - and it get's old pretty fast. i am soooooooo excited for the weekends now that they can be work and homework FREE! ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

even though i didn't always love jeremy's work schedule at the mtc, i really am grateful jeremy and i were able to work while we went to school. it was the perfect job for jeremy. work was the best place for him to be when he was overwhelmed with school. working with the missionaries helped him refocus on the important things in life.

time flies

as of today, sam has been on his mission for 20 months!
CRAZY! he is loving it and working hard.

we love getting emails and letters from him. he is a spiritual giant these days.

here are some tidbits from his recent letters:

"Whatever we are going through, we are able to overcome it with the help of God. On our own power I don't know if we could. It's pretty amazing how wherever we are at in life, if we sincerely seek God's help He will be there with His hand outstretched."

"We have the gospel and that is truly the best thing we can have in our lives. It is better than all the money in the world."

"People these days want so much physical proof. Something that I have learned is if you want to learn something about man, you go to man. But if you want to learn something about God, the only way to truly learn about Him is to go to Him and learn through the Holy Spirit."

we love our missionary. only 4 more months before i get to see this kid!

week 1

here is my week 1 homework for my
lifestyle photography class i am taking from brooke!
i picked my hot husband jeremy for my character.

here are my 3 character details:

some school books | his golf clubs | movies he likes

here is my character in action:

just putting around

salad lover

not quite... but i ate three bites of salad last night at dinner.

yes!! and i didn't even gag. this is a big step for me. the new found motivation came when i was reading one of sheena's health posts about how to get your kids to eat vegetables (i need all the help i can get before i have kids to feed). she had great suggestions and i especially love one idea i found in the comments. it was about a "no thank you portion" which is when someone (usually a kid) doesn't want to have any of something (always a vegetable) from the table and they have to be polite and take three bites. this way they either realize they like it or they learn to like it.

we all know i need a serious intervention when it comes to my eating habits, so i decided to make this a rule for myself and then forced myself to have some salad at olive garden. it wasn't terrible either.

who knows... i just might learn to like salad (which would be a total miracle).

finals survival kit

for the cute boy:

gum: to keep his brain going
doritos: to munch on while he studies
plenty of snickers: he eats one before every test
powerade: to help him recover
summer golf pass: to celebrate when he finishes

good luck jeremy!
you are going to rock your tests!

hooray!

today was the last day of classes for jeremy!

YAY!

we are celebrating by getting a redbox movie and staying up too late.

this is the life.

earlier today

during my lunch break, i was looking around our apartment and taking note of all the things i needed to do when i got home from work.

first on the list was the mountain of dishes. the MOUNTAIN! dishes were starting to pile up on the counter, rather than being added to the sink because it was so full. how do things like this happen? the sink was empty on sunday. weird.

next, was to slick over the bathroom. i will spare you the details.

and lastly, the heaping garbage needed to be emptied. ASAP!

to my surprise when i got home from work, everything (and more) was done! jeremy did ALL of the dishes, scrubbed the toilet, took out the garbage, and did the laundry. then we went grocery shopping to stock up on delicious food and when we got home he took care of dinner while i went on my run. he's the best! true story.

since school is winding down, jeremy has more time on his helpful hands. i love it. he is so productive with his extra time. it's great. our little apartment is going to be spotless this summer. :)

the dirty dash

i just found this:



who's in?!?

i am talking about a 5K run with an obstacle course in the mud.


it just gets better and better.
i don't know about you... but this is like being a kid again. doesn't it look so FUN?!!

it's at soldier hollow on june 4th - the week before my half marathon... but i think i will tweak the training schedule somehow and make it work. you can get more info here.

do it... you KNOW you want to.

blossoms

i took this on our walk today... i love spring.

who's ready?

who's ready for lent to be over?

ME!

no desserts or candy is tough!

let's dream for a minute of everything delicious...
chocolate marshmallow milkshakes, warm chocolate chip cookies, girl scout cookies, old fashioned doughnuts, ice cream sundaes covered in caramel, cadburry mini-eggs, raspberry cheesecake...

aahhhhhhhh! i better stop.

only 16 days left...

quilted!

here is the zig-zag front:

and the striped back:

i love it! and i can't believe it's already done. i thought this was going to be one of those never ending projects that i would just be overwhelmed by and end up hating, but it's actually finished. YAY! i got the idea and tutorial here. we are excited for warmer weather so we can take it on picnics soon.
special thanks to jeremy for holding it up for me. he's a pal!

Ralph Otis

On the left, is my sweet grandpa. He's 91, blind, diabetic, and makes us laugh constantly. He is an amazing person. On the right, is his wedding ring as well as my grandma's. It's been on his hand since she left us and something I have always wanted to document. They are eternal sweethearts. Anytime I visit my grandpa, I learn something new. He never misses an opportunity to teach us about the gospel. And there are a lot of us - 14 kids, 86 grandchildren, and 165 great grandchildren, with 10 more on the way. I hope he will be around for a while... even though he misses my grandma. We are just not ready to let him go.

over the weekend

we spent time listening to the prophets and hanging out with family.
what a fabulous way to spend a weekend!? we missed you sammy!! SO MUCH!

general conference was just great! it makes me sad that it's over.
my family had tickets for the saturday morning session and the priesthood session.

i look husband-less, but we didn't have enough tickets for all of us, so we left him home. haha. JUST KIDDING. he forgot his church clothes in provo (we stayed in salt lake), so he kept my grandpa company at home and we gave the ticket away. between sessions we went and bought him some clothes, so he could go to priesthood with the boys. jeremy has decided to leave more clothes behind in the future so he can get new stuff. funny funny!

we especially liked this sign-toting girl amidst the protesters. what a fun idea!

hope your weekend was just as happy!