My treasure box.

Today I was started organizing my bedroom. It's been long overdue; half of our things have been sitting in Provo (in our house that is still for sale), and the other half has been here. What a mess. Well finally, we are making progress and our house in Provo is ALMOST completely empty. Anyway, I was going through some things when I came upon my little box of sentimentals. These are the things that I took from my parent's house after my Mom died. Things that mean a lot to me. Things I remember that meant a lot to her.


The first thing I pulled out is a somewhat funny keepsake. Most of you would look at it and call it junk. I, however, call it a treasure. It's a scarf... of sorts. I remember my Mom wearing it around her neck when we would go places when I was younger, around 6 or 7. I have a particular memory of her wearing it on a trip to Oregon with a yellow sweater. I loved it. I remember sneaking into her room and taking this scarf out of her 2nd dresser drawer and trying it on. What can I say, I am a product of the 80's.

Next, I opened a jewelry box and found a flag pendant. If any of you even somewhat knew my mom, you would know that she was extremely patriotic. One year, she decorated our whole Christmas tree in USA flags and red/white/blue. She was very political and smart, and stood up for what she believed was right. I am so thankful to her for lighting that spark within me. I often wonder what she would think of how this election is turning out. She just knew Mitt Romney was going to be President. :) (Don't I wish.) Anyway, I remember her wearing this pendant quite a bit to church and things.

I loved how my Mom had earring for every season. These particular earrings are Poinsettia's (her favorite) for the Christmas Season. I remember her wearing these earrings a lot. With her beehive hairdo perfected, these earrings looked fantastic on her.

Probably the dearest possession I own from my Mom, is this ring. When I was about 12, my Dad remembered that it was my Mom's birthday like, tomorrow. He asked me if I would go with him to find something, and I jumped at the chance for a little daddy-daughter time-- hoping that he would buy me a treat or something. We found ourselves at Sam's Club of all places, looking at jewelry. Right away we noticed this gold ruby ring. (Gold was in then). My Mom loved rubies, and I thought the heart in the middle was romantic. I thought the ring suited my Mom perfectly, and my Dad agreed. We were right. My mom LOVED it (she was so surprised my Dad did so good!) and actually replaced her wedding ring with it. (Her wedding ring had lost a couple of small diamonds). I remember when the cancer made her start to lose a lot of weight, the ring didn't fit her very well, but she still tried to wear it. After she died, my Dad said to me in tears that he wanted me to have that ring. It means the world to me, and I wear it on my own hand a lot.

My next treasure is this ruby necklace/earring set. Randy and I bought this for my Mom for Christmas 3 years ago. It went perfectly with her ring, and she wore it a lot. It's bittersweet to have the set back in my posession now.





I like going through my sentimental box every now and again. I love having little pieces of my Mom with me. They help me remember the good times.

When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure.

Macey's prayer.

The other night Macey was saying the nightly family prayer and it went a little something like this:

"Love em mommy, love em daddy, love em baby sister SO MUCH."

Randy and I had a hard time stifling our laughter... but now she has me wondering... does she know something I don't know?!

P.S. Randy tells me no, that didn't mean anything- because it's definitely a boy. =P

Alright already!

I keep getting bugged to show pictures of our house. I was all excited to get moved in and decorate all cute and be creative with it...... And then I got pregnant. I took pics of what we have now, though. Even some Halloween stuff! I didn't put it all up because I knew that would entail me having to take it all back down.

Anyway, my brother and his family came to stay with us this last weekend, which meant I had motivation to have a clean house (being a clean freak just goes right out the window when I'm pregnant). I thought now is the perfect time to take some pics of the house, cause it won't be this clean again for 6 months! :P

(Sorry, this isn't exactly the order I would have shown these pictures, but that's how they uploaded and I'm not going to even go there.)

craft room that doubles as guest room.

Macey's bathroom

Macey's playroom. I MADE those curtains. And I am so proud of the sign (that I bought). It says "I believe in Make Believe"

Downstairs rec room. Randy's game haven.

other side of the rec room. Macey's reading area.

Downstairs bathroom

Tada!! A clean kitchen!

Living room. I MADE those pillows. :) Look at me and my domesticated-ness.
(Macey tried to run her fastest to get in this picture, she was mad I wasn't letting her in the others.)

It's Halloweeeen Time!

Oops. We have a light bulb out.

Macey's room. I LOVE this soft blue.

The rooms that yet have to make their debut: Master bedroom (might be a while, we don't even have our bed on our box springs yet, we are just sleeping on a mattress on the floor), master bathroom, baby's room (will be a while, don't even know what we're having yet), Randy office (which, I'm not going to lie, I will probably NEVER take a picture... all the cords in there make my skin crawl), storage room (need to get my food storage up to snuff so I can impress all), and the front room... which I'm still trying to figure out what will go in there.

A great weekend!

This past weekend was my sister getaway. I have been looking forward to it since forever, and was so excited to get out of the house by myself! This year we ended up taking it to Boise, so we could race in the Women Celebration 5k. There are 15,000 runners that come to participate. I have never seen anything like it! Remember, this is the race that we were making our own little "race for the cure" of sorts... and we sported our shirts proudly. Being pregnant, I just knew that I'd have to "take one for the team" and sit it out... since jogging a 5k or even walking that far was pretty much out of the question for my sickly state. Then we found out that this race offers a "special achievers course", which basically was a shortcut that cut the 3.1 miles in half. Uhhh PERFECT! I was a little nervous (since I was signed up in the competitive running wave that was timed) that I would be tackled by officials en route via the shortcut being accused of cheating, but that never happened. They could just tell I was a special achiever. A special achiever that would pop you one with my umbrella if you got in my way. Oh, that's right... I forgot to mention that it rained buckets on us the ENTIRE MORNING! It was awesome. I loved walking in the rain, jumping in puddles, and enjoying the scenery while my mind was on my sisters who were running their butts off to the finish line, gasping for breath, and no doubt pinching their side aches away. Suckas!

I made it to the finish line just as my oldest sister Natalie was making her way to the finish. That's right, she ran 3.1 miles in the time that I walked 1.5 miles. (Although, I will proudly say that I DID jog a third of that first mile). It was awesome, it was then when I saw her pushing herself to her limit that I remembered what this race was about. We were running with angels, we were running FOR them. My dearly missed sister and mother. We felt their presence very strongly. They are proud of us. And I am proud of us! My sisters trained so hard, and each got their best running time yet! Not to brag or anything, but I too, was the first special achiever to cross that finish line. I know, I know. Amazing.

I think it's safe to say that I have the most awesomest sisters ever. They are my besties. I think we laughed and joked the whole weekend through. We had a great time together and I was sad to say goodbye! Our race for next year is already in the works. I think this is going to be a tradition. It's probably a good thing that it won't be until next year, because I'm going to need that long for my legs to recover! :)

Happy Sunday.

I know mine was. Especially when I tip-toed to the kitchen while my little family napped.... and dipped apples in caramel and crushed up candy bars. All. by. myself.

Halloween is coming!!

And since Halloween is my birthday, I'm allowed to get excited for it early. I have had so much fun checking out what the stores have for their decorations this year! Randy and I decided a couple of years ago that Halloween would be "our" holiday. The one we go all out for. So I have TONS of Halloween decor that is just sitting in the garage waiting to be put up. But, before I get to that... I have to... ya know, do the dishes that have been in the sink for days, clean up dinner from LAST NIGHT (yeah... gross, I know), about 80 loads of laundry, spot clean, and vaccuum. Oh well, at least I have that one motivating factor going for me... DECORATING FOR HALLOWEEN!! Woohoo! I decided this year Macey is going to be Minnie Mouse, cause she just loves all things Disney! I bought her some bright red shoes from Gymboree (which I have been eyeing for several months now... just waiting for an excuse to buy them), some black leggings and a black turtleneck, then I'm going to make her a red tutu and put white felt polka dots on it. And for the finishing touch- my awesome friend Erica is going to let me borrow her daughter's Minnie Mouse ears! I'm so excited!

And to top off my overly exciting post... I was in Target yesterday reading all of the Halloween cards (I love reading cards) and found the best one EVER!!


Question: What do you get when you "goose" a ghost?










Answer: A handful of sheet.




BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my, I had tears on that one.

"Supaman!"

She even got daring and laid down obstacles to jump over. I'm still scratching my head on where she learned "supaman!" from. Probably Randy. =P