My Love Affair with Music!

Along with my sweet Hubby, baby girl, families, and the Gospel, I am also in love with music!

Not just any music though, the kind that talks to you. The kind that can bring tears to your eyes. The beautiful kind! For example, Dave Matthews Band does this to me. As well as Sara Bareilles, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Mo Tab, and many others...

Here are some reasons to love music:

-it is compassionate... There is a type of music for every single emotion you could be feeling...

-it cheers you up! Happy music on a not so happy day automatically turns it into a happy day!

-it time travels! ...music can instantly take you back to a past time...

-it speaks your mind! ...lots of times if you have something to tell someone, but can't find the words, there is usually a song that would do the job for you!

-it puts babies to sleep! ...seriously?! can something that does this job be anymore heaven sent?

-it brings the spirit! ...very often, when there are songs sung in church, or even just listening to spiritual music, I find tears in my eyes!

-It helps me to see the world as Heavenly Father does! ...When I don't feel so cute, or feel begrudgingly about any of the things in my life, or in the world, music usually puts a different more eternal perspective on things...

-it motivates and inspires! ...don't feel like working out today? pop in some headphones with a great tune and you're out on your feet in no time! :)

mmmm... I am so grateful for music!

D.I. :)

Oh my, I so love the D.I. & Savers! One of my favorite things is treasure hunting, and finding things that some people might think of as ugly, or even hideous, and them doing my own thing to them and making them beautiful! So very fun! I just got a few new things to do just that to, so pictures will come soon! :)

And the Hobby Lobby in Orem opened!! Wow, that place is amazing! Nick has been talking about building a dollhouse for Mags someday, and I have looked online for kits and such... But they have a bunch of kits and everything to go with them at the Hobby Lobby!! I am so excited! I don't know when we will do that, probably next year sometime because Maggie is not old enough to really enjoy it yet. But it is really exciting to see them actually there! YAY!

Summer 2010 Part 2

It seems like we kinda crammed lots of summer fun into these last couple of months! But boy oh boy have we been LOVING the fall weather so far! :) Fall is by far my favorite time of year. It just seems like there is a different bite to the air that I just can't get enough of! This last week has definitely not been the most productive, and I have certainly wished that Nick could be home with us more, but it has been the COZIEST week ever! Ahhh! On Monday I woke up and made the Hendershot homemade Clam Chowder (which doesn't even taste clammy, just lots of red potatoe deliciousness) so my house smelled SO GREAT all day, especially after I burned my oatmeal cookie candle.. mmm... and I was just so LAZY all day!! and to top it off, Mag was so snuggly! It was almost perfect! The only thing that could have made it better is if Nick could have been home... :(

Anyway, there is my shpeel about coziness... I love it!

This weekend we went to St George like we do every year (except last year because Mag was only 2 weeks old) to see Nick's dad, Lon, run the marathon down there. This year Andy decided to run it with him, which was cool, and Nick's cousin, Emily has also been running it the last three years! It was really fun, and very motivating to see them accomplish such a huge thing! This is Lon's 20th marathon, and 18th St George marathon! There is no way I could run 26.2 miles, let alone in the blistering October St George heat!! Wow, awesome for them for running it! It kinda sucked just waiting for 3 hours in the heat for them to cross the finish line! But then we went shopping and swimming and it was really fun!

*Sidenote- I scored big time with shopping! I got 1 Jacket, 2 hoodies, 5 shirts, a pair of boots, 2 outfits for Maggie, 1 pair of jeans for Nick, and 5 shirts for Nick, all for a little over $100!!! Sweet!!! I am a savvy shopper that's for sure! :)*

A couple weeks ago we were able to go to Strawberry Reservoir to go camping with the Cookie Fam! It was so fun and relaxing! I just let Maggie play in the dirt! She was COVERED from head to toe! It was hilarious to see her so much in her element! We got some of it on video! We spent a lot of good time with my Gramma Ardie and cousins and family! This is when Mag really started to blossom with her walking skills! It was also fun to finally put up our new tent! Nick got it from Walmart randomly one day for $15!! We thought that it would be pretty small for the price, but when I put it up, it is pretty huge! It is a 6 man tent, but holy cow! That was probably the best $15 we've put towards something ever! :)

So here are some pics from August/September! I apologize for the lengthiness!

 

At the new North Park in Spanish Fork. They have this splash pad thing, and I didn't intend to have Mag play in it, but since she showed interest, I decided to just let her play in there in her clothes. We went with my friend, Kate and her daughter who is a little older than Mag, and she played in it too! It was really fun!

After playing in the water.. this is the "stinkbug crawl"! I guess she does this when she doesn't want her knees to get hurt! She doesn't do it too much anymore, now that she is finally getting the hang of walking, but it is great memories!

At my Gramma Ardie's house.. It is so beautiful there, it feels like a vacation just going there.  The view out of her huge back window and off of the deck is breathtaking! That must have been what Maggie was looking at, but her house is right on top of a hill that overlooks the golf course and frames the mountains beautifully.  I so love it! I am going to make it a point to go see her more often! I love my Gramma!

So beautiful!

We went up to Santaquin canyon to have a picknic dinner with the Hendy's and it was delightful! I love the mountains more than I can ever say! I feel so blessed and comforted to know that anywhere in Utah that I am, there is always a mountain getaway in as little as five minutes away! Wow, who wouldn't love that? To me even just looking at the mountains gives me a little recharge in my battery. But especially that crisp, fresh mountain air.. Ahhh.. It's great! I hope I always live in a place with easy access to the mountains! And mountains in the fall steps them up another level!! Holy cow! All the beautiful colors! Heavenly Father is very artistic and creative! I love his masterpieces!

When she is in her stroller, more often than not you will find her feet resting like this on the cupholder! It is so dang cute! She's full of personality that's for sure!

At the Cookie's family reunion! She LOVES Crampa Cookie! He likes to "hypnotize" her by talking nonsense monotone sounds in her ear like so! She loves it!

On Mag's birthday we decided to have a little picnic lunch and discover somewhere new in Hobble Creek canyon. We found this picnic area called Jolley's Ranch, where they have a big open well-kept area with trees and picnic tables! Maggie loves the mountains just as much as Nick and I do! She was having the time of her life! That was the first time she had room to run around and play in the great outdoors.  Other times she has still liked it, but the peacefulness just put her right to sleep!

Big news!! My nephew Christian James was born!! August 13th! Yay! We so love him! He is one snuggly baby! I love him! With the nephews that I have, I have found that I love them so dearly, very closely to how I feel about my own child. It is really fun to have a new baby in the family. Funny thing- Christy and I decided that our babies sometimes get confused and think that we are each other!  I don't know if that makes sense but Christy always had a special way with Maggie, and could calm her down almost just like I could, and it seems to be the same way with Christian, and I remember Jaxon being the same way too! Isn't that crazy!?! They can sense the similarities in us! :)

Mag was exhausted after her birthday fun!

Maggie and her "boyfriend" aka. Uncle Andy. At her Birthday Bash!

The happy birthday partiers! Maggies first birthday party! We had so much fun! It was decorated with pink, purple, green, and yellow! So girly and pretty! We had her party at the Hendy's and had hamburgers and hotdogs and cake! We had lots of friends and family come to celebrate with us! Nick's aunt Cindy and cousin Brittney even came and visited from Vegas! It was really fun!

Mag and Uncle Jeff

My cute sisters, Erin and Karly! Love them to pieces!

We had a seperate little cake for Maggie to terrorize, but when the time came she got TERRIFIED!! She wouldn't even touch it! We tried to coax her and give her a taste, but she was too scared! Nick even put his face in the cake! Then I was silly, and stuck her feet in the cake, and that was THE END!!! She threw a ROYAL TANTRUM!! She was not even consoled with a bath! It was hillarious, and we got it on tape! I have yet to get more pictures from family members but we had a very memorable time!

Moral of the story, my daughter HATES to be dirty! She can't stand slimy feeling goop on her hands, feet, or anything! I even try to feed her dices peaches and bananas and she won't even touch them, she just hates to be slimy! Ha ha, hilarious! Something cute we learned about Mag on her first bithday party! :)

Then she had a great time opening her presents, and of course got royally spoiled! :) I love spoiling her!

Once again in the mountains!! She loves her Daddy! She says Dada now! :) and many other words and babbles I have yet to decipher!

Beautiful!

Loves the swings! :) She always laughs and smiles when she's in them!

Honestly, this time in our lives is so much fun! Maggie brings so much joy into my life I don't know what I would do without Nick and her!! I am also grateful that our family will be together eternally! Wow, what an awesome thing! We are lucky, and I hope that we strive to live worthy of the blessings that we have!

Summer 2010 Part 1

Since I am so very far behind I have decided to update in a few parts! :) Let me just say that we have had a fabulous summer!  I am so sad that Nick is back to school, but it is ok because he will be done someday and it will be good!

First of all, we moved to SPRINGVILLE! :) We so love it here! It feels great to be closer to our families! I love that I don't have to pack a duffel bag to go places now! I feel like I have grown a lot closer to both of my sweet families and Maggie too! She loves to be around friends and have people to play with! I have not yet taken pictures of our place, but I will and will post them soon! 

Second of all, I have put myself of kindof a "spriritual rehab" thing, not like I was ever apostate or anything, I just felt like I wasn't necessarily working on my testimony, so it really needed some fuel. Anyway, I went to Education Week and I so loved it! I found some new speakers that I had not heard before and totally sucked it all in! This year was a lot harder for me to go because I had to sacrifice a lot of time with my Hubby, and my MagPie, but I think it helped me to get more out of it. After learning what I did there, I decided to start the Book of Mormon and read it from start to finish all by myself (because sadly, I have never done that before!! I know, how embarrassing!) Let me just say that I have been missing out!  I have felt so much more of the Spirit in my life and have felt so many blessings from reading that!  I am still working on it, but as of yet I am further along than I ever have been on my own! Yay!

Here are some pics from June/July...

Yay!! Cousin Jax graduated from preschool! He is now in kindergarten! Big boy! They are so in love!

This was such a fun day! I was sick, but this is the same doctors office that I went to when I was a kid, and Mag got to go play in the same playroom! It's funny how the silliest things can bring me so much joy!

The big girl carseat!! She loves it! Especially now that she is 1 and can have it facing forward! I get so scared that I am going to wreck all the time though, because I keep on looking back to check her out all the time! :)

Once upon a time, Niki didn't realize that she was almost out of diapers for her baby girl. Shortly afterwhich, the baby girl pooped... Niki then had to scrounge up some newborn sized diapers and tape them together so that she could take Maggie to the store to buy diapers!

The End!

Ha ha ha... Fun memories!

The Maggster HATES to be dirty... HATES, HATES, HATES it!! More stories about this to come in Summer 2010 part 2!

At the festivities in Spanish Fork on the 24th of July.

I love those little feet in those little shoes! So dang cute! She always puts her feet up in the stroller!

On my birthday we went to Park City with my Mom's side of the family. It was so much fun! Nick went golfing with James and accidentally took the car keys and my swimming suit and pretty much everything was in the car! Everyone there with me decided to go swimming at the Hotel, so me and Mag decided to just kill time! We got kinda bored, so we ended up just finding clothes to swim in and jumped on in! We had a lot of fun in Park City!

This is how we found Maggie in the morning in Park City! What you may not be able to see is that her entire right arm and entire left leg are both completely out of her pajamas! Don't ask me how she managed to do that! And then her face was so burrowed into the corner the only possible way she could breathe is because the side of the bed is mesh so it has holes in it! Ha ha ha, she always cracks me up!

My cute Hubby... We kinda like each other!

My lil' sista Erin was riding in the back of the car with Maggie and all of a sudden she started saying "OW" so, curious me stuck my camera back there to see what was going on, and this is what I saw! Ha ha ha, with a grand total of 8 teeth, Mag's bites feel pretty brutal!

Summer 2010 part 2 - coming soon!

Crazzy!!

It has been a while since I have posted, and I really haven't taken many pictures! :( I guess a lot has been going on! But it has all been really fun and happy stuff!

Maggie is now 8 months old!! She started crawling, sitting up by herself, and bathing in the big girl tub! She has been SO DANG FUN lately! I think this is my favorite stage yet!

Mag LOVES the big girl bathtub!

Maggie crawling on the floor at the Joseph Smith building at cousin Katie's wedding... She had so much fun with her Second cousin, Peyton! :)

Nick and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary by staying in the Anniversary Inn (like we do every year) and we stayed in the Litehouse room. It was so fun! We went to the Roof restaurant, which was AMAZING and just had a really great getaway!

(ok, I couldn't figure out how to rotate this...) Waiting for the Roof to open. :)

They had this cute little note on our table when we got there!

So we are planning on moving further south, somewhere between Orem and Springville, within the next couple of months to be closer to family and friends! YAY!  So if anyone comes across a place in that region for a decent price, let me know, we are still looking...

Anyway, I will be better about taking pictures! And posting more often! :)

Two Years!

Sunday marked two years that my cute hubby and I have been married!! I can't believe how fast it has gone by! It makes me realize how lucky I am to have the guy that I do. I can't imagine life without him now! He is the best hubby in the world and I am so glad we met!

I have to say although we have lots of hardships, just like everyone else does, our marriage definitely has not been a part of those trials. I am so grateful for the way that we love and care for each other and that we are pretty good communicators!

Enough of the mushy gushy stuff, but I just had to say how much I am grateful for my marriage! 

I love my Nick so so so much!!! :)

The End!

7 months of the Magster!!

Yep, you guessed it, Mag is SEVEN months old now! Oh how the time flies!! We really have had so much fun with her! Especially the last couple months! She is hilarious these days. She is such a mover and she "sings" constantly! It is such a joy to watch her discover new things and develop her personality more and more each day! And boy, does she have a lot of it!

Here are some pics from the last little while...

She fell asleep holding her toes.. She loves playing with her toes!! It is so funny!

My friend, Wendy who now lives in Cor de Lane, Idaho came to visit last month. It was so fun to see her and her new baby, who is only 8 weeks older than Maggie. They loved each other! Towards the end they were trying to eat each other! I guess that is how babies show people they like them! It was way cute though! And so great to see them!

This is Mag's first Easter basket! She loved it! The Easter bunny brought her a new dress, Alice in Wonderland, a toy bug, and a toy remote (since she always tries to get ours!).

Easter was way fun with Maggie, we got to see our families and watch conference! It was fabulous!

Just so pretty! I think she is finally learning to smile for the camera! :) That makes me happy!

"Maggie Okur" Ha ha, we LOVE the Jazz, so it was only necessary that we got her to support them somehow also. :) Too bad the night she wore this they got slaughtered by the Suns... :(

So here are some fun things she is doing lately...

Scoots and rolls all over the place

Sings (but right now it sounds a lot more like screaming!)

Almost crawling!

Holds her own bottle (when she isn't too lazy!)

Sits up by herself (again, when she isn't too lazy!)

Loves being around family (Thank GOODNESS!!)

Started rice cereal and applesauce!

Started using a sippy cup for water

Fits 6-9 month clothes and even some 12 month stuff!

She really is so fun right now, I so love being her best bud! There's nothing better that I would ever want to do! :)

I am still on alli and I absolutely love it! I am starting to see results and I have already lost 10 pounds and I have only been doing it for a month! It is the perfect plan for me! I love how they have planned meals and shopping lists.. That is the biggest thing for me right now, because I really don't know how to eat healthy meals, but it is teaching me so that I can have good habits forever! I am starting to feel better too! It feels great to actually have energy sometimes! :) I still have my days, but it is getting better! Yay!