Manti Temple

So my wonderful husband is so very patient with me and my little whims that I get. At the beginning of November we had Stake Conference, and in it they mentioned temple attendance and increasing your personal attendance to the temple. I immediately poked Michael's leg and whispered, "Hey! (poke) We need to go to the temple more! (poke) We are going this week! (poke)" So being the sweetheart he is he didn't even skip a beat before he said "okay, what day do you want to go?" We pulled up our schedule on his iCal and I immediately remembered why spontaneity is no longer a noun used in our lives. We had something every. single. day. But on Saturday, we had been on the fence about attending a wedding clear down in Manti...and that's when I exclaimed "That's it! That's when we are going to the temple! We will go to Ian and Mariah's sealing and stay for a session!" And once again, being the sweetheart he is he didn't say "I have tests and work and blah blah blah." he said "we can make that work."

So Michael was able to get off of work and set aside time so we could go clear down to Manti (an almost 2 hour drive!) and spend our day at the temple there...and boy was it worth it. For anyone who hasn't had the privilege of going to this temple and lives within a decent vicinity, you NEED to go. It was BEAUTIFUL. Michael kept telling me "You're going to love this temple...I can't wait to see YOU see this temple." I wasn't sure what he was talking about until we went inside and it was pink everywhere! Absolutely amazing! And if it wasn't pink, then it was teal! (Only my two favorite colors in the entire world) Plus the artwork was incredible. I couldn't stop gawking almost the entire time we were there.

But more than anything, it was so amazing to be able to attend a sealing with my dear hubby and listen again to the promises and blessings of our own temple marriage. There wasn't enough room in the sealing room for everyone to have a chair, so Michael and I opted to stand. It was so wonderful to be there with my eternal companion's arms wrapped around me and to know that I get to be with him for all eternity. We spent all day in the temple and even had lunch in the cafeteria with all the little old temple worker people.

Side Note: Nobody else in the entire Manti area that attend the temple must drink grape soda. I wanted a grape soda in the cafeteria and it was in this little fridge with two sliding doors that overlapped in the middle. And the grape sodas were SMACK in the middle. No matter which door you opened a door was still covering it!!! It was blasphemous and laughable. However, Michael managed to fenangle things around and pry one of them out for me.

Anyways, it was a wonderful day and such a strengthening experience for our relationship. I have never felt more close to anyone in the whole wide world than I felt with Michael that Saturday.

I love the temple and LOVE being able to go there to feel the Spirit. You can't help but get great clarity and perspective when you are there. I am so grateful to have a worthy Priesthood holder for a husband who takes me to the temple often. The Manti temple will now always hold a special little piece of my heart.

Me and My Michael.

My crazy, big kid of a husband, who saw these stairs and had to run to the top.

The beautiful Manti temple.

Justin + Juli

Michael has a totally awesome old roommate named Justin that he is friends with.

Michael and Justin cuddling on our couch.


...I'm gonna get in trouble for posting this one...

Over the course of our relationship we have had a ton of laughs and memories with Justin and his girlfriend Juli. A few months ago they (finally) decided to get engaged and are set to be married in the Salt Lake City Temple on December 20th. ::Hooray::

There have been some weird uncontrollable circumstances that keep throwing a hitch in them solidifying their plans and consequently they STILL don't have their invitations out. They will be moving the reception to January to give people enough notice, but since they are still in a pinch I told them I'd help them out and design their invitation. This way they can use a quick turn around printer that I have used and get their invitations out asap. Their colors are black, gold and red...so after talking to Juli about what she wanted, this is what I came up with yesterday evening.

Chore Chart

"Come my little friends as we all sing a happy little working song
Merry little voices clear and strong
Come and roll your sleeves up - so to speak - and pitch in
Cleaning crud up in the kitchen as we sing along
Trill a cheery tune in the tub as we scrub a stubborn mildew stain
Pluck a hairball from the shower drain to that gay refrain of a happy working song"

Doesn't that song always make you feel happy and like cleaning is so fun and easy? Too bad in reality there aren't a bunch of critters who will come and clean my house for me while I look cute and dance around.

Recently Michael and I decided to make a chore chart for our home. We have gotten so busy lately and are good about surface cleaning everything, but keep letting the deep cleaning fall to the wayside. So to avoid allowing this as a perpetual habit we listed all the chores we need to do weekly and monthly and split them up as fairly as possible. The end result is supposed to be a sparkling home even down to the baseboards. And I have to say, so far it is working. We had to do the monthly + weekly chores this last weekend and boy howdy was that awful. But it shouldn't be that difficult again considering the fridge hadn't been cleaned out since JUNE! The idea is that by keeping on top of this stuff each month we never have to do a really nasty spring or winter cleaning.

Anyways, since I am a complete aesthetics snob when it comes to my house, I couldn't allow our handwritten piece of notebook paper or even a typed up word document to permanently hang on the side of our fridge. So I made this simple, 1950's inspired chore chart, printed it on card stock and glued magnets to the back. Thought I'd share it.


C'est magnifique, no?

Je Suis Une Chaise

This is a text message conversation I had with an old roommate today.


It made me laugh and happy because of the following reasons:

1) I love picking over the DI and thrift stores and it is scarily amusing that someone who knew me for two months pegged this so easily.

2) If I were a piece of furniture I'd TOTALLY be a recovered vintage chair. Or a sofa...depending on how lazy I'm feeling at the time.

Harvest the Valuable Pieces of Doctrine....

The months following conference are my absolute favorite for visiting teaching because there are so many awesome talks crammed full of amazing stuff that you can pick from to share. I personally fell in love with the "Forget Me Not" talk by Uchtdorf in the Relief Society session, but since EVERYONE probably loved it as much as me I am having to refrain from using it. I still have a few of the talks I want to re-read before I settle on which one I will share with my girls this week.

I did however finish my handout for this month. I saw a handout idea on another site that said to "Harvest the Pieces of Conference" so I just rephrased it a bit and put my own flair on the handout to go with it. So it's a two part handout, it has the cute little saying and then a page of key quotes I liked from this past conference. So here it is for you to use and enjoy! It's intended to be printed as a 5 x 7 and given with a box of Reeses Pieces...get it? Harvest the "Pieces". ::wink::

::Happy Birthday:: Card

I've had this design itch recently that I just can't seem to scratch. Hence my visiting teaching handouts and the one soon to come for November. So when a friend's birthday was coming up I just had to make the card myself :) Here it is for all to bask in it's glory and use if you would like. If you want to print it card style then do the page set up landscape with the image on the far right. Then print, fold, trim.

All Hallows Eve

I have always loved Halloween. As soon as late September hits and I start seeing all the purple, black and orange in the grocery stores I start to do little cartwheels in my mind. My mind rejoices over the familiar smells from cheap synthetic fabric, fog machines and the aroma of all your favorite candies marinating in one bag. Plus Halloween always meant that my birthday was just around the corner.

This year I lacked a yard to put fake spider webs in and we don't really have a front porch for a carved pumpkin, so I was feeling unusually unfestive. So when one of my dear friends Amanda told me she was having a Halloween party I left her a voicemail insisting it be a costume party. And guess what?! She decided to make it a costume party! It probably was of her own reasoning, but I like to think it was the persuasive devices I employed that brought about the final decision.

I was so excited to get all dressed up and Michael and I had the perfect idea. Mario and Luigi! We wanted to do this costume last year but our old singles ward said it was "cross-dressing" and wouldn't allow it at their party! Boo! (no-pun intended) So this year, we were all over it. I went a few weeks before Halloween to the DI to find some overalls for our outfit. After Amy supporting me through nearly an hour of painfully searching the DI for overalls and costumes all I had to show for it was a pair of womens overall shorts. I don't think Michael would have been too happy with this even though he told me to get whatever I wanted and we could dress up however I wanted. So sparing my husband's thighs from that public humiliation, I resorted to picking through the costume section of DI and I actually found a gem. It was a pink, black and white womens pirate costume for only $8! Anyone who knows me knows A) I love to thrift and B) I LOVE a good deal. So of course I was all over that. I also found some weird leather/netted hat thing for Michael and figured we could piece the rest together.

Unfortunately I figured out my costumes so far ahead of time for Michael and I that I forgot about poor Toby. The little guy's costume was thrown together only an hour before the party. I had a bee costume that he had worn when he was smaller. This is a picture from Halloween of 2009 when he was buzz-tacular in his little get-up:


When I put Toby in this costume this year the little stinger was like 2 inches away from his butt...a wee bit too small, but it still fit. So I was like, sure this will work. Easy and done! However when Michael came to see what I was doing his face turned all twisted and weird. And he said "Get him out of that! He looks miserable! Look at him!" Toby, ears back and tail tucked, looked up at us and stood awkwardly as if trying not to touch the costume even though it was on his body. He refused to walk anywhere even when a treat was dangled in front of his nose. Michael was absolutely mortified and said Toby looked "pathetic and ridiculous! He doesn't even resemble a bee! Where are his antennas?!" The scene suddenly evoked childhood memories from the movie "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie is forced to put on that humiliating pink bunny pajama outfit and his Dad is outraged.

I could just hear us as Mr. and Mrs. Parker in my head:

"He looks like a deranged insect!"
"He does not!"
"He does too! He looks like a black and yellow nightmare! Toby are you happy wearing that?"

So we decided to go an alternate route and make Toby a rapper. Our inspiration was Nelly. Michael was much happier with this idea. I don't think it turned out too bad considering how quickly we threw it together. And Toby seemed to feel a lot more confident as a tough rapper dog ::wink::

The party we went to at Amanda and Jared's was a ton of fun. They always know how to put together a good shin-dig. I even made a pretty intense pumpkin roll to bring that was a hit. Jared and Amanda (after years of persuasion and a little bullying) finally dressed up as Pam and Jim. Overall the night couldn't have been more of hit! Here are some pictures to wrap it up and show off all our awesomeness.