My testimony of faith and religion.

I've been feeling the last couple of months the urge to, in some form, share my knowledge and testimony of my religious beliefs. It's been on my mind, but I also thought that I didn't want to appear boastful or pushy or offensive or, or, or... so here I am, finally writing in what I consider to be a safe place. This is not an exhaustive "list" of my beliefs, simply a summary of the most important highlights of it.

First and foremost, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died for our sins and that He lives today. I believe that we can have a personal relationship with Him. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the single most important event in the history of the world. It gives us a chance to repent of our sins, to draw closer to Him, to make amends, to start anew. I believe in personal prayer to our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ. I have felt so close to Christ in doing so throughout my life. Whether it be to thank Him for my blessings, to plead for forgiveness, to ask for guidance, I have always felt Him there.

I believe that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate personages. I know this because I believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, the man who restored the true and living gospel to the world. When they appeared to him to tell him that no church on earth was completely correct, they were two separate people. They are one in spirit, one in mind and purpose, but two separate beings. I believe that Joseph Smith was a man of God, and that he was inspired to bring the priesthood back to the world, after it was lost in the dark ages. I believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with the help of God. I believe that though he was a man, who made mistakes, as did Brigham Young and other prophets after, they were and are lead by God to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men". I have a strong appreciation for the early days of the reformation on the church; for the pioneers who walked across the country to find religious freedoms, for the leaders of the church who were tarred and feathered and killed, for the building of temples and forsaking all material possessions to build up the kingdom of God on earth. Many lost children, husbands, wives and friends along the way, but saw a greater purpose. I believe that the Lord speaks to all people on Earth today through a living prophet and 12 apostles. I believe that the priesthood that was once on Earth in Christ's ministry is once again here. I have witnessed its power countless times.

I believe in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I find peace and freedom in following its guidelines. I have been on both sides of this, seeing what it is like to not follow God's commandments and also following them. I can say with absolute confidence that I have always felt more peace and true happiness when I stand with God entirely. I believe in the law of tithing. I believe in the word of wisdom. I believe in the law of chastity. I believe in seeking after things that are "virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy." I believe in the different organizations that the church has. I am uplifted on a daily basis by the Relief Society. I have never seen a better display of true charity and love than I have through the Relief Society.

I believe in the Bible, Old and New Testament. I just started an Old Testament course (independent study) and I already have rediscovered the importance of the teachings of Abraham and Moses and other prophets of old. I also believe that the teachings of our living prophet and apostles today are scripture, and worth studying on a regular basis.

I believe in the power of faith. Through faith in things that are "hoped for, which are not seen, which are true", I have witnessed miracles. I know that God tests us, sometimes beyond our current limits, to stretch us, to make us better, to bring us closer to Him.

I believe in the importance of families. The family is the center of our society, and also the center of God's plan. He wants us to be happy, and we can be by embracing our families. I have felt more love in my heart in being a mother and a wife the last 4 and 1/2 years than I have the other 20 years of my life.

I believe in God's sacred temples. In these temples, sacred covenants are made, we are sealed to our families for time and all eternity, and we are promised great blessings in the next life if we endure to the end. The key word for our temples is "sacred", not "secret". I find that is important to clarify. I have had many friends ask me questions about the temple, about the happenings in there, about the holy garment, etc. I believe that the Lord wishes all of us to be happy, wants all of us to be able to make covenants, and that it is not a secret club of any sort, but so sacred that only those who prepare themselves can fully understand the blessings. But I know He is no respector of persons, and that we all have the chance to draw closer to Him in this way.


I was born and raised a Mormon, and as a young child, I went because I was told to, as we often do as children. Now, as an adult, with a long road of struggles and self discovery, I know with my whole heart that the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth today, in its entirety, and that it is what brings me the most happiness and joy in my life.


I hope this answers questions some may have, that it doesn't offend, and that you can appreciate the things I have shared.

Josie at almost 15 weeks

I was looking through my phone pictures of Josie and wanted to share them with you all. They span mostly through the month of October.



Chubby little Jos!



Ever since Josie was just days old, she has loved looking at the pictures of my grandparents' bamboo on our wall. She is totally obsessed with it! This is her sitting on our couch looking up at them.



There's her smile!



This is us waiting at the bus stop. Two or three times a week, Josie and I take the bus to USU to go visit Jake. I put her in my baby wrap, walk to the bus stop, take the bus to the transit center, then take another bus to campus. She always loves the bus. She has never ever cried. I dare say it's her favorite thing to do. I enjoy the bus too; somebody interesting always ends up talking to us.



Her "I just pooped my pants" face.



A few weeks ago, Josie started going crazy kicking her legs like crazy. This day in particular she kept lifting one leg up and holding it there, like a dog!



"Ooo oo ooo! Pick me, I know the answer!"



We've wanted a baby swing for her since she was born, and finally decided it was worth the investment. As you can see, she loves it!



Okay, this is one of my favorite pictures. This is Josie with her cousin, Jack (age 4). We spent the weekend with my family, and Jack and Josie totally bonded. Jack is adorable with little babies. He kept coming up to me and asking to hold her, asking how she was doing, and in this picture, he was talking to her in the car. She absolutely adores him. That weekend, Jack got Josie to start laughing hysterically, the first and ONLY time this has happened! Jake and I have tried replicating what Jack did to make her crack up, but it doesn't work. Too cute.



Josie has gotten pretty good at her hand motor skills. I was feeding her a bottle, and looked down to see she was holding it herself. So I let go and she fed herself for a good 2 or 3 minutes without letting go!



I know it seems like all of her pictures are taken in this blue chair... she doesn't spend all of her time in that chair, she just takes the best pictures in it! This is her toy, Mr. Froggy. It's her favorite toy. If I give it to her I can usually get the dishes done or the laundry put away and she'll keep herself happy.

Just some pictures.

Baby love.

Little Josie Lynn

Josie is 8 weeks old today, and I realized I haven't written a single blog post about her! I'm feeling overwhelmed with all that I should say about our sweet little daughter, so I'll just try and sum it up as best I can.

Josie was born on July 30th at 11:14. She weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces and was 20 inches long. I was 5 days overdue, and miserable until I went into labor! I have never been more impatient for something, not even to get married. The hardest part was not knowing when she was going to make her grand entrance, and just waiting around. I was going to be induced on August 1st if she didn't come out on her own, and I really wanted a July baby.

The morning of July 30th, Jake and I went in to the doctor to see how she was doing. They hooked me up to a big machine that measured my contractions and her heartbeat. That was at about 11 or noon. A few hours later I started having contractions, but they weren't very painful so I didn't think too much of it. They were close together, but I would be so embarrassed if I went in and they sent me home. Jake left to go pick up some dinner, and while he was gone I kept having them closer and closer together. He got home and we ate dinner, and then I said maybe we should go to the hospital. We took our bags and her car seat and left! When we checked in to the hospital, they saw that I was 5 centimeters dilated, and they were surprised because they said I was so calm and smiley when I checked in at the front desk that there was no way I could be in labor! I dilated pretty quickly from there, but it still took a few hours until it was time to push. I packed a bunch of my favorite movies, and decided on "That Thing You Do!" because I could pretty much watch that movie every day and never get sick of it. It's my comfort movie. Jake was great, he just sat next to me and smiled and asked how I was every 5 seconds. I started pushing at around 10:00, and almost an hour and a half later, there she was!


Me just waiting for her to decide to be born.


Just moments after being born. She looks so terrified!


From the moment she was born she alert and awake. She didn't cry, just looked around in bewilderment at everything. She stayed awake for quite a while before finally going to sleep. I didn't love staying in the hospital. In fact I sort of hated it after she was born. A nurse or social worker or doctor or specialist of some sort was coming into our room at least once an hour, all hours of the day. I hardly got any sleep. Neither did Jake; he had to sleep on a small little couch, curled up in a ball both nights we were there! I'm glad he stayed though; I really needed him when I was going on hours and hours with no sleep. I was so happy to finally come home and start my own schedule. My mom stayed with us until Saturday morning. I LOVED having her here. A woman with 7 children is definitely and expert on how to soothe a crying newborn.

Since she's been born, she has grown so much! I'm not sure how much she weighs now, but I'm guessing almost 11 pounds. She is growing out of her little newborn clothes. It makes me a little sad. She's started cooing and smiling at us, acknowledging how much we love her. It's the best feeling in the world! She likes to stick her tongue out, and tries to stick her whole fist in her mouth, or her wrist, whatever is more convenient. Her favorite time of the day is bath time. If I wait too long in the day to give her a bath, she gets grumpy. But as soon as she gets in the water, she's all smile and giggles! Her favorite album to listen to is "Adore" by Smashing Pumpkins; it will soothe her cries almost every time. She also enjoys the beats of Bob Marley and the melodies of Harry Nilsson's "The Point!". She sleeps really well when we swaddle her, but lately has become quite the Houdini and in the middle of the night will have gotten at least one arm out of the swaddle! She absolutely loves loves loves her daddy. I knew this would be the case. He is so sweet with her. Sometimes he will just watch her first thing in the morning before she and I are awake, or he'll take pictures of her instead of doing his homework while I teach violin lessons. I couldn't ask for a better dad for our little girl.



She is growing up so much, and we love to see how she looks like me one minute and then Jake the next. I can't imagine my life without her!


This is Josie and I today.

Baby Nursery

My project for the last couple of weeks has been getting the baby's room ready. Aside from the rocking chair we'll be getting soon, her room is finished! I feel a huge sense of accomplishment. I never thought I could make anything crafty from scratch and be pleased with it. I actually ventured into the world of Pinterest and took some ideas and made them my own. A lot of these are purely original though, and that makes me even happier with how the room looks!

I decided to go with yellow and lavender for the baby's room. I have nothing against pink, but lavender is so much more calming and beautiful to me. I also wanted to run full force with a bird/birdhouse theme, but let that one kind of be just partially a theme. Here are some pictures!




I took an old picture frame and tore it apart, then painted some wooden birds and hung them with ribbon.



I guess it's no secret what our baby girl's name is going to be... we were going to wait until she was born to decide for sure but we already call her by name. I got a cheap canvas, covered it in yellow fabric, drew a letter J and then covered it in purple buttons. I got a few painful burns on my fingers before I learned to put glue on the little buttons by holding them with tweezers.



When I bought the canvas for the "J" monogram project, it came with an extra one for free. So I decided to use more of those purple buttons and make this. The quote around the heart is from a children's book, "Love You Forever" that my parents used to read to me. I love that quote, and wanted to incorporate it in her room somehow.



This is how they look from across the room.




I wish I had a more straight on view of these little pom poms, but I made these out of tuelle (I have no idea how to spell that!). I folded a bunch of them accordion style and tied them together to make them puff out. They look a lot better in person! I wanted to hang something light above her bed, not a picture because if there was an earthquake it would fall on her. These add a lot of light to the room.



The cute little gnome picture is something I bought at a farmer's market a couple of weeks ago for Jake. He thought it would be perfect for the baby's room, and I agreed! The birdhouse is one I painted, and the "Cute as a button" frame was an idea from Pinterest. I guess I like buttons!



These are her cute crib sheets! I spent waaaaay too long on Amazon trying to find the perfect one.



This is an old Eeyore clock my parents bought me at Disneyland when I was a kid. The birdhouse is from our wedding, painted by my Aunt Rulaine. There are a few diapers in the cabinet. All of her clothes, diapers, bath needs, etc are in the hall closet.



I found this at Summerfest last weekend. I love pigs, had to get it!



Bookshelf with lots of fun books to read! A shelf dedicated to pigs (I didn't know where else to put them...) and more stuffed animals.



Jake's Aunt Regina made this for me, I absolutely love it! It has a little light that shines really bright. The angel was a Christmas gift from a student.






We are SO excited for our little girl to get here. Now I just have to find something else to do with my time for the next 4 1/2 weeks!

Embroidery project

The other night I couldn't sleep and I asked Jake to sing me a song. Sometimes that just does the trick. When we were dating/engaged, he wrote a lot of songs for me. Isn't that sweet? Anyway, he was busy registering for classes so he put on a playlist of all the songs he wrote for me. There is a line from one of his songs that I absolutely love. As I was falling asleep, I realized that I wanted that line up in our room somehow. So the next day I decided to embroider it!

I finished it last night; it only took me a couple of days. I love sewing projects, they are so relaxing but help me feel productive at the same time. I traced the letters on, wanting a pretty big picture. But I didn't realize how big it was... when we went to find a frame for it a couple of days ago there were no frames that fit! It needed to be at least 22 inches wide. So last night I went to the DI and found a cute vintage $5 frame, it fit perfectly.

I hope to put it above our bed in the new place!

Last weekend :)

This past weekend was one of the best Jake and I have had in a while.

On Friday night Jake and I went to the Ellen Eccles Theater to Celtic Night; my all-time favorite fiddler, Alasadair Fraser, came to Logan! He is touring with Natalie Haas, a great cellist.

This man is incredibly talented. He runs a fiddle camp every summer in California called Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School. My mom, sister and I attended the summers of 2001 and 2002. I didn't realize that it has been 10 years since then! It was one of the best experiences of my life. Fiddling is my first love, over classical music. Anyway, I worked with him a lot, along with some other fiddlers from Norway, Ireland, Canada and other places I can't remember now. It felt like a little piece of home to go see Alasdair. We bought tickets for front row, center! One of the things I love about Jake is that he is so supportive of things that I love. He has no experience with Celtic music, but he loved seeing me so happy. So he was happy.

On Saturday I had a recital for my violin students. It was nearly ruined. Allow me to explain. On Friday afternoon I went in to make sure everything was set up and was told that the front door would be left unlocked for me to get in the next day. Saturday, Jake and I show up about 35 minutes before the recital to find the front door AND back door locked. We tried calling the guy in charge of the building. We called and called and called. I texted. Meanwhile, about 5 minutes before the recital is supposed to start, all of my students and their parents (about 50 people) are standing outside wondering what the heck we're going to do. I was mortified. I looked completely unprofessional and was trying to stay calm, but it was coming down to the wire! Jake decided to try texting him, and the guy casually texted back (after a half hour of calls AND a text) and said the front door was open. Obviously NOT! Jake finally called him and he picked up, and during the call Jake found a random set of stairs in the back alley with an unlocked door. So we all walked in right at 6:00, when the recital was supposed to start. I had wanted everything set up perfect. I am still pretty upset about the situation, and the way the guy didn't seem to care. But what matters is that we got in!

My students did great. I was so proud of all of them! Not all my students were able to attend, but most did. Jake took pictures of each student, but I can't put them up. Just know that my students looked and sounded great. I was a very proud teacher!

After the recital Jake and I went over to the movie theater and bought some tickets to see "The Hunger Games" later that night. While we waited for the showtime we dropped by Jake's brother and his wife's house, Dan and Liz. They are basically our best friends, we love them. We can just hang out and talk about nothing any time. Finally it was time to see "The Hunger Games". We loved it! The only complaint I have is that the camera work was way too dizzy. It made me sick to watch.

On Sunday, Jake and I went to church. I love going to church every week, it always starts my week off right. Afterward, Jake and I drove around Logan to find places for rent. I think it's still a little too early to look. WE'll try looking some more next month, closer to school getting out. We found ourselves driving through Logan Canyon, past first and second dam. I was amazed at how beautiful Logan is. I've lived here for 6 years but sometimes I forget how amazing the canyon looks. We got out and walked around for a while. It was nice to enjoy some nice spring weather.


So that was our weekend! I'm getting spring fever already. Next week is my work's spring break, and I'm taking a week off of teaching. After that summer can't be too far away I'm hoping!

A little book obsessed?

These are all the books I have bought so far in anticipation of our little one. I've been saying that I find it more important for our baby to have lots and lots of books than tons of cute clothes. I think it's because I just loved being read to by my parents when I was young. It was my favorite thing.

I am proud to say that I didn't spend a fortune on all of these books, though! I only bought 3 of them at full price: "Tikki Tikki Tembo", "Piggies" and "Love You Forever". One of Jake's Christmas presents was these books, because I told him I would love for him to read to our baby when she gets here. These were 3 of my favorites. "Love You Forever" just makes me cry now!

The rest of the books cost me 99 cents, except for "Chrysanthemum" which was $1.99 and "The Monster at the End of this Book", which was $2.99. There are a couple of places in Logan that sell used books. All of the books I've bought were ones that I loved when I was little. I'm hoping to find some new books but I know these are good so I went with these.

There are about 100 Dr. Seuss books that I want to get, but they are so expensive; about $9 everywhere I look! Amazon sells them for a penny but then they get you in shipping. Some of the ones I MUST have: Fox in Sox, There's a Wocket in my Pocket, The Thinks You Can Think, The Lorax, Green Eggs and Ham, I Wish That I Had Duck Feet, Wacky Wednesday, Daisy Head Mayzie, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Hop on Pop... I could go on forever.


What are some of your favorite children's books?

Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

This past Wednesday Jake and I went in for our 20 week ultrasound, pretty confident that we would see a little boy. I had taken a bunch of online tests, read symptoms of carrying a boy or a girl, did the Chinese calendar that everyone swears by... we had even imagined our little boy with the name Atticus. Little Atty would present himself to us in the ultrasound, and we could start buying some blue things for him.

To our surprise, the ultrasound tech said that we are having a GIRL! We were both shocked, but so excited. I guess we learned our lesson not to be super sure next time.

Right now she is cute as a button, though I may have joked during the ultrasound that she looks kind of like Voldemort because her nose is still pretty small. And let's face it; Voldemort looks a little like a baby fetus in the first few movies. The ultrasound tech wasn't too happy that I said that, but Jake and I had a good laugh. I guess it's just our twisted sense of humor. The way I see it is that she is still growing, and when she finally arrives she will look just right!

Jake was concerned that if we were having a girl that she wouldn't be able to enjoy playing catch or watching baseball. But I assured him that I loved playing catch with my dad and enjoyed baseball from a young age, and I'm sure she'll have it somewhere in here genes. :) He is going to be the most amazing father to a little girl, I simply can't wait to see them become instant friends.

I had a followup appointment this past Friday with the Dr., and he said that everything looks great! I am due a few days later than we had originally thought, however. Instead of July 19th our new due date is July 25th. I don't want to wait even a few more days, but I'm trying to look on the bright side and be grateful for the fact that she is growing at a healthy rate.

I bought her a cute little white bathrobe with a pink bunny on it the other day, I just love baby bathrobes for some reason! They are so cute. I'm trying not to let myself get anything else until after I have a baby shower, but that won't be for a while more.


Anyway, some people had been asking me for some ultrasound pictures. Not to make anyone else feel bad, but I'm just not a fan of putting those on the internet, I feel like they are kind of personal! So I decided to compromise and just put up two pictures of her face. No need to show the proof that she is a girl or anything, haha.
If anyone has any insight on if she looks like Jake or me, I'd love to hear it. We've decided she definitely has my giant forehead, and will probably be cursed with the insanely large Abbott head. I think so far she has Jake's nose, and he thinks she has my nose. But who knows!

We are thrilled to be having a girl, even though we were expecting a boy. Someday we'll have our little Atticus. And at that point, he will have an amazing older sister! We think we have a name picked out but will keep it under wraps in such a public setting... don't want anybody stealing it!


Here are the pictures:

Being Pregnant, Part 1

I've been meaning to blog for quite a while about some fun (and not so fun) details of being pregnant! Jake and I are expecting a baby on July 19th, 2012. So without further ado, here are some things that I can recall of the last 14 weeks.

FINDING OUT
We found out in early November that I was pregnant. I had just gotten home from picking Jake up from work. I had been taking some early result pregnancy tests a few days before, but all came out negative. I was sure I wasn't pregnant. But then I decided to try one again, since it wasn't so early anymore. It was the night that Jake had to register for Spring semester classes (at midnight; it's very stressful and kind of a race to get the classes you want online right at midnight before anyone else). So at around 11:45 pm, I took a test, saw double lines and FREAKED OUT! I couldn't believe it, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I started shaking uncontrollably, calling to Jake to come in. He came in and was in total shock too, but we couldn't really talk about it too much until he finished registering for his classes. So I took 2 or 3 more, all with the same result. At around 12:30, we finally celebrated and scratched our heads at the same time, completely in awe. Jake insisted that we go to Rancheritos to celebrate (a hole in the wall diarrhea-inducing Mexican restaurant). We did that, and talked forever about it. It was wonderful, even though I'm an 8-hours-of-sleep fanatic and had to wake early the next morning for work.

THE EARLY WEEKS
I started feeling nauseous not too long after I found out. Nothing too serious though, just weird spurts of being super hungry and wanting everything, to not wanting to be near food at all. I'm actually having a hard time remembering exactly what made me feel sick, but I was feeling crappy enough to know I was definitely pregnant. As if that wasn't enough, I took a few more tests over the next few days after finding out, just to be safe. Jake still makes fun of me for that. We told my parents and Jake's parents pretty early on that we were expecting, which was so much fun. My sister Mallory found out early too; just sisterly intuition I guess... and she came over and saw some stuff we had brought home from the doctor.

END OF FIRST TRI/BEGINNING OF SECOND
Well, I've done tons of reading on what should be going on week to week in my pregnancy. Kind of pointless. EVERYTHING I've read and heard has told me that I should feel this magical change in the second trimester, that life should suddenly sprout flowers spontaneously and that I would feel better. So wrong! I started throwing up at about week 11, and it has only gotten worse. I have thrown up almost every day this week, and I'm 14 weeks. If there is one thing that I've learned, it's that every pregnancy with every woman is different. I had to learn a while ago to stop comparing mine to others, because it's unique! But I am so grateful everyday that I can feel some sort of sickness, because I'm one of the biggest worriers out there, and if there's no evidence of a baby I start to freak out a little. As far as cravings go, I've never really experienced that too much. My thought is that I've always had cravings my whole life, and it's no different now. I mostly have food aversions, especially to foods I used to love, like hamburgers, milk and potato salad. I'm starting to show a little, which is so fun! Sometimes at first glance in the mirror I think to myself, "Wow, I need to lose some weight!", and then I realize that there's a baby in my tummy and that it's okay.

NAMES WE LOVE
Well, Jake and I have always imagined ourselves having a boy first. I'm a big believer and supporter of older brothers, as I have 3 of them. I would love for the kids following this one to have that strong model in their lives. But I'm starting to realize that there are some pretty great older sisters out there too! I'm starting to feel like it's a girl, but Jake's dead set that it's a boy. At any rate, we've found some names that we love. Boys names that we love are Samuel, Miles, Jude and Atticus. Atticus will probably end up being a middle name, but it's fun to keep it on the list. We really love Adelaide, Iris and Evelyn for girls. I also love Adele, and we both like Eowyn a lot, but I'm starting to second guess on that one. It's the prettiest name, but would be confusing for people to spell or pronounce, plus it would make us TOTAL "Lord of the Rings" geeks. Which we're not. We just happen to love LOTR a normal amount. I'm taking a big chance putting these names on here... I feel like somebody having a baby before me could steal a name, but meh. It's cool.



I feel like I'm forgetting so many things! Jake has been so sweet and happy about the whole thing. He is incredibly patient with me, as I don't ever feel like cooking and the house isn't always spotless. I just love him. I hope that the baby looks like him, and that he/she definitely has his eyes. I've been lucky to have a brand new niece and nephew born recently, so I get to hold them and play mom sometimes. Our baby will be in the same grade as Emily and Gabriel! I'm thrilled. We're so excited for this next stage in our lives.


I know people love pictures in blogs, so I'll post a couple of my aforementioned niece and nephew, because I love them so much and babies are constantly on my mind now. :)



Emily Jane Abbott

Jack being cute with Emily.

Will, her other big brother. Such a sweet boy.

GABRIEL ANTHONY ABBOTT

Meh.

Today's blog is for venting. Don't feel like you have to express sympathies, I'm just at my wit's end. I've been sick for a couple of days now with the flu, or something like it. I had to cancel yesterday's students and have someone go into work for me today at the high school. And I'm just SICK of being sick! Jake was up all Sunday night with the flu, throwing up and having hot and cold flashes. Poor guy. I refrained from kissing him until I thought he wasn't contagious anymore, but I didn't wait long enough it seems. For some reason I am unable to throw up. I haven't thrown up in over 10 years. I really can't remember the last time I did. So I think that's why I'm not getting any better. I'm only getting really anxious because I have a 3 hour rehearsal tonight. It's the one and only rehearsal for 3 concerts to follow this weekend. If I'm not better by tonight I'll sound awful in rehearsal. I'm just stressed out. Another contributing factor to my queasiness: The other day I bought one of those glade plugin scents. I've never been a fan of artificial Christmas smells that these companies produce every year, like fresh baked cookies, or apple cinnamon, or pine. Usually it smells like food, and if I smell food, I want food. And it's a vicious cycle; you can't eat a glade plugin. But I tried really hard to find a scent that would work. I found one that smelled like candy canes, and I thought that would work just fine. I brought it home, plugged it in, and the next morning woke up and came in the living room to the most rancid smell imaginable! It did NOT smell like candy cane, more like pure sugar topped with more sugar. And then melted into liquid form. It was SO gross. Naturally, I took the plugin and threw it away. BAD IDEA. The way these things make your home smell so "good" is through a straw that sucks up the liquid and becomes saturated in the scent. Well, after a few hours the whole garbage and kitchen started smelling like this awful smell, because it leaked out. And now I'm pretty sure that the smell is here to stay, it must have somehow bled through the garbage bag into the can itself. I need to give it a good rinse out, because I have to hold my breath to walk into the kitchen. Which isn't good because since I've been sick I've been neglecting the dishes. And now I have another reason to stay out of the kitchen. Even as I type this I can smell it. I even bought a new scent to replace the nasty scent but can only smell the old one. Moral of the story? Don't kiss your sick husband, and maybe just stick to candles. Or buy a plug in from Bath and Body Works or something.

August-October for the Garretts

I'll start off by saying that I am on blogger ALL the time reading everyone's posts, but as you may have noticed, I haven't blogged for over two months! So maybe it's time to contribute. It's overwhelming to think of and execute a topic to blog about. Maybe that's why I kind of avoid it. Plus I'm terrible at taking pictures, and blog posts without pictures are boring. So I figured I could do a stereotypical, married couple update on the last little while. AUGUST Jake and I hadn't taken any type of vacation this past summer at all, so we decided to go out to California to see my family since my mom was directing "Oliver!" for the Oakdale Community Theater. They did a fabulous job! I'm so proud fo the hard work my mom puts into theater. It seems she's always involved now with one play or another. Our anniversary is August 14th and Jake had a mandatory work meeting that day (STILL upset about it), so we decided to celebrate in San Francisco while we were in Cali.

(Jake's doing "smell no evil")

We also wanted to stay at my Granny and Grandad's farm out in there beautiful grove of trees and tent trailer. It was FREEZING and we were totally unprepared, but that place is home and even when it's freezing, it's my favorite place to be.

Willis, Jake's traveling gnome, in front of the tent trailer.

Willis with Granny and Grandad's dog Minnie.

Willis in front of the barn and a very unflattering me first thing in the morning. I forgot to mention that before we left for California I was applying for a lot of jobs and finally got a call for an interview! She wanted to interview me the day we were leaving for California (and we were planning on leaving very early in the morning). I asked her if I could interview a day earlier and she didn't sound too sure. I felt really strongly that we should postpone the trip a little for this interview, and I'm glad I did because I interviewed well and got the job! I've been working at Mountain Crest High School as a Life Skills Aide since then and I LOVE it. The kids I work with are nothing short of spectacular, entertaining and sweet. My coworkers are super fun and I actually look forward to it everyday. I wish I could post pics of all the kids! SEPTEMBER Jake interviewed for a tablet specialist position at Best Buy and got it! He's already been working there as a computer salesman since May 2010 but his new position is a lot more fun. Best Buy corporate wide hired 2 specialists from each store and so they decided to send everyone to training sessions. Jake and his coworker Josh got sent to Phoenix, Arizona the first week of September (and, unfortunately, the second week of USU's fall semester). I thought Jake had taken some pictures here but I guess not. Oh yeah... it's because I broke the camera on accident while we were in California. Oops. BUT we bought a new one just in time for my trip to Boston with my mom and sisters! Oh man, this trip deserves it's own blog post. Split up. Like into 3 parts. I don't want to do that, so I will just have to try and serve the trip justice here. My mom graduated from Northeastern University in Boston (through an online program, she still lives in California) with her masters degree! I'm trying to remember in what exactly... leadership maybe? I'm not sure. But she worked her butt off for it, and decided that since she'd promised my 3 sisters and I a trip to Boston our whole lives that this was the perfect opportunity to bring us all out there, to see her walk and to enjoy some Boston culture.I've got over 100 pics of Boston so I'll choose some highlights:

I really wanted to go on the Freedom Trail tour, which was overall a cool experience but turned out to be 3 hours long... we saw Paul Revere's grave and learned some cool facts about him, which was the best part. Anyway, this is our tour guide with a squirrel. I just like the picture.

We went to a restaurant called "Cheers!" which was modeled exactly after the bar/restaurant from the show. We met up with my mom's college buddies (haha, weird to say that) that she did online projects with over the past 2 years. It was weird to keep up conversation with total strangers for so long, but got fun after the lady with the short blonde hair drank a bit too much white wine and became more friendly. Funny group!

The three of us are big fans of the tv show "Friends", so as soon as I saw this sign I immediately thought of Joey's pickup line "How YOU doin'?". So every time we got on the subway and saw this sign we'd all say "Bow YOU doin'?!"

Okay, so it's kind of mean to make fun of total strangers' facial expressions but after this guy pulled this face so many times, Maddie and I could NOT handle it anymore, it was too funny! He was leading my mom's graduation ceremony (this is him on the big screen) and always looked SO funny! I'm glad we could capture this moment forever. Bahaha!

This is my beautiful mom all graduated!

FENWAY PARK. A total dream. One tiny step down from the amount of magic I feel at Disneyland (and that's a LOT). It was crazy because as soon as our flights were booked to go to Boston I looked for game tickets while we were there and couldn't find any that we could afford, even on stubhub.com. People told us that if we just went to the park and stood in line we might get tickets. We stood in line, hoping that would happen. I started crying, it was so emotional being outside the park finally and not being sure if we could go in. When we got to the ticket counter (after a long long line) the lady selling tickets said we got 5 of the last 10 tickets they were selling that night! We had to go to the standing area, but it was so worth it. We could see everything from up there. A total dream. Singing "Sweet Caroline" with our fellow Red Sox fans was incomparable to anything I've ever experienced.

LOVE this picture! I've got to frame it. Though it seems like they all have halos over their heads except for me... hmmm.

On our last day in Boston we took a trip to Amherst, where our hero and favorite poet Emily Dickinson was born and raised. They had a great tour of her home, and her brother Austin's home next door. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but sometimes that's better. Having a camera can be distracting from your overall experience and memory of the event. It was so awe-inspiring to be where she once was. Her grave site is just down the road a little way. Amherst is a great place. I've been home from Boston for a month and a half now and still miss it everyday. I wouldn't mind if Jake got a job there someday. OCTOBER This month has, for some reason, felt very long. But in a good way! We had lots of things going on, many of which I don't have pictures for and have already forgotten about, I'm sure. The first weekend in October my sister Carolyn and I went down to Spanish Fork to see my brother, his wife and 2 kids. They recently moved there from Orem and I hadn't seen their house yet. I really love it; it feels like it suits them very well. I love my two nephews, Will and Jack more than most anything in this world, so it was fun to see them. The next weekend my brother Oliver and his wife Kim came to Logan to visit. I love when they come see us! They always plan it out about a month in advance so that Jake has enough time to get work off. It's a long drive and it's great that they like us enough to come for a whole day. Jake, Oliver, Kim and I went to the temple in the morning together, which was really special.

This is what the Logan LDS temple looks like. Isn't it beautiful? After that we got together with Carolyn and went to visit Mallory at work (Little Caesar's) for some lunch. After Mal was off work she and her super cool boyfriend Wren joined us to carve pumpkins!

Everyone else's pumpkins turned out really well; I don't have a lot of patience for anything crafty and so I usually speed through and it turns out awful. Maybe next year I'll try again. :) On Thursday night one of my very BFFs Suebin had a cello recital. I know how stressful and overwhelming recital day can be, especially without a lot of family around it's almost unbearable I'm sure. Suebin is from Korea so her family was unable to come. I wanted to be with her as much as I could that day so she would have calm nerves! So we went to Serendipity hair salon and she got her hair and makeup done. She was so beautiful! I listened to her practice for a while , and then went to her recital. Even though I knew she was prepared I was so nervous for her because I always remember how I feel in recitals. She was flawless! I'm so happy for Suebin, she is extremely talented.

Right after the recital Jake drove me to Kaysville so that I could stay with his brother John and sister Rachel while his parents were at the Las Vegas Ragnar over the weekend. It was fun to stay in a big house, cook meals and kind of play "mom" for a couple of days. John was gone working or with friends most of the time but Rachel and I had a ton of fun! She helped me bake cookies, run errands, do the dishes, plan a baby shower, did my nails, watched movies with me, we stayed up talking a few times... I just love that girl more now than I ever did. She'll be 12 in July, such a fun age. On Saturday I threw my sister-in-law Maryanne a baby shower for her first girl! She's having her the end of November and I can hardly wait to have a niece! The planning was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and people showed up so I think it went pretty well! Mary was so sweet to let me throw it for her!

Mary with a cake made out of rolled up (unused! haha) diapers!

Mary's friend (and I love her too!) Amy with my nephew Jack. He obviously wasn't in the mood for a picture, but they're always so cute together I had to try. She's basically an aunt to him :)

Oliver and Kim playing with one of Mary's presents, a bag full of finger puppets! Oliver and Kim are having a boy in January, which I am also excited about and planning a shower for her in December :) This past Friday night was our church's Halloween party, called a trunk-or-treat. It's where everyone brings their cars and parks them in the parking lot and hands out candy to the kids in our church ward. So much fun! We don't have kids but up until last week we taught sunday school to the cute little toddlers, so we just had to go and see what they dressed up as. As some of you may know, Jake is obsessed with garden gnomes. He has a collection of about 20, his office, he snagged a bunch of Gnomeo and Juliet stuff from Best Buy after they were done advertising for it, he made an antenna ball gnome for the car... it's a lot. So obviously (not so obviously, actually, it was my cousin Hilary's idea) we had to be gnomes!

This is the side view of my costume. The women gnomes are usually plump, so I just had to do it! It's nice that I don't feel the need anymore to wear figure flattering costumes, since I'm married. I wouldn't consider it letting myself go, but Jake got a good laugh out of it so I think I won in the end.

Jake just looks super creepy and angry in this picture, it's kind of funny. We put baby powder in his beard so it would be white.

I guess that pretty much brings us to now! Jake and I have been enjoying this season for many reasons, one of them being all the scary movies that are on TV. We record a lot of them from AMC, which edits out the scariest and goriest parts for tv which I like. I have a weak stomach when it comes to super scary stuff. This year we've watched almost all of the Halloween (Michael Meyers) movies. It has just the right amount (at least on tv) of jumpy parts so that it's scary but I can still sleep at night. Although, as I'm typing this in my living room I can hear what I've been hearing since the beginning of October: the neighbors have the Halloween theme music playing from nightfall til about 11 pm every single night. Very unsettling. I just have to hold off until tomorrow night and hopefully then they'll replace all the creepy decorations and music with Santa and Christmas music! Thanks for reading!