Sometimes.... (v1)

here - but it's tumblr. anyone know the real source?

I can't stop thinking about babies [It's what you do when you're a newlywed(ish) in Provo and everywhere you look someone's pregnant.] or Dallas [and everything involved in moving us there].

I just want to eat cheeseburgers or pizza! all day every day. 

I am kinda a bad person and am not the nicest driver. My daily commute makes me a mean [read:semi-vengeful] driver sometimes. 

I wish I could dye my hair darker! love those deep browns. 

I strongly consider spending a lot of money on vacations, clothing, a new sewing machine!, eating out at fun places. Am I a teeny bit worldly wanting this stuff?

I'd be lying if I said no.

I just don't understand the allure of drug seekers. I have to deal with them every once in awhile and it breaks my heart to see how they let something else control their lives. 

I get weirdly excited about how much change is going to happen in the next year or so. The future is so exciting!

I feel overwhelmed with gratitude when I realize how incredibly blessed we are with everything we've got even though we don't make millions of dollars.

I can't believe how close I am to not being in Provo. I've been here for almost 6 years. A lot of growing up happened here. An education happened here. Falling in love happened here. A little piece of my heart will probably stay here.

linking up here.

A swaddle blanket for Jamie

I went to Jamie's baby shower last weekend and this is what I gave her. I got the idea from here. It's meant to be a blanket that you can swaddle your baby in and tie it closed so they don't wiggle it undone..

I just made it with soft flannel that receiving blankets are usually made from. And obviously, it's a cream color. (Excuse the semi-blurry pictures. We are working on fixing that, but no matter if I use my camera or my phone something funny always happens.) 

We hope our new niece decides to make her appearance soon! 

Blanket numero dos.

This past weekend I went to my dear friend Kristen's baby shower - Candace has pictures.

I started this blanket right after Thanksgiving, but because of Christmas, I didn't finish it until after break. 

I used Caron yarn, in cream. Super easy to work with and I'm still in love with this blanket pattern. 

NY/Christmas

I won't bore you with repeated posts on every little detail, so here are some pictures on our fabulous trip.

NY transit museum.

You can walk through all of the different trains they have had since the subway was built. They are restored and have ads from the time period too. Some were hilarious.

Why I gained weight: fresh bagels, baklava, candlelight, Indian food in grand central, lots of pizza, delicious burgers

Christmas!! Lots of presents and fun. Georgie tried to rip every piece of paper he could find.

The High Line. Seriously one of my favorite parts of the trip. It's an old elevated rail line that is now a park. It was beautiful even in the middle of winter. 

All the random ones. A dog that likes to sleep like a human, cutest puppy ever, birthdays, bringing my wedding dress home, etc...

Also one of the best parts of the trip. We took the Staten Island Ferry back and forth. It was so fun. David and Dad are listening to the end of the BYU game on his iphone in the middle of the bay. Love technology.

Not pictured: Family Olympics. Sorry, Mom. All the craziness didn't get captured on camera! :)

Christmas

I've already spoken my piece about the real reason for Christmas.
Now for the presents side.
Did you know I get six Christmases this year?

We did Black Friday this year. (My first time ever!) The day before Thanksgiving I convinced David that we should get an xbox. We went to Walmart on Thanksgiving (LOVED the late night thing. Waking up early doesn't sound fun.) and got in line and waited for forever to check out with our xbox. We had decided this would be our "big" gift for each other. But of course we couldn't wait to open it and we have been playing it ever since. I still have absolutely no buyers remorse over getting it. I mostly got it for the Kinect and I love love LOVE playing it with David/friends. We almost packed it in our suitcase to take home to NY to play over Christmas break too.

There was a fun dessert party (with wayyy too much sugar) with some of my most favorite people ever. (Jessi, darling, you were missed.) We had a secret santa gift exchange and it was so fun to see the gifts given. It is so funny how well we know each other.

stolen off FB - Thanks, Alisa!
Also, my hair is getting so long. Hair cut, anyone?

Monday night we did all our packing and we opened a couple presents (one I wanted him to have to use while I finished working for the next couple days). Then the next day we each opened another one. We also had another Christmas opening presents from his family before we left because we didn't want to take any with us just to turn around and bring them back.  Plus we had Christmas with my family in NY too. It kind of takes the anticipation out of it, but it's not like we are seven years old again and can't sleep on Christmas Eve.  We actually helped with filling some stockings.

After we finished opening presents and sat amidst a floor of wrapping paper with everyone excited about what they received, all I could think about was how we are SO blessed.

We have enough to live comfortably on (and we really don't make much money now but it still works out so well) and we could still give presents to those we love. I love both parts of the process - getting stuff is always fun and giving is even better because it is so fun to buy things for other people, even when you're not sure what to get them.

Hopefully these feelings of gratefulness continue to last well into the new year. We've got lots of exciting things planned for our life and even when things go wrong (which they inevitably will because of how much I keep trying to plan for them) I just need to remember how great we really have it.

Even when I get presents that look like this:

Because inside is what counts and it is stuff that looks like this:

Merry late Christmas.

As you can tell, I've been enjoying my break and not blogging. Sorry. :)

Goals!

I like to think I'm a fairly rational, reasonable person.  But really, I'm not.
I fit into the "hopeless romantic who loves to dream, can be very dramatic
and gets emotional for unknown reasons" category.

So when I say 2012 is going to be my year for BIG things, it means I probably won't get around to most of them. But I can't help but be unreasonable and uber ambitious around New Years so here are some of my goals (both practical and ridiculous) for next year.  (And yes, I am lumping similar ones together....)

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• Make bedtime an earlier thing. And don't be such a grump when I wake up. Be more patient. With patients, with coworkers, with David, with MYSELF.

• Get rid of leftovers in the fridge BEFORE they mold. (Gross? yes. TMI? Maybe. But hey, this is my list. Get your own.) Don't wait until the last minute to do laundry. Tidy up a clean house instead of having to clean a dirty house.

• Run a marathon (Ambitious, I know. I've even picked one out - never mind that it is at a crazy time for us.)

• Don't let my commute ruin my day. (did you know there are VERY few things that directly correlate to your happiness? Driving is one of them. And I'm guilty of letting it get to me a lot.)

• Do better at my church callings:
• Visiting teaching. I struggle with it sometimes.
• Actually learn to play the organ better (and try REALLY hard not to laugh every time I mess up).
• Be a better nursery leader. Make it a place where playing is intertwined with learning. Come up with activities that fuel their creativity and development. But also realize that every week doesn't have to be (and probably won't be) perfect. Just love them.

via pinterest --- no original source. any one know?

• Acknowledge God's hand in my life more. Be grateful more. Complain less. Realize and remember that the Atonement is for me and covers everything in my life. Learn more about it continually.

• Make something every month. Create goodness.

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• Read a good book every month.

• Talk to my family more. Phone, email, skype. There is so much technology that I need to take advantage of and use for better reasons than sitting on twitter/facebook all day.

I think that's enough unreasonable optimism for now. Anything else you'd recommend?

linking up here!

Tidbits

I've slowly been going through some old stuff and trying to throw away as much as I could and I came across my old planner from 2010.  I LOVE having a planner. I write anything and everything in it.

Here are some tidbits from what happened in 2010:

"david jeffrey bean. i hope you know how much you mean to me" jan 19
ORDER WEDDING DRESS feb 8
Bowling (repeated lots of times throughout) jan 28
best night ever. jan 29
Engagements 4 pm @nuskin building - march 12 (Laura, we did ours on Friday too!)
graduation. commencement/convocation. april 22/23
Christian and Jamie ♥ march 6
I ♥♥♥♥ NY. june 11
be done with independent study classes for graduation requirements july 21
BE AWESOME july 23    (seriously. this was written in my planner)
change name: byu/banks/license/car title july 28
jackson hole! august 20
Something I had written on a paper insert in one of the pages:
"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet 
simple things of which are the real ones after all."
 Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Finally Friday!

1. I had to work today. (Fridays are my normal days off.) It feels so weird. But I'm working what normal people work, so this shouldn't feel as strange, right? wrong.

2. I've started (mostly in my head) going through all of our stuff in preparation for moving in 6 months. (Overachiever much? Not really. I just know I'm going to be procrastinating for a looong time. Headstart vs procrastination = maybe I come out even) I'm kinda sentimental about some things. It's been really fun to read some of the old papers I've kept. (more on that later)


3. We will be in NY in one week! I am getting more and more excited about going home. (read about some of our plans here and here).

4. We have lots of plans for the weekend. BYU vs Baylor basketball (so excited!), Jazz scrimmage, dinner with lots of family, church (and we are in nursery this week!) then a Christmas party. I have lots to get done tonight - lots of goodies to make, presents to finish, things to wrap.

5. I convinced David to let me buy and Xbox/Kinect. It's our big Christmas present for each other (which we have been using since Black Friday). It's pretty awesome. My favorite game is Dance Central. Here is one of my favorite pictures this week. (He will hate me for putting this up, but it just makes me laugh so much)

Happy Friday!

Pass it on. Pay it forward.

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Today I paid for the car behind me in the drive-through.

As I sat in line waiting to pay, I looked back and saw a dad with his 2 kids in the car. There was nothing unusual about him.
When I paid for them, the lady had to ask again what I wanted to do. She looked confused.
I paid, got my diet coke and drove off. I realllllllly wanted to look back and see his reaction. What would it be? Would he be surprised? Confused? Grateful? Would he think I'm a weirdo? Most likely the last one (which is why I didn't look).

But mostly I liked how I felt. The money didn't matter. His reaction shouldn't be important. I just liked feeling that maybe I had made someone's day better. That maybe he would pass that on down the drive-through line and that people paying for each other would just happen indefinitely. Like go on for infinity.

Okay, maybe not that long.
But that's how good I felt.

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hyhena (TM)

One of our friends always says common sayings/words wrong. We think they are pretty hilarious.

Yesterday was Andrew's birthday.

So here is the present we decided to give him.

The hyena I had to sketch freehand from a picture on the internet.

Trying to figure out the layout.

My pre-freezer paper template.

He thought Hyena had an 'h' - and that it was silent. haha

We are glad he can laugh about it too.

Freezer paper.

You cut out your image so it creates a stencil.

Freezer paper ironed onto the shirt.

Paint over your stencil. (I didn't have textile medium (long story) so I just diluted some acrylic paint so the consistency was kind of like milk.)

You are supposed to pull the freezer paper off while it is still wet - can anyone tell me why?

 Then you let it dry. (Or just use a hairdryer to speed things up...)

Sit back and admire the shirt that you just made. 

I kind of really love "hyhena" (TM).

It might possibly be the name of my future brand of something.

(I was inspired by this post. And now I really want to make that shirt too.)


Linking up here!