love you so much xoxoxo

T H A N K S

I have awesome family and friends.
Yep, being sick this week was NO BUENO.
But thanks for the meds, and the tweets, and the phone calls, and the chauffeuring, and the Diet Cokes, and the time off, and the texts, and the treats, and the movies, and the LOVE.

You guys are the best.
and, boy am I OH so glad to be feeling better.
xoxoxo

ummm....what?

If I were to say I had 19 pillows on my bed you'd be like...whoa...that is a lot. Or if I asked you if you wanted 19 cupcakes. Or if I told you, you had to stay awake for 19 days straight...you'd probably tell me that 19 was too many. Why? Because 19 is a big number. But seriously. 19 children? In one family? I'm sorry, am I the only one that thinks these people are borderline crazy? I mean they have enough children to form opposing basketball teams...although the girls might have a hard time playing in their dresses. Slow down Duggar family...slow on down.

Monday Muck and Mama's Big Day

I LOVE to curl up and watch a movie. It's one of my favorite things to do. It is not so fun, however, when it's all I feel like doing. I rarely get sick, and I rarely miss work. Today I'm doing both, and I don't like either. If I'm going to be missing work, I feel like I should be on a beach somewhere...or shopping at least. YUCK.

MORE IMPORTANTLY...

HAPPY B-DAY MOM!!!

My mom is the greatest...really, she is.

She is extremely talented in SO many areas.

Her thoughtfulness boggles my mind.

She loves Holidays more than anyone I know. She always made even the smallest holidays a big deal, and she has instilled the same love in all of us kids.

She is SO optimistic. Despite all that she has been through, she has always managed to stay positive and keep a happy outlook on everything. It amazes me.

She is so healthy, and manages to stay in AWESOME shape.

She is an incredible cook and entertainer.

She is so genuinely friendly to everyone, and everyone wants her as a friend!

She has an incredible testimony and has set such a positive example for me of how to live th gospel!

I want to be just like her when I grow up! I love you SO MUCH Mama Cita!!! I hope you have a great B-day!

Oooooh Boy.

He's gone and done it again. How Michael Scott manages to make me feel so awkward each time I watch, The Office, is a mystery to me. On the other hand, Jim's speech to Pam...adorable.

We Thank The O God For a Prophet

It is a shame conference weekend only comes around twice a year...because I REALLY love it. I felt like this weekend was especially exceptional. I was able to go to the Saturday morning session with my roommates, Whitney and Krissy. There were so many things I LOVED about it.

(Please excuse the fact that I look BALD in this photo...early morning did not call for washing my hair)

- Singing "We thank thee O God for a Prophet.," with an entire conference center full of 21,000 saints. Chills.
-"What we love determines what we seek. what we seek determines what we do. what we do determines who we are, and what we become." - President Uchtdorf
-Hearing the MoTab sing "My Heavenly Father Loves Me." Couldn't manage to keep the tears from coming on that one.
-The message of LOVE in all forms...The love of our Savior for us; the love we need to have for each other. It reminded me of LOVE being my theme for the year.
-Having the spirit testify to me over and over of the truthfulness of this gospel. I was reminded of how blessed I am to be a part of something SO incredible.
-running into so many friends! (love these girls from my ward pictured below)

I loved ALL of conference, and I'm already excited for the November Ensign to come out so I can reread all of the incredible talks. I already can't wait until April! :)

A con artist of sorts

My sister Nichole is the stealthy one. She has met tons of famous people because she's good at just sneaking her cute lil' self casually on in to wherever they are. I'm not so stealth. I HATE getting into trouble, so I'm always timid about stuff like that. Well, on Friday I would have done Nichole proud.
Benita, Krissy, and I were able to scrounge up some tickets to go to the BYU/Utah State game. I usually go and sit with Rox and company when I go, but their seats were in a not-so-squeezable section, and since there were three of us to be squoze (so what if i made up the word...) we just went to our seats. LUCKILY, we were somehow crammed in between this crazy family who went hog wild at the concessions stand. We're talking, Slurpee's, cokes, cotton candy, popcorn, cinnamon almonds...the works. The good news is the boy in front of us was LOVING his cotton candy. I've never seen anything like it. He would grab huge wad, stick out his tongue, and set the wad on there while it disintegrated all over him. We're talking LOTS of drool. It was phenomenal.

After about one quarter of this we decided these were NOT the seats for us...so...we called some of our friends who had snuck into the high school recruits seats on the front row.
Yes, this view was a bit more enjoyable... (please excuse the photo quality, these were taken with my phone)It's amazing how much more fun a game can be when you are right up close! The only problem was there were about 20 of our friends crammed into theses seats, and it was pretty apparent that we weren't supposed to be there. The security folk clad with orange jackets weren't too keen on our presence. This poor tiny little guy kept coming and yelling to see everyone's tickets and we all just pretended to be REALLY into the game...oops.
Krissy, Brandon and I were standing next to some really sweet girls who actually had tickets there, and we asked them if there were people in our seats. They said that there had been people but they hadn't been there for a while. Once the lone security guard saw that we weren't going to respond to him, he decided to call for backup. All of the sudden there were like 7 orange jackets coming at us. Let me give you a visual...I'm pretty sure most of them weren't sure what football was, needed an on-campus job, and thought this was super sweet. At one point I heard one of them yelling, "We do not taking stealing lightly..." ohhh boy. So, one girl came to us and was like..."let me see your tickets right now." I thought we were for sure getting tossed out, BUT I decided to give a last ditch effort to staying front row. The convo went something like this;

orange power trip: I need to see your tickets
me: Ohhh, well you see we don't have any. The people sitting here before us left and these girls told us we could sit with them.
orange power trip: oh really? well we'll just see about that. I'll go ask her.
me: ok...
...and then she did...and the SWEET girls totally vouched for us.
SO we watched the rest of the blessed game so close we were practically in the huddles, giving the players "good games," and telling Bronco our game tips...or something like that :)
We even got to say hello to our friend Jan #84, who had an awesome game.

Such a fun night!

brrrrrrrrrr....

35 FLIPPING degrees. That is what the temperature read this morning as I drove to the work at 6:00 AM. Yes, 35. You read it right. NOT a type-o. SO GROSS. Is it really time for me to be pulling out the Uggs and the North Face again? This all seems a bit premature.

I'm not ready. I'm not ready for winter clothes, and full blast heat, and getting stuck in the snow in Highland Park on my way to work.
Although...I'm a lil' bit excited for pumpkin flavored everything, my b-day, Halloween, and the slew of holidays that quickly follow...I'm so hard to please. ;)

I'm also SO exited for conference weekend. WOW. I love it. I seriously can't wait.
I've already made my "Conference Question List."

What is that you ask? Well...when I was in seminary my teacher told us a story of a woman who wrote in to one of the apostles expressing some major concerns about the gospel and life in general. The apostle (sorry, can't remember which one...) responded back to her promising that if she'd make a list of questions she had about absolutely anything, and she sincerely prayed that she might have her questions answered, and she listened intently with an open heart, that she would be blessed with the answers to each and every one of her questions. After hearing this story I have done the same thing each time conference comes around. It has been such an incredible experience that I have learned so much from. It has changed the way I listen to conference. Do it...I dare you. It's awesome.

Also...this past Wednesday our Relief Society made all sorts of headbands for Enrichment. So fun...