Mr & Mrs Smith

You got to love days where you stay in your pjs all day. Thanks to a friend, we got some new hammy downs (or as Eric calls it "hand-me-downs"! And her first baby doll, $2 at the consignment shop.    Don't be alarmed; we are doing things with our lives. I swear as soon as you feel your world is comfortable, it gets a little bumpy. And that's okay because we are grounded in good soil. We are made of good things. To finish up the Sunday Lessons of the month: "Virtue is a prerequisite to entering the Lord’s holy temples and to receiving the Spirit’s guidance. Virtue “is a pattern of thought and behavior based on high moral standards.”   6   It encompasses chastity and moral purity. Virtue begins in the heart and in the mind. It is nurtured in the home. It is the accumulation of thousands of small decisions and actions.  Virtue  is a word we don’t hear often in today’s society, but the Latin root word  virtus  means strengt...

I guess I want to get it all out there regarding photography and me. I've mentioned it before, how I'm so up and down about saying "yes, I'm a photographer". I've always hated labels and titles - sometimes I just want to be . I know we have interests and talents for a reason and since I sometimes feel like the person with the one talent, I definitely don't want to be caught burying it, whatever it might be. Some people say it's photography. I guess people could see how much I loved it and even back to my freshman year of college, people asked me why I didn't major in it and I had a really good practical and logical response for them. A college boyfriend was convinced I was hiding and scared, and there may have been truth to that (but he was also a jerk). The photo major card just didn't line up for me, yes I could have made it happen, but I didn't want to knock down marble to get to it. I was comforted in the path I chose. College was ...

She is hit or miss when we ask her to say something. She is not to the point where she always repeats what we say, but at least she knows how to use the words below: mom hey, hi book "bu" bye ball "baah" food "foof" water "wa" baby uh oh "oh" mouth "mow" eye hot "haw" no "na" bird "ba" daddy "dah" butt And she knows what we're saying when we ask her to pick something up, go find her cup, her shoes, her paci, are you hungry, close the door, where are your toys, go get a book, daddy is home, it's time to pray (she folds her arms for two seconds), where is the ice-cream cone (she points to it in the book and says mmmm), name parts of the face + belly, what animal we're referring to, etc... signing: food, water & sleep (and points to her crib if she is that tired) animal sounds: dog, horse, monkey, duc...

Before I forget this amazing quote (that if Gordon B Hinkley did say it, makes it even better) here it is: "What really matters is that he will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are that you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy."- President Gordon B. Hinckley You know what I thought when I first read that? I married that. I married Mr Smith because he did that and does that for me. I mean we may bicker about how we show love and respect, and sometimes we get a little slack when it comes to thoughtful and putting each other first, but at the end of the day, I know he loves me, respects me and thinks of me.  I also liked this article ...

Sometimes we look out the window and think "the grass is greener" and we wonder what our lives would be like if we were smarter, popular, stylish, loved like that, married, had a child, had more children, less children, traveled, lived in a nicer house, had the career of our dreams, moved cities & had fancier things. I'm not sure it ends. But maybe we realize smart people, popular people & wealthy people can just as easily be drunk, wasted, insecure and unhappy. Is it happiness we are really seeking? Why do we keep convincing ourselves it is found in whatever it is we feel we are not? No, you don't literally say that, but when we keep collecting fishes as wishes,  we start to stink . Life is everything we make it to be. I've heard that and I chalked it up to another life cliche that doesn't mean anything. It didn't mean anything because mentally I didn't care to make it something. But mentally, I can make greatness out of a basi...

I'll have you know we as humans can get ourselves into particular situations where the world combines against us with one "if only" situation after the other. After deciding to get the rest of the kitchen plates out of the spider infested basement like my husband has been bugging me to do, I locked my keys down there. Or so I thought because it was the last place I could remember having them. Plans were thwarted for the day because my spare house key was with my mother. I did have a spare car key. I looked everywhere and had already cleaned the house the night before without seeing them. So I figured they had to be down there. Mr Smith tried convincing me that picking a lock was easy. He even sent me a video. I used his fancy lock pick and the tip fell off in the door handle. My efforts were meager. I decided to give up on the rainy day and wait for Mr Smith to come home and save the day.  He arrived. I prayed. He said he could see that a piece was stuck in t...

I didn't know that the Sunday lessons this month would be on marriage and family when I wrote that post earlier this week. It was obviously on my mind as I went down to the temple and saw another couple, just like Eric and I were 3 years ago, sealed in the Orlando temple for time and all eternity.   "There is nothing that has come or will come into your family as important as the sealing blessings. There is nothing more important than honoring the marriage and family covenants you have made or will make in the temples of God." - Henry B Eyring No offense to my parents, but I knew at a young age that I wanted a different story for myself.  I wanted a temple marriage first. Maybe I had a mental checklist of the qualities my future husband would have, but after many loves and love nots, I narrowed it down quite a bit. I heard so much advice on who to date that I feel I got to a point several times where I wanted to throw in the towel and give up on understanding any...

I have been dying all summer to feel the beach rays & eat some Rita's. We finally made it. The Beach may have involved a lot of crap to carry and things to remember, but it was worth it. She was fearless with the water and had it not been nap time, I feel like we could have stayed forever. The beach is a friend, but it was great to spend time with grandma and catch up with a childhood friend as well.  We met up with Satha & Andrew at the mall. Toddlers don't provide the easiest ways to catch up, but how can you not love a lovable girl except to chase after her and keep her from knocking down all the clothes & children? Andrew is such a good helper and tolerator. Then we met up with some friends from middle school/high school for tacos and a little pool time. We like to test your home's childproofness by eating all the cat toys. I just wish we took more/better photos. I hate to think we won't be together again for a...

An 11AM doc apt did not work well for us today. It's so hard to ask a little go getter and albeit exhausted babe to sit still in a box for an hour. But you walked out of there like a champ. And a runny nose and awful cough. I guess we had too many hugs and kisses over the trip. She even ended up with her first ear infection, which hasn't seemed to bother her too much. They said it should fix itself soon enough. We are 15 months old. G-R-O-W-N Weight - 23lb 4oz 75% Height - almost 32" 83% Head - just over 18" 67%  He asked if she new 6 words. I remembered hey, bye & mom, because she says those most often. I told him she understands a ton, but isn't really what I call a talker. Although I forgot to mention she will say food, ball, book, fan, woof, and has a good monkey mimic. She knows how to fold her arms for prayer and make the sign for sleep, water & food. She does the sign for more except she really means the itsy bitsy spide...

 I put off packing until the last minute because it's so daunting these days. I just didn't want to accept reality, but nonetheless we did it, traveled the distance and came back safety. Thank goodness.    I drove down listening to "The Wedding" which surprisingly made the trip go by pretty quick. Lexi fell asleep 5 minutes into the car (around 6) but we stopped around 730 when she woke and was cranky enough to get gas and let her stretch her legs. She slept off and on until around 10 when she finally crashed. We arrived around 1AM. Happily uneventful. I'll write some thoughts from the ride (it was a long ride): My marriage and family class at BYU taught me that there are three main things that couples fight over and, therefore, divorce over. And the divorce rate is at least 50%!  Finance. Sex. In-laws.  For some, maybe it is all or none, but as much as I thought our first year of marriage was a piece of cake (when they tell you it wo...