Getting a burp out of your little thing is probably the greatest satisfaction I've come across. It's truly one of life's most satisfying moments.

Here's what you've been waiting for! Pictures of little Kady Scarlett! The new family is now home from the hospital and everyone went to my parents house for the weekly family dinner. Everyone is loving the new baby, even the babies! Matteo loves her (which is funny cuz him and Abrahm aren't the nicest to their own little baby sister...), and so does Santana. Annie said she'd cry when the baby wasn't near her. Abrahm doesn't really care though, typical him though :) Anyway, here's the few I've gotten so far, I'm sure there will be many more to come!!!

Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit. --Bill Cosby--

As some of you already know, my little sister Monie had her baby last night! My family has been waiting anxiously for the past two weeks for her to have it (she had a false alarm one night and ever since we've been thinking she could have it any day but the baby just decided to chill for a bit longer), but she's finally arrived! Her name is Kady Scarlett, pronounced Katy, and she was born at 3:03 this morning. She was 6lbs 12oz and 18 inches long with dark hair and chubby cheeks, or so they tell me. I have yet to see a picture because apparently my entire family has lost their minds and everyone forgot their camera. But thank goodness for camera phones and midwives who are prepared! They borrowed their midwife's camera since they were all scatterbrained. She was born fairly quick though, Monie had contractions for a few hours and they decided to head over to the hospital sometime before 2am (the hospital is like 35 minutes away so they had a ways to g0). Monie was riding with Mellisa who is notorious for her driving skills and she booked it there going 90 or so :) She had her hazards on so no one pulled her over thank goodness, I think if someone had the cop woulda been scared off by Monie's screaming :)

(The proud parents a little over 9 months ago!!!)

Anyway, they got to the hospital and she was fully dialated so they went ahead and started pushing right away and an hour later there was baby Kady! Pretty crazy if you ask me. Monie called me 25 minutes later (it was 2:30 here and I wasn't all that happy to be woken up cuz I couldn't go back to sleep after :( but at least it was for real this time). She was like, I have a baby and it was SO hard! Well duh, I figured that and she didn't have time for any epidural so yeah, I bet it was. But worth it though to have a beautiful little baby come from it!

But she's perfectly fine and the baby's fine and everybody's there and happy, except me, I'm stuck here in Utah studying for a stupid Statistics test and don't get to see little Kady until Christmas...but I'm not bitter at all! :) Not really bitter, just sad to miss out on all the baby excitement that's been going on in my family for the past couple years. It's kinda funny though cuz it's been constant babies for those couple years. My sister had twins in March 2007 and right after got pregnant with my niece Santana and right after that Monie got pregnant with Kady and so it's been babies, babies, and more babies! My poor mom though is caught up in the middle of it all and seems to be getting overwhelmed by them all :) She's a trooper though and helps out a lot!

The twins are 18 months now and getting into EVERYTHING and getting into lots of trouble. Santana is now mobile as well and crawling everywhere but she's apparently the best, sweetest baby ever and doesn't cause too much trouble. They're all teething though so that oughta be a fun time right now for Mellis! :) They're adorable though and I miss seeing them a lot! I'm constantly asking for pictures and my family's getting sick of it but they never send any so I'm gonna keep asking :) And now we have the newest baby on the scene and before you know it she'll be crawling around too. I don't know if the baby trend will be as constant now though, unless me or my sister-in-law Amy F. (I have two sister-in-laws named Amy just so you know so one is Amy F. on here and the other is Amy E. :) gets pregnant right now and continues on....eek! :) Hopefully it will Amy though cuz I know they've been wanting and trying for a long time now! Not that I wouldn't mind one either but I've got time and right now school is pretty overwhelming.
So just a little more on my nieces and nephews; little Kady is the 14th on my side and counting the one's on my in-laws side, I have 16! So that's (this is listed by age, somewhat, if I can remember it all :) Sierra, Brian, Carmen, Austin, Natalia, Jack, Ephraim, Joseph, Jerica, Mario, Isabella, Abrahm and Matteo, Santana, Jacob, and Kady! Now there's a list to remember for you, especially all the ages and b-days! I've got most of them down though. They range from age 14 to 9 1/2 hours old. I feel old sometimes though thinking of Sierra! She's just entered her first of high school and is turning 15 in January and I just CAN'T believe it! She's a fantastic and very talented young lady though and pretty to boot. :) She's always calling me up to talk cuz I'm her favorite and she misses me (haha Annie! I said it!) She's always me to if she can come visit me out here and she says she's gonna live with us when she comes to school here but I doubt we'll be around anymore. She is very ambitious though and wants to do so many things, which includes coming to BYU to go to college which I'm sure she'll do cuz she's extremely smart!


My other nieces and nephews are all awesome as well and SO different! But if I took the time to go through each and everyone one of them this post would be a mile long, it's long enough already! :) Maybe I'll finish what Annie started one time on her blog and once and awhile do a spotlight on someone. I think I will! Just not today, I've wasted enough time writing this one (I'm taking a break from studying Stats...blech!!!!). The one thing different about little Kady though is she's actually in all reality, my first real niece. Monie and are adopted (we were adopted in the same family though so we are still related to our siblings and parents now, just blood wise in a different way, sorry if that's confusing but most of you know what I mean and if not then you can ask me later, fun stuff though :). Anyway, we have the same birth mom and so we're really half-sisters and little Kady is my first official niece! Monie thought this was pretty funny so I thought I'd mention it cuz I think it's funny too. She and I are so grateful for our family and couldn't have asked for a better one to go to!


My family is awesome though and are all such amazing, wonderful people and I miss them SOOOO much!!!!!! I'm sure I've said that many times before but it's very true and I'm gonna keep saying for a long time so get used to it!!! But for those of you who know them, you understand why and you'll forgive me for it. :)

Anyway, I'll be posting pictures as soon as I get some! These ones are just some of me and nieces and nephews, sorry if I've showed some of them before!!! Congratulations though Monie and Kyle! I'm so happy for you two and can't wait to meet your little girl! And Happy Birthday little Kady!!! I promise I'll try to be your favorite Aunt too. :)

I'll just leave you with one little quote I got from our Church's most recent Ensign magazine that I really liked:

"Life is precious! No one can cuddle an innocent infant, look into those beautiful eyes, feel the little fingers, and kiss that baby's cheek without a deepening reverence for life and for our Creator."
---Elder Russel M. Nelson

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter - Jack Benny

My husband is officially old today. Or that's what he thinks, I don't think he is at all. He's always been somewhat touchy on him being older than me, which I don't find a big deal at all, but he kinda does. I think it's funny. He's actually only 3 years and 5 months older than me. He just thinks it sounds like a bigger deal cuz right now I'm 21 and now he's 25. He's just a big goof though. I like to tease him a lot though, it's just too much fun. Like for example, one time when we were dating I told him that when he was a Senior in High School, I was a little Freshman. (or at least I think I was, I didn't really think that through the whole way, but it doesn't really matter anyway). He was somewhat taken aback by that one though, very funny. But I do love him and I don't always tease him that bad, I promise. Otherwise he would have ran away a long time ago. :) But he didn't, he learned to dish it back, quite well, and now we're happily married.

Anyway- I'm spending the morning working while he's lounging around at home watching Heroes. He worked hard this week so that he wouldn't have to do any homework today. I originally was working tonight but I got it switched so I could spend the rest of the day with him. We're going to have a fun filled day (after work) starting with Orange Julius smoothies (he got a coupon for a free one for his birthday) and then we're off to Sears to buy tools for him for work. Oh how exciting!!! :) Not really but it's getting me out of the house and inside somewhere, it's kind of really cloudy and windy today and looks like rain, which isn't too great cuz there's a BYU football game today. Anyway, tonight we're going to go out to eat at a BBQ place called Goodwood which I've heard to be quite delicous. The rest of the time is up to him, which he's not entirely that decisive so I have no clue what we're going to do.

Today is special not only because of Mark's birthday but it also Mark's the anniversary of our first date. Last year this week was homecoming week and my roommate Whit and I wanted to go to the Homecoming Spectacular which features music and dance groups and that year they had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. We knew no one was going to ask us to it so we decided to ask someone ourselves. So the day I was gonna ask Mark, I found out it was his birthday the day of the concert so I was kind of hesitant to ask him in case he was doing something else. So I found out he wasn't and I asked him when he was leaving my apartment that night and he said yes! I was quite excited, and very nervous because I don't ask guys out. So that was quite a big deal for me :) Apparently during our whole dating period, I came out of my shell quite a bit and actually flirted, which is not an easy thing for me to do. Whit made fun of me though and said that she was rubbing off on me (Whit definitely knows how to flirt, much better than me).

Anyway, Whit asked some guy in our ward and we all went together and it was really fun. Mark surprisingly likes concerts and such and was excited to go. I sure got a pretty awesome guy, he's not afraid to watch chick flicks and he likes classical music and going to concerts. Not a lot of guys do so I'm pretty happy with him :) (He took me to see the Utah Orchestra for my birthday up in SLC which was FABULOUS! We both loved it. We've also gone to the MoTab Christmas Concert and BYU's Christmas Around the World although he missed that because of work, lame!) Anyway again, the MoTab was awesome and the Orchestra was awesome and pretty much overall it was a fabulous night. After that he started asking me out and then the rest is history! I think things would have progressed a lot slower if I had waited for him to ask me out first. He's as shy as me when it comes to that. He said he was planning on asking me out but I just beat him to it I guess. But it all turned great and we are fantastically happy together. I'm just so glad that I have him in my life, he is a great strength to me and so supportive and is just an awesome guy.

(This pic is like the only pic I have from before we were married that's not an engagement. I actually like this one of me, which doesn't happen too often, but Mark had to go ruin in by being a dork and not smiling, he really does usually look happier than that when he's with me, I swear! :)

My mom and sisters actually just called me while I was writing this to get his number to call him to say Happy Birthday so I hope they don't do anything too drastic or embarrassing...I don't think he's altogether used to my family yet (he's only met them once, at the wedding) so that might take awhile. My sister Mellisa said that if he had been working they were going to call up his work and sing over the intercom...they would do it too... :) Crazy people but I love em'!!!

I guess all that's left to say is Happy Birthday Mark! I love you SO much!!!

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ---John Dewey

So I have just finished my first days of the semester and I for one am glad it's over! I'm not a huge fan of the first day/s of school, especially in college. Mainly because it's the first day of class and all the teachers are going over EVERYTHING you're going to be doing that semester and hearing each professor drop such a huge load, five times in a row, is kind of daunting. And of course each professor seems to have the idea that their class is the most important and don't seem to realize that you DO have more than just their class and it's just crazy. So that first day, everything just seems impossible to do. It doesn't help that I really haven't been to school since last fall semester so I'm kind of out of the groove of school and all that jazz.

This semester I am taking 5 classes: Statistics 221, English 315, Christian History, LDS Family History, and Intro to Social Work. I'm not too worried about the two history ones...they aren't going to be that hard. I"m really excited for the Christian History class because the teacher is way awesome. His name is Alonzo Gaskill and he is by fair the most entertaining and most sarcastic teacher I have ever had...this is the third class I've taken from him so you can tell I enjoy his teaching. He's actually from Missouri too, not far from where I'm from, so I thought that was pretty cool. I've been pretty lucky so far though with picking teachers. I've only had one or two that I didn't like and out of three years of going to school that's pretty good!

My other three classes are going to be a lot harder and very time consuming. Intro to Social Work should be a good class since that's what I want to go into. There are a lot of assignments though, all pretty big so that class'll keep me busy. English 315 just has a ton of assignments and a huge research paper. And then there's Statistics which is a required class I have to take and is pretty much one of the worst classes ever. It's so hard! I just want to pass it, with whatever I can get and I'll be happy.Mark has a pretty busy schedule too but luckily our schedules go quite nicely and we actually get to see each other on campus and such. We both have most of our classes T/TH and one M/W and the rest of the time we work. Such a fun time, let me tell you. I'm pretty lucky though cuz at my work whenever there are no customers, I can pretty much do whatever, which means I can do homework there! SO great and very convenient.

Although I'm not as excited to be back in school and doing homework and such, I am glad to be back on campus and doing something more than just working! I do love our campus...it's so big and so gorgeous and it's just absolutely great.So yeah, the next few months will be pretty busy and not very eventful so sorry if there's a lack of interesting things here on my blog. But it hopefully will go by quickly and then it'll be Christmas and I can go home! I'm so excited and can't wait! It seems so long since I've been home, it's only been 4 months, but since it was for my wedding I didn't really get to be home very long or do as much with the fam as I would've liked. But Christmas will be great, lots of yummy food, hopefully less snow than Utah :), family, friends, and lots of babies! I'll get to see my newest niece, who has yet to be born, but soon! Monie is having her baby shower tonight, which I'm very sad to miss, but hope she has fun! The baby can pretty much come any time now so we're all just kinda waitin! Good luck to ya though, Monie! :) Can't wait to see pics of your little girl :)

Anyway- that's pretty much all I have to say right now, I really should go do something productive, like homework...blech. Story of my life now!