A grandma is a gift from above, one to cherish and one to love.

Well this isn't an extremely happy post but I guess they all can't be happy. My Grandma Fredrick just hasn't been having the best of luck health-wise lately. She went out to CA with Gramps in February or something and just had a long string of bad luck with health-her hip went out of place again and after that things just kept happening. She was doing well and went home to one of her girls homes but unfortunately today had a big stroke and is back at the hospital and not doing well at all. So my mom, dad, and sisters Emily and Mellisa packed up the truck today and are headed to CA to see her and to say goodbye because things aren't looking too hopeful at the moment. We are all very sad about this, of course, and wish we all could see her one more time but with a big fam like mine, that's just not possible. I just hope that when her time comes to go she goes peacefully, surrounded by her loved ones.

I never was extremely close to my Grandma Fredrick (Emily is her best friend and I'm sure this is going to be really hard for her), but she really is a great lady, so nice and so very talented! She is a fantastic quilter and has made a ton of gorgeous quilts. She's also an extreme pink fanatic- she even has pink appliances. On the other side of things, she LOVES football, which I think is pretty funny since she's so into pink and such. She and Gramps have been living in Missouri for a long time now so we've had a great chance in being around her for those years and I'm glad for one to have gotten that time with her. I remember helping her when she got a computer and needed help with the internet and such. She was always so thankful for my help even though I don't think I did much and didn't really know what I was doing half the time. :) Anyway, we love you Grandma and miss you lots!!! You've been in our prayers and will continue to be.

(This is the only pic I have available of Grandma at the moment...I'm at work and don't have internet at home at the moment. This is from my wedding reception last year, she is talking to my mother-in-law, JoAnn.)

"Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless." --Charles M. Crowe--

Well I have a couple of things to catch up on today so I guess I should start with the things that happened first. So on Thursday night Calvin finally proposed to Amy! She called me up on Friday morning so Mark and I were among the first to know, I felt so special :) We're all really excited for them though. They came by the Sunday before and told us they got the ring so we figured it would be soon. It's a really pretty ring too. They used a diamond from Amy's grandma's ring and had it set in a new band (which has four tiny diamonds on each side of the main diamond). I'm going to steal a pic from Amy's Facebook and put it here for you to see...I don't think she'll mind. :)



Anyway, the way he did was he took her to an ice skating rink (he had told her that his family was going skating or something) but no one was there and they got on the ice and the lights turned off and a spotlight and music came on so they skated together and then he proposed! So cute...he got some inspiration from Happy Gilmore but I can't remember the scene for the life of me. But anyway, I thought it was pretty cool. My friends and I would go skating my freshmen year and we always thought it would be cool to have a proposal on the ice, so way to go Calvin! :) They're planning an August wedding (I'll be nice and HUGE by then...don't even look for me in the pics, I'll be hiding :). I'm pretty excited cuz I get to go with her to go dress shopping, yay! Wedding dresses are so pretty. We stopped by her apt on Saturday night and hung out with them for awhile and got to here some of their plans so far. weddings sure have a lot of planning, I'll tell you that. But it's worth it.

So the second thing to happen this weekend was that I got to see my amazing friend Emma for the first time in over a year and a half!!! She went on a mission to Chile, got home in February and now is in Utah for school again. Her sister got married a week or so ago and had a reception here in Utah so I went to see Emma and it was so great!!! (Plus we got to eat some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory...SO good!). Anyway, she is the sweetest, nicest, most wonderful person ever and I was so happy to see her! I also got to see another friend, Gary, who was in our Freshmen ward with us and is also Emma's boyfriend. All I'll say about that is they're super cute together. :) Gary's great though and a red head so that automatically makes him awesome.

(Me and Emma! Boy do I look chunkier in a skirt compared to jeans...yuck :)

(Poor Mark! He was a bit bored while we were there, the cheesecake made up for that though thank goodness)

(This is Emma and Gary if you didn't already guess)

The third thing I'll talk about today is Easter Sunday! I really wanted Easter dinner and since we had nowhere to go Whit and I decided to do it together. We also had Gary and Emma over (I found out Gary was planning on having Hamburger Helper, which is blasphemous, so I invited them...we had PLENTY of food so it was all good). It was so much fun though and the food was SO good!!! I love Easter dinner...ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls..delicious. I made the ham (well stuck in the oven and heated it up :) and rolls and potatoes and Whit made a yummy salad, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole and Emma brought yummy brownies! It was great. We had a lot of fun catching up and chatting and everything. After dinner we were too stuffed to really do much so we all sat around on the floor and played Apples to Apples for awhile (fun game btw). So overall it was a fantastic night! It's wonderful to be surrounded by good friends when you're unable to be with family. Here's a few pics for you all to enjoy.

The Spread



After Dinner Laziness!



I think the guys felt a little left out, we kinda segregated them for part of the evening cuz the three of us were talking, looking at Whit's wedding pics, etc. :) Poor things...



And in honor of the game we played, apples and caramel! Yum!

Well I think that's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I'll be back soon with more happy stuff! Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

"There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it."

I just have to say that I have the CUTEST nieces and nephews ever! I don't think it's right to have so many cute ones in one family, but I guess we're just blessed cuz every single one of them is cute. Well the little ones are super cute, the older ones are all becoming handsome young men and gorgeous young women. :) And if you don't believe me then here's some proof. I got these first two pics in the mail the other day.



Isn't Tani just adorable?!?! I LOVE that pic of her. It's fantastic. The boys are so cute too and getting so big!!! They just turned two last month and I just can't believe it. They grow up so fast!

These second two pics are from Easter on the home front, graciously provided by Carmen. :)

(What a ham!!!)


I have to admit that I stole this last one off my sister Annie's blog but it's so cute!!! Plus she didn't tell the story behind it and I think it's funny. So I'm guessing they were trying to get Tani to pose but she wouldn't so my sister Emily bribed her with jelly beans. She'd give Tani and jelly bean, she'd gobble it up, then pose and get another one. Smart girl that one. Although you can still tell she's not really into it cuz she wouldn't look at the camera. :) She's so cute!!! Too adorable I say. I'm just sad that I'm not home to see them in all their cuteness! Although I do hear a lot of stories about all the trouble they get into so maybe I'm not missing too much...haha! :) Joking, I'd so rather be home with them! I love you guys! And Happy Easter!

"Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world." --Virgil A. Kraft--

This quote is certainly true her in Utah! When there's no snow to cover everything up, it's just brown and ugly. But spring really makes everything so pretty! Last week was gross and cold and windy and awful but on Sunday it warmed up and I looked out my window and these tulips had opened up!



I first noticed them earlier in the week and was surprised to find tulips in our background (it's barely got any grass so I just thought everything back there was weeds and such) but they finally bloomed and they are so pretty! I love tulips. My second favorite flower I'd have to say. So it was warm for a day and then rained all yesterday and this morning but now it's warm again and you can see everything blooming and turning green and I'm so excited!(except for these one trees, which are really pretty, but smell SO bad!!! But they're all over Provo so you can't get away from them...I wish they had smelled them before planting so many...yuck). I hate cold. But it finally looks like Spring is here to stay, just in time for finals and studying all day inside instead of enjoying the beautiful weather! Ah...well, such is life. I'll try to enjoy the weather someday soon. Anyway, happy spring everyone!

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." --Abraham Lincoln --

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged anything and I’m getting in trouble with my nieces for being a slacker, so I’ve decided I better do something before I really get it from them. :) These past couple weeks have been busy and at the same time not busy. It’s also been pretty stressful and chaotic. This semester is coming to an end (only a week and a half of classes left!!!!! YAY!) so finals are slowly creeping up on us. Mark is stressing about his classes and I’m just done with mine and want to be done with finals asap. My motivation has been severely lax this semester so this isn’t going to be my best efforts. Don’t worry, I’ll still pass! :)

We’ve also been dealing with finding housing because we decided we really don’t want to stay where we are for the remaining months we’re here. First of all, it’s freezing in the winter cuz the furnace doesn’t heat the bedrooms so I don’t think that would be a too good idea to have a baby down there. And although it’s a decent sized place but we weren’t really planning on having a baby when we chose it so it’s going to be a wee bit crowded with all the baby stuff…for such little things, babies sure take up a lot of room. :) Plus I miss having windows and sunshine and I miss my sleep! The house isn’t very well insulated at all so we can kinda hear everything our neighbors do. I figured I don’t sleep well when I’m not pregnant, I’m not sleeping well while I am, and I’m definitely not going to sleep well after the baby comes, so I don’t need them bothering me on top of all that. :)

I don’t do well with neighbors I’m finding out. I can’t wait for the day when we’ll have our own house, out in the country, with no neighbors directly next to us! It’ll be heaven! But, after a small struggle with one apt, we finally found a great place with a great price and a great landlord so we’re pretty excited about it. It’s an upstairs of a house and the landlord has recently remodeled the bathroom and kitchen (they look so nice) and is remodeling the basement so she can live in it. We also sold our contract for our place now so we’ve got everything taken care of for that, we just have to wait until finals are over before we can move!

We did get a chance to go to the temple the other day which was a very nice break from everything. I just love going there and being in such a beautiful, amazing, spiritual place and feeling so peaceful and happy afterwards! It truly is a great blessing. My niece Sierra is coming to visit us for a month this summer (eek! :) and we’re going to take her to the Oquirrh (pronounced Oaker) Mountain Temple Open House up in the Salt Lake Valley so that should be a fun thing to do with her. The Draper Temple just got dedicated last month; unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to go to the open house but hopefully will get to go there before we leave Utah. I’ve heard it’s supposed to be GORGEOUS, which all temples are of course. :) Anywho, things are starting to go a bit more smoothly since we went to the temple. I’m trying not to stress over everything and still trying to be patient!!! It comes and goes lately.
We still haven’t anything definitive from the Navy, although his recruiter did tell us the other day that the committee is in the final stages of deciding and so far it’s looking good for Mark…yay! We’re hoping Monday or Tuesday they’ll be DONE and we’ll be done waiting!

Let’s see…my pregnancy is going pretty good so far. I’m not really showing yet but I figured I wouldn’t show too early, this being my first pregnancy and me being tall and long-torsoed and such. I am starting to tell a little bit but it’s not very visible. Mark’s trying to be nice and doesn’t want to say that I look like I’m gaining anything because he thinks that I’ll get mad at him for saying that, but I was just like, whatever, I’m ok with gaining weight right now- I’m pregnant! That’s what’s supposed to happen! Now maybe later on when I’m about to pop, I probably won’t appreciate him telling me I’ve gained a lot but for now I’m ok with it. It actually makes me feel like I’m pregnant cuz right now I’m over any morning sickness and the only thing bothering me is my back and my lack of sleep.

I go to my second appointment on Tuesday but I’m not sure there will be much news from it cuz it’s just a regular appointment. Next month we’ll get to find out what it is though!! :) Yay! I can’t wait! Pretty much everyone is thinking it’s a girl so far, even my old roomie, Maria (who just sent me a letter from the Ukraine. She’s doing fabulous and loves her mission! She even sent me a picture, see below, and she’s very excited that I’m prego…especially the part where she doesn’t have to be around me during this “hormonal” time…that girl…you gotta love her though. If her letter wasn’t so long I would share it with you, it’s HIGHLY entertaining).

I sure hope it’s a girl cuz I’m still getting lots of girl stuff from my fam! :) I can’t wait to take pictures of her and scrapbook it all cuz I’m getting some way cute girl scrapbook stuff. Fun, fun! I’ll tell you one thing though, you definitely won’t be lacking in pics of my kids (like some people I know…you know who you are…although I know you take pics, you just don’t share them much :). I’m going to have so many pics and I promise to do tons of blogs! They’ll be so much better cuz they’ll have a cute baby in it, so much more interesting than things about me.

Well, so far I’ve tried not to do too many things for the baby cuz I’ll have lots of time to do stuff in the summer but I admit I did buy fabric for a baby quilt a while back and I did cut it up and then I had lots of free time at work so I sewed it all together and now I’m done. I do have to say that this is one of the cutest baby blankets ever! :) I love it. I did it all by hand too! Although I’m going to go back and reinforce a few spots cuz my freehand stitching probably isn’t all that strong (it did make it through the wash though, that’s pretty good right?). Here’s some pics though…I know brown and blue (well this is turquoise) is probably more boy but I think this could totally go either way and it’s gonna cuz that’s what I’m doing either way. I love that color combination.

(Front, edges are fringed)

(Back, it's smooth)

(Upclose front)

So yeah…what else…I think that’s pretty much the catch up with us. We’re just going to spend a nice relaxing day watching conference tomorrow (yay! I love Conference! It’s so great). Mark was supposed to work (he works the first Sunday every month) but for some reason he didn’t get scheduled tomorrow so we get to spend all day together tomorrow, although I think we might try to hook up with Amy and Calvin and do something. If I think of anything else to tell you all I’ll do another blog but for now I’m done! I hope this appeases my dear nieces and that they’ve enjoyed me babbling about my life. I think I should bother them more to tell me what’s going on with them. Every time I ask Carmen how things are she says, nm u? She doesn’t even type the words out completely, just uses those three letters, and yet she’s always telling me I need to blog more. What’s up with that? You should blog Carmen! :) haha…anyway, enjoy!