Autumn is AWESOME!

I LOVE love love love LOVE Fall! I love the crisp air, the beautiful colors, the smells, the beginning of the holiday season....the precurser to snowboarding season....the memories and the future memories to be made. I love to kiss my hubby in the fall (well, all year, but there is something romantic about autumn time). I actually wanted to get married in the fall, but my darling husband refused to wait that long (which gave us a 2 month engagement! crazy man!). But anyway, this is just a great time of year. (I do love the other seasons, too....its just that today is the official start to fall!).

That's it! Well, I could ramble on and on, as we all know I do, but I won't. I'd rather go sit outside and enjoy the beautiful fall evening with my family! So off I go!

Aspen loves fall, too! :-)

Happier Post

I decided that since I was so negative in my post yesterday, I need to really count my blessings and be more positive. So here are some wonderful blessings I am thankful for in my life (in no particular order):

MALO: Malo is the best husband; he is a kind and loving man and a phenomenol father. He is also creative and has so many wonderful ideas and plans. With him, I know that anything is possible. He is a really handy man and can do pretty much anything he puts his mind to. I feel so grateful to be married to him and of course there are struggles, as in any marriage, but he is amazing and I love him so much. When I count my blessings, he is always right up there.

ASPEN: No expansion needed, really. She is the most amazing blessing that has ever come into our lives. I know she was meant to be in our family....and the 5 years it took for that to happen is 100% worth waiting for. I often just stare at her and my eyes fill up with tears because I am so grateful for her. I want to be a better person just so I can be a better mom to her. Malo and I both love her so much; our lives are so much more complete with her. Not a day goes by that we do not thank our Heavenly Father for her and for trusting us with this little one in our home. She is definitely the greatest....and one smile from her can make all of my worries subside for awhile. I love this little one more than I ever knew it was possible to love....and I have a lot of love!! :-)

MY FAMILY: Not just Malo and Aspen and my wonderful pups, but the rest of my family...my mom, my brother & his family, my sister. They have always been an amazing support in my life and they are simply the best!

THE GOSPEL: Where would any of us be, really, without our Heavenly Father's love and without the Atonement. I am so grateful we have the truth and that we have our Savior, Jesus Christ. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that I know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me and I feel incredibly blessed to have that knowledge in my life.

MY FRIENDS: I have been blessed throughout my entire life with wonderful friends. Friends I know I can call anytime for anything, friends I know love me and would do anything for me. Friends that I am willing to do the same for. I am not sure why I have been blessed with such great friends, but I appreciate them all!! :-)

FREEDOM: I am so grateful for the freedoms we enjoy in this company. I know a lot of people are frustrated with the US right now, and I know many of our own citizens are bad-mouthing our country and our leaders and by so doing, are bad-mouthing the very things that give them the freedom to do so. I get so frustrated with people who complain and talk about how they hate being an American, well, then move to another country where you will be killed for voicing those opinions. But wait....that could take me on a whole new soap box, so I'll stop. But I truly feel blessed to live in a free country and there is nowhere else I would rather be.

OTHERS: This post I just realized could go on and on forever....because once you start counting your blessings, you realize how good life is and how much you have....even if its not temporal or tangible things, but what is most important in this life are really what I call the 5 "f"s: Faith, Freedom, Food, Family and Friends. :-) But here are just a few more things I am grateful for....

• Sunshine!
• Rain!
• Snow!
• Thunder and Lightning storms
• Changing Seasons
• Food, especially cheese
• A body that works (for the most part!)
• A career that I love (even though I don't want to be working *right now*)
• A beautiful house that is truly a home
• Books to read
• The Scriptures
• Pictures/scrapbooking
• Animals
• Water
• The mountains
• The ocean and beach
• Appliances that work
• Music

OKay.....I feel better than yesterday, now I will stop! :-)

Sad and sucky

So we have this little rental house (it was our first house and I loved it because it had this great little "hobbit room" that I used to go up in and scrapbook, etc.) and our friends had been renting it for a couple of years. Well, the hubby got a new job and they needed to move up closer to his work and so we've been paying two mortgages for a bit now....which consequently means that I have to work more than I want to (which isn't hard at all because I don't want to work at all....I want to be home with my Aspen). Today was especially hard because I normally will only accept short jobs when Malo can be home with Aspen or all day jobs if and only if my sister can stay with Aspen. Well. I accidentally took a job for today thinking it was a day my sister could watch her...and it wasn't. So...luckily two very dear friends took turns watching her today...one friend came over at 7:15am and watched her until 11:00am when my other friend came and picked her up and watched her until Malo could pick her up at 3pm. Sounds pretty ok, a little hectic, right, but reasonable.

Well, Aspen had other plans. I got up at 5am so I could make Malo's lunch, put together a diaper bag for my friend when she picked Aspen up, set out some clothes for the baby to wear , made up a bottle for her so she could quickly eat when she woke up and then hopped in the shower and attempted to get ready before Aspen woke up.

At 6:15 on the dot, I hear a screaming, so I go into her room and she is ready to get up...no big deal....until I pick her up and she has not only peed through her diaper and pajamas, but clear through the bedsheets. So I pick her up and lay her down to change her diaper.....and she has an explosive poopy diaper....all over....ALL OVER everything...including my clean work clothes I had just put on. So I am thinking this is a sign that I should NOT be working, but whatever, I've committed, I have to do it.

On to phase two, I quickly change into some more clean work clothes and feed her...not only does she take her sweet time eating, but she spits up on my 2nd shirt of the day....again, a sign I shouldn't be leaving her right?!?! Well, by this time, I haven't even brushed my hair yet and its slowly drying in wretched knots....but I need to finish feeding her....so I do and then I go change AGAIN and pull the brush through the mangled mess called my hair....and then its time to go.

So I leave for work, all the while hoping that my baby will be fine (knowing she will because I fully trust my friends who watched her) and feeling guilt that I am leaving her. So I am driving up I-25 putting my makeup on and bawling my eyes out....mascara running down my face as quickly as I can put it on while driving...it sucks. It really really sucks. I am not doing that again.

that's the end of my ranting and raving for today.

Mourning my Jeep....

Since I was in the 4th grade, I had dreamed of having my own green Jeep Wrangler. I used to paste pictures of myself in magazine ads for Jeeps....I love them. I almost bought a bright red Jeep Wrangler 6 years ago, but I decided to try Grad School instead....and that didn't work out for me, so I was sad I had chosen school over my opportunity for a Jeep.

Whenever I would see Jeeps, I would imagine myself driving one....with the top down and my hair blowing in the wind....yeah, Jeeps were made for me and I was made for Jeeps.

So finally in May of 2006, I got my Jeep. It was not the green one of my dreams and fantasies, but boy was she a cute Jeep! We had fun together, it was everything I had ever dreamt of. I was the girl in my dreams, happy, content and free. We drove in the mud, in the mountains, in the rain, in the snow, in the sun. The dogs and I would jump in the Jeep and go hiking or whatever we felt like doing. Yes, my little Jeep was my good friend in the year Malo was gone.

But this weekend, my Jeep and I had to part ways. Our lives were just not working together anymore. See, the backseat of a Jeep Wrangler comes optional and since last May we did not have kids, only dogs, we decided we'd take the price break and go without. And as we all know, the most wonderful little girl has made her way into our lives as of June...thus requiring a backseat in order to go anywhere with her...and so I got a little Kia for super cheap from a friend and thought this would allow us to keep my Jeep...as long as we had one car that we could travel in as a family. Well, I am NOT a car person; I need to be higher off the ground than a car allows...but I've been doing it. Now here is the real problem....Malo has been driving the Jeep and I have been jealous....its my Jeep, my dream, right? Right. Well, it turns out that the Jeep just isn't a practical car for us at this time in our lives....Malo needs a truck. He recently rented a U-Haul to go get some wood because we couldn't get it in the Jeep...yeah, I know.

So....anyway, seeing as Miss Jeep isn't practical for us right now, Malo traded her in this weekend for a 4 door Toyota Tacoma....so we can all be a family and go places together in either vehicle. The thing is, though, I feel like I've lost a dear loved one or gone through a divorce or something...I can't quite place my finger on the exact emotion. You know how sometiemes when you want something for so long and you finally get it, you are disappointed? Not so with my cute Jeep....she was everything I'd hoped for (except the color!) and now she's gone...gone...gone....and thus I mourn...the loss...of my wonderful Jeep. May she rest in peace, beautiful, wondeful Jeep....sigh....sob....

Growing up!

Aspen is better now and back to her happy little self....but man is she ever growing up fast!

She is cooing all the time now...this picture was so funny because she was talking to herself in this little mirror thing for a really long time....she's a talker, for sure!

She loves to be read to and yesterday she decided that she wanted to keep looking at this fun little book.....

She's also recently discovered that her hands do more than just go in her mouth! She has really started reaching for things and playing with her fingers a lot. One of her favorite things to do right now is swing at this little hanging lion thing and she will talk to it and smile at it...and then she'll really focus on grabbing it. She is just learning and growing everyday. I am so grateful for her; not a day goes by without Malo and I thanking our Heavenly Father for allowing this wonderful little girl to be a part of our family. I think she is the BEST! :-)