My thankful list:
My attractive, thoughtful, loving, and devoted wife McCall. She is my best friend that I can experience my whole eternal life with. She is constantly serving our family and others and makes everyone's day a little more spiritual.
My sweet daughter Lydia. There are times like this last week where we were traveling home from San Diego on the airplane and she cried bloody murder for 2o minutes straight (that seemed like eternity) that I ask myself, "Self, why did you have kids again?" But then I'm reminded of how much love I have for her the very next moment. Yesterday as I was watching a movie with McCall she comes up to me and gives me the biggest longest hug for no reason. Yes I do love her very much.
My angelic baby girl Emree. I don't know much about her just yet, but she gives us a gift of heaven every time we hold her.
My amazing family to whom I owe everything I am: Dad, Mom, Shae, Mckay, Shelby, Cassidy, Kelsi, Tanner, Lexi, Parker. (and of course the in laws Makana, Brandon, and Daniel)
Although I do not always appreciate it, I'm thankful for my education and that I'll finally be a graduated man in May!
Thankful for the beautiful mountains that I miss so much, for the ocean, for sunsets and sunrises, and all God's creations
Thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and its restored message.
Thankful for music and for the diligent patience of my mom to teach and instill in me a love for the piano.
As most of you know I just had another baby girl, Emree Ellouise, making us a busy family of 4!! (I still can't believe it) I have been trying to recover as fast as possible these last few weeks and have spent a lot of time just laying around trying to heal not doing much of anything for anyone...as it goes I guess when you've just had a baby. I just can't stop thinking about what an amazing and ridiculously good looking SUPER DAD, JD is! He has been doing so much for me, our two girls, school, church, and sacrificing anything and everything to serve others through his entire day. So I just wanted to brag about Jd today and how extremely lucky I am to have him in my life!
I posted this picture, along with the first one you saw, because I wanted to brag about what an amazing dad Jd is to both our little girls. I wish you could all see how excited little miss lydia gets to see her dad come home each day. She runs to the door and screams with excitement as she gives him the biggest, longest bear hug ever! It's seriously the cutest thing to see. I love to just sit back and watch them play together as he makes all of her stuffed animals come to life. He always has new and interesting scenarios to keep her entertained along with a different made up voice for each of them. Just the other day they played dress up with her animals and she thought it was the greatest thing ever! Now why can't I think of that??
What a handsome man! This is Jd all decked out for his leading role as one of the apostles in the play Savior of the World! They had many rehearsals and it took alot of time out of his busy school schedule to be a part of this play. I posted this picture to show that even though JD is extremely busy with school, studying for boards, tests, working with patients, lab work, AND his after school job.....big breath....He still finds the time to do missionary work. Now I'm not just talking about fulfilling his church calling as Young Mens Second Counselor, scouts and going to mutual every week. On top of all that he is always thinking of how he can share something so special to him and that is the gospel. He was a part of the play so that he could invite others to come and feel of the spirit.
Alright, so I wish we had a current family picture because we now are a family of four....it's a big difference, really. I posted the picture below to show how much Jd truly takes care of his family. He really is the MAN of the house and makes sure everything is in order from the bills being paid, applying for future opportunities (GPR's and Jobs), keeping the house tidy and clean while I am down and out, making delicious meals, grocery shopping, allowing me to rest while he again takes the time to take care of lydia, making sure we are protected and safe at all times, takes care of internet and phone dilemmas, even down to renewing our library books and gives all of us more love and care than any other man I know.
I added the pictures below because I just couldn't end this post without bragging about how FREAKING GOOD LOOKING JD is! Am I right? Or am I right?
Well Jd, I hope you know how extremely special you are to me and how much I appreciate everything that you do for our family. I love you so much and I am so grateful for the example that you are to me and so many others. You truly are my everthing!
I'm thankful for pumpkin pie, roast beef, barbecued pineapple, and icecream sundaes.
Grateful for the internet so that I can communicate with love ones far, thankful for a warm bed and roof over my head.
I'm grateful that I could ride the bus, which led me to the most amazing new convert Lauren. She is the latest edition to our family and I'm thankful for her constant friendship and laughter, and babysitting.
Thankful for sports, my healthy body, my functioning body parts, for my eyesight and hearing.
I'm grateful for the gift of the Atonement and the chance to improve..
There is lots to be thankful for and I hope that each of us were able to ponder our blessings this Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
11-6-11 Funny Sunday
Before I begin with the Funny Sunday stories, here are a few outstanding photos of the past couple weeks.
Emree is officially in the 97th % for both weight and height. Way to take after your dad! She really is pretty big but I love it.
So you're probably wondering, what the heck is JD supposed to be? I'm a pot head! Yeah I definitely thought it would be a lot more funny, this was at a friend Halloween party and I received way too many courtesy laughs. Last minute ideas never work for us. McCall is going as a dental student and Lydia is a U of L cheerleader.
This was at our first U of L football game, I think Lydia feels a bit high from all the "apple juice."
This was trick or treating at Westport Village. Mom and Dad you missed out here. We didn't have to pay $8 to get in (it was free), there were no long lines, and we got lots and lots of candy! McCall and I went as BYU fans, and Lydia was a BYU cheerleader (we got an awesome cheerleader outfit from our friends for only a couple dollars). Oh and Emree went as a fetus.
Lydia riding her pony. She got so thrilled about it.
The two sisters, Lydia still loves to maul Emree and get right in her face and yell, "Hi! Hi!" Then she'll pet her hair and say, "Soft." Yesterday she was jumping on the bed and landed right on Emree's head. But she is getting better with being 'soft'.
Lydia is becoming quite the dancer, whenever she hears that beat, she starts getting funky with it. It's quite entertaining. Lately she has been watching McCall's old clogging videos and she tries to mimic her clogging steps... it makes for some good laughs.
Emree is officially in the 97th % for both weight and height. Way to take after your dad! She really is pretty big but I love it.
So you're probably wondering, what the heck is JD supposed to be? I'm a pot head! Yeah I definitely thought it would be a lot more funny, this was at a friend Halloween party and I received way too many courtesy laughs. Last minute ideas never work for us. McCall is going as a dental student and Lydia is a U of L cheerleader.
This was at our first U of L football game, I think Lydia feels a bit high from all the "apple juice."
This was trick or treating at Westport Village. Mom and Dad you missed out here. We didn't have to pay $8 to get in (it was free), there were no long lines, and we got lots and lots of candy! McCall and I went as BYU fans, and Lydia was a BYU cheerleader (we got an awesome cheerleader outfit from our friends for only a couple dollars). Oh and Emree went as a fetus.
Lydia riding her pony. She got so thrilled about it.
The two sisters, Lydia still loves to maul Emree and get right in her face and yell, "Hi! Hi!" Then she'll pet her hair and say, "Soft." Yesterday she was jumping on the bed and landed right on Emree's head. But she is getting better with being 'soft'.
Lydia is becoming quite the dancer, whenever she hears that beat, she starts getting funky with it. It's quite entertaining. Lately she has been watching McCall's old clogging videos and she tries to mimic her clogging steps... it makes for some good laughs.
And finally the funny sunday of the day:
We stopped to return a red box at a gas station, when a character looking like an ex convict makes eye contact with me and approaches my car. I wasn't sure if I should lock my door and take off in the other direction, but McCall hadn't gotten back in the car yet so I just waited... I rolled down my window and he starts the conversation in a deep gangsta voice, "Do ya'll like rap?" "No, not really." Awkward silence. "I got here some cd's I'se be'n tr'in a sell." "Oh, you rap huh?" He nods proudly. "You good?" "I'm the best." I thought to myself, "That's why you're out selling your cd's at a gas station." But instead I said, "You on youtube?" "Yessir." "Well we'll have to look you up." Awkward silence. "Well good luck selling those cd's." We take off as he heads over to the next car.
It's not that funny when I told it, but it was for us because we were both so scared and loving it at the same time. I should have traded him a Book of Mormon for his cd, straight up.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Funny Sunday
We were able to go to our first University of Louisville football game! We were pretty excited and got all dressed up in our red Louisville gear. We still haven't figured out that it takes us an hour to get everyone ready and in the car so we showed up about an hour late to the game (which is turns out was the only good part of the game).
The game was actually quite boring, since Louisville is pretty terrible and the team they played (syracuse) was worse. But the funny sunday happened during half time:
So in case you don't know, Kentucky is number one in the U.S. for smoking (awesome thing to brag about). They don't let you go out and come back in the stadium, so people would gather around the fences of the stadium and sneak out their cigarettes. I say sneak because it's not allowed. I was wondering why all these people would hover over the fences like they were planting a bomb or something until I saw several staff members with megaphones yelling at people, "There's no smoking in the stadium! Please put your cigarettes away!" I would watch as people would pretend to put out their cigarettes only to light them quickly when the staff would turn his back. It was a pretty pathetic sight to tell you the truth. So many of them too.
But the game was fun and we would have pictures but the computers not letting me add them today so that's all!
The game was actually quite boring, since Louisville is pretty terrible and the team they played (syracuse) was worse. But the funny sunday happened during half time:
So in case you don't know, Kentucky is number one in the U.S. for smoking (awesome thing to brag about). They don't let you go out and come back in the stadium, so people would gather around the fences of the stadium and sneak out their cigarettes. I say sneak because it's not allowed. I was wondering why all these people would hover over the fences like they were planting a bomb or something until I saw several staff members with megaphones yelling at people, "There's no smoking in the stadium! Please put your cigarettes away!" I would watch as people would pretend to put out their cigarettes only to light them quickly when the staff would turn his back. It was a pretty pathetic sight to tell you the truth. So many of them too.
But the game was fun and we would have pictures but the computers not letting me add them today so that's all!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Destin, FL
JD had fall break this last week so we thought it would be fun to spend a week down in Destin, Florida. We THOUGHT it would be fun, is the key phrase here....sigh... who knew that going on a 12 hour car ride and having two babies trying to sleep in a room with two tired adults would be somewhat hard, we just never realized how hard. Lets just say we had our patience tried on multiple multiple occasions, I will leave it at that and focus on all the fun memories we WERE able to create.
We had to include this picture of miss lydia eating her beloved goldfish. All she wanted to do 90% of the time was dig through the bag with her sandy hands and find yummy snacks. She was one hungry girl!
Can you read it? Jd started out with J plus M...and I was like.. "Oh how sweet JD, you should have J + M = L & E... Thus the work of art was created."
Family Photo! Another thing we enjoyed at the beach was getting to know those around us. People are so nice out here. We had multiple people just come up and start talking with us, telling us their life stories and getting to know ours as well. It really made me think about how I need to be a lot better with going out of my way and talking to those around me, even complete strangers.
We had to include this picture of miss lydia eating her beloved goldfish. All she wanted to do 90% of the time was dig through the bag with her sandy hands and find yummy snacks. She was one hungry girl!
Can you read it? Jd started out with J plus M...and I was like.. "Oh how sweet JD, you should have J + M = L & E... Thus the work of art was created."
Family Photo! Another thing we enjoyed at the beach was getting to know those around us. People are so nice out here. We had multiple people just come up and start talking with us, telling us their life stories and getting to know ours as well. It really made me think about how I need to be a lot better with going out of my way and talking to those around me, even complete strangers.
So whenever you don't hear your child for awhile and they are being really quiet...you just know they are up to no good and probably doing something they shouldn't be.. I thus realized this is true with adults as well (well maybe just with JD)...
I was just sitting there relaxing on the beach, I hadn't heard Jd for awhile and as I turned around...JD pops his head up from the sand, with a look like, " I wasn't doing anything..." How many times do you need to tell them to stop eating the sand. Jd just couldn't get enough of it I guess. Mmmm....yummy, yummy.
Oh just the famous "Dancer Pose"...and for those folk dancers out there, you know what I'm talking about. :)
So funny sunday story: We visited a little community/touristy place near the beach called Seaside. I wish we would have taken more pictures of how pretty this place was. Each house was absolutely gorgeous and I kept on wishing that Brandon was there to capture it all. So below is a picture of a beautiful door we saw on one of these incredible houses (JD actually took it because he knew Brandon would like it) and the funny thing is that one second after JD snapped this picture, a guy opened it and came out. He gave us the most awkward crusty look EVER! We were kind of like "Ope" trying to act like we weren't doing anything wierd... like taking a picture of someone's side door. (I mean who does that... sheesh).
Ok so I realized that it doesn't sound so funny written down, but I guess you just had to have been there. :)
Little miss Emree just being sweet. LoVe those chunky cheeks!
Little miss Emree just being sweet. LoVe those chunky cheeks!
Look! JD found this sweet little Lizard!
What a wonderful view! This is what our days consisted of... I loved watching lydia just playing with her dad. Pretty sure he is her BEST friend!
Lydia got in the water only once while we were there...sad story I know, since the water was perfect for little kids. The waves were like an inch high, water was warm, and perfectly clear. She was just a little scared...
We had to capture this zoned out look that emree had.. This is what she looked like a lot of the time. Kind of in her own world.
We went to visit some Alligators at a place called Fudpuckers (I know weird name). It was a restaurant with an "Alligator Beach" attached! I thought it was a good idea to buy some of the alligator food to try and feed them, but we found out it was not a good idea, none of them would eat anything, most likely full from all the other stupid tourists wasting their money.
This represents about 20% of the alligators there. There were seriously tons of them.
This represents about 20% of the alligators there. There were seriously tons of them.
It's kind of nice when Lydia cheesy smiles on demand..
Well, there you have it, over all our trip to Destin, Florida was a success! Although we may not attempt another one any time soon. :)
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Funny Sunday 10-02-11
Catching this picture of Emree:
Lasagna on the floor anyone?
So after conference McCall wanted to make a lasagna and I was all for it. When I went to retrieve it out of the oven I realized that she had placed the casserole dish on top of a cookie sheet. Mistake #1 was when I grabbed only one mitten to retrieve the dish. Mistake #2 was the fact that I tried to lift the cookie sheet and the dish all in one instead of one at a time. And Mistake #3 was when I saw the casserole sliding off to the left I thought I could save it rather than putting in back in the oven. My wrist was not strong enough for all that weight and the lasagna continued to slide to the left, I didn't want to sacrifice my left hand burning off to steady it so there was nothing that I could do except watch it fall to the ground and shatter everywhere.
I really wanted to eat it still, but McCall convinced me not to saying I would be eating glass. During priesthood session, I had a hard time paying attention because I kept on envisioning myself eating the lasagna.
On a side note, did I ever tell you two kids 1.5 years apart is hard? We've been trying for the last 2 hours to put Emree to sleep, finally after all that time we get her to sleep. Seriously no longer than a minute of putting her down, Lydia cries bloody murder from her crib waking up Emree. It might take another hour before she goes down.
Lasagna on the floor anyone?
So after conference McCall wanted to make a lasagna and I was all for it. When I went to retrieve it out of the oven I realized that she had placed the casserole dish on top of a cookie sheet. Mistake #1 was when I grabbed only one mitten to retrieve the dish. Mistake #2 was the fact that I tried to lift the cookie sheet and the dish all in one instead of one at a time. And Mistake #3 was when I saw the casserole sliding off to the left I thought I could save it rather than putting in back in the oven. My wrist was not strong enough for all that weight and the lasagna continued to slide to the left, I didn't want to sacrifice my left hand burning off to steady it so there was nothing that I could do except watch it fall to the ground and shatter everywhere.
I really wanted to eat it still, but McCall convinced me not to saying I would be eating glass. During priesthood session, I had a hard time paying attention because I kept on envisioning myself eating the lasagna.
On a side note, did I ever tell you two kids 1.5 years apart is hard? We've been trying for the last 2 hours to put Emree to sleep, finally after all that time we get her to sleep. Seriously no longer than a minute of putting her down, Lydia cries bloody murder from her crib waking up Emree. It might take another hour before she goes down.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Not so funny Sunday
This is a late post, it was supposed to go up yesterday but our computer kept on shutting off.
So why not so funny? Well it wasn't funny to me, but it may be to you.
It was Monday morning, and drizzling outside. "No big deal," I thought. I headed out of the apartment towards the bus stop. About half way to the bus stop it started pouring but I knew there was no turning back now, I was almost there. I got to the bus stop and noticed an ambulance and about 3 cops cars up the street which was slowing traffic considerably. I waited patiently for 10 minutes, but it was at this point that I noticed that my tennis shoes had little vent holes which was allowing the rain free access to my socks and feet and also the water was slowly rising up my pants to where it had reached my knees.
I could see the bus in the distance and my stubborness wouldn't let me back down yet. Another 5 minutes and the bus made a right hand turn about 100 yards in front of me. "What the....? Stupid bus..."
Very upset and now 30 minutes after I started from home, I headed back in the direction I had started.
From now on, whenever it's raining outside I'm driving.
But I couldn't write a post without a cute pic of the baby right?
So why not so funny? Well it wasn't funny to me, but it may be to you.
It was Monday morning, and drizzling outside. "No big deal," I thought. I headed out of the apartment towards the bus stop. About half way to the bus stop it started pouring but I knew there was no turning back now, I was almost there. I got to the bus stop and noticed an ambulance and about 3 cops cars up the street which was slowing traffic considerably. I waited patiently for 10 minutes, but it was at this point that I noticed that my tennis shoes had little vent holes which was allowing the rain free access to my socks and feet and also the water was slowly rising up my pants to where it had reached my knees.
I could see the bus in the distance and my stubborness wouldn't let me back down yet. Another 5 minutes and the bus made a right hand turn about 100 yards in front of me. "What the....? Stupid bus..."
Very upset and now 30 minutes after I started from home, I headed back in the direction I had started.
From now on, whenever it's raining outside I'm driving.
But I couldn't write a post without a cute pic of the baby right?
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Alright, Time to BRAG a Little...
As most of you know I just had another baby girl, Emree Ellouise, making us a busy family of 4!! (I still can't believe it) I have been trying to recover as fast as possible these last few weeks and have spent a lot of time just laying around trying to heal not doing much of anything for anyone...as it goes I guess when you've just had a baby. I just can't stop thinking about what an amazing and ridiculously good looking SUPER DAD, JD is! He has been doing so much for me, our two girls, school, church, and sacrificing anything and everything to serve others through his entire day. So I just wanted to brag about Jd today and how extremely lucky I am to have him in my life!
I posted this picture, along with the first one you saw, because I wanted to brag about what an amazing dad Jd is to both our little girls. I wish you could all see how excited little miss lydia gets to see her dad come home each day. She runs to the door and screams with excitement as she gives him the biggest, longest bear hug ever! It's seriously the cutest thing to see. I love to just sit back and watch them play together as he makes all of her stuffed animals come to life. He always has new and interesting scenarios to keep her entertained along with a different made up voice for each of them. Just the other day they played dress up with her animals and she thought it was the greatest thing ever! Now why can't I think of that??
Another wonderful thing that lydia loves to do with her dad is dance! Every day he turns on some kind of catchy repetitive beat from his new electric piano and they each get their groove on. She runs and grabs her stuffed animals, hands one to dad and then dances her little heart out while holding all the other ones. I love to watch her try and mimic all the cool moves Jd does. With that kind of training, from such a professional dance teacher, she will be pro in no time.
I could honestly go on and on about all the fun things JD does with his two girls, but that would be one really long post. He always finds a way to make time to just play with his two girls and I will let you know that that means the world to them, and me.
What a handsome man! This is Jd all decked out for his leading role as one of the apostles in the play Savior of the World! They had many rehearsals and it took alot of time out of his busy school schedule to be a part of this play. I posted this picture to show that even though JD is extremely busy with school, studying for boards, tests, working with patients, lab work, AND his after school job.....big breath....He still finds the time to do missionary work. Now I'm not just talking about fulfilling his church calling as Young Mens Second Counselor, scouts and going to mutual every week. On top of all that he is always thinking of how he can share something so special to him and that is the gospel. He was a part of the play so that he could invite others to come and feel of the spirit.
He has just recently given out a Book of Mormon to a girl he met on the bus and has been taking time out of his busy week to go to discussions with her and share his testimony with her. For example he is taking a HUGE test tomorrow, boards, and took time out of his night to study yesterday to go to a discussion. I have seen him sacrifice his time in building up the kingdom of God in so many instances, it truly amazes me and sets such a wonderful example for myself and our kids. Not to mention how he wakes up extra early for his personal scripture study and then comes to wake me up so that we can then read together. He makes sure that we have Family Home Evening every week and is always remembering to pray with lydia before meals and bedtime.
I just feel so blessed to have a guy who sincerely and honestly cares so much about this gospel and knows what wonderful changes it can have in the live's of others. He has sacrificed so much of his time to serve in the church when he could of made up many excuses as to why he just didn't have the time.
Alright, so I wish we had a current family picture because we now are a family of four....it's a big difference, really. I posted the picture below to show how much Jd truly takes care of his family. He really is the MAN of the house and makes sure everything is in order from the bills being paid, applying for future opportunities (GPR's and Jobs), keeping the house tidy and clean while I am down and out, making delicious meals, grocery shopping, allowing me to rest while he again takes the time to take care of lydia, making sure we are protected and safe at all times, takes care of internet and phone dilemmas, even down to renewing our library books and gives all of us more love and care than any other man I know.
I added the pictures below because I just couldn't end this post without bragging about how FREAKING GOOD LOOKING JD is! Am I right? Or am I right?
Well Jd, I hope you know how extremely special you are to me and how much I appreciate everything that you do for our family. I love you so much and I am so grateful for the example that you are to me and so many others. You truly are my everthing!
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