Save a Sister

This last weekend was an absolute blast!
This beautiful lady has been a champ fighting breast cancer; she is my lovely Aunt Lorie.

me & the fighter - aunt lorie

Our cousin, Tifani came up with this great idea for us to show our love and support for Aunt Lorie and make a fun weekend of it - we ran the Save a Sister race down in St. George. We have spent the weekend enjoying successful shopping, eating, laughing, lounging, and, of course, running our race. We were missing a few of us but all SIXTEEN of us (that could come) stayed in a darling condo - It's a little bit tight on space, but we make it work, take quick showers, and get nice and cozy for bedtime.
I wish we would have taken more pictures of the overall weekend, but we've got some great pictures from the race.
ENJOY!

me and shay

aunt Jamie & aunt marcie

high 5's for grandma at the finish line

shay, shannon, aunt jill

team socks

our champ - surrounded by our team socks

the crew with some tutus

HIGHLIGHT! Grandma took 1st place for her age group :)

I feel so blessed to be a part of a family that jumps at the chance to spend time together and support each other. We are always leaving with more hilarious memories and a greater appreciation for each other. I love family!

Conference Weekend

This Conference Weekend was a good one. We were lucky enough to have my dad in town for a family wedding and my brother Zac and his lady friend, Karlie with us as well. I loved having some family in town and made me extra excited for November when we will ALL be together again :)
Dad got in Thursday afternoon. He treated us to dinner at Blue Lemon then we went grocery shopping and enjoyed catching up for the rest of the evening. Zac and Karlie got in really late that night (like 3 in the morning) so we didn't get to see them until we all woke up the next morning. We enjoyed attending the wedding of our cousin Cory and his new wife Courtney. (side note: they dated for almost a year before she went on a mission and he waited for her. They were married two months after she got home. yay!) They are such a beautiful couple and it was so great to be a part of their special day.

We spent the afternoon stuffing our faces with JCW's visiting with cousins, and bouncing around to a few different wedding receptions.
Saturday and Sunday were awesome! Conference was SO amazing this weekend. The messages were filled with motivation, encouragement, and hope. I'm overwhelmed by the potential I am realizing I have, but I'm up for the challenge to become my best self. I loved having (some) family around for the weekend and am so grateful for all that I have been blessed with. With my dad in town, we had a chance to catch up with friends in the ward a little more and enjoy the undeniable beauty of fall in the city of Alpine.

 

  

 



September September

The events of September started on Labor Day with a day in Park City. We'd been wanting to go up there for a while. Some of our friends were getting closer to moving East to Virginia, and Brad wanted to get me a "first day of school" outfit for preschool starting the next day. We had a lot of fun and started off eating waffles at Bruges Waffles and Frites. It did not disappoint.

yummy strawberries, chocolate, and whipped cream
breakfast of champions!

School started the next morning and I was super nervous! I just didn't really know what to expect and how things would go. I just kind of gaged it by my experience working with the older kids in nursery and it worked out quite nicely. It is obviously going to take some adjusting for kids (and me) to understand "structure of school", but we are having so much fun! I am doing thematic learning and it seems to be working out well for the kids' level of understanding and interest in learning.
Later that week, I had one of my dearest friends get married. We've been friends ever since she moved into the ward when she was 12 yrs old. It was such a beautiful wedding for a couple that has been meant to be together forever. I am SO happy for them and can't help but smile when I think of them being together forever.

 

 

Next. Brad has a special spot in his heart for our cousin's little girl, Reagan. Her and her older sister Brooklyn are some of the cutest girls I know and we love that we get to spend so much time with them. Little Reag has a bit of a growl that she is known for and she has acquired the nickname, Reagasaurus. When Brad was little he had a favorite shirt he made that said Bradasaurus. Ever since he made the connection he has been wanting to make a shirt for Reagan. We thought it would be fun to do that and then let Brooklyn make one of her own. They turned out so cute and Brad did Reagans all by himself :)

 

working on Reag's shirt

helping Brooklyn with her shirt

LOVING her new shirt!

finished products

 The next weekend my cousin, Shaylee and I got the surprise of a lifetime! Over the past year or so we have acquired a bit of an obsession for Luke Bryan. We LOVE his songs and are consistently found listening to our Luke Bryan station on Pandora. Once we found out he was coming to Utah for a concert, we promised each other we were going to go. You can only imagine our devastation when I learned at the local copy store that all the tickets were sold out and they were being sold by private buyers for ridiculous amounts of money. Even with as much as we loved Luke we couldn't justify spending that kind of money on tickets. We talked to our hubbies, and exhausted all of our (Jason's) resources. We held out hope until the day of the concert, only to realize it just wasn't going to happen. Jason and Brad wanted to take us to dinner that night, so we thought maybe it could happen. But when we learned we were taking their little girls with us, we through that dream out the window.... Only to discover Jason's parents were meeting us at the restaurant to take the girls because WE WERE GOING TO THE CONCERT! YAY! I caught on a little earlier, but we were both still ecstatic! Not only were we going to the concert but we were in the second row, behind the floor seats. We couldn't believe it! There were SO many people there! It was packed! Naturally, we had to go out and get a concert t-shirt. Please don't judge - we couldn't resist, and it was probably the most tasteful one there.

hottie hubs

shay and I in our new shirts

That is one thing we learned: Luke Bryan isn't the classiest of country singers. I guess you could call us a little oblivious. But we quickly learned he has a slight obsession with pelvic dancing and throwing beer out on his fans. Luckily we were just far enough away to not get hit with any of it. I will admit, now that we know the "real Luke" it wasn't one of our proudest moments, we've lost a little respect for the man - but it was so much fun to be a part of something we'd given up on and belting every song we knew. Thanks to the hubbies for pulling through and granting our wish above and beyond our expectations!

That weekend my beautiful cousin, Ashlee had her farewell. Her talk was amazing, focusing on the importance of having a relationship with the Savior. It was so powerful and she is going to be an amazing missionary, teaching so many about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

love this pic of her... and I don't have any of her mission pics yet :)

Last of the month, but not least... I chopped my hair off! I have been going on and off about cutting it off since this last April. It seems like every time I finally decide to do it, people come out of the woodwork telling me how much they like my long hair, telling me, "don't EVER cut your hair", etc. Unfortunately that has held me back every time. Until one day I just needed it - mental or physical, I needed a change and this was the only way I was going to get one in my life right now. haha. So I did it. I wanted to have a little more purpose behind cutting off a bunch of hair besides just doing it. So I decided to cut it a little shorter than I would have liked so I could do the full 10 inches for locks of love. I did it once right after graduating from high school and it was kind of fun, so I did it again. It's always a little comforting to know that I got more out of it than just a change - you can learn more about Locks of Love HERE

giving family and friends the heads up via Snap

haha I love this pic. once again, someone telling me not to :)

BEFORE

 

 Measured and ready to CHOP!

 

Halfway there!

Anyone that knows me,

knows that I plug my nose when I'm nervous

 

Finished Product!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Emily

Any spare time I had in the month of August, I was working on "preschool prep". I was constantly found doing DIY projects, printing, cutting, laminating, painting, planning, pinning on Pintrest, etc. getting ready for my  new adventure as a preschool teacher.
I was surprised at how much work went into creating a classroom, planning curriculum, getting registered, and remembering all of the little details. However, I was pleased with how easily a lot of it came. Thanks to Pinterest, 4 years of school training, Ikea, and DIY I was able to finish and be pretty pleased with my final product.

Welcome to Preschool with Miss Emily!

the beginning of our work in progress - bye bye craft room! :s

 

 This lovely piece was bought at an estate sale from the home of one of my favorite people (Sister Sharon Stucki - she passed away last winter) I saw that this piece had a lot of potential and I loved that I would have a "piece of her" in my home.

before

primed

painted

complete, with knobs

This next element is the classroom table/desk space. I have a very dear friend: "Uncle Marc". He's not really my uncle, but he and his sweet wife Julie have kind of adopted Brad and I since my family has lived away. He has done pretty much all of any remodeling my mom has had done in the house and he is the BEST. He is always making sure things are well with us and he's always ready and willing to help us fix something around the house. He also shares his yummy garden veggies :)

His wife Julie taught preschool for years and he kind of made up a table for her. He did the same for me. This is how awesome he is: he did it all from his own ideas and memory without any template or guide! He had it made in less than a day and it's perfect! I love that it can be pieced together so that when I'm not using it, it will be easier to store - he thinks of everything!

 

all the pieces before they were painted

some of the pieces after it was painted

the finished product!

After finding this great rug, chalkboard, book shelves, and cube shelving unit @ IKEA, my filing cabinet on KSL, using my DIY & painting skills, sales @ target & the $ store, teachers pay teachers website, and my mom's old canning jars, I had a finished classroom!

 

 

Now on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I will answer to Miss Emily. You will find me using my "teacher voice", exerting crazy amounts of energy for the little ones, singing off key, dancing, reading, teaching, snacking, and playing with the most adorable little kids. I am so thrilled with how everything has turned out and I am SO grateful for this opportunity. I feel so blessed to be a part of these darling kids' lives and to be able to do what I love to do - teach.