the day he popped the question

Three years ago today, my hunk of a hubby asked me to marry him. I know it's kind of odd to document this three years late. However, after recently discovering the video footage of me telling the story never actually happened (blonde moment with mom and the video camera), I decided today was a fitting day to document it.
Brad proposed to me on a Friday, April 16, 2010. It was the middle of finals week and I had totally bombed a final that afternoon. I was pretty bummed about it and Brad had already told me he was going to pick me up from campus. He knew I wasn't feeling too hot about myself so he picked up some Cafe Rio and took me on a picnic to our favorite park in Provo. We had spent a lot of time there throughout our courtship, getting to know each other so it had kind of become our go-to hang out.
We enjoyed our pork salads on a blanket while we talked about how pathetic my performance was on my final. After relaxing a little, Brad gave me a brand new baseball and we decided to play some catch.

picnicking at the park

playing catch with the new ball

Because my baseball was new, I was being a bit protective. Anytime it would hit the grass or roll in any mud I had to wipe it clean before throwing it again. One of the many times I overthrew the ball it rolled past Brad and into some mud. His back was turned as he picked up the ball and, I assumed, was cleaning it off. It was taking him forever so I started nagging him, telling him to "throw it already." He finally threw it back to me and a smudge caught my eye as the ball landed in my glove. I pulled the ball from my glove to perfect Brad's  cleaning efforts. It was then that I realized it wasn't a smudge at all, but some writing...

reading the writing on the ball, over and over and over again...

Then, I looked up to see Brad running toward me, kneeling at my feet, holding up a little paper box. 

The little paper box was a bit of an inside joke from attending a devotional together, folding paper creations, the first weekend we met. I'm all about sentimental :)

popping the question face to face

saying yes!

yay for being engaged!

This is the ball he proposed with; we had it on display at our wedding reception:

@blushphotography

Everyone has their own preferences for their dream proposal story. For me, I just wanted it to be sentimental. I didn't need the rose pedals and candles with the lights (although that's darling). I just wanted the proposal to have personal meaning. Brad and I enjoyed spending time together in the park, eating our favorite food, playing catch - something we loved to do together. I also love that I have a souvenir from such a special day :) For me, it was perfect. I'm so grateful for my man and how he knows exactly how to make me happy.

Family in Town

Welp, our house is now quieter than it has been in two weeks and it is a bitter-sweet feeling. It is always fun to have family in town and embrace the chaos of going a million places, catching up with a million people. However, it is also nice to get back into a normal routine after so much chaos.
As I mentioned before, my family was in town for Easter weekend and the whole next week. We kept extremely busy making sure they were able to visit everyone they wanted to while trying to make two cars work among 4, almost 5 drivers. We made it work and enjoyed each others' company all along the way.
We spent most of our evenings at home relaxing, watching old family videos, and welcoming the occasional guests stopping by to visit the family. It was fun to talk about old childhood memories and how excited we are to have this handsome guy come home in November:

Elder Shaun Baxter

I cannot believe how fast time has flown by! I am so excited to pop his little head off come November :)

That Friday night, Brad and I headed over to the park across the street from our house. Some friends of ours were having a birthday BBQ and we were excited to join. Unfortunately we had a little mishap, and lack of judgement from the hubs. As I was walking over to join the group, Brad decided it would be fun, flirty, DUMB - call it what you'd like, to kick a volleyball in my direction. As soon as he kicked it he regretted it - rightfully so. As I was walking up to the pavilion, excitedly greeting our friends we hadn't seen in a while I was blindsided! Wack! Right to the face! A kicked volleyball - to the face - knocking off my sunglasses - making me delirious for a split second before our realized my nose had instantly become a blood faucet; not just a dripping faucet, but a running faucet. I must say it was a bit of a humbling experience. Anyone else that has had a blow to the face knows that you almost INSTANTLY cry, no matter how much it didn't hurt. Luckily the hubs came running over and shielded my scary face from any further humiliation. After cleaning up my face/nose/hands from the bloody mess we discovered a nice big bruise and fatty goose egg on the bridge of my nose; this wound restricted my ability to use normal facial expressions for at least a few days.  -    Now, I don't tell this story to put any shame on the hubs, but to share an experience that I can't help but laugh about every time I think about it or share it. He really did feel terrible, and took really good care of me, after I said some mean things to him in my state of vulnerability. We ended the night happy as clams, with a super tender face.  ...so bummed I never thought to take a picture of my lovely injury
That weekend, we spent the majority of our days watching LDS General Conference, you can find more on that here. The whole weekend was filled with such inspiring messages, motivating me to work harder to reach my potential. I am so grateful for the divine role of women and the opportunity that I will have, hopefully someday soon, to be a mother. We enjoyed watching and discussing these sessions with family both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately Sunday was also the day we had to say goodbye to Dad and Meggy. After dropping them off, Brad, Zac, and I enjoyed a lovely dinner at our neighbors' house while my mom spent the night at her parents' house. We ended the night eating some yummy peach cobbler at Shay and Jason's house, then hit the hay.

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter to everyone! I hope everyone had a happy Easter, filled with peace and gratitude.
Our Easter weekend was extra special this year. My family flew into town Friday afternoon and will be here for the next week! We spent Friday evening at home, catching up and enjoying each others' company.  A few different cousins came by to visit and see the family. We stayed up late telling hilarious stories and watching family videos from when we were younger. So fun!
The next morning my mom and I joined Shaylee, Shannon, Aunt Jill, Aunt Lisa, and Aunt Jamie to head up to Tremonton for a funeral. My mom's dear Aunt Celia passed away last week from injuries sustained in a pretty terrible car accident. The family also lost a grandson in the accident; it has been a rough couple of weeks for this sweet family. It was nice to see so many of my mom's extended family and reminisce all of the positive, happy memories everyone had of Aunt Celia.

Aunt Celia

Shaylee, Shannon, and I also got the biggest kick out of our mom's as we "took a walk down memory lane." We went downtown and saw all the different houses they lived in and heard some of their crazy, childhood memories. Of course, at Jill's request, we had to make a stop at Kings and get some treats. We have some pretty good video footage of them laughing and giddy, telling stories. Unfortunately I think it might be too big to put on here. That night we were pretty beat, so we all just hung out, ate some dinner, and watched some more family videos.
Sunday morning I played the Easter bunny and got just a little something for everyone in the family to enjoy. We enjoyed spending the morning together and putting together fun Easter outfits for everyone. It was fun to attend church with the fam, as always. Brad, Zac, and I left an hour early to head to my dear friend's farewell. Sister Rachel Stapp is going to be an AMAZING missionary! Her talk was so perfect, so real, just so awesome. I am proud to call her one of my nearest and dearest friends. As I watched her sit down from her talk, it was the first time I really allowed myself to think about her leaving and it was SO heart-wrenching to think about. BUT it was also SO EXCITING! She is going to be such and amazing influence to so many people on her mission. I am so proud of her :)

for: Brad, Dad, Mom, Zac, & Meg

our Easter outfits... Thanks Karen (MIL)

Sister Stapp is a babe

After leaving her farewell, we all headed up to Layton to enjoy our family Easter celebration. They best part about holidays is spending time with those you love. It was fun to watch all the other ones hunt for Easter Eggs. We ate a lot of yummy food and enjoyed talking and telling more stories.
Also, a special little shout out to my cousin, Mitch and his new fiance, Jess! They are officially engaged. YAY! We are so happy for them and looking forward to their summer wedding :)

On the topic of Easter, I just wanted to share one of my favorite pictures of the Savior. This picture truly warms my heart when I think about His atoning sacrifice and His genuine, individual, unconditional love for each one of us. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of my Savior and the enabling power that comes with the Atonement.

I hope everyone had a special Easter weekend!

March

One of these days I won't be doing my updates a month at a time, but hey, at least I'm recording our life, right?
March began with me starting a new nanny job. I am working for an adorable family here in Alpine. They have two little girls and they are just adorable! I am only doing that two days a week, still allowing time for my house cleaing jobs, subbing, and (my favorite) home maker/crafter :)

I also had the chance to go snowshoeing for the first time in my life. I really absolutely loved it! It was such a beautiful day and it was with a couple of my close pals. We just went up American Fork Canyon and it was a great reminder that we live in such a beautiful place!

beautiful view

me, kal, and kates

Brad's work has season passes for snowboarding that we can use occasionally  We spent a Wednesday this month snowboarding at Sundance. We picked a rather warm and sunny day. It was really nice, but the slopes were ice. Our snowboarding didn't last long, but it was fun for us to spend a whole day together in the middle of the week. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures.

Brad also FINALLY took the GMAT. Yahoo! He has been studying and attending a class pretty consistently since last summer. I was so proud of him just because he took it! I can' t even imagine taking a test right now. I tried to make his day a little special with a few things to start off his day right. He was pleased with his score - as the first time, but is hoping for a higher score for the business schools he is considering. He did get in the 75th percentile, which makes me proud I am SO relived to not see anything GMAT, at least for a little while. :)

a good breakfast and a new shirt 

We also had a near and dear family friend get married this month. It was seriously one of my favorite weddings I have ever been to! Austin is SO in love with his darling wife and it was so sweet to be able to be a part of their special day. :)

Austin & Kayla

Recently my Grandpa has lost his ability to drive (medical restrictions). Grandpa Bob LOVES to go on drives up to "God's Country" and attending the temple at least once a week. Now that he can't get anywhere on our own, it has given us the chance to volunteer to help get him around. I had the chance to this past month and I LOVED it. I have lived close to my grandpa most of my life, but haven't spent a whole lot of time one on one with him. We started the morning off going to the Bountiful temple together. Then we changed our clothes, grabbed some lunch and headed up to "God's Country" aka Tremonton, Fielding, Garland. He loves to visit old friends and family. I had the opportunity to meet an Aunt and Uncle of his, some of his cousins, some good friends growing up, and where he used to spend his free time growing up. It was fun to meet so many people that loved my grandpa so much. I also loved hearing old stories about "this house", "that barn", etc. I am looking forward to my chance to do it again. :)

young grandpa and the rest of my mom's family...
who can guess which one my mom is???

little red riding hood and the big bad wolf

Grandpa Bob and Grandma Jane :)

"Cowboy Bob" and Uncle Matt

Middle of March we spent some time doing some overnight nannying together and really enjoyed it. Our first job was with a family in our ward. We had their 3 boys for St. Patty's Day weekend and it was a blast! They are full of energy and were always ready to do something fun. It was sometimes hard to keep up with them, but so fun. Brad and I ended our St. Patty's Day with a yummy traditional Irish meal (Made by my cousin, Shaylee) of corned beef and cabbage, with a few other yummy foods. SO GOOD! The following week we nannied for a darling family in Cedar Hills. They were such a cute little family that were so close to each other. These nanny experience have been great training for us and have given us the opportunity to learn awesome tricks and ideas from all of the awesome, experienced parents.

With all of the nannying back to back, including my regular nanny job I was pretty beat by the end of the week. That didn't stop the hubs from pulling together a March Madness party at our house last weekend. I loved it! It was fun to spend the weekend with a bunch of our friends and let the boys watch the games while us girls crafted and talked. We even had a few of them spend the night, then spend most of the next day with us.

our craft: adding some color to our wood utensils

I also just wanted to give a little shout out to my mom and dad. On Monday, March 25 they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. I am so grateful for their example. They have always exemplified the importance of relying on the Lord and principles of the gospel to have a successful marriage. I am so grateful they have been so diligent in raising our family in the church and creating a home that has always been a place we can turn to for peace and direction. Love you guys! Thanks for being awesome!

Looking forward to spending the end of the month of March with mi familia; they arrive tomorrow afternoon around 4:30. YAY! So excited :)

February

February flew by!
It was a month full of lots of little things and having family in town, which is always the best :)
Here's our top ten activities for February:

1) I'm really trying to work on being a better wife and finding lots of little ways to show Brad how much I appreciate him. Sometimes it's hard for me to get creative and think of things that he might like. Thanks to Pinterest, it's much easier to make things happen. This year I did the 14 Days of Valentine's gifts for Brad. This gave him a little something to take to work with him every day to snack on or stash. I modified a few different I found and picked the ones I knew Brad liked. It was fun to sneak out of bed early and have it set out in the kitchen with the wonderfully cheezy one-liners :)

a small sample of the cheezy-ness

2) Again, I am really enjoying not being in school. I have been able to find more time and use my creativity to decorate our home for the holidays. It's always fun trying to find ways to decorate without spending too much money. I think they are getting to know me personally at my local Hobby Lobby :s

3) My brother Zac, and Brad's sister Mindy both have February birthdays. We LOVE being able to spend time with them. It seems crazy how little we see them with how close we live. We took them to a birthday dinner at Zupa's and enjoyed catching up.

4) This may not actually be a top ten, but in the eternal scheme of things, we can recognize the tender mercies involved :) For a while, our front right tire kept going flat, but not enough for us to think there was a hole in it. One day we woke up and it truly was flat :( No one likes to deal with car problems, especially when you know it will end in draining your bank account. After trying a few different things to try to solve the problem without having to buy a new tire, the answer was inevitable. I would like to publicly thank MY TIRE GUYS because they are the best! They really worked so hard with us to help us figure out the problem. They have the best customer service and went WAY above and beyond to help make things work. Long story short, it was an overall replacement cost of over $800! But as mentioned previously, tender mercies were involved. After being in contact with my Uncle through the whole thing as well, he called me with some great news! He had just found 4 like new tires/wheels that he was going to be able to get for just $400 from a wrecking yard. In the end we only spent $426 start to finish! This was such a blessing to us in so many ways and we will always be grateful for the tender mercies.

she still looks pretty good :)

5) I have also been getting the bug to have a someday nursery/current craft room created. We have a workout room at our place and never seem to use the stuff since we have gym passes through Brad's work. We took our treadmill over to our cousin, Shaylee's house, knowing she would use it. Then my parents gave me the "OK" to sell their home weight set. Yahoo! And we even got a little bit of commission :) I moved our free weights into the storage room and got started repainting it. The room doesn't have very good lighting, so I just wanted to paint it a lighter neutral and had an extra gallon of paint to get it done; it worked out perfectly. Now it is serving as a craft room/office/guest room/future preschool room/future nursery... We can just call it a multi-purpose room :)

top: before, bottom: after

6) The weekend before Valentine's Day, we were invited to a party hosted by my beautiful friend, Ashley. She pulled together a cute, entertaining party that was loads of fun. :) We played some fun games and ate some really yummy food! (I need to get a hold of the rest of the fun pics Ash took)

the spread

cocoa bar

one game: name those lips

7) The beautiful Ashley that we had a party with also took some darling pictures of my cousins' kids. I seriously LOVE her work and would recommend her for anyone; she does all types of shoots and is so fun and easy to work with. She also did our "couple shots" over the summer. You can check out more of her work here and here.

paige, cove, brooklyn, reagan

reagan turned 1!

8) For the last week of February we had some of Brad's family in town. Brad had a cousin getting married, so the family found it was the perfect opportunity to join Brad's sister, Mindy go through the temple for the first time. Rob and Hannah also came in town for the wedding and Mindy's special experience. It was so fun spending time with everyone hanging out, enjoying the fabulous wedding festivities, and visiting with other mutual friends in the area.

after the temple

9) This was also an exciting missionary month: My dear friend, Katie Nilson aka Kates, returned from her mission to Milan, Italy. Another dear friend, Rachel Stapp aka Ray Bird received her mission call to Utica New York. We are so excited for both of them and the new, exciting changes within our group of friends.

true friends

she's a little excited :)

10) The highlight of our month was being cleared through LDS Family Services and have officially been assigned a case worker! We met with her on February 21st. This meeting was to get to know each other and learn a little bit more about the adoption process. We are so excited to get started and anxious to really get the ball rolling.

Check out their website HERE

This month was such a busy month with so many fun memories made. We feel so blessed in so many ways and are grateful for the continued support we receive from so many as we work hard to expand our family.

January

Overall January was a somewhat uneventful month. However, we did have fun ringing in the New Year. We tried to throw a big, fun New Years party, but most everyone was out of town. We still had an enjoyable evening with our friends the McNeils and the Slades. We kept busy catching up on everyone's Christmas break, eating yummy food, and playing some games. Unfortunately we didn't capture a whole lot of pictures, but this one is just one small element of the fun theme I went for:

compliments of pinterest

Here are a few images of my New Years decor:

bubbly and props

versatile wreath, used for every holiday, just changing the ribbons

table centerpiece

Even though January wasn't very eventful, there was one very important tender mercies in our lives:

Brad had been working hard to prove himself and his work ethic over at Ancestry.com. He was constantly keeping his ears perked for opportunities to move up or find more experience higher up in the company. He learned they were looking for a temporary data analyst; which is right up his alley of crunching numbers. He applied for the position and interviewed twice. Things looked pretty good. We prayed, we fasted, and we were overwhelmed and humbled once we learned Brad got the position and was starting immediately - midday. He loved jumping right into it and was excited for the opportunity to prove his potential. Since then, things have been looking good and they have been impressed by his hard work with this temp position. We are hoping as Brad continues to work hard that it will prove himself capable of staying in the field. Lets keep our fingers crossed, hoping this will open up some more doors, or even a window ;)

We feel so blessed and are so grateful for everything this job has blessed us with so far. MY favorite part is that he works Mon-Fri 9-5 now, instead of having just Sun and Wed off, working 11-8. YAY! I have my hubby back and we are eating dinner together again. :)

Our Drive Home From Californ-i-a

FAR TOO LATE, WAY OVER DUE, ALMOST NOT WORTH SHARING, but for my sake, I'm posting it :)

Okay, I've really got to get this all down before I forget too many more of the details. Our drive home was the longest drive ever! A lot of what happened was so frustrating and scary at the time, but we can't help but laugh when we talk about the irony of all of it now.
First of all, we were in denial of having to leave so we took our time and got off to a late start. Once we got passed Reno the storms began. We started working our way up the mountain through Tahoe when the storming started. Any of you that have done Donnor's Pass in the winter I'm sure would agree with me when I say: FLY!!! It's so much more worth it... or at least be smart enough to follow the forecast a little closer before it's too late.

before we knew what was coming...

So we got to the "chains required" part of the drive and put our never-been-used chains on the car. The chains actually slid on pretty easily; we were pleasantly surprised and moved forward with smiles. Once we get going again the chains start to make a loud-not good noise. We kept going a little ways to see if maybe we just needed to pick up a little speed. After a while, we knew that wouldn't cut it so we switched, adjusted, tightened, and loosened those chains about 10 times before giving up and just taking the chains off altogether. At that point, the chains had already kind of beat up a little of the car frame and we weren't willing to risk it doing more. So we proceeded without the chains, VERY cautiously. At this point, we were 8 hours into the drive, but had really only traveled the distance equivalent to a typical 4 hour drive. We drove the remainder of the pass at about 20 MPH doing our best without our chains. Meanwhile, this stress caused me to drink 2 DCs and a bottle of water. NO BUENO with a small bladder. We finally get to an exit and there is a line out the door at every location (apparently I'm not the only one that relies on drinks to relieve stress sometimes). Anyway, once that was all taken care of I was a whole new woman! We carried on with some clear roads for about an hour, traveling at about 70 MPH. That is where all of our dreams were shattered. For the remainder of our drive, we basically traveled with the storm.

Manly-Man putting on our chains

By the time we hit the Utah boarder we were driving PacMan, the only ones on the road with about 1 foot distance of visibility. SUPER SCARY! We were driving about 20-25 MPH and getting nowhere fast. Finally after all of the stress of the night, 2:00 a.m. rolls around and even though we were almost to Tooele, we knew we weren't going to make it home that night.  After calculating our road conditions, we figured it would be another 3 hours before we would get home. So, we stopped off at a hotel in Tooele to catch a few hours of sleep before we had to head back out early for Brad to get to work on time. We finally went to sleep a little after 3 and were up again by 7:00. It was a nice, much needed, little break and we were refreshed enough to go after enjoying their complimentary breakfast. We were SO thrilled to finally be back in Alpine only one short hour later!

some of our best visibility the whole drive - Tooele on the horizon!
oh yeah, our windshield wiper fluid was frozen too :)

However, the "fun" doesn't stop there. So we went straight to Jason and Shaylee's house to have someone to share our adventure with. We just laughed the whole time, realizing how pathetic it was, yet how grateful we were that we made it out alive and safe. The time comes for us to head to the house so Brad can go to work. We arrive at our home only to realize, every door is locked and our garage code is not working. We walk around the house and check all the windows... everything: locked. So we climb back into the car to go back to Shay's to get our spare key. Don't worry, our car died in the five minutes we had been at the house! Ahh! So us, being  the unprepared people we are, don't have jumper cables. So we search the Kia frantically and found a basic set. Yes! Then we realize, crap we need a car to jump the Kia. Oh wait, there's Betty (my little blue car) in the driveway literally covered in a foot a snow and we don't have a scraper on hand. So we used our sleeves to clean up the car enough to drive over to Shays to get our spare key and then to later jump the Kia. (Luckily I had my keys to the blue car with me instead of where they usually are in the house). We go over to Shays to get our key and while Brad is grabbing the key, I am scraping the ice and snow off Betty a little more so we can at least be legal. Suddenly the windshield wiper flies off completely. Brad just looks at it and throws it in the car. At this point he's a little on edge and I'm just laughing like a drunk from living off of no sleep and not knowing whether I should really be laughing or crying. I just wanted to get in the house to shower and sleep! We get back to the house and finally got into the house. Hallelujah! I open the garage and we start just unloading everything into the house. Then we realize we still haven't jumped the Kia. Brad has to get to work, and I have to pick up my brother, Zac at the airport in a few hours so we need both cars. So we finally get the cars lined up to jump and the jumper cables literally just broke in Brad's hands. What??? All we could do was laugh.

attaching cables

Brad shocked: the cable just broke off

Brad's failed attempt to jerry-rig the cables

Fortunately we have smart upstairs neighbors and we had to rummage through some of their stuff in the garage until we finally found some cables. After jumping the car 3 separate times we finally got it charged long enough to make start back up. (we were worried about letting it run for too long because both of the cars were past empty:s) It was such a relief watching Brad drive away because I knew the worst was over. Although I felt terrible that he had to spend that whole day at work after living off of very little sleep and a lot of stress. 

I spent the day doing all of our laundry, cleaning our house, crying a little, and trying to help create a peaceful environment for Brad to come home to. Mission accomplished and we ended the night relieved it was all over, but grateful for the unforgettable memories and our life-lesson learned: never drive through Donnor Pass in the winter!
I know this is all jumbled with a lot of grammatical errors and very little fluency, etc. But I had to get it down on paper and if I spend anymore time on it, I might just give up on catching up altogether.


Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed reminiscing. :)