Last two days!

I've made it! 30 days of blogging! I did great until this trip to Arizona which threw me off a couple of days. But oh well. I passed in my mind. Here are the last two:

"My Testimony"

I wanted to spend a lot more time and put some thought into it... but in all reality, my testimony is simple. I don't need to spend a lot of time to make it elaborate or detailed.

I know this: That God lives. That He loves us. That He sent His son Jesus Christ to this earth to die for our sins so that we can live with Him again, with our families.

I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, sent to fulfill a mission to restore Christ's church on this earth again. I know that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from the ancient records of the church so that we can have a "guide book" on how to live our lives in these last days.  I know that we have a living prophet today,
Thomas S. Monson, who leads and guides us.

I also have a testimony for the unconditional love that God and Christ have for us.  For me.  For you.  For everyone.  He wants us to be better people.  He wants us to be happy.  He wants us to love others. To serve others.  To treat others the way we want to be treated. We are all children of God and he loves us all equally. 

There are so many great Christian churches out there with many different beliefs, and many very similar to what we believe in our church; there are also many religious people who live noble lives but who do not affiliate with a particular religion. However, I believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's church, which contains the FULLNESS of the gospel.

Read more here.

"Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days" 

Here are some of our basic goals for 2011:

• Costa Rica / South America trip
• Read the Book of Mormon cover to cover
• Go to the temple once a month (We'll have babysitters! Yay!)
• Babysitters means go on more dates!! 
• Invest in some new camera equipment
• Lose 10 lbs (this goes for both of us)

Pictures and post to come about trip to Arizona soon! We fly back home tomorrow! Wish us luck cause we'll need it. Claire has come down with her first major cold and it is NOT fun. Poor thing. Couldn't sleep because she couldn't breath all night. Tonight we're trying Vapor rub, Little Noses, and a vaporizer!

Two days

So I missed yesterday because we were basically just flying all day and then when we got to Arizona, we just visited with family and then crashed. Claire rocked the first connection, and then on the second one she got fussy and wouldn't sleep and wanted to scream a little and fuss... but luckily we had the only open seat on the plane between us so we could lay her out and let her sleep. I don't know what we would have done without that seat.  Anyway:

"A person I love"

Do I need to be creative? Or I can I just be boring and obvious. I love these two of course. And these people and of course them.

But in all honesty, I must give thanks for Benjamin. He is the best man I know and I am grateful for him every day of my life. I'm grateful for his hard work, his dedication, his testimony, his attitude, his perspective and optimism. For putting Claire and me first and having his priorities straight. 

(what happens when he works from home)

For loving our families and wanting to be close to them so Claire can know her grandparents and aunts and uncles. Which leads me into.....

"A secret you want to get out"

OKay, I think it's about time to tell the world. 

We 

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are

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{NOT pregnant}

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MOVING TO UTAH!! 

Jump, shout, scream, dance hooray! Ben has found another awesome job and we will be permanently relocating back to our home state mid-February.

We could not be more excited.

Easy

"A child I love"

Hmmm... hard one? I think not.

Updates on our festivities later, we're off to play some games! And off to Arizona tomorrow to see the Garrisons! Hope I'll be able to get around to finishing this challenge off strong--haven't missed one day!

Hope you all had a magical Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

"A place I love"

Right here in our home with my little family.

'Tis the Season

"5 things you love about Christmas"

#5:The sound of Christmas. The Christmas jingles / songs / carols. 

I love Christmas songs. Favorites are on my playlist on the bottom right side of this blog. Christmas songs truly warm the heart.

#4: Food. Treats. Candy. 

Throw 'losing baby weight' out the door until January 1st! Seriously. 

#3: The Spirit of Giving.

 I love the hustle-bustle of the year. The sense of service and love. I really wish it would last all year, but I guess it does make this time of year extra special.

#2: Family

We're really missing our family this Christmas, but excited to have our own here with Claire. We'll be spending today with our good friends, the Thomas family, and then tomorrow with the Johansen's (my mom's brother's family). Then next week we're off to Arizona to see the Garrisons! We're excited for a lot of them to finally meet Claire.

#1: Time to think of Christ and His birth.

 Watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional here.

I had problems

"Share a previous Christmas memory"

My dear mother would share this same story if asked about a Christmas memory with me. Remember how I would wet my pants everyday after school in Elementary? Well, every Christmas Eve I would get sick. Sick = throwing up + diarrhea. I would just get soooo excited for Santa to come. I would be up all night (and so would my mother) throwing up and...the other stuff. And for some reason, I had a hard time making it to the bathroom. Please don't ask me why. The title of this post says it all. So my mom wouldn't be up comforting me and helping me fall back asleep.... she'd be up CLEANING up the "stuff." I love you mom.

Merry Christmas. And here's to me being able to control myself now. Thank goodness, for my marriage's sake.

Day 22

"A photo of my family"

This was at Claire's blessing back in September.

I love my family and will surely miss them this Christmas.

Random: Someone forwarded me this list and thought some of them were funny, so I bolded the ones that I especially liked or thought were true for me. 

Truths

I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

There is great need for a sarcasm font.

How the are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this - ever.

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? **** it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.

I would rather try to carry 10 over-loaded plastic bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from; this shouldn't be a problem....

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say"

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate bicyclists.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

Oh dear.

"A travel story"

First of all, anyone bored of these yet? Anyone still reading these? Maybe I should stop and go back to only posting when something exciting happens in our lives.

Today's post is interesting because... let's face it, we've got a LOT of travel stories. And sadly, the first and only that come to mind are incredibly awful stories (hilarious to us now of course), but awful at the time. They all include: impossible to control things, running things, smells (not good ones), sounds (not good ones either), sick beyond imagination, pestilence, famine, corrupt cops, unbelievable bad luck, and "funniest home video" material.

Really. I'm trying hard to think of a magical time while traveling that didn't include the things mentioned above. (Only because we spent most our travels backpacking on a shoestring. And I AM exaggerating to be funny).

OK. Foreign places that we've been to that do NOT have the above involved:

China

Vietnam

Cambodia

Thailand

Singapore

India

Mexico

Jamaica

Haiti

South Africa

Mozambique

Zimbabwe

Zambia

Botswana

Tanzania

Kenya

Morocco

Alright, I'll do one good travel story and one bad one.

Good one:

Best trip we've ever taken (and I can't imagine topping) was our 11-day African safari to the Serengeti in Kenya and Tanzania. Best. Trip. Ever. It was definitely magical. It should be on ALL of your bucket lists. There is this crater at the top of this mountain (caved in volcano), and now it's this lush game reserve with thousands of wild animals (you can see pictures here). You come over the mountain and drop down into the valley and it's like Land Before Time, at the end when they get to the "valley." We saw so many cool things there. Lions (right after a kill), hundreds of elephants & zebras, cheetahs, hyenas, and even flamingos!
It was just amazing.  Just go look at the pictures. They speak for themselves.

Bad one:

India. Period.  Am I done? Ha.

To preface: India a very rough place to backpack in. Not really any middle-ground places to stay, eat, and tour. It's either luxury (over $200 a night) or misery (under $2.00 a night). 

 I'll keep it short. Those who traveled with us know all the full stories. We found a place for $2 dollars per person to stay the night. It was filthy. The mattresses, (well, they weren't even mattresses) were damp, moldy, and smelly. One small torn up sheet. Over 100 degrees. No fan, no A/C. Nothing. Can't leave the windows open because of mosquitoes.

Needless to say, Ben and I didn't sleep a wink. We had the worst mosquitoes and bed bugs I could even imagine. I'd put the sheet over myself and would DIE of heat, but any part of me that was open to the air was IMMEDIATELY attacked by mosquitoes. We finally turned the lights on at like 3am and went on a killing frenzy. The walls, our hands, and our sheets were covered in our own splattered blood from killing the mosquitoes. We killed at least 50. I've never seen so many. Our bodies, especially mine, were covered. I had 381 bites (and this is an under-estimate). Yep, we counted.  Ben got a lot of bites too, but his thick hair is quite a defense mechanism.

Good times:)

(You can see our Southeast Asia posts here)

Gingerbread

"Your favorite Christmas tradition" 

Making gingerbread houses with my family. Here's us in 2007:

2007:


2008:


We made the Taj Mahal:


We missed out on 2009 because we were in Africa and this year we're staying here for Christmas. So we'll have to start our own tradition of making them!

Hobby

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iPod

"Put your iPod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up"

N'Sync: Dirty Pop

Danity Kane: Damaged

Snap: Rhythm is a Dancer

Fountains of Wayne: Stacy's Mom

Richard Marx: Now and Forever

Hellogoodbye: Oh it's Love

Alicia Keys: If I Ain't Got You

3 Doors Down: Let me Go

N'Sync: I drive Myself Crazy

Billy Joel: Piano Man

And I probably would have skipped most except for Alicia Keys and Billy Joel.

Also,  here are some new things we've been crocheting:

My favorite!!!

Mommy-Daughter matching owls!!

Necklaces:

Headband/earwarmers:

Check them out HERE.

Pop

"A habit you wish you didn't have"

This is a tricky one because everything I do is perfect so I really can't think of anything. OK let me stop.  The truth is, where do I start?

Popping things. My knuckles, my toes, ankles and back. 


{Learn why I'm writing all this randomness HERE}

YouTube

"Favorite Youtube video"

Oh there's so many. Right now I'm really diggin' these:

Bucket List

"Next 3 on your Bucket list"

Here's a bit of my Bucket list:

Go bungee jumping

Ride in a hot air balloon

Skydive

Start your own business doing something you love

Complete a triathlon

Try hang gliding

Experience a sunset

Experience a sunrise

Own a pet

Take up dancing

Go backpacking across at least 10 locations

Swim with dolphins

Create your dream home

Get scuba certified

Fly first class

Hit bullseye on a dartboard

Have dinner with someone you had only dreamed of meeting

See a blue whale

Ride a roller coaster

Go on a cruise

Fall in love

Be in love

See the Mona Lisa in Paris

See Machu Picchu

Travel the world

Visit Australia and New Zealand

and Greece

Walk the Great Wall of China

See the pyramids of Egypt

Live in a foreign country for at least 6 months

Go on an African wildlife safari

Learn to play guitar

Celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary

Hold a grandchild

Hold a great-grandchild

What I want to do next: Visit Machu Picchu, learn to play guitar, and create my dream home.

Here's something to brighten your day. Claire isn't a laugher, no matter how hard we try we only get a giggle out now and then. But yesterday while we were watching Elf, she full on laughed for at least 10 minutes, it was so stinking cute!

Day 14

"Your dream house"

Hmm... 

Just kidding. Probably something like this:


Haha, no really. I think after looking at google images for 3.5 seconds, this one looks close to dreamy. Out in the country (the Ogden valley) with lots of space, good medium size home, the pool is nice, the big porch with a killer view.


Someday, maybe someday we'll settle and not be paying more than your morgage for rent.

Anna's engaged!

 

And we are so excited!!! We were able to spend time with Brian and get to know him in Vegas over Thanksgiving and he's great! He even served his mission in Johannesburg, South Africa and was there while we were there! How crazy! The 2 son-in-laws in our family have served in Africa. Pretty cool. They've chosen March 5th and have started a blog: larsonsinlove.blogspot.com. Head on over to see their story.

Congrats Brianna! (My nickname for them)


and...

 

 "What did you do today?"

 I crocheted 2 hats trying to get orders ready and shipped before Christmas, I played with Claire, I put a massive amount of dishes in the dishwasher, folded half of the laundry (and still haven't put it away), I designed a blog, designed a Christmas card, talked to my mom, edited some photos from a shoot, played with Claire, watched a little of the Office while I crocheted again, talked to Lisa, went over to my Aunt Christy's and helped put lights on the tree, had a yummy dinner, played with Claire and Reese, put in Elf and crocheted some new fun headband/earwarmers!

{Claire has been sleeping pretty good consistently now, I put her down at 8, wake her up at 11 to feed, then she makes it until between 4:30 and 5:30am for her feeding, then sleeps till 8 or 9. It's been so great. Slowly we'll move her 11pm feeding up by half hours until her 8pm is her last feeding!}

Best Quote

"A favorite quote"

This is by Audrey Hepburn

"I believe in pink.
(wedding day 7.26.2007)

I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
(2 weeks ago)

I believe in kissing, kissing a lot.
(thailand 2008)

I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong.
(going on 40 hours of labor)

I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.
(claire is the pretty one, i'm just the happiest one)

I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
(claire garrison: 7.23.2010)

Booooks!

"A favorite book"

Here are my favorites:

#1: The Hiding Place. This is a must read. True and incredible story about finding God in the midst of the Holocaust.

#2: Man's Search for Meaning. Another true, incredible story about the same thing.

#3: To Kill a Mockingbird. Classic.

#4: Not Without my Daughter. True story about a woman being held captive in Iran by her husband and her struggle to keep her daughter alive and get out.

#5: These is My Words. "Based on the real-life exploits of the author's great-grandmother, this fictionalized diary vividly details one woman's struggles with life and love in frontier Arizona at the end of the last century."

Of course, the best book of all, and the only one that really matters in life: The Book of Mormon. (follow link to learn more about this perfect book)

Also--momma is one HAPPY girl today!! Nights have been a real struggle, and with being constantly sick the last 3 weeks, it was really starting to wear on me. I really didn't know how much longer I could keep running on an hour or 2 of sleep here and there. I'm happy to report that the last 2 nights, after waking Claire to feed her at 11, she only woke up ONCE after that (around 5am--where usually is every 2 hours). I'm now following The Baby Sleeps Tonight (I've read them all, Babywise, Healthy Sleep Habits, etc), this one recommended to me by Brooke, which is:
The baby goes to bed around 8pm, you wake them up to feed at 11pm, and then they shouldn't be hungry until around 6am. If they wake up before then,  you know you just need to rock them back to sleep or give them the binky. As the weeks go on, you gradually move the 11pm feeding up an hour, 10:30, 10, and so on until the 8pm feeding becomes the last and they make it all the way to 6am. It worked for my friends here and I'm gonna try it. It's been great the last 2 nights, and I think giving her solid food (without the rice cereal) is helping because she actually eats a lot of it. Anyway--figuring this chica out and loving the last 2 nights!!

P.S. I should add this to my "Wish List" post, but yesterday was Monitor's Christmas party in the city and we had a babysitter for the first time (thanks Jessica!). Claire did awesome by the way and I'm so proud, 5:30 to 11:30 is definitely the longest I've ever been away from her.  Anywho, while we were walking around the city, to and from the necessary public transportation hubs, my poor little feet in my pretty little stilletos were not bearing it well. Ben said, "I need to invent some flip flops that roll up in your purse." So I came home and googled "roll-up shoes" and found THESE! I'm totally gettin' me some.