My Thoughts...

I love the R House blog for so many reasons, but one of the reasons is she gives me so many opportunities to serve others. Please check out THIS post and see if you think there is anyway you could help some beautiful birth mothers who have recently placed their babies for adoption.

The charity is called Birth Mom Buds. They put packages together for birth mothers. The package includes simple items, so you could even just donate some journals a CD etc. If adoption has touched your lives, this is a great opportunity to give back to some beautiful women!

We LOVE our Birth Mom's... and with Braxton's birthday coming up at the end of the week, it seems like I have been reflecting a little on the way our family came to be. It sure makes me appreciate these beautiful girls that have come into our lives and made our family possible! We LOVE you Bri & Shanna! {My mom & dad made this picture, for me for Christmas, Don't you LOVE it? I do!}

With History being made last week, I thought I'd also record my feelings about it all. To be honest, I did not vote for Obama. However I have been very impressed by his leadership skills this week, and I am confident that he will do what he thinks is best for our Country. I may not agree with many of his points of views, but I have been encouraged by his kindness and many of his new ideas. To read one article in particular go HERE. I am so thankful to live in a land that is free. We can all make a difference in this world and in our communities. He faces many big challenges in the upcoming years and I am grateful that he is willing to take them on!

On another political note, I think that THIS letter that the Bush Twins wrote to the Obama girls was SO sweet & thoughtful! Thank you, Betsy for showing it to me!

Oh and one more, Christal had this on her blog and I died laughing! Too funny!

Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

The Perfect Weekend...

Hello! Hello!

Hope you all had a perfect weekend! We did! We started off on Friday night with a fun & early Valentine Party! We all brought items to put into the love basket (sort of like gag gifts but with a valentine theme). We had a yummy dinner which included Lemon Herbed Salmon, Bacon Wrapped Chicken, Better than Sex Cake & a Tropical Fizz drink. You can find all the recipes right Here.

We were in great company and laughed the night away! We decided that we must make this a yearly tradition!

It snowed all day today and it was the perfect snowman making snow! So we headed outside and built snowmen, played in the snow and made snow angels!

Then we warmed up with my favorite... hot chocolate!

and just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we all took a little nap!

Yep, perfect!

Two very different views...

On Sunday Zach got home from a 10 day business trip to Singapore... this was his view while he was there...

and this was mine at home.... (image courtesy Flickr) so to make me feel better I bought a couple of these...

I e-mailed him and told him the day before he came home so he could have that 20 hour plane ride home to calm down about it. (good advice from my mom & mother-in-law) I got this e-mail back...

What the heck did you buy? (Only it didn't say heck)

I thought I was in big trouble! I even thought about returning them. Then he called me and said he wasn't very mad at all. Only a little. Whew... and that's more of the reaction I was hoping for. I felt a little bit (okay alot) of guilt considering I didn't really talk it over with him first. This couch isn't as cute as the ones I blogged about earlier. Zach wasn't a fan of either of them though, so I had to think about compromise.

Now I'm enjoying my new furniture and we still love each other alot. So would I do it again? Most definitely! :)

How do we spend our time...

"Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. " H. Jackson Brown

Okay I'll admit that I am guilty of claiming to not have enough time to do a lot of the things I’d like to do. I’ve made this excuse for things like working out, cooking dinner, reading my scriptures etc. But, after I saw this quote, I started thinking about how I actually spend my time and realized that there are alot of things I could cut out of my life and make it less chaotic and in return get more done. Less is more right? So I'm taking inventory on my life and deciding what needs to go and what needs to fill those seconds and hours of my day.

It must be that brand new year feeling, of get your life back in order feeling, but this article also really resonated with me. Credit: Success Magazine by Darren Hardy.

1. Decide to be Successful – Success is not a dream, hope or fantasy; it is a decision. Make the decision to change, improve and act on your ambitions.

2. Design your Best Year Yet – As an architect would design a skyscraper, write out the goals, plans and actions it will take to achieve the life you want to live.

3. Identify Your Passion - What are your unique interests, talents and gifts? Passion attracts success. Find what you love to do - you will never “work” again.

4. Program Yourself for Success – You will see, perceive, expect and create what you think about. To program your mind for success – read watch and listen to materials that will support your success.

5. Surround Yourself with Success - You are the combined average of the five people you hang around the most. Surround yourself with healthy, success-minded achievers.

6. Model Success - The best way to learn to be successful at anything is to find someone who is where you want to be and model their success habits.

7. Master the Fundamentals – Don’t complicate it. About a half a dozen things make up 90%+ of what it takes to be successful at anything. Keep it simple.

8. Get Fit - The mind cannot achieve what the body cannot perform. Your family, friends and career and future depend on your good health. Make it priority No. 1.

9. Remember What’s Important – At the end of the journey what will have mattered most will be your relationships – the people you love and those that love you. Make sure they are on your goal list.

10. Make a Difference – What do you want your life’s legacy to be? You have the power to make a positive difference – to a single person, a neighborhood, a community, a nation, the world. Realize that power in 2009.

We are half way through January already... How are you spending your time? I think 2009 is going to be a really great year!!!

And because I hate to post without pictures... this is how Zach , his dad & his brothers like to spend their time! Hope they don't kill me for posting these! :) hahaha.

Because we all need a good laugh on a Monday Morning...

Just so you know, this blog post could be potentially very embarassing. So let's just get it out there that First of all I know I have crazy and almost untamable hair. (Remember Cavewoman, hair picture Here?!) and I won't ever claim to be a hair expert. I like to try new products and only by trial and error have I learned how to manage my own head of crazy hair.

#2 I hope that anyone out there that just might be in the same sad position as me when it comes to their hair may find some of these little tips comforting & useful or just get a kick out of the pictures. :)

#3 How important is the product & tools that you use in your hair?? Very. Very. Very.

and last but not least, I also hope that no one quits reading my blog, because now they know what I look like when I wake up in the morning!

Case Study #1: My hair if I do absolutely nothing with it! Is that a bang calick?! Oh my!

YIKES!!!

Case Study #2 Naturally Curly Hair but it's not the gorgeous curls like my BFF Kate, it's more wavy crazy frizzy & just annoying . (By the way, check out Kate's new Beyonce video while you are there, I dare you not to die laughing! That's why we LOVE her!)

Case Study #3 Stick Straight, okay I still may or may not have those little waves in the back due to the natural curl. Did I just wake up I look a little droopy eyed. haha

So really I just thought I'd share some of the products that I love right now. First of all if I am going to do my hair curly as in photo #2 I need two things..
Hair Gel, my hair only agrees with LA LOOKS #9 nothing else will hold those curls in place.

And then this little difuser is my new best friend. It's small. light weight and very travel friendly! Plus it protects my hair from blow dry damage! You can only find them on line. Really I LOVE it though! Okay if you want to go for the straight look you need a few more things. Of course a flat iorn, & a big round brush!

I also like to use a volumizing root mousse a flat iron protection spray, I like Beyond the Zone Turn up the Heat, it smells like candy! I also use KMS stick it wax

and Ion Silk Drops.Okay so the pics. of me are really a big joke, but really these products are not. I LOVE em! So what are your favorite hair products? Any tips for styling? That's a whole different story, and I could use some help in that category!!!

Have a great Monday!!!

The SUN is Shining...

Well, I have to say that my new word of the year "Serenity", is already having a great effect on me! It's wonderful, and hopefully I can keep it going for the rest of the year. Did you know that almost 97% of New Years Resolutions will not be kept?!

I challenge all of us to be in the 3%!

I loved reading all of your words & new year's resolutions! It really inspired me! Today there are rays of sunshine flowing through my windows. It is making me SO happy & quite ambitious I might add! I have been getting a little spring cleaning done. I know. Where we live, we are FAR from Spring! I'm doing things that don't get done very often, like clean my washer from top to bottom and run a HOME MADE MIX through it to get the inside sparkly clean too. I've also started cleaning some light fixtures & gone through my filing system and cleaned it out too! Feels so good! I just ordered this book. I can't wait for it to get here!

The winner of the 2nd scarf is #18 (I used Random.org) Ashley & Josh who said: It looks like you all had a great holiday season! Your little ones are so cute. I love the scarf! My word for this year is "FORGIVE"...not just others but myself as well...I really need to work on letting things go...so this year I will forgive others for their wrongs towards me...and I will forgive myself as well. Happy New Year! Great word Ashley!!! E-mail me with your address so I can get your scarf to you. Okay let's see I need to quickly re-cap our New Year's. We had SO much fun! We had a big sleep over at my parents house & enjoyed our 2nd annual Wii bowling tournament. Krystal won,

Zach wasn't too happy to give up his title from last year, but we were excited a girl won this year!! We also played Bunco and won some pretty sweet prizes from Ikea!! Thanks MOM & DAD! (Brooklyn LOVED the pink Bunco dice!)

My Grandma Alice also taught us how to make Carmel in a can. (Fat free & sugar free!) You can find the recipe RIGHT HERE.

Speaking of Recipes, we had a VERY Yummy Recipe Exchange this month! Check out our recipes HERE. Really, could have been one of our best yet!

Brooklyn & I made these Glittery Window Snowflakes, to hang in her bedroom. They were in the last issue of Family Fun.

For instructions on how to make your own go HERE.

She is now a Sunbeam and attended Primary for the very first time at church. I cried, she didn't. I just don't know why they have to grow up!

Stay tuned for some of my favorite hand made gifts that I got for Christmas!

Hope you are all having a wonderful day!!