We Love The Sun....So We Went To It!

My big boy turn one in May! I am so behind sorry guys.




He got this cute boots from my mom and the cool ride from his Nana.

The after math.....

With his Daddy...totally cute.

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Off to AZ for our family vacation for the summer!

"Don't get TOO close baby."

Just love these old guys....just amazing to think how long they have been around.

My little sweetheart!

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Hangin out with Jamiebug and Bry!

Lots of pool time and not as many Time Outs ...yippy! (ok so there is one timeout below)


"We are some fine American women!" SNL




Gettin in some sun! Not hard to do there 105 degree days


That is his new look super funny in real life

I love my big sis!

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My little rock star....I know you are sittin there thinkin she is going to be something someday!!

Thats is how it is done.....


Mj pretty much followed Bella everywhere!

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Bo Barfed (projectile vomited, I should say) and My Man made me wait while he took a picture. Lets try this again and you have him in YOUR lap this time.

My Mans first time at In-&-Out

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On to Vegas my friend....

My Bestee from High School!
We went to the Shark Reef. These is my favorite species I think they are super cool!

Mj pretty much hung on everything there

My Bestees little girl and Mj. They are going to break hearts guys!

How Disappointing....

So I am not really one to blog about unhappy things too often but tonight I really need to express something in words so can let it go.
I am a Ballet Teacher and I teach in all kinds of situations like I ran a studio for 4 yrs, Adult Classes where I live, technique classes for competition Jazz teams and floating sub work for a professional ballet school in Idaho Falls. With this being said I would like to re tell the following story to get it off my chest so I can forgive myself.
I am performing in the "Little Match Girl" for the Idaho Falls School of Ballet, and in my opinion, one of the finest Classical Ballet Schools in our area. I have been apart of this school either by taking classes are helping whenever I may be needed for two years now. I love Debra she is an amazing Ballet Mistress and I love to help her. She asked me to perform with the adult ladies in the year end show so she could be more dynamic with the choreography for that piece and I told her I would be there if she needed me. Though this past spring I have had a toe injury and had often wished that maybe I wouldn't have been so willing....lol. Non of this really has to do with what happened today but I thought I would give you some back ground on my situation in MY mind so you could feel as crazy as I do about today's happenings...
I have been to every class but a few since the choreography was set and every rehearsal ....but today I bombed. Have you ever done something that you can not BELIEVE that you did knowing the things that YOU know? Well that is what I did when I got ready, placed my pink shoes in my bag with my costume and was walking out the door at 4pm for a rehearsal in Idaho Falls. Realizing that I had not taken the schedule with me to look at while attending the rehearsal I walked in to get it from where I had LOOKED at it earlier that morning. And there it was the rehearsal time starring me in the face.....Ballet Scene 1 4:oo-5:oopm! WHAT! I hadn't even left the house yet. My heart stopped....how could this be how am I going to explain this to Debra...how could I have done this! Something, I ,myself would get mad at MY own students for doing? My heart sank as I tried to call, text anything to help figure out how to fix this....there was no way to. The rehearsal was only an hour and I lived 40mins from where it was being held. And wouldn't need to be back for rehearsal until 8:30pm later that night. I would end up drive 40mins for a 15min rehearsal. In debra's stress, she sent an awful text back, "this is a big problem for me!" I just sat and cried. How disappointed I was in myself, how unprofessional of me, how would I EVER going to make this up to her. I humbled, got ready and with a rock in my stomach went to the last rehearsal only to have one of her fellow teachers coldly say, when I asked where to put my stuff.."She done with whatever your in..." I knew that wasn't true but it was the sad truth that there was a hole for all to see during the rehearsal because I did the oldest trick in the book...."You can have all the talent in the world, but if your not there, your replaced!" Luckily, it didn't come to that tonight but it has been hard to swallow being a professional and all. It going to take some time to earn my trust back again with her. Wish me luck tomorrow we have a rehearsal at 10am-2pm.....performance later that night.

....and yes I checked the paper twice tonight!

A Talk with my Father

This post is about a spiritual experience I had this past Friday. Lately, where I live there had some beautiful days and then some bad days where it rains and the wind blows. But this past Friday it was one of those day where it couldn't make up it mind what it was going to do. So I decided to finish pruning one of the trees I was working on in my front yard. I always tend to listen to my IPod as I am working. I just think it helps the work go by faster and I was listening to it this day as I worked. I was finishing up raking up the mess from one of the trees. I began to ponder how I was doing in my life spiritually....prayer is always a topic of conversation between me and the lord. I have always had a hard time praying nightly and on rare occasions will remember to pray in the morning before I start my day. I was talking with my Father in Heaven about this wondering why I feel so empty lately. I knew it had to be from my most resent trial I went through. I felt weakened by all the pain it caused me. A kind of dark cloud or fog was around my thoughts when I reflected back to that hard time. Somewhere in this conversion with him I got an impression, a metaphor I had heard sometime back, "the lord didn't move, you did. That's why you can't feel his light anymore." I thought back in my life "Why is it so hard?" I was referring to life, the trial I went through and this simple metaphor. "Why is IT so hard?" with this, I stopped and I looked up. I saw beautiful clouds in the sky. The sun was hiding behind them just waiting for them you move so it could share it warmth. My thoughts were on the trees in my yard and the neighbors. They were so tall that if you looked up it was almost like you weren't in town but out in the country, which is wonderful to me being little farm girl at heart. My IPod stopped. I looked down to notice it powering down. I knew it was charged and it never just stops. So I waited for it to turn back on and quickly went back to "shuffle mode". My IPod is almost predicable on the songs it picks to put in this mode. But this time it came to a church song called "Who you are" by Hailary Weeks as the very first song. In my panic to HAVE to listen to a church song began pushing the over button like 4 times....a soft whisper came to me and said "Stop. Listen" In that moment I said back..."What do you want to say?" and began listening to the song. I could not believe that this song was everything I think Heavenly Father had been trying to say to me but I never "Stopped. Listened" without falling asleep or running to the next thing everyday. It spoke right to my soul and I found myself crying while I looked up at the sky leaning on my rake with both hands. I was in aha at how it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. I tried to calm down by began to rake again but each line of the song made my heart swell. I thought "Man, I hope no one pulls up right now....how am I going to explain this." As the song was finishing, I stopped and looked up again, just as the last line of the song was being sung "Don't lose sight in the truth your daughter of God, he believes in who your becoming, He believes in who you are." the clouds moved and the sun shown down on me I could feel its warmth and knew what the lord was saying to me..."I never moved you did. I wait for you every night and every morning" In the moments after I found myself thinking that I must be hormonal right now or some other reason for this to have occurred but I couldn't deny the perfectness of it, I know this world in not perfect. This had be more. I realized and even wondered, how many times this type thing has happened in the past and I have wrote it off as nothing. My hope is to never to this because I had a special moment with my Father in Heaven and I know it was real.....


As a side note: Later my I said to my friend when relying this story to her through my tears..."Man, Heavenly Father must be really hip if he can speak to me through my IPod too!"

My Bestee...Super JamieBug!

This is a long one.....

Some of you may already know that my sister was in town for a week of so, which leads me to tell you the following. I do feel I need to explain were this has come, I was never really able to say to much about Jamie and I’s story because to be honest I didn't have words sometime....which is weird for me, I talk ALL the time. It seemed every time I would try I would just cry and say something easy. Which is so not the truth. But I feel after 2 years I can, for some reason its just easier to find the words and thoughts and have them come together. So bear with me this is my first attempt.

As small children we tend to look at each other as the same. There is no differences’, in our little minds, that make us different like money, clothes, family situations, disorders and illness. We just know you are fun to play with so lets play. Jamie and I were close from the start because we leaved out in the country and she was my closest friend. We shared everything our room, clothes, shoes and hair stuff because we were poor. I know now that one of the main reasons I was put into this family was so I could be with Jamie. I have not always felt this as I began growing up with her. It was hard as a child to try to understand why she got to have curtain things or get more attention from others then myself. I would often cry sometimes alone when she wouldn't want me around or would get special things from people. As I got older she was hospitalized more and her sickness was daily so I began to see why she was so special to everyone. I tried to swallow my selfishness and learn to have charity. To which I am still working on trying to do Because of this though I learned to love her so much that it was unbreakable as we got older. I looked up to her so much growing up and have always loved her light laughter in a room and sense of humor. She was someone I could talk into doing almost anything with me and visa versa. People would ask as all the time if we were best friends and it would blow there minds when we would say that we were sisters. This didn’t come with our a few heated conversations about hurt feelings but the friendship was stronger because of those times. Sometimes to the point that our husbands would ban us from each other so they could have some sanity around the house....like the house staying some what clean and them having dinner at least once a week. i do feel I should warn you before you read any farther this is not a happy story.....An so it began.....As I slowly watched as my closest friend began to struggle to do the simple things that we would do everyday it started out just being winded all the time. Then she would get head aches that wouldn't go away soon walking around while shopping, lifting things, talking in long phrases became difficult for her. You could tell she was trying to pretend for us all. To make us not get scared or think the worst. We all watched helpless as she was dyeing right before our eyes and we told ourselves that she would get better like she always seemed to do. As you guessed, she didn't, only worse. I would spend a few days a week in the hospital with her when she would be there for 3 weeks and the time away from the hospital became shorter and shorter. Doctors started trying to tell the family that she was getting to the end....we did want to hear that. She still looked happy, look at her smile, she still tells jokes and NEVER just lies in bed like "I am dyeing look at me help me" so some how we could tell ourselves that it wasn't real. It became very real for me one night as I was scratching her back...she loves that. That there was something horribly wrong. She would take a deep breath and her lungs would contract, vibrate when they would inhale and exhale....I sat in the dark and cried. I was shocked, like an alarm going off at 3am in the morning, she was suffering beyond anyone of us could even imagine. I then remember her words to me a few weeks before that..."Nikkii I want you try to understand its HARD for me to be here....and if Heavenly Father wants me to be healed I will be and if not I can rest." I realized "here" was Earth and that "rest" was how much she was burdened with everyday here on earth and then releasing that and dyeing. I reflected on the images I had in my memories of her. It was mostly laughing and her hilarious expressions and quickly started into the images of her suffering through the years. I wanted to help her find that spark back the one we played all those years with. She was becoming dull from years of handling the pressures of her illness. She is such an example…. right up to the end she smiled and endured. And with the council from my parents, in the moments that I found out Jamie was dyeing at the Pittsburgh hospital, I pleaded to my Father in Heaven through the Savior for all the things that I may have done in my life, for her to have the strength to live and for the strength for me to endure if she didn't. I tried to think of a life with out her brightness and laugh. I didn’t focus on that and became to understand what my father and mother had said to me on the phone, " Heavenly Father loves her more then you or I could EVER imagine. If she is going to live it will be because he wanted her to." As most of you know she did receive a miracle, she beat her odds, she had the strength to fight and she became a small part of herself again, at a price…her donor, who I think some people forget when they think of a transplant. Jamie NEVER does. I try to never forget. Every time my sister takes a deep breath and laughs, runs a 10 minute mile or rides her horse I am amazed she is here. This past week when she was here she reminded me that there is hardly anyone that post transplant live past 10 years. I fog of fear filled my heart, a fog of insecurity and uncertainty. I looked at Jamie and thought she has never been a certainty or the "normal". She is her logo…Super Jamie and what a great strength to be around. Someone gave her wings to be this hero. I got a call today that she had to go back to Arizona a few day earlier then expected. I have cried inside all morning a bit because my "Bestee" went home. I love her so much a think back on those wonderful times we have had and know that I would not be who I am with out her. I myself am saying to her Donor thank you.....thank you for another day with my bestee. It does not go unnoticed.....

Become an organ donor today. Save up to 8 lives.....and in the words of Jamie "be some ones hero!"

My signature is soon coming.....can't wait, thanks Ja for all the great memories so far!

Some Nature Inside!

I have been wanting to do this for awhile, I wanted to vinyl it before I paint it on so here is the vinyl draft. I cant wait until My man does his wonderful thick texture in the kitchen so I can paint a bigger one on the wall. It may seem weird to some of you but I think it is memorizing...and it really does speak so many things to me.



I have more idea coming soon....

March Madness....wait its April now!

OK so there is a lot of Pictures in this post because I am a little behind. Hopefully the Pictures tell the story well enough that I don't have to get into a long detail narration for each....enjoy.

My Grandmas 71st Birthday Bash
Love this ladie!

My SLC Trip with my Girlies....don't mind the creepy hotel in the back that's just where we stayed!



We watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite fairy tales I watched the Disney one until everyone in my family was pretty much sick to death of it.

Doin' our business

Catching some sun!

We went to IN - OUT I love that place and had not been to one since we went to one Cali when I was 14 years old. I had to go.

The End.....or until next time!

Just had to post this she is sooo silly, I love it!

My Man and I have been fixing the basement up in our house. So here we are going out in the snow and rain again to pick up base boards, flooring, painting and what ever else come our way.

Daddy Daughter Date! Finally!....My Man took Mj out to see "How to train your dragon" for their date. This is a tradition in my family with my father and is one of the things that I have a great testimony on. I believe this helped me have a close relationship with my father. So I wanted My Man to do the same for our little ones too. This is the very first one.




Easter Egg Hunt at Great Grandmas House.....while she was out...lol, which was a little weird for me but anyways the kids had fun. And got lots of candy and also got to see there 2nd cousin Cy. I think Mj ate all her candy by time she got home! Empty basket before....and after!





Easter Morning. I forgot to color eggs and did not remember this until 2:30am in the morning on Easter. I almost started dyeing eggs at 3am in the morning until My Man reminded me that would be "Crazy".





How she used her new Easter candy....I did the same with my sister. Used the candy as lipstick instead of eating it....lol.