Sunday

 Last weekend I had the chance to go home and spend it with my family, which was fun, because I hadn't been home in a while. Saturday night we went to see The Addam's Family musical at the high school my mom works at, and it was really good and funny! It's amazing to see how much talent there is everywhere you go in the world.

Sunday was a great day. Very chill and I spent some of it taking pictures with my new 50mm lens! I absolutely love it and kept gushing about how good this lens was to my family.

Pretty sure they were tired of hearing about it, but they posed for pictures anyway. Isn't family great?

My mom decided she wanted to pose for a good picture after I took the one above haha.

This picture above basically describes me..every day! I have absolutely fallen in love with my camera and its video and picture-taking abilities. It makes me pretty happy and I love getting to document all of life with it.

Oh yeah, one more kind of exciting thing happened on Sunday...

I CUT MY HAIR! I haven't cut it (besides trims) for about five years because I made a promise to myself long ago that I wouldn't cut it until I got married. Ha! Well, that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon, and if it does, then I guess I'll have short hair at my wedding! ;)

But in all seriousness, I love my short hair! And so does everyone else haha. I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. It was definitely time for a change, and I've been wanting to cut it for a little while, so it came at a perfect time. My mom cut it for me and I think she did a great job! It's been so fun this week to keep looking at myself in the mirror and remembering that I have different hair. I keep forgetting! I know it's just hair, but it makes me really happy and it feels like it matches my personality perfectly right now.

So yep...pretty good Sunday! Cheers to short hair and double that to spending time with family. :)

Easter 2013

I loooove Easter. It comes close to Christmas for the favorite holidays list. Why do I enjoy it? 1) it means spring has sprung, 2) I love the joy of egg hunts (although none of us seem to know the mystery behind why a bunny delivers the eggs--what do they have in common??) 3) Family traditions are the best, but even more so... 4) family is the best, and Easter is all about spending time with them!

We had a yummy dinner of fish tacos and dessert of pineapple cake and resurrection rolls (as per tradition for those). My sisters and I also make a point of doing an Easter egg hunt for all the younger cousins every year, partly because we love them but mostly because it makes us happy seeing those cute kids running around being happy. My four year-old cousin Tayevion was adorable as he exclaimed "This is the BEST Easter day ever!" as he opened all his eggs to find more candy and more money. I love how the simplest thing can make a kid so incredibly happy.

I took lots of pictures, and sorry not sorry but there is an overload of photos of my aunt's children, because let's face it. They're adorable. Especially their new two-week old baby girl Zuri. She melts my heart.

In case you are wondering, I got my dress from Wal-Mart (I know, right?!) for $15 and I love it. So so cute. :)

Most of all, I am grateful for Easter because it celebrates life. The life of Christ and the lives of us that He saves every single day. I'm grateful for His sacrifices and for the atonement. Pretty sure I would be miserable without it. I know that we shouldn't need a holiday to celebrate these things and be grateful for them, but I'm still happy to have a yearly reminder of how important Christ is in my life.

I hope you had a great Easter (if you wrote an Easter post, link up in the comments, I'd love to read it!)! Happy April Fools today! :)

home again, home again, jiggity jig

I've now been home for a week! And man, has it been great. It's weird to be away from Boston and think about all that stuff. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and forget where I am. But I'm so happy I was able to come home and spend most of August with the fam. It's been great. I didn't realize how much I actually missed them! Funny though because it feels like Boston was almost a dream and like I never left Utah. Of course I have plenty of pictures to prove that I did indeed spend my whole summer in Boston. It's insane to think it's over.

Last week I got home Thursday morning. Gracie was soooo happy to see me! She said that now I can't leave for a long time and next time I need to come back earlier. And she keeps thinking I'm going to leave to Boston again. It's so cute. I love how close we are. I went with my mom to take Gracie to swimming lessons that morning.

We had Sunday dinner with our extended family on Sunday to celebrate my dad's birthday. It was fun to see my aunt and uncle, cousins, and grandparents again, who I haven't seen all summer!

Monday night for family home evening, we celebrated my dad's birthday, which happened on Saturday, by going to see the local city play, Hello Dolly. I'd never seen the musical but it was actually very good! It was outside so we just brought blankets to sit down on and watch.

All the girls in my family!

After the play Cee Ryle had a gift card to Orange Leaf, a frozen yogurt place, so we all went and had frozen yogurt. It was a great sight, all seven of us surrounding a little table. We're used to it by now, and we were mostly just happy to all be together.

I can't post pictures from it, but yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to go to Goshen and be an extra in one of the New Testament videos that the church has been putting out! We filmed the "Feeding the 5,000" story. It was a long, hot day, and we wore clothing like they would have worn back then, so obviously that only made us hotter. It was such a great experience though and as soon as the video is posted, I'll share it! I think you'll probably be able to see me, my mom and sisters (Carina and Sidney) in it. :) This is one of the videos that came out a while ago. My mom's in this one because she did a lot of filming last summer. Check at 0:32 seconds to see her.


Tonight I went with my Cee Ryle, Sidney, and our cousin Shayden to Get Air!, a place in Kaysville  filled with trampolines and foam pits and stuff. Cee Ryle had passes there so we used those to get in (in case you're wondering, Cee Ryle got second place in the regional spelling bee, the one right before the DC bee, so he won a ton of stuff, including the Get Air passes and the Orange Leaf gift card...just to clarify that my brother isn't this wealthy thirteen year old haha). It's very similar to Jump On It, if you've heard of that. It was super fun! I'm definitely not an athletic, flexible, or acrobatic person, but I still came out sweaty and happy when our hour was up.

my sweaty, but still cute lil' bro ;)

It's been a fun week home! My aunt and uncle, Zildy and Jonas, are in Costa Rica for the week so we're watching their kids, Shayden, Jasmine, and Tayevion. Gracie and Cee Ryle have been having the time of their lives, and we always love having more people around! I've also been making some extra money this week subbing at the day care that I worked at two years ago. It makes me miss it all over again. Next week is Education Week so I'll be heading back to Provo to work in the bookstore. My fourth and last year at BYU and the bookstore is just about to begin :)

Oh and P.S. I have a great giveaway going on right now! Go here to enter!

Early Birthday Celebration

Second day of general conference and my family birthday celebration! Today is definitely a happy day. :) My nearby relatives are all coming over and then we get to open presents and eat cake. My mom asked me what kind of cake I wanted and I said I wanted a chocolate cake with white frosting. On top I said I either want something Carrie Underwood or ballet. But I told her to surprise me. :) OH, and I get to watch conference. What could be better?!

I don't wear this shirt-dress very often, but I have to say that I really like it with this gray cardigan a lot better. The cardigan is definitely becoming one of my new favorites...

Shirt-Dress: Ross

Cardigan: Forever 21

Pants: Ross

Necklace: Forever 21

Shoes: Payless

Oh and shout out to my great friend Chelsey whose birthday is today and is also turning 19. Love you Chels, and happy birthday! :)

Photos taken by my sister Carina