A BYU Basketball Game

A video I shot at a BYU basketball game a few weeks ago. We played St. Mary's, totally beat them, it was awesome, and it once again made me proud to be a cougar. :)

To see more of my videos, you can go here!

Media Monday

movie to watch:
The Butler. It's been in theaters for a little while now, but it's soooo good. It's based on the true story of black man who is a butler in the white house and serves seven presidents in the time that he works there. It takes place through all the civil rights events and is just an awesome story. It has some big names like Oprah Winfrey playing the butler's wife, and people like Robin William and James Marsden playing some of the presidents, and I have to say that they all did a great job.This was definitely one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.

movie to look forward to this week:
Enders Game, coming out this Friday, November 1st! I just reread the book this week and am way excited for this movie. I hope they do it justice, because the book is awesome. We shall see....

current favorite thing to watch on youtube:

Studio C! (especially this video)

book I just finished:

My Story, by Elizabeth Smart. It's basically about her whole kidnapping and captivity. Crazy story, really sad when you see how she was treated and think of how hard it must have been, and also very inspiring. She is really strong and she always kept surviving. I thought it was coolest how she always saw God's hand in her life and never blamed Him for what was happening to her. Instead she tried to find things to be grateful for. She's now on my list of inspiring people I admire and want to meet someday.

book I'm about to start reading:

Allegiant, by Veronica Roth (the third and final book in the Divergent trilogy)
I just bought the ebook today and man, oh man am I excited for this! I just reread Divergent and Insurgent two weeks ago, which was a good refresher since I had forgotten a lot, and they made really excited for this book and also for the movie coming out in March. These books are good, people. Read them, if you haven't already.

song I am loving right now:
"New York City," by Among Savages, partially because I really want to go to New York lately.

TV show I'm currently loving the most:

"How I Met Your Mother" (although lately it's been a little bit slow). If you are looking for a new show to see, this is it. It is hilarious and filled with funny twists. I love it and the sense of humor on this show. The 9th and final season is airing now, and all the other seasons are on Netflix. Here's a taste of how funny and great it is:

Oh. My. Goodness.

This just came out like ten minutes ago and I've already watched it like three times. I'm sharing it with you and then I'm gonna go watch it again. Ahhhhhhh I AM SO EXCITED!!!


November cannot come soon enough. Seriously.

Pre-Christmas 2011

I got a little behind on posting what when on last week because of all the craziness of Christmas! It's kind of late tonight but I figured I better do a post. So this is documenting the week before Christmas, the 19-23.

Monday, December 19: I went to work from 7:45-2 and then I went home and chilled and sewed some barbie clothes. Thankfully my roommate Heidi was there all 3 days that I worked so I didn't feel scared or like an insane person all alone haha. We went over to a guy named Ben's apartment in our ward that night for our own little "Family Home Evening." It was just me, Heidi, Ben, and then two other people in our ward named Stephanie and Parker. Heidi left a little early to go with a friend to see the lights at the Riverwoods. Anyways, every year, Ben makes an awesome gingerbread house and so that's what we worked on that whole night. He'd baked the gingerbread the day before and then spent Monday just putting it together. It was soooo fun and way cool! I took a ton of pictures but here are just a few. We put it on a huge square of wood and then made icing with powdered sugar and sutff and Ben had other little things to stick on there. We made a river and waterfall by melting sugar (kind of like a rocky candy type thing) to a way high temperature and then pouring it onto the surface and watching it harden super fast.  We did that for a few hours and it was a lot of fun :)

Tuesday, December 20: I went to work at the same time and then sewed a little more and chilled a little more. I could have gone to the men's basketball game that night but didn't really feel like it. Instead I just had some me time and stayed home watching episodes of Hannah Montana, packing for home, and sewing more. That night after the basketball game, Heidi got back from it and then a few other people in our ward came over and we watched Tarzan (I had it from Netflix--I know, random).

Wednesday, December 21: Work, same time. Then I got to go to my apartment to finish up packing and go home! YAY! It made me so happy to see my family, as I hadn't seen them in about over a month. I played with Gracie right away when I got home and we just had a blast. It's so cute because she loves having me home, and I promise I'm not trying to brag or anything when saying that. It just makes me happy because I love her a ton so when I'm back she wants to do everything with me and sit by me and have lots of fun. And without much convincing I got the idea into her head that she should move to college with me and be my roommate...haha oops! It was kind of sad to try to convince her out of that one.. Anyways, I just love that little girl to pieces. I'm dreading leaving her on Tuesday. I secretly wish she could be my roommate! The rest of the day was just spent at home relaxing and watching episodes of Friends (my sister has all 10 seasons and she got me addicted by lending me Season 1....needless to say, I'm on Season 4 now).

Thursday, December 22: I slept in super late and was lazy and got ready late. Yes, bad me for being lazy but it felt so amazing! For Christmas I was giving Gracie barbie clothes I made for her barbies so I decorated the little box that I got her and worked on organizing that. All of it turned out SO cute! I also might have gone shopping with my mom this day but I can't remember. It wasn't a super eventful day though.

I'll show more barbie fashion and some of the clothes I made in a later post :)

Friday, December 23: This day my siblings and I planned to go to SLC to shoot a Christmas music video. We had a lot of fun. We filmed in the Salt Palace, Temple Square, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and the state Capitol building. By the end we were pretty tired and glad to be done.We got home and just spent the rest of the night with our family having dinner and I think we watched a movie, though I can't remember. (Oh and we got some planking pictures in the Salt Palace haha, escalator planking!!)

And here is the video! Hopefully tomorrow or one of these next days I'll be able to post about Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and all the rest of my break! There is much to tell, but for now enjoy!

Potter Fashion: a Bleached Pen Tee

My sister Carina made me this shirt with a bleach pen! Isn't it sweet?!?!!

Yes. Yes, it is pretty sweet. What is not so sweet is the fact that I have messy hair, am wearing no makeup, and pajama pants (because I was getting ready for bed when i remembered to take pictures). So just ignore that fact. Oh and also, you can see a bracelet on my right wrist in the above picture that Carina also made for me! It has my name on it. :)

Isn't Harry Potter awesome? And also do-it-yourself projects? Even better are the two combined! I would strongly recommend making a shirt as cool as this one with something as simple as a bleach pen! I am most happy and grateful for this shirt, so thanks Carina!

Oh and happy Wizard Wednesday!!! Say hello to the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world...he is pretty sweet too :)

15 Days to the End of the World

So basically in 15 days, the last Harry Potter movie comes out! This is exciting and happy, but also sad, because it means my favorite book series really is done. I cannot express how much I love Harry Potter in one post, so I've decided that the next 15 days will be a tribute to the wonderful books themselves and what I love about them. I'm gonna try to post every day about this because i LOVE Harry Potter and I want to give it one last shout out (though I will never stop reading the books!).

I'm reading the series again for the 11th time and today I just finished the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (I'm trying to finish the whole series before the movie comes out). It is so cool being able to read the whole story, and if you are an HPN (Harry Potter Nerd), which I am, then you can notice the little foreshadowings that Rowling puts in the book. Also, the book is hilarious in some parts.

For those who can’t remember or haven’t read the book or even seen the movie (why are you my friend if you haven’t done any of those things?), here’s a quick recap: Eleven year-old Harry Potter, whose parents died trying to protect him from the super evil wizard Lord Voldemort, and who also somehow survived the killing curse that Lord Voldemort put upon him as a child, has grown up with his “muggle” (non-magic) aunt, uncle, and cousin, who treat him like dirt all the time. Harry finds out he is a wizard and enters the magical world. He goes to school at Hogwarts and makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, with Albus Dumbledore as the school’s headmaster. Harry makes enemies and learns lots of magic stuff. He and his friends find out bits and pieces about the Sorcerer’s Stone, and in the end try to save it from getting into the hands of Lord Voldemort. He succeeds but Voldemort’s “spirit” or whatever you want to call it is still out there and is going to keep trying to find its way to a body or a way to come back to life fully so that he can take over the wizarding world.

Now some funny lines from the book...

"Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise--unless of course it involved punching somebody."

"Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work."

"...it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do." -Hagrid, talking about Dudley

"It was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick."

"Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground."

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves.  We could have all been killed--or worse, expelled." -Hermione

"Hermione was refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus."

"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them."

(Harry, talking about Snape) "What's wrong with his leg?

(Ron) "Dunno, but I hope it's really hurting him."

"Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten..."

(Ron) "You could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is. It'd be safe to ask them."

(Hermione) "Very safe, as they're both dentists."

"...[Hermione] was dashing back, an enormous old book in her arms.

'I never thought to look in here!' she whispered excitedly. 'I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading.'

'Light?' said Ron."

"'So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?' said Hermione in alarm.

'It'll be gone by next Tuesday,' said Ron."

(funniest line ever..to me anyways) "'So light a fire!' Harry choked.

'Yes--of course--but there's no wood!' Hermione cried, wringing her hands.

'HAVE YOU GONE MAD?' Ron bellowed. 'ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?'

'Oh right!' said Hermione."

"What happened down in the dungeons...is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat....Madam Pomfrey, however, thought it might not be very hygenic, and confiscated it." -Dumbledore

"They had hoped that Goyle, who was almost as stupid as he was mean, might be thrown out, but he had passed, too. It was a shame, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything in life." (Ron always seems to be the funny one)

And some notable, inspiring quotes...

"However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not know if what it shows is real or even possible....It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."

"The truth...it is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution." -Dumbledore

"If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever." (that is just written so beautifully) –Dumbledore

“There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” –Dumbledore (he says all the wise quotes apparently)

And these little foreshadowings...

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it." -Ron, talking about Hermione (not necessarily a foreshadowing but its funny because they start out hating each other and then end up falling in love)

Harry has a dream about Professor Quirell's turban talking to him and telling him he should be in Slytherin, which is a foreshadowing for the end of the book, because Voldemort is actually being hidden by Quirell's turban.

"He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enought to help. It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could..." (totally makes sense once read the end of the 5th book!) –Harry

There is more for all of those, I know, but I didn’t get to underline them as I went in the book so I was just skimming through finding all of these. I’ll be better with the second one. (And sorry it was so long!)

I will always hold the first book dear to my heart, because it is the book that started it all. It always puts a smile on face reading about all the different magical things introduced, like Gringotts Bank, broomsticks, wands, Diagon Alley, etc. It’s the shortest book out of all the seven, but it is so special because it is the first one. No one, especially J.K. Rowling knew how huge this book series would become. I love it SO much.

MTV is doing this thing where they’re finding the ultimate Harry Potter character. Cool right? To vote just go here:

And I’ll end with this..the trailer from the first movie. J

(images from here)

Receptions, Refashions, and Red...Oh My!

You guys are pretty lucky I love you so much, because I almost just posted an old outfit today, but then I remembered that I promised to show you this dress so I went downstairs and took pictures really fast. :)

Do you like the dress? Here's the before picture...

I cut out the buttons and sewed down the front, shortened the sleeves, hemmed it, sewed in an elastic around the waist, added a zipper in the back, and then added a sash with some extra red fabric that I had. Funny story: At first with the red sash I sewed it onto the dress, but then I realized after sewing it all on that I couldn't get the dress on! Because the sash was woven fabric, not knit (knit fabric is stretchy) and so obviously it wouldn't fit going on either way. So then I unpicked the whole sash and just made a new one separate from the dress so I didn't have that problem. Silly me.

I went to a reception last night which was great! It was for my friend Brittany, who was my next door neighbor last year in the dorms. Tonight I'm going to another friend's reception and I also am going to another one next weekend! Goodness gracious. One thing you have to realize about living in Utah, and especially in Provo, is that when you become college aged, especially starting your sophomore year, millions (okay, that's exaggerating obviously) of people start get married. And one someone gets married it basically means they've died from your life because if you don't work with them or have a class with them, you'll never see them because they are always with their spouse. True (and kind of sad) story.

Kind of going along with yesterday's post, I realized today that I'm sooo sooo happy doing what I'm doing right now. Really, I don't think I'd trade it for anything. I love that I have been sewing every day. And I love that I have this blog. And I love that I work with the women's clothing in the bookstore and get to make sweet displays and change mannequins all the time.

This is one of my recent displays at work. I love it! Notice the color scheme? :)

I guess what's really great about all of this too is that I'm pretty good at what I'm doing AND I love it. With dance, I really loved it, but I wasn't super great at it (and though I've stopped dancing you can see from the above picture that I obviously haven't stopped haha...I was having fun. ;)) And with something like math, I was really good at it, but I didn't love it (I don't hate math, I just don't want to spend the rest of my life doing it). The key is finding something you're good at and that you love. And everyone has something like that! That's why when you go to college, everyone picks a major. And we all get to pick what we want and you have to be good at it if you want to succeed. Honestly, its kind of a cool concept.

Anyways, this was supposed to be a short post because I'm feeling tired, but longer posts are good too. I get to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 now! Hi-yah! ;)

Saw It and Loved It

Yesterday I went with my family to see the movie "Soul Surfer"! (which btw, didn't come out until today but we got to see a free premiere the day BEFORE it came out. be jealous.) It was sooooo good. It really was such an inspirational movie to see how you can truly overcome anything in life and you just have to keep getting back up and trying. It's a movie based on a true story (and for the most part I think the facts in the movie were all true) about a girl named Bethany Hamilton. She was like super good at surfing and then one day she was out training and a shark took a bite out of her board and she got her arm bitten off! I thought the cool and crazy think about her was that she was so calm after she was missing an arm and she didn't cry. That  pretty much saved her life, which is amazing. So then she had to learn how to surf with only one arm and she totally came back and did it. Now Bethany Hamilton is a pro surfer and she's super famous because of what happened to her.

I've known about this movie for like a year because Carrie Underwood was in it playing Bethany's church youth group leader. And we all know how obsessed I am with Carrie Underwood..haha. But I would definitely recommend going to see it! It wasn't even that bloody on the shark bite part or anything which is good, because I get so weak when I see blood.

And I didn't get a chance to take outfit pictures, but I did get some pictures! Thank goodness. I have no idea what we'd do if I didn't take pictures or post an outfit for a day. ;)

Me with my lovely sister Sidney in front of the Soul Surfer board :)

An Outfit A Day...
Cardigan? Old Navy, secondhand
Red tee? Secondhand
Belt? Amazon.com
Jeggings? Charlotte Russe
Boot? Ross, gifted
Bag? Target (if this bag is unfamiliar to you by now then either you must be blind or a new follower. I am OBSESSED with my brown bag. It goes with anything!)

...Keeps the Fashion Police Away
Comfort? 9
Original? 6
Did I like it? 8.5
Overall? 8

:)

Watch this movie my friend Jenna made. It's so good and she's so inspirational. You will love it. :)

I'm Home and HAPPY

Wow, I think I'm the happiest I've been since summer. This break is already soooo amazing!!! All my extended family on my mom's side will be here and some of them already are here, so we've just been having a blast. Sorry it's been so long, but I'll give a rundown on my wonderful Christmas break.

I got home Thursday night and my aunt Cat and cousins Ellie and Brianna were already there! I was so happy to be home. I seriously was coming off the exit and just started screaming and then bawling because I was so happy (emotional much? haha). And then when I got home I just screamed and cried more of course. ;) Needless to say, I was SO happy to be home. We already started having lots of fun together that night.

Friday morning I hung out with my best friends since 9th grade (and we'll be best friends forever don't even worry), Courtney and Laura! I love them! My dad had passes to go see a free showing of the new movie Tron Legacy but since I was the only one in my family that could go I invited my friends to go with me. So we drove to the gateway saw the movie, which was great, and then went to In 'N Out and just talked and hung out until around 4 (oh the movie was at like 9 am ha). It felt so great to finally have some best friends. Seriously, I've been so lonely. It was great to be with them.

Then that night I had the great opportunity to go to the Motab concert featuring David Archuleta! I got to go with my mom, my aunt Cat, and my aunt Zildy and we went to this Mexican grill called Barbacoa before, which was delicious. And the concert? Basically it was amazing. Everything was decorated beautifully. The choir sang beautifully. David sang beautifully. Heck, David IS beautiful. ;)

Then, we found out that David would be signing stuff at Deseret Book after the concert so we rushed over to find this:

A long line that was about two blocks long and growing. :( So what did we do? We went inside Deseret Book and just waited in the aisles pretending to read books until he showed up (like 50 other obsessed girls) and then started taking pictures like paparazzi! Most of my pictures were blurry but I got 2 that were ok. AHH..I saw David Archuleta like 10 feet away! Not as good as meeting him, but it's like the next best thing.

Then after that, we walked back to the car through Temple Square..

And Cat decided she wanted to go the melting pot and treated us (so nice of her!!). On our way there we saw a bunch of crazy Santas who I guess go from bar to bar from open to close on a certain night. I forget what they called it. It was pretty funny though. I even got a picture with Buddy the Elf!

The Melting Pot was pretty much delicious and I've never been there but have been wanting to go so it was great! We got home a little late but it was an end to like the best day ever. Seriously, I haven't had a great day like that in forever. So hooray! :)

Saturday we went to another free movie premiere for Gulliver's Travels, which was actually pretty funny. I don't always like Jack Black either but this was a pretty good movie for all ages. As we were leaving the gateway though, our van's battery died and we didn't have jumper cables, so we had to call AAA to come help us (thank goodness Cat was a member!!). We were there for a while so me, Gracie, and Ellie got a little bored sitting in the car. We ended up singing a bunch of songs and playing silly games. Working at a day care over the summer paid off obviously because they were entertained the whole time! They're such cuties. :)

Then we went to Costco to get food for Sunday dinner and we ended up taking like 2 hours there because when you have like 6 kids, a huge store, a big shopping list, lots of samples, and a hungry group of people, it's hard not to take that long. ;)

After that we went to my aunt Zildy's house to just chill. The 3 little girls put together a dance and performed it for us.

Finally we went home that night and went to sleep.

Sunday we went to church and the choir performed the Christmas program in sacrament meeting. My mom and dad sang a song called "Joseph and Mary" with another couple and Carina and Sidney played the violin and flute to accompany the choir for "Away in a Manger." All the songs were so pretty! Then we got home from church later and somehow I started out laying down with a snuggie on top of me and ended up sleeping for like two and a half hours! My grandparents, and Zildy and Jonas's family came that night for dinner and we had a lot of fun together. I made brownies and brownie bites and for the main course we had Navajo tacos. Yum :)

Monday was a chill day and I slept in and got ready late (finally). I took my siblings and my cousin Brianna to go present shopping. I bought all my presents forever ago because I love to shop, but they still had some to do. Luckily, I stepped into JoAnn Fabrics and found out their store is closing! So I got some cute patterns for 25 cents each! And then we went to Chili's for dinner that night which was sooooo good.

Today was pretty much amazing because I got to sub at the day care again! My mom still works as a secretary there so I told her to let people know if they needed any subs to call me. So I get to work this week and next week. I'm excited because I get to make money but even more so because I just love it there. Today was so much fun. I'm glad I can keep going back to the best job EVER. :)

Sorry that was such a super long post, but I needed to document my great weekend somehow! Hopefully I'll blog a lot these next few days so that I don't have to do a long post like that again. Anyways, happy holidays! Christmas is in 3 DAYS!