Thoughts:

I'm singing Star of the East in Sacrament Meeting today.

I don't know if you've ever heard it, but it's a beautiful song about how the star is a symbol of our being able to return to live with our Heavenly Father. I love it. I really think it encompasses the spirit and meaning of Christmas.

I'm also singing Breath of Heaven with one of my best friends in Relief Society. I'd never heard it before last night in our quiet little apartment with my wonderful husband playing the keyboard. I got to the chorus and couldn't help but cry.

The song is written from Mary's point of view. She talks about how she's traveling with the Son of God in her womb. It shows that she feels inadequate and knows this task is beyond her own personal capacity. That's where the chorus comes in:

Breath of Heaven, keep me together.

Be forever with me, Breath of Heaven.

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness.

Give unto me your holiness, for You are holy.

Breath of Heaven.

Can you imagine?

The first time I sang: Breath of Heaven, keep me together

it reminded me of my own mother. She is the strongest most amazing woman I have ever known.

And I know more than once, us kids drove her past the point of discouragement.

She was entrusted with six of Heavenly Father's children and I know for fact that she has pleaded with Him to "keep her together."

I gain a lot of strength from her example and I hope that someday I can teach my children, as I was taught by my mother. She lives each day as a woman of God.

She is wonderful.

And I'm sure she's been a Breath of Heaven to more people than just me.

Because she relies on the ultimate source of strength.

I love her.

Update-by-number

 1 phone call from eHarbor offering me the job!

6 days off for Thanksgiving break

2 adorable neices who spent

17 hours in the car with us so the other

4 Becks could come with us

10,000 wipes used to clean up Baylee & Elisha during the trip

 2 turkey trots in the gorgeous Queen Creek sunshine

.93 miles walked [briskly] by Adrienne and I for

20 minutes of wonderful conversation

35+ family members who made

1 delicious thanksgiving dinner

1 amazing husband who woke up with me at

4:30 in the morning to buy

14 movies and

2 sweaters for family pictures at the Black Friday sales.

1 barn dance

2 new swing moves

3 cups of hot cocoa

2 hours of dancing

1 kiss on the lips from Pop

274 kisses from the amazing husband and
2 bahama bucks snow cones with creme to make me feel better after
4 tylenol gel caps and


1 meltdown
20 fake oreos

2 boxes of graham crackers

2 fruit punch squeez-its

1 holiday popcorn tin and

0 car problems[!] see here [except for

1 broken cigarette lighter which meant

0 movies for the girls in the car] and

10 "you can do it" texts from mom
makes for
1 amazing Thanksgiving break

Update on the Job

Hello!
No word for sure yet on the job. I did receive an e-mail from them yesterday that said they hadn't come to a decision yet, but that they would be in contact with me shortly. They're in the process of moving offices, so I'm sure things are crazy over there. I'm just happy it's not a "no!"
I'll keep you posted. :)
-Kristin

p.s. in other news, we are officially less than a month away from graduation!
p.p.s. we get the key to our new ADORABLE place on Monday. :) woo hoo! (For those of you who didn't know we were moving...I promise there will be a very detailed post with pictures etc. I apologize if you didn't know this already-we wanted to keep it on the DL so people in our ward wouldn't shun us.)

A Christmas Tradition from Grandma

Job Interview!

This page was made using Flutter Expressions' new kit Orange Peel.

You can get it at Elemental Scraps

It came out about a month ago and is mainly orange [duh!]

but I couldn't get enough of these fabulous greys!

And I am a FIRM believer in the idea that just because you don't have a picture for it, doesn't mean you shouldn't scrap the story. It's all about recording things! [and it's all the better if you make them cute recorded things. :)]

Gettin' Down on the Farm.

a little ditty for the 2009 album. These pictures are from [gasp!] June.

Just getting around to it now.

I feel a premature New Year's Resolution coming on...

I used the kit Bold n' Dirty from Flutter Expressions.

SO CUTE!

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

Well hello world!

The semester is d...r...a...g...g...i...n...g on and at some points feels like it's never going to end, but we have sure been having a lot of fun in the meantime!

We went as EFY counselors for Halloween [pictures later]. Had a total blast at our ward halloween date and spent actual Halloween night taking our super cute nieces trick or treating while their pretty momma stayed at home with her gorgeous new twin boys.

We've been waking up at 5:38 every morning and working out from 6 to 7. I go walking/jogging [yay for a balanced workout-instead of a work yourself until you want to die workout. it really is a new concept for me...non-competitive athletics...sheesh] with a couple of awesome girls from the Relief Society and Cam either goes running for his marathon, does a p90x workout or lifts at the gym with another guy from the ward. The best part is, we get home at 7 and have at least an hour together before we have to leave for the day. It's been amazing. We make muffins :) or put dinner in the crock pot together, have breakfast together, read, talk, whatever.

For those of you who know me at.all. I really am not a morning person. Normally, my first thought when the alarm goes off is "I can't go back to sleep for another [x] hours...ugh" and then I justify the fated 15 minutes that puts my day in a downward spiral of trying to stay on top of everything.

This extra time with Cam, though, is a huge motivator for me. I look forward to waking up. [you can pick your jaw up off the floor now, mom]. For years and years my mom tried to convince me that my day would be so much better if I just gave myself an un-rushed morning, turns out she's right about yet another thing. Isn't the woman brilliant? Seems like the older I get, the more that happens. :)

Either way, Cam really does bring out the best in me. :) and I love him. The changes that happen after getting married [gradual as they may be] really are wonderful.

I now:

1. look forward to waking up
2. absolutely LOVE staying in a budget
3. can live without my cell phone surgically attached to my body
4. can live with a super simple cell phone with no bells and whistles
5. hang up my towels after I shower [this one is still a work in progress]
6. rinse off my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher [again, a work in progress]
7. read my scriptures every single night, personally and together
8. and attend the temple with the most handsome man EVER each week

:) What has your spouse done for you?

Template Freebie! and I'm Back!

 I'm sorry I haven't been alive for a while! For those of you who don't know, I'm in my final semester here at BYU, and midterms were a little hairy! I'm so glad to be able to be back in action, though. This is what I love! As a please forgive me I'll never do it again present, I decided to give away this super cute template! If you use it, please e-mail me an image of your layout, I'd love to see it! [and my favorite might just get my brand new "Wild Thing" kit...*hint*]

Click here to download.

Happy Halloween!

No pictures of our awesome costumes yet, but Sunday we had a super fun couple [the holt's] over for dinner and to make halloween cookies! They turned out super yummy. We didn't have any sprinkles, so we crushed up cinnamon and butterscotch disks and made powdered sugar icing. [more on the old candy later]. :) We also didn't have icing bags...or any bags for that matter, so we were left with butter knives and good old fashioned creativity. What do you think?

 

GOOD MESS! :) 

 

The ghosts were the favorite creative cookie shape. Cam made a dinosaur foot.

But the favorite was the Elvis Ghost made by Heather.

How cute is that?

Introducing... Baby Boy Beck [squared]!

Both boys are big and healthy, and Emilee looked way too good to have brand new twins. She's really becoming one of my best friends. I love you Em! Baby A was 6 pounds 5 ounces. Baby B was 6 pounds 11 ounces. That's a lot of baby inside one cute girl! Both babies did great. Baby B was having some trouble breathing-he was breathing too fast [around 80 breaths per minute]. Cameron and Adam went into the nursery where Baby B was and gave him a blessing. Almost immediately his breath count dropped to 55. 15 minutes later he was released to come see Emilee. We were happy to be able to see them together and hold both babies. They're so little! They wanted to wait to give the boys names until they could see them side by side. 

the new additions to the Beck fam

[Adam's holding Baby A and Emilee's holding Baby B]

Cute little Baby B with too many breaths per minute. This is in the nursery, before he calmed down enough for the nurses to let him come meet the rest of the fam.

Kiara with Baby A on the Left and Baby B on the Right. As soon as he was in the room with the family, he opened his eyes and looked all around. They're a gorgeous deep blue. It was so fun to see this little life! Baby A was very content to sleep.

 What a babe! :) [Cam holding Baby A]

 Me with Baby A.

[Most of these pictures were taken before Baby B was able to come back to meet us all. I know for fact the Becks have some awesome ones! Sorry there aren't more close-ups of the newbies!]

Big Congratulations to you Becks!!! :) We love you! 

Family Night

I've had a bunch of meltdowns lately because it's my last semester before GRADUATION! I've been struggling to motivate myself because I'm pretty burnt out after the hectic summer we had. A few weeks ago, I came home and Cameron had Family Night all planned out. We made a paper chain together counting down to Graduation, and watched the clip on LDS.org about running the marathon and never being alone [He's kind of amazing like that]. We used white printer paper strips for school days, and colored cardstock for weekends and holidays. TOTALLY WORTH IT! I love seeing the chain get shorter and shorter, and we both live for Thursday night when we get 3 colored strips in a row. Thanksgiving looks like a total party as far as the chain goes. :) Either way, we're in the home stretch!

I have the most incredible husband.

I came home to a note on the counter today.

I love you Kristin. I'll be home asap. Don't worry about making dinner. Have some YOU time!
xoxo,
Cam

Happy 100th Post!

woo-ee how about a milestone?? :)
Just sharing the love-I've been working on our engagement album and came up with these gems.

There are 2 more but they're uploading into all weird colors...I'll see if I can fix 'em!

Making Progress on the Engagement Album!

Flutter Expressions' kit To Be Thankful is perfect for my engagement pictures.
It was a blast to play with! What do you think?

Talking in your sleep....part 2 :)

So, the semester has hit HARD here at the Call house. Cameron wakes up at 6:00am to go running [training for a marathon. woo!], comes home and gets ready, out the door for class from 8-2, work up in orem from 3-6:30 and then back to campus until late...dinner happens around 9 most of the time. I've got class from 9:30 to 6:30, working on campus for 20 hours a week, designing and managing the marketing for Eastwind Creations, and trying desperately to make dinner/clean the house [which, let's be honest...cam does most of the time anyway.] On top of all that, for the past 3 nights, we've been at a barn decorating for Cam's best friend, Cam's, wedding reception to the cutest girl EVER.

It's been hectic. Either way the past few nights of sleep in our house has been pretty eventful.

You may remember our past sleeping issues here and here.

Thursday, I woke up to Cameron *shouting* "NICK CLARK?! WHO IS THAT GUY?!"
Stiffling giggles, I said softly, "I don't know Cam, who is Nick Clark?"
However, Cameron was already knocked out again.

Later that night, I was hot and uncomfortable so I got up to turn the AC back on. I curled up off the pillow and accidentally woke Cameron up. He started rubbing my back, I think confused as to how I was laying..."where...are....you?" I sit up, shocked he's even coherent, and he elbows me in the face and starts cracking up. lol. I turned the AC off, and went back to the "safe" side of the bed. 


Last night was my absolute favorite though. We had just got back from enjoying the gorgeous barn reception of a beautiful couple, and watched the newest episode of The Office. Yay. We read scriptures, talked about the marriage advice Ensign Q&A [highly recommend! just good to think about!] and then knelt down for family prayer. I was surprised when Cameron started saying it because it was "my turn" but he calls on me if he wants me to, so I was interested to hear what he was so intent on praying for. Everything sounds normal until he says, "And if thou hast all the nic..."

*pause*

*Full on belly laugh* "Oh my goodness, Kristin! I just fell asleep and was dreaming about counting our fun jar..." *Belly laugh* "I guess I was really concerned about the nickels. O, please don't blog about that!"

LOL. We were both laughing so hard Cameron quickly finished up the prayer. He's so stinking cute. Even when he's tired. :)

Seven Peaks

Congratulations!

Shout out to you ladies who have already completed the challenge! and keep your eyes peeled for a super cute Au Naturale alpha coming your way soon!

(remember, anyone can still complete the challenge. just click on Au Naturale Challenge on the sidebar and e-mail me when you're done!)

The Joys of Marrying a Chiropractor [to be]

Came home to this little gem on the counter. :) o how I love him. lol.

Au Naturale Challenge Day 5: Motivate

My sister told me once that the quickest way to motivate yourself is to take a stand for something that really matters to you. So, loving yourself will be easier if it is connected to something you already deem important. For your comment this time, I would love you to fill in the blank to this sentence.

Starting right now, I will never ______________________ again. Not even once!

Here's mine!

Starting right now, I will never go to sleep without saying I love you to my husband. Not even once! 

After you finish this last challenge, send an e-mail to k.call.design [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll send you the link! 

Blog Carnival!

Welcome to the September 1, 2009 edition of digital scrapbooking.

Tutorials

Kelly-Ann Halbert presents A little bit of the "how to's" posted at Call Me Kristin Designs.

Other

Anna Farmery presents Think! We are Social Historians posted at The Engaging Brand.
Marielle Faye Garcia presents DigiScrapbook Pages of Haley | Bits N' Pieces posted at Bits N Pieces.

Tutorials

Melissa Shanhun presents X is for eXtractions posted at mgl Scraps CT.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of digital scrapbooking using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: digital scrapbooking, blog carnival.

Au Naturale Challenge Day 4: Follow!

Hi Ladies!
Just a reminder, today is the last day to download my So Sweet Kit. You'll find the link a few posts back. Also, today's part of the Au Naturale challenge is to become a follower. It's that quick! Besides, who wouldn't want to be a part of something that makes you feel so good about yourself! The kit is ready to play with and I can't wait to give it to you! Hope you have a beautiful [even if it's manic!] Monday!

I scrapbook too!

 

A cute little page for our engagement album. Made with Kat's Creations' new kit Fallen Leaves. I'm LOVING the stitching and the adorable papers. :) yum. 

Finished my button. :)

<br /><center><a href="http://callmekristindesigns.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0"/><img src="http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt233/ssstoked34/Button-2.gif"/></a></center><br />

Au Naturale Kit Sneak Peak!

For your viewing pleasure and motivation, here's a little sneak peak of the Au Naturale kit!

Au Naturale Challenge Day 3: Cleanse

Hi Ladies! Have you enjoyed your break from me? We've been having intense internet issues lately, but I'm back on. I apologize for the delay. Here's day 3, we're cleansing today. There are so many messages out there in the media that are telling us to look this way, dress this way, talk this way, be this way, and they're all completely unrealistic.

Every marketing message is meant to make us unhappy with ourselves in one way or another, so today I challenge you to be stronger than the billboard, TV commercial, or in store display. You do not have to be free of wrinkles, perfect complexion, size 2, designer jeans, etc. to be beautiful. That's not what it's all about. So cleanse yourself of these influences today-however you want to. And come let us know how you're feeling now! 

Isn't that refreshing?

Remember, after completing these challenges, the Au Naturale kit is yours free! {sneak peak to come later today!}

p.s. my blog got a little facelift today-what do you think?

image courtesy of ohmishka.blogspot.com

Au Naturale Challenge Day 2: The Little Things

Welcome to day 2 my beautiful girls! Today, I'm challenging you [and myself!] to do one act of selfless service. It doesn't have to be anything big.

• Write a note to your husband/sister/friend/roommate/etc.
• Call your mom! 
• Give something to the man on the street.
• Take that load of stuff to the Salvation Army/Deseret Industries
• Call a friend and offer to take her kid home from school.
• Drop everything and kiss your man senseless when he walks through the door. [most likely sparking "ewww"s from the kids, but totally worth it! and how great do you think he feels when he knows he's your #1, and you've been so excited to see him all day?]
• Smile at somebody you don't know!
• Pay for the person behind you at Starbucks.
  

Really, just take a minute and forget yourself to focus completely on someone else & then come and tell us what you did! 

I'll go first: I bought a jar of hot pickled okra for my husband. He raves about it all the time, and it just grosses me out-so he hasn't had any since we got married. He's thrilled. :)

There's no easier way to boost your mood than through realistic service. You don't have to go and save the world every day. Just make one other person's day and it will change yours for the better.

I can't wait to hear from you!

Image courtesy of www.everythingfab.tumblr.com

Au Naturale Challenge Day 1: Love

To kick off our Au Naturale challenge, I’d love to know something you love about yourself. I’m asking to know what you love about yourself, not like about yourself, don’t hate about yourself, or can live with about yourself, what you LOVE about yourself. This isn’t bragging about yourself. I’m asking to know! And it’s always nice to remember your awesome qualities. They so often get pushed to the side by our weaknesses, but today, it’s time to be nice to yourself.
I’ll go first:

I love that I can create beautiful things.


Now I want to hear from you! What do you just LOVE about yourself?


Remember, after completing this challenge, the new Au Naturale kit is yours free!

Serendipity #1

I received this from an old high school friend and thought it would be just perfect for a new kit! I'd love to hear what you think!

Hi beautiful girls!

So an idea got brought to my attention regarding fasting. This week myself and some of the girls will be fasting anything we do to beautify ourselves or as I like to call it (enhance what we already have..lol). For some of you this type of fast may not be a huge sacrifice but for a girl like myself I love putting on make-up doing my hair every morning and dressing up. So the challenge would be to go all natural for 5 days and see what desires God has put in your heart "uncovered" not clouded with beauty products or fashionable clothing.

Im not saying make yourself look bad, just all natural. For some of you, you know your beauty is natural and this may not be a sacrificing fast. But if it is I wanted to challenge girls group to a 5 day fast I like to call "uncovered". Pray all week and see what God is speaking to you about your self-image, your true desires in your heart that have nothing to do with outward appearence but rather your heart. Do whatever you think God is challenging you to do. For example I may have to do something with my hair and clothes for the kind of job I have.

It will be interesting to hear what God does through this. Having a good self-image is so important to God, as we were made in his likeness and identity. We should be confident in our own identity and that starts in the heart and realize our true beauty and the way God see's us. As for myself I struggled with not just self-esteem issues but self-loathing, it tore me apart, it tore other people in my life apart, and everyday Im still being delivered from it piece by piece, my image and identity has been my biggest struggle,and I think most women struggle with this to a degree. Maybe not in the degree I did, but some degree. If your doing the fast I would love to hear stories about things God did in your life, through it and after it.

Love you my beauties!!!

Love and Blessings!

Alexis

The new kit will be called "Au Naturale." If you decide to participate in the challenge, and share your experience with me, the kit is yours free!

Can't wait to see what blessings come from this for all of us!
Image courtesy of Candace Napier.

Birthday Update :)

Dear Blog,

I’m sorry I have so terribly neglected you for the past couple weeks. I not only have TONS to post, I also have fun things to post. I think about you a lot, it’s just very very hard for me to find the time to sit down and spend some qt with ya. You’re loved. I promise. To make up for it, I’ll write about our birthdays WITHOUT posting pictures. I know. The sacrifices I make.

Love,

Kristin

My birthday is on August 20th. Cameron’s is on August 21st. It’s quite convenient, what with all the free meal coupons to our fave restaurants. We got 2 huge burgers and bottomless steak fries from Red Robin for absolutely free. We went to Coldstone after that and upgraded our “free creations” to waffle cones, extra mix ins, etc. for only $3 total. That rocks. This week, we ate completely free at Noodles & co. [If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. YUM!]

For my birthday, Cameron went above and beyond anything I was expecting. I’ve mentioned in the past how keeping a family history is really important to me. [Honestly, it’s the main reason I scrapbook.] I’ve also talked about how  much I would love to preserve the music we love and the home videos we’ve taken. Cameron, took note of all these hints and put together a video of our first year together. [My birthday marked 1 year of us being in the same city.] He started at efy, and had slides of his journal entries about me. Pictures, video, music, everything. He took me back to the dates we went on, through the proposal, engagement, wedding planning, wedding, honeymoon, and our first 8 months together. I sobbed through the entire thing. It was fantastic. He’s incredible. I also woke up to a dozen daisies. LOVE HIM. We went to education week all day, went to Zupas for dinner with my mom and sister and saw Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat, followed by gelato at Maestro’s. It was great to have my mom and sister in town too! [Which was unexpected.] My presents were delivered by balloon. My mom took me shoe shopping [got flats from Lindsay-thanks Linds!, sandals & boots from mom]. Then my mom took me for a pedicure and left me with money for a massage. talk about awesome.

At dinner, Cameron let me open the rest of my gifts. [He’s a fantastic over achiever.] He got me good & plenty’s which I love, but he won’t even kiss me if he can smell them. A new puzzle [secret: I LOVE puzzles…but I get bored with the ones I have because I can do up to 1,000 pieces in an afternoon. It gets annoying/addicting.] And my favorite: a new white flower for my hair. I wore a white flower on the day we first met, and on our wedding day. He’s wonderful.

For Cam’s birthday-we were still at education week, but I had everything wrapped and ready for the morning [I was so proud]. We constantly talk about what movies/books we want to have when we have kids, and Cam’s favorite storybook as a kid was Where the Wild Things Are. He has watched the trailer for the movie coming up tons of times and has even downloaded the background music to it. I bought him the book, and [since tickets weren’t on sale yet] put an “admit 2” ticket inside for seeing the movie in a REAL theater. To make it even better, there was a card inside for Taco Bell before the movie, and a jar of pickled okra. The kid is a little weird, but we love him. He raves about pickled okra every time he goes grocery shopping with me, so I figured his birthday is as good a day as ever. Also, I made him a peanut butter cup dessert to put candles in. We ate at Brick Oven with the Fam complete with jungle print balloons tied to his chair. [Balloons are a tradition in my family.]

It was wonderful! and we learned so much at education week that I can’t wait to share with you! It completely changed the way I see Cameron and how we both communicate. It may seem juvenile but I just thought it was so great.

In a nutshell update: the birthdays were wonderful, and we’re more in love than ever. Hope you all are doing well too!

If you've got a minute:

Check this out!

A while back, you said you'd be interested in a digital scrapbook blog, so here she is! I've finally polished up my latest kit, and would love to hear what you think about it. o-yeah-and you can get it for free. :) I'm also working on buttons for you lovely ladies to put on your own blogs.

Click Here

and become a follower! :)

So Sweet Kit Freebie!

In my search for a shop, I thought I'd let you take a look at what I've been working on. :) This cute kit was inspired by Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On.

Click here to download the kit for free!
 
and please leave me a comment if you download-thanks!

Scrapping some overdue stuff!

In my scrapbooking life, I'm currently working on 3 different books. 1 album of 2009. 1 album of 2008. and 1 album of our wedding. I managed to finish up 4 more pages and I thought I'd share the beauty with you!

These first two were made with Amy Teets' new kit "Spring Fling" it goes on sale at A Cherry On Top on Friday. I really can't get enough of those scripted clouds and trees. Mmm. It seemed like everything I made with this kit looked good! These pages are to go in the 2008 album. They're some of our engagement pictures. My goodness he's handsome, don't you think?



These next two layouts were done with the "I Love You This Much" kit from Foxy Designs. Also set to come out on Friday. Yay for new things to work with! The first page is from our first dance at our wedding.


This page is illustrating the amazing-ness that is the last day of school party! Text reads: Grandpa Frost passed away the week school let out in AZ. Everyone came home for the funeral, and managed to get there in time for the last day of school party, a tradition that has been in my family for decades. It was so fun to have everyone in town again! It normally involves shaving cream fights, pie fights, water balloons, junk food, watermelon, silly string, and super soakers. Since Cameron was new to the family I didn’t know how he would take the mayhem. Turns out he fit right in, and whooped my fanny at just about everything. I’m so grateful to have a husband who doesn’t expect me to be a boring grown-up all the time. We’re immature together! That's why I love you.

Scrappy Scrap Update! :)

1. Finishing my internship

I worked all summer as the marketing intern at a cute little shopping center called Gardner Village. It really was a blast. I enjoyed everything about it except for the hour-long drive during rush hour traffic there and back. It really took a toll on our gas budget and made it hard for me to ever cook dinner. If I did cook, we ate at about 8. I love LOVE being a housewife, but I’m so busy a lot of the time that I don’t make a very good one. I was set to finish my internship on the 31st of July, but when I went in on the 28th, my boss surprised me with my check and a super cute mail organizer. I submitted my portfolio and took this picture on the drive home. When I told Cameron that I never had to make that drive again, he scooped me up and kissed me good. :) That Saturday he promised me we could celebrate. We did a session at the temple and set off to find a restaurant for dinner. Sushi is my favorite food ever, but it is very expensive. Cam spoiled me rotten by letting us go to The Happy Sumo for some yummy sushi rolls & edamame. He loved it too, which is lucky for me! He didn’t even complain about the $50 cost of it all and made sure I ordered exactly what I wanted. We wandered through Borders so we could make some room for dessert. Cam let me pick this too, and we grabbed a couple frapps at Starbucks. The night had “Kristin” written all over it. I am so lucky to have a husband who makes me feel so special. There are very few things in this world that make me smile like that. Cameron is one of them.

2. 4th of July

Wayne, Adrienne & Amberlee came up for the 4th of July this year. We had a barbecue for dinner out at their campsite. When the grill was hot and ready for the burgers, we realized we had forgotten the patties! Adrienne, Amber and I drove to Wal-mart to pick up our favorite burgers, ate super quick, and headed off to the Stadium of Fire.

3. Yay :)

4. Flowers 4 Grandpa

Grandpa Frost passed away after a long battle with a variety of illnesses. He grew up in Kanab, so my Grandma asked me and Cam to pick up some sagebrush on our way home, to be used in some of the flower arrangements. We stopped in Kanab and asked a few people if they knew what sagebrush looked like. As it turns out, it’s everywhere up there! We were honored to be able to bring a little bit of comfort to my Grandma and some flowers for Grandpa.

5. At the Hot Spring

on June 12th, we hiked the hot springs with Cameron Crockett and his fiancee Tyne. The water was beautiful and felt great after a long day. This was part of our fake second honeymoon, where we just disappeared for the weekend. Sometimes I really love not being “find-able.”

Today, I am grateful

grateful for being a part of a worldwide church whose members are so willing to help people they may not know. And grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows His children, and for the miracles He works in order to bring them back into His arms.

I have a friend named Katie from junior-high. She has mentioned in the past how she’s been praying but doesn’t know how to find an answer. She believes in personal revelation. She recently got married and is so absolutely in love with her husband that it’s infectious. I can’t help but think that “forever” would sound so much better to her than “until death do you part.”

Katie is an actress/singer who spent months in New York apart from her husband and stayed until she couldn’t take it anymore. She returned to live with him in Virginia earlier this week. They’re having a rough time. He is in the Navy and was deployed less than 48 hours from the time Katie got home. She doesn’t have a car and doesn’t know anybody. She has no way to get to her job, and their bank accounts are completely overdrawn.

When she said, “I don’t know. I guess God just wants me to be alone right now.” I knew that I had to do something, anything, to keep her from feeling that way.

I asked her if it would be OK for me to call a bishop out there who could introduce her to a young married woman who’s in a situation similar to her and if she would be comfortable getting a ride to and from work for the next little bit until her husband came home.

She quickly gave me her phone number and address and was impressed that I could even know someone who could help her all the way out there.

She said, “Wow, you mormons are crazy networkers!”
I said, “No…we just like taking care of our friends.”
She said, “I guess so! I’ve never made friends at church before. No one was very welcoming.”

I called Bishop Austin about a half hour ago and left a pretty obscure message on their answering machine, asking them to help her find a ride to her job. I can’t wait to see the kind of people she’s going to meet. I can’t wait to hear about the conversations she’s going to have. My heart is pounding and I can’t help but know that she’ll be taken care of.

I’d love for you to all meet my friend Katie. Check out www.theyouandmeshow.com. Leave her some love. It would mean a lot to a girl who’s feeling awful alone right now.

$8.47

so...for those of you who don't know [which is probably everybody except my mom...and apparently Cam-he just told me], my inseam is 37". It's what happens when you're six feet tall. Either way, it's hard to find jeans. It's even harder to find jeans on sale. I've found a place called Vanity where they sell up to 37" inseams, but only in select styles...which means the basic 5 pocket...no cute pocket detail. ANYWAY-we moseyed on over to the mall last night to kill time before 1/2 priced appetizers at Applebees and while rummaging through the clearance rack I found a pair of super-cute pocketed jeans for $10. The downside...the inseam was 33". My wonderful parents bought me a sewing machine a while back, and I decided to stick it to the short people and make a pair of knee length shorts out of them. I'm most pleased with how they turned out, so I thought I'd share them with all of you! [and yes, mom, that's an iron in the background. I even PRESSED them before sewing them to make sure everything was straight. :)] o and did I mention that I had a 20% off coupon because it's my birthday next month. I got the coupon that morning. So...cute pair of knee length shorts: $8.47. Take that, Economy!

Oquirrh Mountain Open House

I finally have some time to scrapbook, so I'm catching up! These 2 pages are from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It was gorgeous. I can't get enough of those stars in the windows. We can't wait for the dedication so we can go through again. :)