So Excited!

Many of you who know me may already know, but CHRISTMAS is my FAVORITE time of year!! Not because of presents or anything like that.... I don't even want ANYTHING for Christmas this year (don't forget that Brandon). I just love the feeling that is in the air around the Holidays! Everyone is nicer, people go out of their way to give, and it is just so loving. This year I get to spend Christmas with a lot of my family members which is really exciting because I have not had a holiday with so many family members on my side since I was about 5 or 6. I am sad that we will not be seeing Brandon's Mom and Dad and all of our friends and family that live in Washington...but hopefully they know that we love them and that we hope they have a wonderful Christmas. Next year we will be in WA for Christmas and for the Family Reunion which means we are going to be there for about a week or so! WAHOO! Anyway, just wanted to let you know how much I love Christmas! I posted some of my favorite Christmas Tunes...so I hope you enjoy them too!

Twilight!!

This past Saturday, Brandon and I went and saw TWILIGHT: New Moon...and we loved it. Brandon even loved it which was surprising! We invited a whole bunch of ladies from the ward and we had 12 women show up and a couple of them brought their husbands so Brandon wasn't even the only guy there!! It was exciting and it was fun because the whole crowd would cheer and laugh and cheer and cry and cheer....ect. It was just plain ol' fun. Afterward we went to our favorite fast food place (Chik-fil-a) and saw that a screw had punctured our tire so we had to go to sears and get a new tire....not so fun! But at least we got to see Twilight!

Closing the Gap

When I hear the word "Atonement" I always think of what the word means if you break it down "At One" with God and that is so true. Only after we repent for our wrong doings can we truly be "At One" with God. Sometimes we make really dumb mistakes in our lives and I think that as we get older we have better judgment and the sins get smaller.... if that is even possible. Not smaller per say because a sin is a sin, in God's eyes, but I guess you can say you are more in the "fine tuning" process. The more I come to understand the Atonement and the consequences for each thing that I do the better I want to become. That being said, I recently made a huge mistake in my personal life which re-opened a partially healed wound from my past. I wanted that person to know exactly what I thought of them because of the pain that they had caused me. As my friend Rachel would say... "I took the low road." Even though I have apologized and tried to repent there will always be that rift between my sister and I because of it. When I think about how I would of handled this a long time ago... I probably would have said the same thing (if not worse) and then walked away saying and thinking... "She deserved it." And to never think about it again but in reality no one deserves "it." No one deserves to be treated with disdain. The Lord teaches that we should LOVE. Love our enemies and to pray for those that may use us. He teaches that we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and yet.... I did none of those things. Satan would have us to feel hate and anger and discontent. I am so grateful that I have been taught the Gospel and that I do have the opportunity to Repent and that my Savior is willing to forgive me for mistakes that I made and make in my life. I am not blogging about this for my sister or family to see because frankly none of them read my blog. It is important to me that people know that I do have a testimony of the Gospel. That I do love my Savior and I know that He lives and that He loves me even though I still make mistakes. I am so Grateful and I have a testimony that we can all be "At One" with God because of the wonderful and blessed sacrifice that is made on our behalf. Life is so hard... and as I am trying to become the women that Heavenly Father wants me to be, that I need to be. I pray that others will understand that I am a work in progress. I am working at closing the gap between what I know to be true and how I choose to live my life.

I love the Ensign

Yesterday we received the Ensign in the mail! I am just SOOOO excited about reading the words of our Leaders. Last night when Brandon got home he was like "OKAY... ready to go to bed?" and I was like NO I want to read longer... we just got the Ensign! So we got to read one of the talks together and it seems like everything applied to us right now! The Leaders of the LDS Church are truly inspired men and you can tell when you listen to their voice or read their words. I am so thankful that we can read their talks for the next six months until we get to watch again!

LOVE

I put some of my favorite Kenney Chesney songs on my playist because whenever I listen to him it reminds me of how much I love Brandon. The first time Brandon took me home with him it was Thanksgiving and we were already engaged. I WAS SO NERVOUS. Luckily my roommate Maren wanted to come too and needed a place to go or I think I may have been even more scared. Anyway, while we were there Brandon took me for a ride in a tractor that his dad had on the farm and it happened to be the one that Brandon had driven many of nights while bailing hay or doing other stuff you do on a tractor.... (I just proved how much I really know about farming) anyway so i can remember thinking of that song while I was riding with Brandon because there is nothin' hotter than a man on a tractor (esp my man... no offense to all the other men that drive tractors) I have even been trying to convince Brandon to move back home and farm so that we can have a more simple life and hopefully spend more time together than we do now.... he tells me that I have false views of how much time we would really have together if he farmed, but as long as he is happy than I am happy too. I just love him SO much! We are coming up on our four year anniversary and although that seems like such a short time I feel like we have both grown so much and look forward to progressing even more. Love you babe.

Fall Baking

Anyone who knows me even the slightest knows that I love to cook. Yes I love to cook normal everyday things but I also like to bake which for most people isn't a normal everyday thing but as soon as Fall hits I seriously can't stop myself. (Poor Brandon has to eat it all too) I even find excuses to bake. Example: "Oh you got the swine flu? Have some pumpkin chocolate chip bread!" YIKES I KNOW! This week alone I have made my mother-in-laws DELICIOUS homemade rolls (she was so kind and taught me how to make them a couple of thanksgivings ago) and I have been working on a recipe to copy that of Great Harvest with their YUMMY and OH SO DELICIOUS Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread (which I think I have pretty much mastered.... but that is my own humble opinion) and not to mention on saturday (yes tomorrow) I am going to be making Sugar and Spice doughnuts. Did I mention that our favorite show to watch on the internet (because we don't have cable) is The Biggest Loser... how did that happen? But it just doesn't seem to matter because it is FALL! Fall is the time when you want to come home to a warm house with cookies and breads and biscuits and scones and apple pie and anything pumpkin... to snack on!(Caution: don't have all out at the same time) So if you are ever in the Wrightwood area, ya know within fifty or so miles or even 150 please please please stop by. It gives me even more reason to bake for someone and then you can take it home so that I don't have it all sitting around my house!

Sunday Together

Today has been an AMAZING Sunday! We have spent the whole day together and have loved every minute of it. We went for a drive and all the pictures that you see are less than 10 miles from our house! We live in a pretty amazing place and we are surrounded by Beautiful Vistas. Check it out!

Beehives

I have been given a new calling!!! Can you guess what it might be? That's right... I am the new Beehive Teacher!!! I am so excited... if you couldn't tell. I am really looking forward to working with the YW in our ward and I look forward to re-learning all the wonderful teachings that our Heavenly Fathers wants us to know about being a Women in the Latter Days.

FIRE!!!

On Sunday morning at about 4am we got a knock on the door. Standing on the other side was a San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputy telling us that we must evacuate our home immediately due to a fire. Luckily we had already began packing because our friends warned us that part of the town was being evacuated and that we would be next. So we loaded up the cars with things that we thought were valuable and that we didn't want to replace (except I forgot my KITCHENAID!!!) and we headed out to our friends house to help them pack. The part of town that they lived in didn't get evacuated until around 8am so we stayed there until 8 and then headed to my sisters house. She is only about an hour away so it worked out great. We were able to stay there for the next couple of days. Brandon ended up going to work and then getting a hotel room in the Palm Springs area so that He didn't have to drive 3 hours each way to work. Thank goodness that they were able to put the fire out and yesterday we were able to come home and unpack our things. It is so nice to be home and out of harms way. We are so blessed!

Basketball

This last Saturday Brandon and I were invited to play basketball with the missionaries and an investigator. It was SO MUCH FUN! Brandon does have too scraped knees and I honestly thought I was going to have to wheel him out of there on a hospital bed but overall we both played well (Brandon's height allows him to be a cherry picker!!) and it was really good exercise. This weekend we are going to go down and see chad and abby play soccer which is always fun and exciting and we are really looking forward to General Conference. We even got the Primary packets that we can fill out while we listen.... like color in the color of tie of each apostle. Primary is turning into a fun calling... I am learning more and more about how to deal with emotional six year olds which has been quite a challenge for me. I haven't cried in a couple of weeks which is a good sign. Brandon is still teaching his boys (he has 3, 8 and 9 yr olds) and they look up to him a lot. You can tell because they look back at him and stare at him all through sacrament. Other than that there is nothing really new and exciting in our lives. Hope all is well for you all!