Happy 3rd Birthday Alyssa!

Happy Birthday Alyssa!
We Love You So Much!
Today Alyssa turned 3. It is hard to believe! It has one by so fast, and we have loved every minute with this sassy little girl. She had a princess party today, and she was dressed as Cinderella. I will post some pictures soon. But today, I will tell you my 5 favorite things about Miss Allysa.

1. She comes and tells me secrets like "I love you mommy". I love it.
2. She loves to snuggle and have me read her stories.
3. She gives funny looks, disgusted looks, and dirty looks. It is hilarious. I wonder who she gets that from?! hmm...
4. She is very grateful. She tells me thank you for EveRyThinG!
5. She is so cute! She is just fun to dress up. People stop us all the time to say how beautiful she is. She always says thank you. How cute is she?! I know people stop you too about your kids. I still love it!

I love my little girl, and I could go on and on, but she is so sweet and I hope she knows how much I love her!

10 Years of Wedded Bliss

Today is our 10 year anniversary! Happy Anniversary Jess! 10 Years ago today, we got married in the Idaho Falls Temple. It has been the best thing I ever did. Jess has been a great husband and dad to our kids and I will go ahead and say that I have been an awesome wife as well! (I'm kidding...I am sure he would say that though.) Today I am going to give you 10 tidbits for 10 years.

1. Our Kids. They have been a huge blessing in our lives. They came to us very fast in our marriage, but I know that was meant to be and I wouldn't change it. I love Mitch, Lindsey and Alyssa and I am glad to have Jess to help me raise these sweet kids.

2. Our First House. We moved about every 2 years for the first 6 years and gathered many friends and memories along the way. Now we are in our first house We have been here for 4 years and will be here probably 4 more (at least). I love having it be mine. I am glad we got to move around little before settling down, because I LOVE meeting new people.

3. Our First Minivan. We finally broke down and got one last year. It has been nice. I think SUV's might be nice too!

4. Golf. We love golf. I got Jess into it shortly after we got married and he would like everyone to know, that he finally beat me on his birthday last year. Oh...and he beat me at mini-golf on my 28th birthday when I was 9 months pregnant with Alyssa. I still tell him that was rude.

5. Vacations. We haven't traveled much. I hope we will more. Some fun places we have gone include: McCall, ID.-We have stayed there a couple times in a condo with our kids. We Love, Love, Love it there, We have also taken our kids to Bear Lake and Wolf Creek. I guess we need to get out more! We are taking them to Disneyland in the spring. Jess and I have gone to Missouri and Nauvoo. We have also gone to California. Time to Travel!

6. School. I graduated with my associates a few days before M and L were born. I started back to get my bachelor's, and found out I was preggo with A. That's on hold for now. We got Jess through school, getting his bachelors degree in Business Finance. Now we are into school again! Jess getting his MBA. I guess some things never change.

7. Cars. When we got married, I had a little red chevy cavalier and Jess had a gold ford taurus. Then he got a blue oldsmobile. Then we sold both and got a maroon dodge stratus....then a white jeep grand cherokee, navy dodge stratus and now a silver dodge grand caravan. Do we like dodge? Apparently. But now I want a wine colored Honda Pilot...Maybe someday!

8. Church. We love church. We both have our dream callings right now. Jess is the Scoutmaster and he is very good at it. He is also the 2nd counselor in YM. I am the secretary in YW. I LOVE Young Women's. I hope to be there for a long time. We have also been primary teachers, the ward librarians and various other things separately in these 10 years.

9. Work. Our jobs over the last 10 years. Shanna--Artco customer service for 7 months after we were married and then SAHM for 9 years. Love it. I did sell Cookie Lee Jewelry for awhile and loved that. Jess--worked at Showcase Interiors for 7 months after we were married and then at Fidelity Investments since. He worked there while going to school full time and he has even had a few second jobs to make ends meet including: a paper route(there is a funny story about that), Albertson's Deli, Delta Center and Fed-Ex. He is definitely a hard worker.

10. Family. We both come from great families. We have been able to go to every one of our siblings wedding(except Gina and John who got married before us in Logan, UT),and they have all been in the temple. Adam and Krystal in Mesa, AZ. Darci and Dale in Idaho Falls, ID. Ryan and Becca in Idaho Falls, Id. Brandon and Shari in Salt Lake City, UT. Andy and Katie in Bountiful, UT. and Suzanne and Sterling in Idaho Falls, ID. I love all of my in-laws and think of my SIL's as my sisters. All of them. That has been a blessing! note: when CJ is married, we will be there too.

All in all, we have had a good and adventurous 10 years.

We have had good times and rough times but thankfully, it has been together!

I LOVE YOU JESS!!!

the above picture is horrible i know. I took a picture of a picture.

My Quirkiest Quirks

I have been tagged by Chrissy and Jaclyn about my quirks, so I better get busy on this post. They are basically the same tag so here goes....

The Rules:

a) Link Person who tagged you. b) List rules c) List 6 quirks d) Tag 6 people

Bonus quirk:

7. I, like Jaclyn, love love love to pop zits. So gross, but so fun.

NOW:

6. I LOVE Lipgloss. I mean I really love lipgloss. I can leave the house with no make-up, but I HaVe to have liploss on. One of my friends gave me a make-up bag FULL of lipgloss for my birthday last year and it was Awesome(thanks Rachel)! Jess buys me lipgloss at Costco. That, my friends is how much I love it!

5. I am revealing something really gross about me... I have 2-3 little hairs that grow out of my chin. 8( It grosses me out so much, that I am constantly feeling my chin to make sure they are not growing. If they are, I hurry and get them with tweezer. I LOVE getting them with a tweezer. One time last fall, I was driving back from CA. with Darci(sis) and she was barely preggo and very upset and annoyed about me feeling my chin all of the way home. No tweezer + annoying hair = I felt my chin the whole way home. Now that I think about it, that would be annoying. sorry.

4. I get my words mixed up all of the time. I mean to say one thing and say another. Jess tells me that it is one of the things he loves about me. phew.

3. I love Clorox. I love how it smells after I clean with it. I use it more than should, and I have ruined linoleum from not using it right, but I love it. Along those same lines, I have to scrub my tile kitchen floor. I can mop other floors, but my kitchen floor has to be down on my hands and knees scrubbed. My sisters think I am weird.

2. I drool. It is a serious problem. It s family related, because, although I will not name names, there are others with the same problem. In high school, I would be concentrating so hard in class, that all of the sudden, there would be drool on the desk and I would get so embarressed and hurry and wipe it up. Luckily, no one ever noticed.

AND.......

1.Well, THIS is another family trait:

Ok, the pictures at the top should be here. Pretend they are for effect.

A few of us, including my dad , do this pose when we are relaxing. So weird, but SO relaxing. Try it...........................................................................................................................................................................

What did YOU think?! When I am talking on the phone or watching a movie, you will often find me in one of these two ways.

So now you know a little about my oddities, but I am sure that you still find me facinating. Just to be fair, next we I will brag about my most awesome qualities! j/k

Now I tag: Cortnie, Katie, Dee, Rachel, Irene, and Bonnie

Good Luck and Have Fun!

NKOTB ANYONE?!

I LOVED them back in the 80's/90's. Picture me running down the streets of Seattle chasing a limo holding Jordan (he was MUCH cuter then). What an awesome concert. My first when I was in 8th grade. And yes tears were in my eyes...











OK I was crying, because that's what NEW KIDS

fans do. So look out Nov. 15th, here I come.

WHO'S WITH ME?! COME ON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!!