{Mother's Day}

Mother's Day is now one of my favorite holidays. Seriously. A day to celebrate mothers and motherly figures in our life - how cool is that?

This is my first mother's day as a mom and now it means so much more. Over these past few months I have just glimpsed the sacrifices that my Mom has made for me and my family. Motherhood is such a sacred calling and I cannot even put into words my thoughts on it. It is a forever calling.

Nothing is more difficult yet rewarding. Sometimes I just look at that little angel and my heart wants to burst open. I just want every good thing in life for her. I pray for her constantly. She has taught me patience, love, pure happiness, sacrifice - it's amazing. How is it possible that something so small can have such a large hold on my heart?

I love the quote by Elizabeth Stone  - "Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
It's so true! Aughh!! It's amazing and wonderful and painful and scary and awesome and I love it.


This last week or so I've been able to spend a good chunk of time with my Mom. I stayed at her house for a couple days while the husband drove the moving truck down to Dallas and then she stayed at our house in Dallas for 2 days scrubbing the bathroom floor and going on Target runs with me.
Amazing.
This woman is amazing. Those of you who know her know what I'm taking about and I don't need to say anymore. Those that don't - that's too bad because she's awesome. You should get to know her - it'll make your life better.
My love and respect for my mom have greatly increased since I've had my own baby - it's a very eye opening experience. Being a mom is not so easy. But, when you're a teenager with all the answers it's easy to know exactly how things should be and to pass all sorts of judgement. Not so much anymore. Sorry.
I love my mom. She is awesome and an amazing example to me. I'm very grateful.

I'm also blessed to have a super awesome Mom-in-law. Have you heard all those horror stories about in-laws? Not true for mine at all. She is fabulous. She was like my 2nd mom before the husband and I were even married. She worked with me in young women's and taught me so much. I'm very blessed to now be an "official" part of her family.

I also have some awesome grandmothers - all of them are awesome, in fact. I was able to see all 5 of them this last month, how cool is that? Very. My parent's mothers are great  and I also married into some fabulous grandmothers as well. They are all so very different but have each taught me many wonderful things and been great examples to me.

But the blessing don't end there, my friends. Thanks to all the motherly figures in my life - my young women's leaders, my aunts, my teachers, my coworkers, my friends who have had babies before me - all y'all. Thank you for being such strong examples.

Are we done yet? NO!
Happy Mother's Day to all you young females who are not "mothers" yet [RACHEL, CAITLAN, AND MEGAN, specifically...]! Guess what - let's celebrate you, too! Let's celebrate the mothering you already do! How you help your mothers around the house, how you babysit, how you are learning valuable skills to make you an awesome mother, how you are strengthening your testimony right now so you can be a strong valiant mother! Happy Mother's Day to you as well. Pray for your babies. Pray for good husbands. Pray and work to be worthy of both.

To all the women in my life [Mom, mom-in-law, sisters, friends, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, single mothers, friends yearning for children, etc, and my precious Baby...] I wish you a happy Mother's Day in whatever form it fits you best now. Thank you for your examples - thank you for your love.

Photography portfolio

During my last semester I had time to take two fun classes: cooking and photography. I've dabbled quite a bit with both, but each class was my first formal instruction on their respective subjects and I loved them.

My photography class was taught by a professional photographer - not the best teacher, but it was a great class. I learned a lot of the technical stuff that I'd been guessing on and making assumptions about for years. 

Here's end-of-semester portfolio for that class.

 "Love is in the Air." 

Made by moving the camera in a heart-pattern while aimed at a lamp post (with a star above it), holding the shutter open - 5 second exposure.

 Part of the portfolio assignment was to include a picture of a religious icon (something with spiritual meaning to us). These are my journals from my mission.

 I love rugby.

 Hang the camera around your neck, set the exposure for 10+ seconds and go for a stroll. Cool things might happen.

My signature, same technique as "Love is in the Air". This time, the strong trace in the bottom right is the moon and the trace in the top left is formed by a star's light.

I would love to hear comments/questions on these.

Sushi class

On April 7, Heidi and I took a Sushi making class. We got a great 1/2 off deal through Google Offers (which really made a big difference since the class was far from cheap). Also, a shout out to Addison and Kelli for watching Evette - it wouldn't have worked without them!

We learned how to make basic sushi rolls, hand-rolls, and nigiri. It was a blast - we felt awesome making sushi and our teacher was hilarious. For each of the three he'd demonstrate and we would follow to make one roll, then we were on our own to make a second. Our solo attempts were judged and the first was given a surprise - a personalized pair of chopsticks in a box.

My sushi rolls before being cut (these weren't the best in the class - nor as good as Heidi's - they weren't rolled tight enough)

 Heidi's rolls turned out really well. Prizes were given for the best of each of the three types of sushi (rolls, hand-rolls, and nigiri), and Heidi barely got beat by one of the biker-types seen in the photo below.

 These biker people were hilarious.

 That's our teacher. "Oh my gooosh" "Janglish works!" etc. Oh man he was funny.

Heidi won first place with this hand roll. We didn't take a picture of mine because it looked so bad. :-\

And we didn't get a picture of the nigiri rolls because those didn't last too long... Whoops. 

A couple interesting things: Heidi used to hate sushi. Her dad tried really hard to help her like it, but it took her a long time. Now she could eat sushi all day without getting full. Serious. We've tried it.

Second story: It was really weird making something with raw meat like this - whenever I handled the raw meat I felt like I needed to wash my hands, or at least I couldn't touch anything sensitive/important (like my mouth) without washing, but I had no gripes about popping the raw meat in my mouth once it was placed on rice. 

Unfortunately, we didn't get the personalized chop sticks because we were moving and he didn't have any on hand... But she won, we promise. :-)

{Ferry Rides}

On this trip we rode on a lot of ferries. Evette was a fan. She liked looking out the windows, watching the water, and entertaining people. She's such a social butterfly. On one ferry ride she had an audience of at least 30 people that she was entertaining. She would laugh and blow spit bubbles and jump and make flirty eyes at them. They were all enamored with her - crazy girl.

{Seattle}

 On Wednesday the 25th the Grandparents volunteered to watch Evette all day while the husband and I explored downtown Seattle - just the two of us. It was glorious.

We went to the aquarium...

...and the Pacific Science Center...

 Butterfly exhibit at the science center

...and the Experience the Music Project museum...

It was a very cool place. One of the coolest things there that we didn't get a picture of was they had drums and guitars and pianos plugged into computers that taught you some basic skills and cords - could have spent hours there

And of course Pike Place Market. We tried all sorts of samples, bought some flowers, jams, and saw lots of interesting people...

It was fun to have an all day date with the husband. Seattle is such a fun city and we had a great time exploring it together.

Grandpa and Grandma and Evette met us downtown that evening for dinner. It was such a pleasure to spend so much time with the Grandparents!