Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a special time of year. It has a lot of happy and sad memories for me.
Since it is usually a happy day for all I will share the happy things I like about this holiday.
here is my top 20 things i love about Thanksgiving.


1. I love to be with my moms side of the family. *we counted today and there are 45 of us.*

2. I am the second oldest of my cousins on that side and its fun to watch them grow from year to year.

3. TURKEY!!! SNEECHERS! lol this is an inside joke with my cuz Hailey.

4. We do a service project every thanksgiving. this year it was writing missionaries. lol i have gotten really good at that!

5. all the other yummy food that is made. salads, rolls, stuffing, etc yum!

6. Sledding or Playing at the park, Depending on the snow fall of the year, this year we had snow so we went sledding!

7. Singing with the fam, more or less i just listen, I am not musically inclined. but i have amazing singers and musicans in my family.

8. Thinking of things that I am grateful for, friends, family, place I live, Utah, its a beautiful place! I LOVE IT!

9. The smell of the food, and my grandma's house.

10. Thinking of all the blessings that have happened in the year. for example, my cousin hannah is very sick but pulled through yet again when odds were against her. My uncle was very sick as well but is getting better.

11. All the crazy new memories made, like this year, My uncle tackled my cousin off the sled while he was going down the hill, very funny! also my aunt and uncle are here for the holidays and are not usually so it is fun new memories with them.

12. Christmas music is not so strange to listen to on Thanksgiving. and after too.

13. Games that are played while the kids are done eating and the grown-ups just start.  todays favorite was UNO ATTACK! and see how many grandkids we can fit under the coffee table. lol was pretty fun.

14. The fact that usually my immediate family gets along.

15. New traditions start, like my nephew sleeps over here the night before Thanksgiving Day.

16. Talking to friends about how their Thanksgiving went.

17. People are normally more thoughtfull of each other around the holidays, *EXCEPT BLACK FRIDAY!!!!*

18. Looking at the ads for Black Friday while watching the Macy's Parade

19. Listening to my Aunts' talk about going shopping the next day. lol it gets pretty funny, they have different stratigies.

20. I LOVE TO BE  WITH MY FAMILY!!! CAUSE I LOVE UM!

A random Photoshoot!

    This is the mountain right out my front door

 Some clouds with the mountains

 the view I have every time I walk out my door

 clouds

 Print of a leaf on the sidewalk

Its my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.

ok so I only cried a little bit on my birthday, but for the most part it ROCKED!

So the night before I got to hang out with one of my best friends ever. We went to walmart and found nothing to do, so we went to fresh market and found some drinks that looked good. so we decided to try them ... Orange floats drink. *not good* well when we bought them they were room temp and nasty so we put them in the freezer well my freezer was packed full so in the ice box they went. about two hours later.... this is what we found.

 mind you this went through a very full box of ice and this was at the bottem

 hehehe yes we had fun but we wont do this again it was almost mid night when we were cleaning it up... a little hard to do quietly.

                                                          happily cleaning out the ice box

                                                This is the ice we saved!

                                                               Jacee with the culprit!

                                                   this is Kerr the gold fish! he was watching us 

                                                    and died the next morning. Rest in peace Kerr.

                                          hahahaha its clean Thanks to all our hard work!

                                          she started putting the ice we saved back in the box 

                                           and it was really loud so she kept stopping and laughing.

                                           bahahahahahahaha

                                               Priceless Jacee face!

            laughing that we are making a mess cleaning it up and being loud.

anyway this is what i did the day before my birthday. I was not smart enough to bring a camera around on my birthday but here is the low down on what happend. First of all it was remembered by most of my family. Well I got up to read scriptures with my family. got my new power drill that I absolutely LOVE *pic of it coming soon* well I went take lunch to my sister who was working. lucky for me she left me money to do so! yay! Mo Bettah Steaks! yum! so i took her lunch and went to my grandma's house. We do a halloween/ my birthday party every year. this consists of my family all getting together and carving pumpkins. lunch consists of Chili dogs, and apple cider. yay! well my aunt came from Norway two days before my birthday so that was fun. but shortly after they left my dads side of the family has never gotten along very well and to put it lightly all hell broke loose. my dad and aunt totally wrote each other off. it was heart breaking and had me in tears for a bit and not to mention that i always have a hard time on my birthday because it reminds me of my great grandmas death.  but i was determined to not let it ruin my day. so later i went to boondocks with my family and some friends. it for the most part was a blast and a half. one of my very good friends even made me a cake. so i didn't have to make my own this year. and it was AWESOME! we didnt get home till after ten. and then i went with my sister and bro in law to Iggys for some fun with them. so all in all my day was pretty good! LOVED IT!!!

Random Photoshoot

A friend needed help figuring her camera out so we went and did a photo shoot and these are just some of the ones liked that I took.

swings are always fun.

 

Standing on swings takes talent and skills lol just kidding. 

 

Random Photoshoot.

Why is growing up so tuff?

Who'd have thought growing up would be so tuff,

cause right about now i have had about enough.

Paying bills, working hard, 

just to have money on my card. 

have to put gas in my truck 

why did no one tell me how bad this would suck.

I want to be a care-free kid, 

and not worry about everything, like i once did. 

one of these days i pray, 

I can be a kid again just for one day.  

Self image...

  So as of lately I have gotten in this really bad habit of not doing so well with the whole seeing myself as some others may see me. So as of today i have taken a challenge from one of my uncles to find one picture of me that i like and say at least on thing about it that i like, *note i do not have to post all of them...* A few years back i went to a camp with my ward. The theme of the camp was *FBI* Finding the beauty inside. As i have grown and let the lessons of that camp fade into my memory, I have forgotten to take what i learned seriously. I learned things at camp like no one person is the same, no one is a better you then .. you! although the theme was finding beauty INSIDE, they also focused on the outside apperance. This has been a struggle for me for many years. I have been skinny, i was a skinny kid, as far was 5th grade, then i started to put on weight like it was going out of style. pound after pound kept creeping its way on to me and around 8th grade i started to get into some really bad habits, I hated myself, the way i look, act, dressed.. it was all embarassing to me. depressing, I was one of the kids who would laugh at the jokes at school and come home and cry in my room for hours because of how i felt.  Lucky for me i had two absolutely amazing friends who saw right through that and loved me anyway. ... To this day i don't know why they love me but for some reason or another they do. both have been in my life for at least 8 years now and have reminded me among others now. that i am important and that it doesnt matter what i think of myself they love me they care about me. as a friend often tells me "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"  Well The reason i tell you this pathetic little story is because for the first time today it was brought to my attention that one of my friends that has been there for me through thick and thin, whom i have been jealous of her looks since i met her, felt the exact same  way i do. I have always thought of her as one of the most beautiful people i  know. and here she was thinking that she was not pretty enough, ... WHAT?!?!?!  I would have never guessed.  I dont know what to say/do now because all these years i have been jealous of her she has had the same feeling toward me. So i guess it is all to say that its true, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. and maybe one of these days i will see what my friends/family see in me. but most of all i may see one of these days myself as God himself sees me.
P.S.
I like this picture 1 cause i was wearing a beautiful purple dress, and two i almost look skinny in it and last but not least i was hiding a water balloon behind my back and threw it at my sister after she put the camera down. YAY

More photography...

Ok so the more I do photography the more i absolutely fall in love with it. I love to be able to show the world through my eyes.. These are some that i took of one of the newest additions of my family. she was 17 days old in these pictures. this is my happy little St. Patricks Day cousin.

Ok and now for easter,

Our family got together the Saturday before Easter to dye eggs with all the cousins... *Minus a few* There were about 14 kids there... give or take a few... plus my aunts, uncles, grandparents. ya there were a lot of us. One thing i love about Easter with my moms family is the love that is just genuinely shared between all of us. Everyone gets along everyone loves each other, we are pretty much a picture perfect LDS family. *not saying we are perfect, just saying it has a strong religious base..* Love my family.

CATS!!... behind the set...

 
So this year Viewmont High is doing the musical "Cats." So far this musical has been very time consuming and very demanding. Which is ironic because for the first half of the show, very little is done backstage.. the only thing I do is pull two curtains, and lights. Its easy, the solid black curtain goes up to kinda set the scene and then the see through curtain "scrim" goes up. and then we catch a flying cat, and thats about it till the curtains come back down for intermission. 2nd act however, EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE!!! I have to get three fog machines going all at the same time... easy right?!? not when one is on stage right one is in the middle of stage and the other is on stage left. not to mention i have to make the lift go up and bring down the Stairs "heaviside layer" all at the same time.... then bring the lift down.. If i can do this everynight like i did on tuesday i will be very happy with myself. Actually its more of a very proud and accomplished feeling, Its one feeling that nobody understands until they run a show and make it work, yes the applause is usually for the cast, but i take it as they are clapping for me too. *cheesy i know. but hey it works..* that is what is happening back stage if you want to see more of the cast and what they are doing ... go here    http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=587567868#!/group.php?gid=305209469002&ref=mf

is there hope..?

So i asked my friend who runs marathons almost monthly for some running tips. Here is what she told me to do to start. ...

# Before you start your workouts, make sure you warm up properly by walking for 5-10 minutes. You should always end your workout with a cooldown.
# Week one: Walk for 6 minutes, then jog at an easy pace for 1 minute. Repeat 3 times. Aim for three sessions with that same sequence for week one.
# Week two: Walk for 5 minutes, then jog for 2 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Aim to do three sessions in week two.
# Week three: Walk for 3 minutes, then jog for 4 minutes. Repeat 4 times. Aim for four sessions in week three.
# Week four: Walk for 2 minutes, then jog for 5 minutes. Repeat 4 times. Shoot for four of those sessions in week four.
# Week five: Walk for 2 minutes, then jog for 8 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Do four of those sessions in week five.
# Week six: Walk for 2 minutes, then jog for 9 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Try to do four sessions for week six.
# Week seven: Walk for 1 minute, then jog for 11 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Do four sessions this week.
# Week eight: Congratulations on making it to week eight! For your first run this week, try walking for 5 minutes to begin and end the workout, and run for 20 minutes in between. By the end of the week, try to run for 30 minutes without stopping.

Crafty and domestic...

So I am not the typical girlie girl, I would much rather be playing sports or camping, hunting, fishing, riding four wheelers etc.. then being all cute and crafty. Most of the girls in my extended family are very creative and crafty and usually my sister and i just talk about how fun it would be to have that kind of talent. but alas everything has a season, and yesterday we were crafty.... thanks to a new friend of mine... lol. anyway here is some pictures of what we did.

                                                   Ok so here i am being good, minding

                                                   my own busniess, and SNAP, FLASH,

                                                                  ... i was framed...

Its his foot print

See i can be creative

I am holding the "D" in my hand