Joe & Claire

I can't believe that my "little" brother is all grown up and getting married! We all think that he is a lucky guy to get a beautiful girl like Claire. She's so sweet and amazingly beautiful! I loved how giddy they were throughout the shoot. The location was a fun discovery and a cute couple like Joe and Claire made the shoot perfect. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Service in September continued. . .

So I totally planned on blogging every time I did a little project for my service in September, but it didn't really work out that way. So I am catching up on my blogging for my little projects.
Here's what I did . . .

I went through my closet and got rid of a ton of mine and my husbands clothes and donated them.

We bought a couple dozen Krispie Kreams and a gallon of milk and gave them to the nearest fire department. I love firefighters I have such a respect for them. They risk their lives to save ours.

There is this couple in my ward and her husband just got called into the bishopric and so they have very little time together now. They have this adorable newborn baby too, Noah. I took him for a good part of the morning so that they could go to the temple.

One of my good friends from work, Julie, got a flat tire while we were at work so I helped her change it .




We gave some ice cold Gatorade to the construction workers that are working on the road by my house. After it's finished my commute will be quite a bit faster. Yay!


I made about 30 little hair accessories and a bought a bunch of little toys to give to Andrea's Closet . After kids go through an extensive surgery they get to go pick out a toy from the closet. They have them in a few different hospitals but we gave our donations to the one at Gilbert Mercy.

Right when I got out of high school I worked at Guthrie Mainstream it's a really awesome company who takes care of mentally disabled people. One of my very favorite clients was this guy named David. I love David and I think of him so much! The last time I saw him was at my wedding. When I took care of him we used to go to Barnes and Noble and I would help teach him how to read. So on my birthday the one person I wanted to go see was David. So Jesse and I showed up to Olive Garden where he works and I brought him a gift card to Barnes and Noble so he could pick out a few of his favorite books. It really made my day to see him!



We took my grandma to the Temple. She hadn't been in over two years because of health issues and I really felt like now would be a good time to help her have those experiences. It was kind of cool because I had the feeling that we should do sealings that day instead of a session, but I thought a session might be easier on grandma so we got ready to do a session and they told us that the elevator just broke. Since grandma is in a wheelchair it would have been very difficult to manage her. So we decided to do sealings instead. The spirit was so sweet and we had a lot of fun doing the sealings. When we had finished the elevator was working again. I guess I should have listened in the first place, there were some people that really wanted to get sealed together that day. Thanks Gimmie for going to the temple with me!

I remember when I was on my mission I had a few companions that never got any letters, any care packages, and not so much as an email from their families while they were out. It broke my heart but it also gave me strength to see their example and holding fast with such faith even though they didn't have a lot of support from home. So for one of my service projects I put together two care packages to send off to some of the sisters that haven't received many things from their families. I included a ton of little hand warmers ( they saved my life while I was over there) candies, brownies ( they envy our brownies), blueberry muffins ( they don't have blueberries over there) and a bunch of church stuff. I miss my mission extremely so I hope these sweet sisters enjoy a little treat.

I also took care of a couple little girls for the morning. Their mom is going through a terrible pregnancy and it's really hard on her health so I took her kids off her hands for a bit so she could rest.

I volunteered at a Paz de Cristo soup kitchen. It was a lot of fun! I got to use my Spanish a little, a learned how to make Italian dressing and I really enjoyed talking with the people. It was really easy too, you just call them to put your name on the roster and then just show up. They will have a job ready for you when you get there. I actually ran into a few people that I knew from my old ward that were volunteering too.

It was my sisters birthday on the 24th ( happy birthday sis!) and her husband Kris wanted to surprise her with a day out full of shopping, bowling and whatever else she wanted to do. So Jesse and I took a shift watching the kids.

Lastly I cut 14 inches off my hair!!! This was kind of a last minute thing. On my birthday we were supposed to go to the humanitarian service center located right by the temple. It's nice because they have a bunch of different projects that you can do and you can just show up and work. I asked Jesse to call ahead to make sure but he assured me that we could just show up. He did a report on it for school last year so he knew what he was talking about. Well. . . when we showed up it was closed. They are in the middle of switching locations :( So we had a couple of extra hours of open time so I called my sister Emily (who is an amazing beautician ever!) and asked her if I could come over so she could cut my hair. I was kinda nervous about it because last time I cut my hair short the people at the salon gave me a bowl cut ( not a time in my life I like to remember) Anyways but hair is hair and I figured it's okay, it will grow back. After Emily worked her magic I looked in the mirror and I LOVE it!!! Who knew that I would like my short hair more than my long hair! Emily cut 14 inches and I sent it in to Locks of Love.







This really was the best birthday ever. I had so much fun looking for opportunities to serve. Instead of getting presents for me I asked my family to go out and do service for others. My parents went to the soup kitchen and served for two days last month and my sister Alicia cut her hair too. She cut 12 inches and donated it to Locks of Love. My sweet husband also went with me and helped me with a lot of the services of last month. It was refreshing to see how easy it is to do little bits of service here and there. Anyways my birthday month was memorable and thanks to all those who helped me find opportunities to serve.

Feed My Starving Children

Very conveniently our friend Katie Hawkes invited us to a service project with Feed my Starving Children it's a super cool organization that works solely off of volunteer work. What they do is they get a group of people together around 50 people per session and they pack meals that contain soy, rice, veggies, and chicken seasoning. This has helped tons and tons of families in over 70 countries around the world. This night there were 58 of us and we were there for about an hour and a half and we packed over 10,000 meals! It was a lot of fun and it really wasn't hard work at all. It was easy! You can actually call them and make appointments for just you or a whole group. So anyways go - have fun, there are a lot of people that need your help.

Little bits of service

So just so you know I haven't forgotten about the whole service in September thing. I want to say that I have been preparing projects little by little but the truth is a Should be doing more and actually delivering. But, last week I cooked dinner for a family that just had a new baby (by the way it was delicious) an awesome concoction of spinach filled raviolis, with breaded chicken breasts, topped with fresh seasoned tomatoes, and with a bunch of mozzarella cheese broiled on top. This morning I babysat a new born baby so his parents could take the day together to go to the temple. The husband just got called into the bishopric so I doubt that they have much time together anymore. This evening Jesse and I delivered a pie from our favorite pie place Crowshaw's Gourmet Pies to one of the families in our ward that we really admire with a little thank you note. So that's in for now - stay tuned because I have some big plans for some fun service projects coming up!

a few more for the service in September

So I know these aren't things really out of the ordinary but I feel like I should blog them anyways just to keep them service blog going. This last week I took some cake to some of my co-workers, fixed dinner for my brother and his cute family, and a took family pictures for my entire family. Although not big projects or huge acts of kindness, I guess it doesn't need to be anything huge or amazing but as long as long as I can contribute to the happiness and welfare to the people around me that's what I want to make this month all about

#1 Home made hot fudge for the neighbors

We moved into this neighborhood a little over a year ago and we only know just a few of our neighbors. So for my first act of service in September I made some home made fudge and gave a jar to each one of my neighbors. A lot more people live on my street than I thought because five batches and 18 jars later I finally got to everyone. It turns out that not a lot of people are home during the day so I still haven't met most of our neighbors. :) But at least they got a little treat on their doorstep.

September Service

So I was reading Becki Crosby's latest post 26 Reasons I Feel Happy and I felt inspired. Basically for her birthday instead of gifts she just wanted people to do random acts of kindness for others. Since it was her 26th birthday she spent her birthday doing 26 random acts of kindness all day ( I can imagine that was a very long day) Anyways so I decided to copy her idea. But I'm just going to spread it out in the whole month of September. I'll let you know as I go along the fun stuff that I run into. Also if you have any ideas let me know! It's going to be a fun month.

The Randy Day Band

At the start of the summer my sweet husband decided to join the Randy Day band for the summer. He loves music and misses performing so since he has a little extra time in the summer he thought it'd be fun to play for a while. He plays the keyboard, a backup singer, and he plays a mean tambourine. Here are a few pictures of their last show a the underground.

Here's the band

Jesse and his tambourine

Jeff normally plays the drums but he did a little dance for us while they were having some technical difficulties

Brandon on the bass guitar

Adam on the guitar

Of course Randy Day of the Randy Day band main singer and guitar

My hubby playin the keyboard

Cabin Trip

Randy, Corey, Desi, Jesse and I all went up to Desi's cabin for the weekend it was such a blast!!!! And was very needed given the stressful semester. We played horse shoes, relaxed, played a lot of uno, and even fit in a little nature hike. Seriously one of my favorite weekends with some of my favorite people!

Here we are playing horse shoes

I think Corey won :)

Dance Randy Dance!!

Desi and me! I'm gonna miss her when she goes on her mission - but I'm super jealous!

007

I guess we are bacon here. . . Jesse told us to, this was our best impression.

Extreme concentration. . .

Also extreme concentration

Desi was a lot better than me

This was my normal throw, not even close to the goal

My hubby tries to lick my eye every now and then. . . kinda scary

yummy cookies - we stayed up till about 3 in the morning talking. . .well Jesse fell asleep around 12 but I made sure everyone else stayed up talking with me :)

So much fun! Thanks Desi!!!!