Name them one by one...

I am a blessed woman.

I am a daughter of God. I have a loyal, loving, goofy as all get out husband. I have a beautiful, healthy, intelligent baby girl. I have a job that allows me to help pay the bills AND take care of my baby at the same time. I have the one true gospel in my life. I have amazing parents and parent-in-laws who I know would do anything for me and my family. I have the most caring brothers and brother-in-law a girl could possibly ask for. I have the sweetest sisters-in-law who are as dear to me as real sisters could ever be. I have friends near and far who help me to be a better person. I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food to eat, a car to drive, and a million unnecessary things that make my life more pleasant. I spend far too much time thinking about what I lack. When I have those weak moments I need to remember just how much Heavenly Father has given me and say to myself, "I am a blessed woman."

Have you taken the time to count your blessings today?

Jack the doll and our Clovis trip.

Aaron is very well loved by many of his customers, especially the little Chinese ladies. One particular lady gave him a doll to give to Loralye. We named him Jack and Loralye loved him. She loved him so much, in fact, that she began to eat his shoes and then take apart his legs. Jack is now in the apartment dumpster, but Loralye sure had fun with him while he lasted!

This past Friday we flew to Clovis for Jesse's farewell. Our Friday was simply fabulous! Saturday rolled around however, and I got some bad news. We drove to the temple and once inside I handed over my recommend and was informed that it had expired. 17 days ago. Ahhhh! So I was not able to witness my brother going through the temple for the first time. Needless to say, I cried a couple buckets of tears at the temple and on the way back to my parent's house. My sweet hubby stopped and got me a milkshake on our drive back to Clovis. He knows just how to make me feel better. After a little ice cream I realized two happy things: I will be able to go to the temple with Jesse when he gets home in 2 years and I will NEVER let my recommend expire again!

Clovis Pictures!

Saturday evening in the backyard.

Playing in the "Grandkid Area" that Grams set up.

The rocking caterpillar Papa got for Loralye.

My favorite picture from the weekend...

I am so proud of Jesse!! He is seriously going to be an outstanding missionary. He gave his farewell talk on Sunday and I was blown away. He seemed to transform from this somewhat reserved boy to a confident man from the time we left home in the morning to when he got up on the stand at church. It was an incredible talk and I was so touched by the words he spoke and that spirit he invited into the chapel. I was also able to go with him as he received his patriarchal blessing before church. What a wonderful experience it was for my family. Jesse is a great man and I cannot wait to start writing him! I have his MTC address if anyone needs it! Just message me at momma.green@yahoo.com and let me know! Love you Messy Jesse!! See you in two years Bub!!

Also, I am so excited for the Dutson Family Reunion in St. George...
31 DAYS AND COUNTING!

Birthday Pictures!

During our trip to Clovis at the end of March we had some secret birthday plans to attend to. The birthday people in question were Aaron's sister Cynthia and her hubby Jason. Their birthdays are 11 days apart so I like to join their birthday budgets together and give them one gift. They have one niece (our Loralye) and one nephew (Jason's brother's son). So for their birthdays this year we got the babies together and let photographer Ashley Christiansen (http://www.achrisphotography.com/) work her magic. We started out in the beautiful field off of Herndon and DeWolf by my parent's house, but neither of the kids were overly happy about being there, so we quickly moved to the kindergarten playground at Cedarwood Elementary School. Here are a few of my favorites!

My Ten.

A few different people have had this on their blogs and I thought it looked like a good time waster, so here I go!

10 Truly Honest Facts About Me

1. I am a planner. I plan out all vacations, shopping trips, and weekend plans well in advance and a list is usually involved. If I don't have my list of what to buy at the store, pack in my bag, or make for a meal, something is inevitably left out.

2. I have a selectively terrible memory. I cannot remember the flight home from my honeymoon in Maui at all, but I could draw you a floor plan of the house I lived in when I was 3 and 4 years old.

3. I shot down my husband's attempts at flirting when I first met him. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship-ish thing thanks to a mission call and was enjoying a YSA activity as a single woman at the Fresno City Institute and Aaron was there. I remember seeing him there, but I DO NOT remember him flirting with me or shooting him down, but he does. A couple years later we met again and have been together ever since!

4. I raised a pig in high school. She was a Duroc (the red colored pigs... so cute!) and I named her Suzie Q. I picked her out when she was a baby, raised her, and showed and sold her at the Fresno Fair. She was later eaten. That is when I decided that farm life was probably not for me. I cried on the way home from the auction.

5. I have 10 toes, but only 8 toenails. Ewww! I know. After many, many ingrown toenails and way too many surgeries, I gave up and had them removed. I would NOT recommend that to any women I know. I miss pedicures. Oh! And the podiatrist's name who removed them: Dr. Frederick Kruger. No joke.

6. I completed over 80 units at Fresno City and Fresno State combined, but never got a degree. I was over the unit requirement for an AA when I left City, but needed to take one more English class. I never took it during my year at State and then I got married and moved and haven't gone to school since. I will go back to school one day and get at least my AA and BA, I'm just not sure when that day will be.

7. I am constantly searching for ways to make a lot of money quickly (like 60 grand or so just to cover all of our debt) or to make money working from home so I can stay at home with Loralye like I believe every mother should. I have yet to find anything that looks legitimate (other than selling Mary Kay or Tupperware or something, and I don't think people are doing too well in those jobs right now). Let me know if you know of anything good :)

8. From the time I was 3 or so until I got pregnant with Loralye I always had a least 1 pet. Every time one died, I was just given another. I tried to tally them all up and I think I'm pretty close to accurate with this... 7 cats, 4 birds, 3 turtles, 2 rats, 2 ferrets, 1 hamster, 1 lizard, too many fish to count, and then some family pets... 1 parrot and 8 dogs. Yeah, I kinda like animals.

9. I love Disneyland. If I had the money I would go there 10 times a year. There's just something so magical about being there and I love that feeling. Sadly, Aaron just kind of tolerates Disneyland. I think he enjoyed it more with Loralye, so I'm hoping to convince him that going once a year for the rest of our lives won't kill him.

10. I am tremendously passionate about my religion. I might not climb up on my roof and shout it down to the masses, but I know that it is the only way. Everything about it just makes sense. My life would be an absolute mess if I was not a member of the church. The truth of the gospel brings more peace, love, and joy to this dark, dreary world than anything else I know of. For more information visit mormon.org.

I tag anyone who reads this! I am quite curious to see what my blogging buddies will say about themselves :)

Clovis!

We are going to Clovis in two days and I'm sooooo excited! We're flying in ($110 for 2 round-trip tickets!) Friday afternoon and my parents are babysitting while we go to Javier's for dinner and Blackbeard's for some mini golfing. That is what we did on our first date almost 4 years ago and we haven't done it since! Definitely an over due date! Later that night we'll be meeting up with two sets of Christophersons for some late night shenanigans! Yay! I love them :) On Saturday at noon we're going to the Fresno Temple to be with Jesse while he goes through for the first time! I'm crazy happy for him! I still remember going through for the first time like it was yesterday. It is such an amazing experience and I'm glad I get to share in Jesse's big day! Saturday night we're going to be having some Kentucky Fried Chicken in honor of Jesse's mission with whoever is in town and can make it to my parent's place. Yumm-o! Sunday is Jesse's farewell talk in Clovis 2nd ward (12:30pm! Corner of Fowler & Sierra! Be there or be square!) and then we have to dash to the airport right after church to catch our flight back to Vegas. This will be my last trip there until July (unless another disaster strikes), so I'm excited that we have so much planned and that my whole family will be there!! Jess is going to be an outstanding missionary and I'm so happy that I get to be with him during his last weekend in California.

See you soon, California!

xoxo

Baby Steps

Loralye discovered the joy of going on a walk like a big girl this weekend.

She may be almost 15 months and still not walking on her own yet, but that's not going to stop her from trying to escape the apartment with her cozy coupe pusher every 10 minutes. Thank heaven she can't reach the dead bolts yet.

I Love President McKay!

"We leave this conference today with greater responsibility than ever before, as men of the preisthood, as women of the Church, to make our homes such as will radiate to our neighbors harmony, love, community duties, loyalty. Let our neighbors see it and hear it. Never must there be expressed in a Latter-day Saint home an oath, a condemnatory term, an expression of anger or jealousy or hatred. Control it! Do not express it! You do what you can to produce peace and harmony, no matter what you may suffer."

-President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1963

Cupcake Wednesday

I decided that cupcakes were in order to make a rather boring Wednesday a little more fun.
Loralye agreed.

She really was crazy happy to be eating a cupcake.

She just wasn't a fan of my camera's flash in her face.

This is the best picture I got.

I realized today that with all of the posts I've been doing lately, I haven't put a Loralye update on here. And considering that my blog is the only place I really write down what Loralye's up to, I better catch up.

1. She now has 13 teeth with 1 more almost through and 2 more on the way. Needless to say, she's been drooling a lot lately.

2. She has FINALLY started giving kisses. We have been trying to get her to do that for months, but until this past weekend, she's just been a hugger.

3. She walks everywhere now if you hold her hands. She points her feet out like a penguin and bends her ankles in a bit though. I'm trying not to freak out about it. Her 15 month check up is in a couple weeks and I'm going to see what the doctor thinks about it.

4. She completely grasps the concept of being silly now and not only laughs at people acting silly, but does silly things and laughs at herself too (ie. bonking her head into something repeatedly, crawling around in circles as fast as she can, putting things on her head, etc).

5. She has started hitting (especially when she's angry) and we are trying to nip that one in the bud, but so far we're not getting through to her. She also likes to hit my mom's dog in the face. She thinks it's funny when the dog freaks out and runs away. What happened to my gentle girl?

6. She is still very loving, in spite of her discovery of hitting. Almost every evening she will get right up next to us and snuggle her head into our sides or shoulder or chest and give hugs or kisses.

7. She is starting to use her imagination a bit. While we were in California last, she was sitting on the floor next to my Grandma's (rather creepy looking) life sized doll and picked up it's hand, waved it at Aaron, and said "Hi!" to him.

8. She is becoming more and more opinionated every day. I try not to give into her too terribly much, but it is rather funny to have a kid who is not afraid to tell you exactly what she does and does not want. She's particular about her food, toys, being touched (especially her hands and hair), getting her diaper/clothes changed, being encouraged to walk when she'd rather crawl, being moved when she's content with what she's doing, being ignored, etc. It's like living with a little diva sometimes.

9. She is still growing like a champ. She still fits into her 24mo/2T clothes, but all of the summer clothes we bought for her are 3T and they fit her great. I'm curious to see where she measures at when we go to the doctor next.

10. She babbles all the live long day now. She'll babble at people, her toys, while reading a book, or just while she's walking around in her walker. She still uses real words now and then, but for the most part it's baby nonsense.

I think that's about it on new things with her. She changes every day and it is so much fun to watch her grow up. I love her more and more all the time. I didn't even know that was possible :)