Him & Her: Anderson Family Update

I got this post idea from my cute friend Brooklyn over at A Little Too Jolley

#Her. 

-working with the same family

-redesigned her blog all on her own

-broke out her old Toy Story comforter and threw it on her side of the bed

-recently discovered her love for Demi Lovato's music

-is going to school in September for Web Design at BYU-Idaho's online Pathways program

-working on a new Solar business with her hubby

#Him. 

-adding a new Solar business (that we own) 

-starting CSU Northridge in the fall

-HE CHOSE A MAJOR

Business Administration with emphasis in Real Estate & Financial Services

-deals with the fact that I still sleep with a Toy Story comforter

-sings Frozen songs with me if I sing them long enough

Easter Sunday

Nala's First Easter

We had a pretty fun Easter :]

I love waking up on holidays with Nala this year because they are all her first ones with us. Some people may think it's dumb to be excited about celebrating holidays with your animals, but she is literally our fur-baby and she responds to anything we say to her (whether it's with her body language or Jayson and I talk with her 'Nala Voice' for her).

We woke up early that morning and got ready for church. We decided that since it was super hot outside that we would take our primary class outside for a picnic! We brought them easter candy and some crackers and sat under the bridge for our lesson (for those of you who haven't been to the TO Stake Center, it's two stories and 4 parking levels, so there is a bridge that connects from the second story of the building to the third parking level).

They kids were a bit crazy, but with good reason! We were eating chocolate and going on a field trip outside for class! What's not to love?

We talked with the kids about the atonement, and how blessed we are because Christ suffered, died, and was resurrected. There may or may not have been an end-of-class argument between the kids on if the Easter Bunny is real or not. Thankfully they all understood and knew that even though the Easter Bunny is great and fun it's not what Easter is really about.

After church we went to Jayson's parents for Easter Dinner. Soon after that we went to my aunt's house for 'Second Dinner' as Jayson and I call it (bonus points if you know what movie we are referencing!). It was fun to meet my cousin's boyfriend, Luc :] He's a good guy and had better treat her right if he knows what's good for him!!! Hah, but I have no worries about him. We ended the night with my family watching Frozen and my Granny gave me a foot massage like she used to do when I was little. I miss watching Disney movies with my family. It's been a long time since we all watched one together.

~ ~ ~

Easter is not about the Easter Bunny. It's not about having a fancy or special breakfast/brunch/dinner/etc. It's not about candy, or easter eggs, or watching It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, or getting money or gifts, or painting eggs, or stuffing your face with desserts. I never knew the true meaning of Easter until about six years ago, and I'm really sad that I didn't learn about it until I was sixteen.

Our brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for every single one of us. Yes, you that feels inadequate, you that feels less than worthy, you whose struggling physically, mentally, or emotionally. You that feels that there is no way to correct anything you've done in your past. He died for all of us. He was then resurrected three days later- just like we will one day be resurrected after we die as well. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” -1 Corinthians 15:22

#Because of Him...

I am here on this earth, as are you.

 I have the freedoms that I do. 

I can worship as I please

I know that I am a Daughter of God

He died so I can be forgiven

I could be sealed in the temple

I have an eternal family

I have husband who is a worthy Priesthood holder

I have a job with a family that I love more than anything

I have a family I've always wanted

I am always worth more than I sometimes may feel

I am everything I could ever hope to be and more

Sealing Day

Friday, November 29th, 2013

I'm so glad that I had the day off that day. I ate my weight in Thanksgiving food the day before so I definitely had fallen into a food-coma and slept in way later than planned.

Jayson and I got up and headed for the church building to set up for our reception. I'm so thankful for Relief Society, especially ours. We borrowed all of our decorations, with the exception of the table runners. I think we got to the building around 10am? I honestly don't remember... but let's just say it was 10am. Looking back on it now I can say that set up was pretty simple, but in the moment I remember wanting to just shoot myself. I'm not a very good decision maker, and I don't have an eye for design. Jayson didn't really care what the 'theme' or 'look' for our reception was, he just wanted it to be cheap and easy. I was all for that!!! I just started calling people in RS and asked them what they had and I feel like I said yes to everything that everyone had and was just hoping that everything would at least look like it matched..sort of. Thankfully it did!

When we got to the church building I started pulling out tables and chairs and staggered them in a half circle in front of the stage. When that was done I had to figure out how I wanted the center pieces to sit on the tables. I honestly didn't have a clue what to do. I finally just started stacking things.. I grabbed the glass block and put it in the middle, put a lantern on top of it, threw red roses around the base of the glass block, and put two disney princesses around the lanterns. Ta-da..? Well, it looked pretty. And I loved it :]

After the tables were set up, I pulled the sofas and chairs from the foyer. My grandmother had just had hip surgery and I wanted to make sure she had a comfy place to sit. After that everything else just fell into place. Jayson and a few others strung lights across the room for several hours (they weren't done till almost 8pm!), I put candles here and there, decorated the pathway leading into the building, swept up the floors, cleaned up trash, made sure everything was set and ready to go and was done around 5pm. I went home to take a shower and put hand fulls of face masks, moisturizers, creams, you name it on my face because I had a really bad break-out due to stress. Awesome.. #not. 

Jayson and I crawled into bed around 9pm. We laid there for about 10 minutes and then realized that we didn't have our slideshow done, and that I had forgotten to paint my nails. We both got up, and he started working on the slide show while I got to work on my nails. When he was just about done with the slide show it was around midnight. He came into the bedroom and told me that he wanted a video of us telling our 'love story.' I wasn't really for the idea because it was so late and wanted to sleep, but I wasn't tired so I decided to go with it. We kept laughing and messing up what we were saying so by the time everything was said and done it was almost 2am! And guess what? We didn't like the end product. At. All. Video in dim lighting in your bedroom in the middle of the night is just awful. We decided to just go to bed. At that point I was so glad that our sealing wasn't until 1:30pm.

Saturday, November 30th, 2013

I woke up that morning around 7am. I can't remember if Jayson was with me or not... I think he was for a little bit.. I washed my face and tried one last face mask in hopes that my acne would look a little bit better and prayed that my concealer would hide everything. I ate a little bit of breakfast and then straightened my hair. I had about an hour before our photographer, Erik, was coming over to take pictures of me getting ready. I had about an hour before our photographer, Erik, was coming over to take pictures of me getting ready.

 I ironed Jayson's shirt, vest, and tie and then sat around on the couch and played with Nala. She had only been with us for about two and a half weeks, so that day was going to be the first day that she would be alone without us for 90% of the day. She was definitely a little more than scared and upset at the fact that we were getting ready to leave.

Finally 11am came. It was time to leave!! I'm so glad that Jayson and I decided to drive ourselves to the temple. It was so nice to just have the two of us together before we turned our marriage from 'Till Death do us Part' to 'For Eternity and Beyond.'

Side Note *:  Have you ever been to the Los Angeles Temple? You know how the door swings open automatically? I thought they just did that as you walked up! I didn't know that you had to wave your hand to open it! Now I understand why Jayson always says 'Wingapo' when we walk up to the doors ;] 

After I changed into my dress, and we were waiting for our guests to arrive so we could start our ceremony, Jayson and I sat on a bench. No, we don't have 'our bench' like the rest of you do.. I just picked the bench that was closest to me because.... it was closest to me! While we were sitting there waiting, I was thinking about the last time I was in that room- right after my endowment session. As I was thinking about that, I looked down at the carpet and thought to myself 'I wonder how fuzzy and soft the carpet really is..' (Yes, I'm weird, I know... but these things bother me.) So what did I do? I bent over and touched that carpet. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT?! It's not nearly as soft and fuzzy as it looks. And I was angry about it.

So finally it was time to be sealed :] I was so nervous I could barely walk! My shoes were falling off, my dress was heavy, and I tried for the life of me not to trip and fall on my face. Once the ceremony started I was bawling my eyes out. And my breathing was getting a little ridiculous. I sounded like I was gasping for my last breath. I'm pretty sure I sounded like I was dying, and that is not an exaggeration! And the most embarrassing part of the day? MY NOSE DRIPPED LIKE A LEAKY FAUCET. So gross. So embarrassing, but Jayson was so great and stuck a tissue into my hand and giggled. I took it real fast and then stuffed it in his coat pocked hoping that no one noticed (but the truth is, everyone probably noticed).

And then.. the moment I had been dreaming of (besides finally being sealed) was about to happen... 

We finally got our turn to walk out those doors!!!!!!!!

~ ~ ~ 

After we took pictures with family and friends, we headed down to the beach at Santa Monica Pier. Parking in LA, especially down at the beach is always ridiculous. You're lucky if you find a spot next to the beach.. Usually you have to park in a neighborhood or down some weird alley. Jayson and I drove into a parking lot looking for a space for us and for Erik. Jayson and I found one for us and then he spotted another car that was backing out. We parked and then jumped out and ran toward the other spot and stood in it while we waited for Erik to find us. Standing in a parking spot in Los Angeles in a wedding dress has its perks- like no one being rude to you :p 

So we took all of our pictures and we headed back to the parking lot. Jayson and Erik were talking about something on our walk back and I looked for our car and noticed that our tail lights were on. I freaked out and hoped that our battery didn't die. As we walked closer to the car, I could hear a stereo and thought 'jeeze that's loud.' I walked up to our car and realized that the music was coming from our car. As I got to my door to open it, I looked through the window and our keys were in the ignition! Not only that, but our car was running!!! And to top it all off, our doors were unlocked! Jayson and I both blankly stared at each other, and then laughed hysterically. We are so lucky we didn't get our car stolen. And the funny thing is that there was a huge line of cars behind us because someone had been waiting for who knows how long for us to back out. I guess their weird facial expression makes sense now :p

As we sat in traffic back to TO, we were both exhausted. We didn't get any sleep, my dress felt like it weighed a million pounds, we were starving and we couldn't wait to go to bed. If it wasn't our own reception we probably would have bailed out and gone to bed. But we went and we had tons of fun :]

At the end of the day, it came and went faster than I had hoped, but I'm so grateful for the blessings of an eternal marriage. I'm grateful for my in-laws who spent so much time and energy on getting everything set up and ready for us. I'm grateful for my ward family and for their willingness to help us with set up and lend us decorations. I'm grateful for our amazing photographer and the hundreds of photos he took and the hours he spent editing them all. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.

Photo credit ; Hokom Photography

Blog Design for the 'Computer Dummy'

Hey-Howdy-Hey!!

Well, it look me a little over a month to re-design my blog 

but I am so happy to say that I think it is finally done!

After several hours (and I mean several) of google-ing, pinteres-ting, stalking, and who-knows-what-else, I was able to find multiple tutorials and several blogs to study and try to re-create what I had envisioned in my head. I think it's fair to share some of my tips and tricks with you all, don't you think? :]

..it's after 11pm and I've been designing and editing for close to five hours.. 

that's the best design I can come up with right now.. forgive me

1. First of all, let me give a HUGE shout out and Thank you to my two biggest blog inspirations, Ashley Z. over at From A to Z, and Brooklyn over at A Little Too Jolley! I was constantly tweeting them for help and advice and they were always more than willing to help a girl out. Thank you ladies!! xoxo

2. Google Web Fonts is a life saver, let me tell ya..

3.  This was the best tutorial, in my opinion, on how to change your post title font. I didn't even know that TCBOTB did tutorials!! How cool, right?? I repeated the same steps in any other areas that I wanted the fonts to change as well 

4. I finally joined the signature-on-your-posts bandwagon after finding this little beauty. I have to say...my wittle Simba-signature is oh so cute ;]

5. For some clickable social media icons, I found this baby too! 

Can I also just emphasize that I have zero knowledge of photoshop? Everything that I 'created', I did using Notepad, Paint, Microsoft Word, PicMonkey, Google, Google Images, and Pinterest. So for those of you out there who think you have to know photoshop or HTML like the back of your hand, trust me when I say that you don't have to know a single thing about any of that. I'm pretty proud of myself right now..so yes, I'm going to brag about it  for a little while..don't judge me.. 

Please feel free to ask me questions! I probably won't remember everything that I did 100% but I am happy to work with you step-by-step if you need it!!! 

The day I chose to be Baptized

Have you every stalked your own Facebook page? 

Have you ever gone back to the year you joined Facebook and read all of your ridiculous status updates? 

I did that today. 

It's interesting to see all of the 'lame' updates that I posted as a fourteen year old.. I'm embarrassed by a handful of them, but it's kind of fun to go back and 'remember what you used to be like.' When I looked back at my updates from 2008, I was so glad that I found this update:

I remember that moment very clearly. I remember reading the scriptures and thinking to myself 'am I absolutely sure that I want to do this?' I kept asking myself over and over and over.. I finally stopped everything that I was doing, fell to my knees and instantly started crying the moment I hit the floor. After I was able to speak, I said a prayer, out loud, for the first time and asked my Father in Heaven if everything that I had been taught was true. I asked if this 'new life' would make me happy and allow me to know exactly who I am. At the end of that prayer I felt so much peace and comfort. I wish I would have written down exactly how I felt and I am so bummed that I didn't. Right after that prayer I called Jayson and the missionaries and told them that I knew for sure that I wanted to be baptized.  A lot of people wondered why I waited so long to be baptized after this experience. Well, at the time I was sixteen. My parents weren't too thrilled about the idea because they thought that I was only going to church because Jayson was a member (which absolutely wasn't the case...). I didn't want to ask for their permission to be baptized (because I was under eighteen) because I didn't want to cause any more fights than what was already going on (they were in the middle of a divorce at this time). As much as it killed me to wait, I decided to wait until my eighteenth birthday, which happened to be on a Sunday.

My birthday came and it was sooooo hard for me. Why? Well, many of you know that I've spent every birthday at Disneyland since I was two years old. It was extremely hard for me to choose to be baptized instead of going...but after my baptism was over I was SO happy with my decision.  This year will mark 4 years since I became a member of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.