Thrift Stores

I love a good thrift store. One man's junk is another man's treasure, right? Well, yesterday a lot of people's junk became my treasures after we took a trip down to some of my favorite thrift stores in Ventura. Daniel had the day off because of Veteran's Day so we took advantage of our time together and made the 40 min drive. We first stopped off at a few thrift stores then lunch at the Olive Garden, holiday shopping at one of my favorite stores in the world (the 99 cent store) and finished off our evening with a trip to the beloved Wal-Mart. Oh how all of these places seem like a treat to poor college students who have to drive 40 min one way each time we want to go to any of these places. It becomes a full day event! Needless to say we had a lot of fun, spent a lot of money, but came home with some really cool stuff. I love living here!!

Oh yeah baby, Life is good!

I think Joshua is going through a growth spurt. For the past few days he has either spent the whole day eating, or SLEEPING!

Tonight he fell asleep at 6:30 and is still asleep now. It's almost 11:30. He didn't even wake up when I took this picture of him. This is huge for me. I was able to clean my entire living room, kitchen and bedroom and STILL have time to post something on my blog before midnight. Wow!! Plus tomorrow is a holiday so Daniel will be home all day....and I have a clean house.

...I'm so happy right now :)

My secret love

As many of you know my husband is an Opera singer. I LOVE listening to him sing and I especially love it when he sings to me. I thought I would make that clear before telling you this: There is a secret compartment in my heart that is devoted to the voice of this man...

I fell in love with Josh Groban when I was in High School. His music actually helped me get through some very tough times in my life and to this day my heart still melts when I hear him sing. Tonight we had our Relief Society enrichment night where we had a wonderful dinner served by some of the older gentlemen of our ward, a service project (that I had to skip out on because I had to get my kiddos to bed), and a beautiful video presentation with pictures from some of the sisters in our ward to the song "Thankful" by Josh Groban. I have never heard that song before and I LOVED it. (Shocking I know seeing how I love his voice so much you would think I would be all caught up on his music and have everything memorized by now!) It was such a beautiful song to use as background music for the video.

One really funny thing that happened while I was there was at my table there was this little old lady who loved to talk. She recognized me but I couldn't really remember who she was (don't judge me I serve in Primary every week! I know everyone's children but sometimes I don't know who the adults are!!). Anyway, when the video got over this little old lady turned to me and asked who was singing the song. I told her that it was Josh Groban and she said, "Oh, I thought it was someone behind the curtain singing. There is a man in our ward who is a music major at UCSB who has a beautiful voice. I thought maybe he was the one behind the curtain singing. I love listening to him sing." I smiled and felt butterflies in my stomach and thought "He he he that's my husband!!". I never thought Daniel sounded like Josh Groban but wow that was a good compliment!

Hard Night

Yesterday I didn't post anything because I accidentally fell asleep while trying to get John to sleep! It's hard when Daniel has to work late or has to stay late to study because the bedtime routine doesn't ever go as smooth. I think John tries to hold out so he can see his Daddy before going to sleep. Daniel didn't get home until 1am so for about 2 1/2 hours John had a really hard time before I finally climbed into his bed with him and let him sob on my shoulder until he finally fell asleep. I ended up snoozing right along with him in the weirdest position on that tiny little bed. When I finally woke up at 12:50 my muscles were aching and I ended up leaving the dishes in a sink full of water and just going to bed. Some nights it's hard not having Daniel home, but I love him so much and I'm so proud of him for all of the things he does. I know it's not easy for him either being away from us and also being so busy. It's nights like these that make me appreciate the nights we do get to spend together.

Avatar-The Last Airbender

Daniel and I have our little shows that we watch together: Chuck, Glee, The Office, 30 Rock, Raising Hope (our newest addition to our list), and Avatar. Since school started Daniel has been really busy and it's been harder to find a lot of time to just hang out and cuddle while we catch up on our shows. Today was a very good day for just that and we finished the first season of Avatar-The Last Airbender and we started the second season. I absolutely love this show (...I love all the shows that we watch together!). I remember when it very first aired my brother use to watch it all the time and I always thought he was crazy. I just thought it was a stupid kids show and never wanted to see it. But now I have learned the error of my ways and I'm finding myself excited for those rare moments we get to spend time together so we can watch an episode or two. I miss Daniel when he is at school all day but it makes me value the time we have together even more.

One day while making dinner....

One day I was in the kitchen making this...

When all of the sudden I heard this...


John absolutely loves to climb all over everything. He's always been a really good climber which can be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time! We use to have a computer desk that my mom was throwing away and we needed one so we took it apart and brought it to California then reassembled it. The problem was it was not meant to be taken apart and put back together and still be considered sturdy. It wobbled and shook every time you even breathed on it. We eventually got a new computer desk that I LOVE. It has doors on it that can be shut and locked so everything inside will be protected from my 2 year old when I'm not looking. Plus it's very sturdy. Our computer desk chair on the other hand is not very sturdy when a 2 year old is constantly leaning on the back of it so he can take a look at what's going on in the kitchen. I hardly ever let John in my kitchen because I really don't like kids in my kitchen period. So John will try and watch me from either the baby gate at the entrance or leaning on the back of the chair looking through the little opening on the side. On this day he was leaning on the back of the chair and the whole thing came out from underneath him and crashed to the ground. It sounded worse than it was. I dropped what I was doing and ran into the other room to make sure he hadn't killed himself.This is the cornstarch I was using at the time of the crash. I didn't even realize I had dropped it until after I had come back.

He had a bump on his chin but thankfully nothing serious was wrong. It just scared me to hear this HUGE crash and piercing scream right in the middle of me trying to get dinner finished and my hands were full. After comforting him for a while I went back in the kitchen and found the corn starch all over the floor and the food was stuck to the bottom of the pan. I didn't care though. It still tasted great. When everything was prepared I came out and found John wearing a pink hat that Athea (a little girl from my ward) left at my house while I was babysitting her using the whisk as a trumpet!
P.S-He put the hat on himself!!

P.P.S-It was a really cute Princess hat!

The Hawaiian Wedding Song

Last summer (wait...not this last summer but the summer before) Daniel and I had the opportunity to sing "The Hawaiian Wedding Song" for a friend's wedding reception here in Santa Barbara. They didn't get their wedding video back until just a little while ago and they were gracious enough to share a copy with us. We had a lot of fun learning this song and singing together.

....Good times!