A Very Common Sight

This is what happens whenever Blake is around our nieces and nephews.  He is a child magnet.  He never gets to sit down, he is always bombarded with kids ready to play with him.  He is such a good sport about it, he is the best uncle.

Spencer and Emma having the time of their lives

Two seconds after i took this picture Emma body-slammed Blake with all the strength in her little body.  So funny!

He's going to be a really good dad someday :)

Catch-up..

So I realized I've been a pretty consistent blogger, that means I blog consistently once a month.  That's all you're gonna get during this crappy semester people, deal with it. 

 

Now that that's out of the way, there is so much to tell.  My sister Tiffany and new brother-in-law Shane got married, and Blake's sister Andrea had an adorable baby boy, Ryan.  (He has the most pinch-able chubby cheeks!) My birthday was in October and Blake's is coming up on November 7, We both have a tough semester and we're trying to balance it with work, church callings, (sorry I'm the worst visiting teacher EVER Eve and Melanie! Please still be my friends!)  weekly date nights, and of course, staying caught up with The Office.  Now I shall bombard you with pictures: 

This is what Blake spends all day every day doing... studying.  Usually he is on campus but every once in a while Joe comes over and they study FOREVER! It's terrible because it means that after i finish my homework i can't watch my shows.  The TV is right next to them and it would interrupt them.  I bet it's pretty annoying for Blake too.  Probably more so for me because I'm totally trying to get into the tv show GLEE and how the heck am I supposed to do that when Blake is trying to be productive in the very same room? Impossible. 

Here's Tiff and Shane's wedding.  She looked gorgeous and everything was so beautiful! 

My boyfriend and I outside of the temple at Tiff's wedding.

And here we are catching up with an old friend at her reception. We love this guy!

Here we are at one of Blake's best friend Mike's reception.  Mike married the sweetest girl ever, Crystal.  They are so cute!

Mr. and Mrs. Balser

    

   

We got to babysit our friend's Samantha and Bryan's cutie pie dog Kernal.  He was so sweet! I loved every second of having him here! (Hey sam, this is where I would link to your blog if you had one... hint hint..)

  

I woke up on my birthday to this sign made by Blake (and his sister Mckell, he said she was to thank for all the decorations and "girl writing") 

Blowing out my candles at my Mom's house.  ( I also had a really fun party with the Steele's but didn't get any pictures.  Thanks Robert, Laurel, and Matt and Andrea for the sweet presents! And the cheesecake was amazing)

I can't believe I don't have any pictures of baby Ryan! I'm sure I'll get tons at his blessing on Sunday.  Well, that should fill my blog quota until well into December. 

Darn you, September!

So ever since we've been married, Blake and I have really tried to get to the temple every month, and we had been doing a pretty good job up until the dreaded month of September. We realized with our work and school schedules we would need to really block out a time when we could go because there wasn't one day when we would be home together. We decided that we would have to wake up really early and go by six a.m. on a weekday so we wouldn't be late to our early classes. Well the day came, and sadly, Blake was deathly ill. He had the flu really bad for a few days so we missed our opportunity.

Then we realized that on the thirtieth- the last day of the month- if I sped home from Salt Lake (where I was at a training thing for work) then we would have time. The day came and I realized as I was on my way home that we would have more than enough time to go.  I got home, ran inside, changed really fast, and right as we walked out the door with our temple bags, Blake asked if i had my temple recommend.

........no. 

After searching for my wallet for about an hour and calling all my siblings (and olive garden, and byu, and work) to see if i left it there, I started to lose hope.  I was so worried because my social security card, birth certificate, check book, debit card, AND credit card were all in there.   Yeah, really smart.  Anyway, I couldn't find my wallet and we ended up not being able to go to the temple in September. 

The point of my story is how much of a difference I could feel from not being able to visit the temple as frequently as before-even if it just meant missing a month.  This experience has taught me how valuable the temple is to me, and how grateful I am for the peaceful, calming, beautiful feeling I always feel when I'm in there.  

It's amazing to me to realize that I can actually feel a difference in my life without it.  Things don't seem to be going as well, school seems harder, work seems more taxing, and life gets more and more overwhelming.  It is one of the greatest blessings of my life to be able to go to the temple with my wonderful husband and be once again reminded of what really matters, why we are really here and where we can potentially end up.    

I ended up finding my wallet (best day ever) and with it my temple recommend.  Even though we missed September and I ruined our previously unblemished record, I'm really grateful that I mysteriously lost my wallet for the last week of September because it really made me realize how important the Temple is to me.  I am so grateful for the blessing it is to live so close to so many temples and to be able to go whenever we want to.  But from now on, we're going to plan our temple trips at the beginning of the month...