Well ever since we moved here we have never found our kitchen apron. We used it all the time before and I keep thinking I need to replace it, but I always forget to. I found these aprons that match, are the same brand as the one we had before, AND they were really cheap at Ross. So I thought this would be a super cute little anniversary gift. I stitched our names on the pockets and now we can cook together! ;) And yes, Dean should actually like this because he really likes to cook and he always wore our old apron. We agreed no gifts though, so hopefully I'm not in trouble. Hehe! Wish me luck! (We're fixing a romantic dinner tonight to celebrate - perfect huh!?)

We love to see the Temple

(Sorry about the rain drops in the picture)

This weekend we got to go to the Washington DC Temple. It turned out to be a great trip and a great day. Tanner did really well with the traveling, (aside from throwing up all over himself on the way down) and he was really good at the temple as we wandered the temple grounds. It was so nice to be at the Temple again. We aren't able to go as often now that it's a 4 and 1/2 hour drive and we have a little guy, so it was extra special to be there. Thanks to Dean's parents for driving, and to Mom for chasing Tanner so I could do a session! We're so grateful for this sacred place and that our family can be together forever!

(If you are not a member of our faith and want to learn more about the temple or our Church visit mormon.org.)

A Post Well Overdue

I will be the first to say that Andrea is far better than I will ever be. I often feel like a dunce being who I am, but Andrea is the type of person that can make even someone like me feel good about myself. I was always told to marry up and I have no doubts that is exactly what I did. Today Andrea woke up early to fix me an amazing breakfast, she wrote me a note in my lunch, sent me an email, and even texted me illegally. (I don't have texting). Then when I came home she had a wonderful meal for me. Everyday I think to myself how undeserving I am to have such an incredible wife. Andrea has shown unbelievable patience as I have proven time and time again that I am a complete fool. All the wonderful things she has said about me are only true, if they are true, because she has made it possible and made me a better person. I too want to list some of the reasons that I am grateful for Andrea.

1. Andrea has an incredible talent when it comes to remembering people, events, etc. (This has saved me on many occasions.)
   
2. She is the most attractive woman I have ever seen.
3. She is an amazing mother and wife.
4. She is a selfless person that puts everyone before herself.
5. She is someone that everyone goes to with their difficulties and she listens.
6. She brings a smile to me no matter how bad a day I have had.
7. She works so hard to fulfill her calling in church to the best of her ability.
8. She picks up after me.
9. She wants to work on the car with me and hates it when I don't ask her to help.
10. She knows a lot about cars.
11. She listens to Cake sometimes!
    
12. She is patient with me as I put time into school.
13. She supports me as a teacher and this is something I am extremely grateful for. So many girls at college degraded male teachers and wrote them off. I was even dumped when I changed my major to teaching. Andrea, however, was very excited for me and supports me 100%. Thank you Andrea.
    
14. She has convinced me to like a few country songs. (A few!)
15. She likes to have fun and pulls me out of my comfort zone so that I can actually have fun too.
16. She is always willing to help with the heavier manual labors of the house.
17. She is the reason we make really cute babies. Anyone that knows me would realize I have nothing to do with it.
18. She supports me as a coach and wants to be involved with my team.
19. She lets me try to fix things! (That's trust)
20. She loves me anyway when I try and fail to fix things!
21. She has good fashion sense and she has improved mine.
22. And probably the most important . . . She loves me and chose me to spend eternity with.

This list, too, could and should go on forever and as the years continue I know that it will. I love you Andrea.

3 YeARs AnD CouNTiNg

Well, it's official. Today is Dean and I's 3rd anniversary. I couldn't let this day pass without posting a few reasons why I'm the luckiest girl in the world! Sure Dean's not perfect...somedays I feel like he's FAR from it. ;) But I couldn't be happier that I picked him!

A few reason's I'm glad he's mine:

- He's so handsome - I may even go so far as to say he's HOT!
- He's such a hard worker and works hard at everything he does
- He is so handy and can fix absolutely anything
- He is such a cute Dad and LOVES Tanner
- He treats me with love and respect
- I know I can trust him completely
- He is so talented and can pretty much do anything I try a thousand times better than I can - this is sometimes annoying but also nice and helpful
- He is an amazing teacher and his new school already LOVES him - he's already getting awards!
- He's a worthy priesthood holder
- He has a strong testimony
- He is a great cook - he's taught me a lot since we got married!
- He's a great volleyball coach and I love to watch him in action
- He works hard so that I can stay home and care for our kids
- He has a wonderful family that I'm so glad I'm now a part of
- We make really cute babies!
- He's willing to put up with me for eternity
- He's very forgiving
- He is the most selfless person I've ever met - he'll do ANYTHING for ANYONE

- He always tells me how beautiful I am and how much he loves me
- He kills bugs for me so I don't have to
- He lets me take up more space in the closet
- He's fun to be around and talk to
- Pretty much he's just all around GREAT! (the list could go on and on but I'll stop)
Thanks for three wonderful years babe! I look forward to the rest of eternity. I'm so lucky I got you!

Here's a few pictures from when we were dating and from our engagement/wedding/honeymoon

Just a little Nelson update...

This is what Tanner is looking like these days. (Thanks Cass for the cute jacket!) We're trying to take his 1 year old pictures our selves...which is NOT an easy thing to do. We started a couple Saturdays ago but he wasn't too cooperative so we thought we'd try again later. I need Dean around so we can both try otherwise it's pretty much impossible. Anyway, Dean's so busy and this last Saturday Tanner was throwing up so we haven't "finished" his picture taking session. But we did get this one and I LOVE it! He's SO stinking cute, and fun, and we LOVE being his parents!

The Relief Society Service Auction went well last night. My cards weren't a huge hit but they did fine. I think there were just way too many hand made cards there. But I won lessons on knitting socks and mittens from a Sister in our ward, so I guess I'll try my hand at knitting! Dean's Mom won a dozen eggs every week for 10 weeks! She got a steal! It was fun to get out and have a night "off". Thanks Dean for taking care of Tanner so I could go!

Today is Dean's first volleyball game. For those of you who don't know, he's coaching the 7th and 8th grade girls volleyball teams. It's more of a scrimmage today, but it is against another school and it will be their first opportunity to play for the season. We'll see how it goes. He's not getting his hopes up too high cause for most of these girls this is there first real experience with volleyball. But, it should be fun regardless!

Oh this weekend we get to go to Washington DC for a ward temple trip. One of the things I miss the most since moving here is being able to go to the temple. It's about a 5 hour drive, and we're taking Tanner so it should make for a LONG day. I'm excited though and it will definitely be worth it! Wish me luck entertaining a 1 year old on the temple grounds all day - and in a car for 10 hours. Wow! It should be fun! And we're leaving at 4:30am. Yay!

Our ant problems are improving. We still have some here and there but it's MUCH better than before. That's about it for us this week. Hope things are going well for all of you!

Cards

I need Cassie and Melissa's expert "Card Club" opinion...
For Relief Society Enrichment tonight we are having a service auction. I made these "birthday" and "thank you" cards to auction off. Hopefully they look a little better in real life than in these pictures, but overall I think they turned out ok. I guess we'll see how popular they are tonight. I sort of hate things like this. I really don't care what they go for, but I just feel so awkward while people are bidding on my product. Oh well, I had fun making them and it was nice to have an excuse to do something crafty. Would you bid on them??

My weekend was full of...

ANTS! These aren't the little "Utah" ants I'm used to. They're big, fat, carpenter ants and they've invaded my kitchen! I was having a hard enough time with the lady bugs, stink bugs, and cock roaches that are constantly frequenting our house but this probably takes the cake. Not that I've enjoyed the roaches but there wasn't hundreds of them all over my food, dishes, sink, and floors. Needless to say we haven't done a lot of "home cooking" this weekend. We set out some ant bait and the problem is improving but I can't go in there without getting that creepy feeling that bugs are crawling all over me. Yuck! So we'll definitely be looking into some kind of bug spray. I don't know how much more I can take!

p.s. Tanner also managed to throw up all over his brand new car seat and the back seat of our car this weekend as well. Man, I never thought I'd be so excited for the weekend to be over!

Update...

Abbie is out of surgery and settled into her recovery room. Kellie says that even with all the tubes she's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. The doctors say she did really well through the 5 hrs. of surgery and that she's doing great now. Hopefully she continues to recover quickly and well! We're still praying for you little girl!

In need of some prayers...

One of my very best friends Kellie (Johnson) Moss and her husband Lance had their beautiful baby girl, Abbie Lynette Moss just two short weeks ago. Abbie's had a lot of complications since then and she will be going in for open heart surgery tomorrow. She's such a little trooper to have gone through so much already in her short life. We're praying that everything goes smoothly and in 2-3 weeks she'll finally be able to go home!

Little Abbie

Kellie and her precious baby girl

Kellie's more technical explanation:

"Thanks so much to everyone for all the thoughts, prayers, and congratulations. I'm sorry I haven't responded individually but we've been pretty busy and probably will be for as long as Abbie is in the NICU. For those who didn't know, Abbie was diagnosed with a heart defect called AVSD when I was 20 weeks pregnant. The prognosis looked pretty good though and as far as the cardiologist could tell, she should be fine at birth, but need to have open heart surgery at about 6 months. Things went a little bit differently than planned though when the doctors found a few more problems after Abbie's birth. She has a few other small problems with her heart and she had an intestinal problem called pneumatosis. Because of the intestinal problem she can't eat anything for 10 days so she's being given nutrition through an IV. After the 10 days, if there is no sign of the pneumatosis, they will begin feedings which will probably take another week to get up to a full feeding. After that, there will be a few more tests to see if they need to fix one of the minor heart problems (which would not require open heart surgery). If all goes will, she will be able to come home with us after that and then somewhere down the line (probably somewhere around 6 months old) she will have the open heart surgery to correct her AVSD. Anyway, congratulations to any of you who made it this far or who understood anything that I said! hehe. All in all, Abbie is doing very well and we hope she'll be home with us in a few weeks. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers. They were and still are felt and appreciated."

Yesterday's Update:

"Well, a few days ago, Abbie took a little turn for the worse. Her heart wasn't able to work very efficiently causing fluid to back up into her lungs. She had to work too hard to breath and her oxygen levels went way down. Anyway, they had to intubate her and put her on a ventilator to help her breath. She is also on several more medications to help her heart work better and to clear the fluid from her lungs. She is responding to the medicines but is not able to self-correct these problems. The cardiologists decided that they need to go ahead and do the open heart surgery that was supposed to take place at 6 months. The surgery is tomorrow March 6th and she will be two weeks old. We'd appreciate any prayers on ours and Abbie's behalf."

I wish I was closer so I could help, or just give them a hug and let them know they're loved. I can't imagine how hard this must be . . . so scary and emotionally draining. We're so blessed to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is there to help us through these difficult times, and to turn to for comfort and support. Good luck guys! We love you! And even though I'm not there, my thoughts and prayers are with you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA! Today is my Grandpa Leavitt's birthday. He's not here to celebrate with us physically, but we all feel his presence as he watches over us from up above. We love and miss you grandpa, and we can't wait for the day that we see you again! I think we'll have some cheese and vienna sausage, and watch some classic John Wayne movies today in your honor.

YUCK!

So if you read my previous post you know about my slight fear of bugs. Lately that's been enhanced by a few of these guys in my sock drawer. Ok, ok, I admit the cockroaches weren't quite as big as this one, but it was still extremely scary. Why my sock drawer you may ask? I have no idea, but it hasn't made me happy. Twice now I've innocently opened my drawer for a simple pair of socks only to have a cockroach scurry past my hand. I swear this never happens to Dean. I think the entire world of bugs have it in for me. They know about my fear and think it's funny to watch me freak out. To bad for them they get squashed in return! Ha!