21 and Partying Hard!

Current Party:

Birthday Princess!!! (and todd.)

My wonderful, crafty, intelligent sister turns one year older today! She has always been such a wonderful older sister: so sweet and kind and a wonderful example in all things that matter! She is such a dear, and I'm glad that she gets a whole day of celebrating her increasingly LONG life! :) Happy Birthday sweet Toni!  

Recent Party:

Last week I got to plan and run a party for a group of students in a special education class in an elementary school! It was a Valentine's Day party so we tried to do a bunch of Valetine's-y Day things.   It went super well I believe, so I'll fill you in with pictures!

This is my group! So much fun!

Kelsea and I making the goodies!

Of course we played pin the heart on Cupid!

Sweet Caitlin!

The Cupid!

We then played a bunch of games with feathers...
not my favorite.

Then we learned ASL for the song 'The More We Get Together'

I learned so much! 

My favorite game -- the cake-walk!
We tried to liven it up with our dancing!

The dancing was such a hit that we played "Freeze Dance,"
which was a blast!

The kids were so energetic!

And so affectionate!

And so cute!

 The last part of the party was my baby -- the pizza!  I had to find the best price, pay for it with BYU's credit card, and accept the delivery at the school. The pizza guy got lost so we had a minor pizza crisis, which would have been disastrous since the whole morning the kids were asking for the pizza! After I explained where we were, and finally gave it to the kids -- they loved it! The camera's battery died by that time, but when we got our thank you notes from the kids that's what they mentioned, so I believe my part of the party was a success!

Other recent parties in my life:

Not exactly current, but still relevant. 

This sweet girl came up for President's Day weekend, and although I'm not the most exciting person in the world she put up with my boring Provo life-style and I super enjoyed her coming up!

Other future parties in my life:

Steve Young with Todd

My awesome little brother got into BYU and will be joining Steve and I down here at the 'Y!'

Dawn, Ty, and I are beyond excited to have another sibling in Happy Valley. My apologies to the Kelley's and my parents for stealing this stud! 

And just for kicks:

I've never seen her happier. 

Steve Young and his favorite Cannon Center Hostess.

Valentine's Day

My Valentine's Day was complete! I may be single, but I still received a love poem!

Or rather, a poem written by a man!

A little background before you read the masterpiece. My roommate almost burned our house down when she fell asleep cooking potatoes. Our house now smells like a casino and it's been two days. So now I eat, sleep, study, and relax in my bedroom, which is a little less smelly.  But when we leave the house, we smell terribly. The day after the fire we all received many looks/comments on the stench.  So I was still a little self-concious yesterday morning and was whining a bit. Here's what my sweet coworker wrote me:

Rose are red,

Violets are blue,

I wrote this poem,

Just for you.

It seems tragic,

The room all smokey,

The potatoes burned,

Now you smell so very hokey.

But it's ok,

I have smelled much worse,

Although it's close,

To other scents with which I've been immersed. 

It doesn't matter though,

You are kind, cute and polite,

A wonderful woman,

You make work an absolute delight!

So don't worry,

When life isn't how you intend,

Even when you stink,

I'll still be your friend.

Isn't that so funny? I loved it!

Well 'Jell-O' There!

So this year my calling has been FHE-female-group-leader-extrodinaire. 

IT'S BEEN AWESOME!

I get to know my family and delegate like CRAZY! 

So the first activity of the new year, we got new families so we did a 

'get to know you' FHE! The little flyer I made went something like this:

Come to FHE

to say 'Jell-O' and to have a good time

with your brand new family!

We played get-to-know games and everyone enjoyed my Jell-o parfaits. 

I thought it was pretty clever, and I told about a million people of my food pun activity!

But now I'm addicated to Jell-o!
The stuff is awesome. I bought way too many boxes of Jell-o for the activity because I thought that:

a. I would have enough pans to make it all, and

b. more people would be coming to the food-pun event of the semester.

Turns out we don't have very many pans (remember the college budget, college kitchen supplies thing?)

and that not as many people in my new group like FHE.

So I've got boxes left over and they are SO good. I've just polished off a box of lemon Jell-o, which I was planning on eating over pears, but I just could stop eating long enough to get the pears out. :)

So my favorite things for the month of February so far are:

1. Jell-o!

2. Picasa -- such a fun program!

Little explaination:

This is picture to my birthday party! Stacey and I came up with the tag-line: 

Unicorns, Harry Potter, and Edward Cullen. Combine all those and it still won't equal all of the magic packed into this magical birthday party! 

So helped out by using my Picasa skills to make the event photo! (The credit of the big picture of me goes to Stacey McKnight and her fancy camera!) 

Now before you all think I'm a little obnoxious for facilitating my own party, let me explain: my sweet roommates were going to do something anyway, but I know how stressful college roommate birthdays can be so I'm proactively deciding to help them out to avoid them stressing. (although Kelli's Day might be a tinsy bit obnoxious.)

3. HAIRCUTS

And the roommates who cut my hair. 

Thanks for another hair adventure Stace!

4. NAIL PAINTING PARTIES!

Thanks sweet, sweet, sweet roommates for the good times!

5. GETTING A BRAND NEW CAMERA.

Hopefully by the end of February we'll all be enjoying the crisp clean photos 

of some Canon Powershot that will be mine-all-mine shortly, 

instead of these tacky Photo Booth things! 

Basketball is my True Passion

During football season,  I sat with a group of boys that would have to leave the game early if we were loosing badly because they would be 'physically ill' by the loss. I always thought this was pretty silly, and not very respectful to the team.  I never really felt that sense of loss or sick feelings.  But now I realize that all those days of secretly making fun of my manly cohorts are over, because basketball does the same thing to me!

Of course, I would never leave the game early -- that's a bit dramatic of course.  But after that totally biased and unfair game on Saturday night. I couldn't go to the library and study as was the original plan -- I was too upset.  The next when I talked to my mom about the game and her comment was "It was a good game." I had to get off the phone. OF COURSE THAT WASN'T A GOOD GAME. And then this morning I realized how much like those boys I was... turns out I'm more of a basketball fan than a football fan -- who knew?

So ladies and gents -- you'll probably be getting the same kinds basketball updates as last year about this time except instead of Jimmer -- you'll be hearing about baby Jimmer (aka Matt Carlino, see above). Get excited!

In other news -- the reason you get this photo from google instead of some high quality photo taken from my own camera is that I'm getting a new one soon! So get excited for that too!

Making My Mark....

I've already been mentioned in the Daily Universe (and kind of quoted), and now I've made my mark on film. BYU Weekly interviewed me for their piece on Martin Luther King Jr. I didn't really want to do it, but I was interviewed in the end and I made the final cut. I post this here, with the hopes that I don't sound as dumb as I do in my mind. You can view it here, I'm at around 10:40-ish. Overall it was a really good event, and I left feeling really inspired. The speaker at the beginning of our peaceful march told us about lighting candles -- about how it starts with one person and moves on till everyone has there candle lit. It was a wonderful metaphor Martin Luther King. He also said that every light was more than just a flame -- it was a dream -- when we work together we can all have our dreams come true! It was awesome! The keynote speaker gave a super great talk -- he was actually gave the speech at the first ever MLK commemoration on BYU campus. I loved it! He brought up some interesting points, including George Albert Smith's ideals to live by. It was great, and I'm glad that I have the sweet roommate Amanda Nordhagen to go with me even though she was busier than heck! What a great girl!

My Favorite Things

You know how near the end of the year Oprah does a "Favorite Things" episode?

 Consider this my beginning of the year FAVORITE THINGS! 

Number One:

HAIR BOWS -- (as seen her by Miss Gaga)

Although it may seem a little extreme, I saw my friend do a version of it on Facebook and I decided to try it. My hair isn't long enough to do it well, but here's my version which I learned from a Youtube tutorial -- as modeled by Stacey and me! 

I'm not sure that I'd actually wear it in public, but I do think it qualifies as a favorite thing! 

Number Two:

This song is amazing. 

Taylor Swift's music will be taking another turn I believe in her 2012 album. Y'all get excited! 

Number Three: 

This picture: 

Too funny -- it always makes me smile!

Number Four: 

THERAPEUTIC RECREATION! 

I have been writing a blogpost in my mind about why I love my major so much, maybe someday you'll see it, but for now just know that I am enthused and so grateful that I found the perfect fit for me so early life! 

That's all of my favorite things for 2012 so far, but I'll keep you posted! :)

Family Pictures!

This Christmas was the first time in over three years that our entire family has been together at one time! To celebrate the holiday season we took family photos! 

(However be warned-- there was no escaping my flash induced lazy eye. I used to worry about facial paralysis on my left side, because every picture I ever took showed a droop from left eyelid-- however I've found that this only happens when there a considerable amount of flash I've put that worry away for awhile -- which comes back to bite me when we take family pictures and my lurking droop pops out again -- but I digress.. )

Check out these cool photos: 

Everyone being together was certainly something to celebrate! Having two nieces and a third niece or (hopefully) nephew on the way has certainly changed our family dynamic. We now spend a majority of our time together doting on these cuties!

Aubrey particularly likes playing on the "puter's" so I indulged her! I just love this little girl she is so smart and fun -- when she's not annoyed by me! :) 

Little Camilla is at that age where if you put in some effort she'll smile at you for just a brief moment! 

Her smile is so cute so any effort you put in is totally worth it. It was so fun to see her and Aubrey together. Aubrey thought 'Baby Milla' was so cute and she would stroke her head and arms. Baby Milla thought that Aubrey was a riot. One evening I had Aubrey and Camilla in the living room while everyone else got their dinner. Camilla was laughing so hard at Aubrey and all Aubrey was doing was running around. It was so sweet! I'm so grateful to have these babies in my life! 

With this post, I have met my blogging goal for the year - which was to double my posts from last year! This is number 48! I love this time of year and the feeling that you can start over and do better! I hope you all are still enjoying your holidays and I can't wait to update you on my adventures in 2012 (and my brand new camera will help to better document all of those adventures!) Until next time -- 

Happy New Year!!!