The Kasperson Family

Cereal Bowl Divination (for all you Harry Potter fans)

2012-02-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

As I was about to rinse out the cereal bowls from this morning's breakfast, I noticed this ...

Only those blessed with "the gift" will be able to see what I'm talking about. For all the rest of you, I'll explain.

Inside this bowl is more than just some old milk and left over floaties from Allyson's Frosted Mini Wheats she ate this morning. There is a prophecy! Do you see how the dried up cluster on the side of the bowl forms the shape of a person? It's head is on top, with it's arms outstretched. One leg is lifted, while the other one is straight behind (like it's leaping over the milk).

Now, to decipher the message ...

It could mean I'm about to face a huge obstacle that I will be forced to overcome (hence why the person is leaping over the milk).

Or, the milk could resemble the ocean. Which would mean I'll soon go on a sunny vacation to the beach and I will jump up for joy when I get there.

Or, it could be .......................... THE GRIMM!!!!!!

I think I'll take option #2.

For all you tweeters out there, I don't personally have a twitter account, but I picked up on a little twitter lingo through facebook. So if you're having difficulty understanding, here's some of the Twitterish language for you ...

#isometimeshaverandomgeekythoughts

#pleasedontunfriendme

#ipromiseiweardeoderant

You get it now, right?

The Tale of the Half Naked Lady (Rated G)

2012-02-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a lady and her mom. They both were in need of burning all the clothes in their closets and buying new wardrobes. So they decided to go shopping together.

They decided to meet up on a Saturday at 10:00 am. They both arrived at the meeting place at the same exact time ... almost an hour late. Which would make them genetically related and perfectly on time. ;)

They shopped and shopped and went from store to store. They talked and laughed and had a wonderful time together.

Now, this is a fairytale (which happens to be true) so something terrible has to happen ...

As they went along their merry way, they happened upon a store that was waaaay DOWN deep in the forest and as far EAST as their car could drive. We'll call this store "Down East".

The store was full of Saturday shoppers looking for clothing, just like them. The lady and her mom found armfuls of clothing they wanted to try on. As luck would have it, they made it to the dressing rooms just in time ... cause as the clock struck fairytale midnight, all of the other Saturday shoppers flocked to the dressing rooms causing a big, backed-up line. But no worries, the lady and her mom were safe inside their rooms happily trying on clothes before the others came.

The Lady wanted to be kind and quickly try on all her clothes so the other shoppers didn't have to wait in line too long. As she hurried through her pile of clothes she made one stack of keepers and hung the rejects on the door. She came upon a shirt that didn't quite fit right, so she hurried out to find another in a different size. She then rushed back to her fitting room and closed the door.

She took off the shirt that didn't fit and went to look for the hanger to hang it on the door with all the other rejects ... but she couldn't find it. As a matter of fact ... all of her rejects were gone! She looked for her pile of keepers and they were gone, too! Confused, she looked around the dressing room for her purse and that's when it hit her ... she was in the wrong dressing room! Amongst all her hurrying, she had absentmindedly entered the wrong dressing room. Realizing her mistake, she called out and said, "ummm, I'm in the wrong room". She could here a couple of people laugh a little on the other side of the door (likely the original occupant of the dressing room, relieved that it hadn't been permanently hi-jacked by some rude lady jumping in line).

The lady hurried and gathered the items she had brought into the dressing room with her and opened up the door. She then took a couple of steps outside the door. Upon seeing the reactions on people's faces waiting in line, she came to a horrifying realization ... SHE HAD STEPPED OUTSIDE OF THE DRESSING ROOM WITHOUT A SHIRT ON!! She quickly covered the front of herself with the items of clothing in her hand and backed up into the dressing room again, while profusely apologizing to everyone there. LUCKILY, the lady still had a garment top and a bra on, so she wasn't TECHNICALLY topless ... but still - she was VERY embarrassed. The long line of people waiting for dressing rooms found it rather humorous and were all laughing about it and telling the lady, "it's fine! don't worry!".

The lady hurried and put a top on, walked outside and apologized to all of the laughing people again ... then she sheepishly went into her REAL dressing room and shut the door.

As she continued to try on clothes, she noticed a sign on the wall that informed her the store was under video surveillance (to catch shoplifters). Wow, will they be in for a surprise if they ever watch that tape! She still prays to this day that it's not true and they just posted that sign to scare the shoplifters away. (fingers crossed)

Now, a fairytale always has to have a happy ending ...

The lady found lots of cute clothes and accessories to match. When she arrived home to her castle, she opened the draw bridge to pull her chariot into the garage to discover a most pleasant surprise. Her King had cleaned out and organized the garage! It looked magnificent!! Her King kindly greeted her and informed her that he not only cleaned the garage while she was gone, but he also had picked up the house, washed all the laundry, cleaned out his car, bathed the kids, and put them to bed.

Wow, what a lucky lady. :)

And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

I'm a Proud Mommy :)

2012-01-29T19:20:00.000-08:00

Here's Allyson's Kindergarten report card and her score from her recent DIBELS test she took at school ...

I'm sure you can all read the DIBELS score, but in case you can't read the report card, here are her grades:

Homeroom: 100%
Reading: 98.57%
Math: 95.51%

She's in an advanced group for her reading and her math and she still got these awesome grades! She tries so hard and does so well in school. She never complains when it's time to do her homework. She frequently brings her homework to me and says she wants to do it. At the beginning of the year she needed me to help her along til she got the hang of it, but now she reads all of the directions on her worksheets by herself and does it all by herself. I just sit next to her and watch most of the time and occasionally help, when needed. Reading is her favorite. She reads at an advanced 1st grade level and will soon be reading at a beginning 2nd grade level (according to the "Reading A-Z correlation chart" that her school uses).

I'm so proud of my little girl! :')

We went out last Saturday to celebrate. We originally wanted to go to Trafalga, but David got home a lot later from working on the house than expected, so we decided we would probably be better off doing something else that night. I really wanted to do something out of the norm from what we usually do, but was having a really hard time thinking of anything. The only thing I could come up with was Chuck e Cheese's and I was NOT happy about it. I remembered that she asked to go to Chuck e Cheese's several times after we went there for her cousins birthday party a while back. So, despite how much I HATE Chuck e Cheese's, I asked her if she wanted to go and she was super excited about it ... so we went.

Now, let me explain why I hate Chuck e Cheese's.

I've been there twice in my life. The first time was for my niece's birthday party a lot of years ago at the Orem location. My first thought when walking in the doors was, "wow, it's REALLY dark in here." Definitely not the fun, bright, happy place I would expect out of a kids party place. There was a small play area for the kids and a fair amount of arcade games, but not a whole lot. And let's not forget the CREEPIEST LOOKING DANCING/SINGING CHARACTERS I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!! And to top it all off, the mouse (I assume his name is Chuck?) was missing his head!!! It was sitting in a bucket on the floor next to his feet. Now, imagine a bunch of creepy looking characters dancing and singing under poor lighting in a dark dungeon-like place with one of it's creepy friends sitting on stage with them, with it's head sitting in a bucket. Seems like something you'd see in a horror film or a really bad nightmare or something, right?!!! I think I'm lucky I left that place alive that night.

I took the liberty of photo shopping this picture, so you could better envision this frightful sight ...

(That picture was taken at the location by the South Towne Mall, so it doesn't look nearly as creepy as it did that night at the Orem location)

The second time I went to Chuck e Cheese's was for my other niece's birthday party (at the Orem location again). Luckily, all of the character's had their heads attached that time - but still a super creepy place. And Katelyn came off of the play place with her pants soaked from her knees on down from crawling through who-knows-what in the tunnel (I'm sure your imaginations can tell you what it likely could have been ... I know mine was).

So that's why I hate Chuck e Cheese's.

I decided that if we were going to go there to celebrate Allyson's grades, that we had to go to the location by the South Towne Mall. I refused to go to the Orem location. I was hopeful that it would be a little better than the one in Orem, but I certainly didn't expect that it really would be.

To my surprise, it was a BILLION times better than the Orem location!!

It was well lit and bright and cheerful and fun looking and had a much bigger play area and more arcade games and had great pizza and was ALMOST completely not creepy (sorry, those dancing characters have really got to go, IMO). We had a lot of fun and I can honestly say I would take my kids there again - and not just when I have to for someone's birthday party.

Now, I have to brag about Allyson again.

She has INCREDIBLE aim. She was playing this game ...

She kept getting the ball in the 6 point bucket (the highest scoring bucket you can get it in) over and over and over again. Unfortunately, the first time she finished up a round of 6 pointers, she discovered the machine she was using was out of tickets. She wasn't too thrilled about that, lol.

Allyson gets this super serious, concentrated look on her face when she tries to aim when playing anything that requires a ball. Here's that face ...

I seriously think basketball or softball (or both) is going to be her "thing". Last summer we bought a little kids plastic t-ball set to play with at the park with the kids. The first time we pulled it out, we tried to show Allyson how to use it and she REFUSED to hit the ball if it was on the "T". She wanted us to pitch it to her. We told her it would be too hard to do that until she gets some practice hitting the ball on the "T". She still refused to use it. So, thinking I would prove to her how impossible it would be to hit the ball, I pitched it to her. And she hit it!! I thought maybe it was a fluke, so I kept pitching it to her and she kept hitting it!!! And they were really good hits, too!

I think she has some pretty impressive skills going on for a girl who doesn't practice throwing balls in baskets, or hitting balls with bats at home. I'm excited for summer to come so we can practice doing more of that kind of stuff with her.

Here are some more pics from our fun night ...

I looked at Chuck e Cheese's website before we left to see their hours and came across a thing that said they give free tokens to kids with good report cards. So, we brought her report card with us. She was SO excited to show it to EVERYBODY. After we were done eating we pulled out her report card so she could go get her free tokens. She stopped EVERY person on our way up to the register to tell them she got good grades and to show them her report card, lol ... it took us a while to actually make it to the register, haha. :)

We had lots of fun! :)

I've decided that the Easter bunny needs to bring me one of these ...

We lost our point and shoot camera on a vacation a couple summers ago. Since then we've been using my D40 dslr as our "point and shoot". It has an automatic setting and it's a lot smaller and lighter than my REALLY nice camera. I've found that I actually really like using it as a point and shoot. If I knew I could get as nice of pictures out of a smaller, pocket sized camera - I would have gotten one by now, but I have yet to find one that can do as well as my D40. The draw back is that it can't really fit inside my purse, so I have to always carry around a separate camera bag everywhere I go if I want to take nicer pictures than what my camera phone can take. Which is why I want this purse. It gives me the best of both worlds - I can carry all of my purse items in it AND put my camera in it AND have it be well protected AND I don't have to carry around two separate bags.

I'd still like to get a smaller, more pocket sized point and shoot for taking pictures at places that I don't want to carry a purse around with me for (like at the Boyce Avenue Concert in March). Maybe The Easter Bunny, Cupid, The Anniversary Fairy, and the Mother's Day Fairy can combine forces and make something work so I can get my camera purse and a pocket sized point and shoot. (hint, hint) ;)

P.S.
Our door came. We're THRILLED with how it turned out! :)

Helmet, Quilt, Party, and a Story

2012-01-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

Lots to share today! :)

First off, we now have our very own BYU linebacker in the family! His name is Kyler Kasperson (A.K.A., Ky Ky, Ky Babe, Tubby Bubbers, Chubby Chunkers, Chunky Monkey, Beautiful Boy, etc., etc. ... I'm sure you've heard of him - he's quite famous).

Oh, and he's not just your average player. Check out what he's sporting on the side of his helmet ...

That's right!! I'm sure all you BYU fans out there are feeling pretty jealous right about now! ;)

He'll be joining the team for about 3-4 months. He has a flat spot on the back of his head that he's had since birth. It was caused from the way he sat in the womb. The doctor had us doing special stretches on his neck for months, and although it's helped his flat spot get better, it hasn't completely fixed it like we'd hoped it would. Katelyn had the same problem, but the stretches worked great for her.

The helmet doesn't seem to bother him much and I think he looks rather cute in it ... especially since Grandpa Kasperson took the time to decorate it in BYU stickers. Thanks Grandpa! :) I'm just grateful that there's a way to fix it and that insurance covered it 80% (those things are EXPENSIVE!!).

I FINALLY finished the binding on Kyler's quilt this last week! It's been hanging over a chair in our room haunting me for about 10 months now. It only took me a couple hours to finish it, too, haha. It's done now and that's all that matters, right?

I pulled out the camera on Sunday and took a few shots of Kyler with his new favorite blanket. Isn't he adorable?! I just LOVE his squishy little self! Just looking at these pictures makes me want to go hold him and squeeze him and kiss his chubby wittle cheeks!!!

Katelyn turned 3 last weekend, so we had the family up for dinner and a party on Saturday to celebrate. Lots of fun!

Notice the sad looking balloons in the pictures? David went to Walmart just before the party started because we needed a few things - including balloons. They told him at the store to buy a pack of balloons and then go to where the tanks are and they would fill them up ... so he did. Only to find out that all of their helium tanks were empty. :/ There wasn't time to go to another store and Katelyn was so excited about having balloons ... so we improvised. She didn't miss balloons that actually float AT ALL. I love that 3 year olds are so easy to please! ... well, sometimes anyway. haha :)

Which brings me to the story ...

So, David went to Walmart to pick up some things before the party. When he's at the check out counter and they tell him what it all costs, he goes to grab his wallet and realizes ... oops! Forgot it at home. :/ By this point the party was about to start and if he came home to get his wallet, went back to the store, and then back home again it would make him really late to the party. He asks the checker if he can just give her the credit card number to pay, even though the actual card wasn't there. She said, "no". At that point a man walks up next to him, swipes his card and pays for the whole bill without saying a word.

David. Was. Mortified.

He told the man not to pay for it. He said he would just go home and get his wallet. He explained that we're doing just fine financially, and we really don't NEED him to pay for our groceries. He told him his wife would DIE if she found out that someone else paid for our bill (and yes, I would die if I found that out) ... long story short, they went back and forth about it and the man INSISTED on paying. He simply smiled and said, "I'm a lot bigger than you and I'm paying for it. Just pay it forward to someone else someday."

So, David thanked him and left with our $45 worth of groceries.

Now, when David first told me this story all I could think about was how EMBARRASSING it was that someone else had paid for our groceries. I asked him if anybody we knew was around to witness it - he didn't think that there was ... ("thank goodness", was my thought).

I told David that he needs to start shaving more often and wearing nicer clothes, because he looked pretty homeless that day. I was certain the man had paid for him because he thought that David LOOKED like he needed the money.

It continued to be on my mind the rest of the night ... SO EMBARRASSING!! After everybody had left our house that night, David and I were cleaning up the mess and I silently continued to think about it ... and I started to think about it a little bit differently after a while ...

I thought about the man who had paid the bill ...
Wow ... that was really kind of him.
... I'm sure he probably feels really great about the fact that he paid someone else's grocery bill ... especially since it was someone who really LOOKED like he needed his bill paid ...(my eyes roll)

Then I thought about us again ...
What if someone we know DID see it happen??
... they probably think terrible things about us now, like - "Look, there's David Kasperson ... no wonder they're building a house, he just lets other people pay for his groceries." ...
... We aren't "needy"! It's terrible those 45 dollars were wasted on us ... they should have been used on somebody else ...

Then it hit me ...

What's so wrong with helping some who could use some help? Why does someone, in my mind, have to be "needy" in order to receive help?

I don't know what all went through this man's head when he decided to pay for David's groceries. Yes, it's possible he thought David was "needy" ... but isn't it also possible that he was just being kind??

While I'm grateful to this man for paying so David could be on time to the party and help me finish preparing dinner, I'm even MORE grateful to him for what he has taught me through this experience ...

So often when performing acts of service, I think we (myself included) tend to search out those we classify as "needy". They are (in our minds) the ones "truly worthy" of receiving our help. Which is true - we should help those people ... but that's only PART of the whole picture ... Regardless of what anyone's current situations in life might be - WE ALL ARE IN NEED OF HELP AT TIMES. We should all be ready and willing to give that help without passing judgements of whether or not they look "needy" or whether or not they look like they are "well off" and should be able to take care of themselves.

I honestly no longer feel embarrassed ... only GRATEFUL. Grateful for the lesson this man has taught me.

I'm SO EXCITED for an opportunity to "pay it forward".

2 Momentous Occasions!

2012-01-15T23:01:00.000-08:00

We had 2 really big events happen this week! :)

The most exciting event was Katelyn's birthday!! My baby girl turned 3 years old on Saturday. I'm sure every mom feels this way and has said this, but I just can't believe how fast the time has gone! My sweet, cuddly, mischievous little girl is growing up. :'(

She had a GREAT birthday ... and we all had tons of fun celebrating it with her.

To start her special day off, Katelyn and I went out for some mommy/daughter time together. Just me and her. It was awesome! We've never done that before, so I thought it would be a lot of fun for the both of us. For about the first hour away from her siblings she kept asking me, "Mommy, where's Allyson? Is Allyson coming?" Repeated about 50 times. She added in an occasional, "And Kyler?" But for the most part she just asked about Allyson. She eventually caught on that it was just us and I think completely forgot that Allyson wasn't around the second we walked through the doors of Build a Bear.

She had SO MUCH FUN picking out her bear and all of her bear's accessories.

She got to push the foot pedal to fill her bear up.

The lady had her rub the bears heart on her nose, eyes, and heart ... and kiss it. I'm not really sure what that was all about ... Katelyn looked a little confused herself, but she was a good sport and went along with it all, lol.

Then she got to put the bear's heart in.

And give her an air bath.

And dress her.

And hug her.

I kept asking her what she wanted to name her bear and she kept saying, "Umm, I don't know." So I ... I mean "we", eventually decided to name her "Sprinkles".

After we left she would not let her bear out of her sight. If she was sitting in the stroller, she looked like this the whole time ...

If she was walking around, she insisted on dragging the gigantic box along side her. She refused to let me put the bear in the stroller unless she was in the stroller too ... and the bear had to be placed directly in front of her, not behind her. Oh, Katelyn ... you're such a cutie. :)

After we left Build a Bear I took Katelyn shopping for a cute new outfit. She's never gotten a whole lot of new clothes in her life because she's the second girl in the family ... that means she gets LOTS of hand-me-downs. She LOVES to get dressed up and all girly. In fact, I curled her hair before we left the house and she could not stop hugging me and telling me thank you because she loved her curly hair so much. Then she ran down stairs to go and show her curls off to Daddy, Allyson, and Kyler. We definitely need to be pulling that curling iron out more often ... :)
So, I figured a new, cute outfit would be something that she would like - and I was right! She refused to take the outfit off in the dressing room. She threw quite the fit about it. I finally got the clothes off of her and then she sat on the bench with her arms folded and refused to put her own clothes back on. We had to sit there a minute ... and remind her that we needed to hurry if we wanted to get ice cream. With a lot of convincing, we eventually got her clothes on and got out of there, haha. I'll be doing her 3 year old birthday pictures in that outfit, so you'll get to see pictures of her in it soon! I had planned to do her pictures today after church ... I even got balloons filled late last night so they would still be floating today, but it was too windy by the time we could go out and do them. I wasn't too happy about that ... especially since it's supposed to snow this coming week (grrrrr). But hopefully the weather gets better soon so we can get them done.

Next, we went back home to eat dinner and then we all went out for ice cream together. We went to Sub-zero in American Fork. If you haven't been there, you should try it. Great ice cream and they have couches upstairs with arcade games and a constant flow of the Disney Channel on TV. The kids love it.

And the last thing ... Kangaroo Zoo. I told Katelyn all day long that we would be going there and she was so excited about it. By the time we could get there it was pretty late, and they were going to be closing in 30 minutes ... Just FYI, they still charge full price, even when they're about to close. :/ That's ok though, we all had fun.

This picture makes me laugh!!
"Mom, can we go home yet??"

Happy birthday, Katelyn!! I love you so much!!!!

And the 2nd big event that happened this week ...

I traveled outside of Utah County for the first time in my life without another adult with me. Lame ... I know. But true.
Every time I've ever traveled outside of Utah County, I either had someone with me or was meeting someone I knew at my destination. I also have never traveled further North than Salt Lake or further South than Payson without another person physically in the car with me (or flying somewhere with me). I am a true, authentic, Utah County bubble girl.

David surprised me with a trip to California a couple birthdays ago to go to a photography workshop by myself. He thought it would be a good chance for me to "spread my wings". My mom found out about the trip and booked a flight to come with me. Hahaha! My mommy loves me. :)

Someday I want to try flying somewhere by myself - really I do ... and I just took my first small step towards getting to that point. (I could totally see myself getting lost in the airport and bawling my eyes out, though. Haha)

My 2012 Schedule

2012-01-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

Here it is. The magical schedule. The schedule that will GIVE me time.

Here's how I came up with it: I sat down and made a list of all of the things that I want to have done regularly - mainly house cleaning stuff. Then I separated it out into the different days of the week. I purposely made it so most everything gets done Monday-Friday, so we could have Saturdays to do whatever we want and Sundays to be what Sundays should be. Every week my house will be clean. At any given moment my house will be clean enough that I would feel no embarrassment to invite somebody in. I'll get caught up on my scrapbook. Scriptures will get read everyday. Projects will be done, etc. And I'll still have time to live life and have fun. It's going to be great.

Everyday I do at least one load of laundry (clothes, towels, sheets, blankets, shower curtains, ... just wash SOMETHING everyday). Cook Mon/Wed/Fri and have left overs on the nights in between. Family Home Evening is on Monday, but if for some reason Monday doesn't work out it can be switched to another day - the important thing is just that it happens at some point during each week. The rest of the table in the picture is pretty self explanatory. David is in charge of cleaning the the tub/showers. I hate cleaning tub/showers. I feel like I'm beaten and bruised by the time I'm done and David is a lot faster at it than me, anyway. He's fine with it ... in fact he practically begged me to let him do the toilets, too - NO JOKE!! Here's how that conversation went:

David: "You don't have me down for toilets?"
Me: "No."
David: "Put me down for toilets. I'll do them."
Me: "It's fine, I can do them."
David: "No, seriously - give them to me. I promised you before we got married that you wouldn't have to clean toilets because you hate them and you think they're gross.
Me: "I don't remember that conversation."
David: "Well it happened and I'm going to keep my promise. I'm doing toilets."
Me: "Ummm ... ok. Sounds good to me!"

DEAD SERIOUS. This was our conversation.
Close your mouths and stop drooling ladies ... he's a married man. ;)

David wears the pants in our family. I don't dare argue with him. If he puts his foot down and says he's in charge of cleaning toilets, then by golly he's in charge of cleaning toilets! That's just how we roll around here. haha ;)

Now, this schedule isn't written out in a "do such and such at 11:07am, and such and such at 11:36am ..." kind of way because I think it's important that a schedule be FLEXIBLE whenever possible. I think if you have a schedule with little or no flexibility, you're either setting yourself up for eventual failure, or your setting yourself up for a lot of missed opportunities. Missed opportunities to serve, have fun with your family/kids, strengthen friendships, make new friendships, ... missed opportunities to live life, pretty much.

It's all about managing time and having a proper balance between work and play. If I'm always compromising my schedule to go and play, then ya that's not going to work, obviously. I just need to use good judgement. What I DON'T want to have happen with this schedule is to turn down opportunities to go out and do things because I have to clean my house. That would be dumb. That wouldn't accomplish what I ultimately want, at all. Yes, sometimes there are things you need to get done and you can't go out because it NEEDS to get done. That happens. Good judgement and time management ... that's all.

Last week with this schedule it took a while to get things done because everything desperately needed to be done and had been put off way too long. But now that I'm in maintenance phase, it's going a lot quicker. Like today, I finished all of my cleaning stuff and it went pretty quick, so I took the extra time to wipe out the inside of the fridge. I have a list at the bottom of the table that says "Other". In that list are things that don't need to really be done all of the time, but on days when there is a little extra time if one of those things needs to be done, then I'll do it.

Now, does making this schedule and starting a new year suddenly make me Miss Merry Sunshine, bursting with energy at every moment of every day with an insane, insatiable desire to sniff cleaner and scrub toilet rings? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! Some days I feel more energetic than others. Last week I felt like I was DRAGGING myself to do a lot of the things that were on my list. I expected it to be that way, honestly. BUT I DID IT ANYWAY. And the feeling of accomplishment I had at the end of the week was worth EVERY MINUTE OF IT. Honestly, the hardest part was just getting myself to START. Once I started it wasn't too bad.

I plan to print off my list of "to do's", as soon as we get a new black ink cartridge for our printer. I plan to put it in a sheet protector and hang it somewhere. That way I can mark things off with a dry erase marker as they get done during the week. Then if I end up shuffling things around a little bit, then I'll remember on a different day during that week, that, "oh, we still need to do family home evening" or whatever that didn't get done on the day it was originally scheduled for - for whatever reason.

My goal is to get my "to do's" and getting myself and the kids ready for the day out of the way ASAP. Get started early and get it all done, so I can enjoy the rest of the day to do whatever. I'm sure it won't happen that way everyday, because of different things that might be going on, on different days and such (hopefully fun things). But, as a general guideline - that's what I would like to have happen.

I hope this was helpful for some of you! After my post, "Live Like You Mean It - 2012", I received a couple of private messages and also a phone call. They were all from people who had read that post and could relate. This post is for you guys! ... and any of you silent readers out there whom this might be helpful to. ;)

Remember - progress, not perfection.

P.S. If your life doesn't happen to allow for a schedule that cleans your whole house in one week (or if you think I'm just plain crazy for doing it that way) ... maybe think about splitting it up into 2 weeks. Just a thought. :)

It Was a Great Week!!

2012-01-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

Well, my first week of 2012 went wonderfully! It wasn't a perfect week, but I never expected that it would be. Progress was my goal and will continue to be my goal through out the year, NOT perfection.

I mentioned in my last post that I was planning to have a schedule in 2012 that would help me to organize my life and accomplish the things I need to get done, so I could have more time to live and enjoy life. I'll write a post tomorrow with more info about that schedule. We got home from family dinner a little late tonight and it's currently 1:00 am. I need to to get to bed so I can be functional tomorrow ... or I guess that would technically be today, now. haha.

In the mean time, here are some highlights from my week! :) ...

-MY WHOLE HOUSE IS CLEAN AND SCRUBBED!! I am SO happy about this!

-The laundry basket never overflowed once.

-I cleaned out, vacuumed, and took my car through the car wash to wash the outside (I plan on dusting it and cleaning the windows this week)

-David's last night of working late at work was on Friday (yay!). In a nutshell, he was the person person put in charge of making sure they sell enough books to get Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link's new book, "Smart Trust" on the best seller list. They gave him a goal ... and he passed that goal. He did awesome and I'm so proud of him! His bosses are super happy about it all. They're confident it will be a New York Times best seller - they're really hoping for the #1 spot. We shall see! Now, once he's done running electrical wires at the house (which should hopefully be in the next couple of days) I can have a husband again. Yay! :)

-I got invited out to a girls night. It was a lot of fun! I got to see a friend I hadn't seen in a while and meet several new people.

-My father in law built an awesome plant shelf that goes around the walls of the family room at our new house. I love it!! I'm a sucker for nice/pretty things made out of wood. Especially if it was made specially for me.

Here's also a pic of a quilt shelf my husband and father in law made for me a couple years back. Again ... love things that are made out of wood specially for me. :) This is my favorite wall in my house. Everything on this wall was made by someone - the shelf was made by David and his dad, I made the quilt, I took the pictures of the kids myself, and the sign was made by my sister in law for my birthday. David and I even made the kids ourselves, haha ;).

This used to be my favorite wall in my house, til the quilt shelf got put up. Now it's my second favorite wall. I love the blue color. Everybody that comes in our house compliments this wall ... even people who had never been in our house, but had seen this wall through our window have complimented this wall and asked me what paint color it was. An old neighbor even painted one of her walls the same color cause she liked it so much. I will miss this color. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an appropriate place for this color in our new house.

And the last thing ...

-We made it to 9am church today before they said the opening prayer. I didn't have all of my make up on and we did walk in during the opening song, BUT IT'S PROGRESS. Next week my goal is to make it before Sacrament meeting starts. I hope to have all of my make up on this time, haha ;). Remember - progress, NOT perfection.

And that's all I've got! It was an awesome week and I feel so accomplished. It's a wonderful feeling. Time for bed ...

"Live Like You Mean It" - 2012

2011-12-31T18:51:00.000-08:00

It's time to make goals for 2012!! I cannot tell you how EXCITED I am to be closing the chapter on 2011 and starting a new year. Don't get me wrong, there were some GREAT events that happened in our lives this last year ... like:

Having our first baby boy on March 17th ... My head isn't showing in this picture because I made sure David didn't put it in the picture. There are very few pictures of me as a pregnant lady with any of my kids (most of which that are in existence are photos on other people's cameras) because I HATE how I look when I'm pregnant!

This is one of Kyler's newborn pictures I took when he was about 6 weeks old. Don't worry, I'll spare you having to look at any gooey, messy, day of delivery baby photos. ;)

Another big event that happened (which is still in the works), is we are building a new house and moving to American Fork. The build should be done around Marchish. We are SO excited about this!

Honestly, other than these 2 events, 2011 can be summed up in one word ... UNPRODUCTIVE!!!!!

Which brings me to why I'm so excited to start a new year and make it SOOOOOO much better than 2011!

First off, let me give you a little background on who I used to be before I got pregnant with Katelyn a few years back ...

I used to be a CLEAN FREAK. People would always comment on how ridiculously clean my house was - and I loved it! Everything was always in it's place. Everything was always scrubbed. Everything looked perfect. Everything was organized. Anything sitting on a counter or table (even if only temporarily there - like the mail, for example) sat at a square angle. I spent HOURS scrubbing the house and could finish it all in one night AND I would stay up til the wee hours of the morning just to finish it all, so it could all be perfectly scrubbed and clean at the same time.

I used to cook REAL meals regularly. I'm not talking ramen noodles, hamburger helper, cereal, or corn dogs. They were REAL meals. I had a schedule - Mon/Wed/Fri I cooked. The days in between that, we ate left overs. And Sundays we usually ate with family.

I used to do projects like crafts, scrap booking, decorating, card making, etc. And I ALWAYS completed the projects I started.

I used to have FUN. I went out with friends, jogged all summer long, went on date nights, had people over, went to people's houses, participated in play groups, I smiled and laughed and not just because it was the socially acceptable thing to do at times - it was because I FELT like smiling and laughing, played the fiddle, went shopping, read books, painted my nails more than once a year, ... I DID THINGS.

So, there's a little background on me.

Then I got pregnant with Katelyn and things ever so slowly started changing. To make a long story short, I've never felt the same since before that pregnancy and it just kept getting worse over the years.

Here's a little background on my life now ...

My house is almost always A MESS. AND I ABSOLUTELY, 100% HATE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought about taking a picture and posting it in this blog post, but decided I had a little more self respect than that, lol. Only a couple "special" family and friends have had the privilege of seeing our disaster zone we call a home. You know who you are! I wipe off the counters and table and I feel like my energy is spent, so I take a break before moving onto the next thing ... I frequently don't move on to the next thing. The laundry basket is always full. DON'T WORRY, the house does always eventually get picked up, but it's messed up again by the next day ... Anyway, I won't go into anymore detail on this subject. This subject bothers me.

Sometimes I cook and sometimes I don't. The latter of those two seems to dominate.

I don't do projects or crafts or anything. I still have Kyler's baby blanket that I still need to finish the binding on (which I did out of necessity, not fun. I couldn't have him be the only child without a baby blanket.). I'm at least 3 years behind on my scrapbook. I have difficulty finishing things that I start.

I almost never do anything for fun. If I start jogging, I can keep it up for maybe 2-3 weeks and then it stops for months. I do take the kids places that they like to go - like thanksgiving point, the aquarium, the library park in American Fork, etc. But that's about the extent of fun things in our house and about 99.9% of the time I go alone (just me and the kids). Other than birthday parties, I think we had people over to our house for a fun night only once or twice in 2011. I didn't read any books. We rarely went out and did something fun as a family. I can count the number of date nights we went on, on one hand ... I could still count the number of date nights on one hand if I were missing one or two fingers. Fun things felt like work. You get the point.

Although I knew what I was going through - IT JUST DIDN'T SEEM TO FIT. The word that describes it is like a swear word to me, for some reason. D-E-P-R-E-S-S-E-D. I hate that word. I hate feeling that word. I hate watching TV with my husband and seeing him stare at me in the corner of my eye every time a Cymbalta commercial comes on (yes, David, I see that. I'm not blind.). How could that describe how I was, how I AM feeling?? Things are GREAT in our lives. Ya, the kids can be a handful - but other than that ... nothing in my life is going wrong. It was manageable until I got pregnant with Kyler. WOW did our lives turn upside down with that pregnancy. I kept thinking, "once I give birth, everything will be ok again" ... but it wasn't. I was more comfortable and less fat, but everything else stayed the same.

A few weeks ago I decided to go to the doctor. Honestly, I WOULD NOT HAVE GONE if it wasn't for the fact that we had reached our deductible for the year by having a baby in March. Dumb, I know. But I HATE going to the doctor. And even worse, I hate PAYING to go to the doctor. I feel like unless I have an obvious illness that needs antibiotics they never know what's wrong or they say "come back when it happens again" ... ya, like that one ever works. Or they want to write you a prescription for your symptoms without even testing to see what's actually wrong. Sorry, I'm not the long-term medication type. I'm a healthy person, why would I stuff myself with drugs to fix a problem and then have the medication cause all kinds of other problems?? That's not how you fix things, in my opinion.

Anyway, so I saw the doctor ... He ran some tests. My vitamin D was low, so he wrote me a prescription for vitamin D pills. I'm now on birth control pills to regulate my cycle. And they found that my body was eating it's own muscle and he said it's because I don't have enough animal fat in my diet. He told me to eat more bacon - haha, don't hear a doctor say that everyday! I'm also starting a special diet that he's having me try - part of which includes taking grains out of my diet (that's not going to be easy. I love my wheat bread. I like eating bran flakes for breakfast. I LOVE toast. I could be told to give up ANYTHING in my diet and be ok with it, but grains are my weakness.)

So ... I'm feeling some differences. David and I watched a movie about a week ago and I laughed out loud several times. Usually I think things are funny in my head, but there isn't really an outward reaction. I'm finding that things irritate me a little less. Some days I have more energy. I'm sure things will only continue to get better.

WITH THAT SAID, here's my opinion on things ...

I think that fixing the physical things that are wrong with me is only a SMALL step to getting me back to how I used to be (or better). I think it's a very IMPORTANT step, but it's only the beginning. I think that after so long of feeling a certain way, it's caused certain habits to be formed. No medication or diet is going to fix that. Only I can fix that. Which brings me back to goals for 2012 ...

I've decided to make my theme for 2012, "Live like you mean it". I got this theme from the lyrics to a Goo Goo Dolls song, that was redone by Boyce Avenue. The song is called "Before It's Too Late". I had heard the Goo Goo Dolls version many times before and never really listened to the lyrics. It was always just an overplayed song on the radio to me. But, I LOVE the version Boyce Avenue does of it. You should look it up on You Tube. It's one of their earlier videos, so the video quality really stinks, but the song still sounds great. Here are the lyrics ...

I wandered through fiction to look for the truth
Buried beneath all the lies.
And I stood at a distance to feel who you are
Hiding myself in your eyes.

And hold on before it's too late.
We'll run 'til we leave this behind.
Don't fall, just be who you are
It's all that we need in our lives.

And the risk that might break you's
The one that would save
A life you don't live is still lost.
So stand on the edge with me.
Hold back your fear and see
Nothing is real 'til it's gone.

Hold on before it's too late.
We'll run 'til we leave this behind.
Don't fall, just be who you are
It's all that we need in our lives.

Live like you mean it.
Love 'til you feel it.
Its all that we need in our lives.
So stand on the edge with me.
Hold back your fear and see.
Nothing is real 'til its gone.

Hold on before its too late.
Until we leave this behind.
Don't fall just be who you are.
Its all that we need in our lives.

Hold on before its too late.
Until we leave this behind.
Don't fall just be who you are.
Its all that we need in our lives.
Its all that we need in our lives.
Its all that I need in my life.

I'm tired of just surviving. It's time to start LIVING. I think we lie to ourselves way too often by telling ourselves "there's always tomorrow", or "I'll do better tomorrow", or "I'll take care of that tomorrow", tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THERE WILL EVER BE A TOMORROW. I've noticed over this last year A LOT of people posting on facebook blogs of friends and family who have lost a loved one. Mothers, Fathers, Children ... all in tragic accidents. I'm sure they never woke up that morning and knew what was coming. When I read their story on their blogs, it brings me tears. The thoughts that always cross my mind are, "I wonder if they felt ready? I wonder if they feel like they lived life to its fullest? I wonder if they got take the time to hug and kiss their family that day and tell them they love them? I wonder if they had a fun day spent together before it happened? ..."

Things need to start happening TODAY. Changes need to start happening TODAY. TOMORROW just might be too late.

So my theme for 2012 is "Live Like You Mean IT".

I've separated it into 2 sections:

1. Organize
2. Live

I personally can't do one without the other. I won't go into all the details of HOW I'm going to do this on this blog post, but in 2012 my life will be organized. I will have a schedule. And that schedule is not going to take time away from me, it will GIVE me time. It's kind of like packing a suitcase for a trip. If you throw all of your clothes, shoes, clean up stuff and everything all wadded in at once, there's no way it will all fit. But if you take the time to fold it and organize it and put it in all the different pockets - it will fit perfectly and you'll probably even have room to bring back some souvenirs with you.
I'm going to organize, so I can live.
I'm going to have my life back.
I'm going to have FUN.
I'm going to enjoy life with my kids while they are still young (and when they get older, too).
I'm going to have time for MYSELF.
I'm going to stop living for tomorrow and start living for today.
I'M GOING TO LIVE LIKE I MEAN IT!!!

Happy New Year, everyone!! It's going to be a GREAT year!!

P.S. I've decided to make my blog posts my scrapbook from now on, and just print my blog. I actually didn't take many pictures over the last year or so, just because I felt it would put me further and further behind on my scrapbook and make me feel even more stressed out about being behind (stupid, I know). So now I won't be getting more behind anymore, I'll just have the last 3 years to get caught up on the old way. So watch for more posts to come! I'm thinking I'll post on Sundays.

It's a boy!

2010-11-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

We're having a boy!! (just in case you didn't catch that in the title of this post) ;)

It's been a while, but I promise I'll do better!

2010-08-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a loooooooong time since I've kept up this blog, but I thought I'd stop in and say WE'RE 10 WEEKS PREGNANT WITH #3!! We're very excited and I will be even more excited when the morning sickness goes away. ;)

I think it's been almost a year since I've done a real post on here, but I promise I will do better now. There are lots of things that I've been neglecting that I really enjoy doing (including keeping up on our family blog) just because of a lack of time, but come October I should be free to just be mom again (I'm so excited!) and do all the fun things I used to enjoy doing in my spare time.

I'd scan our first ultrasound that we got this week of the baby and put it on here, but our brand new printer that we bought just a couple of months ago has had issues with scanning since we bought it. David spent 4 hours on the phone with HP support one night and then got cut off and tried calling back. They couldn't connect us to the same person we were talking to before and the new representative was trying to start all over from scratch with things we had already tried and David WAS NOT HAVING IT!! (understandably so) They said they would have a supervisor call him the following night and get it all taken care of and they never called. We've been kind of dreading another 4 hour conversation with HP "support", so we haven't bothered with it again, yet.

Anyway, that information was a little pointless (except for the baby part of course), but hey! I posted SOMETHING, so that's progress! :)

Allyson's First Day of Preschool

2009-09-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

Allyson had her first day of preschool on Tuesday! My baby is growing up!

New Photography Blog

2009-09-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have a new photography blog! Check it out . . .
http://audreyphotography.blogspot.com

Sherri's Quilt

2009-08-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

I made this quilt for Sherri for her wedding. I didn't realize the picture I took was a little blurry until now, but I no longer have the quilt anymore so it will have to be good enough :).

Allyson, Katelyn and Daddy

2009-08-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

2009-08-04T11:51:00.001-07:00

Alicia's photo challenge for July was to get to know our editing program. Here are my pictures . . .

BEFORE

COLOR BRIGHTENED

BLACK AND WHITE

BEFORE

AFTER

This last picture is from a shoot I did of Sherri and her fiance. This is an actual love letter that he wrote to her. I thought it was sweet. Do any of you have any tricks to brighten up and make the ring glow better? I tried FOREVER, but couldn't find anything that made it look the way I wanted it to. I tried the glow feature on photoshop elements 7, I did leave a slight glow on it with that setting, but I didn't like how when I added too much it just blotched everything white. I want it to glow and look bright, yet still be translucent and show the details of the ring. I would LOVE to here some suggestions!

Sherri's Bridals Are Done!

2009-07-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

They're finished! Here are some of my favorites . . .

Fun at the Park!

2009-07-01T14:59:00.001-07:00

Lunch with Daddy day!

Kayley's Pictures

2009-06-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

I took these pictures of Kayley yesterday afternoon at my in-laws house. Here are some of my favorites!

Alicia's Photo Challege #3: Rule of Thirds

2009-06-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

The Challenge: "Have you heard of "the rule of thirds"? Well, "traditionally" when taking portraits, you would imagine your photo being split into thirds, horizontally and vertically... the eyes of your subject would be 2/3 ways up the photo... and centered. While there really isn't anything particularly wrong with this... and as darling as your subject is... it can get boring. Let's try something different...
Feel free to throw your subject far to the left or right, or halves... you'll only figure out what you like if you try it. Remember that with photography, there is no right or wrong. It is how you see something. The beauty of photography is the diversity!
So this week's challenge is simple. Play around with centering and off-centering your subject. See what you like best! But try it all! Don't forget to watch for distracting shadows on the face (particularly the eyes). Then come back next Thursday and link up to share your favorite(s)!

These pictures were taken about an hour before sunset with the camera facing the sun. I was reading the manual to my camera this week and it said something about how you shouldn't shoot directly into the sun or it could damage the camera, so maybe if I get a UV filter for my camera I'd be okay?? I don't know, but I think I'll ask around before I shoot straight into the sun again. :) And some of my pictures had the purpleish circle or streak on part of the picture from the sun, so I also wonder if a UV filter would take care of that too . . . Do any of you know the answer to these questions? . . . anyway . . .
These are my favorite 3:

This one is off to the the left side.

This one is more in the center.

This one is diagnalish and more in the top third.

I was trying to go for a red, white, and blue theme with the upcoming holiday and all, but I don't think that it was quite as obvious as I was hoping for . . . Oh well! :)

Alicia's Photo Challenge #2

2009-06-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

This last weeks challenge was to "get in there". I had a few favorites . . . the first two I took of my husband sitting on the kitchen floor. He had just gotten home from work and I told him to sit down and be my guinea pig. He kept complaining in between shots . . . something about being hungry . . . I don't know, I wasn't really listening, I was having too much fun :). Don't worry all of you perfect wives out there, he only starved for about 5 minutes, I promise. The third picture is of my daughter, Katelyn. The last picture is of my sister in law. I love her eyes!!
I did play around with the coloring on them a little bit just with the program that came with our HP printer to transfer and print our pictures. I dream of getting photo shop . . . someday.

Both of the pics of David are in our kitchen next to the sliding glass doors, with natural light shining in.

This one was also taken in our kitchen, but it was with no natural light. I took a work lamp and shined it on her. The picture straight out of the camera wasn't that great (the lamp didn't provide enough light), but after I played with it a bit, I think it turned out okay.

This picture was taken in the back yard of the new house that she and her fiance just bought.

If anybody wants to do the photo challenges too, click on the button on the top right side of my blog. I'm having sooooo much fun doing them, and I'm sure you would too!

Sherri's Photo Shoot

2009-06-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Sherri was nice enough to let me have fun with my camera and take pictures of her (even though it was raining). She's such a good sport! Doesn't she have the prettiest eyes?!

My Quilt Shelf

2009-06-11T18:28:00.000-07:00

David and his dad built this shelf for me to hang up the quilt I recently finished. I LOVE IT!!! I think it turned out so beautiful!

Alicia's Photo Challenge

2009-06-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

I joined Alicia State's photo challenge! Every Friday she gives a short lesson on photography and then you go out and try it yourself. You're supposed to post your favorite one, but I really liked two of them so I had to post them both ;). This last weeks lesson was on lighting, so here are my favorite pictures that I took.

This one was taken when there was lots of cloud cover . . .

This one was taken when the sun peaked through for a little bit.
Both pictures were taken in our back yard.

My Baby is 2 Months Old!!

2009-03-16T15:10:00.001-07:00

Katelyn turned 2 months old on Saturday! I can't believe how much she has grown and changed already. She is such a sweet, quiet, patient baby . . I didn't know babies like her existed :). She is such a blessing to have in our family. She smiles and laughs all the time and is so fun to be around. I want her to stay a baby forever!

Here's a picture of Allyson being cute . . . as always!

Katelyn's Quilt

2009-03-16T15:04:00.001-07:00

I finished Katelyn's quilt today! I sewed the blanket itself the weekend before she was born, but I just got the binding done this last weekend. Hopefully she can use it a few times before the weather is too warm for it :).

My Quilt is Finished!

2009-03-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

We Had Our Baby!

2009-01-27T13:41:00.001-08:00

Katelyn Abigail Kasperson was born on January 14, 2009 at 12:29pm. She was 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 20 in. long.

My Baby Shower

2009-01-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

My mom threw me a baby shower on January 10th.

Emilee's Baptism

2009-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

David's sister, Emilee, was baptized on January 3rd.

Allyson Dressed Up

2009-01-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

Allyson loves to play dress up and she got some new dress up clothes for Christmas. This is a cute picture of her in some of her clothes.

The Day After Christmas

2009-01-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas we went to the Spanish Oaks Golf Course and went sledding down the hill on the driving range. Allyson LOVED it. I was going there thinking 'okay, let's see if we can find some little bunny hills', but she went down the regular sized hill several times and every time at the end she would say 'again!' After several times of going down the normal sized hill, she pointed to a bigger hill and says 'that one!' So David took her down it, but only once because they almost went into some trees. The last time she went down the hill, David put her on her own saucer next to him and they went down side by side. This girl has no fear. That afternoon we went up to Orem and did Christmas with David's parents and ate dinner. Two days after Christmas my Dad came over to our house and we did Christmas with him and met his girlfriend Barbara. We had a really great Christmas holiday, it was lots of fun, but I'm glad it's all over and I don't have to worry about it again for another year.

Christmas Morning

2009-01-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning David woke me up at about 7:40am and then he went in to wake up Allyson. She's usually really grumpy if you wake her up before she's ready to get up so we were expecting some tears. The first thing David said to her was 'do you want to open presents?!' She jumped right out of bed and ran into our room where I was still laying in bed and says 'Good morning Mommy! Downstairs! Presents!' It was so cute. She loved opening her presents, she kept wanting to stop after every one (except her books) and open them to play before she had even finished opening all of them. After presents we ate breakfast and got ready and then we packed our stuff and went to my mom's house in Spanish Fork. We spent the rest of Christmas day there and went and visited my Aunt Janine and family and then we spent the night over at my mom's house.

Christmas Eve Jammies

2009-01-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve

2009-01-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

We went to David's Aunt Linda's house on Christmas Eve. These are some pictures of Allyson's experience with Santa. Last year she was so excited to sit on Santa's lap, and this year I was a little worried that she might be scared of him . . . boy was I wrong, she was quite upset with him actually.

This is Allyson with her hands on her hips staring at Santa and waiting for him to call her name to sit on his lap.

This is the look Allyson gave us when we told her to be patient and that we promise Santa will call her name.

Her name was one of the last ones called out of a very large group of kids. This is her crying after she gave up and probably figured Santa would never call her name.

This is her on Santa's lap. Most of our pictures ended up blurry this night, I think it was an ID-10T error, so sorry. But it was the cutest thing, the second she sat on Santa's lap she just gave him the biggest hug and then we kept asking her to do it again so we could capture a decent picture with the camera (with no luck), she must have hugged him 5 times before we finally gave up.

She was so happy to have her present. Santa got her a Beauty and the Beast puzzle.

Emilee's Birthday

2008-12-22T16:13:00.001-08:00

David' sister, Emilee, celebrated her 8th birthday on Sunday. We all went over to David's parent's house and ate a delicious ham dinner and then Emilee opened presents and we had cake and ice cream. She will be getting baptized on January 3rd and she seems quite excited about that!

My Quilt

2008-12-22T15:59:00.000-08:00

Towards the beginning of this year (I think in February) I started doing a once a month quilt group with a bunch of girls from the ward (it was offered as a midweek activity). I'm so glad I did it! It's taken a long time, with only doing 2 squares a month, but I layed them out to take a picture and I feel quite the sense of accomplishment! I still have 4 more squares to do and then the sashing, borders and binding. I think it should be done around march (I can't wait!). It is a far cry from perfect, so don't go blowing the picture up or anything to look at all of the points (all of you quilt natzi's out there), but I think it's turning out pretty good for it being my first quilt.

Fun Stuff with the Porters

2008-12-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we went to the Porter's house and hung out for the day. We had a blast! First we ate sandwiches for lunch, then we let Sandra's Wii Fit insult us and call us overweight :), then we went out and everybody played in the snow (except me, I just took pictures cause my fat pregnant belly didn't make me feel much like romping around in the snow). Allyson LOVED getting pulled around on the the sled in the yard. She went for a ride with Kari and with Hayden. She loved doing doubles on the sled, when Hayden had had enough Allyson kept wanting him to come back and sled with her saying, "I want the Hayden! I want It!" It was hilarious! When we were done with that we went in and had some hot chocolate. They introduced us to the best way to make hot chocolate, we will never go back to adding milk. You make your hot chocolate normal with just water and the cocoa, then you add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and stir it around. YUM!! It is a cup of creamy chocolate goodness! And to top it all off we dipped graham crackers in it and it was delicious! I highly recommend everybody to try it. After that we all made ginger bread houses out of graham crackers and I must say if there was an award for the best, Sandra would have gotten it. If there was an award for the worst . . . just kidding, not even going there. And by the way, the big white blob on the yard in James' gingerbread house is not a dog pile, I repeat, it is not a dog pile. It's a melted snow man. We ate pizza for dinner and then had fun playing tennis, bowling, and mario cart on the Wii. Then we ended the night with a few fun rounds of Scattergories. We had a great time.

Sandra's

Audrey's

James'

David's

My Mom's Birthday

2008-12-22T15:01:00.000-08:00

My mom's birthday was on December 11th. Happy 35th birthday Mom! . . . Or at least that's how old she told me she was, the math didn't seem to quite add up to me either . . oh well :). We went to her house and had a pizza party, and yes that is a pizza that her candle is in, she didn't want any cake and ice cream because she wanted something healthy instead . . . like pizza (?) :). Love you Mom!

My 25th Birthday

2008-11-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, I'm old. My 25th birthday was yesterday. My day started off with getting woken up by David and Allyson with presents (yay!) and then for dinner David cooked us a yummy crab dinner with veggies and potatoes and then we had some family over for a cake and ice cream party. It was a good day, minus the one year older part :).

Allyson fell asleep on my lap after we got home from church. She looked so cute we had to take a picture. And no, we don't beat our child, she fell down the stairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Saturday and hit her eye. My poor baby :(.

Playing Dress Up

2008-11-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

These are some pictures of Allyson playing dress up. Doesn't she look cute?! She picked out everything and dressed herself in this outfit and then came to find us to show off how cute she looked.

Hanging out with the Porters

2008-11-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

On Friday we hung out with our long lost friends, James, Sandra, Kari, and Hayden. We went out to eat at Olive Garden and then we all came back to our house to watch a movie and hang out. When it came time for the kids to go to sleep we pulled out Allyson's Dora couch that folds out into a bed for Kari to sleep on, but they both insisted on sleeping on it together. They were so cute we had to take pictures. Ends up the sleepover didn't last long because Allyson sleeps with the door shut and no night light and Kari sleeps with the door open and a night light. Allyson was pretty sad to lose her room mate and was too upset to go to sleep after that, so the kids stayed up with us (except for Hayden, he was cozy asleep in the pack and play). We had a late night of eating candy and watching a movie until about 2:00 a.m. It was lots of fun. And Sandra if you're reading this, we need to hang out again soon!

Halloween Day!

2008-11-03T15:46:00.000-08:00

Allyson had so much fun trick or treating. This was the third day in a row she got dressed up. She wanted to dress up the first 2 days, but on Halloween she didn't want to until I told her she had to get dressed up if she wanted to get candy. Then she was all about it!

Trunk or Treat

2008-10-30T19:41:00.001-07:00

Today we went to a trunk or treat in our neighborhood. We ate hot chocolate and donuts and then all of the kids played and went trunk or treating.

Halloween Party

2008-10-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Allyson and I went to a mom's group halloween party. All the kids and some of the moms dressed up. Allyson is the most beautiful ballerina! At the party we decorated cookies, decorated paper pumpkins, made ghosts out of suckers and trick or treated around the house. It was lots of fun!

Curly Hair

2008-10-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

When Allyson woke up from her nap a couple of days ago, her hair was so curly! This picture doesn't really do it justice, but she still looks so cute!

Pumpkin Painting

2008-10-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

For family home evening this week, we painted pumpkins together!

Utah State Fair

2008-09-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took Allyson to the Utah State Fair. It was a really fun day (minus having to pay $10 for parking). They had a really cute exhibit where kids could go through and pretend to be farmers. Allyson went through and she picked fruits and vegetables, rode a tractor, brushed a lamb, milked a cow, fed a cow, etc. At the end of doing all of that she went to the fake market to "sell" the things she collected in her basket (really they just organize everything into all the little bins they belong in) and then the workers there gave her fake money which she paid to the the cashier at the end of the exhibit and they gave her a bag of cookies. She loved it!! Kudos to whoever was clever enough to come up with that exhibit cause it was so stinking cute!
They had a giant slide that David rode on with her. I was afraid she would be too scared to go down once she got to the top, but David said she kept wanting to go down by herself! Of course that wasn't aloud, so she finally gave in to sitting on Daddy's lap.
They had tons of animals there that you could look at and pet. Allyson's favorite were the goats. If we hadn't pulled her away she might still be there petting them right now. We all had a really great time.

LaVerne and Randy's Birthday

2008-09-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

David's mom, LaVerne, and our brother in law, Randy, both share the same birthday (September 3rd). So yesterday the family all got together for a cake and ice cream party at David's parents house.

More Ultrasound Pictures

2008-09-08T12:14:00.001-07:00

I got my last ultrasound last week and I thought these pictures were so cute! In one of them she is sucking on her fingers and the other one I thought was a really good shot of her profile. I'm now 21 weeks pregnant and it seems like I've been pregnant forever! Hopefully the holidays will help it go by a little faster.

Our Sprinklers Work Again!!

2008-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago the people who built our home (Sundance) came out to fix a water problem we had. The house that is next to ours is higher up so anytime snow would melt or it would rain or the sprinklers came on to water the lawn in between our houses our window well would flood and we would get water in our basement. So they came out and removed our lawn and put a french drain in between our houses to fix the drainage problem and removed all the sprinkler pipe in between our houses and just put rocks in place of the lawn. Well the genius employees broke off the sprinkler pipe that connects to our front lawn and just left it sticking out of the ground. We've been trying to get Sundance back out here to fix it for the last couple of months with no luck cause the company has no money anymore which means nobody is going to come out and fix it. Well, a couple weeks ago we finally got the owner of the company out here to look at it and he said he was going to fix it himself because they don't have anybody working for them anymore and he really cares about still getting it done, and blah blah blah. I asked him how long it would take and he made it sound like it would be weeks. So I asked him if we were to get some shovels and come out and help if we would be able to get it done in 1 day, because that's a lot easier for us then having to go out and hand water our lawn every night. He said that would definetely be possible. So he called David and told him that he was going to be out here on the following Monday, even though it was Labor Day he said he would for sure be here. So we got David's sister, Kayley, and her husband, Casey, to come out and help us that day. Well surprise, surprise, the owner of Sundance never showed up and so we just went out and did it all ourselves. We're very upset about the whole situation, but our sprinklers now work so we are happy about that. We couldn't have done it without Kayley and Casey's help and also our neighbor, Mark Averett, who came out with his skidster (spelling?) and helped us put the giant rocks in our rock wall back where they belonged. So, thank you so much to those people for their hard work and willingness to help us out. We probably still wouldn't have working sprinklers in our front lawn if it wasn't for them.

We're Having Another Girl!

2008-08-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

My Baby's 2nd Birthday

2008-07-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Allyson's 2nd birthday was on July 13th. We celebrated by having both of our families over for cake and ice cream. Allyson got so many new fun toys, she really enjoyed her party. I can't believe my baby is 2 years old already! :( She's growing up so fast.

Uncle Kevin's Birthday

2008-07-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

My brother had his 17th birthday on July 8th. We all had cake and ice cream at my mom's house to celebrate.

4th of July

2008-07-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

On the 4th of July we got together with some of our friends in the neighborhood and had a bbq, lit off fireworks, and watched movies. Lots of fun!

David's Birthday

2008-07-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

David's birthday was on June 16th. We were in Disney Land on his birthday so a couple weeks after we got back David's family had a little cake and ice cream party for him.

Camping at Yuba Lake

2008-07-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

At the end of June we went camping with David's family. In the morning we all went on the boat and played in the water. We all had a lot of fun.

Our First Ultra Sound

2008-07-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

We got the first ultra sound of our growing baby on June 23rd. You can't see a whole lot, but it's a baby! I go in for my next appointment on Monday and I think they do another ultra sound then, so hopefully it will show some more baby features on that one. I think it's a boy!

Our Trip to Disney Land (and other parks)

2008-07-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

June 12th to the 21st David and I went on a trip to California. We left Allyson at home and we missed her very much, but not enough to wish we had taken her with us. We stayed a night in Vegas on our way out there to split up the drive. We will never go there again! Not much special about Vegas. We were wishing we had stayed in St. George instead. When we got to California we went to San Diego Zoo and then we ate a this awesome restaurant called Anthony's that was right next to the ocean. Their food was amazing! We stayed the night in a hotel about 30 minutes from San Diego and the next day we went to Sea World. The rest of the trip we stayed with some of David's cousins in Mission Viejo. We went to church on Sunday and then had 3 straight days of Disney Land and California Adventure. It was so much fun! Our last park day (thursday) we were supposed to go to Universal Studios, but I was throwing up all day. I think I was poisoned from too much gross park food. Gag! Friday we had to get our A/C fixed in the car cause it broke part way through the trip. We were going to wait til we got home, but we just couldn't stand it any longer! Friday afternoon we strarted driving home and it was 112 degrees driving through the desert, so we were very thankful for our working A/C. We spent the night in Mesquite and then drove the rest of the way home the next day. It was a way fun trip.

Aunt Sherri's Birthday Party

2008-07-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

David's sister, Sherri, celebrated her birthday on June 3rd. A bunch of her friends got together and threw her a birthday party bbq, complete with a pinata. It was a lot of fun.

More Family Pictures

2008-07-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

We got the rest of our family pictures back! Our photographer is amazingly talented, we couldn't have been happier with how they turned out. There were so many pictures that we loved, this is just a few of them. Thanks Angela!

Family Pictures

2008-05-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

We finally got some new family pictures! The last ones we got were when Allyson was 3 months old. I figured we better get them done before my pregnant belly starts to show. We got them done on Tuesday and the photographer posts them on her blog before we get our own cd of them. So I copied them off of her blog and put them on here (I figured that's okay because the cd she is going to give us isn't copy writed and we can print whatever we want once we get it, so I don't think I'm breaking any laws). The pictures were taken in David's Aunt's backyard in Alpine. It is absolutely gorgeous! I would love to have a backyard like theirs someday. These are some of our favorites that she had posted on her blog.

Grandpa Kasperson's Birthday

2008-05-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

We celebrated David's Dad's birthday a little early because they will be out of town on his birthday (June 3rd). The family all got together on Sunday and had dinner and then Grandpa opened presents and we had cake and ice cream. He got golf balls, an ipod, and a griddle.

Fishing in Scofield

2008-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago we went fishing with David's family up in Scofield. Allyson got to enjoy sitting in the sun with her sunglasses on while Grandma fed her strawberries (what a life!) and Grandpa let her drive the boat again. It was so cute to watch her drive the boat because she looks so serious when she does it. She's such a little adult. We caught 8 fish by the end of the day. We were all hungry when we were done so we stopped in Provo and ate at Red Robin. Lots of fun!

We're Pregnant!

2008-05-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

That's right! After a year of trying, we are finally pregnant! I took a test today and I almost threw it away thinking I wasn't pregnant because there was only one line in the result window instead of a plus sign, then I decided to look at the instructions just in case and they said that if it's a negative response that nothing will appear in the result window and if it's a positive response there will be one line (like what I got). We were so excited! When we told Allyson the good news her reaction was so cute that we took a picture of it.

Coconut Shrimp and Mangos

2008-05-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I made coconut shrimp and it turned out so pretty I had to take a picture and put it on the blog . . . by the way, thanks to Sherri for the awesome recipe. I made an orange marmalade dipping sauce, and I must say it was delicious! We had some yummy mangos we picked up from Costco for dessert and then we watched a movie.

Catching Up

2008-05-06T18:36:00.001-07:00

I finally got a chance to update our blog! We have been so busy! April was a fun yet crazy month. I'll catch up by starting with the most recent things first.
David's brother, wife and child (K.J., Ashley, and Eliza Kasperson) came up and visited for a week from Arizon to come to Kayley's wedding (David's sister). While they were up here we celebrated Eliza's 1st birthday. She got all kinds of fun toys and really enjoyed eating the frosting off of her cake (I don't think I ever saw her take a bite of the actual cake).

We went fishing with David's family at Jordanelle Reservoir on April 29th. Allyson loved to touch the fish, she would get so upset if we tried to put them in the water without letting her pet them first. She didn't like us trying to make her kiss them though . . . I wonder why? :) Grandpa Kasperson let Allyson drive the boat and she loved that! It was a really fun trip.

Our friends, Joe and Corinne, left for Washington on April 28th. We all got together with Corinne's family and ate lunch at Red Robin that day as a final farewell.

David's sister, Kayley, got married in the Manti temple on April 25th. Don't let the pictures deceive you, it was freezing! I took a picture of a tree on the temple grounds that had ice hanging from the branches. Despite the cold weather it was an awesome day and Kayley looked beautiful. The next day, April 26th, we went to Kayley's reception in Orem. She married a great guy and they are now Mr. and Mrs. Casey Muhlestein.

Happy Birthday/Farewell Joe and Corinne!

2008-04-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

If you all are wondering why almost all of my posts are in video form it's because blogger won't let me upload my individual pictures. So I turned them into slide shows. I actually kind of like it better that way, and it's a thousand times easier!
Well . . our best friends, Joe and Corinne Bippert, are moving :(. Corinne has been my best friend since middle school and we've never been apart. Sad as it is, we are still very happy for them! Joe just graduated from BYU and got a job in Washington state. Last Saturday we had a happy birthday/farewell party for them at our house (Joe's birthday was April 3rd and Corinne's birthday is April 27th). They will be leaving for Washington on April 28th. We had some mutual friends, James and Sandra Porter, and their kids, Kari and Hayden, over for the party. If you look closely in these pictures you will also see some pretty famous people that decided to show up (i.e. Jack Bauer, James Marsden, Thomas S. Monson, and Pres. George Bush . . . to name a few :) ). We had fun making our own pizzas, eating cake and watching Juno.
We love you Joe and Corinne!!

Western Caribbean Cruise

2008-04-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

In January of 2007, David surprised me by booking us a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean with our friends Joe and Corinne Bippert, and James and Sandra Porter. Our cruise was May 6 -12 2007. We went to Free Port, Bahamas and hung out on the beach and shopped a little. We went to Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands where we took a short catamaran ride to go swimming with the sting rays (that was our favorite part of the trip). We also went to Costa Maya, Mexico where we took a tour of the Mayan Ruins. It was an awesome vacation! (with no kids! :) )

Favorite Pictures

2008-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Here's some of our favorite pictures over the years . . .

Allyson Dancing

2008-04-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

This video is amazing! We never showed Allyson how to do this. She changes the way she dances to the different styles of music all on her own. She was about a year old when this was filmed.

From the Beginning

2008-04-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'll start our new blog by just giving an overview of our lives together over the last 3 1/2 years.
I met David when he knocked on my apartment door one day in August of 2004. He had a plate of cookies and said that the bishop sent him to welcome me to the ward. He left his name and number written on a piece of tape on the bottom side of the plate, so I would have to call him to return it. When I called him a few days later to return his plate he asked me if I wanted to go out for some ice cream. We went out for ice cream that night and have been together everyday since. He asked me to marry him 3 months from the time we met and were married 3 months after that. (This is our engagement picture)

We were married on February 11, 2005 in the Mount Timpanogos Temple.

We went on a 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise for our honeymoon.

Our daughter, Allyson Ranae Kasperson, was born on July 13, 2006. She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 19.5 in. long.