Helmet, Quilt, Party, and a Story

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!

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

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!!

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

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.