HELP NOW!!! PLease!!

If you haven't checked facebook, and don't know about this contest Aubrey is in... please go to facebook and help! The contest ends at 9:00 tonight.

Here's the story... the 2nd place person has stayed right behind Aubrey the whole time, but she has so many fishy people "liking" her comment... so we think she's cheating.

So, if you have a facebook account, every vote will help!!

Go to the active bands page: https://www.facebook.com/activebands and "like" that page.

Then go here: https://www.facebook.com/activebands/posts/220003278028791, find Aubrey's comment, and like it.


THANK YOU!!

Randomness... BECAUSE YOU MISS ME!!!

Admit it, you miss my random posts. Okay, don't admit it, but you know deep down inside that you love me.

This last weekend Nicole (my amazingly awesome first counselor) and I took 6 of our young women to Salt Lake. We did all of the downtown church things we could fit in... it was a whirlwind of craziness, and I only lost about 60% of my sanity, so I think that's pretty good, right? I loved listening to the girls talk about the bazillion brides we saw at the temple. I think they all planned to get married "tomorrow", but thank goodness all of those plans fell through. They've got time... lots of time.

Cooper PITCHED at his game! I was so proud of him! He struck two kids out (and walked some, but who's counting that?). I could tell he was so nervous, but he was also super cute. Brandon's out of town tonight, so I had to run back and forth between Cooper's game and Tyler's game. I missed Tyler getting on base, but he forgave me when he knew I was watching Cooper pitch.

I still never see Aubrey. She's done with track, and still finds things to keep her busy. I guess that's what I have to look forward to for the rest of her short time left at home. I like that girl... and wish I could see more of her. But wait... maybe I like her because I don't see her very often... hmmm...

Life is good, you know? So many things I love to do... so many people I love to be with... it's good. I'm sorry about my downer post on Sunday. Some days are like that. When I think about my aunt and uncle who live in Joplin and lost everything in the tornado (and their five daughters who no longer have their childhood home to go home to... and the devastation so many others are facing too), or my dear friend who is going through some of the toughest stuff ever and comments on my post that she is sorry things are hard for me, OR I plain old think about how amazingly, richly blessed I am... yeah. It happens... that wallowing, but I don't want to stay there. I visited, didn't like it, and came home. :)

Life

There are 4 things you cannot recover in life: 

the stone after it's thrown 

the word after it's said

the occasion after it's missed 

the time after it is gone

Perspective

 Yesterday was a hard day. I don't want to talk about it, and I surely don't want to repeat it. Things are looking better today... but I still feel this weight.

 After sobbing my life's worries out to Brandon, he said a lot of things that made me think. Hard. And as always, he was right. Then I started thinking about things from a different perspective. I realized almost every single thing I was so upset about could be dismissed with a laugh when looked at slightly differently...

 These are things that anybody would say, are you serious? Really? THAT happened? That's so awful! But then... when I looked at it through a different lens, it was funny, sad, no consequence... nothing.

 Not everything in life has that opposite side... that side where you can count it as no consequence. Some things just plain hurt, and are just plain hard. But I do think there are lots of things that just need to be looked at through a kinder lens.

Sigh. Still working through it all.

Reason #1,397 why I love him

Last night for Family Home Evening we played a game to see how much we knew about each other... it took forever, but I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

See, my husband is hilarious. He writes stuff that I only wish I could think of. For example, we wrote three things that we thought each person in the family wishes for (or wished for) in a future spouse.

I wrote boring stuff, like:
spiritual, smart, friend

Brandon wrote:
(for himself) Good Cook, Good Girl, Good Looking
(for me) Tall, Dark, Handsome
(for Aubrey) Someone cool like her dad, someone funny like her dad, someone good looking like her dad
(for Tyler) Good Cook, Good Dancer, Good Singer
(for Cooper) Cowgirl, Hunter, Pretty like Mom

and then... the thing that made me laugh so hard I cried... we had to write what book we think each person would write if they wrote a book. For Aubrey he said:

What I Wish I Would Have Learned in 1st Grade

That might not seem so clever or funny... unless you know that Aubrey skipped 1st grade.


And just so you know that he's not perfect, this is what Tyler said that Brandon's commonly used phrase is:

**** it tyler


I love you, Brandon. :)

I Heart Faces... Motherhood

Don't forget to go over to i heart faces to see more beautiful motherhood photos.

Mothers Day

I am so blessed that I am allowed to be the Mother of 3 beautiful children.

I don't deserve them most of the time,

but I don't care. I want them anyway.

The more they grow, and the more they become separate from me,

the more proud I am of them. My kids are good people.

I am so grateful that I have two Moms, 

one who has been Mom my entire life,

one who has been Mom the moment I met Brandon.

I am lucky that they have always been my best friends,

and that they have so much to teach me and share with me...

because they've been here before.

I am amazed by so many women in my life

who have taught me all that a Mother can be

and how to be a better Mother.

I wish I followed their examples more exactly.

But that's the best thing... my kids are forgiving,

they love me, and give me room to grow.

Every day I will try to be better,

and every day they will give me another chance.

I am a

Blessed, Proud, Grateful, Lucky, Amazed, Loved

Mom. :)

Happy Birthday, Dear Cooper

 Sniff. Sniff. My baby is ten. He used to be so little, and now just look at him. He's growing up, and I'm not sure that I'm ready.

Cooper is a determined boy. He gives great hugs. He is not a morning person. He's a good friend. He is a good pooper scooper (he has a paying job doing this). He has a great brain. He's funny. He has a super cute smile. He's a good hand-holder. He still wants us to say prayers with him every night. I'm so glad that he's my little boy, and I'm grateful every day for him.

He made this hat all by himself... impressive, yes?  ;)

Happy Birthday, Coop!

Scripture Journal Inspiration

I am so excited about this recent discovery... I had to share!  I've been attempting to study my scriptures by topic for awhile now... I've read through the scriptures multiple times, one time even reading the Book of Mormon twice in two months, and felt like I needed a deeper, different experience with the scriptures. I hadn't found the perfect motivation for it yet... I hadn't found the system that would really help me learn and live the scriptures... until a dear friend opened my eyes to this.

This amazing woman makes these scripture journals... and they are beautiful. Amazing. She picks topics to study, lays it all out in the journal, and then as she studies the scriptures, conference, the Ensign, etc., she fills in thoughts and studies under each topic. I will never make such beautiful journals, but I still knew this was right up my alley. This is what I did last conference with my notes:

My notes are a lot messier, but I think The Red Headed Hostess and I think along the same wavelengths.


So, I've started... I got this beautiful journal from Brandon's parents for my birthday, and thought it would be the perfect thing to start this journey of digging deep into the scriptures, and gospel learning.

 I had Aubrey write some quotes in the front (because she has awesome handwriting, and we're going to do this project together, and I wanted a part of her in my book), and I had her number my pages.

I picked topics and wrote a table of contents...


And now I'm ready to begin. :)  Anyone want to join me and Aubrey? We're using this for a Personal Progress project. 

I Heart Faces: Wind

The challenge over at i heart faces this week is wind. Of course I thought of my recent little shoot with my beautiful 15 year old daughter... it was so windy that day! I love love love her freckles, her natural beauty, and the wind playing with her hair.

The Rest of These People

 Me? I'm crazy insane and you all hear enough about me. Let's talk about the rest of the weirdos who live here.

 This girl is in trouble. Trouble. With a capital T. She won't stop growing up, and I've about had it. She's doing track right now, because she has to be doing a million things at once or she's not happy. ;) She runs a mile in about 6:15, which I think is pretty darn good. I'm proud of her. She also likes to hang out with friends and doesn't like that her dad is having a hard time letting her grow up. I understand where they're both coming from... it's hard.

 This one... is about to have a birthday, which he is not about to let us forget... as much as we want to. All of our kids are going to be double digit ages. I'm kind of upset about it. Cooper said that he will go down a year at home, but up a year everywhere else, so I guess he'll be 8, just at home... for me. He just started his baseball season, and he's a Carolina Mud Cat.  Mud Cat... hmmm... that sounds pretty ferocious.

 And my middle child... I love him. He was chosen from his school to go on to the next level with his Science Project. He didn't win anything in Rangely, but he was excited to be able to experience it anyway, and I'm proud of him. He's doing a lot better in school than he was at the beginning of the year, and I just know he's going to keep up the good work. He just started baseball season too... on the Braves. He's playing with the oldest boys now... I'm really excited to watch his games.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this boy? I love him. I love him. I love him. I love him. He's 2 steps closer to getting his dream... and I'm happy for him. I know, you would think that I am his dream, but no... his dream is owning a horse. Soon, babe.

A lot of Thinking about Me Me Me... Blah Blah Blah

This past week has been a pretty big week for me... my first time teaching photography classes. I'll be honest, I felt like I do about a lot of things I do in my life... like what the heck am I doing? Can I really do something like this? It was kind of a leap for me, but once I settled into teaching the classes, I realized that it's no big scary deal... I think teaching for me is second nature, and I love photography. I love talking about something that I love. I love having a group of people who want to listen to every word I have to say about something that I love. (I'm pretty sure Brandon often wishes I would just stop talking ;).

When I was in high school, my Algebra class would often ask the teacher if I could show how to do a problem on the board, because they could understand things better with the way I explained them. I've taught violin lessons since I was a teen, I've taught fitness classes at the gym, I've taught Young Women most of my married life. I've taught first aid, CPR, and who knows what all I've taught my kids... there have been a few good things among the bad. ;) Adding photography to my list of things to teach seems kind of natural. I guess my mom teaching violin lessons every day after school taught me more than how to "be quiet and not bother my mom unless the house was on fire or someone was dead".  ;) I think I got a lot of my love of teaching from my mom. She used to teach us art in the summers too... and there were times when she was my violin teacher growing up.

Anyway, I've been thinking about that a lot lately... why I love to teach. Why I'm drawn to it. I actually had plans of teaching high school math, or elementary school. Luckily I didn't graduate from college, because that's probably the teaching that I am NOT cut out for. Subbing taught me that. ;)

I've done a lot of thinking about who I am too, and I think some of this has to do with why teaching works well for me. I had a long talk with one of my counselors in YW the other day. She is one of the sweetest, spiritually strong women I know. She told me that I am someone who has the ability to really love these girls, and to see good in them no matter what, and understand them and relate to them... that was a huge compliment to me. I got another compliment from someone I love recently... You are able to see the real joy of life and the people in it which not everyone can do.  You are able to have a mirade of friends of all walks of life and find them all equal.  That is very rare.  It made me cry when I got that message... because it was at a time where I was feeling not particularly loved or accepted as myself. 


I realized something... that I am very very far from being perfect (well, I didn't realize that... I already knew that), but that I had a quality that was good... something that I can use in this life to bless the lives of others. When my counselor said almost the same thing to me again, I realized that this might truly be a gift that I have, and I am grateful for it, and I want to expand that gift, and use it for good... to bless the lives of all those I know, those I'll meet, and in doing that, blessing my own life. 


If you've read this far into my self-indulgent reflective ramblings... you're amazing. Or extremely bored. I've just had a lot of self-reflection lately, and sometimes this blog gets to be the outlet for my whirling thoughts.

Running With the Seasons

I've realized something since I've been running outdoors year-round. I've grown to love each season even more. Running through all the elements makes me feel closer to the earth, to nature.

I love running in the winter... it doesn't matter how cold it is. In fact, the lower the temperature, the more excited I get. Bring it ON! I love my face going numb... wearing gloves AND mittens. I love the crunch of the snow and ice under my feet. I love how my body can warm itself... how I can be running in negative temps and not be cold. I love the stillness and the quiet of running in falling snow. I love the looks I get from people as they drive past with their heat blasting. Winter running is a challenge, and I like that.

Spring... ah, Spring. I love when it starts to warm up, and I can wear shorts! (I still get the crazy looks from people. Hey, it's 40 degrees. Why not wear shorts?) I love running in the rain. I love that I don't have to remember to wear a hat, and two gloves, and an undershirt, and an overshirt, and my wool socks... I can just throw on a layer and go. Spring is such a promise of freedom... knowing soon that the outdoors will be available to you at any time, without preparation.

Summer... I love starting a run in the dark, and watching the sun come up as I cross the miles. I love the peace and the tranquility of the dawn. I love that my miles pick up in the summer, and I start running the long runs... planning routes all over town, exploring new areas, dreaming new dreams. I love seeing other runners and bikers out there enjoying the morning too. I love waving at them, and getting a wave back, and nodding that nod of knowing... the secret of loving exercise.

I love running in the fall... when the air starts to have that bite to it. I feel so invigorated, after a long summer of sweat. I love having more flexibility in when I run... not needing to get up before the sun to beat the heat. I love the trees, the changing of the colors, the beauty of fall. Oh, how I love the beauty of fall. I feel like I can't get enough of looking. I run and look around me in wonder. How could I have seen so many autumns and still not tire of it?

I love being a runner.

If You Thought I Forgot About This Blog...

 ... then you'd be right. Sorry I haven't been updating. I know all of my friends and family are dying to know all about the Smith Family. ;)

We actually do have some news... and no, Melissa, I'm not going to have a baby. ;) Brandon got a new job!

A really great company here in Vernal that Brandon had talked to a looong time ago (when he was looking for a job a couple of times ago) contacted him recently to offer him a job. It's funny how work is so hard to come by when you're looking for it, but when you haven't been looking at all, it falls in your lap. I guess that's how life goes, isn't it?

Brandon really likes the company that he has been working for, so it was a hard decision, but the biggest thing that swayed us is that it will be a lot better for our family life. He will work Monday through Friday, 7 am to 5 pm. Every Sunday home with us, every evening home with us... I am so excited to not be a single parent at church and games and all of that anymore.  :)

We've also been thinking a lot lately how little time we have left with our kids, especially Aubrey. We don't want to lose any more time with her... she'll be gone in a little over two years. Isn't that sad?? We think this job will help us be able to do more as a family... the little every day things, like eating dinner together, and going to church together, and the kids seeing their dad every day.

I'm glad that we're going to be able to see Brandon more, and that we can stay in Vernal. I have so many good friends and family here, my photography is doing well, I love teaching at the rec, Aubrey is loving high school here... it's home, and I'm glad we didn't have to make a decision that would involve us choosing whether to stay here or leave.

Anyway... there's the scoop of the week. :) I'll try not to forget about the blog for so long again...

Oh! And we can't wait for spring!! Enjoy the pics of tulips. :)  (My sweet friend Tari gave them to me for my birthday.)

Somebody Pinch Me

I think this might all start going to my head. I love photography, and it seems like good things keep happening with it... and I just want more and more... and who knows, maybe I'll really go somewhere with this... and maybe I won't, and that's okay too. But... Pioneer Woman chose my photo AGAIN!! I think this makes 4? Go check it out... and read the comments too. Some of them really made me smile. :)

Oh, and I think I'm going to make this one available as one of my fine art prints. Maybe as a canvas? Or do you think framed? Maybe framed... I think I'd like it framed best.

I Heart Faces: Innocent Wonder

I had such a hard time choosing which photo to put in for this challenge... but I kept coming back to this one. Innocence... sweetness... a life of wonder and discovery ahead of her.

I Heart Faces: Smile

I LOVE a subtle smile... a secret smile... a smile that makes you wonder... you know, the Mona Lisa smile. :)  So, this may not be a typical big grin, but I had to pick one of my favorite kinds of smiles for this one... even if it doesn't fit the norm.

Blogging? What's That?

I've neglected this blog, I know... it's partly because something has to go, and facebook keeps me pretty busy. ;) I'm also boring. Very boring. That's why 92.5% of my readers won't even read this entire post. (Don't you love statistics that are pulled out of the air? I do. They're awesome.)

So, lucky you... you get random thoughts about boring nothingness. (Well, 7.5% of you will get random thoughts... the rest have stopped reading.)

That picture up there? I've always loved it, and now I have a reason to love it even more. I'm not going to go on and on about it here, you can read about it on my photogblog if you want more details. It's going to be auctioned off at Paul Cardall's benefit for congenital heart disorders. I'm super duper excited about it. And okay, a little bit nervous. What if nobody bids on it? That would be mortifying. Really really mortifying. I don't know if I'd recover. ;)  Here's my question about this photo: do you see the heart? Do you see that each leaf is a heart, or that the leaves overall make one big heart? I saw the individual leaves first... but Brandon saw the big heart first.

Speaking of photography, because let's be real... what else do I ever talk about?... I got 6th place in the I Heart Faces best face photo of 2010 contest. I'm really excited about it. Not as excited as I'd be if they had been judged and I had won, but still excited. It was decided by votes, so lots of my awesome friends (and a bunch of people who I don't even know) voted for it. I found out last night about 12:30 a.m., and I was dying to tell somebody, but people are sleeping then, darn it. Weirdos. I thought of waking Brandon up to tell him, but I knew he wouldn't remember I told him anyway, so it was useless. And mean.

We all know I don't ONLY talk about photography, because I also love to talk about running. So, just so this post is complete, I have to say that I'm already dying of excitement about Wasatch Back this year. It's 6 months away, but I'm looking forward to it more than Christmas. I'm not kidding. :) We have a team of awesome girls, and we're going to have a blast. I will miss Brandon swearing at us while he's running... that was a highlight of 2010's Wasatch Back, but we'll have to make do without, I guess.

We have more medical bills than we ever did before we had health insurance. What's up with that? I about have a heart attack every time I think about it... maybe that's their strategy... give their customers heart attacks so they can get even MORE money. ;)

Guess what? I learned how to swim!! I am so proud of myself, and proud of my awesome friend, Tari, for teaching me. I never knew how to, and couldn't even really put my face in the water without plugging my nose, but now I am actually really swimming. I love it! So learn this, my friends... it's never too late, and you're never too old. I'm still not sold on doing another triathlon though. Ugh.

I went cross-country skiing with some of the girls yesterday. Brandon bought me some cc skis at DI, so I was excited to try them out and learn. All I have to say, is that I need more time. I loved it, and would like to go lots and get good at it. I will go at least a couple more times this winter, but I wish I could add this to my list of regular things. Unfortunately that list is already way too long.

My kids are awesome. Brandon is the best husband in the universe. There, was that enough about the rest of the family?  ;)

Thank You for your Votes!

I got 6th place on the I Heart Faces contest!!! Click on the button on the side that says "top ten photo" to see!

Vote For Me... Pretty Please. :)

Go to I Heart Faces... vote for me, #23!  :)