Precious Moments Make Up for Everything Else

For the last 3 weeks, my beautiful sister and her 4 children were visiting us.

At times it was crazy, noisy, messy and hair-raising; my body was sore from constantly picking up, putting down or holding one child or another; I was spit up on probably a gazillion times; the children argued with each other, and on one occasion K slugged her big brother M in the eye with a block...on purpose. I haven't been so exhausted in a long, long time. I thought I would go nuts at times and there were times I couldn't wait to go to work in the mornings. So with all of this, you could probably imagine that after 3 weeks, I'd be relieved to have my life back to normal and that I'd be happy to have my house quiet again.

However, although the quiet is nice for a time, I'm finding that I miss them like crazy! Because amidst all of the craziness, it was wonderful having them here. I would take that any day to have them here with me. The giggles; the cuddles; the hugs and kisses; hearing the excited chorus of "Lizzy!!" when I came home from work; holding a tiny hand in mine; being a hero for doing something small; dressing up like ballerina princesses or going on pirate adventures;

singing primary songs; seeing the joy and excitement on my nephew's face when I helped him play a song on the piano; holding my 4-month old nephew close while feeding him or having a squealing conversation because he was so happy; and having one of them randomly run up and give me a hug and tell me "I love you Lizzy."


It's all these precious moments that make everything else worth it. How beautiful it is to have a family. Things like these make me so excited to one day be a mom and have my own little angels.

Kickin' it in Gear

This week, one of my dear friends told me she and her fiancé might come visit me over the holiday weekend! I am so excited!! It isn't for sure yet though. Regardless, my family has been kickin' it in gear getting our house ready for visitors. So many projects that were only half-way finished are getting done, like painting rooms, organizing, and decorating; everything, and I mean everything, is getting a thorough deep cleaning; we might even be getting new furniture--finally! (We decided we'd get new couches a while ago so we put our old ones in a yard sale and only one sold! So we've just had one couch in our family room for over a month now. Haha, It looks ridiculous.)

I really, really hope and pray my friends can come; but if they can't, at least we got alot accomplished! Our house is looking great :) My friends should suggest coming to visit more often! Better yet, they should actually come ;)

Summer Flies...Winter Walks

I borrowed my title from a Charlie Brown book that I have and I only partially agree with it. Yes summer flies, but I'm finding the older I get so does winter! Where does all of this time go?
This summer has flown by so fast! It seems like just last week I was packing up my apartment and coming home. Now I'm packing up my room and getting ready to fly back.
When I got home, I planned on being really social and out going, meeting new people here through my singles ward and institute. Well I never made it to the singles ward because something always kept me from going, whether it was a family vacation or one of my family members was speaking or teaching in my home ward. The peak of my social-ness was when Anna came and visited me =) Very few of my friends from home are still here and single. So pretty much all of my time this summer was spent playing (or working!) with my family. It's been a blast. Chris is getting ready for more auditions so I've helped him get his songs ready (seriously, it may be a beautiful morning, but if I hear someone sing about it one more time...); Elysse is learning to play Chess for school so I've already played probably 20 games with her and she actually won twice! I know, I'm a merciless sister, I should probably let her win more so she'll feel more confident about it, but then how would she really learn?! Dad and I have been to the ballgame, spent time together at Dancesport, and worked on my computer. With my mom, we've decorated my dad's office and it looks so much better than before it flooded, we've also sewn my latin dress and of course our favorite, played duets on the piano. My family just loves to play games and eat ice cream, so of course we've done alot of that too.
It has been a fabulous summer. I've learned so much and I've grown even closer to my family. I'm really glad that I've had this chance to be back with them because it will probably be my last time that I ever live at home. I am so grateful for them. I can definitely see why the church places such high importance on the family. The home is the MTC for life, the relationships we form there and the things we learn are what we take with us into the world.