It's My Turn Now?

There are all sorts of milestones in life that seem like you will never reach.  You know, like when you're little and you think about going to Junior High, then High School, then college, then getting married and so on and so forth, and it seems so far away and abstract that you pretty much decide to consider them things that happen to everyone else, but never to you.  Well...I've gone through school, graduated from college, and even gotten married, so I guess it's time for the next milestone...having a baby!  That's right, I'm jumping on the bandwagon, and I couldn't be more excited about it!  It seems pretty surreal right now, but after going to my first appointment today and seeing that little blob on the screen with a flickering heartbeat, I'm getting a tad bit more of a reality check.  I thought I was 8 weeks 5 days today, but the doctor measured me at 7 weeks 4 days, so as of right now my due date is July 9.  However, the little nubin was so small that every time I breathed it got hidden, so he wasn't able to get the most accurate measurement.  He said he'd try again next time and the due date might change.  I was just so happy to hear that little heartbeat, and to hear that at 160 it was just perfect! So here's to the next big adventure in the life of Ashley & Brady! We can't wait to welcome our new addition!

Halloween Party 2010!

Friday night was our first, annual Halloween party, and boy was it a blast!  My friend Hillary & I did it together, so it was double the friends-double the fun!  We had so much food that I think we'll be eating left over soup and treats for weeks!  The costumes were awesome, and everyone was a good sport to participate in the cheesy Halloween games.  At least they got pretty good prizes! All in all, I'd say it was a success, and I can't wait to see how it goes next year!  

Happy Halloweek!

It's finally here! A week of Frightening fun! How great is it that this year we get to have an entire weekend of Halloween celebrations?!  Well, if you're as obsessed with Halloween as I am, you'll think it's SPOOKTACULAR! I've been working all month to turn my house into a Deadly dwelling, so I thought I'd share a few pics with you to get you into the Spooky spirit! :0)

Along came a spider idea came from House of Smiths!











 

                                                                             Vinyl Owl came from Wonderfully Wordy!
The EEK and Wreath ideas came from Eighteen25! You may think I'm crazy for dedicating a wall to Halloween, but this wall always drives me crazy! I've never known what to do with it.  So, I got a little inspiration from all of the crafty crafters out there & went for it! The best thing about this wall?  I created it mostly from stuff I already had or could easily create, so I think it only cost me about $20!  I figure I can switch everything out for other holidays.  When it's not a holiday...well...I don't know.  Hopefully I'll think of something! :0)

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN WEEK EVERYONE!!!

(I could not for the life of me get the last 2 to upload vertically!  So I guess you'll just have to tilt your head. Sorry! :0)  )

Wonderfully Wordy Giveaway!

Hey Everyone!  You know how I've posted about Shelley Smith's Wonderfully Wordy vinyl a few times?  Well...she's giving away a prize pack over at Sweet November!  If you want to enter to win the prize pack, just head on over to Sweet November and follow the instructions.  I'd say good luck...but I can't, because I want to be the winner of this awesome prize pack!  In fact, I would be keeping it a secret to myself, except I get better odds if I post about the giveaway. :0)  But seriously, head on over there and check it out! You won't be disappointed! :0)

F is for Fall

 Here we are...mid-October...and it's finally starting to feel like fall!  I've been waiting for it to officially peek it's little head out, and I think it finally has!  Here are some of the most wonderful things about this time of year...

 You can finally bust out the boots!  Everyone has their favorite clothing item, and I think this could be mine.  I do enjoy me a good pair of boots!  These little beauties are the new ones I'm sporting this year-the Bjorn "Yolanda" boot in grey.  I got these at the Nordstrom sale 3 months ago, and I've just been lovingly admiring them as they've sat on a shelf in my closet, longing to meet my feet. :0) As it turns out, the Yolandas and my feet get along perfectly.  They snuggle up together naturally and comfortably-like a match made in heaven!

You can put on your "snugglies" and cozy up by the fire.  This is my favorite pastime in the world...especially when it involves a real fire at the cabin...and kicking Brady's trash at Phase 10!  Apparently Axel loves it too.  You can tell by his ecstatic expressions.

You can change your home decor!  I kind of have a decorating addiction, and it gets worse when there is holiday decorating to be done.  With the combination of Halloween being one of my favorite holidays & fall making me feel crafty & domestic...let's just say I get into trouble. :0)  This is just a taste of what's been done so far.  Let's be honest-I probably won't be done until October 31 when it's time to put everything away!  More pics to come of my "haunted house".  In the meantime, you should check out the crafty blogs I have posted under "Eye Candy" for some lovely, affordable Halloween ideas! (My shelf in particular was completely copied inspired by Shelley over at House of Smith's, and you can buy the awesome subway are vinyl from her store, Wonderfully Wordy!) But I must warn you...your head will start spinning & your body might feel a little tingly with all of the excitement!

Pumpkins!!!  These are one of my favorite things of all time.  They just make me happy!  If I could decorate with pumpkins year 'round, I would.  I wish I had a picture of a real pumpkin, but we haven't gone and gotten ours yet.  However, as the sign states...I never met a pumpkin I didn't like!

You can start conjuring up a Halloween costume!  This part of October can be very stressful...but totally fun and exciting!  I'm pretty excited for our costumes this year!  Again...stay tuned!

 And finally...the days just feel a bit more lazy.  What a better way to represent this than a pic of Lazy Daisy? She is loving being able to take naps in the middle of the patio without the hot sun beating down on her.  No she's not in the process of rolling over...this is literally how she lays when she sleeps.  She's simply lifting her head in a sleepy stupor to inquire why on earth we'd be bothering her with pictures when she's only gotten about 15.7 hours of sleep so far?! 

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!

Winding Down Summer

Is summer pretty much over already?  Really?!  I swear it just started, and all of a sudden it's September, the air is getting cooler, the mayhem of football rivalry is starting, and I'm fighting off the urge to wear boots and scarves!  But I guess its okay, because fall is by far my favorite time of year!  You know how they say spring is the time when everyone gets rejuvenated and feels more alive?  Not so for me.  Even though I live for warm weather, there is just something about fall that gets me going.  I don't know if it's the fact that I can stomp on crunchy leaves as I walk around outside, make homemade soup and bread sticks, or decorate my house with pumpkins and warm colors, but something about autumn just makes me oh so happy!  Last weekend, I really started feeling it when we spent the night at the Thorn cabin and it poured rain all night!  We had to snuggle up by the fire and play Phase10 to keep our blood pumping, and when we woke up to the crisp, mountain air we decided we needed to have ourselves a hearty breakfast at Silver Fork Lodge.  Now if that whole scenario doesn't scream fall-time, I don't know what does!  (Kind of a fun side note-as we were eating breakfast, we realized we'd gotten engaged exactly 1 year ago that day!  We were celebrating without even knowing it!  :0)  I can't believe it's already been that long, and that our 1 year anniversary is rapidly approaching!)  Here are a couple of pics from breakfast.  Kind of boring, but let's be honest-we look at blogs for the pics, and if on the off chance you are even taking the time to read my ramblings-you're probably not exactly sitting on the edge of your seat! :0)

  












Please don't judge me for my hideousness-I had just spent the night roughing it in the great outdoors! :0)  Anyway, I guess that's my little kick-off to Fall 2010.  My fall wreath is up, my jackets are out, and I'm ready for the fun festivities that this time of year brings!  Happy Fall Everyone!  It's upon us whether we like it or not! :0)

The Joys of Life...

Apparently I need one of these...

 Or better yet...with a catch basket...

Because as I was doing the laundry the other day, this is what I pulled out of the dryer...

REALLY?!?!  A Popsicle stick, Creamie wrappers, multiple candy wrappers, a paper clip, 2 screws, 5 nails, and a Sharpie?! It's no wonder half of my shirts have holes in them!  My poor laundry is taking a beating!  You'd think you wouldn't have to worry as much about this stuff until you have little kids, but no-my husband is apparently 25 going on 5.  I love you Brade, but can't you just throw your Popsicle sticks and other array of items in the trash?!  It can't be comfortable walking around all day with this kind of stuff in your pockets!  Perhaps I'll need to get him a man bag-like that Friends episode. :0)  Anyway, I just thought this was too hilarious not to share!

But speaking of laundry...I have something I'd like to throw out to all of my fellow chicas!  What is the exact purpose of a dryer?  I mean, even though I wash all of my clothes in cold water, even when I put them in the dryer on the lowest heat setting, EVEN when I do all of that without even drying the clothes all the way, my husband still complains that his clothes get shrunk!  So unless I take the clothes straight from the washing machine, drape them all over my house like an eye-sore, and wait for days for them to dry he thinks I don't know how to do laundry.  And it's not like we have a crappy washer & dryer!  They're practically new, GE front loaders.  Am I missing something?  Am I crazy, or is he?  Weren't dryers created to make laundry and life easier and more efficient?  Shouldn't I be able to just throw my clothes in the dryer, take them out a half hour later, and have wonderful, warm, fluffy clothes to wear?!  It's really confusing & frustrating to me.  If I could at least have something like THIS it might be helpful...

   

These babies are from Ballard Designs and oh so lovely, but they're almost $200 a piece!  Yikes!  But my laundry room is too long & skinny to get one of those drying racks from Wal-mart or even Bed, Bath, and Beyond that stand on the floor.  Ultimately, however, I'd just like to be able to use my nice little dryer and not have to worry about it.  So anyone that can make sense of this predicament for me, I'd sure appreciate it!

To leave you on a more happy note...here are a couple of other cute laundry room ideas that I'd like to implement in my own laundry room.  These, along with the signs at the top, can all be found at the House of Smith's blog or on her Vinyl lettering site, Wonderfully Wordy.  She's so creative, and doesn't her laundry room make doing laundry look like such a fun, happy thing?  If only...

Happy Friday everyone...and Happy Laundry Doing! :0)

All Grown Up

I seriously don't know how this happened...but my baby sissy got married on August 11!  Not that I'm not super excited for her & Mike, it's just hard for me to wrap my brain around!  I've been waiting to post about this until I had collected more pics from the reception & everything, but I'm tired of waiting.  So, you get what you get I guess!  Maybe I'll post more later.  Anyway, it was a fabulous day!  They had their dinner the night before at Market Street Grill, which I think was a much better choice that having a luncheon the day of.  It was so much more relaxing!  They got married in the Salt Lake Temple and had their reception that night at Noah's.  Everything was just gorgeous!  They got back last week from their honeymoon in Cancun, and are now setting up shop in our basement, which is mostly finished.  Still trying to tie up a few loose ends-sorry guys!  I'll try to remember to take pics of that too as soon as they're a little more settled in.  So here's to the newly wed Mr. & Mrs. Blackhurst-Congrats you two!

What the...?

So...the strangest thing that's ever happened to me happened this past week.  It's just too crazy of a story not to share!  It's kind of long and complicated, so bear with me.

As many of you know, we're finishing our basement.  The time came to pick someone to paint it, and we discovered it was a fortune!  So we did a little shopping around, and found a guy on KSL that was a really good deal, had a great portfolio, and said he was a returned missionary just trying to get his business going.  So we hired him to do the job-for the sake of the story we'll call him Taquito.

So Thursday Taquito and his partner showed up to get started.  Brady helped them most of the time, and spent about 3 hours with them swapping mission stories and what not.  Thursday night (actually, Friday morning at 3AM) Brady came into our room asking me where our laptop was.  I was delirious & told him we'd look for it the next day.  Well, Friday came and went, and still no laptop.  By Saturday, I knew it had to have been stolen, and I suspected the Peruvian painter, but Brady thought I was crazy.  He couldn't believe it could be stolen, and if on the off chance it was, there was no way it could be the missionary painter.  He thought if it was anyone it was the sheet rockers (yeah...clearly we hire high quality people!).  So he called them, and they came over with all of their references and everything, swearing they didn't do it.  Meanwhile, I went and peeked in the painter's van.  I didn't see our laptop, but I did see an ipod and some Mac cords, so I knew he was a "Mac guy".  I marched downstairs and asked him if he'd seen Brady bring it down there.  He acted totally confused, and like he'd never heard of "Apple" or "Mac" in his life.  Right away, I became even more suspicious, but Brady still thought I was crazy.  We spent the rest of the night chatting it up with the guy, buying him dinner, etc.  He finished most of the job, so we paid him (cash...we're idiots).  However, he was due back Monday to paint our bathroom and do some other finish work, and we were going to pay him the rest of the money.

Sunday morning at the crack of dawn, Brady and I hear our dogs barking and going crazy.  We thought that was really weird, since they never do that, but we figured maybe a deer was in our yard (it's been known to happen!).  Also, we have an alarm that talks, and Brady heard it say "Basement door-open", but he checked it, it was locked, so we figured the wind rattled the door or something.  Anyway, after waking up on Sunday, Brady goes outside to find our gate closed tight, but Daisy is in the front yard.  He also notices our Harley trailer is open-luckily the Harley was in the garage and there was nothing in the trailer.  So Brady goes over to our neighbor, and he said he'd seen someone super early in the morning peeking over our fence and go back in our yard.  We've had so many workers coming and going, that he didn't think much of it.  (At like 5am on Sunday morning?  Umm...)

So, Monday morning Brady goes to file a police report for the laptop & the creeper trying to break into our house.  Shockingly enough, Taquito also doesn't show up for work that day, and he won't return any of Brady's calls.  The writing was on the wall at this point, and we figured our laptop was gone forever.

On Tuesday about five minutes before I was leaving work to go to Madi's wedding dinner, I decided to check KSL just to see if any laptops looked like mine.  Sure enough...I found one in Sandy that had all sorts of pictures including this one:

 








There, right in front of me, was MY computer's serial number!  I just about dropped to the floor!  So Brady called the police, and to make an already long story somewhat shorter, Taquito had sold it to a guy, who then sold it to a used Mac store.  The police verified the computer, and went and picked it up.  They also arrested Taquito yesterday.  He's done this twice before-stole $50,000 worth of merchandise from another family-but this time they can prove it!  We're pretty sure he would've done that to us, because we think he had to be our Sunday morning creeper trying to break in, but the alarm probably scared him off.  Brady is going to identify him in a line-up today, and he'll be going away!  We should get our laptop back today or tomorrow.  It's been wiped clean of all our stuff, but at least we get it back!  We're also going to try and get back the money we paid him for the unfinished paint job, although I doubt that will happen.

Can you believe that?!  It's seriously so sad that you just can't trust anyone anymore!  This is the first time I've ever been robbed, and while it was only a laptop, it's amazing how unsafe and violated it can make you feel.  I'm just glad the guy has been caught to he can no longer scam anyone else!  Moral of the story:  Don't hire a returned missionary, cash only, painter off KSL unless you know him!  Sometimes going the cheaper route is just not worth it!

Bling Bling!

I've been debating on whether or not to make this post. Not only does it force me to admit some embarrassing facts, but it gives away my newest gift idea! Oh well. It's just too cool not to share, and I think most of you will benefit from it more than me.

Babies generally like me for one reason and one reason only...I wear lot's of jewelry. If they start to cry, all I have to do is rip off my beaded bracelet or let them tug on my necklace and they're good to go. But this presents a couple of problems-I end up with slobbery jewelry, and I'm always terrified they'll rip it apart and swallow a bead or something. So here comes the embarrassing part...when I'm bored or just need a break, and I've pretty much blog and facebook stalked everyone I know, I start perusing random things...and it often turns out to be baby things. I'd come up with an excuse of that I'm constantly looking for baby gifts or something, but it's not true. I love babies and I can't wait to have one, so I daydream while looking at all things baby. What can I say? It makes me happy and excited...something that's not easy to be while chained to a desk all day! Anyway, today I came across these nifty beauties!

Big whoop...Tory Spelling has a cute, stone necklace that probably costs a million dollars right? Wrong! They're called "Teething Blings"!  They're made for babies to be able to chew and suck on them without getting ruined or hurting Baby.  They come in all sorts of colors and patterns, and they're only $20!  They have matching bangle bracelets too!  Isn't that just the coolest idea?!  I don't know if they really work or not, but if movie stars use them then hey! Must not be too bad, right?  You can order them online at  http://www.smartmomjewelry.com/ or you can purchase them at a new store in Layton called Honey Bump Maternity (which also seems like a cool, mommy place!) http://www.honeybumpmaternity.com.

I also came across THIS site, which I thought was so cute!  A little pricey maybe for something that will last for about five minutes, but totally worth it I think!

They have other cute things too, but these pretties are what really caught my eye. Aren't they to die for?!  I wish I had a baby girl just so I could buy these shoes! But for now...I guess I'll have to live vicariously through all of you mommies out there.  Happy shopping! :0)

Summer...Good Times!

I'm finally updating! So sorry I fell off the blog wagon for awhile. I'm telling ya, you can't let yourself get behind or else it just gets too overwhelming, yet the photos keep piling up! So, besides the usual work & school, here's finally a sneak peak of what we've been up to this summer:

 
 

We've been playing on our new boat! These pics our from our first trip out to Lake Mead. We had quite the party as you can see! We're all trying to get the hang of becoming a boating family again. I even tried wakeboarding for the first time & got up for like a whole 5 seconds! (Pathetic? Yes...but quite the accomplishment for non-daring me!) I guess I still have a long way to go...

 

For the 4th we went to Logan to celebrate Chris's birthday & to watch Cruisin'! Too bad this will probably be our last year, because Shelbie & Chris will be moving soon. Now where am I going to find my favorite drink...the Texas Twister?! Anyway, we had lot's of fun seeing all of the cool cars, eating birthday cake, and just hanging out!

 

I threw two showers...each a week apart. Am I crazy? Probably. Did I go overboard? Yes...but it was so fun I couldn't help it! Was it worth it? Totally!!! First I had a baby shower for my friend, Amy, who is due in September. I can't wait to meet baby girl Shinsel! Then, I was nominated to give my sister's Bachelorette Shower-lucky me! It was a total riot! 40 giggling girls playing scandalous games & opening naughty gifts is priceless! I wish I got a pic of the food table & candy table after they were finished, because we filled them with chocolate covered strawberries, cupcakes, and catered Cafe Rio! Needless to say, I think I gained 20 lbs. in one sitting. But it was super fun...I just have to force myself not to think about what the whole shindig was for! My sweet, innocent, little Mads! Ahh!

What would summer be without a trip to St. George? We went down there for the 24th to swim, golf, eat, see Tarzan at Tuacahn, and relax! I know we took more pics than this...perhaps I'll have to add them later. But it's always fun going to one of my favorite places!

Other than that, we've been...

Chillin' at the cabin...

Doing yard work...(well, that's mostly Brady! :0) )

Finishing our basement so Madi & Mike can move in...

And getting ready for Madi's wedding!









I can't believe my baby sister is just 2 weeks away from tying the knot! I'm happy for her, but it kind of makes me sad at the same time! When did we all get so old?!  Anyway, that's it for now.  Hopefully it's not another two months before I blog again! But like I always say, I LOVE looking at everyone else's cute blogs...so none of you follow my bad example!!!