Three year anniversary!

I'm posting this a few hours early, but I wanted to make sure it got up here. It has been 3 years since Tom and I said "I Do." In some ways it seems like time has rushed by, but mostly I just can't remember my life without him. It feels like we've been together forever (in a good way). I love him so much and feel so blessed to have found such a wonderful best friend. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of eternity with my one and only!

Here are some wedding pictures:

Eskimo kisses!

I think I lost my shoe, ha ha!

cutting the cake at the reception; after the formal ring ceremony and "the line", we changed into jeans and flip flops!

Our get away car that wouldn't start :0)

My great-grandma melba coming through the line

My Calm in the Storm

This week has been a really tough one for me. Nothing too dramatic, just a lot of mini disasters, ranging from mysterious and creepy bugs in my kitchen (I've already shared my feelings on creepy crawling things) to a very unhappy, screaming baby, to my car suddenly not starting for no apparent reason. The car was kind of a final straw for me. I broke down into tears and called Tom at work.
Tom has had a pretty stressful week at work, too. But he really came through for me. He took an extra long lunch and drove all the way home (about a 20 minute drive one way) and diagnosed the problem. He didn't have enough time to fix it, but he took me to lunch, and was just so calm, possitive, and reassuring that it was impossible for me to stay upset! He offered to leave me the LandRover if I needed to run erronds before he got home. I declined, but he was just so sweet to drop everything and come to my rescue. It made all the difference; after he left to go back to work, things just didn't seem so bad.
Thanks honey, you're the best!
Here are some pics of my sweetheart:

Tom "t.p.ed" his professor's house his senior year with a bunch of friends
At Thanksgiving last year in Wyoming; his first trip to Powell/Deaver

He's a wonderful Daddy

Random, but I just love his puppydog eyes in this one. I didn't even know he was taking a picture, which is why I look so weird.

At Lucy's Blessing

Jeanette!

I just wanted to give a shout out to my wonderful sister-in-law, Jeanette! She ordered these beautiful beaded butterfly hair pieces a couple of months ago that I really loved. She had hinted that she was going to order me one, because she's just that kind of sister. Yesterday she surprised me with not one, but THREE of them, all different colors! She also threw in a hand-stitched bookmark and chocolate. She is so sweet; it really made my day.
It's crazy how simple things can make such a difference in someone's day. It made me want to brighten someone else's day. Kindness in contagious, so pass it on!

Thanks Jeanette, I love you!!

Daddy's Little Girl

Every morning when Lucy wakes up, she calls for "Mama". I go in to her room and am met with the biggest grin that melts my heart. After changing her, I bring her out to the living room, where she immediatly asks for "Dada", who his usually adjusting his tie or tying his shoes to run out the door to work. But he always stops to take a minute to hold her.
While I love this routine, I don't usually think much of it. But lately I've been really struggling with my decision to stay home with Lucy while she's young. I've been praying for confirmation that I'm actually doing the right thing. This morning, I realized what exactally I'd be giving up if I went to work right now. I'm certainly not criticizing any of the working mothers out there, I just know that for me and my family, staying home is the right choice, even if that means giving up the extra income.

I snapped a picture of this morning's "Dada" time, and posted a few more pictures to show how Lucy is growing! I have some current and some from when she was only a few weeks old. "Dada" taking time to hold Lucy
Lucy in the park

Getting in to the DVD's

Lucy and "Dada" when she was a few weeks old

Baby Lucy, about three weeks old

They grew on me

So, after Tom got the one snail off my stroller, we found another the next day! Two huge snails living on my porch. For some reason I cannot possibly understand, I kind of started to get attatched to them. I'd look for them when I went outside. I'd watch them poke their little heads out and look around. Then today on my way home from doing laundry (I have to go to a laundrymat, so it's an all-afternoon thing) I found a snail crushed in our parking lot! I was so sad! It's shell was in several pieces and it's gooey little body was limp :0(
When I got to my porch, however, I discovered it wasn't one of my two residential snails. So, the humanitarian in me decided to save these creatures that I'd once been terrified of. It took about 30 minutes to get the nerve to touch the shell of one, but I finally did, and found it to be far less disgusting than I'd imagined. I got both of them safely in a container with damp papertowels lining the bottom and leafs of lettuce (this was the habitat that Google recommended). It was actually really cute to watch them eat the lettuce with their perky little antenna! If you've never seen a snail eat, they like, hug the leaf of lettuce while they're eating it. Very cute.
My sister-in-law is a fifth grade teacher, and said that giant snails would make the perfect classroom pet. So tonight I'm going to give them to her and hopefully they'll live happily ever after!
Just goes to show...first impressions aren't always correct.

GROSS!

So the London Market is a quaint little shop only a few blocks away that carries all things English. The family that owns and runs it is from England (I love the cute little polite accents they have!) and everything they sell is, naturally, from the motherland.
I've always been very curious about this shop, but it closes at five, and Tom is never home in time for us to go. So yesterday, I finally decided that I would take Lucy and we'd go. When I went to put her in her stroller, however, there was a visitor in her stroller....a snail!
Now those of you who know me, know that I hate all things that creep and crawl. So naturally, I freaked out. It was the biggest snail I'd ever seen! It was so disgusting! I'm such a baby about it that I couldn't bring myself to touch it in order to get it off, nor could I bring myself to knock it off with a stick or something, because I don't want to hurt the thing, I just don't want it on my stroller!
So, I ended up carrying Lucy the whole way. She's getting quite heavy at nine months, so by the end of the trip, I was cursing that snail!
The London Market, however, was every bit as charming as I'd hoped it would be. I bought these McVitie's, which are apparently popular over there. There are just a whole wheat cracker, with a thin layer of milk chocolate on top. I wouldn't have put those two together on my own, but they are delicious! I don't know why they say Digestive on them; I'm assuming because they're whole wheat.

Creepy little fella!

It's About Time!

So I finally gave in to peer pressure and started a blog! I'm still not sure that my life is interesting enough to captivate any audiences out there in cyber space, but here it is none the less.
Most of you know that Tom and I just moved to Salt Lake City, after spending a blissful four years on Logan. I was really nervous about making new friends, navigating in heavy traffic, and staying at home for the first time with Lucy. (My old job in Logan let me bring her with me to the office, so I kept working) Overall, though, the transition has been pleasantly smooth! We have a great ward and wonderful neighbors. Tom is loving his new job, and being the apartment manager isn't as hard as I had anticipated.
Last week our family got invited to a "couple's bbq" that the Goodmans (an adorable couple in our ward) put on. It was a blast! We really had fun, and I knew a lot of the people from church and from the areobics class I take on Wed nights. It always feels good to make new friends!

Thanks for inviting us Kenna!

This is Melissa, she's the areobics instructor. She's amazing!
I didn't know how to rotate this, sorry.

Tom, talking finance with some of the guys. He's so handsome :0)

These are most of the ladies that go to areobics. The one with dark hair and sunglasses is Kenna; it's her party. We don't know what Mel is doing in this one :0)

Lucy!

Kenna's son Parker has a little crush on Lucy and insisted on holding her time and time again; it was cute.

This wasn't at the bbq, but we had a friend over with his big dog and Lucy rode the dog like a pony. At first she wasn't sure what to think.