Dear Teenage Me

The other day Jake and I went and saw The Vow. (I know, I have a fantastic husband.) We found it rather fascinating that someone could actually lose years of memory after a brain injury like that. So on the way home we discussed where we would be if we lost five years of memory. I would be eighteen in my last year of high school and Jake would be twenty right in the middle of his mission. It was bizarre to me how much my life has changed since then. It does not seem like five years ago! So then I thought, what would I tell my teenage self...

Dear eighteen-year-old me:

First of all... put down the tweezers. Thick eyebrows are awesome.
Now that we got that out of the way, I just have to tell you how extremely spoiled you are. Wow.
Milk that for all it's worth. Because soon you will be poor. Happy... but poor.
Stay away from the boy with skinny jeans and bracelets... not worth the drama.
Your friends are pretty great too, stop fighting with them over stupid things like boys.
Cherish the time you spend with your family. Having them under one roof is amaaazing.
Don't color your hair and stop shopping at American Eagle and Abercrombie. Not worth the money.
Utah State will be great. Don't worry about living alone, you're going to meet some lovely people.
Oh, and learn to sew and handle money. It will be extremely useful.

Sincerly,
Married and Ten Pounds Bigger Courtney :)

Something About Them

My lovely childhood friends Ali and Christina Christensen

 released their EP on iTunes yesterday. So cool.
They are truly the most amazing girls inside and out.

Naturally I bought it straight away and now I can't stop listening to it.

They always move me to tears...

Please support them by buying it today!

Ali and Nina on America's Got Talent in 2010

All grown up doing their first music video!

Performing the National Anthem at The New York Jets game.

Sappy Happy

The Kearns House was full of love today.

 Husband started the morning off with a lovely surprise. Love the necklace.

 I made our neighbors some strawberry treats.

  and reverted to teenage Courtney to decorate my boyfriend's locker!

It was lots of fun:) 

Hope you had a great Valentines day!

Music Monday

Found this beauty on a commercial the other day. 

I just love her voice. Makes me happy.

Loved the Grammys. 

At least the hour that I watched. 

Adele made me cry a few times but this Whitney Houston 

dedication really got me choked up.

Tragic, really.

Did you see T Swift's dress? How very Downton Abbey of her...

peace, be still

"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."

Another weekend is nearly gone and it was full of surprises.

Jake's brother Ben came on Friday which forced me to clean the house, it was a lovely thing to behold. Mr. Kearns even cleaned the bathroom. We should probably do that more often.

The boys spent their time playing Modern Warfare and watching Big Bang Theory. Jake loved being able to tour the base with his brother who came here for pilot training two years ago. I think brother Ben showed him that there is life after phase two, which has become less visible the last couple of weeks.

The weather is taking a turn for the worse and it's making me feel like I'm in Idaho again. Coldest wind I've ever felt and it will most likely snow tonight. Yuck. Let's bring back that June-uary weather from last month pretty please...

I got to babysit our neighbor Cora yesterday. We watched Peter Pan, made sugar cookies and ate Mac and Cheese. I love when the child inside me gets to come out.  I could watch Disney movies all day and night.

After I put Cora down for a nap, there was this blissful 45 minutes of silence. No television. No computer, just me and the dogs resting on the couch. I thought to myself, Why haven't I done this before? Why can't I just sit and think for an hour instead of constantly having the television on to muddy up my mind? No wonder I can't focus or think straight! Silence is completely underrated. I think I'll make it a goal to include quiet hour into my daily routine.

And now we close this week with a class full of four-year-olds and frosted animal cookies. Where the answer to every question is Jesus. Unless your Trenna, who answered the question 'Who is mother of Jesus?' with "A Horse!" These kids make me very happy. They remind me what life is really about... having twenty-five kids and living in Disney World.

P/S Season Two finale of Downton Abbey is tonight people. That went way too fast. Oh well, at least Walking Dead is back.     What? You don't watch either you say? GET NETFLIX PEOPLE!

update

Guys, I am so behind it's not even funny. 

In fact it's tragically intimidating. 

But here it is, and awaaay wee gooooo!

Things that are happening in the life of Courtney, Jake and Crazin Maizin:

1.Valentines has taken over my life. not really.
But I enjoy getting cute packages from my best friend and decorating my house with hearts and candy :)

 

2. I'm finally decorating our living room. Our house is lookin homey!

3. Maizey has started eating dead worms off the sidewalk. 

It's super gross. Especially when she brings them inside the house.

                          

                              4. Ray and I are best buds. I think he looks like he could be mine. Maybe I'll just steal him...

 5. We finally got out of Enid and spent the day in OKC. We started the day with delicious PW French Toast and a temple session in the city. It was a Spanish session which made things interesting and extra challenging.... We'll probably stick to English from now on. Then we made a Target run (or two) and finally found a television stand for our house! That was a great surprise. We ended the night with a Mat Kearney concert, he was so good! Did you know that he didn't even start singing until college? WTF.

Music Monday

Guys, I just can't get enough of this group OR this song.

These are the groups that we saw perform in OKC last Saturday...

Sorry I've been absent... 

I will blog lots tomorrow :) 

Have a lovely evening!

what would Kelsey do?

Happy Birthday to Lauren, my lovely sister!

If I had five words to describe her...

gorgeous. 

stubborn.

feisty.

athletic.

ambitious.

She is nothing like me and I am so thankful for that,

because I learn from her everyday. 

Have a fantastic 21st on the east coast... so jealous.

it's a wonder at all

The weekend started off with "The Great Clothing Exchange" 

Some of us girls from the ward brought some old clothes that

we didn't want and exchanged them, it was so much fun. 

I got some fantastic shorts for summer and lots of striped tops. For FREEEEEE!

Hailey made some great snacks and I made sopapilla cheescakes.

Sooo good! I only used two rolls of cresents, one original, one reduced fat. 

I halved the cream cheese filling and used 1/3 fat cream cheese.

I'm telling you, it was amazing. I want to make it again today.

So get your friends together and have a clothing exchange. It's a beautiful thing. 

Love is Patient

 

So you are there..! 

Sometimes I get needy and beg to hear your comments. 

It makes me feel loved and stuff. So keep them coming :)

I didn't mean to make such a big deal out of my 'big change.'

Sorry to say, I am not pregnant...

I am starting beauty school in March!

And there it is. 

Lazy Courtney, no more. 

 Five Things I learned This Week:

1. When you start a day exercising instead of watching TV, 

you can actually be productive!

2. I cry a lot when I'm angry. Especially when the thrift store 

sells your piece of furniture to someone else! Ahhhh

3. I spoil my dog too much, probably because I think of her as my child. Yikes.

4. I should have started reading conference talks a long time ago. 

5. My husband is a very patient man who loves me a lot.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

I'll be spending mine making Valentines. 

And this. And this.