Happy Birthday Mom!

So today is my mom's birthday and I am so excited! I just love her so much and I love when we get to celebrate her birthday because she so deserves to be celebrated! My mom is such an incredible woman and I am always amazed by her strength. She has been through so much in her life and she has always stayed so strong. I am so grateful for the example that she has always been to me and for the way that she has always been there for me. She is seriously one of my best friends and I love being able to spend time with her. On friday we went down to Ikea and I had so much fun just being with her and talking to her. Sometimes I feel like I must talk her ear off but she never says anything. She is such a great listener. I really am just so grateful for the relationship that we have and for all that she does for me. She is always so patient to answer my sometimes daily questions about recipes or laundry or whatever. And she is always so willing to help wherever- like when she rushed down at 10:00 at night to help me clean up a half a gallon of paint:). I could really go on and on about how amazing of a woman she is and how grateful I am for her. I don't know what I would do without my wonderful mom. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

When green is all there is to be...

So this one has been a long time coming. I have been wanting to paint our bedroom since we moved in but kept on putting it off for various reasons. Well a couple of weekends ago I had the whole weekend off and I just decided I was going to do it. So i went to Lowes and picked up the paint and everything I would need ( it felt like I was buying the whole store). I came home and got to work. So by Saturday things were going very smoothly Brad was helping me and we were almost done. So I went to get a little more paint and as I am doing so I knock the whole can of paint over and it sort of went flying down to the ground. Needless to say we had paint EVERYWHERE! It was all over the carpet, our bed, our armoire- everywhere. So I just start freaking out and Brad rushes over and we start cleaning it up. After a couple of minutes of what seemed like useless trying, Brad suggested that I call my mom and see if she had any ideas of how to clean it up. So I called her and my cute parents came down with cleaners and steamers and towels galore. We somehow managed to get it all out of the carpet so then it was just the furniture we had to worry about. We tried a couple of things but with no avail and I was resorting to the fact that I would probably have to repaint the furniture. Then my mom had this brilliant idea and she asked me if I had any magic erasers and I said YES! I bought those puppies when we very first got married but have never needed to use them. So I ran downstairs and grabbed them and what do you know- they took the paint right off of our armoire, so then we went to work on the bed and it totally cleaned it off. It was like a miracle. You can't even tell anything happened. Brad thinks we need to write a letter to Mr. Clean and tell him how incredible those things are.

So by the time we were finished dealing with that it was like 11:00 and so we decided to just be done for the night and then it was Sunday so we didn't paint and then our crazy week started all over again. So I just finished up painting this past weekend and Brad was so excited to have our room back. I am really happy with how it turned out. I just love color and it makes it so much cozier in there. (sorry i know that was really bad grammar!)


So here are some pics of the finished product.

See- no paint on the furniture!!!

Well that has been most of the excitement around here for us. We are both just REALLY looking forward to the end of the semester. Especially since this is Brad's last one! He graduates in 31 days- yippee!

Truly prophetic counsel...

I have seen this on a couple other blogs and it is just such a testimony to me that we are truly led by prophets who are so aware of the things that we may have to face.
This is an excerpt from a talk given by Neal A. Maxwell on Oct. 10, 1978 but it just seems so fitting for today: (if you click on the title of this post it will link you to read this entire talk- which I would highly recommend)

"Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.'"This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ.....concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened....Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat."--- Elder Neal A. Maxwell

With everything going on right now it is so comforting to know that we are led by men of God and if we follow their counsel we will be led in the right direction.