The diploma.

Not the best pictures of us.

(See pictures below).

But we just wanted to get a couple quick shots of the graduation diploma.

Cause it's kind of cool that Michael has one now.

And since we (mostly me and Olivia) will be in Cali tanning on the beach during the actual graduation ceremony we felt like it was important to document what our little family looked like at this exciting stage.

Oh I better mention how absolutely thrilled I am that I don't have to sit through an entire way to long ceremony.  

No offense to the other graduates but the only person I would want to see walking and taking his diploma is my boy.

So I'll be missing out on the whole sexy cap and gown look.

But it's worth it not to have to sit in the freaking auditorium for most the day.

So here we are.

Woot for my boy.

Here's to at least 3 more years!

15 1/2 months

Isn't she just the cutest?

We love this little girl so very much.

She's a healthy LITTLE thing.

And very very smart.

She gets that from her dad:)

Here are her stats.

(Don't laugh!)

Height: 29 inches (9th percentile)

Weight: 18 lbs 6.6 oz. (1.25%)

Oh my gosh my baby is in the 1st percentile haha!

She is such an itty bitty little thing.

But it's okay, she is very healthy.

It just makes it funny when you see her do all these big girl things cause she does not look like a big girl at all!

Some of her newest tricks are:

*She makes the cheerio face and says "huh" with her arms out when you ask her where someone or something is.

*She is the friendliest little girl and waves hi with a big smile on her face to everyone she sees.

*She never plays in the toilet. If she sees it open she just walks right up to it and closes it.

*She can blow her own nose all by herself if we give her a tissue. (Thanks to grandma Kelly)

*She is learning and trying so hard to put her socks ("das") on by herself

*She gives big loves now. The ones where she wraps her arms around your neck.

Oh it's heavenly.

*She says thank you in sign language all the time now. (She holds her hand to her mouth and licks it and then pulls it away.)

*She knows that her milk is in the fridge and will walk up to it doing the sign for milk when she wants a drink.

*She sleeps like a champ. At least 13 hours every night!

*She loves to help clean and will hand me things when it is time to pick up.

*Whenever I lay on the ground she comes up to me and sits on my back and hops up and down while make the horsey sound which is pretty much straight spitting:) Apparently she thinks I'm a horse.

Yikes on that one.

*She loves it when mommy squishes her. (Very softly) And when I ask if I can, she says, "Yaaaa!"

*She is learning to say please. ("Peese")

 

Our sweet little girl means just everything to us.

She is such a lovely, spunky, hilarious child.

And we feel so blessed every minute of everyday to be her parents.

Another Washington visit.

This was an unplanned little vacation for us.

After our wonderful Thanksgiving in Washington we decided that we just couldn't wait until summer to go back up there, plus Michael's best friend Dustin was having his wedding reception so we hopped in the car and made that horrible drive.

P.s. It isn't that horrible if you don't have a baby.

Anyway, it was a blast.

Not the drive part, but the hanging out with the family part.

Michael's aunt Julie came down from Whidbey Island just to see us.

Well mostly Olivia.

And that just added to the crazy fun.

Golfing, shopping, games, movies, pepsi spills in the car (haha Amy), food, a house tour, Michael's best friend's wedding reception and of course lots of talking and relaxing.

It was the best.

Olivia of course was in heaven with her grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncle, and great aunt playing 24/7 with her.

She got unlimited pepsi tastes, doggie and kitty visits, treats, vacuum visits, and most of all hugs and kisses.

But like it always does, the week just flew by.

And it was time to make the horrible drive home.

It wasn't as horrible as the way up, but still, 12 hours is 12 hours.

As always, I am so bad at taking pictures, but I did manage to snap a few cuties.

Aunt Julie took everyone out to Outback Steakhouse. She is so sweet. Olivia loved wondering from person to person collecting her bits of food.  Her favorite thing was a new game she played with Grandpa. She would put the straw in her mouth and then transfer it to his mouth using her mouth. Wow, that was an interesting description but I think you get it.

It was adorable and absolutely hilarious as you can tell by aunt Julie's face.

Matthew gave his girlfriend the cutest tiniest turtle Doodle for her Birthday.

And we of course just had to see it.

Olivia loved it.

As you know, Olivia loves to be a part of EVERYTHING that is going on.

So here she is helping grandpa make pancakes.

She loves her uncle Matthew.

And her aunt Sarah.

She's the one who always took her to see the vacuum.

Uncle Matthew taught Olivia 2 new tricks.

#1. Pounding knuckles

#2. Softly hitting her mouth while making a sound.

(The Native American sound as some might know it as)

She found a comfy little spot right in grandpa's arms and was quite content lying there for a while.

It was record breaking I'd say.

I'm telling ya she is a little busy bee.

Michael, Dustin, and Eric.

The 3 best friends.

All happily married now, yay!

With the wives.

Playing cards.

One of my personal favorite things to do.

Aunt Rachel was so cute to help Olivia play too.

She loves her Aunti Rachel!

The nose scrunch bunny sniff.

It is hilarious.

Especially since she had a little runny nose, so whenever she did it there were constant snot bubbles forming on her little nose.

She loved the bunny.

Anyway,  thank you Antone, Kelly, Matthew, Rachel, Sarah, and Julie for making our week a fabulous one.

We hope to see you soon!

Almost 2 1/2 years later...

It's done.

Our wedding scrapbook.

Can you believe it has taken me almost 2 1/2 years to do?

I hardly can.

It's a bit embarrassing.

But it's done and I love it!

We're moving to California for a few months!

It's official.

We are going to California to sell pest control.

We are not sure on the exact location but we know it is somewhere around Santa Monica.

We leave at the beginning of April and will be done sometime in August right before we move to wherever Michael goes to Law School.

We are so very excited about this.

I know that there are mixed feelings about selling but we have researched this company a lot and are going through one of Michael's most "favorite" mission companions.

So we feel very good about it.

Oh ya, and we've prayed a lot and gone to the temple. 

So that always helps!

And so it begins.

The countdown for our time left in Utah.

It's a little sad, mostly for me, but we are so ready to move on and begin this new adventure together as a family.

Oh my gosh have I mentioned how dang excited I am to go the beach?

Like all the time.

Bring on the tan. (Or the bronze I like to call it.)

I don't want to look fake.

Oh ya, and Disneyland and maybe even Sea World.

I really want Olivia to see the Shamu whales.

She would love them.

I'm sure Michael will do just wonderful even though it does sound kind of awful going door to door all day in the blazing heat.

It kind of sounds like his life is going to be a bit harder than mine this summer, but that's okay because I will make him lots of yummy breakfasts and dinners and rub his legs and feet all the time.

Yay for California!

Going to get the mail.

Of course we all know that the mail comes every day.

Later in the afternoon for us.

So a favorite activity of Oli-snoopy is to go get it with either mom or dad.

Whenever we ask if she wants to go get the mail she immediately makes a cute excited face and quickly replies with a loud drawn out "YAAAAAA!!!"

So we bundle up.

(On the freezing days she gets swaddled in a large blanket).

And up we walk.

It's very exciting.

Her favorite part is carrying the mail key all by herself.

Cause she's getting big like that.

The other day, her cute daddy took her and when they came back down and were getting ready to walk inside she started saying, "mo, mo." (more) while doing the sign.

So up they went.

Again.

And again 2 more times.

That's how much she loves it.

Oh and did I mention how much we love our little girl?

(I know I do almost every post but she really is the best).

Only the marshmallows.

Found these yummy little treats right at Wal-mart.

Since Olivia loves anything sweet and chocolaty, they were purchased.

Well one night for dessert we brought them out thinking she would absolutely love them.

Which she did, except she only wanted the marshmallows. 

Forget the Graham cracker and chocolate fish.

Well being the little smarty pants she is, she quickly figured out that she had to eat or get rid of all of the fish in order to get more.

She couldn't just eat the marshmallows.

So she got a little smile on her face, grabbed them one by one and fed them to me.

When I would pull out another handful she would get so excited and quickly eat all the marshmallows ones and then feed me the Graham cracker and chocolate fish.

This went on a few rounds.

But you know one can only eat so many of those fish.

Oh how I love my smart baby girl.

Every moment with her is just a hilarious adventure.

See pictures below.

A random Olivia game.

Olivia loves putting things over her head.

Mostly towels and any clothes lying around.

So it is not uncommon to see her walking around looking like this!

 Then when she is tired of walking around without being able to see where she is going.

(This game of hers involves some crashing into things.)

She pulls it off and has the cutest little smile on her face.

And of course decides she wants to give it a love.

She loves giving not only people but literally everything loves.

She's nice like that.

And then she gets bored and goes to find something else to do.

Which usually involves messes or playing with things that she just isn't old enough to play with:)

Oh the joys of a cute little toddler.

We love it!

Graduation mini-party.

It's about time we celebrated this wonderful accomplishment.

So we made a day out of it.

Michael picked his favorite breakfast (grits and eggs).

He went golfing.

Thank goodness for the lovely weather.

Then he picked his favorite dinner.

Breakfast foods.

Sausage, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast.

And then I made a pecan chocolate cake.

Which was disgusting.

But those who like nuts apparently liked it.

My parents gave Michael a graduation present.

But it's sort of for me too.

Yay!

It's a 2 day getaway to St. George.

Mostly for him to golf.

But I'm glad to be with him.

(Even if I hate golf perhaps more than anything.)

It will be our first time leaving Olivia for that long.

I'm kind of not looking forward to that.

But at the same time so excited for some time with my boy.

Here are a few pictures.

Telling everyone in a humorous way what it felt like to finally be done.

Well sort of done!

We kind of let this whole graduation pass right on by.

But I am so proud of Michael.

It definitely hasn't been easy.

But he did it and did it well.

So congratulations love.

And thank you for working so hard for our little family.

I couldn't ask for a better husband.

Lil gangsta.

Sometimes Michael likes to do funny things to her.

Well probably not sometimes.

All the time.

The other night,  I walked downstairs and found my cute little one all gangsterish.

She loved wearing it and didn't even try to take it off.

Shocking really.

Yay for humoring her silly daddy!

New Year.

Oh my gosh, it is 2012.

Crazy.

2011 was a good year for us.

A super good year.

So we're hoping 2012 will be the same.

It will definitely be a different year for us.

A year of lots of new things.

Mostly moving away.

It is going to be hard.

But I think I'm ready.

Right now,  it seems as though our lives are completely up in the air.

So I'll be excited for some answers and some sort of path to head down.

We are kind of the planner couple and do really well on a strict schedule.

So it's been a hard few months.

We'll keep you updated on the happenings.

Goals.

Well those are fun aren't they.

I really am not the huge new years resolution type girl.

Cause honestly even if I made one, probably wouldn't end up following through.

But we did come up with some things we'd like to do this year.

Michael wants to lose a few pounds:)

He wants to write in his journal more.

Get into Law school.

And make money this summer:)

Together, we'd like to:

Read scriptures and pray together every night.

Woot for that.

Today, I was supposed to start off my new year by cleaning.

I usually do that on Mondays anyway.

But it's just been one of those days where you're lucky to even hop in the shower.

And you need like 3 Dr. Peppers instead of the normal 1:)

So I'll be postponing the cleaning for tomorrow.

But the good news is that the Bachelor starts tonight.

That is exciting.

It's not like it is even that great of show.

But I'm obsessed.

Oh and I've decided I'm too old to party and ring in the new year.

I think that's why I'm so tired.

So this years was the last.

Next year, I will be completely zonked.

So I'm looking forward to that.

Well that's it for today.

Pictures of the Snoopy soon!

Nuch's pizzeria.

(Adriana and Jason Cook, Michael and me, Rachel and Caleb)

Oh I just love the dates.

Especially the dates that involve good food.

Michael found a list of good Italian restaurants located in SLC in the newspaper long ago.

He of course saved it.

Well we're poor so we don't usually drive 45 minutes to try out nice Italian restaurants.

But since it was the beginning of the year and my wonderful cousins where coming along.

We decided to splurge.

Sort of.

Michael found the one was the cheapest.

And that's where we went.

Nuch's Pizzeria.

It was pretty good and definitely worth the drive.

We got a salad, large pizza, and a dessert to share for $30 bucks.

Not too bad.

The best part was the the drive up with my boy.

I love the chats.

And seeing my favorite cousins.

Yay for dates and Italian food.

Finishing with a bang.

 (The first set of A's was from this last semester.  The ones below it are from the Spanish test he took when he first got back from his mission I think.)

Anyway,  I couldn't be prouder.

I really try not to brag on the blog, but since it is my journal I feel I can just a little bit.

But he's done.

An official BYU graduate.

With a major in Spanish and a minor in philosophy.

And this very last semester he did it.

He got another 4.0.

Now to some this may not be as impressive as it is to me.

But only in my very wildest dreams could I ever achieve grades like that in college.

So I am definitely sharing in on his excitement.

Plus it's nice to finish off with a bang like that!
Even though he has his Bachelors, it doesn't feel like anything too exciting since we know that there are years and years left of school. But it is definitely a giant step in the right direction.
So woot Michael!
I also just feel so grateful and so very blessed to have married someone who is willing to work so hard for our family.  Even though 8-10 years of school is definitely no breeze.
So I love you Michael.
Congratulations!

P.s. We'll keep you posted on what's next for us.  Things are a bit up in the air but we should start figuring things out soon!