Happy Father's Day to My Sweetheart

We are getting closer to actually meeting this little baby girl I've been toting around for 7+ months. It's hard to believe we are actually going to see her in person in the not-too-distant future! We have been anticipating that moment for so long! As excited as I am, I realize more lately the fact that it will never again be just the two of us. That makes me a little sentimental. I just love my husband so much and like being able to put him first and take care of him as he does for me. While it will be trickier with a baby, I hope he will always know that he is #1 in my life. He is the one that will be there with me when this baby, and her future brothers and sisters, are grown and gone. He is my love and best friend--not to mention the handsomest guy I know. :)

All that being said, I want to give a special shout out to my sweetheart on his very first Father's Day! Sam is already the best dad--he takes care of me and always puts me and my big belly first. :) When I think back over my pregnancy so far, it makes me emotional thinking about what a gem he has been through the ups and downs. He was there when all I could do was hang out on the hard bathroom floor next to the toilet for hours during the first four months of pregnancy. It makes me smile thinking about how, time and time again, he would squeeze in that tiny bathroom to sit on the tile and keep me company while I tried not to throw up. He made dinner and went grocery shopping when I couldn't. He was a good sport about me going to bed at 7pm for months on end--the silver lining there being lots of homework time and great grades for him that semester! He has endured a huge body pillow taking up 1/2 our queen sized bed for the past six months with no complaints. And the list goes on. Point being, he is the best husband and soon-to-be dad around! I am so grateful I have him and so grateful that our baby gets to have him as her dad--we are the luckiest girls.

Be Mine

I have always loved Valentine's Day. My mom, grandma, and nana always made it a special day for me growing up. My mom always gives several little thoughtful, fun presents; my grandma always sends a sweet card with a surprise, treat, or gift inside; and my nana always gives a basket or bag filled with candy (Valentine's candy is my favorite!) and other little presents. I love celebrating love. :) I'm sure you've seen this quote from Les Mis floating around:

Love it!

This year was hands-down my favorite Valentine's of all time. Sam was super thoughtful and sweet all day. He forgot about our 1 month anniversary, and I joked to him that I'd let him off the hook then but that I'd be really sad if he didn't step it up for Valentine's. The pressure was on. :)

Sam is not really the biggest romantic (neither am I), but he really went above and beyond. He got up early and while I was still sleeping made me breakfast in bed and made (drew?--not sure what verb to use here) me a super hot bubble bath. It was such a relaxing morning! 

My mom dropped off these cute flowers for us:

During lunch, we met up in the Benson building and found a spot in the hall to sit on the floor and watch a few episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond (our fav show) on the laptop while eating leftover taco salad (Sam) and an apple and a turkey sandwich (me). Very romantic lunch indeed. :)

During my Victorian literature class we looked at these darling Valentine's from Victorian England:

We left school and work a little early, around 4, to go to Outback for dinner. We got a giftcard there for our wedding and have been wanting to go ever since, but every time we've tried there's been an hour+ wait. It was great!

After dinner, we decided to go to Bed Bath & Beyond and Macy's (where we still have lots of gift cards) and each pick out a few gifts. Our first stop was Bed Bath & Beyond where we decided to split up, set a timer for 20 minutes, and fill our carts with whatever we wanted. Then we met back up to see what we had gathered and picked a few things each. We did a similar thing at Macy's. It was super funny and really fun. We ended up with some kitchen organization stuff, a nose hair trimmer :), some lipstick, church socks, and a belt. Fun stuff! :)

We stopped at Sweet Tooth Fairy to get some cake bites. Coconut is my favorite right now. Yum.

To finish off the day, we went to my parents' house to watch Ben open his mission call. It was so exciting, and we are so proud of him. He is called to serve in the Ventura California mission and leaves June 19th.

Happy Valentines Day! Love to you all! 

Planning a Wedding (in pictures)...

Like most girls, I had some ideas of what I wanted my wedding to be like, but I had never planned it out in too much detail before we got engaged. I did know that I didn't want to have a Christmasy wedding (red), and I didn't really want a lot of color. I had always pictured having a very classic, timeless wedding, and with that in mind I was able to decide on black and white/cream as our wedding colors pretty quickly. We brought in a little color via the greenery, but the colors essentially were black, cream, and gold. (I just typed cold instead of gold...haha. I think cold and our wedding have become synonymous terms in my mind! It was so cold, beautiful, but sooo cold!) 

Our wedding really turned out beautifully, and I credit that completely to my mom, Grandma, Nana, and Penny (along with lots of help from extended family, good friends, and neighbors)! 

Here is a little re-cap of the planning process:

We picked 1/2/13 as the date. When we first talked about getting married, Sam asked me when was the soonest I would feel comfortable getting married...I said February. :) We ended up choosing January because it worked best for our out of town family and in regards to our school schedule. It worked out great! I wanted to have a normal Christmas (since I hadn't been home for Christmas since my mission), and we were totally able to do that. The holiday season was a little crazier than usual, but we were able to enjoy it and get wedding stuff done at the same time. 

Once we had the date in place, we scheduled the temple. I had always imagined getting married in the Salt Lake temple because that's where my parents and lots of extended family were married, but Sam and my mom talked me into the Timpanogas temple. It was close to home, was the temple we had both grown up with, and was also close to our reception and luncheon, which was especially important to consider due to the weather in January. It worked out great, and I was so happy with our choice.

Next, we picked we picked the wedding party. It was so hard to narrow it down (there are just so many people I love and consider close enough to be a bridesmaid), so we kept the wedding party pretty big. My bridesmaids were my sister, Tara, my sisters-in-law, Carly, Sophie, and Kori, my cousins Madeleine and Allison, and my friends Mandie (Maughan) Krause and Shayly (Terris) Levesque. The groomsmen were Sam's brother, Rick, his brother-in-law, Micah, and my brothers, Jake, Ben, Josh, and Danny. It was a big wedding party, but it was great!

 My mom has great taste and really should take all the credit for the decor at the reception. She also single-handedly picked the reception location, Fox Hollow Golf Course. We liked Fox Hollow because it was right between Alpine and Lindon (our home towns), had a warm, lodge-like feel, and had beautiful surroundings with not a lot of other establishments surrounding it. 

For the reception decor, we started out by going to Taipan to look for greenery to incorporate. My grandma ended up finding some beautiful lit wreaths online that we ordered to hang on each of the windows in the reception hall. Here are some pictures we took as we looked around Taipan, trying to narrow down what we wanted to get and figure out the look we were going for. 

One of the first things we did was pick my wedding dress. The first dress store we went to was a dud. The second store was AMAZING. It reminded me a lot of TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress." I had a bridal consultant and the whole deal. It was so much fun! I was very specific about what I wanted (lace, elbow length sleeve, etc.), and I found two dresses I loved. The only bad part was that they order all their dresses in there, and it wouldn't be done until early December and would need to have the sleeves rebuilt after that. We decided to think about it and maybe come back. On our way home, we stopped at a little hole in the wall bridal store in Salt Lake. Right on the rack I saw a dress that fit all my requirements (it even had the sleeves already!). I tried it on, and it fit! My mom started crying, and we knew it was my dress. We had to have some minor tailoring done, and it all worked out great!

Picking the wedding party clothes was so much fun. We knew we wanted the boys in black tuxes, so that was easy. I was pretty sure I wanted classy black dresses for the bridesmaids, and there were SO many to choose from. We ended up finding the ones we picked at H&M. It worked out great because my tiny, 11 yr. old maid of honor was able to wear the exact same dress as the other bridesmaids with only a little hemming involved.

One of the next big things we did was figure out our housing situation. Sam's apartment contract was easy to sell, but mine was trickier. It was more expensive and with so many girls going on missions, it seemed like everyone was putting up their apartment contract for sale. After a lot of poster making and word of mouth advertising, both of our contracts sold. Such a relief and such a blessing. 

As far as choosing where to live, there wasn't much debate over where we would live once we received an offer to live in the Lisonbee's (Sam's sister's in-laws) little house in Orem. Sam's aunt has described our house as "a little cottage on an estate." That is essentially where we live. It is amazing, and we love it so much. 

For our photographer, we chose Kristina Curtis. You can look at her website here. She did the photography for my friend Mandie's wedding last spring, and I just loved her pictures, so it was a no-brainer in choosing her to do our wedding too. Kristina is so much fun to work with and is so talented! If you are looking for a photographer for any occasion, I highly recommend her! 

We also chose to have a videographer, and I haven't seen our video yet, but I'll post a highlight video when we do. (We picked David Stauffer because we really loved the videos we saw that he had done. You can see his work here.)

 For our florist, we worked with a woman named Millie. She was the florist for Carly and Micah's wedding, and she did such a beautiful job. We even got to go with her to look at tons of flowers and pick what we liked. She has great taste, and I would definitely recommend her as well.

I did a lot of experimenting to figure out what I wanted to do with my hair and makeup. I went and got my hair done at Amara in an up-do for my bridals and then decided to do it myself and curl it for the actual wedding day. Carly helped SOOOO much in the makeup department. She went with me to pick out lipsticks and did my makeup three different times to try different looks before the wedding day. Then, she came over early the day of our wedding and did my makeup. She did such a good job, and it was so nice to have her do it and not have to worry about it! 

Our invitations were done by someone in Salt Lake. They were simple but beautiful and exactly what I wanted.

Rough draft version:

The picture we used:

 For bridals, we decided to have Sam come since we felt like the weather was going to be so up in the air on our actual wedding day. I debated about doing this because it seemed a little less fun to have him see me in my dress before the wedding, but we felt like the pros out-weighed the cons. It ended up being really fun, and we got some great pictures. I'll be sure to post a bunch when we get them all back.

We had a fun time picking Sam's ring. One of the last things we did before the big day. I think he's still adjusting to wearing a ring. Haha. He got a stainless steel band, and we both really like it, but it does get scratched pretty easily, so that's something to consider if you're looking to pick a ring.

I think my favorite part of the wedding was picking little details for the decorations. I was in school and didn't have tons of time to do this, but it was so much fun!

Our Story (in pictures)...

The first pictures I have on my phone with Sam. 

We were babysitting Eleni, and she had strep throat:

But to back up a little bit:

The story of how we met depends on who you talk to. My mom will say that she felt inspired for me to live where I did and to be in that particular ward after I got home from my mission. Sam's mom will say that when she met me at a F.H.E. activity at their home, (Fred, Sam's dad, was in our bishopric) she knew we were going to get married. We hadn't even met! :) She introduced us briefly that night when Sam came home for a minute to get a tennis racket. My uncle Mike and aunt Sharon (who live in Sam's family's ward) also thought of setting us up and were planning to do so. 

All of these factors came together to help us meet, but we really met at institute a few weeks after I moved into the ward. I had been home from my mission for about a month, and Sam had been home since November. Sam said he noticed me when I gave a talk in church my second or third week there. He introduced himself at institute, and we walked home together. I remember thinking he was so nice and easy to talk to and also really handsome. I just felt an immediate connection--we had quite a bit in common, and our families knew each other. I remember calling my mom that night and telling her about him. The next week at institute, he asked me out. I remember I had really made an effort to get ready for institute that night, hoping that I would get to see him. I was wearing a bright green and yellow shirt. I don't remember what he was wearing. :) I made an effort to find him during the refreshments after and was so excited to say yes when he asked me out. 

Our first date, in Sam's words, was a mess. I didn't think so. The important part--enjoying each other's company and getting to know each other--went great. Everything else kind of fell apart though. We went to the creamery to get ice cream and then were going to go the art museum, but it was closed. We then decided to go get a board game from his apartment and go take it to Rock Canyon park to play--it ended up being freezing at the park, so we finally went back to his apartment and played Ticket to Ride with his roommate. Then, he walked me home. We hugged. We both said we should do this again sometime. Even at the time I felt different about that first date than I had about others. I won't say I knew or even thought we would get married, but I felt like there was a lot of potential. :)

We went on dates and hung out quite a bit over the next month or so. I think our second date was meeting to play tennis right by our apartments. I was almost an hour late because I couldn't track down a tennis racket. Sam waited and was still nice when I got there. "I've just been warming up!" he said cheerfully. I just love him. :) Sam held my hand for the first time during a movie we went to with friends from our ward. We were both so nervous that we never moved positions the entire movie. Super sweaty hands and stiff arms by the end, but we were happy. :) 

In July, I asked Sam to come to Lake Powell with my family. We hadn't been dating very long, but my parents said I could bring a friend, and I just figured I'd rather bring Sam than anyone else. It proved to be one of the best decisions I've made! :)

The first picture we ever took together.

By the end of the trip, I think we both knew our relationship was going somewhere. Sam says at this point he knew I was the one he wanted to marry. I'm not sure I'd had that exact thought quite yet, but I was definitely falling in love.

Making pizzas with Sophie the day after we got home from our trip.

Sam didn't shave the whole trip and was growing quite the beard.

 At my cousin Alex's mission homecoming the next day.

The Sunday after we got home from Lake Powell, Sam kissed me for the first time. I was about to leave town for a family reunion, and he said he didn't want to miss the chance when he wouldn't be seeing me the whole week. I was pretty hard to get for that first kiss, poor guy. I was just so nervous ..Then, I left town (with limited cell reception) to hang out with these people (my dad's family) in Southern Utah:

 Everyone knew I had brought a guy to Lake Powell and wanted all the details. 

All I knew was that I was missing him like crazy...

Luckily, he was missing me too.

I got home a few days later, and the rest is pretty much history. 

We (Sam) said "I love you" about a week later after a BYU football game.

About a month later, it was Sam's 22nd bday, and Danny wrote him a note:

Luckily, we were all on the same page. :) 

A few weeks later, it was General Conference weekend, and we got the chance to go to one of the sessions at the Conference Center in Salt Lake.

Meanwhile, Sam was texting back and forth with my mom, trying to figure out the details to get me a ring! My mom tried to get me to look at a website online, and I got mad and wouldn't look at it. I felt like she was trying to plan the whole wedding before we were even engaged. I had no idea Sam was the one who wanted me to look at the website. It all worked out, and a few days later...

...Sam slipped this gorgeous ring on my finger and asked me to be his wife. :)

He proposed at the Thanksgiving Point gardens. I knew it was coming (kind of), but wasn't sure where he had the ring hidden. Turns out the whole box was wedged in his sock. :) We walked around the gardens until he found the perfect spot, and then he popped the question. It was perfect. We ate at Thanksgiving point and then went to go celebrate with both of our families.

October 15, 2012 

(I think...I'm a little unsure about the date. Oops.)

We had only dated for about four months! I always thought I would have to date someone for a least a year in order to feel comfortable enough to even start thinking about marriage, but we both felt so good about it, and it seemed silly to delay the inevitable.