Bouquet

For my Little sister's wedding us bridesmaids had flowers called Star of Bethlehem for our bouquets.  They were pretty when we first received them, but I left mine with my mom cuz I didn't want it to get ruined on the trip home.
This last weekend my mom came up to Bozeman for Lavessa's open house and brought my bouquet with her.  It blossomed so beautifully!  I hate to admit it looks so much prettier now than it did for the wedding.  I couldn't resist taking some photos of it.

Where did June Go?

This month has gone by so fast, I can't believe it!!!
  We went to my parents house on the 12th for a week to have fun and relax before my sister's wedding, but of course it rained.  In between rain bursts we did manage to get some dirt bike riding in and I exploded a watermelon with my dad's shotgun.  What a thrill!!  The dogs enjoyed running around afterwards and finding all the pieces. 

My little sister took her endowments out on Friday the 17th at the Idaho Falls Temple, that same time Coach was getting  his Lasik eye surgery.  Yay!!  He was sorta blind for the rest of the day. My family went to a buffet to eat dinner and poor Coach couldn't tell what the food was.  He said he just kept getting nachos because he could tell what they were.  The next day he was tons better.  It has been over a week now and he can see awesome!  His eyes are still a little bright light sensitive and at night he has sees small halos where lights are, but the doc said that both issues will go away soon.

On the 18th of June my little sister was married.  It was stressful for me because I was her bridesmaid and her photographer.  It was so hard because I didn't have a flash and it was so super sunny out so tons of shadows in faces. :-(  It was supposed to be cloudy that day.  I feel that the photos turned out horribly, and I'm so disappointed with them.  I wish that I would have bought the flash like I've been meaning too, and I should have scouted out the area better.  Instead I was rushing around with other priorities ( Coach's eye check up. ) I definitely should have had a better game plan.  I have one more wedding to shoot in September for my other sister and I'm also in it.  It is so stressful to be two parts I've come to know.

My Baby Sister and her Husband

The Family (minus 2)

The Girls!

I know I look like crap, but everyone else looked great in this photo.  Actually there isn't a photo where I look good in.

 My Family :-)

And of course Big T.  He is so stinkin' cute!!!

On the way home from my parents house we saw this Family of Mosen!! ( If you haven't heard of Brian Regan..you gotta check him out. Hilarious comedian.)

Four Years...of work

Coach and I have been married for four years today.  I wish I could say it was all bliss, but the first 2 years were some major hard work.  I read people's posts on facebook and what not, especially when they are first married and how much they seem to love each other and how it seems blissful and I totally get jealous. Unfortuntly for Coach and I it was a lot of learning.

I realize that when two people come together they both bring their own baggage, in my case I brought more baggage than I believe most people and it was tons heavier!!  I think I had more of the learning to do and more overcoming to do than Coach.  I was already in counseling :-).  I thought that when I got married everything would be better that I would be just perfectly happy...I was in for a little surprise.
We fought through the first year and during our second year I decided to go back to counseling and take Coach with me.  I am a firm believer in some counseling, but it has to be the right kind.
Into our third year of marriage there was a great turning point. I started to validate Coach more like our counselor suggested and and stop thinking because I was older than Coach, that meant I was wiser than he.  I also stopped holding onto my past mistakes (which were many and damaging to the soul) and let myself accept Coach's love.  The other big thing I learned was not to snap at him or let myself be so easily frustrated, I learned to talk to him when I'm frustrated, not yell.  I learned to laugh at the fact that he takes his socks off when he is sitting on the coach and then pushes them under the coffee table with his feet, not really thinking what he is doing.  I still mention it with some disgust in my voice, but with some humor as well.
The biggest thing that I learned, which takes in all of it really, was how to communicate with Coach.  Everyone does it differently,  but it is essential that it is done where you both are getting through to each other!
I'm not sure all that Coach has learned, but I know that he has learned that I have some "scars" and he is more understanding of them and that alone has helped us a great deal.

It has been Four Years and I believe that I'm on my way to super blissful!!  Already I have had those moments where it feels like Heaven on Earth, and those were even before Big T came.  I am super grateful that Coach and I were able to work out our problems and really have a good marriage (as good as we could get) before a third edition arrived in our family.  Our marriage continues to grow stronger as we get wiser as many of your marriages are.

So, I may have not gotten that blissful beginning I wanted, but I do now have the strong marriage I wanted. It just took a lot of hard work and sweat to get it, which will continue!

Dogs & Big T

When I found out I was pregnant I was nervous about having a baby around our dog Spartacus.  Not because he is vicious or mean, but because he is stupid and overly excited.  I was scared he would not pay attention at all and sit or knock Big T down.  I wasn't nervous about Lucius, our husky, because he loved babies and is much more aware of his surroundings.

Big T came home and Lucius was as I suspected, curious.  He was gentle with him and somewhat protective.  Spartacus surprised me, he pretty much ignored Big T and when he did check him out it was one huge kiss and then he walked away.  We did have to teach both dogs some boundries but I figured we would.

As Big T got older Lucius wasn't as curious about him or as protective, he stills "drops by" to say hello though.  Spartacus has been the most surprising for me. He lets Big T climb all over him and pull on his tail, and when he has had enough he just simply leaves and lays down somewhere else. Of course sometimes Big T crawls to Spartacus and then Spartacus has to move again, usually by that time Big T gives up.  Lucius doesn't stay put and allow Big T that much play time with him.  He will  let him for a short while, but not nearly as much as Spartacus and definitely not with the face.

I am very, very pleased that both my dogs are good with Big T and with other children.  There have been some knock downs , but I have also knocked down Big T and other children, so I can't complain.

There are lots of people who don't like dogs around their children, and I respect their views, but for me personally I want my children to be around dogs.  When they start walking and playing outside I know that my dogs will be perfect companions and will protect and watch over my children, like my childhood dogs did.

Your Mind

Have you ever played those game where you are supposed to say the word and the word says red, but the color is orange.  I wonder what it would be like to have grown up or been taught that an "orange" is a "green" or that a banana is red and not yellow.  It is so crazy to me. Our whole life is full of colors and we associate moods with them, how different would our life be if the names of the colors were different? It probably wouldn't be any different if we were always raised in that alternate color world, but to be thrown in to it would probably make us go insane.  At least me.  I never realized how important and how much meaning colors have in our life!
Coach also told me that he can't eat something if it is the "wrong" color.  When I was a little girl on Saint Patrick's day my dad would put green food dye in our milk, or on Valentine's Day our pancakes would be in the shape of a heart and pink.  I'll have to admit the milk was hard to drink because it wasn't white.  I haven't done it for Coach yet to see if he will drink green milk, but I'm guessing he would put up a little fight in his mind. ( Also my dad would put strings in our cereal on April Fool's Day. My oldest sister "Jean" ate her whole bowl and no strings were left in the bowl.)  I just LOVE my Dad!
       Have you ever thought about color in such a way?

Summer

I love the Sun and warm weather.  I don't always realize how much the weather effects my moods.  Now that it is warm out I get to go on more walks with Big T and the dogs and I feel better about myself.  I feel I am not down on myself as much lately, and I don't know if I should attribute it to the nice weather or the fact that I have been with Family a lot in the last couple of weeks.  It is probably both!  I love my Family and have been so fortunate to spend time with them two weekends in a row.

I also love this warm weather so we can have BBQ's.  We bought lawn furniture this weekend and a couple of weekends ago go a little fire pit thing that you can move around.  My goal is to  have tons of BBQ's this summer (when we get our gas tanks filled of course) and invite over couples and families to get to know them better.  That also scares me.  I am a wussy when it comes to inviting people because I'm afraid of rejection or they came and don't have a good time.  I don't want to come off desperate for them to be my friends, even though inside I might feel that way.  I don't know if anyone knows what I'm talking about, but it really is scary.  My goal is to invite over one family we don't know that well before the end of this month.  Wish me Luck! :-)

Mother's Day Weekend

This weekend we went to my parents in Idaho for Mother's Day. I wanted to surprise my mom, but Coach slipped-up on facebook. :-(  No worries though, we still had a great time and got to enjoy being there!
Coach was able to get his bike up and running and the oil changed in both of ours.  They are now home with us for the summer...yeah! Hopefully I will get a chance to ride.  Coach also helped feed the cows with my dad and grandpa, his overalls were a little short. He finally got to experience the itchy feeling of the hay all over in your shirt.
We got to see some of Big T while we were there.  Grandma just loved him and they had lots of fun together.  He took to grandpa better, but that is because they have a special bond.

I love the spring when there are baby animals everywhere! This weekend Big T and Coach were introduced to baby lambs!! I just loved them, they were so small and a hoot to watch. They would jump up and kick their back legs and jump on each other. Such young spirits!

I was a huge fan of these twins they were the smallest ones in the bunch.

We caught, well my mom (Grandma) caught the black twin so Big T could pet him. Coach and I wanted to as well.

The little guy was such a big sport for letting us hold him!

Coach and I fed the yearlings on Sunday, well Coach fed and I did other things.

As a little girl I would wait until all the cows were eating and then i would run by them and scare them all away.  It was cool to see them all jump back and I loved the sound of them pulling their heads out of the gate and running through the muck all at once.

 I thought I needed to give it another try to see if I still enjoyed it. 

                                 I did :-)


 Big T and I checking things out and getting some exercise