Favorite Things

These are some of my favorite things from lately:

-- Eating out. We have a very conservative eating-out budget and usually get fast food once a month, and maybe go to a restaurant every other month (if that). But we had some extra eating-out funds and we were low on grocery budget after stocking up on diapers and making so many freezer meals so we've gone out to eat more frequently than usual this month. It's been so fun for us and I love not having to do the dishes. Among other things, we had a Restaurants.com coupon for a pizza place in West Valley that we've been hanging on to and so we finally decided to just bite the bullet and make the drive. (We had two of the coupons and used the first one to celebrate when we first found out that we were pregnant with Austin. It was so fun to go back there with our little boy and see how far we'd come. I kept feeling all emotional about the whole thing and enjoyed it SO very much.)

 --Good Friends. Seriously, we've been blessed with such wonderful friends and are so happy for the long time friends as well as the ones that we are just starting to get close to. Between the Halloween costume/murder mystery dinner we had with some friends, play dates, gmail chatting, texting, and yummy things dropped off at our door, we've felt so grateful for all the good friends we have.

(The Middleton's invited us over to paint pumpkins with them and we loved it! I think that Lydia and Henry are the sweetest little friends, and it makes me happy to see them sloooowwwly move from playing next to each other to actually interacting with each other.)

--These pictures of when I was working on sewing our Halloween capes. I would sew a bit, then come stand on the toilet so I could check the length or shoulders in the mirror. Lydia watched me do this several times and then she asked if she could put on her cape and look in the mirror with me. It was so sweet and these pictures just make me happy. (And remind me that she watches what I am doing all the time, so I better only do the things that I want her to want to do, too.)

 --Freezer Meals. We've been working our way through the freezer meals that we stocked up before Austin was born and I seriously love them! It's so amazing to just know what's for dinner and be able to pull it out and start it cooking in just minutes. It's definitely a favorite. Between the meals we stored and the meals from friends - we've made it through two months without any major dinner stress. It's definitely been a pressure reliever. (This freezer meal came from our friends, the Shields. So yummy!)

-Can you say "Caramel Apple Bar"? So. Good. This was the dessert at our Stake Primary Training meeting and it was amazing. Fresh cubed apples topped with chocolate, caramel, and yumminess galore. It was the perfect fall treat and I definitely see myself putting this together in the future. Again. So good.

(and the things I don't have pictures for...) 

--White Collar. David and I just finished marathon watching Season 5 on the USA website instead of waiting for it to come to Netflix. It was fabulous - but now we are torn as to whether we want to try to stay caught up with the new season or whether we want to wait for it so we can marathon watch it after it's all over. It's so fun to have something good to watch after the kids go down and we can relax together. We even had a bottle of Martinellis Sparkling Cider that we opened and toasted each other when we watched the last episode. It was so fun. 

--The Holidays! We already had Thanksgiving with my family and will have another Thanksgiving this week with David's family and I just love spending time with David and with our families and I'm giddy-excited about the whole thing. 

--I just bought some leggings and a couple of long sleeved workout-type shirts to wear as pajamas because sometimes it gets a little chilly waking up in the middle of the night. I love, love, love them. So comfy. I've been missing out! 

Also, these guys. 

I'm so lucky to have so many favorite things so abundant in my life.

Our Week

At the end of last week both Lydia and I caught some bug or another and were feeling pretty lousy for a couple of days. I'm happy to report that we are both feeling better, although we didn't do much this week that required a whole bunch of energy. (Well I didn't expend much energy. Lydia seemed to still have loads of energy, even though she wasn't feeling well, she just was a little more grumpy than usual.) I blame the lack of pictures this week on my lack of energy, however, we did do some fun things:

#1- Our great friends, Cassie and Colin came over for some dinner and a little FHE on Monday night. We loved visiting with them.  For FHE I gave a little thought about Charity that I recently discovered through a friend, Cami. I read it on her blog and it was so powerful to me. Charity is something that I've been working to improve on and this quote reminded me how important it is. It's by Marvin J. Ashton:

"Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and mark a part of yourself...Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt ore remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other...The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people...Be one who nurtures and who builds. Be one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them. Be fair with your competitors, whether in business, athletics, or elsewhere. Don't get drawn into some of the parlance of our day and try to "win" by intimidation or by undermining someone's character. Lend a hand to those who are frightened, lonely, or burdened. If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. Once again may I emphasize the principle that when we truly become converted to Jesus Christ, committed to Him, an interesting thing happens: our attention turns to the welfare of our fellowmen, and the way we treat others becomes increasingly filled with patience, kindness, a gentle acceptance, and a desire to play a positive role in their lives."

I loved this so much. It sums up my my desire to be more charitable and a better disciple of Jesus Christ. Thanks Cassie and Colin for the great night! (Even if they did tromp David and I at Dominos.)

#2- Tuesday marked the season premier of S.H.I.E.L.D. and we were so excited. We aren't super huge TV watchers, but we feel strongly about supporting family friendly shows. We want television producers to know that there are people out there that want wholesome entertainment. This seems like it's going to be a really great family friendly show, so we will watch to show our support (unless/until we decide otherwise). This was the very first show I've ever watched the season premier/very first episode of the very first season on the night that it premiered. (I'm usually a "watch it 10 years after the last season was cancelled kind of girl.) We marked it on our calendar and were really excited about it! It was really good and we're excited to have a fun show to watch on Tuesday nights.

#3- I've got to spend some time with my very favorite people this week:
--Lydia and I drove to Aunt Amy's house to visit with her after her surgery that she had last week. Lydia was so shy about it, which is funny because she definitely knows Amy well, but she'd never been to Amy's house before. I was soaking it up because she was willing to cuddle with me on the couch which very rarely happens. We hope that Amy starts feeling better soon!
--My sweet friend Rebekah took me out to lunch for my birthday. We met up at the Thanksgiving Point Deli and enjoyed chatting over lunch. Elizabeth and Lydia are the same age and had a good time playing together (meaning: Lydia loved to play with Zizzy's pink sparkly bow and follow her around). It was so nice!
--We love our Cooper friends and love spending time with them. We get together a few times each week to chat or do something fun. It makes me laugh because Lydia loves both Carson and Elsie SO much (she even started saying Elsie this morning), but if you ask Carson if Lydia is his friend he shakes his head and adamantly says "NO, Elsie is my best friend." Obviously Carson and Lydia are friends. They play together all the time, and Carson is awesome at making her laugh. But for some reason he is super stubborn and won't admit that they are friends. (According to him I'm not his friend, Elsie isn't Lydia's friend, I'm not Ashley's friend, and Ashely isn't my friend. The only friends are Carson, Mommy, Daddy, and Elsie.) Regardless of what Carson will admit, I love all of these people and am glad that we are all friends.

#4- David has been spending quite a bit of time in Logan lately for all of the recruiting events that Eide Bailly is involved in up there. He is really good at explaining to the applicants/students/prospective employees why HMB, I mean Eide Bailly, is a fantastic place to work. He really enjoys being a part of the recruiting process. It's been fun for him to be able to spend so much time in Logan. Wednesday he went golfing with the Beta Alpha Psi group, which was fun but it was SO cold. It was raining and even after lunch and driving all the way home he was absolutely soaked through. It was awesome though, because he got to come straight home after golfing (due to the completely soaked clothing) and just worked from home for the rest of the afternoon. We loved it!

#5- My sweet Jenna-sister came down to visit! She stayed the night with us last night, and she and Kevin stayed up ridiculously late (it was like eleven or something crazy like that) chatting with David and I. I enjoyed it so much. I love Jenna, love Kevin, and LOVE spending time with them. It was nice to have them spend the night at our house and we are looking forward to spending time with them this weekend.

Happy Friday!