Photo booth

Apparently Ava has discovered photo booth on my computer.  Here are few of the little treats I discovered on here today.....

There were at least 50 to choose from, and yes the first one is of her backside.  I love her sense of humor!  Never a dull moment around this house.

Emotions......

I feel like a basket case lately.  All of my emotions are very close to the surface right now.  I think that I have just been realizing how overly blessed my life is.  Some of the things I have learned in school are heart braking and discouraging and out right outrageous.  And I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I haven't had to deal with many of them first hand.  I feel lucky that so far I have managed to beat the odds in my situation. I AM SO BLESSED and I AM SO THANKFUL for all that I have!

My older sister, Katie, is having a baby practically any day now, but for sure on October 5th.  Every time I think about what it is going to be like to welcome her sweet baby boy into this world I tear up. Isn't it strange how I can love some one so much and I have never seen his face and I don't even know what his name will be.  But I all ready now that I would do anything for him and that I love him more than words can even express.

When Katie told me she was pregnant I had a lot of mixed emotions and I didn't quite know how to react.  I was so excited for this new nephew to come into our lives, but at the same time I was a little sad.  It can be hard some times to see other people all around me having the things that I want so badly.  The last year has been so hard for me in more ways than I can even talk about, but through it all I have learned the lesson that there is a time and a season for all things.  Right now my job is to finish school and enjoy that accomplishment.  My job is to keep developing my talents and establishing a career.  My job is to love Ava and teach her the things that will bring her the most happiness in the world.  And most importantly my job right now is to be a worthy temple recommend holder so that when the time is right for me I will be able to enter the temple and create an eternal family.  Then it will be my turn to have more babies.  Until that time, I am extremely blessed to share in the happiness of the babies my sister is bringing into the world.  And when the time is right, she in turn, will help me love mine too.

Just a glimpse.....

I am just a little sad that I haven't blogged a little more about all of the interesting things that I learn in school.  I am sorry that I have been keeping some of the seriously great bits of information from you all!  I have really learned some great stuff, I mean really great stuff.  I have a really tough semester ahead of me, I won't lie, but I have decided that I am going to get through it some way. So, I am going to look for the good amidst all the chaos.  That being said I am going to share what has been my favorite part of the semester so far (lucky you!).  I am taking writing 2010  this semester (and I think you all should know that I am the OLDEST person in my class, and I would be surprised if my teacher is more than 2 years older than me, in fact I may just be older than him).  My first assignment is to write a rhetorical analysis on the 2005 Kenyon College Commencement Address by David Foster Wallace.  You can find it here, read it!  I found it to be inspiring and a source of inspiration for every person.  I love it when a teacher assigns reading that I can really get into and appreciate and relate to it on a personal level.  THAT my friends is the BEST part of being a full time seeker of knowledge.  I want to share just a few parts that really struck me and spoke to me:

 "learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.  it means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.  Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

and this one is really good:  "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.  That is real freedom.  That is being educated, and understanding how to think.  The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."

I LOVED THIS LAST QUOTE!  I felt like it spoke to the very core of what has really given my life meaning.  I know who has taught me the essence of this kind of freedom.......

Have you learned this lesson yet?  Who gave you the gift of experiencing "freedom"?

Soccer.....

Ava has started soccer again, and if I do say so myself, she has the most stylin soccer uniform EVER!  What do you think?

 

I know, I know........

Yes, I am terribly aware that I am so far behind on updating you all on the excitement of my life! And boy is it ever exciting, but you will have to keep waiting.  Why?  Because I started school last week and I am in the middle of my I just started school and I feel like the stupidest person in the world mode. And I am wondering how I am ever going to survive this semester with my sanity, and I am grouchy, and I feel like crying, and we started soccer, and I have a young women's calling and I have to teach the combined lesson this week which causes me much anxiety, and I am frustrated with my online statistics class cause my lab book is not in stock yet and the class website is not working correctly, and...... and..... and.... my pity party list could go on and on and on.  Do you get the point?  To sum it up, right now I pretty much feel like a walking headache.  So I am going to take probably more tylenol PM than a girl should (don't take this part seriously, I am only taking 3) and hope for some much needed sleep because the last two nights have been spent tossing and turning and tossing and turning and Ava up crying because of bad dreams. Wish me luck people, it is going to be a wild ride!