1st Grade!

So last night, I went to a meeting about Student Teaching that starts in January and I'm teaching 1st Grade!!!

Ahhhhh! I'm super excited! I was in 5th grade this semester, so it'll be quite the difference, but it's gonna be awesome!

"Our Lord, Jesus Christ.... Amen!"

I love little kids! Today, we had our primary program. Our primary is only 18 months to 3 years old, though. We don't have any kids older than three in our ward.

So 6 parents got up with their kids and the kids mumbled their things like "Jesus loves me," and "Jesus died for me." and then the parents gave mini-talks and bore testimony. It was very sweet.

Some kids freaked out with the microphone, but most of them wanted to talk all day especially when they got the reaction from the congregation.

A lot of the kids wanted to say more, so the parents whispered in their ears what they should say and the kids sometimes whispered the same thing. One little boy said something where the sentence ended with "our Lord, Jesus Christ" and he added "AMEN" like a proud little boy who knew what came after saying Jesus Christ. It was adorable.

It made me so happy. Even these little children know who Jesus is. They know how prayers are said. They know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love them and that their parents love them. And they know that that is what matters.

I am thankful for little children who show us what really matters in life.

Fall!

So these are some pictures from the time of fall. I love fall. It's gorgeous and a nice relief to heat.

This is the Pickle's Place. It's got a famous "atomic burger." It was good. Not much else, though.

So I have these skeleton lights that I had hanging up by my window. When I came home one day, I saw this shadow on the wall. I thought it was very fitting for Halloween.

This is Jason and me at our ward Halloween party

This is Pumpkin Soup. It's a family tradition that I just love! Every Halloween, my mom makes it and half of the family loves it and half really could care less. I had to try it out and make it on my own and see if Jason liked it. It was a hit!! We even had a couple over because we knew it made a lot. They loved it too!

See?

Then, on the actual day of Halloween, (we had a halloween weekend) we made treats for a party at a friend's place. it was fun!

We made eyeballs, used q-tips, deviled eggs with olive spiders, and mad scientist drinks!

This is the tree in our front lawn. It is gorgeous! In the spring, it has a zillion berries and all of the birds in Rexburg flock there! This fall, it gradually turned colors. I loved it, so here's a picture!

Fall is fun! Doesn't it make you want a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils? ;)

Fablehaven

I love to read good books. I have learned that my sister recommends the best books. I still have yet to learn the art of finding my own books and then recommending them to others, but I will master it someday! Anyway, Fablehaven is at the very top of my list of favorite books. It's written for just about any audience. I love it!!! If you haven't read it, read it!! it's great! It has all of the fairy tales, goblins, and witches you will ever need in any book.

I went to a Fall Into Books Literature Conference a couple weeks ago. It was AWESOME!!! I went because the author of Fablehaven would be there. Brandon Mull is a hilarious guy. He's pretty much a geek who really knows how to move words around. This is him.

When he was doing his keynote speech, he told us that he was crazy because he sits in his basement and imagines he's a 12 year old girl talking to centaurs, he's a geek because he imagines different worlds in his head, and he's a killer because people accuse him of killing characters. He then said that we had the great opportunity of listening to a geeky, crazy, killer. :) His laugh was also hilarious. He had that...well...geeky laugh. It made you laugh harder just hearing it.

His keynote was all answers to questions he would get from people about writing. To the question, "How do you want people to feel when reading your book?" he said this answered the question beautifully:

Mull has done other books, but the only other one I've read is this one. It's a children's story about a boy who decides his imaginary friend isn't cool anymore, so his imaginary friend becomes his "imaginary enemy." It's a really cute book and I recommend it to any book-collector!

The illustrator of Mull's books was there as well, Brandon Dorman. He was really funny as well. He is spectacular! He had his work up on a slide show, talked about how he became an illustrator (went to BYU-I, by the way!!!!!), and just had fun showing us pictures and telling us stories. He illustrated all of the Fablehaven books, The Candy Shop War (Brandon Mull), and Pingo.
This book, Halloween Night, was on sale at the convention. I read it and fell in love. It's the story "T'was the night before christmas" in Halloween form. It's the cleverest thing! I love Halloween, so this book just thrilled me. Then, the pictures were stunning (done by Brandon Dorman). I love it!!
The conference was awesome. I even got my mom's copy of the fifth Fablehaven signed. I got my own copy of the first three books recently, so I got my first one signed and it even says "Hi, Grace" from Brandon Mull. pretty cool. They're both really nice guys and very easy to talk to and they do a great job at what they love to do!!!

Craftiness

I like to do crafts. I'm always really nervous during the process, but it always turns out really well!

This summer, I didn't do as many crafts as I had planned, but I still did a lot!

This is a jean quilt! I've been working on it-slowly-for about 2 years now. I had the squares all lined up in their columns, but this trip to Arkansas I finished it!!

It's for all of those awesome picnics we'll go on! :)

J and our beautiful nieces playing on the blanket.

So this isn't quite a "craft" as you would identify it, but I think it's quite crafty! I did the bride's hair! She's in beauty school, so she brought home one of their FANCY curling irons and I got to use it on her hair. It took two and a half hours, but it looks beautiful! I'm quite proud of it!

This is a baby blanket I crocheted for one of my best friends and her new baby. I started it at the beginning of this summer and finished about 3 months later. I would crochet while watching tv and then when we were driving 25 hours. I used the same pattern my mom always used for when she made baby blankets. It's got two strands of yarn-one yellow and one white.

Then, I improvised with the border. I'm really proud of it!

Also when I was in Arkansas, we made cards (forgot to take pictures of each card, but I'll let you imagine the awesomeness) and jewelry. These are a pair of earrings I made. Everyone wanted their own pair. :)

I love making things. It's fun to be able to say, "Oh, thanks! I made them!" when someone says it looks good.

School

I love college!

I have loved being up here in Idaho. It may be absolutely freezing at times, but it sure can be beautiful!

I discovered here at college while getting smartified, that snowflakes really look like the paper cut-outs you do in elementary school! Not just balls of fluff!!!!

Like I said, gorgeous!!
I loved going to dances! I really got a lot of use out of my gorgeous dresses from high school!
I love BYU-I-do!! It's totally stereotypical, but it's true. Everyone gets married. These are the three roommates I can claim as "marrying off." They met their someone when I was their roommate. I have several FHE sisters I saw get married. I have lots of old roomies that I have now seen get married. I love weddings!!!


My roommates were AWESOME!
I loved FHE!
We always had fun together.

I loved making quote walls!!
Random trips to Walmart! The best!!!
And my best friend that I met here at BYU-Idaho. He's truly awesome. And I'm so lucky!

I love being around all of the people that believe the same things that I do.

I love that I attend a school where we pray before every class.

I love that all of my teachers live the same standards I do.

I love the atmosphere.

I love Devotionals on Tuesdays.

I absolutely love religion classes!

I didn't know for sure that this was the right place for me to go. Once I got here, though, I knew.

I still know. I still know that this is the right place for me right now. I'll admit, I'm jealous of my friends that get to go home more than for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I know that I am so much wiser and grown up now that I've gone through being away from home.

I have learned so much!

Most of all, I have learned to rely on my Heavenly Father. I know he will never lead me astray or leave me on my own.

Philippians 4:13 has been my strength throughout my tough times and even my easy times.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

ARKANSAS!!

I think Arkansas is pretty much amazing. I grew up there and think it's awesome. This summer, Jason and I worked in Boise and saved some money by living with his parents. So mid-August, we drove the 25 hours and 1,559 miles straight through the night to get there.

This was the beautiful view of Jackson, Wyoming.

Pretty much the best sign ever. :)

We were pretty excited.

Lu and I had a joint birthday party, so we blew up a ton of balloons. Ev learned how to blow them up, so we had a lot!

This is the kids drumming on them and stomping around the house in beat with the "drums."

Birthday girls with our Funfetti Elmo cake!

Lu LOVES Jason! She would come over in the morning and come straight up to our room. She told us how much she loved him. One night, she cried that she wanted to play with Jason.

One night when the parents were making sushi, us kids went upstairs and played dress up and had a little fashion show. Here's M the bride.

And this is Lu as her bridesmaid

Here, I chose her outfit. She was a hunter. :)

Yummy sushi!!!

I told you she loved him!!

And Jason loved it!!!

It was an awesome trip. Two wonderful weeks of just family with a touch of friends put in there! I miss them, of course, but it was a good visit. It should hold me over until Thanksgiving! :)

We had lots of fun nights of camping, games, jewelry, cards, crafts, and just a lot of fun stuff. It was great!!

My Big Sister

My Big Sister's birthday is today.

She is the world's best big sister.

She's crafty! She made my veil for my wedding! I now have 2 of her fabulous bags, and she makes beautiful dresses, skirts, shirts, jumpers, you name it for her girls!

She is also tons of fun! She loves to laugh, go to midnight showings with me, be silly singing every other word to a song together, and overall, lots of fun to be around!

I'm ten years younger than my sister. She found out what I was at the ultrasound before anyone else did. The nurse knew she would want a little sister, so she pulled her aside and told her that I was a girl. I remember sleeping in the same room with matching bedspreads. I remember watching a chick flick in the living room on the hide-a-bed and sleeping there that night. She would complain about me hitting her in my sleep.

My sister is an awesome mommy. She thinks the world of those little girls! She is always looking for the best thing, the cutest thing, the sweetest thing for her sweet little girls!

We have fun together.

I love my sister. She's awesome. She cares so much for me! I love that she calls me so often when I'm away. I love talking to her for hours! I love all of the silly memories I have of her. I miss my sister. I wish I could be there with her to talk to her, to play games with her, and to just be around her! My sister is amazing.

Happy Birthday, Sizzy!