We've been blessed with such amazing weather lately we can't help but go outside as much as possible.  Audrey and I try to go for a walk at least three times a week, if not every day, usually to the library.  We've also been very lucky to have a friend here in our apartment complex who has headed up a garden for every apartment here!  We've been so excited to start ours.  It's been our first time gardening so we're a little bit unsure about everything but we're enthusiastic to try!  We haven't had much success yet…but I'm looking at this as a practice run, so I'm not getting discouraged.  Anyways, because of this we have been getting outside often to prep the soil and plan things out.  We sit Audrey on a blanket while we go to work.  It's usually after Andrew gets home so it's nice that the sun is not too bright.  It's in the perfect spot to get some pictures of our cutie pie as she sits on her little blanket discovering nature.

since Andrew works on BYU campus he's able to meet us there after work sometimes.

i love this Minerva Teichert gallery!  my grandma recently gave me a biography of Minvera Teichert and i've really enjoyed reading it so far.  then to come see this and know some background about her…just awesome.

she's a nature baby.  she enjoyed every second of the hike even though it was a lot longer than any others we've done.  imagine seeing a waterfall for the first time!  the world is truly spectacular through child's eyes.

as usual, the pictures don't do it justice.  the waterfall was so beautiful.  we sat on a nearby rock and had our little lunch.

telling secrets

i can't get enough of these two

my happy family

how i adore this little face

We've been having so much fun time with friends and family that are here in Utah!  I love it so much.

these two cute cousins

at the Benning's house for Amy's b-day party!

austin is always so loving to audrey when we come to their house.  he asks her what she would like to play with and explains everything to her about whats going on and what life is all about.

too much loving from mister dallin.  she bounced back though.  after all, he is her future husband.

big smiles with soon-be-uncle ross

our friends mckay and brooke had a baby girl a few months before us!  here they are meeting for the first time.

We've also been having a lot of success with food these days.  Depends on the day, but Audrey's favs seems to be sweet potatoes, carrots, and any yummy fruits.  Particularly apple blueberry baby food.  Above allllll though she LOVES bread, little pieces of bread.

here is Andrew trying to put her shirt on.  don't ask me how it got to this position.  Audrey obviously has him pinned.

she love love loves to stand!

watching a little show.  she enjoys sesame street and peep and the big wide world.

This talk is what I needed right now and I have a feeling I will need it again someday.  I've had so many testimony building moments recently.  I know He is with me.  He reaches out to me constantly in such small ways.  I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior.  They always know what I need.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/fear-not-i-am-with-thee?lang=eng&media=audio#listen=audio

I was feeling very very very down the other day.  It was one of those days that I just felt like wouldn't get going, I felt bummed out by my appearance, and I was feeling SO indecisive about what Audrey and I should do for the day.  I hate when I get indecisive like that…it really makes the day hard for me. When Audrey took her first nap of the day I came into the bedroom and said a good long prayer.  I pray every day, but this one was different because it wasn't hurried like so many other times.  I felt like I was really talking to my Heavenly Father, telling Him my sorrows and insecurities.  It was so personal to me to feel that I could speak honestly about how I was feeling, without worries about what He would think of me.  Maybe that sounds silly, but you know when you really want someone to talk to who will really understand what you're going through?  And even when it's such a small, insignificant, and even silly thing to be so upset about, you know that they don't think you're silly at all.  Sometimes that person has been my mom, most times it's been Andrew.  And yesterday was a reminder that at all times that person can be Heavenly Father.  Most times I feel like the things I worry about and struggle with are nothing compared to what others go through.  But when I can remember that He doesn't think I'm silly or stupid even when I do, then I can always feel better.  That's how it turned out yesterday.  After praying, spending that real time with Heavenly Father, I was able to get up, shake off some of those insecurities, and get on with my day.  And even later in the day when some of those feelings were creeping up on me again He sent me another help- in the form of Andrew coming home early.  I love my God and my Savior.  They know us individually and they will never dismiss our problems no matter how small and silly they may seem.

I loved this video so much.  I saw it in the Relief Society Broadcast and watched it again today.  It happened, of course, to be right when I needed it.  I want to not forget about it, so I'm posting it here for future Hillary.  Every once in awhile I get on here and look through my posts from previous years.  I find so many reminders of things to be happy about.  So this is for you, Hillary, and for my daughters and sisters and friends.  As Mufasa says to Simba, "Remember who you are!"  And remember who God is- our loving Father.

There are a lot of things on my mind lately and I feel the need to get them out here.  I've grown to love this blog so much because it's a special little place where I can talk about the things of my heart.  That's why there are so many pictures of Audrey and so many lovey dovey posts about Andrew on here when we were first married.  But I also have grown to love it because it's a place where I can put the things of my mind as well.  And so I begin…

The thought of taking a year off of school always seemed a bit silly to me.  I've heard about how it is hard to get used to going to school again after being away from it and feeling that freedom from assignments and limitations that schooling presents.  I believed all of that.  It made sense.  So I hoped to keep going till I was done and then leave school behind in a cloud of smoke as I blazed my trail through life, feeling relieved to have that part over.  Now, however, I have a very different opinion.

It all started with Sense and Sensibility.  I watched it those four times recently and it sent me off on a Jane Austen binge like no other.  I've been reading whatever books of hers I can get my hands on and checking out all the different movie versions of these books from the library.  I've been reading a book about reading her books for goodness sake.  I simply cannot get enough!  I've realized, especially in these last few days as I've been enjoying reading and thinking so very much, that I like to learn.  I LOVE to learn!  But the thing is…that love of learning only comes when it's something I WANT to learn about.  And that realization didn't come until I had spent some time away from the classroom.

For most of my life I have considered myself to be, well...unambitious.  That's the only word I can think of to describe it.  Up until recently I've seen myself as being sort of simple minded, I guess.  Not in a stupid way or anything, just in an unambitious way.  Accepting most things I'm told, not challenging anything outwardly.  I've never been openly opinionated about anything really and I guess I thought that was a mark of being ambitious.  I hated math and science throughout school, was pretty okay at english and artsy things, but the only thing I knew was all I ever ever wanted from life was marriage and kids.  This has always been my greatest desire and since being a wife and mother didn't require any schooling I never placed much importance on figuring out something to pursue educationally.  I graduated from LDSBC with an Associates Degree and got far less than halfway through my Bachelors when I got pregnant and decided that I wanted to forgo my education for the growth of my family.  This was my greatest desire and something I don't regret in the least.  Make no mistake, friends, this is the life that I chose and a day has not yet come when I have even for a moment second guessed that choice.  I'm truly happy with my decision to take advantage of the opportunity to be a stay at home mom.  I know that not everyone has that opportunity or interest, so please don't mistake my tone here to be one of judgement of those who aren't doing the same thing.  I just really want to reiterate that I have no regrets.

It wasn't until my post-college days, though, that I've discovered a thirst for knowledge unlike anything I've encountered before.  I think part of the reason has been that all those growing up years I had some serious misconceptions about knowledge in general and about what being ambitious meant.  In my mind being smart meant you were good at math or science or both.  It meant you got A's on papers.  I remember in elementary school my friend Alfred Vong was writing in cursive and doing 4th grade level math in 3rd grade.  In my mind he was ambitious because he was smart.  I guess that's mainly what it was- I linked my own definition of ambition with my own definition of being 'smart.'  I was a consistent B student as I remember, with the occasional A and the occasional C.  So I thought I'd go to college, yes, but didn't know what I would study.  Because to me college was mainly for math, science, and 30 page paper classes.

I subconsciously separated things into categories.  Incorrect categories.  I believed that hobbies were hobbies and skills were skills.  Sewing is an example.  In my mind it was a hobby, something that was essential for pioneer times but not a necessary-for-livelihood skill anymore.  Not useful unless you were trying to save money on clothes or sew something for fun.  Little did I know that there was a woman in Utah and thousands of others like her, making a living (a very comfortable living) by specializing in 'custom build-ups' for wedding dresses, who would someday create a beautiful corset back for my sister's wedding dress.  It was her job, her very well paying job.

I guess what I thought was that if it was in the hobby category it wasn't something you could really do anything with for a real live grown up career.  So, that thought was a big bummer for me because all the things I've been interested in have always been things I placed in the hobby category.  Like art, reading, watching World War two movies.  I was so wrong!  And I'm so happy that I know that now.

But I carried these misconceptions with me to LDSBC where I obviously learned that there is a lot more to college than just math and science.  But still I felt that to be successful in the world I had to distinguish myself somewhere in one of those categories.  It all began to change my second semester there with one very small Art History class that I fell in love with.  I had found something.  Something I WANTED to learn about.  And not even just wanted…had a thirst for.  Since then I have found multiple things I'm extremely interested in.  Literature, child development, painting and drawing, movies, family life, writing, church history, regular history, religious studies, anthropology, theater arts, even dance if I could.

Being away from school has awakened in me this great desire for knowledge.  I'd been taking it for granted all those years because it was just always around.  I was always in school, always doing papers and assignments and taking tests.  Stepping away from it for these past two years has made such a difference for me.  I've learned what learning is- it's not just math and science.  It's what life is about.

That's why I've been loving the library so much lately.  I'm so grateful for it.  More grateful than I can express.  You know when people use the phrase 'devouring a good book?'  I always thought it was a little strange.  But tonight I learned that there really is no other word to describe being so enthralled with a book that you physically feel that you cannot put it down, cannot tear your eyes away from it.  I also realize that I've felt that way with other books as well.  Namely the Children of the Promise book series, introduced to me by my older sister.  Tonight though it's been that book I mentioned before, "A Jane Austen Education."  It's this book that sparked this sudden need to express how much I love learning.

Someday I hope to go back to school.  By then hopefully I'll have my list even more narrowed down.  Hopefully my passions will become even more centered and I'll realize even more what I love and want to learn about more than anything else.  I'm really enjoying this time of self discovery.  It's making me itch to get back into a classroom.  To have assignments and papers to do, books to read, a professor right in front of me to ask all my questions to.  Oh how I love bookstores and museums.  I could get lost in these for literally hours.

I'm grateful that I've had this time to realize these things and to find my passions.  That's why I began this post talking about taking a year off after high school or whatever.  I used to think it was a silly, lazy thing to do, but now I think it could be a very good and productive thing for people like me who don't yet know what options and possibilities are out there.  I feel like my eyes have been opened to the joys of learning.

minutes before, those books were lined up neatly on the shelf.  she's definitely a book lover like me!

As said before, I gravitate towards books with great pictures.  These four were amazingly illustrated and has lovely stories to go along with them.

my favs

Audrey has revealed that she likes the books that have really distinguishable faces in the pictures.  I learned about that in my Child Development class but I didn't realize how true it was.  Two eyes, a nose and a mouth is all she needs to get hooked on a book.  She also likes counting books and animal books.  Animal books most likely because of the fool Mommy makes of herself while doing the animal sounds.  She especially likes birdies and puppies.

audrey's favs

The "Cuddle" book may be her most favorite of all library books we've ever checked out.  Each page says something like "smooch, baby, smooch", "hug, baby, hug", or "rock, baby, rock" and when we read it we do each of those things it says.  Today in particular she lit up when we did "snuggle, baby, snuggle."  She did a shy little smile with her shoulders up to her ears and everything.  Gosh, this baby!

We didn't get any movies this month but we have been in a Jane Austen mood lately so we watched Sense and Sensibility (which we already own on VHS) about 4 times.  We also had this book from the library to go right along with it.