Day 87: NOT Snow

The snow makes me happy! 

Are you kidding, I am so sick of the snow! Really, snow on April 29....really!?!

Yeah right...camping is really my happy for today. I love camping. I think that this post may be stemming from the fact that it did snow yesterday and this morning and I am realizing that it could still be a while before I actually get to go camping. The place where we park our trailer during the summer still is sitting under a foot of snow so...  Regardless of this years crazy, out-of-control weather, I am still really excited for a nice warm weekend when we can break in the camping season.

Matt and I love camping! If we aren't home during the summer you can find us here:

or on the 4-wheeler

or fishing

or just hanging out at the family property with the dogs getting dirty

Spoiled dogs...they will do anything for a chair by the fire!

Maybe this post will bring us some warm, spring-like weather. That would be a real happy!

Day 86

I know that I have written about the Church and how it makes me happy. However, today I am happy that I have the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and Eternal Families. Unfortunately, one of Matt's relatives passed away last night. Although we are very sad that she passed away, it makes all of us so happy to know that she is now in peace with her husband. This is such an amazing blessing for us. I'm so glad that we have this knowledge it makes death so much easier to understand.  I can't imagine living my life without this knowledge that we will see our families again.  I love that I can look at my children and know that I can be with them for eternity!

Day 85

DVR. Need I say more?  DVR totally makes me happy. I love that I can sit down to watch the results show of American Idol, fast-forward through all of the Ford music videos and  "dim the lights" comments from Ryan Seacrest, and find out who is going home in minutes all without watching one commercial.

Happy!

Day 84

Today we got to go see Tangled at the Dollar Theater with my mom. I totally love the movie and I am always happy to pay $1.50 for a movie ticket rather than the usual $7 or $8.  

The Dollar Theater is a definite Happy for me!

Happiness Day 83 out of 100

The Hershey's miniatures make me happy!  Well, the Krackel and Milk Chocolate are my favorites so really those two miniatures make me happy.  Of all the Easter candy we have in our house right now, these will definitely be gone first. 

Day 82 and new couches

It makes me so happy when our prayers are answered. Not that I have had any major prayers answered lately but it seems like everyday our prayers are answered in some little way. We are so lucky to have someone who truly cares about each of us and who knows exactly what we need and when!

We finally got our new couches and I couldn't be more excited about them. They are super comfy and I think they look great. I wish that I had a before picture because these couches literally transformed our front room!  They tie everything together. What do you all think?

Day 81: Easter :)

Today is an easy one...Easter! 

Our best attempt at a picture before church. Matt kept telling me, "Camie, he's two!" as I was yelling at Ryan to smile! 

Our Princess all dressed up in her brand new Easter dress!

I love Easter! Easter makes me happy. I love the commercial part of it (hiding eggs, candy, Easter Bunny, and new Sunday clothes), but even more I really love the true meaning of Easter. I love that we celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior. I love that we celebrate his birthday at Christmas and what he did for us on Easter.  Such a perfect holiday. My kids love it too!

Day 80 (Only 20 left but who's counting right?)

My Happy for today is three-fold. One, I am happy that I have indoor heated plumbing. Two, I am happy that my indoor plumbing can handle a mess like this one...

Just to put this in perspective, he is wearing lightly colored jeans!

And three, I am happy that I have great in-laws!

Today we had Matt's family's annual Easter Egg Hunt and "The Biggest Bonfire Ever!"  Every year, on the day before Easter, we get together and have a HUGE bonfire and roast hot dogs. Every year it tends to be a cold and rainy Saturday but we all still love it.  As you can tell, Ryan really loved it!  There was a hill that was mostly mud, thanks to the wonderful rain we have enjoyed, and all the kids were playing their version of "king of the hill." Ryan was the only kid who crawled up the muddy hill rather than walked up. This may have been because he also insisted on wearing his cowboy boots (yes, he also has an authentic cowboy hat too! What can I say, he loves the cowboy stuff!) and the traction wasn't that great. Needless to say, he was really dirty!

The boys! Ryan loves these guys! They are all a little dirty but not like our cowboy!

Full speed down the mud hill (he face planted like 5 times and got up laughing)

We love this event, it is one of my favorite traditions that Matt's family does. Tons of family, tons of cousins for Ryan to play with, and tons of really yummy food!

Although cold and pretty wet, Ryan managed to get his fill of candy for the day and we even managed to get a somewhat decent family picture where everyone is actually looking at the camera!

It almost looks like Ryan is wearing shapps too. Yes, Halle has on her brother's old coat 

Yay...happy!

I Love to See the Temple...

My 79th Happy is the temple.

Mount Timpanogos Temple

Last night Matt and I took a big step since Halle was born. We left both kids with a baby-sitter (that is not one of our moms). This is such a big thing for us. I am so hesitant to leave them with a baby-sitter for some reason. Luckily our ward is amazing and full of young women who I trust and feel comfortable with. I do however feel bad that Halle cried for the first 45 minutes we were gone. I guess she doesn't like strangers. Other than that both kids did great!

We were only gone for a couple hours but we were able to take a much needed trip to the Provo Temple.

 We are so blessed to have temples so close to us. Sometimes I feel kind of selfish when we don't visit very often. It is really amazing to have two temples within 30 minutes of our home and a third one is coming to Payson. The Payson Temple will only be about ten minutes from our home. Amazing!

I am so happy that I have a worthy husband who can attend with me and I feel so blessed when I am reminded of the covenants we made when we were sealed almost six years ago.

Day 78

When we were at my parent's house this last weekend my mom showed me these:

These are a set of books that my mom bought for me when I was a kid.  Each kid has their own set of books and I was so excited and happy to see mine. She let me take my set home and Ryan is in heaven!  I'm tellin' ya, these are really cool books. They tell fun stories and they always teach some sort of lesson.  When Ryan is a little older and starts actually reading, these books will be perfect for him. Everyday he brings me one or two of the books and wants to read them. They are in almost perfect condition and they are stories that I can remember reading as a kid.  I love that I can read Ryan and Halle stories at bedtime that I read with my mom and dad...this makes me happy!

Ryan is reading Oliver to Halle

Ryan's favorite story so far...weird right? Of all the books about animals, dinosaurs, or baseball, he likes the one about hot dogs.

My two kiddos ready for story time.  I love Halle's expression here!

Day 77

I know that this is childish but, the Movie Toy Story 3 makes me happy!  

I love that this is a story that I grew up with. I was about 10 years old when the first one came out and it is so fun to watch this one with Ryan. Ryan still watches this a couple times a week so I pretty much have it memorized. I have fallen in love with all of these characters and believe it or not, I tear up almost every time I watch the final scene of this movie. For some reason it is so hard to say good-bye to these toys.

Halle at 8 months

8 months ago today Halle was born. We love this little girl so much!  She is so much fun and getting so big.

As you can tell by these pictures, Halle has a mouth full of teeth and a HUGE smile to show them off. She has seven teeth with the eighth just ready to push through. For a while she looked like a baby vampire - she got her "fangs" before her front teeth - it was so cute!

For my record, here are a few things about our little Halle girl:

She will eat anything and everything. Her new favorite food as of this week is Graham Crackers. 

Although she is 8 months old, she despises being on her tummy. She gets to her tummy and just screams until I sit her up...stubborn!

No one can make her laugh harder than her brother. She LOVES Ryan so much and just lights up when he plays with her.

She sleeps about twelve hours a night and absolutely will not be rocked to sleep. It is such a blessing that she can be screaming one second and soothing herself to sleep the minute you lay her down. Give the girl her pacifier and her blanket and you are set!

She is so tall; she is literally growing out her car seat. I am putting off buying a convertible one because she still sleeps so well in hers. 

We love her so much. How can you not love a face like this:

or a smile like this:

My Happy for today (this is number 76) is so simple yet so rewarding as a parent.  I am so Happy when I see Ryan and Halle playing together so well. Ryan loves that his sister is finally getting big enough to interact with him. He is constantly laughing at her, kissing her, and sharing his toys with her. 

This was tonight at dinner. Halle was laughing hysterically at Ryan.

 I love how excited they both are.  How can this sight not make you smile and completely Happy!

Day 75: Cancer Free

My brother Adam received some great news today: after 3 months he is cancer free! He had his 3 month CT scan and blood work done and everything came back negative.  This is such a Happy in our families' lives right now. It is so amazing that chemotherapy can literally tear a person down to nothing and just a few months later we can receive such great news. Modern medicine is amazing and I am so grateful for it right now!

By the way, if you haven't noticed, I only have 1/4 of this challenge left! Only 25 to go!

Day 74

Although many of you may disagree, my Happy for today is actually yard work!  I know, kind of pathetic but it seriously makes me Happy. I am pretty sure I fought my parents every time I had to mow the lawn, weed, or pick up rocks (yes, they did make us do this when we didn't have grass) and I am also pretty sure that every time I acted like my life was completely over.

My perspective has now changed.

It is actually pretty relaxing to mow the lawn or work in our tiny little garden. I like the sense of accomplishment when it is our yard and it makes our home look nice. I think that I like mowing the lawn because it is something I can do that doesn't immediately get messed up. You know how you can vacuum and like five minutes later your two year old dumps out his crayons and you have just vacuumed just in time to do it again?  Well the lawn is different it stays nice for at least a few days.

So, yes, I am Happy to do yard work!

Day 73: Yard Sales

I love, love, love yard sales. It makes me so Happy when I see a yard sale, just by chance, and find something that I have been looking for. Today our neighbors were having a yard sale and I found a Cozy Coupe for Ryan and Halle as well as a three-wheeled Spider Man scooter for Ryan. The best part is that I only spent $7 total!  So awesome!

Day 72

New couches. Well, shopping for new couches makes me Happy!  


Matt and I have always had hand-me-down couches.  It is kind of funny actually. When we were first married we had a white couch from Noelle's parents. Then we inherited my grandparents' leather couch. When we moved the third time we lived in a condo which was somewhat furnished and now we have some couches which Matt's mom gave to us. Needless to say, I am Happy that we are shopping for our very own, brand new couches.  I am being kind of picky so I haven't quite decided yet, but I have my eye on a set from R.C. Willey.

Do any of you have couches that you are in love with? I am torn between micro-fiber (which I don't really love) or nice fabric couches. Leather is too cold and Ryan would scratch it up so that is not an option.  Any ideas?

Day 71

Today I am Happy for the features on Blogger. Yes, I know, Lame!  However, it is not lame that I was in St. George since Monday and guess what, I kind of cheated on my blogging. I did post everyday, but I wrote all my posts since Monday on Monday. I finally figured out how to schedule a post on Blogger. That means that I wrote all of my posts, went on an all girls trip to St. George, updated my Blog everyday while I was gone, and never turned on my computer the whole time.  (This explains my lack of commenting on your blogs...sorry, I'll make up for it!) 

We are staying in a condo during the week and there is no wireless internet access so this was my solution to the problem. I didn't really want Matt to do my posts and I am sort of addicted to this thing lately so I felt too guilty to skip a week of posts.  

Yay for BLOGGER!

 

Day 70: My Beliefs

I am actually surprised that I have made it to number 70 before using this as my Happy.  I am so Happy that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I am so grateful that I have the knowledge that I do, that we have a prophet on the earth today. I'm grateful for the freedom my beliefs gives me and the comfort in knowing that I can be with my family for eternity. That is such an amazing gift!  I am grateful that I was raised with this knowledge and that my parents believed these same things.

Day 69

It is terrible that my Happy today is something I am bugged and actually kind of angry at.  Well, I know (after last night) that a good nights sleep makes me Happy.  I don't know what the deal was last night but I did not sleep well last night.  Halle, who is usually a really good sleeper, as up at 12, 3:30, and 6 a.m. This is killer when you are used to a full 8-10 hours.  All of this waking up mixed in with Ryan's usual sleep talking (more like sleep "yelling") and "mommy the monsters..." combine to equal one long night. I also failed to mention that I did get into bed until 11:55 p.m. just five minutes before Halle woke up!  YUCK!

I guess we have these nights to remind us how lucky we really are when both kids sleep through the night!

By the way, how does a two year old really know what monsters and ghosts are? Seriously...monsters already!

Day 68

I love my calling in our ward!  I am in the Young Women's Presidency and each Sunday I am reminded that these girls are amazing. I am so Happy that I have the chance to teach them and simply be around them. It amazes me how strong they are. I remember myself at their age and I don't think I had quite the same testimony that they do.  I know it takes up a lot of time but I am really Happy when I am serving in the church!

Day 67: Tim McGraw

My brothers are all going to make fun of me for this post, but they don't make comments anyways so I don't really care. 

Tim McGraw's music makes me Happy.  Totally random I know, but when you are thinking of 100 different things that make you happy for 100 straight days you are forced to really think about the little "Happies" in your life.

A friend of mine just went to the George Strait concert and wrote about on her blog. As I was reading I was reminded of the concert Matt and I went to before we had kids: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Soul to Soul! We had so much fun:

Yes, I did take all of these picture with my phone so they are a little blurry. We had floor seats but they were super far away so we were sneaky and went up to these seats about half way through.  I was only about five feet from him!

He has had so many great songs over the years some of my favorites are:

She's My Kind of Rain

All We Ever Find

Felt Good On My Lips

and the classic

Don't Take the Girl

Ahhh, happy!

Day 66: Natalie and Tara

My cousins are going to love me for this post ;)

Today, my two cousins Natalie and Tara make me Happy. Why? Well, they make me Happy because I am getting to know them so much better through this whole experience.  I know that if I have the looming "0" on the number of comments, they will say something to make sure I know that they are in fact reading. Their comments are funny and something to look forward to. They are also to blame. I mean without them I would have never started this whole 100 days of Happy-mess (okay, I really am enjoying it) and I would never be blogging about them on my 66th day of Happy.

It is kinda funny because I always saw my cousins a lot growing up. We did fun Christmas parties, had family reunions, and we went to each other's baptisms and stuff.  I can vividly remember Tara at our house in South Jordan the day I was baptized. She was much older than me and I always looked up to her and the "older" group of cousins.  Natalie on the other hand was my age. We were in the "younger" group who by the way, was much cooler.  I remember sleepovers with her and making cookies at her house with Ashlee our other "cool" cousin.  I have such fond memories of all of my cousins up until my family moved away when I was twelve years old.   I feel like it just got really hard to keep in touch with my family when we lived in Oklahoma and they were all in Utah. Granted we made it back for some family reunions and a few things here and there but it was never the same for me.

I am so grateful that the internet has helped me re-connect with some of my family. (I say some because some of them blog more frequently than others ;) )  I am so Happy that I am getting to know my cousins and although we see each other like once or twice a year, I feel like I am somehow a part of their lives again.

Day 65: Picnik

No, I did not misspell the title of my post. My Happy for today is the free photo editing software Picnik!

I'm sure that I'm way behind and this is nothing new to everyone else, but I love it! 

First of all it is free and second of all it is super easy to use! It makes such a difference on the few pictures I have played around with. You can add effects to your pictures, add frames or clip art to them, or even make collages and scrapbook pages.   

Here are a few of my pictures that I've experimented with:

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Day 64

A few days ago we had our basketball banquet to celebrate our great season. It is always hard to watch the seniors leave but at the same time it is alway exciting to see the younger girls grow up.

This group of seniors are the girls I started coaching as sophomores. They are such amazing girls. A few of them spoke about the coaches and said such nice things; this is the reason I keep coaching. I definitely don't do it for the money. It is these girls that make it all worth the time I spend during basketball season.  

The seven seniors

The entire JV and Varsity

 As promised girls, you are my Happy for today. You all do make me Happy and I love my job because of the examples that you are to me!

Day 63: TUCANOS!!!!!

If you have never experienced the greatness of

you are totally missing out!

Our little family celebrated my birthday at Tucanos the other day and it made me Happy!  This is such a fun restaurant. If you aren't familiar with it, it is an all you can eat salad bar along with never ending meat and pineapple, brought straight to your table from the grill. Each table has one of these:

 Green tells the servers that you want more food and red tells them that you are on a break and do not need food at that time. 

They have some pretty normal meats like garlic sirloin, bacon wrapped pork, BBQ chicken wings, and shrimp; but they also serve things like chicken hearts, liver, and Cod in a mango sauce. I usually pass on these three meats but Ryan insisted on having some of the chicken heart. The waiter was so nice and gave him one to try. Ryan loved it!  Sick.  He said it tasted good but I think the texture got to him; he spit it out after chewing for a while.  

Halle was so happy at dinner. She loves eating little finger foods (if you can't tell she has like 7 teeth)

The four of us (by the way Halle has now started pulling her flowers off and eating them. That is why she is such a baldy lately.) 

The best part about this place is the Birthday Club. Just go online and sign up for their Birthday Club and guess what, you get a free meal during the month of your birthday. We love this!