Family

Family is the most important thing to me! I absolutely love the holidays cuz it means having an excuse to just hang out with my family all day.

I have the best family I could have ever wished for. We're all very disfunctionally functional. We all have our own different quirks but put together it just works and is the best feeling in the world! The center and binding force in our family has got to be our mom and dad.

My mom is the sweetest, kindest, hardest working woman I know...she would never say anything bad about a single person and if she did mention something that bugged her it's always

so right on and honestly funny to hear her say it in her sweet little way.

My dad is the biggest goofball and has a rough exterior but inside is just a big softy. He surprised us all by showing up as Santa for the kids...I didn't even realize it was him until the grandkids started yelling "It's Grandpa!!" You should've seen my sisters and I, we were all choked up and crying cuz we love our "Pops" so much! It was so great to have him there for Christmas! We are so excited to have him back for good in the middle of January!!

I absolutely love being married too for the fact that I get to inherit a whole other family!!! It's like double the pleasure, double the fun, double the excitement with the Will-yums ;) haha! That was super cheesy ;)

But honestly I love it cuz now I get to be the big sister I never could be with my family and have so many more brothers, sisters and even more parents! I love how fun and just great people they all are! What more could a girl ask for?

I wish every day could be Christmas!!!

I know, I know...I'm working on it...

Such is my blogging history that I neglect you in a time of transition or just pure laziness.

A lot has happened since the last post! We closed on our Clearfield house on the 13th of November and moved out that weekend. We're now living in my sister Brooke's basement in West Point, pretty much straight west of our old house. We live in this one framed room that my Brother-in-law was very sweet to frame, insulate and line the wall with plastic so we weren't breathing in insulation all the time. We tried to transform the rest of the basement into a makeshift closet, family room and, well lets face it, boxes of junk ;)

We really are enjoying ourselves cuz we have really good privacy but still get to hang out with my sister and her family almost every single night. We take turns making dinner and packing it up for lunches for the next day. It's been great to have home cooked meals and I'm learning a lot from my sister about how to realistically plan and budget out meals for 2 weeks!

Our dogs are the ones that have to suffer a little bit because they don't have the backyard anymore and we haven't been able to trust them to be out and about downstairs so when we leave, the poor little things have to either be outside in the cold or locked up in their kennels.

Work has been really crazy busy for me the past month so I haven't had time for much else. We have looked at a few more houses and have a few that we're interested in so we'll see how that goes.

We had a great Thanksgiving with both families and are SO STOKED for spending Christmas with them too!

Who's walking who...or is it whom?

So this morning Trent took our dog Jake for a walk, but rode his bike instead of walking...BAD IDEA! I honestly knew something was going to happen but had high hopes it wouldn't...Why is it when men are hurt they turn into little babies...love you babe ;) It was really fun to take care of him though he's a cute baby :D

SOLD

HOLY CRAP!!!! Alot has happened since, oh you know...YESTERDAY!! We got an offer on our house last night, made a counteroffer this morning and like 20 minutes after we made the counteroffer they called back and accepted the terms. So it's all but official for being under contract they just have to send us back the signed papers for the terms and the process begins! We are just hoping and praying that the appraisal comes back to cover the offer but everything else should be easy peasy....now, where do WE live??? We've got some promising houses we're checking into tomorrow in the Layton area so we'll just take our time and hopefully find a KILLER deal!

House for sale

It's official we are now in the system! We've already had 2 lookers in the past 2 days and have another showing tomorrow...ohp wait...2 SHOWINGS TOMORROW!!! and the day isn't even over yet! check out our MLS site to see our beautiful home!! MLS#: 919580 at utahrealestate.com!

Crazy/busy/good week!

This week has been chock full-o-fun.
Let me break it down for ya...
Monday---HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!! Trent and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary in style. We went shopping at the Gateway and spent the day just hanging out together. We even saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D and LOVED IT! It actually kind of turned into a day full of reinacting our firsts without even trying to do that. We ate lunch at the restaurant we went to on our first date, ate dinner at the hotel we stayed at on our first night of our honeymoon, and we got a couples massage like we did on our cruise for our honeymoon. Then we had our first adventure with anniversary inn which was a blast!

Tuesday---Trent, my mom and I spent most of the day at the temple doing some family names. We were able to do all the ordinances from initiatories to sealings it was just an awesome day. Immediately after we were done at the temple my mom and I started our trip up to Washington and got as far as Dubois, ID to my Aunt's house. I spent the night sleeping on a makeshift bed made by putting couch cushions on top of milk crates...it was interesting to say the least. My mom reminded me of the story of her first night of my parent's honeymoon where they literally had nothing. After eloping to the temple they had no place to stay and ended up at the same aunt's house with my dad left sleeping on the same couch cushions on top of the same milk crates.

Wednesday---We left Dubois and drove 7 hours up through Montana to northern Idaho to another Aunt's house. I've never been to her house and had no idea how beautiful Idaho can be, she lives right on a lake with beautiful views of the mountains surrounding it. We spent the night catching up and looking at mementos of my grandmother(mom's mom).

Thursday---My mom and I attended a funeral for my cousin's husband and were able to see family members that we haven't seen in a very long time. It was a very sad day for the funeral and graveside service but such a cool experience to be there with family. Right after that we started heading back and made it as far as Missoula, Montana and stayed the night in a very nice bed which was the first real night of sleep I was able to have all week.

Friday---We finally made it back home and I had about 3 hours of rest before I got to spend the night with some of my closest friends where we got to find out that one of the girls is going to be adding a baby boy to the group and another friend had given birth to her baby girl all in the same day!

It's been a very busy week but so much fun. Now we have to clean up the whirlwind that is our house after having absolutely no time to even breath it's left looking like a dump. It was worth it though, I feel very blessed to have so many great people in my life and to be able to have these great experiences.

Wonder of Wonders

Trent's leaving tonight to go bow hunting with my brother in flaming gorge. That alone should shock the heck out of anyone who knows Trent! We had to go buy him some camo yesterday...I really hope he doesn't get hurt!!!

Labor Day Weekend

This last weekend Trent and I went up to a place called Marsh Lake with some of my family and some of my brother-in-law's family. It was just what we needed! We haven't had much time to go on a real vacation this summer what with girl's camp, trek and working every weekend it's been really tough.

We had lots of fun doing things like 4wheeling, fishing, camping, going on hikes with the dogs, playing by the lake, going on bike rides, and playing games with the fam. Even with a few rain storms it was the perfect weekend! I even caught my first fish ever in my life!

Here's a few highlights...

To school or not to school

For those of you who don't know I'm not going to be attending school this semester like I had planned. It was a really tough decision for Trent and I to make but at this point in our lives we want to start focusing more on Trent's career. He's going to be taking some very serious surveying tests in the next months. The first of three will be in October...this one's going to be crazy!!! It's an 8 hour test and if he doesn't pass it the next one's not for another 6 months and he can't continue on to the other 2 needed to get his surveyor's license.

To be honest we've been holding back on expanding our family until we know we can rely more on Trent's job. We're also hoping that by the time all the tests are completed the economy will hopefully had picked back up because the survey field has taken a big hit in these hard times too. It's quite the gamble we know, but it's something that will be perfect for our family and just pray that everything will work out. I'm so proud of Trent, he's really talented at what he does and how hard he's worked at school to put us in the place we need to be in. It hasn't been easy with work and church callings and 18 plus semester hours at school he's been a real trooper and feel like the least I can do is support him in any and every way I possibly can.

Here they are as promised

Sorry for the quality, I guess that's what you get with a dirty camera phone lense ;)

Adventures in Babysitting

This past week Trent's been gone to Indiana for a board game convention and my sister-in-law had a teaching convention of her own all day every day all week too so I (not wanting to be alone) volunteered to watch her three darling little girls.
We had a ton of fun all week and did things like go to the park with the dogs, hang out with my other sister and her kids, go to the treehouse museum, and go swimming at the aquatic center with another one of my nieces and one of my nephews as well. I had so much fun doing all of these things I fit right in cuz I'm just a big kid myself. I have to say though that the swimming was my favorite cuz my 3 year old niece had me laughing and playing the whole time!!!
It was so cool to have them all to myself for three days straight but I definitely understand a little bit better how tough it could be to be a single mom. Luckily I didn't have to work these days cuz I don't know what I would've done if I had to try to track people down to watch them while I was away. I totally want to be a stay at home mom if we're lucky enough to have kids some day!
Once I find my adapter for the mini sd card (I took them all on my phone) I'll post some pictures but for now this is the best I can do.

It's my birthday DANG IT!!

So the girls at girls camp this week made me a tiara out of scrapbook paper and sparkles that said around the brim "It's my birthday DANG IT!" These girls know me and my situation all too well cuz I had some plans to go to a swim team reunion with my husband on my birthday but he refused and talked me into going out to eat and a movie instead when I really wanted to go to the party. Now I love my husband and I really did have a good time but shouldn't I get what I want on my birthday??
Then I'm just appauled at all the texts I got from friends and family talking about themselves and never once mentioned anything about happy birthday to me. Now I'm not trying to come off as selfish here but COME ON!!! One day out of the year can be about me can't it? I seriously work my butt off for some of these people trying to make them happy or be apart of their lives and not even a simple Happy Birthday??????!!!! especially when you already took the time to text you can slip it in there casually.
Enough about all the selfish mean people in my life onto happier things. A HUGE THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU to those of you who did go out of your way to make it a very special day...to the young women for the tiara and the muffin with the candle, to my husband for saying such nice things about me in front of the whole camp and making the night fun, to an old friend for calling out of the blue and remembering even though I haven't seen her in over 5 years, to my mom and dad for taking me out to dinner (even though my dad's in texas he still paid for dinner), to my gal pals for almost every single one of them sending me birthday wishes and everyone in between that sent me a birthday wish one way or another.

2 years and growing

June 24, 2009 marked Trent and my 2 year engagement anniversary! I honestly can't believe it's already been two years that we made the decision to love and be with only each other. The first time I knew that I would love only Trent was actually on our first date...maybe even before a little bit.

Trent and I are so similar in so many ways but we for sure have our differences which makes life more interesting. He helps me learn new things about myself everyday and how to be a better person. He has such a quiet strength about him that I love so much; he surprises me everyday with his talents. His talent to love and care for me even though I can be a brat to him, his talent to cook from his heart, his pure love for children who he is so good at having fun with and being a great example to. He is so patient and kind to our crazy dogs, he never gives up on them.

He has the ability to accept people for who they are and forgive and forget so quickly it amazes me he just doesn't let things get to him. There are so many different levels to Trent I just keep finding out new things about him everyday and I want to spend every minute of every day figuring out the next thing I don't know about him. I love you Trent! Saying yes to that one question was the best thing I've ever done in my life!!!

Scouters

Ok one of my first posts ever was about my dog Jake and I still haven't gone in depth about my other little guy Scout.

I have to say I LOVE this furry critter! But he is one of the most confusing animals alive...for the most part all he wants to do is sleep like right on top of me any chance he gets. When Trent and I cuddle on the couch and I'm in the back he can't just lie in front of Trent, he has to either try to come between us or if that doesn't work he finds a way to lie on my hip that I'm not lying on. Seriously, one night I woke up in the middle of the night with THE worst pain in my right hip, it was so bad that I thought it was broken or something cuz I couldn't move it but then I looked down and realized that it was just Scout lying on top of me. I don't know how that could be comfortable or how he balances there cuz I was lying on my left side with him stretched out on the other.

The other thing that confuses the heck out of me is he's so calm like all the time except when I first get up in the morning or let him out of his kennel. At those times he's jumping at my legs and nipping at my fingers constantly. And sometimes just out of the blue he starts whining or barking at me and when I try to take him outside or pet him he doesn't stop.

Lastly, I've just realized that he's afraid of the tin bowl that we put his food in. This whole time we just thought that he didn't want to eat dog food cuz his last owner was a homeless guy who fed him anything he could so we just figured when he got hungry enough he would eat what's put down for him. For the most part he did but recently he's been holding back. He would take a piece of food really quickly from the bowl and then run away but when I put it in my hand he ate the whole thing and finally we put the food in a plastic bowl and the poor guy wolfed the whole thing down in like 5 minutes.

But with all his craziness and quirks I love him even more. It makes life really interesting. By always wanting to be next to me he makes me feel loved unconditionally. He has a way of looking at me like I'm the only person in the world that matters to him.

Friendlies

Trent and I have the best friends on the face of the earth I swear! Over the past 3 years or so I've been adopted into a close circle of friends that have been together for like 11 years. I honestly don't know how I got so lucky to be welcomed so openly. They are all just so amazing and the sweetest girls on the face of the planet. We have the best time when we're together and usually can't stop laughing our heads off.
Here's a tribute to you all:
Kess you were really the first one to befriend me and you were so sweet to always think of inviting me when you all were getting together. You are soooo soooo funny and the most caring person I know. Some memories of you are making a christmas movie for Ryan on his mission ("Elf"), good old presidency meetings, the terdz birthday party for you on 6/6/6, and just hanging out for hours.
Morgan you are the style guru! I don't think anyone expects you to be as goofy as you are but you are hilarious and I love to laugh at the silliest things with you. Some memories are meeting with you guys at the cove and saying how I expected there to be skulls as decorations ;), the terdz, guessing wedding dates during sunday school, lagoon day, and the luau are just a few gems.
Tiffany you are the cutest, sweetest, quiet giant. I'm so excited to see your cute baby come into this world cuz you will be such an amazing mom. You and Whit have been such good friends to Trent and I. It's nice to have Trent entertained by talking technical to Whit while we try to keep up or catch up on each other. Some memories are you being the first to take a chance on me as one of your bridesmaids (that was seriously so nice), coming up to see you two for your birthday, the sleepover at your house, and playing wii/xbox.
Kim you seriously have the best way of making everyone around you feel like a million bucks. You always have the best compliments for everyone and you show that you care by asking really sweet questions oh and laughing at my stupid comments or jokes ;). You are such a strong, smart person you have been through a lot and seem to be able to rise above it all. I really admire you Kim and love being around you. Some memories are of course the terdz, being pulled over and you talking me out of the ticket, and just you being there for all of the get togethers being so funny and such a good friend.
Jamie my first real memory of you is texting out of the blue and having the most random conversation but really funny. I even told Kess after, "I just had my first text conversation with Jamie. She's hilarious". You are the most loyal friend ever! You always came up for our softball games even though you lived all the way in Provo. Some memories are going down for the battle of the bands and having a sleepover, the awkward halloween party, and new years at your cabin.
Alicia you are such a strong, knowledgeable, spiritually grounded person! I think one of the reasons why the girls would come to church when we were first meeting was because you helped them get there (nobody take offense to that please). You are such a rock and example to us all. Some memories are playing games at your house with people from your ward, you getting hit in the head by the softball, and meatballs at new years.
last but certainly not least Ariel we had a slow start becoming friends just because we weren't around each other very much at the beginning. You have the funniest/most wity comments and you are so talented at everything you do. I think what got us even closer as friends was going sledding up near your cabin, I got to see the kid side of you and really just had a blast laughing and playing together. Some other memories are that picture of you with gum in your mouth that looked like green lopsided teeth, and your cute new baby.
I seriously love all you guys and don't know what my life would be like if I didn't have you for friends (yeah I do it'd be really sad). I look forward to a lifetime of memories to come!

Memorial day weekend

Wow! So our weekend was crazy busy but also one of the best ever! To start the whole thing off Trent's brother Cameron and now our new sister-in-law Tara were married on Friday. I don't know why I've gotten more and more emotional cuz I swear I cried like 5 or 6 times the whole day (really not like me). I just love to see our little family expand and do so in the temple so we can be together forever.

We followed up that good time with some more fun with my family in Moab from saturday til monday. We had a blast and did a lot of four wheeler riding but also went to Arches again and you know you have to play games all night when you go camping...it's like the best part. It was so much fun and even better cuz my parents came up from Texas to spend the weekend with us. I miss them and it just feels better when they're around.

We did this one crazy ride called Hell's Revenge. I'm just happy to be alive after it all ;) No, it was the funnest thing ever!Just the cutest kid on the face of the planet!!!

Dump Run

So today I took a load to the dump...I always thought that was the weirdest thing that's so normal for people to say...but also really funny. I swear I'm like a 5 year old cuz the whole way there I kept laughing to myself about different ways to phrase what I was doing. ;) That is all ;)

Financial Peace...well, working on it

So, another thing that's been keeping me busy has been an online class by Dave Ramsey (author of The Total Money Makeover, a nationally syndicated radio host, and host of his own national TV show). This has been very informative and motivational to help us get our finances more in order to not just budget but budget well including saving ahead of time for things that may come up like Christmas so we're prepared and NOTHING GOES ON CREDIT. So that we're getting out of debt without making more debt for us on top of it.

Not only has it taught me about budgeting and getting out of debt but it helps me understand more into the retirement mumbo-jumbo, what type of home loan I should've gotten and what type I'll get in the future, tuition saving for our kids to come, charitable giving, and even insight into how to work out budgeting with my husband. It really has been a life-saver and now we actually have a plan and can see where we'll be in 5 to 10 years and have clear steps to get there. If any of you are interested in checking it out go to daveramsey.com and click on the financial peace university link and watch a free preview. NO I'M NOT GETTING PAID TO TELL YOU THIS I JUST LOVE WHAT IT'S DONE TO HELP ME SO MAYBE YOU COULD USE IT TOO.

Diaper Derby

This is my 8 month old nephew Corbin... His parents won an entry for him in a "Diaper Derby" at last night's Jazz game so we all decided to go and cheer him on.

At half time all the parents lined up on either side of the court (one with their child and one with an item to entice them to crawl as fast as they can to the other side). Now I really wish I sat closer so I could get a better picture and a video of the race but our man Corbin was totally awesome! He took 2nd place and that's only because the 1st place winner was like a teenager in a baby disguise! There's some controversy surrounding his performance because the proud, yet competitive parents feel that he experienced a wardrobe malfunction due to the slipperiness of his jogging suit ;)

You can barely see it here but he and his dad are the 3rd from the left on the left hand side and the cute little guy just wants to get to his mom and the cool balloon she's holding. I was so proud of the little tyke that I seriously started to cry when he started to get out in front of everybody else and he was so close to catching up to the other kid!

My favorite part of the whole thing is when the announcer said "take your mark" and all the parents put their kids to the floor and they were in a full crawl position!

Jett speed

Ok, this one deserved a blog of it's own...buckle your seatbelts and tie your jaws shut cuz you're about to hear one of the craziest stories at least I've ever heard. So I have this sister who just barely found out she's pregnant a WEEK before her due date!!!
Got your attention yet? So just a little background, this same sister has had ongoing fertility problems and menstration cycle problems so she just chalked up not having a period to just the same problems as before because she was spotting here and there every so often and just thought that she was gaining more weight because she was already pretty heavy to start with. She also thought his movements were just gas... Thank goodness for the doctor's putting her on prenatal vitamins just as a precaution.
So this is how she found out... she went into see a family doctor about the middle of December because she found a lump that turned out to be a fatty tumor that was taken care of no big deal but the doctor (thank you) decided to do some more blood work and test everything else. So a few days later he called and told her that she's pregnant. So right away she made an ob appointment for the 19th of December. Apparently at that appointment the doctor informed her that her baby weighed 8 lbs 15 oz and was due Dec. 26th (THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY!!!).
So since that ob appointment she's actually now started to feel him kick but she hadn't been dilating AT ALL so they ended up doing an emergency c-section yesterday. The baby and mother are both doing well and are very healthy fortunately. Jett Braxon Hauenstein was born Jan. 7th around 2 pm weighing 9 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. he has a ton of light brown hair and is totally cute! I think his weight was like a cry for help you know 9-1-1 i'm in here...anybody...hello...

Ok, alright, I admit it I'm the worst at keeping my blog up to date. So I'll just hit on some more important parts of what's happened in the last you know 3 months!... Trent's grandpa died so all of us went up to Idaho for the funeral and got a family picture while we were at it. We learned some really cool stuff that we had no idea about his grandpa so it was a cool trip.
Utah football rocks! We were faithful fans and didn't try to sell our BYU tickets for like 10 times what we bought them for like everyone else and it was totally worth it! But we're just not rich enough to have been able to afford to go down to New Orleans but we're so happy for their Sugar Bowl win!!!
So I've had plenty of things to keep me busy during the weeks leading up to Christmas. One of the things being scanning in thousands of old family pictures for Trent's mom for her Christmas present.
Random but it seems like every free second we have we're hanging out with our dogs mostly because we don't always have a lot of time so we feel bad not paying enough attention to them.
Young women's mutual night that we went and say the crazy Layton lights...seriously they had things like a pink whale with water coming out of it's spout thingy (?), unicorns, dinosaurs and you know nothing says merry christmas like a light display of the little mermaid. I'm really not trying to look like I'm grabbing my crotch I guess that just comes natural to me ;) jk
Santa Paws...haha get it ;)
FINALLY!!! Jake's been starting to calm down lately and even falls asleep on his own. HALLELUJAH!!!!
I occasionally babysit my sister's kids when she needs me to. This is my nephew Corbin.
Me getting brutally attacked by a bird at work.
Scout smoking a cigar. ok ok don't call the ASPCA it's really just one of his bones.