Friends

Remember when we went to the Rodeo? Look in the top right corner and you will see a guy with a cowboy hat and a girl next to him in a blue shirt and shorts. This is the day we found out that Cody and NaElle Stinnett live in Rexburg. Cody was in my ward when I was in primary and then he moved to BJ's ward. NaElle told Cody to go say hi and boy am I glad she did! They are our newest best friends! We see them several times a week. NaElle is 19 weeks pregnant so that gives us reasons to do things like make yummy food when we get together.

They came over to hang out and we wanted a dessert and thanks to Pinterest I had the idea to make a cake I saw on there. It was easy and super cheap!

Double layer chocolate oreo cream cake! It was soooo yummy!!! This was my first layer cake and man was it amazing! NaElle and I made it while the boys watched TV and entertained Rylee. When they left they told us to keep the left overs. I am participating in "The Biggest Winner" (just like the biggest loser but BYU-I does a positive spin on things). The school offers trainers and nutritional people to help us lose weight. We even have team challenges! Since I'm trying to be good and lose all my baby weight before the snow comes I took the left overs to my brother in law. The single boys enjoyed it too!  Recipe Here

We love having friends up here. We went to the nature park and walked around one day. 

Rylee really likes them too. She stares at Cody for the first 15 minutes then she flirts with him the rest of the time. She loves NaElle too. They also offer to watch her so we can go on dates now! NaElle and I attend institute on Tuesday nights and we are starting a weekly temple date too.

Daddy always picks me flowers when he sees them and Rylee attacked mine so he picked one for her too

She was happy about that!

General Conference was AMAZING! I watched with several questions and had many answers. I personally loved the talk about fathers and Rylee just happened to be smiling at her daddy during that talk. 

Some of the things I learned were

1. Its okay to be poor. Its okay to be struggling. We are doing what we should be and the Lord is looking out for us we just need to take our turn pinching pennies. We still are very blessed each and every day even though life seems rough financially.

2. It is okay that I am a stay at home mom. It is okay to want to have more kids later on and not have to wait until after we graduate. 

3. Finding time to attend the temple is important. One way to fill time while at home is to try to do family history then do their work at the temple. 

4. He knows I am trying my best and working on being better. He accepts me and my efforts.

5. I can move to Star Valley Wyoming now!

It seems silly now to think about the weeks and weeks I have been struggling with these things and how heavily laden I was with worry. Conference really brought me peace.

 It makes me wonder how different life would have been for me as a teenager if I had gotten this concept of watching conference with question back then. 

Rylee liked watching conference too!

I have a tradition of making a big breakfast and then fajitas for dinner on Sunday conference but we were too poor to do that this year. Instead we saved our BLT pitas we had planned with the Stinnetts for Sunday. We packed a picnic and fed ducks. Danny joined us too.   

Rylee really wanted to play Frisbee. She thought it was super cool.

Cody thought it was funny that I would freak out when the ducks came to close. Here he is trying to lead a trail of bread to me.

BJ wanted rylee to feed the ducks. She wasn't too impressed with them.

This duck was way bigger then Rylee. I was scared the goose was going to come over and chomp her but it wasn't interested in us! THANKFULLY!

Oh and Rylee traded in her summer clothes for some winter clothes. It has been raining the last few days so I put her in a jumpsuit. I can't get over how stinking cute she is!