School I.D.'s

the day i met my husband, during our very first conversation, sitting on my apartment couch, after he helped me carry boxes in from my car on moving day, we realized that we went to the same, elementary, jr high, and high school. as children we lived only a few blocks away from each other, but since he is 4 years older than me, we never met. a ton of his friends, were the older siblings of my friends, and our parents even knew the same people (when time came to send out wedding invitations, some families got one from my parents list of invites, as well as one from his.)

recently, when we were cleaning out boxes, getting ready for a yard sale, Garrison found these: 

we both kept all of our student i.d. cards from jr high and high school. granted, his are a little more beat up than mine, they are 4 years older, and were owned by a boy, who threw them around in the wash with his mud stained jeans, -vs- a girl who stored hers neatly in her wallet because that i.d. card finally gave her a reason to take her cute pink wallet to school.  

our daughters are having the best time playing with these, so we figured we'd better keep them safe via pictures on the internet so that when one of our girls inevitably uses one as scissor practice, we won't be totally devastated about our unique, cool-to-us, collection. 

here you go, our yearly school pictures in laminated wanna-be credit card form. do you think we would have had crushes on each other back then? we happen to think it's a damn good thing we didn't  meet back then cause i'm pretty sure we wouldn't have "clicked". who knows. maybe our daughters will be able to do this with their future husbands someday. do they even make id cards anymore? it's probably all electronic now, like with an app on your phone or something.

if it's any consolation, garrison say's he'd "hit on" the senior version of me. i said "well you better, that was only 2 years before we got married!"

HAPPY five-years-of-putting-up-with-me ANNIVERSARY

5 YEARS!!! holy cow. this morning as he was getting ready for work, and i was nursing our little baby in bed. Garrison and i were talking about some of the things we remembered from our wedding. he remembered how on the morning of our wedding, we had to get to the temple with our "escorts" (our parents) much earlier than the rest of the wedding party to fill out paperwork and such at the temple. so, being a hairdresser, i wanted to do my own hair and makeup. After a surprisingly restful night of sleep in the hotel up in slc, i got up, and started to get ready and ended up being ready before everyone else, when garrison came to my hotel room to pick us up, we ended up talking together in the hotel room for what seemed like such a long time as we watched the rest of the wedding party start getting up and getting rushed. my mom would later go on to say that because of how calm i was that morning, it helped reassure her that marrying him, was in fact, the right thing for me to do.

marrying him was truly the easiest decision i ever made.

I told him about how i remembered as our honeymoon was nearing an end, (we were staying at a friend's 2nd home up in Midway) we were both getting antsy to just move in together and start living a normal life. we wanted to make breakfasts in our kitchen, and sleep in our bed, and come to our home after work, so... we left our honeymoon early to go home and unpack, hang pictures, buy groceries, and organize closets.  garrison's comment after i finished talking about that this morning: "we were such dweebs ...still are"

we really have loved every aspect of all of the craziness that has been the last 5 years. 

over the last 5 years we have:

had two beautiful children,

moved 5 times,

purchased two houses, and two cars.

remodeled 4 different houses (we remodeled both of our apartments for our landlords)

we also remodeled a 1950's camp trailer, and dozens of projects in/on our parents houses.

garrison switched jobs from digEcor, to American Crafts,

i switched salons from Salon 21 to Platinum Studio.

we have traveled together to Greece, New York, Mexico -via a Cruise-, Vegas and St George, Idaho, and California, oh, and lots of camping with a backpacking trip in the Unitas thrown in there. 

besides childbirth, neither of us have been hospitalized.

no car accidents yet, (although he did get a speeding ticket while driving home from california a few years ago)

we have had 1,825 days together as husband and wife. we have accomplished so much in that time, we have become better people, grown a family, developed talents, and made new friends. looking back like this, makes me realize just how much time has come and gone since that beautiful day 5 years ago when we made promises to each other, for time and all eternity. we feel like we have truly found our "groove" in our marriage this year, coming to a deeper and better understanding of one another and what each other needs to feel their best in the marriage. it's like we moved from being best friends and lovers, to truly becoming "one" this year. i'm so grateful for him in my life, and all of the blessings that have come to me because of the decision i made to marry him.

i won the husband lottery. seriously.

This year, to celebrate, Garrison invited me to pick a hotel and we could stay there for the night, well, as we are trying to get our littlest on a more strict schedule since her schedule was thrown off from being sick the past few weeks, we decided to stay home instead, honestly, we will probably daydream about what the next 5 years might hold for us, and end the night watching Making A Murderer on Netflix. just like we would any other night.  

I wouldn't have it any other way.

2014 in Pictures

Every year Garrison's sister puts together a little photo book and slideshow of all of his side of the family. this means that every year i go through my pictures and pick out a handful of my favorites to send to her. i don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before to include those pictures on a post in my blog, but i finally put two and two together and here it is. (if your feeling nostalgic, here's our 2012 year in pictures)

Our Favorite Pictures from 2014

 ^^^Our 3rd Anniversary

^^^i went through a phase where i tried to take professional quality pictures of bayli each week. i really wish i would have kept that going. like most resolutions it only lasted for the month of January.

 ^^^that kissy one, and these next few are from when Garrison went on a long work trip round the world.

^^^Bayli's 2nd Birthday

^^^Easter dresses sewn from old curtains left behind at our house just like in The Sound of Music.

 ^^^ from this post

^^^Mothers Day

 ^^^from this post

 ^^^wearing a souvenir from the cruise.

 ^^^on one of our camping trips

^^^Flying in a Helicopter

^^^Sometimes you just need a funny selfie

 ^^^from this post

 ^^^at the carnival

 ^^^ from this post

 ^^^after church selfies are just the best.

 ^^^everyone needs a yearly pore strip photo.

 ^^^a quick snapshot of the fam in the park

 ^^^ i made that huge himmeli wreath in the background from those straws. the picture is both not as cheesy, and cheesier once you know why i was taking it. :)

^^^the fourth of july spent at the provo hot air balloon race, and later that night at the rodeo.

 ^^^on our huge backyard tree swing

 ^^^Hiking rock canyon

 ^^^on my 24th birthday

 ^^^goodness... that smile!

 ^^^ from this post.

 ^^^from this post

^^^Garrison's 28th Birthday camping trip.

^^^ from this post

 ^^^that sunflower grew in our front yard, we roasted our own sunflower seeds from it.

 ^^^halloween, all dressed up in my brothers clown costume that my mother made 30+ years ago.

 ^^^Because of Bayli's obsession with My Little Pony, we took her to ride a real one at Thanksgiving Point and made her wildest dreams come true.

^^^i dressed up as Effie from The Hunger Games for a church activity.

^^^from this post

 ^^^announcing we are pregnant with baby #2! (and it's a girl!)

^^^Christmas spent here in town with our families.