Almost here!

So for quite some time I have been wanting to open up my own cake design company from home. I looked into it in Provo but there was too much to do (even more than I realized at the time) without knowing where we would be moving. So when we came to St George and I looked at our kitchen space I thought, maybe I should wait until we get into a house to start it up. We have about 3 sq ft of counter space and I knew I would go crazy trying to bake and decorate with such small space. Well it wasnt long after that that I just KNEW i had to start on the business process. I honestly felt/feel like im being shoved into this, its really weird! There are so many hesitations that I have and the process is daunting, long, in-depth, and overwhelming. But for some reason everytime I have a hesitation it either works out all on its own somehow or I get this surge (shove) of "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!" and the process all of a sudden feels easier. I cant explain it other than maybe its the Lords way of telling me (this is how He usually does it) that this is where I need to go. I dont feel ready, prepared, or talented enough. But oh well, i guess its going to happen whether I like it or not!

SO... We are almost there! The other day I was reading over the requirements to pass the health inspection and there were things I was NOT ready for and I thought for sure that this process has come to a screeching halt and who knows when I will ever open a business up. I found that I have to have a separate fridge and shelving/storage for my cake stuff. I cant use our fridge or storage that has our personal food/stuff in it... Uh, I have to get another fridge? Ya right. Well of course after conversing one night with the Man Upstairs about this slight problem I thought "I think I really will have to just put this on hold".

Rewind a little over a month. Our renter had told us before we moved that we are going to have to bring our own fridge. Luckily my in-laws are the bomb and let us take whatever we wanted out of our old place to take with us, and that included our fridge. We got down here and annoyingly (or so we thought) there was already a fridge here! How inconsiderate! What are we going to do with an extra fridge. Bryce (Ty's bro) took it and thought they could use it at his office. But i had the feeling last night that we needed to call him and just ask to see if they really are using it or what not. Well turns out he is giving it back to us! Talk about MAJOR hurdle just cleared!!! Again, weird, and miraculous.

Without further ado. Here is my darling logo (thank you 48hourslogo.com!) and business name! Even if I feel all of these hesitations I could not be more blessed. Everything is falling PERFECTLY in to place by miracle. I cant wait!

I better watch my mouth!

So recently, more than ever, I have noticed Lucy is copying a lot of phrases that I say. Most I am not proud of. She is too little to have this vocabulary! Here is just a few

-UGH!!! (this is when I am slightly frustrated or bugged and I will do this grunting UGH sound. Lucy does this ALL the time now)

-Oh my gosh (even though we can still hardly understand a lot of what she says, this one came out clear as day. We tell her not to say it. But when I say it all the time and I dont realize, it makes it a tough case to sell)

-Crap! (this one came out last night after Tyler said it. She thought it was funny and kept saying it over. But at least this time it wasnt from me, whew!)

-Just a minute (she says this over everything. Again I say this to her all the time)

-I am spank you bum "im going to spank your bum" (When it is the last straw, we do in fact give her a little spanking, so sue us! Its not all the time but when she deliberately does something naughty when we REPEATEDLY tell her not to and looks us right in the eye and shoves it in our face, like biting people for example, she will get a spanking for it)

-she still calls me "Jod" all the time. Even though I tell her my name is mommy, I cant help but think this is so funny! Its the way she says it that cracks me up. And unlike a lot of things, is completely innocent!

My lucy bear is a crack up! But saying "crap" and "oh my gosh" makes me realize that I really need to watch myself in life and make sure I am doing/saying things that if she repeats, I am happy about. Even though they arent bad words or anything, I still dont like her saying it.

Birthday- Im getting old

So this week I turned the big 2-8. I cant believe that I am almost 30. This is too weird. I think I may have a pre-midlife crisis at 30. But since I am not quite there I will take a few deep breaths, harness my chi, and enjoy what is remaining of my 20's. The King family is infamous for having a "birthday week" instead of just one day. I like this tradition. So since on my official birthday we were at my grandpas funeral, I really did get to have a birthday week. Last night Ty and I dropped Lucy off at the Hurricane Kings for the night and we were foot loose and fancy free! Ty suprised me and took me to Springdale for dinner. It was AWESOME! First off, where the heck is springdale? Well it is basically Zion. The national park not Missouri. GORGEOUS drive. The weirdest thing too is once you hit Rockville (again, never even heard of it) the road turns red. Weird huh. The actual pavement is a red color. We went to an awesome restaurant called Whiptale Grill and it looks like a hole-in-the-wall but it was REALLY really good. The whole town (especially this restaurant) is kind of "granola-y" (which I strangely really enjoy) and it was just cool. We ate outside with the view of Zion all around us.  Ok the chips and salsa, HOLY COW, I honestly dont know if I have had better salsa, ever. It was that good. Then we walked around. There are strangely a lot of rock/gem shops around. Too. There is like 4 and the town is TINY. But this also made me happy because when I was little I used to go outside and look for hours and hours to find "cool" rocks and I would collect them. I think my little fascination still in there buried deep down. Then we came back to St George and went SHOPPING! I need summer clothes BAD and i spent all of my birthday money at target. Ty hates shopping so this was awesome that he willingly (instead of by force by me) indulged my indecisiveness and going back and forth from the changing room and modeling my choices one by one. P.s. there is no where to find modest shorts! Seriously it is annoying, what do people wear here! Then this morning we went and stood in line for 45 min at Kneaders for the french toast.

What an awesome birthday week. I am so grateful for the people who made me feel special, especially my Ty. Thanks my love!

(Ill have to add pictures later. They are having problems loading)

St George findings

We have officially been residents of St George for exactly one month. CRAZY! I feel like we just moved in yesterday. We really love it here. The second week we were here Lucy turned into this crazy alien-monster-creature person and I was losing my mind. Hands down this was probably the worst week I have had in my mothering career. I had a nervous breakdown one night and swore I was never having another child and cried hysterically for like an hour to Ty about it. But this week I think she has turned a corner. It could be because last Sunday I made it a goal to not yell at Lucy and be more patient and to make a conscience effort in focusing on the good things she does. Either that made a huge difference in her behavior or she has adjusted to the fact that we have a new house because she has been SO good this week. Not only that, but she has had 1 accident for a solid week! WHAT!! I was starting to be worried that her stubbornness for being potty trained was going to keep her from ever going to school and I would have to home school her forever (kids have to be potty trained to go to preschool). Not to mention how embarrassing would it be for her date to the junior prom to find diapers in her purse or have to remind her to "go potty".  I hope this isnt just a fluke.

Things we have discovered about our new place of residence:
1. People drive like maniacs here. Worse than in provo.
2. Its very WINDY! Every. Single. Day. It just blows and blows
3. Even though there are quite a few people here and it is a relatively large city in Utah but it still has such a small town feel. For example, nothing is online. People do not use internet marketing here at all. You have to basically use the phone book to find places.
4. Even though people drive like maniacs there is no traffic! This is great. The only street that gets really bad is the blvd but that is it.
5. Everyone has a golf cart they drive around.
6. The LDS population is a lot smaller than I thought. Well for Utah that is. I appreciate this. I like diversity. I like going to the store and seeing people of all walks of life. Its interesting to me.

Grandpa Pickett

A few months ago my sister-in-law went to her very first funeral. Ever. I was shocked when she mentioned this fact. I on the other hand have been to roughly 20 or more. I feel like that is a lot. My husband has been to 6. 5 of them since we have been married. Am I bad luck? Some times I feel like I am. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because last Saturday my lovely Grandpa Pickett passed away and Wed was his funeral.  He was 84 and it is a huge blessing that he passed away because he had a disease in his liver that has been horribly painful and has made him very sick for a long time. It was sad, but such a blessing. Its mostly sad because he left behind his sweetheart, my grandma. He wasnt a man of many words but he was/is such an incredible example. He was such a hard-working, honest, and loving person.

this funeral has got me thinking. I don't know hardly anything about my grandparents. My other grandparents (my mom's parents) died when I was 9 and 12 so I was too young to really care about know much about their past or just about them personally in general. But now that I am older it kinda makes me sad. I wish i knew about their childhoods and cool stories and things they went through. Stories about things they accomplished. Gosh I dont even think I really know the simple things like their likes and dislikes, or favorite things. You know, the stories and things in life that have made them who they are. Kinda sad. Does this make me a horrible grandchild? I feel bad I was never close to my grandparents. I guess the good thing is we have eternity for me to get to know them.

One last thing. My grandpa served on the front lines of the Korean war (which I actually did know) and so during the burial we had a 21 gun salute and the folding and presentation of the flag with someone playing the bugle. It was such a special thing. It makes me so grateful for people who are or have served for our country. I am so proud of both of my grandpa's (and other many members of our family) who left their young families to fight for our freedom.

Family photo time!

We have been needing to get family pics done for forever and we decided to wait til Lucy turned 3 and then get hers and ours done at the same time. We were lucky enough to find out that a friend of ours from P-town was coming here a few weekends ago and she was nice enough to do our photos for us. She is the one who took our last ones. She does such a good job. I was so worried we wouldnt get any because Lucy was being... well... Lucy, it was pretty windy, and it was during the sunset and I was worried it was too dark. But alas we received WAY more than I expected and they are ADORABLE! Here is just a tiny sample of some of my favs. Thanks Janneke Marquez for giving us pictures we will love forever!

Easter mix-up

After we moved into our place we received an invitation on our door for an Easter egg hunt that was taking place on a saturday at our church that our new ward was putting on. Sweet! Lucy has never been to an actual easter egg hunt, other than at grandmas house, so we were excited to go and eat a good breakfast, hunt down some good treats, and maybe make some new friends. We went, and sat next to our neighbors and just like i imagined had a good breakfast, and met tons of new people who were so welcoming and lucy had a blast picking up the million eggs that were spread out. Sunday, the next day, we were at church and Ty leans over to me and says, do you recognize anyone from that easter egg hunt here? And i didnt really notice, and I thought, well we are brand new, we just met people once maybe we just dont remember. As we were sitting there were a few families that i distinctly remember and I couldnt find them anywhere in the chapel. Hmmm... The longer we sat, we came to the realization that we went to the wrong wards easter egg hunt, ate their food, stole their eggs, and met people who we may never see again posing as their newest ward members. Nice... But we got some cute pictures of Lucy out of it!

Then we colored easter eggs. Lucy LOVED this.

 And here is our cute little princess on Easter Sunday all dolled up in a dress from Grandma King and with her loot from the bunny.