Thinking things...again.

Will there ever be a time in my life when I don't have a billion things running through my brain? Probably not, but I hope so.

We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox yesterday and it's seriously THE BEST movie I've seen in a while. Hilarious, genius, beautifully done, and I've got a thing for Meryl Streep. Loved it. See it now.

Logan continues to be freezing and I'm longing for this:

{taken in Cabo San Lucas last August}

I can dream, right? I've been doing a lot of that lately. I don't know if I'll blog for the rest of the year, so this might be it for 2009. Thanks 2009, you've been an overall great year. I'm sure many, many adventures are awaiting the us in 2010. Bring it!!!

My husband drives me nuts sometimes...

...because he's so great. I wont go into the all sappy details about why he's better than any other guy out there, but I think he is. However, it drives me crazy because I can't keep up with him. I try, but fall short every time. He cleans, cooks, sings, and makes me cotton candy when all I want to do is cry. How do I repay him? By not cooking, not cleaning, not singing, and not making cotton candy. I am trying though. Does that count for anything? I hope so.

Anniversary and Christmas wrap up

Josh and I had a great anniversary. It included,

• Two flannel shirts

• Dinner at Chili's
• A big bouquet of poinsettias
• The Blind Side {Go see it. It's great}
• and falling asleep to A Muppet's Christmas Carol

Could it have gotten any better? Probably not. The next day, we went down to the Mangelson's house because his dad had a solo in the Tooele's rendition of Handel's Messiah. He was excellent and it was a beautiful way to start the week of Christmas. Right before we left for the concert, Josh's mom brought out our Christmas present. Josh knew what it was and was so anxious to see my reaction. We are super impatient people so we ended up opening it that night. Now, I don't know if I can accurately capture my excitement with words on this blog and sadly, I forgot the camera battery so I don't have a picture of my reaction to the gift. So, I'm going to do the next best thing and show you a picture of my second favorite Christmas present I've ever received. It was Christmas 2005 and I got the Oprah anniversary dvd set. I was thrilled {obviously Kelsey was a little less enthused about Narnia}. Within those disks contains bloopers, the most famous interviews/moments, and the infamous Oprah music video. It was fantastic. However, that was nothing in comparison to this...

Yeah that's right. I got a COTTON CANDY MACHINE! Jealous? You should be. It's really in the top ten greatest things to ever happened to me. No lie. I love it. We went to Party Land in Orem and got the yummiest floss sugar ever. Josh spent all Christmas eve and day making cotton candy for our families. Sadly, I had a case of the flu this Christmas and I, yes even I, turned down the sugary goodness. You have no idea how excited I am about this. I've been known to pay 6 bucks for a bag of this stuff because you hardly ever get it. Not anymore. My life is complete. And now, here's two pictures of the Herdman's opening gifts. I added the first one because I think my dad is cute and the second because Jason's butt is 5 times the size of Kelsey's head.

I didn't get any pictures at the Mangelson house, but the highlight of Christmas day was talking to Jared. He's serving a mission in Uruguay and it was so neat to hear him as a missionary. He was so positive and kept saying how much he knew this church was true. It was a great testimony to hear especially on Christmas.


and...that's a wrap!

All is calm, all is bright

I love temple square at Christmas time. We went last week and had a grand 'ole night. Here are the obligatory pictures

Have I mentioned that I LOVE this time of year?
*I know most of these are of the temple, but let's face it...that's the best part about temple square, right?

I wanna stop and thank you baby

I really like Joshua Ronald Mangelson and today marks the one year anniversary of when I got the poor guy to marry me. It was the snowiest day of the year, but the happiest day of my life. The other day I made a list of some things I would have missed out on this year if I wouldn't have married him. So Josh, thanks for the happiest year of my life and here's the things I would have missed this year...

• a new last name
• the invention of my jibberish language that only you have heard
• seeing you become a magician, stitch your own pants and learn everything you can about Jesse James, the Nahuatl language and Coca-Cola.
• watching TLC documentaries about women who didn't know they were pregnant and people born without arms
  
• the names Bub and Jub
• seeing you play with the kids in nursery
• making random late night wal-mart trips
• hours and hours of laughter
• becoming a member of a great new family
  
• eating the yummy products of your great cooking
• staying up late and chatting about nothing
• a cruise to mexico/trip to disneyland/honeymoon in vegas
• realizing our arguments are so silly and we don't even know who got annoyed first so we simply choose to stop and be happy again
  
• more bowling games that I've ever played in my whole life
• seeing your mature point of view on so many topics
• our peter pan obsession that lasted a few weeks
  
• watching you live your testimony
• seeing how much our nieces and nephews love you
• many dance parties in the kitchen provided by my favorite wedding present {thanks Hailey and Lacy}
• spontaneous trips out of Cache Valley
• being in the temple with you
• watching you get ecstatic over a new solitaire record
• teaching you how to play solitaire :)
• watching you try to make me laugh when I'm crying
• unexpected trials that have brought us closer to the Lord and each other
• having you whispering things about avocados to me while I'm asleep and then I wake up craving guacamole.
  
• the little things you do for the sole purpose because you know it will make me happy
• waking up to my best friend every morning

I love you more than you'll ever know, Josh. I'm glad I didn't miss any of these things. Happy anniversary.

p.s. the title of this post is from the greatest love songs of all time.
p.p.s. I realize this post was gag worthy, but whatever. It's my anniversary.

Winter

Winter in Logan means,

Scraping off our cars...

making s'mores over the stove...

{yes, s'mores has it's own wiki page}

eating said s'mores...

...

decorating our bamboo for Christmas...

and admiring cute baby snowmen our neighbors make. Sadly, by the time I got my camera to take a picture of this guy, only his cute little bum was left. :(

The end.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree

When I was little, I was convinced that I was the luckiest girl in the world because of one thing--- my family. My siblings and parents were great, but I also had an amazing extended family. I remember driving to my aunt's in Draper and singing the the song Families Can Be Together Forever on the way there. It's super cheesy, but to a little kid it made me so happy to know that I could be with immediate family as well as the aunts, uncles and cousins forever. The Herdman side of my family is very, very small and I don't know them really besides my grandparents, but I still have a love for them. The Olson side, on the other hand, is massive with dozens and dozens of younger cousins, and a handful of cousins my own age. We had a little get together at Karen's house this past Tuesday and all of my childhood feelings for my family came rushing back. I haven't seen some of these guys since our wedding {a year ago Saturday. Can you believe it?!} and it was like no time had passed at all. {Maybe the fact that they all have facebook helped that one out...} We didn't get many pictures because we were too busy eating, talking, and wishing Adam luck. It was well worth the drive and I was again reminded of how much I love my family.

{Me and Allie. She's 11 and the coolest little peanut you'll ever meet.}

{Ahhh...Kelsey. Nothig really needs to be said about this one}

Who woulda thought...

* That I'd be busier during Christmas break than I was during school.
* Logan would be a constant sub zero from sun up 'til sun down.
* I'd spend $30 on candy for Josh's stocking.
* We'd finally get rid {that sounds insensitive...} of the older kids in nursery and we'd actually be able to play instead of being policemen in there.
* That the old kids would be the immature ones throwing the most intense fits.
* That my favorite Polaroid website now makes you pay. Boo.
* I'd be celebrating one year with Joshua Ronald this Saturday.
* That they'd do a dance to 'Easy Street' from Annie on SYTYCD and I longed to be able to laugh at it with Sarah. {Inside joke with her and I'm saving my recent experience for when she gets home so I can hear her laugh}
* Speaking of SYTYCD, who woulda thought that Ashley and Ryan would still be on? Not Josh or I. If you're voting for them because they are Mormon and you think that's cool, please stop. They bug and are never ever modest, even when they have no reason not to be. {My opinion, but if either of them win so help me I'll murder someone...}



Yep, who woulda thought.
{also a Sarah joke. Well, I should say Aunt Kay joke.}

Completed

Dear semester fall '09,

You are finished and dead to me. Finals are in a thing of the past and now I've got an entire month of letting my brain relax. So now semester, it's time to say thank you. Thanks for being entertaining, hard, and freezing. Thank you for giving me crazy professors---one who barely spoke english, one who wore a woman's scarf and sunglasses for an entire lecture, one who talked non stop about her daughter's love for Dr. Pepper and one who spoke of things nobody wants to hear a man in his 50's talk about. Thank you for surprising with yet another class with Lacy Lynn and allowing me to somehow manage to stay alive in the most boring theory class without doing a single reading assignment. It's been a great semester. Hopefully my grades show it. ;)

Sincerely,
me

Too bad this isn't what the ground currently looks like. This picture was taken in Disneyland this past March. Oh how I wish I was there now.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I've had something on my mind the last few weeks: respect. I'm far from a scholar on this topic, but in observing others around me, I'm often shocked at the lack of respect that we, as a society, have for each other. There's a lot of good in humanity, but there's also so much selfishness and judgment. I had a conversation with someone last night and I really realized that it's the lack of respect for one another that causes the majority of problems in our homes, schools, churches, places of work etc. It broke my heart to hear her talk about her situation and how she felt belittled and worthless. Before this, we had a pretty superficial relationship, but in asking one simple question, our shells were cracked and I learned so much.

So, this is my simple message. Don't look for the bad in others. Consider people's feelings and motives behind their actions and way of life. Everyone is constantly carrying around a deeper story with them. Respect that. Don't make assumptions and don't be a so quick to judge.

And that's my soapbox for the day.

{image}

oh christmas tree! oh christmas tree!

We're ready for Christmas at the Mangelson house! We got a real tree this year (my first EVER) and since it was wrapped up when we bought it, we had no idea what to expect. We sawed off the bottom, put it in the stand, cut the strings and BAM! This is what our beautiful $22 tree looks like. It takes up a lot more of our living room than we anticipated, but we love it. Yes, those ornaments are from our wedding center pieces and yes, we're using a teddy bear {Walter, who was purchased at F.A.O. Schwartz on our honeymoon} for our star. Don't judge. It feels good to actually have a Christmas tree with Josh. This is our third Christmas since we started dating and our second since we've been married. Last year, we hadn't even been married a week when Christmas rolled around, so we mooched off our parent's trees. This year though, our house smells of pine and it looks beautiful all lit up. My favorite time of year is here! I'm exspecially excited this year because we're celebrating our one year anniversary exactly two weeks! We've had a fantastic first year and have so much to be thankful for. Yep, I love love LOVE this time of year.

USU vs. BYU

If you know me, you know that I'm not the biggest sports nut. However, it feels REALLY REALLY good to beat BYU. After seeing about 150 of my friend's facebook status' the other day about the U vs. BYU game, it'll be nice to not see anything like that tonight. Yes, I know it was a different sport, but a win is a win and it feels good. Sorry my cougar friends, but there was no way the Aggies would have lost to you in the Spectrum.

That's all. I'm going back to hating sports now. :)