not normal

i am usually a big believer in "to each their own"...but i will judge you if you eat this:


KFC's new Double Down Sandwich, 1228 calories of artery clogging nastiness. yuck.

colorado and 24

for my birthday weekend we flew up to Colorado to see audrie and her family. it was so much fun! audries new baby, addyson (love that name), is the most adorable baby i have ever seen. she has the prettiest eyes and she was smiley the whole time. i love her. i really hope that when bj and i have kids the Young family genes pull through because they make some very cute babies/toddlers. way cuter than the ones that you are related to. haha. just kididng. but not really. and actually, the Ingrams have great baby genes too. tristan, hayden and zealand are/were all super adorable. so really, i just hope that our kids don't get baby genes specific to me. bc i was one UGLY baby. this is a fact. im sure my family will comment on this post with the validity of that statement. i was hairy. all over. and bug eyed. and the hair that was actually on top of my head and not all over my body was really thin, wispy and always a little matted down. that phase lasted till i was 3 or 4. or maybe 13. poor, poor future babies. ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

highlights of the trip:
- chatting and laughing with aud (girl time really is the best)
-bj getting to go snowboarding
-sledding!! SO FUN.
- chance (6) wanting to shovel snow off the driveway to be like daddy. so. freaking. cute.
- kenedi and anything came out of her mouth. "thats FAIR MOM!". her fake laughing when we laughed while aud and i watched tv. the fact that when she walks she struts like she is off to somewhere very important. her dancing to chipmunks and asking bj to fill up her sippy with milk so she didn't "run out of gas". haha.
- addison the new bebe. i love her.
-there are more things to do with her kids but i will stop as to not seem like a child obsessed creeper
- making the boys watch new moon and eclipse for my birthday. muahah.
-the jcrew outlet right by audries house. jealous.
- yummy benihana and funfetti cake for my birthday.
-discovering snuggies

it was a great trip and i am really glad we went. i am excited for May when audrie and her kids are coming to stay with us for a week..right, audrie? right??? ;-).

in additional birthday news, i am now 24. and 24 sounds kind of old to me. but 24 is gonna be a good year. i can feel it.

this year i hope to
-run a half marathon. i can now run 3 miles continuously. don't judge. it used to be 3 minutes.
- a bunch of other stuff that i don't care to write out. clearly its all very important though and will definitely be accomplished
- and get pregnant!!!!!!! yes its true. and yes the only reason for this list was to say that. i can not contain myself, i am so excited. i am not off birth control quite yet..but soon-ish i will be. TMI? don't care. i will probably sing it from my rooftop the day i stop taking it. sorry about your luck neighbors.

now im off to make some cadbury mini egg chocolate cookies. those are hands down my favorite Easter candy. addictive little devils.

mom comes to visit!

this past weekend Bj was in canada for work, so my mom used that opportunity to come visit me in az. it was SUCH a great weekend. much needed mom and daughter time. since we live so far away i forgot how great it is to have my mom around. i didn't forget how wonderful she is, i just forgot how nice it is to have a moms suggestions, comfort, helpful tips and laughter around. there really is nothing that compares to that good ol' motherly love. saying that i loved having her here is an understatement. i wish she would move here tomorrow. really.

we had a blast shopping, eating, laughing, having girl talk, getting pedicures, enjoying the beautiful az weather (before it got cold and rainy), seeing a moving and laughing a lot more.

highlights of the trip:
-the hobbit sweater
- my mom crying from start to finish when we saw the blind side. great movie. she loved it. i knew she would.
-shopping
-having someone around who loves sweets as much as me.
-coming home to a spotless house on monday. baseboards. blinds, fans, everything. and ALL of my laundry done. perfection.
- finding clothing that was NOT black and white ;-)
- the adorable heels we found for her at dillards that were normally $120 marked down to $29.99. turns out it does pay to have unusually small feet :-)


low lights:
-finding out how much it costs to custom frame a wedding picture at hobby lobby. i walked in thinking it would cost about $35 to frame our 16x20 wedding photo....wrong. way wrong. it would be $150. and that's half off. barf.
-only taking one picture together the whole weekend

favorite quote of the weekend:
kat: you can go ahead and shower in this bathroom.
mom: okay go out
kat: mom. you can shower with me in the same room. i have the same parts you do.
mom: yes we do. but i don't want to depress you when you see what your future holds.

hahah.


love you mom, come back soon!

New toys

a few weeks ago "we" got some new toys. they are "ours", just like when i buy home decor it is for "us" :-).

bj is such a guys guy and loves all things boy. i really didn't care if he did or didn't get them but i do admit i have had more fun watching him with them than i thought it would. he is so dang cute with how excited he gets about going out on them and getting all the accessories for them.

last week bj and i went out so he could show me how to ride "my" quad (the sliver one). i have been on one a few times before but in my family there are 4 girls and only 1 boy so we didn't really do these kind of things that often. i wasn't expecting it to be lame but i had no idea it would be so much fun! i was probably going super slow bc its a new thing for me and i was nervous but bj was so patient and was happy we were just out playing together. we played hide and seek on the quads and that was one of my favorite parts. except when bjs hiding spot was way better than mine. haha.

here they are:
ps check out that beautiful scenery, i love where i live.



bj with the toys

after hide and seek we found this little baby jump and bj taught me jump over it. he is a pro and had no problem clearing it.

this is my first try...try to ignore how incredibly attractive i look. i know it may be distracting for some.

this is after a little practicing. ignore bjs doubting commentary in the background...i think i'm a natural ;-)

love day

i love valentines day. i love that its whole purpose is a celebration of love. and i love it because its the day bj proposed to me :-). every valentines we go eat at Maggiano's little italy and as usual, it was delish. their cheesecake is super yummy so we got it to go because we were both too stuffed to eat anymore. after dinner we made our way to the hotel suite bj booked for us to stay in that night.


bj booked our hotel online, so neither of us had actually seen it before....and our hotel "suite" didnt end up being quite what we thought it would be. the street we stayed on had 3 or 4 hotels right next to each other. so, we pulled up to the hotel we thought we were staying at and it looked great. i was so excited to get out and find our room! then we realized we were at the wrong place. ours was the hotel next door. so im thinking, oohh okay im sure it will be great too. we drive over to the correct hotel. hmm. it looks a little dingy but im sure the inside will be beautiful. we get our things and go in. not quite the plush hotel we were imagining. hmm. im sure its fine, maybe the lobby is just a little outdated and the employees are aloud to have wrinkled clothes. sure. check in, walk upstairs. sweet 1980s carpet on the way up. our room will be great though, im sure. walk inside....and no, it wasn't so great. it was just like the rest of the hotel. it wasn't a cheap room and it was in a nice area so we just stood there a little confused. it was already paid for though, so we got over it and made ourselves comfortable. i wish i could remember exactly what the description of the "suite" was on the website bc as we were walking through the room bj was quoting it to me and i was laughing so hard!! the descriptions could not have been further from what was actually in front of us.

an obviously pleased bj showing off our room

and here she is

the modern popcorn ceiling

the huge bathtub..

one thing i DID love were the mirrors!! you knows those mirrors that make you look like a much taller, more slender version of yourself?? they had these all over the place. and i loved them.

bj showing the huge tv that was slightly bigger than his hand

sweet furniture

and it wouldn't be a holiday if bj didn't ruin a perfectly good picture

despite the hotel mishap it was a really great valentines day. we got to laugh about the hotel all night and morning...and it still makes me laughing just thinking about it. haha. it was also kinda fun to just spend the night away from home.... even though we knew our bed at home was more comfortable :-). bj gave me some really pretty earrings and i gave him a nice pen with his initials engraved on it (that still has not come in the mail yet..what the crap).

thanks for making it a very memorable and special valentines, beej. love you!

meet your meat???

i know, i know.... soon i will post about something real. hopefully. a little while back i decided i was going to start blogging a lot more so i could make a book out of my blog....and it seems like as soon as i decided to do that, i stopped blogging. interesting how that happens. anyway, this post is probably not interesting to most of you so feel free to stop reading, i just wanted to get some feed back on this subject.

a few days ago i was blog browsing and somehow ended up on this website
http://venividiveganed.blogspot.com/ . its a vegan cooking blog. she is lds. it sparked my interest bc a while back i was a vegetarian for like 6 months. i read a book about it, it grossed me out and i couldn't eat meat. then summer sales started for bj and due the the lack of cooking during those months, i slowly started eating meat again. now i eat meat fine. in fact last night i had a red robin hamburger. yum. from time to time i will remember the gross details in the book and will go a week or so without eating it or something. but nothing consistent.

in addition to that though, what about the word of wisdom??? "eat meat sparingly". i know my sister in laws and i have talked about this subject before and we never really came to a solid conclusion on what it means. or at least in my head its still kinda cloudy. does it mean sparingly in comparison to what general population eats? bc over 50% of our nation is obese. or what about "in winter or famine only"....hmmm again, if 50% of our nation is obese, I'm pretty sure there is no famine going on in my neighborhood. or yours. is that part of the word of wisdom more important than what we give it credit for, but sometimes we don't give it a second thought because consuming meat is so much a part of our cultures diet??? red meat and processed lunch meats are the leading causes of colon cancer, at least according to Dr. Oz :-). coincidence???

these are some of the quotes she put on her blog

*John A. Widtsoe, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, wrote in a book on the Word of Wisdom, "It was shown in the history of plant science that plants contain all the necessary food substances: proteins, fats, starches and the carbohydrates, minerals...water [and] vitamins. The Great builder of the earth provided well for the physical needs of His children. Countless varieties of edible plants, vegetables, cereals, fruits and nuts are yielded by Mother Nature for man's daily food. If one uses meat it must be used sparingly and in winter or famine only.... They who wish to be well and gain the promised reward stated in the Word of Wisdom must obey all of the law, not just part of it as suits their whim or their appetite, or their notion of its meaning." (The Word of Wisdom, a Modern Interpretation, 1950)

*Elder Benson "To a significant degree, we are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth, and lacking the energy that could be ours.... We need a generation of young people who, as Daniel, eat in a more healthy manner than to fare on the 'kings meat' ---and whose countenances show it." (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson pp. 476-7) His reference, of course, is to the biblical Daniel who, as a student in the Babylonian royal court, opted for simple vegetarian food and whose superior health quickly became visible to others. See Daniel, Chapter 1 in the Old Testament or the wonderful account in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, Book 10, Chapter 10, verses 1-2 for details." -quoted from Jim Catano

*"Flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine" (D&C 89:12-13

*"Blood shall not be shed, only for meat, to save your lives; and the blood of every beast will I require at your hands" (JST Gen. 9:11).

she also had this video on there....its pretty gross. interesting though.



lately i've just been thinking about this topic in general. i am not saying one way or the other is right or wrong. just curious and trying to figure out how i feel about the subject. bj pointed out that unless we look it up, we don't know the exact context of those quotes , so it doesn't necessarily mean they are directed to us right now. with the video too, the makers of the video obviously have a strong opinion about what they are sharing so they are using evidence that supports their opinion. that doesn't mean its the norm in the industry or that there isn't a flip side to what they are showing.

anyway, insights? opinions? thoughts??? anyone out there know the right answer??? do tell.

ps-pretty good timing with thanksgiving right around the corner, eh?? my bad.

off white

conversation yesterday morning:

kat: i think we are supposed to be there at 12:30 to get our class ready for the primary program. right?
bj: yea i dont know. i think so. your shirt looks dirty and dingy.
kat: oh okay. wait, what?
bj: nothing.
kat: did you say my shirt looks dirty and dingy?
bj: um. yes. and it does. those white shirts of yours get dirty so fast
kat: bj my shirt is off white.
bj: we should really buy you some more of those white undershirts you use so often
kat: i said my shirt is OFF white bj. its cream. its supposed to look like this.
bj:. oh. well its kinda ugly.


lol....gotta appreciate the boys honesty ;-).

*and yes, shortly after this conversation i changed into my actual white shirt. not because i agreed, but because i didn't want the whole ward to think i was wearing a dirty shirt when in fact my shirt was just off white. OFF WHITE.