The sun shows its face

This picture is how I've been feeling these past few days. It's finally starting to warm up here!! The snow is melting, which means that Hannah and I get to get outside!! It's only been in the mid to upper 40s, but it feels so much warmer (I even felt like putting on my shorts and sandals today). Everyone is outside going on walks and taking their kids to the park. One lady told me that there were so many people feeding the ducks at the pond that there was soggy bread floating around everywhere because the ducks were too full to eat anymore. Today I took Hannah to the park for the first time in months. She loved being outside and was angry when I took her back home.

Here's a picture of Hannah on the slide. Don't be fooled by the expression on her face; she loves going down the slide.

Here's the almost smile she gives me when I tell her to say, "Cheese."

Hannah loves to blow bubbles and has to do it herself. She usually gets it everywhere, but she's getting pretty good at blowing bubbles. Let's hope it stays warm.......NO MORE SNOW PLEASE!!!

Debt Free!!!!!!

So this is not normally something that you would tell people, let alone blog about it, but it is something that I am extremely happy about. As some of you know, Scott started a business before we were married and didn't have enough money to keep it up. Because of that, we began our marriage with a bit of credit card debt. This is something that I feel has been hanging over my head since we got married. Unfortunately, I get major anxiety thinking about debt, and because of that, I am a very frugal person. I still wear some of the same clothes that I've had since high school, and I hate spending money on myself. I wish this weren't the case sometimes because I feel like I always look frumpy. Anyway, a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders as we paid off the last of all of our credit card debt this afternoon. The main reason I am blogging about this is not because I want you all to know that we are out of debt, but because I want to mostly just give a shout out at how blessed Scott and I have been. I have been so worried about money since I haven't been working, especially now that Scott has gone down to part time work at Staples. I really just didn't know how it was going to work out and I was getting stressed out about thinking of putting Hannah in day care if I had to work. The fact that we were able to completely pay off our car and credit cards this month even though we are poorer than we've ever been is a miracle and has shown me how much we have been blessed. It's amazing how things work out, even when you feel like all is lost. This doesn't mean that I won't ever have to go back to work, but for now, I am so grateful for the fact that Scott and I are making it with the money that we have.

Girls Night Out!

Yesterday I did something that I haven't done in a long time. I had a girls night out without Hannah or Scott and I really can't remember the last time I did that (besides maybe going shopping with my sisters once or twice in the past year). Scott and I have couples that we hang out with every once in awhile but it was really nice to get out by myself (not that I don't love being with my husband and daughter). I went out with two girls from our married ward to see Fools Gold. It's especially been hard to keep in touch with people from our married ward since Scott and I have been going to the Singles Ward, so this was a nice treat. The movie, however, was not really something I would recommend unless you don't care about seeing women's breasts. I was really surprised that they were aloud to show that in a PG-13 movie. The only other time I have seen full on breasts like that was in Titanic. It seems like the ratings on movies don't mean anything anymore. The main reason it makes me mad is because when my kids are older, I'm definitely going to have to screen everything they watch.....you just can never be sure that a movie is going to be rated appropriately for children (plus the fact that I don't really like seeing another women's breasts is another reason it made me mad). I can tell you this much, I definitely wouldn't want my 13 year old boy watching that. Anyway, so that's my little speech about movies these days. Pretty soon Scott and I are just going to have to watch G rated movies (although I must admit that there are some really good PG-13s out there and even some R rated ones like The Matrix that don't deserve to be rated what they are).

P.S. I hope that this doesn't offend anyone...that wasn't my intention....but I personally think that nudity ruins movies.

Will You Be My Valentine?

Hannah says, "Will you be my Valentine?"




Yesterday Scott surprised me by taking off the whole day of school. I felt kind of bad because I didn't want him to be behind, but it was nice to be able to spend a whole day with him; it doesn't happen very often. We decided to go out to lunch, since Scott wasn't going to be in class. We went to the Thai Kitchen, which is a really small restaurant here in Provo. There was one lady doing everything: cleaning the tables, being the cashier, hostess, and server to about 8 or 9 tables. After sitting there for while, we decided to get up and go somewhere else for lunch. I felt sorry for the lady doing everything, and it reminded me a little bit of when I worked at Mimi's, even though I didn't have to do everything like she did, but it was stressing me out just watching her. Anyway, then we just went shopping and I made dinner for Scott that night. Thank you to everyone who sent Hannah a Valentine's card.....it was very sweet!

Ground Turkey!!!!

I have found a miracle! I've been watching The Biggest Loser and heard the trainers on there tell the contestants that ground turkey is a lot better for you than ground beef. So, I decided to try it out since I've been trying to watch what I eat lately. We had meximelts the other night for dinner with the ground turkey, and they were delicious! Of course I added a bunch of spices to the meat, but I thought that it tasted better than ground beef. It's not nearly as greasy (ground beef tends to hurt my stomach but this turkey didn't) and get this......it's cheaper than ground beef!! It's a miracle! I haven't tried the ground turkey in any other dishes so I might change my mind, but for now it will be a regular item that I will be purchasing from the grocery store. I still have about a half of a pound left, so the main reason that I am blogging about this is because I was wondering if anyone has any good recipes that call for ground beef besides spaghetti, tacos, or meatloaf. Please let me know if you do, and if you would rather email it to me, that would be fine!!!!

P.S. Mom-I lost that pirate sandwich recipe......I might have to get that again from you.

Yet Another Video

Ok.....here is another blog of me bragging about what Hannah can do. I just wanted to apologize to anyone who is not Hannah's grandparent because I'm sure it gets annoying that I am constantly posting videos of things she can do (even though, like I said earlier, I know that any baby her age could probably do these things). However, I hope you all understand that her grandparents live 100s of miles away and don't see her very often. So, with that being said, here is another video of her and me doing what we do everyday. She loves books, but she's kind of picky about them. She loves the book in this video and wants to read it several times a day. We go to the library every week and get new books. Sometimes she likes them, sometimes she doesn't. Also, I got the idea of teaching her animal noises from her cousin Sara, so that's one thing she will be doing in this video as well. Enjoy!

Click To Play

A Blog About Me.....(sorry grandparents)

Well it's official......I'm a graduate!!! I got my diploma in the mail last week with President Hinckley's digital signature on it. It only took me 6 1/2 years to get a 4 year degree....whippi! I will be walking on April 24th, so if anyone wants to come, you are invited (although I wouldn't recommend it.....graduations are boring). Scott also received his Associates degree but refused to get a picture with it (hmmmm...I wonder why. By the way, does anyone else think my mouth looks abnormally huge in this picture?). Maybe once he gets his Bachelors he'll take a picture. Here are the three most important things I learned in college:

1. You really don't have to do all of the reading assigned to you. Yeah, that's right, I didn't read half of what I was assigned this last semester and still did well in my classes, but this is probably because most of my sociology classes were very similar to each other.
2. You really can wait until the night before to study for a test (this depends on the class, though).
3. You can use the same research paper several times for different classes. Yep, I used the same research paper three times for three different classes, two of which were with the same teacher.

My college experience was challenging, but not incredibly hard. This was probably because of the major I chose, because I know there were classes that were extremely hard (like American Heritage). This is proof, though, that if I can get through college, anyone can.


Also, I got tagged again, but this time it's about Scott and me, so here we go.

What is your husband's name?
Scott Randall Sprague

How long have you been together?
Been together: 5 years Been married: almost 4 years

How long did you date?
A year before we got engaged, then 4 more months until we were married.

Who eats more?
I guess it depends on what we're eating. Spaghetti- I could definitely out eat him.

Who said I love you first?
Honestly, I don't remember....I think it was him.

Who is taller?
Scott

Who has more speeding tickets?
Neither of us has any. Yes that's right, we're perfect drivers.

Who is smarter?
Kind of a silly question....I guess it depends on what subject. Scott has more street smarts than I do.

Who is more sensitive?
Probably me.

When there is a fight who usually wins?
Well, I can give the silent treatment for days if I wanted to, so probably me. I don't know...we usually just sleep on it and then forget about the fight the next day.

Who does the laundry? Mostly me, but Scott will help when he has time.

Who does the dishes? Ditto to the above

Who sleeps on the right?
Scott

Who pays the bills?
Scott

Who mows the lawn?
The guys that our landlord hired....not sure what their names are.

Who cooks dinner?
Me

Who drives when you are together?
Scott...I hate driving.

Who is more stubborn?
Definitely me.

Who kissed who first?
Scott kissed me, but I did walk him to his car so maybe he felt obligated.

Who asked who out first?
Well, I sort of did. It's kind of a long story, but I was on a date with someone else while I was on the phone with Scott. It was very awkward because this other guy was in the car listening to my conversation and he was mad. Because I knew that Scott was going to ask me out, I just asked him as soon as I could so that we could get off the phone.

Who proposed?
Scott. He took me to the park on Christmas and gave me a "present" that was a bridal magazine with a big heart cut out in the middle. In the heart was the ring. It was very sweet.

Who has more siblings?
Me.......I have 4, he has 1.

So that was fun. I will tag anyone who would like to do this. It's always fun to learn these things about other people. Have fun!

More on Hannah....

I just posted some pictures of Hannah yesterday but I didn't write very much, so I thought I would just write a few funny/new things that Hannah has done lately, even though grandparents are probably the only ones that really care about this stuff. The other day we were sitting there reading a book and she pointed to her diaper and said, "Po Pos," when she had a stinky diaper. I was surprised because I usually say to her that she has poo poos when she does, but I didn't think she had connected it with her going number 2. She did it again today as well.

She also loves to push around her walker, running back and forth throughout out house. Whenever she hits something, she says, "Munk," which is supposed to be "bonk." She tries to bonk the vacuum every time I get it out, which makes it hard to vacuum anything.

She has a Baby Einstein video that she watches occasionally that teaches sign language for easy words. Yesterday she made the sign for book and then said, "book." I was really surprised. I didn't think those videos were teaching her anything.

Her vocabulary has tripled since Christmas. I've tried to count all of the words she can say, but have lost track. I think it's somewhere around 100; however, half of them would probably not be understood by anyone but Scott and me. Anyway, I just wanted to write a little bit about her since I didn't write anything last night.

As promised...

As promised, here are a few pictures of Hannah. She and I made a snowman yesterday. I think that this was the first snowman that I have ever made (that I can remember).

Maybe no one will notice if I take off his eye.

Hannah and her stuffed animals