31 GoAlS uPdAtE

#11 was accomplished this year!  i'm so happy.  getting christmas cards out is so hard for me.  but i did it!  we even managed to get most of our presents mailed at least before christmas so that counts!

#22  i completed a couple projects and i feel like i can really take on some bigger embroidery projects.  i am very excited about this as well.

BeCaUsE i HaVe AdD...

so in exciting news about our life here in Raleigh, i got my favorite calling back.  I know that never happens but it did this time and I'm super excited.  I spent the first couple years here teaching Gospel Principles which at first was very daunting but grew into a great love.  some of that love came from watching new members of our ward grow in their testimonies and be able to participate with them as they have attended the temple and even been sealed together. and some came from the learning and study that accompanies teaching.  sometimes i feel my most comfortable when i get to teach, especially the Gospel. its been a great adventure.  well at the beginning of the year i was released.  and i actually cried.  this has only happened one other time.  that time being when i was released from teaching relief society in a singles ward with no warning during sacrament meeting.  it was devastating.  well i spent part of this year not really feeling like i had a place to go during sunday school.  it felt weird to be in Gospel Doctrine and although we did attend Gospel Principles some, I didn't want to intrude on the new teacher.  Well miracle of miracles the new teacher moved away and they called and extended the calling again!  i could have jumped for joy, but i did manage to keep my voice appropriate on the phone.  so this week i'm preparing my first lesson and its on the Word of Wisdom.  great lesson, very exciting.  in my preparations i was looking up old conference talks and ensign articles to help increase my knowledge, which it did.  and helped me feel more prepared to field whatever question might come my way.  in my searching i found this article by Elder Burton from April 1976.  its a great talk about this important principle.  at the beginning of his remarks he mentions Elder Maxwell's remarks which made me miss Elder Maxwell and his unique and exquisite ways of expressing himself.  I had to look up his talk as well and indulge myself.  and  i am so glad i did.  here is the link to Elder Maxwell's talk.  You should listen and read at the same time.  it helps with comprehension.

there was so much that was great about this talk but two things touched my heart more than others.  things i'm sure i need to hear and remember more now than at other times.  first, this quote,

I testify that in eloquent example he partook voluntarily of the bitter cup in the awful, but for him avoidable, atonement; we must, therefore, drink from our tiny cups. I thank him for likewise not interceding on our behalf, even when we pray in faith and reasonable righteousness, for that which would not be right for us. Our glimpse of Gethsemane should teach us that all prayers are petitions!

this is just one of many reminders i have had lately to remember that He is in control, and that sometimes the answer i need and the answer i want are not the same.  

the second is this,

I testify that just as he has helped to carefully construct this second estate for all mankind, he also has helped to carefully construct each of our little universes of experience. I thank him for blessing me therein with a wife, children, parents, leaders, and friends to help me. I thank him now for the tender times, the jarring times, the perplexing times, and even for the times when my learning is so painfully public—lest in such moments to come I am too taxed to testify or too anguished to appreciate.


several things hit me, that this is my experience, made especially for me.  it does not need to fit a certain mold, that is culturally approved or even Cari approved, it just needs to fit the mold made for me by a loving Heavenly Father and Savior.  and that this man who is testifying stood with grace and complete devotion to our Savior and the Church through more physical trials than most of us were aware of.  in 1976 as he spoke these words i'm sure he could not comprehend what his personal universe of experience would be but his example has been a blessing in my life.   sometimes a little a.d.d. and the internet bring unexpected insight and blessings.

#1 ReAdInG tHoSe BoOkS

its been great getting caught up on some of the books i have had laying around the house lately.  I haven't finished all of the ones that are half read but i did get through a few and have done more reading in the last couple months than in the last 4 years combined which has been awesome. when i finish them all i'll give a quick review of them.

31 fOr 31

last year a little too far after my 30th birthday i ran across my friend Megan's goal list for her 30th year.  she posted it over at megsweetazlife.blogspot.com and i thought it was a fantastic idea.  in fact i was a little bummed i hadn't seen it sooner because i would have loved to start it right on my 30th birthday as well.  her list contained 30 goals she wanted to accomplish during the year, each were numbered and allowed her to then post quickly about them as they progressed or were completed.  i was super excited when i saw that she was doing it for her 31st birthday.  i was then sufficiently inspired to make a list for myself this year.  as a family our we have some goals for the next year, one of which was no gigantic projects.  i think this was the hubs referring to me starting a business or something that would become slightly overwhelming.  we just wanted to enjoy life here and focus on cutting back on self induced stress.  with this in mind i decided to make up my list of things i wanted to do this year.  i knew that i wanted some of my list to be year long goals, and some of them to be short, get it done in a day or weekend goals.  some may seem silly but writing them down as a goal will help me to not act impulsively.  so without much further ado i give you my 31 for 31....

(these are in no particular order and i will be posting about them as they are completed!)

#1 read all of my half finished books....ever start a book and life gets in the way and then you lose interest or something else becomes more interesting and then 3 years have gone by and you are only half way done...well it has happened to me a lot over the last 3-4 years and i'm determined to get these books finished!
#2 complete Couch-to-5K program!
#3 complete all out standing craft projects!  i have tons that are in various stages of completion and for my sanity they must be done!
#4  create a schedule for my crazy schedule...working nights and being married is a  little more of challenge than i imagined and my single girl schedule that i thought i could fall back into doesn't really work, so its time to find something else that works.
#5 follow a weekly cleaning schedule
#6 convert, at least for a few months, to a Paleo diet.
#7 Attend the temple every other month.
#8 DO NOT CUT OFF HAIR
#9 finish the four Gospels by Easter
#10 Reupholster our old sleeper sofa into a chesterfield style sleeper sofa.
#11 actually get Christmas cards sent on time.
#12 refashion one old outfit
#13 frame wedding and family pictures
#14 start meal planning monthly
#15 keep up a journal
#16 decorate for each holiday to keep house cheery and happy
#17 eat dinner at dinner table  2x/week
#18 establish a morning and evening yoga ritual
#19 keep up with sunday school and relief society lessons (study before)
#20 find a good eyebrow waxer
#21 read a classic
#22 learn to really embroider
#23 go camping at the beach
#24 get cupcake blog up to date
#25 finish mission scrapbook
#26 hike once a month, new trail each time
#27 make a quilt
#28 start or join a book club.
#29 complete closet and dresser redo
#30 create blog topics and schedule for cupcake blog
#31 get all of our paper work organized into the filing cabinets and binders.

as you can see there are a few that are kind a giant projects but i'm hoping that they will be fun and enjoyable.  i'm super excited to be tackling this year with all of my  goals.  can't wait to see how they turn out!

SuNdAy InSpIrAtIon

back in march i wrote a sunday inspiration post about how we "look beyond the mark". i talked about how i need to relearn this every so often. and recently i was able to do just that. this sunday at church i was given insight into how that was possible. i had spent months stressing over something i wanted very much to have happen that just wasn't working out. i had cried to my very patient husband and to the Lord about it many times. i prayed for understanding and for direction. my husband told me to let it go and it would work out when it should but how do you do that? how do you not worry about something you want so badly? one day i was looking through the free books on my kindle fire and saw a book called pearl in the sand. it was based on the story of rahab in the old testament. rahab was a harlot in the city of jericho who risked her life to save the spies from israel and they in turn brought her and her family to live with the israelites. rahab eventually married and had a son boaz who married ruth. in the new testament when it recounts the genealogy of the Savior, ruth and boaz are in that direct line. the author of this book did a fantastic job writing a story of how a harlot could have become the mother of a great man and an ancestor of the Savior. while i read this book several truths were whispered to my heart, 1. the Lord knows our hearts and our desires, and he will answer them in the way best for us. 2. forgiveness is necessary even when we feel we have done nothing wrong or that the other person may not feel they have done something wrong. This was very humbling to me. i realized immediately that I had some forgiving i needed to do. That there was one relationship in particular that i had more to do to fix. And that even if i never heard an I'm sorry or had everything back to normal i had to once and for all let it go. so i did. i decided that i was doing it and i let all the anger and hurt go. i stopped letting it eat me up inside. and it feels great. right after that i was confronted with some situations that brought painful realizations connected to what i had been praying would happen. but i found that i was able to overcome them very easily. answers came more quickly and their peace stayed. and keeps staying now. this sunday i was able to realize why this had been able to happen. in relief society we had a lesson based on jeffrey r. holland's conference talk entitled "the laborers in the vineyard". he talks about the parable of laborers in the vineyard and it is truly eye opening. he says " we consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them". This is what I learned from that. i had spent so much time and energy both spiritually and physically being hurt by someone else that it was blocking my ability to feel the spirit the way I needed to. as soon as i could let that go the Lord had so much goodness to put in it's place. the last couple of months have been very sweet not carrying that burden around with me. it has been wonderful to feel the spirit so much closer and i realized how much i had been missing. the gospel is true, the Lord loves you and when we can get out of our own way and feel it there is nothing we can't do.

ThE cUpCaKe BlOg

so i've got my cupcake blog up and running...i figured my first wedding was a great place to start.  hope you all enjoy and the recipes will be coming soon!
                                                   sweetescapescupcakes.blogspot.com

ThE wEdDiNg Of ThE yEaR

well it wasn't exactly a royal wedding but these two are pretty much royalty back home with all of their friends and family!  and it was absolutely the wedding of the year!

i love how my mom is looking at charlie!  they are so cute!

we are so excited to have Juliann in our family and now the family that started with just 4 is a family of 6!