Oh So Long Ago!

This is what I looked like a couple decades ago:

Pretty cute, right? I think so. My hair still has some red to it, and it still has that curl. In this picture I look a little bit shy. I don't remember being shy... Maybe I didn't like my photographer. Regardless, I don't consider myself shy anymore. It's a little bit hard to tell in the picture, but my eyes are blue, and that hasn't changed. I don't wear that shirt anymore-much to my dismay. but if I knew where that shirt was and if I could fit into it, I would totally wear it. I think it's pretty sweet.

* * *

Here's my sweet little Tanner 20 years ago.

So dang cute! There's no denying that! His hair doesn't look anything like that anymore... Tanner does still have green eyes. I don't think he has his two-year-old shirt either. He does, however, still make that face at times. It's his "I-told-you-so-I-think-I'm-so-funny-and-you-know-that-was-clever-of-me" face. It doesn't come around too terribly often, but when it does it makes me laugh.

* * *

Well, about four years after those pictures were taken, Tanner and I crossed paths.

Right here in Mrs. Hansen's first grade class. See if you can pick us out...

I'm all the way in the top left corner. Tanner is on the 3rd row down {2nd row up} 2nd person from the right {not counting the teacher of course}. He's standing right next to Jake Randall. I do believe this is where Tanner and I first met. Of course we don't remember that... But sometimes we act like we do, and we tell people that we hated each other...

* * *

Skip ahead a few more summers and Tanner and I crossed paths yet again. Good 'ol summer swim team! I'm wearing red {I don't know who I though I was... wearing that thing}. Tanner is in the next row down-bear chested. {He's 2nd from the left if that wasn't enough info for you}.

{This picture is great! Look closely and I'm sure you'll see other people you know}.

* * *

Oh, good times... And the rest is history, really. Of course I'm convinced that these two things are the main contributors to us getting married.

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things!

In no particular order...

1) Bobby Pins: These are probably the best things ever made! I honestly so not know what I would do without them. My curly locks would have a hard time indeed without bobby pins. Miracle workers!

2) Family: I’m not going to lie. I think I have one of the best families there ever was. My oldest brother, he gave me an amazing nephew who is simply adorable! My twin brothers are so much fun, and some of my best friends. My parents are wise—so wise! And I am so glad I was raised by them and have had the chance to look up to them.




3) Friends: Oh, I’ve got some good one of these! Camille and I have been friends for YEARS {nearing 9 1/2 years now}. Chelsie and I started our friendship about 4 years ago. Derrick and I go back probably 5 years. I could name others as well: Afton, Steffen, all my old roommates, my family, my fiancé, and more… I have been quite blessed! I am surrounded my many people who love me and I consider myself so very lucky.



4) Tanner: Every single day I am thankful that I have him in my life! He really is one of my favorite things! Yesterday he said that his main goal is to make he happy—to make me smile and laugh. How splendid :o) He is SO good to me and means the world to me.



5) Good Jeans: You see, every body is different, and thus needs a different pair of pants. Life doesn't work like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants... It's just not like that. Chelsie and I tried that once and it just doesn't work. With the long legs I have, good jeans are hard to come by. Now my definition of good may be different than yours. One qualifier of a good pair of jeans is the length. I love a L O N G pair of pants. Now if I find a long pair of pants that also happens to have a little bit of stretch to them, have beautiful designs on the pockets, and makes my back side look good… Wow! That definitely makes it onto my list of favorite things!




6) Fireworks: These are magical to me! And it seems like they never love any of their mystique or magic at all to me. I believe I could watch fireworks every day of my life and not tire of them. This is part of the reason I love the 4th of July so much.

7) Christmas: “It’s the most wonderful time of the Year!!!” Yup, they had it right! I cannot put into words, my love of the holiday season! I love it all: the feel, the smell, lights, hot chocolate, decorations, presents {giving and receiving}, Christmas trees, how much happier everyone seems, wrapping paper, music and everything else. It just makes me so very merry! Sometimes I feel like I live from Christmas season to Christmas season!




8) Popsicles: So tasty! I have always loved popsicles. I think that one reason that love has deepened is due to my intolerance of lactose. Most popsicles are free of dairy and that is just one more reason they are so delightsome. One of may favorites are Otter Pops {in fact I once ate 50 in 3 hours…} And I think that right now my very favorite is the watermelon popsicle {real watermelon with real seeds!} that you can get at ‘Fior de Mitchocan’ the little Mexican store on Horne. Tasty, tasty, tasty!

9) Lists: These keep my life organized and help me make sense of things. They’re also just fun.

10) Lip Gloss: I collect this stuff. I adore this stuff! Camille and I enjoy getting lip glosses from all the different places we go. We know every type of lip gloss applicator. A few years ago Camille and I got together and counted how many lip glosses each of us had. I believe she had around 130 and I had 120.

One of my fears...

I'm not one to fear much--and I take pride in that. No need to call me conceited. I've been afraid of things in my life, I just strive to get over those fears.

There are some things I don't like: cottage cheese, hot dogs, being sweaty, feeling tired, and people scratching their stomachs for long amounts of times. And I really dislike cockroaches. But I'm not afraid of these things.

There are however a couple things I really truly DO fear.


1) Elevators. But that's due to an extremely vivid nightmare I had many years ago.

{That however, is not the point of this blog... so I'll move on}


2) My EVEN BIGGER FEAR, and probably my greatest fear to date, is that my face will become my enemy the week of October 24th {that's when I'm getting married for those of you don't know}.

I fear that the day I get married my poor face will look something this:


Terrible, right?

Or, even WORSE, I fear that I might get another one of these attrocious devils.

I just want to be beautiful the day I get married... Is that too much to ask?

Photo Shoot

My brother bRAD, who you may know personally, or through reading about him recently on a poplar blog--he's a photographer. He's not just any 'ol photographer though, he's amazing! If you don't believe me... well go see for yourself.

This past Monday, My fiance {Tanner} and I got engagement pictures taken. [One more thing of the list and that much closer to October 24th, yay!]

Let me know what you think. Here are some of the fruits of our labor:

Picture One

Picture Two

Picture Three

Picture Four

Picture Five

Picture Six

Picture Seven

Picture Eight
{bRAD told us to be Bella and Jacob from Twilight... Haha}

So there you have it! Let me know what you think, and which picture you would use if you were Tanner or myself!

No Bed of Roses...

Yesterday I met with the florist.  

I don't know if you've ever tried to say the word 'florist' over the phone, but it's a tricky word to communicate.  As I was talking to Tanner I tried to tell him that I was being a good Fiance and planning wedding things.  

"I'm going to meet with the florist this evening"

"The flourish?"

"What?  No, flourist."

"Floorist?  What floor needs to be done?"

"Flourist... I'm meeting with the florist!"

"You have a meeting in the forest?! Why?"

"Tanner, flowers.  The lady who works with flowers.  She arranges flowers: she puts together bouquets and makes boutonnieres... The Florist."

"OH...!  you're going to meet with the florist!  I get it..."

*  *  *

flo·rist (flôr′ist): A person who sells and arranges plants and cut flowers.

I didn't go into the woods, flourish, or get new carpet... I met with the flower lady yesterday.  All things considered it went quite well.  The lady doing them is really fun--a good friend of my mom's.  I'm not having any flowers in my centerpieces, so really all she's doing is making my bouquet and about 25 boutonnieres and corsages. 

My colors are fall colors: shades of reds and oranges, a little golden yellow, brown.  Here's how my bouquet is going to look.*

*Picture found by Tanner Layton.  {That's right everyone, he found this amazing creation for me!}

What I DON'T want to be when I grow up...

The other night I asked three 12 year-old girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. Their answers were all quite surprising and excessively ambitious:

"An architect." The first girl answered so matter-of-factly, it was as if she was created for that profession.

The second girl replied, "A vetrinarian is my first choice. If not that, then... No, just a vet, I don't have a second choice."

"I'm going to be a Marine Biologist." The third girl stated. {I wonder if I even knew what that was when I was her age...}

By the time I was five I knew that I wanted to go to Beauty School and ''be a bootishan'' {as the 5 year-old Lindsey would freely tell anybody}. But I knew that I would accomplish that by the time I was 18, and that following high school I needed to go to college. What kind of college degree I would pursue, however, was an absolute mystery to me. I was nothing like these three 12 year-olds...

After graduation, I spent a semester in China, teaching small Chinese children. Luckily, I fell in love with teaching, and decided that was my calling in life--now that's what my college degree will be {elementary education, not Chinese children...}

So, for the last several years, I've known just what I have wanted to do vocationally. And that's been nice. Real nice.

* * *

I would consider myself a fairly well rounded person {as far as likes and desires are concerned, not body size!} I have thought that if I hadn't harkened to the call of teaching, then there are other things I might have enjoyed. Well, recently I discovered what I would not want to do.

I would never want to be a wedding planner.

No, I don't hate weddings. No, I don't hate that I'm getting married {Don't worry Tanner! I'm SUPER EXCITED actually. Don't misunderstand this}. No, I don't hate planning--in fact, I quite like organizing things and making everything fit and work nicely. Sure, I would love to spend other peoples' money. Yes, I like beautiful things; more than I ought to probably.

At one point I even thought that my best friend and I should start an Amazing Event Planning Buisness. We both like all those things I said: beautiful things, spending other's money, making things come together, and success.  But alas, that never happened.

I guess that I'm just not loving planning my wedding.  It's a LOT of work, takes a LOT of time, requires a person to make a LOT of decisions {and we all know that I'm a bad decision maker}, occupies a LOT of mental energy, and yields a LOT of stress.  Don't get me wrong, I know that in the end it's going to be amazing {hopefully...} and my reception will be beautiful {hopefully...}, there's just a lot of 'to dos' between now and then.  

It's kind of like this:

Have you even had a paper, or a huge project due in a class.  And you know it's coming up, and you know you need to do it, and you know that when you get it done it's going to feel SO GOOD?  Yet, despite all this you don't want to do it.  More than anything you just want it to be the minute, or hour, of day after the project is due...  You would give anything for that time to be past, because you know that then you would have already done all that work and you would be free.  You know that feeling?  You know what I'm talking about?  

That's how I feel a little bit.  I know that every one always says "Enjoy being engaged!  You only get that once..."  Well, to all those people I say, "Thank you for that advice, but I've already enjoyed over three months of it."  Part of me wishes that today were October 23rd, because then everything would be done...

Is this how it feels to be grown up?

I guess I'm grown up...

I'm out of high school.  I am financially responsible for myself.  I'm taller than 95% of the parents I know.  I'm far past being legal (age wise) as far as the law is concerned.  Im getting married in less than 3 months.  Yup, it seems that most people would consider me a 'grown up'.

It's strange, really.  I mean, sure, according to the above-mentioned facts, I'm a grown up, but I still have a lot of kid in me.  Just take a look...

I like to act like a raptor.

Sometimes I have crazy hair and make faces to match it.

I enjoy having 'crazy face competitions.'

My brother Brandon and I, we love to be insane and make people laugh.

I mix it up when I can.  

There's a bit of inconsistency here: reason tells me I should be grown up, yet it's undeniable that I'm not wholly ready to be the boring-kind-of-grown-up.

This is my mom.  (Well, my mom, sister, and me if you are going to be specific.  But my mom is in the back.)  She's VERY grown up, and I'm pretty sure she would never do any of the things I did in my pictures.

When I was younger, I always thought that when I grew up I would be just like my mom!

I don't know how I expected to get there, but I just knew that when I was grown up I would know how to cook, clean, manage children, be a good wife, be the kind of mother she was, know all the kinds of good questions to ask at the doctor's office, sew magnificent things, everything like that.  Yet here I am; apparently grown up, and I can do some of those things, but it's just not anything near what my naive childish mind thought, years ago. {Yes, I am somewhat like her already.  I catch myself saying things she does verbatim, like "They're both good in their own ways" and "That's not a very wise choice, is it?"  I just wish I could be more like her in the cooking sense...}

So I guess for now I'll say that I'm partially grown up...  But not all the way...