What and If...6 years with you

"'What' and ‘if’ two words as nonthreatening
as words come. But put
them together side-by-side and they
have the power to haunt you for the
rest of your life: ‘What if?'..."

But I know that if what you felt
then was love - true love ...I hope you had the
courage to seize it..."

...You need only the courage to
follow your heart..."

(Taken from "Letters to Juliet")

When I met Brian, I was an 18 yr-old on a mission. I had two years left to earn my Bachelor's and had aspirations to teach English in Japan for a year to save up money for a mission. When I got back from my mission, it was off to graduate school! I had a plan. A plan is what kept me from getting sucked into this "gotta-get-married" fever everyone around me had. I wanted love like anyone else would, to be in a relationship, but I didn't want it to consume me. Still, I had been in a few relationships since starting at BYU-I and with each heartbreak came a comforting hold on to my plans, that the relationships never would have worked in my plans so it didn't matter.

Then I met Brian. I felt like he was unlike any man I had met. There was a real connection and I felt I let my guard down, and he was OK with the me he saw. Well, I guess more than OK- in love with me. As I truly was. I still talked about my plans with him but I realized the "what if's" that I did not want to have to live with were, "What if I go to Japan and leave him?" "What if I end this for my plans?"

I also remember now that while we were still dating, not even engaged, it came time for me to declare my preferences for my student-teaching locations the next Spring (about 1 year in advance of my student teaching). Again, "What if I go to Arizona or Las Vegas?" 

Instead, I decided to seize him, my true love. And it has been the best decision of my life.

Meagan's hobbies...

I meant to just add this on to the last post but I forgot. First, I wanted to show you a before and after shot of one of the pictures of Sydney I edited with PhotoShop:

                                

               BEFORE                 AFTER

I've been having lots of fun lately with trying to figure out photoshop. Can't wait until we can afford a nice SLR camera but for now, I have to fiddle with the settings in Photoshop to get the picture the way I wanted.

Here are some digital scrapbook pages I have done recently as well:

 (Kit: Dream Big Designs: Dream Big)

For this next one, I edited this photo:

and got this:

(Kit: Scrappy Cocoa: Fleur)  I really love how that one came out!

(Kit: Meagan's Creations (myself!): Those Were the Days )

  (Kit: Viola Moni and Meagan's Creations: The Lion Sleeps Tonight)

Thanks for reading!

Random cuteness and Jonas 10 months!

Sydney and Jonas are playing together more and more every day. It's really cute. Sydney can often be too rough- we have had biting issues {again} lately since Jonas has popped 3 teeth! He bites her, she bites back, it's not fun. But it's also so fun to watch them make each other laugh and smile.

Here are a few random pictures of them.

And then a sibling shot- love it!

Today I had Sydney wear this yellow dress and the yellow bow in her hair and I had to get pictures! (Did some photoshop editing to bring out the colors more!)

I first ask her to smile and get this crazy face:

Today marks Jonas being 10 months old!
Like I said, he has 3 teeth- two on top and one on the bottom. He is getting tired of being spoon-fed and wants to eat what we eat at the table so he has had egg noodles, mac and cheese and peas, green beans and pears (in these little fruit catchers with nets- thanks Drea!). He still hasn't ventured to taking a step out but we are practicing getting him to stand on his own. He has made very distinct "ma-ma" sounds recently! Fun developments! Here is the cutie!

Love this cute smile!

Close-up of those Baby Blues!

And I know nothing is final YET, but Brian and I put in an offer on a house that was accepted so we're moving forward in the house-buying process! We LOVE this house and it's location is perfect for shopping and Brian's work. Here are some pictures pulled off the real estate sites:

Love the curb appeal! It's on a nice, quiet cul-de-sac. 

 Kitchen is a little small but I think it will be great. Look at that great backsplash!

 Gorgeous Master bedroom! They did a great job with the hardwood floors, color choices and gorgeous crown molding.

 The living room is a great shape. It also has a vaulted ceiling.

 This is the 2nd bedroom. I LOVE the chair rail! This will be Jonas' room- already painted the right color! And because it is the closest one to the master bedroom.

 Don't you love this patio! They just installed it last year and it looks so nice! Too bad we don't have any nice patio furniture! but we'll still enjoy it with our camping chairs.

 All in all, it's a 3bed/2bath home, 1300sqft and we are super-excited!
We hope to close Sep 20th or sooner! Love to all!

Must be doing something right...

The other day Sydney had my scriptures opened. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was reading stories. I then asked, "About who?". Sydney replied, "Jesus".  I have angels for children :)

Will be posting later today with Jonas' 10-month old shots! and some I got of Sydney.

About those photos...

I was talking to Brian about the goofy pictures I showed in the last post. He told me that all four of them (including the silly ones of Sydney) are photos SYDNEY took herself. Thought was impressive!

Random Silliness

The past few weeks have been mostly uneventful. Brian and I have looked at some homes. We ask Sydney if she likes them or not. There was one she loved and we didn't so I'm afraid her judgment isn't too valid. Our ward boundaries have changed and so we went to a new church this past Sunday. We drove out to the building the week before, however, and as soon as we pulled up, Sydney said, "I don't like it." It's a nice brand new building but I agree with Sydney that it would not make a nice house for us!

Jonas seemed to pop 3 teeth out in 1 week! His top 2 poked out first (unusual) and now he has one coming out at the bottom. We've tried to take a picture of the teeth but they're just not far enough out yet but they're there! He has a big appetite and sleeps from about 8:30 to 5 most nights (today, he slept in until 7- nice!). He can climb stairs and is cruising a lot but has not ventured to take a step out. Such cuteness!

Here are some pictures we took while outside one day.

I cannot believe Sydney is going to be 3 in two months! I took her shopping with me last night and she was laying on the cuteness real thick with the other shoppers. She was pushing her own minature cart and smiling and saying "Hi" to everyone she walked by. She was actually very helpful. She's a little tattle-tell with Jonas but it's OK. She's always very helpful. I can ask her to fetch the syrup or ketchup and she can do it! We've also started talking about recognizing letters and if you ask her what sound the letter B makes, she'll tell you "ba-ba-ba" and then words like bottle, baby, and ball start with B. So that's cool.

Sydney defnitely likes dress-up. Here she is in my glasses:

and the famous Mickey hat:

And if you give two silly clowns a camera, this is what you will find:

Hope these gave you some laughs!