Drumroll Please.

The votes are in and announcing the name for little princess now is the winner so,


without further adieu,


The name that we have chosen



For our little baby girl



Which she will go by



and we feel to be unique and special like her


and nobody better steal it, or any part of it cause we WILL kick your butt




and some people already know cause we chose the first name a long time ago and told people and if you already know you can stop reading now


and it is so pretty (I know you are all thinking "Oh COME ON... get on with IT!" but I am just stretching out the anticipation cause in a second it is all gonna be over and that is the fun with surprises is the wait)



and we already refer to her as this and she knows it is her name, I am pretty sure her ears perk up when we talk about her, I think I can kinda feel it or something.



and the name which she shall go by shall be

Isla Claire

not Ice-luh
not Is-luh

it is pronounced: Eye-luh... strong I, silent s.

Isla Claire...

Remember how I was telling you about www.Restaurant.com? Well, today I got an email with a really good promotional code! $25 giftcards for $2!! 80% off... enter Promo code "Lucky" at checkout.

Miscellaneous.

Family Gems:

Fathers Have a Divine Role in Families

“Satan, in his carefully devised plan to destroy the family, seeks to diminish the role of fathers. Increased youth violence, youth crime, greater poverty and economic insecurity, and the failure of increasing numbers of children in our schools offer clear evidence of lack of a positive influence of fathers in the homes (see David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem [1995], introduction, 25–48; David Popenoe, Life without Father [1996], 52–78). A family needs a father to anchor it.”

L. Tom Perry, “Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling,” Liahona, May 2004, 70

For you that have little girls/babies, here are some cute CHEAP headbands you can get on www.Forever21.com... (we are talking 2 and 3 bucks!)

Things to Love

• The smell of grass when you walk outside
• Helpful and thoughtful parents
• the Temple cafeteria
• sleeping with the window open every night
• These great finds on Forever21.com (not that I am going to be purchasing anything:( ):

Tunic Top: $11.50

Vintage Blouse: $27.80

Satin Pencil Skirt: $17.80

• these onion rings I made last night, courtesy of the Pioneer Woman, I have a feeling every single recipe on there is REALLY good.

Mmmm... That's Better.

I don't know what we were doing, thinking we could go so long without attending a temple sesh. I enjoyed every minute of it, from our pre-session cafeteria date dinner (my first time eating there, you have no idea how excited I was), the coziness of my temple clothes, to the quiet time in the Celestial Room at the end. The difference in my mood between yesterday morning and this morning is a 100% turnaround. For the past few days/week, I haven't felt like myself. I just kept thinking, what is wrong with me? Is it just the stress? Anyway, I feel like myself again, and I promise I will be back to visit again soon.

Why Mormons build temples, here.
Las Vegas temple.
Motivation to attend, here.

I hope all of you have had the opportunity to realize what a difference a good temple visit came make in your lives and never take it for granted.

Saturday Was a Good Day.

Saturday night Trent and I cozied up on the couch and watched Bedtime Stories and ate Raisinettes and Twizzlers. We also cleaned our room and did laundry. Nothing special.

But you wanna know what made an ordinary night so extraordinary? We finished the Business Plan...

Little did I know that after meeting with the SBA and having to make a couple small changes to it was gonna mean another seven hours of work on Sunday to adjust all my charts and graphs. At least he said it was a beautiful business plan. I still felt pretty good Saturday night and feel pretty good today.

Things to Love

There is not much to love this week, getting this STUPID business plan done is weighing down on me like an elephant. I will be so glad when it is FINISHED! Then, if we don't get our loan, well... I can't even think about what might happen!

• Easter and picturing my little princess in her easter dress next year.
• Knowing that it is all temporal. and none of this crap is gonna matter in a few years.
• being able to IMAGINE a successful future.
• the birds nest outside my window
• hearing that I have a very active healthy baby growing inside... and a couple ounces ahead of schedule (please say this means she is coming early... not that she is gonna be a 10+ pounder)
• my flowers the easter bunny brought.

Why I love Trent: He works hard, he humors me when I say, "I can't wait for the easter bunny to come tonight.", he pokes my stomach to "wake her up" and maybe she will "kick back".

Spring Nights

We had company in town this weekend... one of my best friends Lara Leigh and Trent's brother Chase flew in to hang out. We decided it was the perfect time to finally christen the awesome barbecue we got for christmas! Trent grilled up some delicious hamburgers and tender pork spareribs. The secret (or maybe not so secret... I don't know) to getting them tender is wrapping the ribs in foil and sticking them in a 400 degree oven for an 1-1 1/2 hours, and then just charring them on the grill. (salt and pepper and throw some sliced onions on top too) If you will notice in the picture, we had to grill in the driveway (or lack thereof) since our backyard is still just dirt.

Stella Awards

My cousin emailed this to me and I knew I had to post it. I think 7th and 1st place are my favorites.


Stella Awards

It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico , where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that? That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Here are the Stella's for the past year:

* SEVENTH PLACE*

Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.

Start scratching!

* SIXTH PLACE *

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

Scratch some more...

* FIFTH PLACE *

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.. Keep scratching. There are more...

Double hand scratching after this one..

* FOURTH PLACE *

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas , garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot...

* THIRD PLACE *

Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Only two more so ease up on the scratching....

*SECOND PLACE*

Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

Ok. Here we go!!!!!

* FIRST PLACE *

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?
$1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid..... or are more members of Congress serving on juries these days?

Hump Day

Tomorrow I will officially be 20 weeks! But since baby and I have a deal hopefully we have already passed hump day.
I know you all have been wondering about what we might name our lil angel, here are some ideas.

• Aloradannen
• Kya Daikini
• Risselle

Or, if it happens to be a boy:

• Mad Mardigan
• Pek
• Burglecutt
• Ranon
• Willow

What can I say? Willow made a strong impact on our childhood.

**If you don't know what I am talking about, that is sad. :(

Proof I am my mothers daughter...

Trent and I have thought a lot about getting started on our food storage and we finally did it!

We decided the Smiths Caselot sale was the perfect way to start.

My problem is that sometimes I look at the grocery store coupons to feel all domestic or something but really I have no idea what I am doing cause I don't know what a good price on chicken is... until yesterday that is!!

Oh yeah baby, I found this website, Grocery Smarts. **The link takes you to the homepage and asks for a passport code, which you can only get by knowing someone that already has it, lucky for you, if you live in Utah, you will see a red link on the right you can click to take you in. Follow this link if you live in Nevada.

Simply by choosing the grocery store you want to go to, it takes you to a list of all the items they have in their ad. If it has 4 or 5 stars next to it, it means it's a good deal!

So, we ended up spending $153.04 and saved $93.80! Wowsers. I coulda saved more, but I am not quite ready to use coupons.

Trents favorite purchase: Pork spareribs... the HUGE ones. Seven bucks each.

I thought I would also share this website with you, Restaurant.com.

This is Trent and I's secret weapon to living like kings. We have used the site many many times. Basically, you do a search by zipcode or state and it pulls up all the restaurants in your area that you can purchase the giftcards to. You get a $10 gc for $3, a $25 gc for $10, and then they have a big one, but I can't remember what it is. Just so you know, the Melting Pot is on there! So you can really save some cash.

Also, you really will never actually spend $10 on a $25 gc cause once or twice a week they send you codes to get an additional 50 to 80% off. So that means, I usually buy a $25 gc for $3!!

What's the catch, you ask? For a $25 gc, you have to spend at least $35 at the restaurant. But, I mean, come on, your getting a $35 meal for $13! Also, you can only use one, you can't double em up, even if you are splitting the bill... DUH.

Your Welcome.

Fools Rush In

We WISHED it was twins but.... we are happy with one.

APRIL FOOLS!!!

We were trying to surprise you...

We really wanted to wait til we came home from the hospital... and Trent told me there would be no way I would be able to hold it in til then... and he was right! SO... it's actually TWINS!! Surprise! We are so excited! and I'm a little disappointed in myself for not waiting cause I would have loved to see the look on everybodies faces. We know the sex of one baby is a girl and the other we should be able to tell at my doc appt next week! YAY!!