Sleep

I said to Matt one day, "I hate sleeping! I could get so much more done if I didn't have to sleep for so long."

Think about it!  You would have hours added on to your day. Hours I could use for studying, cleaning, cooking, sewing, my to do list, exercising, laundry, cuddling, reading, laughing, what ever you wanted! Oh, that would be fabulous. 

But what I hate more than sleeping is what I feel like after NOT being able to sleep.

Therefore, I am grateful for sleep!

In the mean time, I will try to sleep ... untill I can figure out how to feel fantastic with out sleeping.

The Divine Gift of Gratitude

 "My brothers and sisters, to express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."

Pres. Thomas S. Monson

Thanksgiving is fast approaching.  ( I am still wondering what happened to April. )  Inspired by Pres. Monson's talk in General Conference, I have set a goal to live with gratitude in my heart.  To help do so, I want to periodically post a few things I am grateful for throughout the month.  

So to start off, I am grateful for husbands that do laundry.  :) 

I am wondering if anyone still looks at our sad, lonely blog. We have managed to neglegt the blog for months. Our lovely computer killed over one day last semester. We were thrilled to find out it was just out side of warrentee. We have been looking for a great deal all summer for a new one, while saving. We start a new semester on Monday and will need a computer. --- Anyways, that is my sorry excuse for not posting anything.

I will be posting pictures soon once we get our new computer. Untill then, this update will have to do.


And you will have to forgive my lack of blog posting skills... I can not remember how to change the font, colors, and such. I was lucky to get a background again... I guess that is what I get for neglecting the poor thing.

The Oven

Why do we have two ovens?

Let me tell you the story...
A long time ago... (ok maybe not so long ago) we moved in to an apartment in far away Provo....

So we moved in to this great little basement apartment here in Provo a little over a year ago. Well, see the black oven in the picture above? Well the poor thing has had issues.
It has never worked for us quite right. I tried to cook pizza, muffins and other such things and it always burnt the bottom or took way longer than called for.
We finally figured it out when we cooked lasagna for the first time.
THE TOP ELEMENT NEVER WORKED.
We reported it to our land lord the next time we saw them.

A little while latter, Matt decided he was going to fix this problem. He took the oven apart and made sure it was the element (which looked fine and dandy by the way). So we took it to Lowes, they don't carry it anymore... the Mending Shed, they don't either... Online... close to $200 dollars. So we decided to leave it up to the owner to fix.

In the mean time, this fatastic toaster oven has become our new best friend over the last several months.
I cooked everything we ate in this little oven or on top of the stove that only partially worked.
Anyways, time passed and we decided to remind the owner that it still didn't work.
So here's the story....

One Saturday morning we get a knock on the door. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I lock myself in the bedroom to get ready while Matt gets the door. From the bedroom I hear them getting our tools and such and it sounded like they were taking apart the oven. By the time I am all ready I come out of the room to find them cleaning up all the tools and closing up the oven.

The power was on, the old element was in the guys hand, and matt was putting away his tools. So, I figured they had just replaced the element. I was pretty excited about it!
I said something like "Oh we should make sure it works before you leave!"
So I went and pushed the 'Bake' Button ......
POOOOOFFF
Their went the power and electrical. OH NO!
Matt comes back in the room and says "NAT!!!....."
We open the oven door and a little puf of smock comes out.
I just blew up our oven.

They really hadn't replaced the element, but had just taken the old one out.
But now we had an even bigger problem.
THE ENTIRE OVEN DID NOT WORK! Thanks to me!

So a week later after some microwave meals, we get an offer from our sweet neighbors in Alpine who just happen to be remodeling their house and were in need of dumping an old oven.
Matt jumped at the offer and we went to go fetch our new oven.

We (well Matt and my brother) haul it into our apartment (which mind you is not an easy task. We have narrow steep stairs just before entering our door and the kitchen is in the back.) Anyways, we go to plug it in and ......who knew that oven's have different plugs. It was a 3 prong instead of the 4 prong outlet we had. So now we have two useless ovens in our little kitchen. :)

To end the story, the owner sent a nice little repair man to fix the black oven. He diagnosed the problem to be the electrical board the whole time. The top element is in fantastic shape. He came back the next day to replace the electrical board and we were SO HAPPY!

Well the truth about the story is, we were extremely blessed. Matt told the guy the whole story about how I blew up the electrical by pushing a button.... The guy acted surprised and said that shouldn't have happened. And quite frankly, we were pretty lucky it hadn't started a fire!
I think someone in Heaven is watching over us!

We couldn't be happier to have a working oven!
I'm not sure if I am more happy to cook again, or if Matt is more excited to Eat again!

:)

Winter Wonderland!!!

The other morning we woke up to this! It looked absolutely beautiful! There is just something cozy and wonderful about waking up from a warm sleep to a fresh white Winter-land of snow like this!

Would have loved to be skiing with Ange, Em, and Nate!
(I was a bit jealous... I admit)




Good Morning!


Yes, we live in the basement of this quaint little house! We love it!

Matt is a fantastic snow shoveler!
I think shorts and cold must be a Vegas thing. ;)
Do they still wear shorts with Ugg boots down there?

A precious gem

A few days ago, I found this little gem!

"An intelligent being, in the image of God, possesses every organ, attribute, sense, sympathy, affection, of will, wisdom, love, power and gift, which is possessed by God himself. But these are possessed by man in his rudimental state in a subordinate sense of the word. Or, in other words, these attributes are in embryo, and are to be gradually developed. They resemble a bud, a germ, which gradually develops into bloom, and then, by progress, produces the mature fruit after its own kind."

– Parley P. Pratt

For some reason this just clicked in my mind. I have had several church lessons on individual worth, not to mention all the young women lessons growing up, but for some reason, this sank into my heart and made it all the more clear.

Man was made in the image of God.

Since I have been married, I have noticed that I am very similar to my parents in their characteristics and attributes etc. while my husband is very similar to his parents. So WE are similar to our Father in Heaven.

That means that I have all the same attributes as my Heavenly Father, I just need to develop them.

A quick little update...

We started school-both Matt and I are going full time.
We both work part time.
We miss the Dixon family. (luckily we see the Dennis fam often!)
We want to go to Vegas.
We bought a car this summer.
Matt translated for General Conference.

My brother came home!

My Birthday!

My surprise b-day present from Matt!

Built by Matt.
BYU Games! Go Cougs!

My closet fell apart!
It was a lovely mess, but my handy husband fixed it.

We took a quick trip to Powell for my brother since he has missed out for the past 2 years.
Our apartment has a phantom puddle of water that appears in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Come to find out, that phantom puddle is also in our bedroom and closet.
We are sleeping on a mattress in living room while our carpet is torn up and drying.

So there you have it, a quick update from the Dixon's!