Fancy Art

This past Saturday Justin and I became fancy art owners. =) We kept seeing ads for a starving artist show in Salt lake where you could get a paintings for as low as $7 and nothing over $60. We were intrigued and thought, "Let's see what's there." I have always wanted a cool original piece of art in my house whether made by me or someone else. We had fun looking around and there were a ton of people there. In the end we each picked one that we liked best. 

This one is mine.=)

Hehe I like how I got the t.v. antenna in there. This is the view from the couch. 

This is the one Justin liked the best.

There were a lot of copy cat paintings mostly from Van Gogh. Such as Starry Night, the Sunflower one and the Iris one. Also a lot of the same painting but in different sizes. We got some originals I believe, which is what I was wanting. You could also get the painting framed right there at a pretty reasonable price. Whatever was the price of the painting the frame was the same. We opted out of the frames, mostly because we didn't see one we liked and thought that they looked just as cool without.

We fortunately received a late wedding gift from one of Justin's mom's friends so we used that money to buy our art. Two awesome paintings of good size for 80 bucks. Not to shabby. We are excited for the show to come next year. 

A "Mighty" New Year's

This year for the Stoddard Family Tradition of a movie marathon New Year's Eve Party is The Mighty Ducks! I remember watching all these movies growing up but the younger siblings haven't seen them all the way through.

 We started off watching the first one filled with great lines such as: " Cakeeater, Our last coach hurt his arm, ( heartattack), and the beginning of the flying V and the oreo line. =) After that we went ice skating till our feet hurt. 

Once we got home we watched the 2nd one which was.....hard to get through since it was so cheesy.However, we did learn that rollerblading through the mall is totally legal.?  But we made it and then went to play broomstick hockey at the church. We had a fun arrangement of sticks, one hockey stick, two brooms and two lacrosse sticks. We had fun and Natalie felt like she was playing Qudditch being on her rollerblades and with a broom. =)

I love how Ben is in the air in the bottom one. Then we had dinner and watched the 3rd. Which is actually pretty good. Something about 2 movies some are just terrible. 

Natalie didn't quite make it to midnight. 

Toasting in the New Year!

It was a fun day with lots of laughs and fun memories. We look forward to the New Year to new adventures and always finding ways to improve ourselves. 

A Christmas Story

Happens this time every year, you know? I get to see cute pups at my Mom's house, (missing Roscoe in this one),

open gigantic gifts,

 get fixin's for my sweet-tooth,

let my sweetheart know how cute she is, 

and see two of my extra-cute members of the family. 

Spent my Christmas Eve in Layton with the complete Messenger family, then I had another great Christmas with Alaina's family in Logan. The two little nieces are just simply adorable and I love to play with them. My nephew wasn't there until New Year's.

I love Christmas and being around my family and celebrating with laughs and hugs and games.

I love the blessing of my family and I hope you all know of my appreciation for your influence on my life.

Especially this one, who has given me more love and care than I know what to do with:

You are my favorite!

Mission Reunion!

I love all of this!

Seriously tons of fun.
:)

Jayson and Neha

Over Thanksgiving weekend we headed down to warm Arizona to celebrate the wedding of these two.

Jayson and Neha got married on Nov 26, 2011. It was beautiful

Oh how I love the Messenger boys. Aren't they so cute. Every time we get together with Jayson I am baffled by the similarities between him and Justin. They not only look alike, sound alike, but have a lot of the same little mannerisms.

I went a bit early with Justin so I followed the photographer around with the boys. Such handsome men.

Here are ready to start with the parents coming in. This is Hugo ( Cecilia's brother) and Cecilia.

Jayson anxiously awaiting his Bride.

Jyana and Jayson's friend Cory. They were walking into the sun so pardon their closed eyes but they are still cute.

The Best Man and the Maid of Honor. Justin and Neha's sister Reya.

The cute little flower girls On the left is Justin's cousin Isabella and on the right is Neha's cousin Sana.

Here comes the Bride! Neha looked so beautiful. Her dress was amazing with this beaded long train. Check out her bouquet! Isn't it amazing!

The Ceremony. It was really nice, the pastor that was performing the ceremony had some really good things to say about marriage. He kept referring to it as a covenant between each other and God. It reminded me of our sealing. 

The Kiss! Now they are official  let the Party begin!

The wedding party. This is me once again tagging along behind the photographer. hehe. I love the color combination of purple, yellow and gray. It looked really classy. The gray tux'es were way nice. I am thinking that Justin needs a gray suit now. 

All the original Michilena's. From left to right. Hugo, Maria, Grandpa, Grandma, Cecilia and Micheal.

Almost all of the Michilena cousins. I think that we were missing only a few of them. Aren't they all so gorgeous. 

Just us. 

Michilena's with spouses. Lourdes in the black and Ali in the silver. They are such a fun family and I love when we get to spend time together. 

About this time my camera was dying. =( But I got a sweet shot of their first dance. They danced to How Sweet it is by James Taylor. It was really cute. Along with the other wedding festivities Justin gave an amazing best man speech. It made me a little teary, and it was very heartfelt and thoughtful. I sure do love him. Then there was some crazy dancing. 

Last but not least my henna tattoo that I got in celebration of the Indian side of the wedding. Neha's parents are from India so there was some fun traditional Indian activities and Indian food. Which I am getting used to, some of the dishes are really good and others are just a bit too spicy for me. 

We are so glad that Jayson and Neha are married. It has taken them a long time to make it happen. We wish them all the best and all the blessings and happiness that comes with marriage. 

No-Shave November

It's that time again. Time for all the college aged men to see how much facial hair they can grow in a month. Have you ever heard of No-Shave November? I only heard about it in college but Justin has decided to do that this time around. I think last year he forgot until it was already halfway done. But he has been dutifully NOT shaving all month long and at halfway this is what he's got.

His hair pattern is really funny. Where you see it is where it goes. That is no shaping or tweaking. I especially love the part on his chin, nothing is growing right there. =) It is mostly on his neck which we lovingly call  " his neard."

I do however make him shave his mustache. It just get way to pokey to kiss and it doesn't connect to the rest so it just looks funny. By now the rest of his facial hair is long enough that it's soft so I don't mind it. I think it makes him look manly. =)

I jokingly said that I would join and not shave my legs for the month of November. That however you don't get a picture of, cause that's just gross. hehe =)

He's so cute. 

Bittersweet

So I have been thinking about this all night at work. My newest patient is now on Hospice care. For those who don't know what that is, it basically is care to die at home. My patient is 7 months old. To give a little background on my patient. During or right before birth the mom had I think her placenta abrupt. That is a VERY bad thing to have happen. Not only did my patient suffer injuries from that but the cord was also looped around a couple of times.

So the results of this unfortunate accident was that my patient has no gag or swallow reflex, so that meant either a tube down the nose or implanted in the stomach to get food. That also meant that the normal saliva that builds up in our months just sits there and either drains back down into lungs or gets suctioned out. My patient also has very spastic and tight muscles and is very developmentally delayed.

As you can see the prognosis for this patient was not very good from the beginning. My first look at my patient and I knew that they would need care all their life. My patient has been in and out of the hospital with respiratory problems and having too much junk in the lungs. I guess last week my patient had a really bad seizure and was life flighted to Primary Children's. At this time they decided to sign a DNR ( DO not Resuscitate).

Now I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow that they are feeling that the death of their child is of their own doing. I so desperately wanted to share a comforting message of the Plan of Salvation but knew that I would get into major trouble at work.  I know that each culture handles death differently ( thank you nursing school), and you can see that for some of the family that was there they understood and were ok and others kept hoping for a miracle.

So along with this process and current family situations I have been thinking a lot about families and the plan of salvation. I am so grateful for it. I know that losing anybody is heartbreaking but the knowledge that you may be able to see them again seems to lessen the blow a little bit. I was also thinking just how ingenious the whole plan is. Who do you love the most? Family, parents, spouse, children, siblings. They truly are the most important relationships here on this earth. What a comfort it is to me to know that I can and will be with my family forever! Not only my siblings whom I love so dearly but the family that Justin and I will have. It makes my heart just burst with happiness. =)

My little patient might not have much longer but I know that they are Child of God and that they came here for a purpose. If anything to teach me to love my patients more and be attentive to their needs.