day of twelves

Since this is my only chance to do this in my lifetime, happy Day of Twelves!

On 12/12/12 at 12:12pm, here are 12 pictures that came up when I did a Google image search of 'twelve' and/or '12':

trick or treat

I know this may be a letdown to see that I've posted and then discover that it's just a YouTube video, but I just had to share this:



Aww what the heck, here's some pictures from the Halloween festivities I participated in:

Abbey and Madison at IHOP after our excursion through the haunted corn maze

Mitchell and Dan trying to pop straws

A week before Halloween LSU played Auburn and we beat the tar out of them. I had a few friends over (Abbey, Clay and Dan, who just graduated from Auburn - bless his heart) to watch the game and carve pumpkins

Fall colors outside of your friendly neighborhood Books-A-Million

Me as a cowgirl at our YSA Halloween dance (with some photobombers)

Dancing to "Cotton-Eye Joe"

I wouldn't let go of my gun because everyone wanted to play with it

I had a lot of energy for the first hour or so...

Cinderella and Annie Oakley

There's a new sheriff in town

And one last trick....

Loren's boyfriend Philip was Nacho Libre for Halloween...at least he doesn't have the body of Jack Black (he's on LSU's cross country team)

Hope y'all all had a great Halloween!

girlfranz

I had a great weekend with my 'girlfranz'. We had stake conference on Saturday evening and Sunday morning so for the first time in months I had a free Sunday afternoon! My friend Mayara (pronounced Majada), who joined the church a few weeks ago, and I were asked to perform a special musical number for the Saturday evening session (with me on the piano and her on the cello). A guy in our ward composed an arrangement of three hymns (86, 100, 220) that was absolutely beautiful but we didn't get the music until Thursday night so we were really nervous about playing. She is an incredible musician and picked up her part quickly but I had to simplify a few areas so that I could just get through the piece. The time finally came for us to play in front of the four hundred or so in attendance and I thought my heart would explode but we made it through. I hit a few wrong notes here and there but I just kept going and tried to finish strong. I felt kind of bad that I had messed up a little but when I sat down my friend Ginger was crying and she told me that it was beautiful and that she had felt the Spirit so strongly. After the session ended many people thanked and congratulated us on our performance and I was just happy that we were able to bring the Spirit into the meeting and that it touched so many. I have a video of us practicing but it's too big to post on here so if you want to hear it let me know and I can email it to you.

After conference Ginger and I went to Erica's and spent the rest of the evening looking through cooking magazines and painting our nails. Ginger stayed the night at my house and before conference yesterday morning she trimmed my hair and curled the ends as I brushed my teeth. We picked up this really sweet girl Angela who's planning on getting baptized in a few weeks and made it to the stake center just before conference started. Fortunately the elders had saved us some seats so we weren't too far back but we were still in the uncomfortable metal chairs. After conference it was great to see lots of old friends and acquaintances before heading out and taking Angela home. Gingy and I had lunch and then napped on the sofa/recliner for a while. I had invited Mayara, Erica, Nate and the elders to dinner so I got up and got the jambalaya cooking. I also cooked up Mom's string beans and Mayara made some garlic toast. It was all delicious! The cake turned out well, too. I made a double layer yellow cake and put some of Mom's raspberry fig jam between the layers and it was scrum-diddly-umptious! The elders and Nate had to get going so us girls were planning on going out to play in the rain but then it stopped. So we put on a movie and Ginger taught us how to curl our hair with my Chi flatiron. She did everyone's hair and we all looked like divas! It was fun to hang out with such good friends all weekend and I was sad to see them go. Erica stayed a little longer to help me clean up and we talked for a while. She and her hubby Adam are moving to Missouri in a few weeks and I will miss them so much! Here are some pictures of our evening:

The cake I made for Erica...it doesn't really make sense because she'll be the one in Missouri but I will be in MISERY!

Happy faces, sad hearts.

The best picture of us turned out blurry! Boo! Ginger, Mayara, Erica, and me after we got our hair did.

Silliness ensued amongst us curly-headed ladies.

I can't believe she's leaving me!! :(

Sadness.

So I guess I should've gotten a picture of the back so you could see more of the curls but I loved what Gingy did to my hair! My hair usually doesn't hold curls long because it's so straight but it's still curly this morning. No hairspray or product needed, just a super hot flatiron, which I already have. :D

april fools'

I didn't pull any of my usual pranks today but I thought this was pretty funny:

i love to see the temple

Our Family Home Evening committee leaders asked people to submit pictures of the Baton Rouge temple for a photo contest this month, and these are the four I entered. I love our little temple so much and hope to be sealed for time and all eternity to the man I love in this beautiful building (I WILL be married in the temple - no doubt about that - but it remains to be seen which one I will go to although as of now this one is my preference...it also remains to be seen which man I will marry as well...). They just added all of these beautiful flowers on the grounds in the past couple of weeks as the temple was closed for cleaning and I think the azaleas are a new addition. I love azaleas because they remind me of home and to see them in front of the temple (which is essentially the starting point of a home in our church) just makes me so happy. I look forward to watching General Conference this weekend at the stake center and spending the breaks between sessions outside in the shadow of the Lord's house. I'll leave you with a few more pictures that I took:




I love this tree by the stake center; it reminds of fractals and high school math.

happy pi day!

This is quite possibly the nerdiest/coolest thing ever!

l'hotel shuler

So my life is kind of blah right now (hence the lack of blog posts as of late). Boys, being a grownup and the economy have really been getting on my nerves recently so I decided to take a little break from everything and head over to Heaven on Earth, also known as Liberty County, Florida. Since I have a cap on my hours at my job and I worked two weeks' worth of hours in one week, I basically had a week off to take this little jaunt. Fortunately there was room for me at Hotel Shuler, which had accommodations suited just for my needs - isolation from the world, a lovely guest bedroom with no street lamps to shine through my windows at night, a wonderful in-house chef, many opportunities to exercise, and plenty of entertainment, mostly in the form of adorable children as well as great movies. It was so refreshing to leave behind all of my worries and ignore most texts and phone calls and have some good clean fun. Here are my favorite pictures I snapped of the four cutest kiddos east of the Mississippi:




Okay seriously how could anyone feel down with a face like that around? Lukey is sooooo cute and he knows it! I got some other great pictures but for now I'm going to post some videos that made this trip so memorable.

This first one is for Lydia and all others who love horses such as myself:

Then there's the Lukey Shuffle - pretty much the cutest thing ever! I cannot get over this baby's cuteness!

I don't remember when, but one time when I was visiting I had the soundtrack of Oliver! stuck in my head and apparently I sang it aloud. Well Juliette remembered this and kept me laughing with her renditions (as did Jonathan, with his 6-year-old humor versions).

Primary songs from Miss Priss Juliette, while we all enjoyed some ice cream (especially Matthew, who by the looks of it didn't want to waste a drop). I got another video of Jules singing but it's taking forever to load so I'll try to post it later.

Well that's all for now, as it is approaching my new bedtime (thank you acclimation to Eastern Time Zone!). I will try to post some more pictures in the coming days.

the art of a preview

Sometimes when I used to get bored at my old job I would watch previews of upcoming movies. Most of them looked like garbage and I would quickly move on to the next but every now and again I'd find a good one that got me excited about what would soon be hitting theaters. I haven't had much time to keep up with this hobby lately but this weekend a screen shot of Brad Pitt with a nice haircut caught my eye so I decided to check out what this latest preview had to offer. I've since watched it at least five times (and it really doesn't have too much to do with the fact that Brad Pitt is in it). Check it out here:



True beauty caught on film and depictions of real-life joys of the smallest degree - breathtaking shots and scenes of chasing bubbles, running in the road, playing in the tub, building forts from bed covers, enjoying the rain, and being tickled - coupled with the sounds of a lovely piece by Czech composer Biedrich Smetana ("The Moldau"). There are also the uncomfortable scenes of a seemingly aggressive father but to be honest if it were all rainbows and butterflies it wouldn't seem so real. A beautiful two minutes and eleven seconds that stirs many emotions inside me and evokes countless memories. There are some great lines as well - "Someday we'll fall down, and weep, and we'll understand it all - all of things" and "Unless you love, your life will flash by." Now of course I know that this movie may just turn out to be trash, but the preview - oh the preview! After doing a bit of research I discovered that the same people who made this also made the trailer for 'Where the Wild Things Are', another one of the best previews I've seen. And yet, I didn't enjoy the movie so much. So I guess that it shows that trailers can be beautiful in their own right, regardless of how the movie turns out. If there were a category in the Oscars for best preview, this one would take the cake. Simply spectacular.

national geographic photo contest

These pictures just blow my mind! Check out the winners and finalists at 2010 National Geographic Photo Contest - Galleries - National Geographic Magazine.

on this day

In honor of Inception coming out on DVD today I'd like to share with you my favorite version of the preview, which has brought me many laughs over the past few months.

Other important things about today:

The 69th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and I haven't heard a thing about it on the news, which makes me sad. I wonder how long it will take people to forget about September 11th.

Elizabeth Edwards passed away today after a six-year fight with cancer. This makes me sad and happy at the same time. Although I never supported John Edwards it was exciting to see the Edwards family when they stopped in Natchitoches one August afternoon in 2004. John Edwards is someone whom I esteem about as much as the dirt on the bottom of my shoes but Elizabeth was a classy lady and kept her head held high. It's sad that her children are still so young but I'm sure she's happy to see her teenage son on the other side. These are some pictures I took of the pictures I took when the Edwards stopped by:With his $400 hairdo and wicked smile. Vomit.A classy lady and her double-chinned bodyguard.

In more cheerful news I helped Sister Woods decorate the mission home for Christmas today and I am hoping to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) tonight. Wingardium Leviosa!