Healthy and Strong!

6 weeks old today! Our sweet little missy is just growing up so fast, and she literally gets cuter every day! A nurse with the Welcome Baby program here came for a visit yesterday, and while she was here she weighed the little Miss and just kind of checked to make sure she was growing and developing normally. Little Miss weighed a whole 10 lbs. 8 oz.! That's what we like...healthy and strong! :) The nurse said she has a very strong neck for only being 6 weeks old, and from what she could tell from watching her interact with us she thought her brain development is a little ahead of schedule...in other words we've got a little smarty pants on our hands! She's not only got the looks, but she's got the brains now too! She gets it all from her dad trust me! :)

Little Miss is changing so quickly! She learns something new everyday it seems. She loves to smile and talk to me...especially when she's getting her diaper changed! She also loves looking in the mirror then trying to find the mama and make eye contact. She's also really good at messing her pants as soon as I put a clean diaper on her...I swear all I do is change one diaper after another...it never ends! Welcome to motherhood! haha. I have quickly learned which diapers I do and do not like...Costco diapers = awful! Huggies = awful! Parent Choice = ok/bearable. White Cloud = good. Pampers = heaven! We love our pampers diapers! Little Miss has also learned to love bath time. She hates being cold though, so it's quite the task to get her dressed fast enough after getting out of the tub so she doesn't get cold. Otherwise she basically screams until she's fully clothed and snuggled up to mommy.  

She loves riding in mama's pouch and being mama's little helper! She enjoys playing with her Ellie the elephant (mommy named her) rattle, but she HATES tummy time! She likes it for about 10 seconds and then she's completely over it and gets fired up! 

Tummy time is a struggle unless she's laying on me instead of the floor. Her eyes are starting to turn brown now and her hair is getting a little thicker and darker...looks like she's not going to be a blue-eyed blonde after all! She'll just be a little brown-eyed beauty instead!

Most of all she just loves her mommy and daddy, and we love her more than we ever thought possible! She's so fun and such a blessing! We've loved just being our own little family and have come to realize that this is truly what life is all about. I'm so grateful that families can be together forever and for my temple marriage that makes that possible. 

As for Justin and I...

Justin is enjoying school for the most part. He recently went to Las Vegas with his dad for a home builders convention, and he loved it! He saw all kinds of neat stuff and cool ideas for homes, and he came back wanting to build...smoothies! And not just any smoothies...healthy fruit smoothies. Random?? Umm yes! He goes to a home builders convention, so naturally I assumed he'd come back wanting to build a house or something. Smoothies? How in the world do the two even connect? Well apparently there was a guy at the convention showing off this new and improved VitaMix blender by making all kinds of smoothies made with only fruit and some vegetables, water, and ice. And of course there were free samples that Justin took full advantage of! So naturally Justin loved them and came home in a smoothie frenzy! First thing he did was go to the store and buy fruit, and when I say he bought fruit I mean we had fruit and spinach coming out of our ears!! Every kind of fruit you can imagine, he got it. He came home, whipped out the Ninja and threw in all kinds of fruit with a little water and ice. That's it! 

I must admit I didn't think it was going to taste that great having like 12 random kinds of fruit blended together with only water and ice, but let me tell you that was one tasty treat! So yummy! I was shocked that he actually stayed with just the fruit and water and didn't want to add any kind of sweetener or anything, because if any of you know Justin you know that he's got a major sweet tooth and doesn't skimp on the sugar, nor is he one to choose things that don't have sugar as the first ingredient (ok that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point...he likes his sugar!). Anyway, to make a long story short, we've definitely been getting our 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday, and I love it! They are seriously amazing!

While Justin plans the fruit combo for the next smoothie, or while he's doing homework, I have been just loving making hair bows that match pretty much every outfit for the little Miss. It's so fun, and I've loved being able to have an excuse/reason to put my creative cap on again! I've missed it! She's gonna have more hair bows than she can even wear, but oh well! I'm having fun! So if anyone needs some hair bows, I'll hook you up! :) 

These are just a few of the ones I've made so far...

We've also taken a huge step together...we got a gym membership...hold the phone! Probably one of the craziest things I've ever agreed to...I don't even know who I am anymore! haha! Just kidding! For FHE a couple weeks ago we decided we needed to each set some goals to help get our life back on track. One of the goals we both set was to eat better and exercise. Why you might ask? Well I wanted to for obvious reasons, and Justin because he just wants to get in shape again...and eating better and exercising just seems to be the thing to do right now. I think it's trending. haha. So I'm not one that's ever really been big on exercising...honestly it's not my favorite thing to do. In fact it's not even close! So I knew I wasn't going to just exercise on my own at home. If I did this goal would be out the window within the first day guaranteed! And Justin pretty much felt the same way especially since we don't really have anything to exercise with at home other than our 1/2 flight of stairs and maybe some chairs. So gym membership here we come! Justin stayed home with the missy while I went to Zumba for the first time last night. I felt like an idiot, but I did anyway! It was a great workout, and I think once I get the hang of it it'll be a little more fun for me, but it was still fun. Then when I got back I stayed home and put missy to bed and he went to the gym to workout. After day 1, we are both definitely feeling all that time we spent not exercising for the past year+. Hopefully having a gym membership and knowing that it's costing me money to have it will be enough motivation to get us there!

Mr. + Mrs. = Little Miss

We've finally welcomed a new addition to our little family! Josie Diane finally arrived December 26, 2012 at 7:46 pm after 25 hours of labor...makes for one long day let me tell ya! I was due the 19th of December, so they induced me at 41 weeks. As my family would put it, I was a first calf heifer and late calver! She just didn't want to come out...Justin says it was because she was just taking her sweet time doing her hair and makeup just like her mom! Oh please! :) Pregnancy was fun while it lasted, but I was more than ready for her to finally out of me! Plus I was very anxious to finally get to meet my Josie girl! She was definitely worth every minute of the wait. She weighed in at 7lbs. 11 oz. and was 20 inches long. She has her daddy's long feet and her mama's nose, and if she isn't the cutest thing ever created then I don't know what is! She literally gets cuter by the minute! She's such a calm baby girl, at least she has been so far...hopefully she keeps it up! We have thoroughly enjoyed her sweet spirit in our home and are so grateful she arrived safe and healthy! She's such a joy to have around, and she makes each day just a little brighter! She's just our little Miss, and we just love her so much! We have truly been blessed!! Welcome to the family little Miss Josie! :)

Tis the Season

Merry Christmas! Justin and I had a fabulous holiday season! We enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree and the house for the holidays, spending time with family, attending Christmas parties, eating way too many yummy treats, and patiently awaiting the arrival of our little bun in the oven! We thought we'd definitely have a baby for Christmas, but apparently she had something a little different in mind as I spent Christmas gaining a greater appreciation and getting a very real feel for how Mary felt on Christmas so many years ago...very, very pregnant! It was alright though; I won't complain! 

December 20, 2012 - Happy 1 year Anniversary!!

 

We also celebrated our first anniversary! Woohoo! :) It's been an amazing year! I'm so grateful to be married to the best man in the world! My Mr. is truly the best, and I couldn't have asked for anything better than to be married to my best friend! So grateful we have eternity together! :)

 Christmas Eve PJ's!

 

Even though it was just Justin and I at home for Christmas, it was still a magical morning, and the magic carried through the day! Santa found us without any trouble, and quite frankly spoiled us rotten! Justin loved his Wii and new electric razor, among other things, and I was completely elated and overjoyed with skinny girl clothes (yay!!) and new jewelry! 

 Here comes Santa Claus!

We're so excited to start holiday traditions of our own with our own little family, and this year was a great start! We both love the holidays and are grateful for the opportunity it gives us to reflect on the life of Christ and all that he has done for each of us. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

Adventure Time!

I now realize that when it comes to doing useful things, such as getting a job, I have zero skills. It's kind of depressing actually, but that's alright. I'm going to have to work on that it seems so that I may be somewhat useful in any way shape or form. Anyway, because of my uselessness and failure to get employed during the first few months of our marriage, we decided we needed a killer job for the summer. Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, we were so blessed to get an impeccable hook-up with an incredible summer job! Not only is it a great job, but it's also in a GREAT place...we're movin' to FLORIDA!!! My brother-in-law, Casey, used to install security systems for a few different companies during a few of his summer breaks, and he just so happened to be great friends with one of the best security salesmen in the business. So, we (and when I say we I mean Justin) called up this guy inquiring about the job, and he had the sales manager for the team he's on give Justin a call. He called, we met up for breakfast, he told us about the job, and it turns out his team is the number one team in the whole company! He writes all of the training manuals for the company and is a killer salesman himself, selling almost 400 security systems in one summer! Needless to say, he's really good, and also wants his whole team to be good. The whole team tries to build each other up, and though there's healthy competition within the team, their goal is to help everyone do their absolute very best, because they know if each individual succeeds, the whole team succeeds. It's a great group of guys, and about 3/4 of them are married and will have their wives there with them. The wives get together quite often and do all sorts of fun things. So anyway, Justin got the job and will be selling Vivint security systems (which are pretty amazing systems...it's mind boggling all the technologically advanced things that thing can do). We'll be moving down to Orlando, Florida the end of April, and we'll be there until the end of August. Then we'll come back to Provo, and Justin will do another semester at BYU. I'll be doing a semester online through BYU-I while we're in Florida, so that should keep me pretty busy...I'm positive I won't be bored! It'll be an adventure for sure! I can hardly contain myself a lot of the time, that's how excited I am about this whole thing! Aside from the year and a half I lived in Missouri and the few months I've now lived in Utah, this will be the first time I've lived anywhere outside of Idaho! Not just Idaho, but small town Idaho! We're both so excited! Justin has had a little bit of training and has already sold a security system, and so far he says he's had a lot of fun doing it! He's looking forward to this summer...so am I! Hooray for adventures!! :)

Hair = GONE!

I don't know what exactly it was that got into me, but a couple weeks ago in an attempt to face some of my fears, I had a genius idea to chop my hair off...for real this time! I was planning on piercing my ears as well...but I have been able to bring myself to do it. Anyway, I just wanted something a little different, since I've basically had the exact same hair style since like 6th grade...no big deal, right? I told the lady to cut it shoulder length at the very shortest, and she said, "Ok!" Then she went to work, and the next thing I know, my hair is gone, gone! Like way above my shoulders gone! I can now barely put it in a pony tail! I'm limited to like 1 maybe 2 hairstyles...definitely something I'm NOT used to! My hair hasn't been this short in a long, long, LONG time...like early elementary years! Perhaps even all the way back to the time when I was feeling cosmetoligetic at the age of 8 and chopped my hair off myself. It's a cute hair cut, it's just way different than what I'm used to. I cried the first day, and I still miss my long hair and being able to do so many things with it, but I'm now coming to grips with the new do, and it'll be ok...for now anyway. I'm growing it out! :) Thank goodness Justin likes it. I was so nervous he was going to think it was ugly at first, because he said I could cut it as long as it wasn't short enough that I couldn't put it in a pony tail anymore...oops...I guess technically I can, but it isn't pretty. Justin got me a crimper that I wanted for Valentine's Day, so I can finally feel like I can do something different with it. I really like it crimped, so that's been a blessing really! Well, goodbye hair...hello new me!

Will You Be My Valentine??

Well the Mr. and Mrs. had their first Valentine's together! So I've never really had a "Valentine" before, and neither had Justin, so this was such a fun day for us! We both got spoiled, but I think I had the most fun! So I got up at 6:00 that morning and put cute little one sentence love notes on all kinds of things around the house. For example, I spread kisses on the floor in the hall and had a note that said something like, "Let me kiss the ground you walk on." And on the light switch it said, "You are the light of my life." The toilet said, "No one could flush away my love for you." Anyway you get the point! It was so fun watching his face light up as he'd find one throughout the day. He still hasn't found them all. ;) I also made a little powerpoint on his computer that came up when he opened his laptop that was all the reasons why I love him with on of our songs playing in the background. He loved it, and that made me happy! Then he took me to Texas Road House (my favorite!) Then he said he had to go grab something real quick, and he came back with gorgeous orange gerber daisies...he knows I hate roses! :) Then when I got home, there was a pile of amazing gifts, including the hair crimper I've been wanting for awhile now, some new socks (Yay!!),some candies, olives (that he later confessed he got out of the cupboard...haha!), and the most beautiful, lovely, and sweetest card. I couldn't have asked for a better or more thoughtful and amazing husband! It was definitely a HAPPY Valentine's day in the Johnson household! :)

The Mr. and Mrs.

Turns out I'm now married!! Woohoo! Justin has been one of the biggest blessings in my life, and I'm so grateful to finally be married to my very best friend! We've been married for almost 2 months now, and it's seriously been an amazing 2 months! We've done so much and I feel like I've traveled the world! We were all over the place for like the first 3 weeks of being married and it was a whole lot of crazy fun! We spent Christmas at my house in Malta, then Christmas day we flew all night to California, then Florida. We got there about 6 in the morning then spent like 5 hours just hangin at the airport...lovely! Then we got on a bus that took us to Port Canaveral, Florida where we boarded the ginormous Monarch of the Seas cruise ship. That thing was bigger than the entire town of Malta I swear! Then we hit the open seas! Nothin but water and more water for like 18 hours! So gorgeous! It was absolutely incredible! Then we got to Nassau, Bahamas! The water was beautiful and completely transparent. You could see everything it was so clear. Though the water there was breathtaking, the actual city of Nassau was not so breathtaking...quite run down and, I hate to say it, but basically white trash! Kinda scary to be honest! We rode a glass bottom boat, which was pretty cool, and then just spent a little while at the beach. Don't worry though...it was COLD! Ok it was a whole lot warmer than Idaho, but I froze basically the whole time! Oh well! It was still amazing! As we were walking along the road on the way to the beach, some black man came strollin by, high as a kite, smiled an almost toothless smile and said, "Smoke weed!" Well alrighty then! Interesting place Nassau is...quite a culture shock for this pure country girl from middle of no where Idaho! After the day at Nassau, we sailed all night to a private owned island called CocoCay, Bahamas. The cruise line owns it...jealous! I'm tellin ya, that's the way to go...own a tropical island and have it all to yourself! Now that would be the life! Anyway, while we were there, Justin snorkeled, but naturally I was too chicken so I just floated on a mat next to him! That was fun even though it was still fairly chilly. It wasn't too long after we got back on the boat that it started pouring rain! That's another gorgeous site...rain in the middle of the ocean! Of course rain is my favorite on land, but it was even better on the ocean! Oh and I forgot to mention the food! The food was divine! Basically all you can eat buffet with all kinds of yummy stuff all day long, plus unlimited soft serve ice cream! Then dinner was all fancy, and I didn't even know what 95% of the stuff on the menu was! I wasn't very adventurous when it came to food, so naturally I played it safe and got either sirloin steak or salmon every night. Justin was a little more adventurous, but not too much. He did try French onion soup and a nasty shrimp ravioli that not only looked disgusting, but smelled even worse! Yuck! He didn't care for it either. The funniest though was we had to be really careful what dessert we ordered...half of it had either some sort of alcohol or coffee in it. Justin ordered some chocolate dessert thing that sounded and looked really good, then when he found out what was in it, he told them he changed his mind...it had a coffee sauce on it. Whoops! I think we were the only ones on the entire ship, which contained like 500 people, that weren't completely drunk out of our minds! Everywhere you turned there was alcohol in some variety in your face! It made me realize how grateful I am that neither one of us has to turn to a substance to think we're finding joy and happiness and relaxation. If I'm going to go on a trip like that I want to remember it, and not get home and realize I have no idea what just happened. There truly is wisdom in the word of wisdom! :) Though the cruise was a blast, I was really glad to be back in Florida and on our way to Washington D.C. for the second reception! Mom, Dad, and even Jared flew out for it, and it was so fun! I know Dad and Jared loath traveling, especially flying, but I'm so glad they went! It meant a lot and was seriously so fun to have them there! And really deep down I think they enjoyed themselves too, though I'm sure they won't admit it! We definitely enjoyed our time in D.C., however we were also glad to get to Utah and finally be able to move in and get settled down. We'd been living out of a suit case and had only slept on an actual bed a handful of times. However, we had quite the surprise when we got here...our apartment complex is brand new, and we're one of the first people to live here. They're still building part of it, and when we got here we found out that they weren't quite done with our apartment, so we couldn't move in yet. They had us stay in one of the other apartments that was done for a week. Talk about rough. We couldn't move anything in, and we had to sleep on the floor. We couldn't use anything in the kitchen either, so we had to eat out for every meal every day...not cool! It was fun for about a day...then I was ready for some real food and a real bed. We finally got moved in though, and our apartment is so cute and nice and perfect for us. It's tiny, but perfect! I love having our own stuff...our own dishes, washer and dryer, couch, TV that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, food, fridge that we don't have to share with anyone, bathroom, and just everything! I've thoroughly enjoyed cooking and baking and even cleaning! I love finding ways to make Justin's day better and ways to make him smile and laugh! He's amazing and does so much for me and makes me so much happier than I ever thought life could be! I drop him off and pick him up everyday, and I think it's so fun! I get so lonely while he's at class though. I always so excited to pick him up and have him home for the rest of the day! I'm so pathetic...I don't think I can do anything without him! I don't know what I would do if he actually had to go somewhere like overnight and I couldn't go...I don't even like to think about it! Ok moving on! Of course I have to wait until he's home to go anywhere, because I'm still too terrified to drive anywhere in the city. I only have to go straight on one road to take him to class and pick him up, and I can do that much, but I don't drive any farther than that by myself! I know...I'm ridiculous, but I don't mind admitting that I'm a chicken. I'm ok with that...for now anyway. It's gonna take me a while to be ok with there being multiple stop lights and more than a couple cars on the road at a time. Other than that though, things are great and so fun! I think I speak for both of us when I say that married life is amazing and so much fun! I'm so grateful to be able to spend eternity with Justin! I love him so much! He's so cute and always doing the cutest little things to tell me he loves me or is thinking of me. A few weeks ago I went to pick him up and when he got to the truck he had a bouquet of the most gorgeous flowers in his hand! It was adorable! He's just amazing! I married the most incredibly best man in the whole world...and he's all mine! I love my Mr.!!! :)