Grandma.Grandpa.

I am working in Provo this week for work so I have been staying with my grandparents that live in Orem so I don't have to do the commute. So I wanted to do a little shout out to the most amazing people I have ever met. 

My grandma's name is Carolyn. She is the mother of 8 children and grandma to 24 children and a great grandma to (almost) 2 kids! 

Many years ago my grandma was under an extreme amount of stress over problems in the family and she had a stroke that turned from that to Lupus and many other tissue disorders throughout her entire body. She lives everyday in essence amounts of pain and headaches. 

She has been to doctors all over to try to find a cure for her pain and yet doctors tell her over and over that there is nothing they can do due to the lack of knowledge to what the problem is. 

Everyday my grandma wakes up, goes to the gym and does her physical therapy at the pool. Comes home and gets herself ready with  her hair done, make up and cute sassy outfits and during all this listens to the scriptures on tape. She then does scripture study with my grandpa and they pray together as a couple. She then goes to start her serving for the day.

She is the first to make bread and take it to families in the ward that are need of some extra love. She is the first to send a card to those that need a pick me up. She goes every single day to see her friend in a nursing home and sits with her and talks about whatever her friend wants, just so she won't be alone. She never forgets birthdays and anniversaries, or neglects to call on special occasions. 

The reason I wanted to do this little shout out was because of an experience I had last night. 

Last night my grandparents were called by their Bishop to have a small meeting. I was in the family room and they all went into the living room to talk. I was listening to the conversation they were having and the amount of faith astounded me.

There is a family in my grandparents ward that are the "special" family and has many needs and problems that they like to dramatize and announce. The Bishop came to ask if my grandparents would visit/home teach as a couple this family. The Bishop knew of the burden this family are and the amount of hardship they could bring, but through prayer felt that my grandparents were the right choice to visit/home teach this family. My grandparents proceeded to tell the Bishop that this would be hard on them, but as the Bishop told them that he truly felt that they were the choice Heavenly Father needed in this familie's lives-my grandparents replied, "Bishop we will do as they ask, we will do our very best to make sure we fulfill this calling." Knowing how hard and time consuming this will be and the health my grandma is in, they still had such faith that if they took this calling they would be blessed. 

My testimony was strengthen at that moment when I heard them tell the Bishop they would take any calling the Lord asked. 

Both my grandparents are 2 people I hope Jeff and I can be when we are older. They have opened their homes to many and hearts to thousands. Even through my grandmas pain everyday she continues to serve and help others. I pray that she knows how much others look at her with admiration and love. 

I love my grandparents.

Infertility vs. Adoption

Since I have gone through the roller coaster of emotions for BOTH infertility and adoption I thought I would share my experiences with them both.

Infertility-

The amount of hormones they pump you full of for any form of infertility will make you a crazy person  to start off with. As a woman you have been gifted with the ability to have children. Men can do most of the same things we can. They can dance, design clothes, cook, clean, work, shop, vote, argue, wear skinny jeans, apply makeup, arrange flowers, kiss boys..all in all they can do anything a woman can-except give birth. 

It's hard to be told that your body cannot produce a child and your body is a "default." First you start fertility medicine and then they start the testing and then they start the treatments and next thing you know it, it's been 3 years and your hormones are jacked up and your body has no idea what is going on. The whole time you wonder if the money, tears and heartache are worth it and in the end when there's nothing to show but medical bills and 20 lbs added to your back side, it's hard to emotional take it all in. 

People like to add their opinions and insight on things they know nothing about and tell you special tea and pills to get you pregnant in a month, or their friend's sister's best friend went to this doctor and she got pregnant, or my favorite, "have you tried having sex when you're ovulating?" UM YA! 

Adopting-

My favorite of all time has been this one, "Why don't you JUST adopt and I bet you'll get pregnant right after!"

So, we should adopt a baby and pray that once we adopt we can FINALLY get pregnant? Think about this. I always picture my children in heaven waiting to come down and how would they feel if they knew that I was saying that the only reason I want to adopt is so I could finally get pregnant? We are adopting because OUR child is in heaven and is coming down through another body, not so we can get pregnant and have biological children once he's here. 

The roller coaster of adopting is a whole different amusement park itself. There are highs and lows and inbetweens. There's heartache and promises made, there's the best moments in your life, with promises broken. 

We are adopting because this is our baby. 

Shop.Deals.Win.

So I've been told to write about my shopping. I don't wanna brag but I'm kinda the master at finding amazing deals..it's a gift I think. I have a small obsession with shopping and there's no high like shopping. The reason I can get away with more shopping is the deals that I look for and find. Here's a few keys to finding "the" deal!

1. When you walk into a store, any store- go straight to the clearance section. 

2. Nordstrom Rack- shoes- go in the clearance section and look for a label that says "Worn and Refurbished"..that is your goal. Word and Refurbished shoes are shoes that over a certain amount of money that a customer buys and returns at Nordstrom. Because of the price of the shoe Nordstrom can't take them back and re-sell them so they send them to Nordstrom's Rack at a cheap cheap price. Another reason is someone bought them and wore them for a small minute and returned them to Nordstrom and again, Nordstrom can't re-sell them so we luck out. Everything at Nordstrom's Rack will go on clearance sometime. If you go often enough and go straight to the clearance section you will find killer deals.

3. Even when things are on sale, they always will go an "Additional 30-40% off"..eventually every store does it. Wait and see if your sale item will go on the additional sale and you'll save more, which means you can buy more!

I rarely buy full price, because after working retail for 2+ years I have learned that EVERYTHING goes on sale. No matter how expensive or high end the product is, stores have to get things out of their stores for the newer thing. You may not have the "in" item right away, but within a month or 2-you'll have it for 1/6 of the price! Here are some of my favorite finds-

Jeffrey Campbell
Original- $109 My price-$24
Worn and Refurbished 

Cashmire Sweater for Jeff
Original-$98 My price-$7.97
NRack Clearance

Jeffrey Campbells
Original-$119 My price-$18
Worn and Refurbished

Jeff's Gap Shirts
Original-$24.50 My price-$3.40

Seven For All Mankind
Original-$189 My price-$23.97
NRack Clearance 

Current Elliots-
Original-$209 My price-$34.97
NRack Clearance 

Alice and Olivia
Original-$265 My price-$27.97

DV
Original-$98 My price-$24
Worn and Refurbished 

Sperrys
Original-$79 My price-$18
Worn and Refurbished 

Steven by Steve Madden
Original-$129 My price-$24
Word and Refurbished 

JBrand
Original-$189 My price-$12.90
NRack clearance

Some of these are just some of the things I wear those most that I got great deals on. It's just to show that some of these clothes-when I bought them at Nordstrom Rack,  they were still full price at Nordstroms or they were in the stores within a month of when I bought them. 

I have 5 pairs of jeans I have boughten on clearance upon clearance that are name brand jeans all under $35.00. 

I love clothes and can't give them up, but I can't pay $190 for a pair of jeans..so I wait and wear them for $25 and they are so much cuter at that price!

Good luck shopping!

Compare.

Women vs. Women

I've decided..and I means Lacie..I've decided that I am going to use my blog as an outlet to whatever thoughts are running though my head, ideas that I have, shopping tricks that I can share..pretty much anything that I have in my head-I'll write.

The last few days I've been pondering and lugging around the 20 pounds that I've managed to pack on in the last few months. I want to blame most of it on the hormones I was on for infertility, but lets be honest..I've had a DrPepper trip here and there. I was grunting and groaning about how all my cute pants aren't fitting and I'm tired of looking around and seeing all these girls skinnier then me. The more I've been thinking and lusting after girls with skinny legs and small butts I realized a few things-

1. I am not fat. I am not obese. I am not having health issues.

2. I may no fit into my size 26 jeans like I did last fall, but my body shouldn't fit into a size 26.

It was at that moment that I wondered to myself, do I want to loose weight so I feel better about myself or do I want to loose weight so I can compare my body to those with skinnier legs?

Of course the answer is the second option and I just thought..wow this is how women work. I would care less if Jeff sees me a little more chunky and trying to squeeze myself into those jeans, but Oh My! have mercy another woman better not know how much I weigh or size jeans I wear!! I won't lie I am totally the girl that checks other girls out when they have a body that I envy. My "trouble" body 

parts are my butt and thighs so when I see a girl with skinny thighs and a tight butt I wanna punch her. I wish we would all just be grateful for whatever body shape God gave us, we never will be, but I wish we would. I was not built to be a size 0 with no curves, and I'm actually ok with that. I know that Jeff likes a little junk in my trunk, even if I don't. Jeff will always ask me, "who are you trying to impress, me or the other girls at the party..?" My answer- the other girls at the party! Women, we are funny. Lets for the next 24 hours look at ourselves in the mirror and be like, "damn-that cellulite looks good on my thighs!" I am happy that I don't spend my days in the gym and eat to strict diet..I live my life and enjoy my days and if that means my jeans fit a little tight or I have a dimple on my butt..I'll take it.

Camping

This summer I decided that after months and months of being depressed and infertility heartache that it was time for me to spend some time with Jeff and enjoy the time we have now. So I quite my job and Jeff and I are "yes" people now! We are saying yes to every opportunity that comes our way.

We went camping up in the Utah Uintas with a few of our friends! It was gorgeous. 

And YES we are matching! Jeff loves matching haha. He thinks it's so cute and his brother got us these matching jackets so since we were in the middle of nowhere and with just bears around us I figured this was the best time to "match." 

Ali, Jordan, Jeff, Lacie, Dunham, JR, Becca

Moab2012

MOAB!

We went to Moab for the first trip of the year with 3 other couples! It was so fun. 2 of the couples had Jeeps so we did tons of trails and I even got to drive and do some crazy fun hills and scary holes!

These are the Jeeps. We were in with our friends Rylan and Taylor in the white Jeep and our friends Jordan Ali Steph and Nick were in the black Jeep!

Fall/Christmas 2011

Fall is by far my favorite time of the year, especially here in Utah. It's not hot, it's not freezing. I get to wear boots and scarves. It's our anniversary, Halloween, and Christmas all in a small block of time. The leaves are so pretty and its like the whole world is turning different colors. I could have fall year-round.

 Jeff and I went on our first date to Market Street Grill....My fav! We love seafood and this place is the best. So every year we go to Market Street for our anniversary dinner. There's nothing like some 

good 'ol salmon and crab!

Christmas is a BIG deal in my family. We have tons of traditions and always spend it as a family. Christmas Eve we always get new pajamas and that's what we are wearing in this picture! I go crazy when it comes to decorating. I usually put up my tree in the beginning of November! 

Weddings...Oh weddings! I would go to a wedding every weekend if I could. My cousin got married in January so my mom's whole side of the family went to Boise to celebrate with her! Jeff and I honestly did not plan on matching...but apparently our minds think alike! 

California....

Jeff's family decided to do a full family vacation to San Diego. We had 2 parents, 3 brothers, 3 sister inlaws, 2 nieces, 3 nephews and ONE house. 

The house we stayed at was right on the beach and we played and played..we Disneylaned the crap out of California!

Our "children"

Jeff and I have adopted some children as our own.....

We have AMAZING friends that have shared their lives with us and have let us into their children's lives. We feel so lucky that we have our little children and helped raise them. 

This is Boston. My best friend Maria and I have been good friends since high school. I was there for his birth and he was my first born...

   Then about a month ago Maria had another baby girl named Reese. I got to be there right after she was born and got to spend the first 2 weeks with her in Spokane!

Then my other best friend Kallie had Naomi. Jeff and I have watched Naomi many many times and usually see her twice a week at least. Kallie and her husband just moved to Denver though so I don't get to see her anymore...

And then Kallie had another baby girl named Jovee! She is still just a little one too!

The newest member of our Pretend Kids Club is Mabel. She is 8 months old and we got to watch her for 4 days and fell madly in love with her.. She has down syndrome and has such a soft spot in my heart, she is literally perfect!

These 5 kids are the kids that have made the last 2.5 years due-able. We love them like they are our own and we can't wait till the day comes that we can add our own children into the mix and make this big family a whole.

Twice the Years, Twice the Fun

Year 2 has been a full year. It's been a hard year. It's been a roller coaster of a year. Year 2 has been a great year. This has been a crazy year. 

This has been the year from heaven to hell.

This year we found out that we were going to go through the adventure of infertility. It has been a true test to our relationship.

Now for the fun stuff...

We have made a yearly tradition to go skiing or snowboarding every year with all of our friends to a mountain about 2 hours away. We go for the whole weekend and all stay in one cabin and just eat and play!

 

We decided it was time for the Bleaks to grace VEGAS with their presence.. We went for 5 days and saw Phantom of the Opera while we were there to add to our Broadway shows! I love to lay out all day and so that's what we did. Lay out, eat dinner, go to a show or walk the strip and sleep! 

Summer treated us WELL! We had a great summer with great friends. 

Year #2 down.....