The Holiday Season!

Brenna and I also did some cookies the next day instead of studying (while we gave ourselves a study break)

I love this time of year because it means the start of the season of holidays. This month we have HALLOWEEN!! next month is THANKSGIVING, then come CHRISTMAS! 3 favorites. Plus they all come with such personality and are so fun to decorate for! I know it's been a long, long, long, times since I posted... but hey, I'm doing something now. Joe and I went up to OK City Temple a few weeks ago and met his sister Crystal and her husband Kurt and their baby and we did some baptisms for Joe's family. It was so cool!

Since it's October now, we did Oct. 1st FHE (because we are doing FHE on Thursdays) decorating our house some for Halloween and then Jen and Allan came over for a quick lesson on the importance of Latter-Day prophets and for decorating Halloween cookies, super fun. I still have some dough I'm thinking of bringing over to my parents tonight to let the kids do some too.

Enjoy the pics

Quarter dates

Last night we went out for a date with only the extra quarters we have in our laundry stuff (that we don't need anymore because we have our own)

We went to the ghetto arcade in our mall and I beat Joe at pool. Who cares that it was only through default because Joe scratched when he was going for the 8 ball.

We also did dance dance revolution (it was so fun but there are not pictures since we both played.)

A few house pictures

We haven't taken pics inside with the furniture yet, but here are some from the front! and a few of the inside sans-furniture. (and one of the washer and dryer b/c you all know how excited I am about that!!!)

Mistress Mary Quite contrary

I am so happy! My flowers are GROWING! Now, I didn't plant these roses, but aren't they blooming pretty? It is because I watered them! Yay, I didn't kill them (yet... knock on wood)


I love having some little flowers out there in the yard. And the other day I made some pasta salad and used fresh basil from the garden. Delicious.


I hope you enjoy these flower pictures.

5 Week One

Now that people have probably quit reading my blog, I decided to post a little something today.

We moved to our new little house over the weekend, pictures to come, I decided to hold off on posting 1/2 moved photos, but it is such a great house. We were a little nervous b/c our air conditioner didn't work and in our apartment it was a huge pain to get them to fix it. So we called our landlord today, he sent over and AC guy by noon and it is working now! I love love love renting a house that the landlord cares about you!

Another plus, washer and dryer, I've spoken of these wonders before but I feel as though I could write them a sonnet (if only I could remember what Iambic pentameter actually means and if it was necessary)

The dryer and washer are good
for cleaning your clothes, which you should
If you do not wash all your clothes,
Perhaps people shall hold their nose.


Anyway, whether or not that qualifies as a sonnet, I am glad to have a washer and dryer. And if you were wondering: we did still wash our clothes when we didn't have one so accessible.

Today was the start of a 5 week summer term in which I am going to take 2 upper level Accounting courses (insert panic attack here). I went to one class today for 4 hours (well, he kept us just over 3) and we covered 4 chapters of material! SERIOUSLY 4 CHAPTERS! How do you keep up with that??? Especially when your text book hasn't arrived yet, even though the people you ordered it from assured you it would be here in 4 days!

Jennifer Marie and I are going to start a "healthy blog" kind of thing. If you are interested, and I know you and decide you can.... (or I guess if Jennifer knows you and deems you worthy) you're welcome to join up with us. We'll make all of us blog administrators and we'll tell each other our goals and report weekly or bi-weekly. By doing this we'll be more accountable. I'll create the blog and if you want to do it, let me know! (You can email me OR you can just comment below)

PS Joe's fine.

HAHAHAHAHA, no seriously: just a quick Joe update for those "Joe followers" like his family. He's graduating soon and couldn't be happier, he did think about staying in school for one more semester so he could have an internship at least, but we don't think it'll be worth it since it would be like $1000 of tuition. He made an A in his Maymester class and he seems pretty happy with himself (which he should be)

TTFN
(ta ta for now)

Dear Mom

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd write a little something in appreciation of my wonderful mother!

Dear Mom

We've been through a lot haven't we? Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I can't say that we have always seen eye to eye. Actually, I CAN say that sometimes I thought you may be completely insane! But I think that is just part of growing up. I used to think I was normal and now I know that we are all a little bit crazy! No, just kidding. I love you and I appreciate all the things that I learned from you. I know that I definitely was always a joy to teach, and you taught me so much! Just a few traits and things I attribute to you.

1. The ability to multi-task. As a mother of nine, I don't know that you ever do just one thing at a time. And I learned from the best how to juggle activities and choose what is most important.

2. A great love of reading and books. The time you spent reading to us when we were kids was so wonderful. I still when I think of "The Hobbit" think of you reading aloud. I plan on doing that for my kids, I hope they love reading too.

3. Sewing. You taught me how patiently and still are there for help when I try new things. Thank you for helping me so much!

4. Cooking. mmmmmmm...... enough said.

5. Child care. Growing up in our house, I learned so much about kids and loving them.

6. Projects Success. I didn't know how else to say it. But you taught me how to look at a project, know what needs to be done, and do it. I love you so much for that! I guess within this I'll include that you and dad taught me to tile floors, paint walls, texture, etc. etc. If you don't know how to do something, you'll figure it out! I love that, I like to think I'm that way too.

7. A love of hymns. I know the hymns and I love them. I hardly need a book while others barely know the words. I think that knowing those hymns has blessed my life in so many ways. I can just sing a hymn to myself and often I do!

8. A love of the gospel and family. I love the church, I love the gospel, I love my family and I know that we can be together for eternity through the blessings of the temple!

There are many many more things I'd like to say here, but I'll stop for now! I just love you a lot. And thanks for being my mom.

These pics are of my mom and me, and the one with just me is the skirt she helped me make when I was like 16

I think I warned you

OK, So in all fairness I did warn you that this was not going to be super exciting or anything, b/c our life is very very constant right now.

Just thought it was funny that yesterday right before my econ final, I went to the gym with my notes so I could do the treadmill (since my goal is to work out 3x a week and I'd only been twice).... and I could study at the same time. So I throw my stuff in my workout bag, bike to the gym, get there and open my bag only to discover a lake of water in the bottom. Yes, my water bottle somehow mysteriously opened and soaked everything in my bag. My notes will still somewhat legible but my first thought was "oh well, it is the end of the semester"

In other news, I think I aced that final (which is good b/c I hardly put any effort into my project I turned in earlier this week). And, my statistics book appears to be hiding from me. I am afraid it is somehow buried under the 100 lbs of stuff Joe put in our study after his non-profit run was cancelled due to the swine flu. So now I believe I'll go look for it.

contradictions

I was thinking today while I was working, of all the contradictions in my life. It is actually pretty funny to think about so I thought I'd list some of them here...

I love it when people call me to hang out, feel sad when no one calls...... yet I hardly ever call people

I love having a clean house and kitchen and clean clothes, etc. I don't even mind cleaning usually........... Yet I can't get myself to START cleaning hardly ever, it is so much better to lay around!

I love being in good shape by working out and I enjoy running...... but it feels so good to lay on the couch and watch tv!


I wish I could be a little more glamorous, like fix my hair and wear nice clothes and have the perfect look you know............ but my current "nice clothes" sit in the closet all week while I wear t-shirts and jeans every single day. and the only make-up I wear consistently is mascara, sigh, maybe one day I won't mind putting a minumum of 1/2 hour into my looks every day instead of 2 minutes.



That is it for now. Nothing too exciting going on in my life right now. Work is fine. For the summer I'm down to like 12 hours a week tops at work which'll be weird, but I'm taking summer classes so it is a necessity. Speaking of school, finals are coming up, I've got an econ final tomorrow actually (whoever decided to make that final on a Saturday is a little bit crazy), then the rest of my finals are next week. Right now it still hasn't sunk in that finals ARE next week, so honestly, I'm not ready for them AT ALL. I kind of read over some econ stuff today though. Wish me luck.

PS Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is really raunchy if anyone was thinking of seeing it, don't say I didn't warn you... I was surprised it is PG-13 actually

Individual Worth

As many of you know, in our church the young women have something called "Personal Progress" that they work on from the time they are 12-18. This program includes certain experiences and projects they complete in each value area. The young women values are faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and most recently virtue. I am currently called to be their personal progress advisor. I help them and encourage them and this month we are trying something new, a group goal of the month. This month we are focusing as an entire class on the value individual worth. We also have a group goal of completing the experience Individual Worth #1

I thought I'd like to include my feelings on this one here.

1. You are a daughter of Heavenly Father, who knows you and loves you. Read Psalm 8:4–6, Jeremiah 1:5, John 13:34, D&C 18:10, and Abraham 3:22–23. Write in your journal how these scriptures teach you that Heavenly Father loves you and is mindful of you.


Psalms 8:4-6
4 What is a man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have a dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:


From this scripture I learned that our Heavenly Father is always mindful of us. In fact, he's crowned us with glory and honor and gave us dominion over the Earth. As I read scriptures like this, that remind me of His love, I do feel a renewed sense of what I am worth. If my Heavenly Father thinks so highly of his children, shouldn't we realize that we are worth so much?

Jeremiah 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Wow! As I said before, reading these scriptures remind me of so many things. In my dark days, do I ever wonder if Heavenly Father could really know me? I know that he does, he knows me better than I know myself. And I know that Christ suffered for our sins so surely he knows how I feel when I feel sad or guilty. Heavenly Father knows me!

John 13:34
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

How important it must be to our Heavenly Father that we love each other. He speaks of this as the greatest commandment. Indeed, if we love each other how He loves us, wouldn't this world be a wonderful place to live in? Wouldn't we all be happier? And if He didn't love us very much.... well that is just ridiculous! I know our Heavenly Father loves us all!

D&C 18:10
10 Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

Sometimes it may be tempting to think, especially on those harder days, that I am not worth much, that I am not so special. But I am worth so much! Each child of God is. "the worth of souls is great". Do we value our souls so highly. When we make mistakes or purposefully do wrong, we aren't valuing our souls the way He does.

Abraham 3: 22-23
22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

Concluding on what these scriptures teach me about Heavenly Father's love and that he is mindful of me as his daughter... I know He loves me, when I pray I can feel his love so strong. He knows me and He says that I am of great worth. I can do so many things and He loves me and watches over me. How blessed I am to be on Earth and to have this experience. I should treat my body better, I should treat my soul better! I know I've said this a lot now, but from reading these I just get the overwhelming confirmation that Heavenly Father loves me, as an individual, not as a group "I love all my children" kind of thing, but as a specific "I love Casey Anne, she has these talents ____ and these trials _____ and I love her"



I am including these photos of me and Joe at the Houston Temple when we were engaged. The temple is such a beautiful and special place. It truly is the Lord's House and the spirit there testifies of his love for each and every one of us.

Mr. Mom

Can you just post youtube videos on here? How do you do it?

check this one out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PokBAxtvW4


Sometimes Joe jokes that he's going to be a stay at home dad and I should work. He's crazy but thinks I have "natural business smarts". Anyway, long story short, I think I'll make him watch this video!

Birthday (last week)

So I want to take this opportunity (that I have created for myself by putting off other, different things) to write about my fantastic birthday!

some of you already know that I succeeded in getting the whole day off work! YAY! I was so happy about that because they'd actually asked me to work all day 8-5 and what college kid wants to do that huh? So, our part time receptionist actually offered to cover for me all day. Sweet!

Jennifer and I made some plans to go to the zoo during the day and I am not going to lie, I was excited. I woke up and laid in bed and watched Grey's Anatomy from the night before. Then I got ready for the zoo. I love the zoo and I love love love going to the zoo with kids, it just isn't the same going without anyones eyes really lighting up with wonder at all the stupendous animals. A little side note: Joe doesn't like the zoo, he said ever since he went to Africa and saw those animals in their natural habitat it just hasn't been the same. He sweetly agreed to go with me in December, but I shouldn't have kept asking him to go because I could tell he wasn't necessarily enjoying himself. Not the way a kid would. We are totally going to get year long zoo passes when we have kids if we live close enough to a zoo.

Continuing on. After driving down to Ft. Worth with Jennifer and the kids (and I am so glad my nephews don't scream during car rides) we get close to the zoo and there is a ton of traffic to get in there. We can't imagine it being so busy, I mean, seriously it is a cloudy school day. But it was, they were even having people park on the grass. So instead of pushing our way through the zoo, we decided to hit the Cowgirl museum. It was fun. I'd only heard of it, and the kids had a ball. They have this cute little "market" downstairs that they can load up a kid size shopping cart with food, then "check out". The upstairs was fun, small, but a lot of info about cowgirls and then dress up stuff for the kids.

After I got home, Jessica and I went for frozen yogurt. Jess got me these adorable earrings! I haven't hung out with her in a while and she wanted to try this new frozen yogurt place. DELICIOUS! I don't know that I've ever just gotten frozen yogurt before, but the yorurt was so good and you can choose all these different toppings to put on it. I couldn't decide what flavor to get so i got, peanut butter, then chocolate, then cookies and cream all stacked on top of eachother. I should have just got the peanut butter and chocolate one because they were the best.

The surprise!

For my bday I knew Joe was planning a surprise. I got all dressed up and ready and we went to Frisco and as we were pulling into Buca's (one of my favorite restaraunts) I see Kristen, Brenna, and Allan walking accross the parking lot. What a great surprise! Jen came too, and Brett (Kristen's boyfriend) and we had a great dinner and talked and laughed. It was the greatest surprise! I also loved my gifts, Kristen and Brenna got me some shower gel and lotion (that smells great), Joe's mom got me some great piano music and 2 cds! I am excited to learn some of the songs, I started some today. Joe got me the 3 Twilight books that I didn't have. Yes, I read them already, people keep asking me that when I tell them. I re-read books. A lot. Especially the good ones.

I had a great day!

Day before my Birthday!!

Today is Thursday, the day before my birthday and I'm pretty sure I have a stomach virus. Pretty crappy but little by little I am feeling better and am sure by tomorrow I will be "meya meya" or 100%. Besides even though I didn't really feel well enough to go to my classes today (I thought I'd give my body some extra time to get better faster, so I can be perfect tomorrow), I am still SUPER excited to go see Hannah Montana with Brenna and Kristen today! In only an hour! I know, I know... many of you are thinking that Hannah Montana is for kids or whatever. In case you didn't already know this about me, I have to tell the truth. Little girl movies are my absolute favorites. I enjoy other movies, less cheesy movies (and sometimes a good tear jerker like Moulin Rouge or Rent you know) but it is a rare moment when I am not in the mood for something silly and fun. Let's just list a few of these movies I love that make other people gag Agent Cody Banks (both of them), Sleepover, A Cinderella Story, New York Minute (all Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movies pretty much), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, High School Musical (all of them but the first is the best) and many many many more. So the next time you see a preview for a tween girl movie and start wondering who watches those anyway, you can think of me.

And tomorrow is the big day! The receptionist at my work offered to work extra so I could have the day off! Talk about the greatest thing EVER! I'm going to the zoo with Jennifer and the cutest nephews in Texas (I have one really cute nephew who doesn't live in texas) then I'm planning on maybe having icecream or something and taking a nap then Joe has a big surprise evening planned. He LOVES surprising me! It is always one of those things that I have mixed feelings about b/c you always worry that you won't really like the surprise. But lucky for me, he is a FANTASTIC surpriser. He knows me better than I know me sometimes.

Starting again

I am thinking about starting up our blog again, I am a little nervous it is all going to be school and work and nothing people are really interested in like kids or Egypt BUT... I'll give it a try for while.

New news for us: We got such a sweet note from our apartment complex about 2 weeks ago telling us that they are going to raise our rent almost $200/month. What?!? And we had already decided that it was going to be SO easy to just stay here and not have to go through the whole moving hassle.

We found somewhere though. I said something about if we're paying that much we should be able to have a washer and dryer! And then it stuck, I needed one, I wanted one, I started calculating the time and money we spend at the laundramat each month and it suddenly became something justifiable: we'd be barely spending more money by having a place with one then we are ALREADY... and think of the time saver! Plus, when you realize that you have no clothes you can just run a load instead of looking for something you can wear that isn't too bad looking and still clean.

So our new house, we're planning on moving in it in June and it is really close to campus still and it is a house. It's got a little study off the living room (french doors open up to it) and french doors also open up to the dining room. The kitchen and bathroom aren't huge but they are manageable. The lady who rents there now is a professor at UNT and she's lived there for 5 1/2 years. She's retiring and she wanted to sell her washer and dryer and the owner told us if we rent it, he'll buy them for us. So we'll have a washer and dryer in our little laundry room. One of my absolute favorite things though is the number of windows. LIGHT, a huge amount of light, every room has so many and it just makes the whole place seem bigger and open.

Other news (work news) Joe just signed the paperwork to stay at Ericson through the summer (until he graduates) and I just got an award at UNT for being an outstanding Student Employee (which means $100!).