When You Have a Gratitude Attitude...

I really need to buy those tapes, my children HAVE to know those songs!

Things I am Thankful For, Thanksgiving 2010:

• THE SEXIEST HUSBAND ALIVE!
• warm apartments that are cozy and have beautiful CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!
• lots of dental hygiene subs jobs to supplement my part-time/as-needed job at Dr. Adam's
• My wonderful hubby that made a whole song in the car on the way to school today, and I can't remember what it was about, but it was hilarious.
• popcorn and butter with white cheddar seasoning...I've been on a kick
• my roommate's wedding--she was so beautiful and it brought back so many wonderful memories of our two years that we lived together, and my own beautiful wedding(I think mine was much more beautiful than hers, but hers wasn't red, so what can I say?)!
• I am thankful I am graduated for college. Poor, poor little friends that are still in Dental Hygiene. Brutal.
• A husband who is insanely kind and loving ALWAYS
• Build-A-Bear. Sterling got $20 for volunteering at Marrieds Committee last week(!!!!). We made a date to build-a-bear, because I have never been and really wanted to go. I had an idea of making bride and groom, but wasn't in love with the dress...so we made old bears in sweaters: Norman and Louise. They sit on our bed and I am in LOVE! It was an awesome date.
• My husband, who studies so hard.
• My family! Someone at work today said they were having a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner, I asked how many? and she said 8 adults, 4 kids...and then looked at me like she expected some enormous response. HAHAHA!! Try something like 18 adults and 30 kids!
• My best friend Aleesha telling me about the new tv series (??I think its called An Ordinary Family) because its clean, and its fun, and I like to watch it on hulu after dinner when my husband is studying.
• My best friend Aleesha and her husband Adam. We have so much fun!
• A car that keeps running. Even though it does odd things, I think it just likes to make us appreciate it.
• my piano. I love it.
• The gospel. This is my last bullet, but definitely not the least. I am so grateful that I am married in the temple to the most wonderful man alive and that we have our own little family for eternity. And that he holds the priesthood and takes such good care of me.

Like my...

Sterling told me the other day that I am always saying he is "like" someone in my family. Mostly Kami and Wyatt. He reminds me all the time of Wyatt because he does(or forgets) something and gives you this wide grin thinking that frees him from any responsibility. I have received MULTIPLE such grins from Wyatt in my lifetime. Or the fact that when the two of them get together they're like little boys all over again. Or that they both have this odd obsession with fish or other little animals. He reminds me of Kami all the time because he likes to create things, either artistically, or on the computer, or any sort of thing like that. And any time he wants to watch a Star Trek episode I think of Kami. Or the fact that he loves the National Geographic and tells me random facts all the time, and asks if we can get the magazine subscription sometime soon. Or that he comes home and tells me all the interesting things he learned in class, that I probably wouldn't have found too interesting. All in all though, I think I say he is "like" someone so often because I have so many family members, with such a wide array of interests, that practically everything reminds me of my family a little bit.

But yesterday, during a fireside, he reminded me a lot of my dad. He's done this before, often when he makes up random words to tunes in the car(off-key, just like my dad, even though he can really sing like an angel), or whistles aimlessly, or pulls funny pick-up lines(reminds me of the funny 'foxy chick' lines dad pulls on mom), or even how he calms me down sometimes by mocking me(my family is strange, I know).

So, back to the fireside. I don't even remember what he was doing, but I know he was making it hard to concentrate, and we were on the stand because I was playing the piano and he was leading, so I handed him the book I was taking notes in, so it would make him less disruptive(and less hilarious, because I was trying to not be a disruption). I had been writing notes in bulleted points, so these are the bullets he added:

• Obey your husband!
• Respect his authority!
• Go to Disney Land.
• Go to Hawaii.

When I pointed out that even though these topics were discussed, I didn't think that was quite the message the speaker intended, he protested "I was just being guided by the spirit."

I was laughing, probably much to hard for being on the stand. Sigh. I LOVE MY MAN!

Happy Days

Yesterday Sterling took his last Chemistry test until the final. He did really well on it. Which may or may not get his grade as high as he needs to. The lamesauce professor has never said how much he'll curve, only that he will, and has never given them a grade for the class...so he really has no idea how he's doing overall in the class. His labs always went great, and luckily thats over, so he has three extra hours of free time on Wednesdays now until the semester is over!!!!!

To celebrate the end of that particular Chemistry test, and because Sterling--through some amazing miracle--had very little other homework due this weekend and none of it due Friday night, I planned a little getaway, with the help of my older sister Andrea. Sterling said he could smell the candles at the bottom of our apartment stairs. Oops. But our apartment was decorated amazing, let me just tell ya. And we got to sleep in this morning, and now Sterling is working on his little bit of math homework and we'll have the WHOLE DAY together! So we are going to the Draper temple. Because we think thats cool. Both of us went through the open house, but have never been back inside.

On another note, I found Sterling's last Christmas present yesterday, and since I couldn't think of anywhere to hide it, I wrapped it and put it underneath our Christmas tree. I am SO excited for Christmas!!!! And I am DYING to know what Sterling got for me. I have no idea. No idea, and and its driving me crazy! And this is how I want to cut my hair. But its getting SO LONG lately, that I can't quite convince myself to do it. So I'm going to dye my hair instead. I'm excited.

Christmas Tree!

We have been VERY excited for Christmas at our house....Sterling has been looking all over the place for these "singing Christmas tree lights" that he remembers having on his tree when he was really little. I told him it was some weird Kentucky thing and they didn't exist anymore because we couldn't find them anywhere. After much searching, he finally found some on the internet...and so we set up our Christmas tree the night they came! We also have lights around our big window...aren't they so pretty? This is our "H" ornament that we bought for the Haws family. We only bought one package of nine ornaments because we have a little tree and it doesn't really need any more...but we both liked this H and decided we'd have one odd-ball ornament.

Isn't it beautiful? Sterling's family always put candy canes on their trees...I think it looked really classy beforehand, and not so much with the candy canes, but I think its kinda cool too. I love our star. And I love our gold beads that wrap around. You can't really get the effect of having the lights on, but unfortunately my camera is lame and whenever I tried taking pictures of the lights without a flash, all you saw was dots of color, and with a flash it made the room look bright. Sigh.

And now, just because I never posted this picture...this is us at our ward halloween party. Paul Bunyan, and cowgirl. It was awesome.

Rainy Days and Mondays

I LOVE the Carpenters, and I love the song "Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down." Not that I necessarily agree with it, I just love the song. This morning it is raining, and it is Monday. So this morning I am subbing at another office, one that I have not been to before. I got up nice and early and arrived fifteen minutes early. And my first patient cancelled. This is hard because I haven't even completed one patient yet, to know what to do to fill in my time. They showed me around, and I looked through charts, figured out their machines, etc. And now, I am just waiting. Sigh. Hopefully its a busier day than this.

In other news, my beautiful niece Lynnaea got baptized this weekend and she was so cute! She just got upper braces and they are adorable! I was sick all weekend, but felt better Saturday night and proceeded to stay up WAY TOO late with our friends Adam and Aleesha, and pretty much went back to being sick on Sunday because I was so exhausted and my stomach couldn't handle food. Stupid flu bug.

Sterling put up Christmas lights around our windows and they are so beautiful! He is also annoyed at FedEx because they brought our musical lights, that he looked EVERYWHERE for, to the wrong apartment number on Saturday, so now we won't get them until Tuesday. I'm excited for them though, our first little Christmas tree is going to be amazing! I will post pictures as soon as it's up!

Funny Stories

Today was voting day. And since Sterling has been in political science all semester and very involved in everything, I was all primed to go vote and feel like I actually knew what I was voting for. The place to vote is right next to where I work part-time (luckily...I couldn't work there full-time, and besides, I'm starting to like subbing all over creation although I am getting sick of deciding last minute what my day will be like....anyway....) and because we only have one vehicle, Sterling actually walked to my work and took the car midway through the day so he could get to work. When this happens I usually go to my friend Chantelle's and hang out for the evening because both our husbands work and her apartment is on the same corner as the dental office. Nice. Anyway....voting is also a block away. So I walked to vote.

I gave the nice volunteer lady my ID and then as she searched for my name I watched her finger on the paper until she mumbled "sterling haws" and I said "That's my husband! I should be right here." And then another lady said "You know Sterling Haws?" and I said "That's my husband." And she got really, really excited along with another lady, because...lo and behold, Sterling had left his drivers license there when he had voted earlier on in the day, and they had planned on mailing it to us, but they were happy to give it to me. They thought it was hilarious that I wasn't too concerned that he had lost it. What can I say, it's Sterling! It was even funnier because our next-door-neighbors in our apartment complex were voting and they heard the whole story and had a good laugh. Really though, I think God decided that because he wouldn't create a perfect man, he invented the trait of forgetfulness. Every single morning I ask Sterling as we walk out the door if he has his wallet, phone, and keys. Every single morning he's missing at least one of them. Its his most often forgotten items. I suppose I can live with that.

Then when Sterling came home from work he had a hilarious Norman story to tell. Norman and Eleanor are my favorite people at Mountain Ridge Assisted Living because every single night Sterling has some funny story to tell about them, and he loves working with them. Sterling is a med tech so he takes pills to all the residents all day long in rounds. So he was talking with Norman and Eleanor while Norman was taking his pills (Sterling has to watch him take all of them) and I guess my homemade bread made it into the conversation, and Sterling told them that I always make homemade bread and that its delicious, and that I'm amazing...hahaaa. Norman said "Wow, that is amazing." So then Sterling said I was the perfect wife. "Yeah, but if she's perfect than why the hell did she marry you???" Haahaaahaaaa

So that is the funny little stories from our little lives. I could post all the CRAZY voicemails that my impatient sisters left all day long. They even left some on Sterling's phone, and Sterling said "Your sister called you 'goosey' on my voicemail today. I'm not even sure what that means." Haahaa. It was pretty funny. Also, today I watched a girl get fake eyelashes and it looked painful. I don't know if its worth it, and its especially not worth the money. The end.