Lately

These are just a few things we have been up to lately:

I GOT A JOB!
Woot woot! Thanks to my Bff Jenni, I got a job at her work! (Utah Physiatry). I will be one of the receptionists there! I got the call a couple of weeks ago that I got the Job but I haven't started yet. We don't know when I'll start actually. Hopefully SOON! They call me once in a while to make sure that I still want the job and all and let me know what's going on (they are waiting for a few things to happen in their office before bringing me on) but they just don't know when I'll start! BUT-we are VERY grateful for the Job and I'm really excited to start! This will make Job #3 that Jenni and I have worked together! It's SO much better working with your friend! So, we are looking forward to that!

Swei Jows
We have had the chance to make swei jows 2 times in the last month or so. One time with Jenni and Michael and one time with Joanna and Cody. The first time I had swei Jows was the first time I met Jarom's family. They are kind of a tradition, I guess you would say, in their family. Jarom's Dad ate them almost everyday on his mission in Taiwan. We make any excuse to make them because they are SO delish! Liking swei jows is a requirement to be a part of the Lance family. So I guess I passed that test with flying colors! We didn't get any pictures of Michael and Jenni (sorry, dudes) But we did with Joanna and Cody. (By the way, Cody passed the test too. hmmmm?)

Looking for a new place to live.
We live in a cute little one bedroom apartment and we have LOVED it here! We loved our ward, the location,and the apartment itself. It's just time to move on. We want something bigger and better. It has been fun looking for new places and thinking of our future there. We don't want to move anymore while we are in Provo so we want someplace where we can start our family and have enough room for all that comes with that! SO exciting! And NO, that is not an announcement. I am not pregnant!

Our ward split!
Sad day! Last sunday they told us that they would be making 2 new wards in our stake! TWO! Crazy! The good thing is, is that the church is growing. The sad thing is, is that our ward got split! We loved our ward! I loved my calling, friends, and all the CUTE babies! We are now in the 247th ward and we meet at 2:30 P.M. YIKES! When we were looking for a new place to live, we wanted to find a place that is still in our ward boundaries because we loved it so much but I guess now is a good time to move anywhere we want because our ward will be different no matter what.

Playing with our new Wii
We have been wanting one for a long time. We have been looking at them everywhere to see where we could get the best deal. Jarom researches EVERYTHING before he buys it! We had saved up a little money and I got some money for my B-day and we found a SA-WEET deal on KSL. So we went for it. It has been so fun to play together and have people over to play. Michael and Jenni especially! We just can't get enough of how FUNNY Michael is when he plays! I'll post video's of that later!

Going to Conference
We had the opportunity to go to 2 sessions of conference. What a blessing! We went to the Saturday morning session with Joanna and Cody (Thanks Jan and Jon for the Tickets) and the Sunday afternoon session with Jenni and Michael (Thanks Mom and Dad for the tickets). There's no greater feeling than being there, in the presence of the prophet and his counselors and apostles and church leaders and hearing their wisdom and counsel. It never ceases to amaze me the spirit that is there. We had a great time and are so grateful that we were able to go TWICE!


Easter!
Jenni and I decided to keep the tradition alive and have Easter together! We made a big, yummy dinner with Ham, Potato Salad, rolls, Jill Jolley's Jello treat, and green bean casserole. We had our friend Brooke over too. AND we got a call from my brother Aaron! I was BEYOND excited to hear from him!! I hadn't talked to him in OVER a year! It brought tears to my eyes to hear his voice! I had been thinking a lot about him during conference, too. What are the Odds!? Since we were having our own little Easter, Ben invited us to go to their house on Saturday for an Easter Egg hunt and dinner. What more could we ask for? Family, friends, conference, good food, chocolate, treats...does life get any better than that? Oh yeah, and the Easter bunny visited our apartment too!


Our camera works!
I put different batteries in it and it worked! For some reason, the brand new batteries that we had put in before, did not work. Oh well!

We are looking forward to Our anniversary in 12 days! Can you believe that we have already been married for a whole YEaR! We are very excited and are planning some kind of romantic get-away. Hopefully! If we find someplace to go!

Looking forward to our trip to Vegas in May with my family!
We are SO excited! It's going to be such a nice little vacation and we only have to travel like 5 hours for it! woo hoo!! I'm so excited to see everyone!

Babies, Babies, Babies!!
By the end of September, there will be 3 new babies in our family! That will make 10 nieces and nephews for us! I am SOOO excited!!!!

I am a TERRIBLE blogger!!
I don't know what my deal is! I've gotta get out of this funk I'm in and get on the ball! I hate feeling like I have SO much catching up to do. PLUS, it makes for a LONG post! But have no fear, I posted pictures to go with it so I think that makes up for the gigantic catch up post!

Well that's our life in a nutshell for now! We are happy, and loving life! We're looking forward to the future and what that holds for us! Love you all!!

One year older...

Thank you EVERYONE for all the Birthday messages, phone calls, cards, gifts and love! I had such a wonderful day! Jarom spoiled me wrotten....and so did everyone else!
My birthday has always been over spring break and so growing up, I felt like my birthday lasted all week! We usually went on vacation for spring break so I liked to think that it was for my birthday! This year was so exception (except we didn't go on vacation) My birthday has lasted all week! Last weekend we celebrated my birthday at Ben's house Playing games, watching movies, eating a YUMMY dinner (thanks Court and John! And Court made my favorite B-day cake!) and went shopping!!


Then all week, Jarom has been giving me the birthday treatment with foot rubs and back rubs and little love notes. I'm loving it! Yesterday he took me to dinner at Tucanos (YUMMMMM) and he got me nice presents and we pretty much did anything that I wanted to do. Which wasn't much, I was just enjoying being with him all evening (he usually works in the evenings but he took it off for my B-day). Joanna came over and surprised me with yummy cupcakes and Jenni and Michael came over and we made Blizzards with our Magic Bullet. It was such a wonderful day! I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who love us! I enjoyed all the phone calls and messages and everything!



I don't feel older OR wiser, but maybe that will come later. So over all, being 23 has been great!

P.s. Sorry for the Not-so-hot pictures! I have been HORRIBLE at taking pictures lately! I just don't seem to remember. So these are pretty much the best we have from the birthday celebrations. Plus, I think our camera is pretty much dead! You can barely take one picture before it turns off. And we JUST replaced the batteries! Bummer!

Create

I taught Relief Society on Sunday on "The Creation" and while I was preparing for it, I found this video! It's awesome! I really loved it! Very inspiring.
Just thought you might enjoy it! :)

We are Blessed

We feel so blessed and Happy lately!! These are just a FEW of the reasons:

One of the greatest blessings is being so close to the temple! We live about 5 minutes away and we can go whenever we want! Growing up, going to the temple was always a full day adventure because it was 2 hours away. It is so nice to be so close and we have loved going so often!

Jarom's new job!! That's HUGE! He FINALLY got that Job at Wilson Audio (with my brother). Full time, more money, AND benefits! WHOO!! He loves it and I love seeing him more happy! Thanks, Ben for your help in getting this job!

Being so close to my family! I couldn't think of a better way to spend my time than with family!! It seriously makes me SO happy! Jarom and Ben are quite the couple.

They are becoming pretty good friends and they are so funny together! I've been able to spend more time with the kids and Ben and Kristen and Court and John!

It's just so fun!! Almost every weekend is like a Holiday for us because we all get together and eat lots of yummy food and play games and spend lots of time together! And spending more time with Joanna! We LOVE having her here! I love talking to her about college life and all the fun things she's doing and meeting her "friends" ;)

Being neighbors with Jenni and Michael! Being able to see them whenever we want! It's great! We love them!

Our ward is AWESOME! We've made some really good friends here! I love my calling! I might complain about it a lot, being a Relief Society teacher isn't as easy OR fun as being in the Nursery but I have learned SO much and it has almost forced me to study more. So, that's definitely been a blessing! I have learned so much! And it's so true that you love the people you serve. I love my relief society!

My Husband! What a blessing he has been in my life! He is so handsome, funny, fun, kind, loving, patient...and all the good stuff! :) I'm crazy about him! He is my dream come true!

Well, there ya have it! We are so blessed! We are having so much fun together and looking forward to whatever else might come our way!

Happy Birthday Nenni!

Yes, I meant to put an "N" instead of a "J". (When I was little, I called Jenni "Nenni")
It's her Birthday today!! let me just tell you a little bit about my Jenni!

We were born 2 weeks apart (Thanks Mom and Carol!) and we do everything together! We are together so much that people actually think we look alike? What?! Yup, they do! Sometimes it's even like we have the same brain! I can almost always tell what she is thinking. I know almost everything about her! We have shared pretty much everything together! Ups and Downs, exciting and Sad, we've been through it all! Growing up we always hoped for/joked about (our mom's weren't joking, they really wanted it) having a joint wedding! We got married 4 months apart instead. Close enough!
We used to joke (before we were married) that we were like each other's boyfriends because when we were apart we missed each other so much! Before I made the move to Rexburg, Jenni was there without me! We were apart almost ALL YEAR!! That's the longest we had been apart our whole lives. When I moved to Rexburg we realized how CRAZY that was! We missed each other if we were apart for just a couple days. Or even one day sometimes!

My life definitely wouldn't be the same without her. (Now it really sounds like I'm talking about my boyfriend, or-now Husband :) Don't worry Jarom, I still love you!! hee hee) She is one of the greatest blessings in my life! I don't know if you can ever know how much I love her or understand the special relationship we have!

We grew up living 15 steps away (yes, we counted. We're THAT cool) So it's only appropriate that we now live in the same apartment complex ( I don't know how many steps away) with our husbands! Luckily, they are friends now, too!!

There's so, SO much more but I'll spare you all the stories. This post already sounds like a "lover" post. Ha ha
So- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NENNI!!

I Love you!

"I've never had someone that knows me like you do, the way you dooooo." "cuz we belong together now, yeah....my life would suck without you!" "Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear jennnnniiii. Happy birthday to you!" "I gotta feelin. That tonight's gonna be a good night. tonight's the night, lets live it up" "so i put my hands up, they playin my song...noddin my head like yeah, movin my hips like yeah....its a party in the woodmansee apartment." (or, in the USA if your'e Miley Cyrus)

Love this

I'm loving this song right now! Its so happy and fun and just makes you want to get up and dance. Or something. It's one of those "favorite" songs that I could listen to over and over and OVER and never get sick of it. I realize that I have a lot of those. :) It's pretty cute! Anyway, Enjoy!
P.s. Sorry the video is cut off. I don't know how to fix it!

Lame Blogger

So, I'm pretty sure I have plenty to Blog about but every time I go to Blog, i just don't do it. Lame. Hence The "Lame Blogger"title.

Well, Valentines Day was bitter sweet for us. Nate and Amy moved that day! And they took their kids with them! How rude! Right? I had spent pretty much the whole week at their house helping with the kids so that they could get packed up and such. What a blessing! I love those kids to pieces! I wish they could know how much I love them! And Nate and Amy too, of course. It was fun to Chat with them and spend time with them too! We are So grateful for the time that they were here and we got to see them so often! For their love and support and advice and help and YUMMY dinners, and just for some good old fun! We LOVE and MISS them very much!

We all spent the night at Ben's on Friday and then Saturday morning we headed over to Nate's to help pack everything up and clean. Sunday was the big day. They left and we all cried. Well, all the girls and the kids at least. I had a crying headache for most of the day. We took naps, ate a yummy Ham dinner and made sugar cookies! So all in all, it turned out to be a pretty good day! And monday, the ladies (and Kaci) went shopping! (we had to have something to look forward to :)) A day of shopping and good deals with the girls! Who wouldn't love that?!

It was our first Valentines day "together" this year (we were engaged on valentines day last year, but Jarom was in California and I was in Rexburg. Not the same) So we had our own little celebration on Thursday night. We had a DELISH dinner played some games and watched a movie. It was so romantical! :) I also made the traditional BIG valentines cookies! That was fun to be able to do that for Jarom but my goodness-How did my mom do 9 of those things! In SECRET! I was so tired of it after just TWO of them!

*For those of you who don't know. Its a tradition in my family on Valentines day that my mom makes these huge sugar cookies and decorates them so cute in secret and then ding dong ditches them on the doorstep. So fun!

So I got a picture of the cookies but I think that might be the only picture I got.

I have the BEST Valentine in the world! I am one lucky girl, thats for sure!

Now its time for SPRING, and My BIRTHDAY and Our ANNIVERSARY (Can you believe we have almost been married for one whole year already?!) and SUMMER and NEW BABIES (Court and Jessica, Not me!) and VACATIONS!!! That all sounds SO good to me! Bring it on!

Happy Holidays!

Better late than never. I'm finally getting around to blogging about Christmas! We had such a wonderful and most memorable Christmas! It was bitter sweet. It was my first Christmas away from home (and the Jolley's) But we all got to be together! My parents came to Utah and we all celebrated Christmas together at Ben's house! We were just missing Hill, Aaron, and Joey. We packed our week full of FUN activities! These are just a few (ok, a lot) of the pictures from our holiday festivities and highlights of the week.

*Going to Temple Square to see all the pretty lights. Incredible! A must see at Christmas time, i've realized.
*Going to the "Savior of the World" Pageant. Amazing! (we're waiting in line)

*Making Doughnuts for Court and John's neighbors. YUMM!

*Shopping (no pictures)

*Eating LOTS and LOTS of yummy food!

*Attending Courtenay's Christmas Sacrament meeting. Awesome choir and speakers!

*Playing Rock Band and watching my Parents play Rock Band! They really rocked out! And they were GOOD!
*Having a Hotwheels race tournament in Ben's Basement. My mom kicked everyone's trash!

*Helping the little girls put together their Build-A-Bear's from Grandma.

*Opening the Family Video's my dad had worked SO hard on and put them on DVD for all of us! Best present ever!

*Watching the family videos.

*going to Pirate Island. Eating yummy food, watching Dylan win 1,000 tickets, seeing Darren and Jill Jolley, and playing fun games.

*Skating at the skating rink. Who knew skating could be SO FUN! A family friend rented out the WHOLE rink so we had it to ourselves. It was awesome and quite entertaining. I fell 3 times!

*Sleepover under the Christmas tree.

*Sledding. Nobody got hurt!
*Preparing our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Ham, Potatoes, Green Bean Casserole, Dill Bread, Etc.
*The Nativity play. The kids were so cute and fun to watch. I was the Angle this year.

*Getting our new Christmas Eve jammies

*The pretty Christmas Tree after Santa came.

*Family Pictures. My dad brought all of his fancy picture stuff and took these beautiful pictures of our family. He did individual families and couples too. We're so lucky to have such a talented dad!

(I just had to post this picture of Amy and Oliver because it's just too darn cute!)

*Playing endless games at all times of the day.

*Eating more yummy food and treats.

*Sitting around talking and laughing.

*And just spending some good quality time with family. I am so grateful and feel so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful family!

Thanks Ben and Kris for hosting all of us and Mom and Dad and Scooter for coming to Utah for Christmas. It wouldn't have been the same without you!

OUCH!!

Ok, I need to post about Christmas! I know, i know, its super late. But we had an AWESOME Christmas! So much to write about! So that will all come later! with LOTS and LOTS of pictures! This post is about our New Years Eve. Joanna was with us this year and we were SO happy she was! We had so much fun with her and are SO excited she is in Provo! She's going to have SO much fun and we are going to have so much fun with her here! We started out our day by going SHOPPING and found some sa-weeeet deals!! How could the day get any better? Well it did! We went home and ate lunch and got all bundled up to go SLEDDING! YAHOOO!!! We went sledding on Christmas eve with my family (pictures to come later) and it was SO MUCH FUN! So we wanted to take Joanna. We were having a blast! We found this jump and i dared Jarom to go off it. He told me he would after i did. I hesitated and while i was waiting for my nerves to catch up to me Joanna piped up and said "I'll do it!" so we watched and laughed. It was a big jump and it shot you straight up in the air to where you were just standing on your feet. So Jarom had to do it after how fun it looked. Then it was my turn. Oh boy! I started out great! Excited to see what this jump would do with me. Ya know, shoot me up, make me stand up etc. But my sled starting turning so i was going BACKWARDS! SO SCARY!! I ended up going off the jump sideways. I tried to stand up but i was going too fast and the snow was too slippery i just landed straight on my tailbone and smacked my head SOOOOO hard!! It was SO painful! I instantly started crying/laughing. I think i was a little bit in shock. Joanna and Jarom were laughing/concerned that i was hurt. They asked me if i wanted to keep sledding. The stupidity in me wanted to go more so i stood up and was ready to go. not really. They said my face was so white and I felt dizzy. Not exactly in the mood to keep going. They went on one more run down the hill and then we headed home. I had a missive headache and butt ache the rest of the evening. It ended up being a really fun night. We went to the first night party in Provo.
Went to dinner, and relaxed at home watching America's funniest video's until the ball dropped and then we had a toast and went outside to bang pots and pans. We went to bed shortly after that. I was miserable! I have been sick for 2 weeks and I was in a lot of pain. The next morning i woke up and I wanted to DIE! I was hurting SO bad! I couldn't move my neck! I was pretty sure i got whiplash, but that didn't stop me! We went o Salt lake to go shopping and hang out with Court and some of Jarom's family! Later that night we picked up Jenni and Michael from the airport and I told Jenni all about my crash. She was also pretty sure i got whip last. She's been helping me so much in trying to get better! Massages, advice, exercises, and such! I am SO grateful!!! I am still in a huge amount of pain. All over my body. My stomach muscles almost hurt as bad as my neck! Weird! Jenni says it will probably take a little while before I'm completely better! At least i have her to help me along! Anyway, sorry for the long post! I just had to share and couldn't leave any of the details out! And if you made it this far, you get to see the video of the sledding adventure! It's pretty funny! You can hear me saying OWWWWW, Joanna running over to me saying "oh no Steph!" and My loving Husband video-ing the whole thing, LAUGHING!! Haha he explained later that it was funny until he knew i was hurt. Even then, this video is pretty funny! And painful to watch! Enjoy! :)

)

P.S. Do you like my boots? Pretty stellar! Thanks court! :)

Little Ballerina

I got to go to Lily's Ballet Recital today! It was the CUTEST! There's nothing like a bunch of cute little ballerina girls! Lily was so funny. After every dance she looked at us and smiled and even blew Nate a kiss one time! I wish i would have gotten that on camera! It was really tender! This video is pretty cute/funny. Lily is the 4Th one from the left. Enjoy :)

CAN'T. STOP. WATCHING!!!

Oh my gosh!!! I LOOOOOOVE GLEE!!!!! The season finale was perfect!! Everything that I wanted to happen ALL season happened in this last episode!!! I can't stop watching this video!!! Seriously LOVE it! The way i feel about Glee is the same way I feel about High School Musical and for those of you who know me, know how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE High School musical! Well, I have the same kind of love for Glee! I'm totally HOOKED!! Laugh all you want, I once told my mom and that wanted to live in High School Musical...and i WASN'T kidding! haha Some may say i'm crazy for admitting this love/obsession but i KNOW for a fact that some of you Eh hem-Jenni, Jessica,and Emily have similar opinions about Glee! I especially LOVE Mr. Schuster and Emma!! So, enjoy this video! :) The quality isn't that great and their mouths don't match the singing and there are some pretty silly dance moves but this was the only one I could find. If you haven't watched Glee yet, I suggest YOU DO!

Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Its official! It's Christmas time!! I am in heaven! Christmas tree, Christmas music, wrapping Christmas presents, Christmas treats, Christmas lights! I love our Christmas tree! Its so beautiful and brightens up our apartment! I could stare at it all day! I love spending this time with Jarom, too! We've been having so much fun decorating and watching Christmas movies together. The cheesiest Hallmark movies you'll ever see but I love them! So inspirational! Anyway, here's our tree!

I Love the Holidays!

We had such a FUN thanksgiving weekend! We spent the weekend at Ben's and went back and forth to spend time with Nate's family. We had a YUMMMMMY Thanksgiving dinner at Nate and Amy's and played games and played with the kids and just hung out and laughed and talked. It was a perfect day! The next day Jarom and I and Kristen went shopping on BLACK FRIDAY! It was CRAZY! We got some good deals. Not all the ones I was hoping to get. Oh well. We helped Ben's family decorate for Christmas, watched lots of movies, played LOTS of Rock Band, Went with Nate's family to pick out their Christmas tree, watched more movies, ate more food, played more Rock Band and came home Saturday Evening. We were pretty pooped! We are so Thankful that we were able to spend that weekend with family and have so much FUN! There's so much to be thankful for in our lives. We are amazed everyday at how much MORE we can be thankful for! It's great! We decorated our tree last night too. Pictures to come soon! :) These pictures are out of order. sorry.

Christmas tree with the kiddos
I LOVE this little guy! He makes me so happy! He's so fun to play with and so funny and happy!
I am SO Thankful for my Husband! He is so good to me. SO patient and kind and handsome and selfless and much, MUCH more. I am one lucky girl!

The Thanksgiving gang

*oh yeah, Jarom got a job today at a call center. WOOO HOOO! Nothin special but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And its money, which we are VERY thankful for right now! We feel very blessed and grateful for what we have!

Date with Lily

Yesterday Jarom and I spent the day with Lily. It was so fun! Definitely the high light of our week! We went to feed the ducks, ate gummy worms and bubble gum, did some crafties, ate mac and cheese and corn and apple sauce for dinner and went to Williams choir concert. She is just so fun to be around and the little things she says are just so darn funny! We love her and love to spend time with her! We didn't get any pictures of Williams concert but he did SO GOOD! He had 3 solos! I was so impressed! I cried a little bit. Anyway, here are some pictures of our day.

Our Home Sweet Home

Sorry it's taken me a while to get these up. We LOVE our new apartment! We love the location, our ward, living in an apartment, living close to and hangin out with family, living next to Jenni and Michael, everything! We're having so much fun! It was really fun getting to finally unpack all of our wedding stuff and use it all! It feels like we just got married again! We're looking for jobs still. I'm waiting for my Utah license to get processed and hopefully I'll be able to find something to do with that and in the meantime trying to find something to hold us over. Jarom just had an interview at Wilson Audio (Where Ben works) today. He said its a lot like where he worked before except they work with Audio, not medical stuff. He said the interview went really well and he realllllly wants it so hopefully that will work out. *Cross your fingers* Ben has been so good to us in helping Jarom with this job! We are so grateful for that! Everyone has been SO good to us! Feeding us, helping us unpack, hanging out with us, helping us find jobs, and more! We are so blessed! We are excited to get things started and start our life here! Anyway, here are some before and after pictures of our apartment, as promised. I didn't get any of the Bathroom and the Bedroom is still a work in progress so no pictures of that either. sorry. I'll post pictures of our Bed before and afters some other time. That was a HUGE project Jarom got done RIGHT before we left. Thanks to Jon's help!! Sorry the pictures aren't great, but you get the idea.

Before:

This was when we were like half way done unpacking. it was WAY worse than this. DISASTROUS!!!

After:

Some of the Picture frames aren't all the way full, like this "Laugh" one. We're still waiting for some pictures to put in them.

Nothin special but we like it. It feels like home!

P.S. I made Cinnamon Rolls yesterday...YUMMMM!!!! They were SO delicious! Jarom's friends came over last night for dinner and games and they loved 'em! Try not to drool over this picture. This was before they were cooked. I put cream cheese frosting on them, Just like my mom makes them! DELISH!