My Beautiful Wife

Hi Everyone!
I wrote this last summer. I just want to share it with all of you to let you all know how incredible life is for me because I am married to Kari Ann.
 I wish I was able to show Kari how much I really love her! I mess up a lot and I do things that upset her and I can be a stupid man sometimes or a lot of the time. I sometimes don't do as well as we both know I can and sometimes I just am lazy and act like I don't care. I really do care and I try as hard as I can to help her and to show her that I love her without a shadow of a doubt. I want her to know that she is the world to me and I know that I would be no where in this world if I didn't have her. I say a lot of flowery things sometimes and it gets me into trouble because when I really need to express in special terms how I feel it comes out the same as other times when it isn't as important. I want to be able to know Kari like she knows me. She knows what I want for gifts for lunch or dinner and she knows how to make me happy at every turn. Lately  I just don't know how to budget my time very well and I end up wasting the time that I could have spent with Kari just messing around. I want nothing more than to just be with her and to have her know that she is what I want. I miss her so much lately. I want her to know without question that I am dedicated to her and only her.  I love to flirt with Kari! I never want anyone besides Kari and I want to flirt with her and I want to understand her and to have her understand me. I wish we could always just understand each other. I also wish that we didn't fight so much. Kari can get a little too intense and I know how to push her buttons too well. Kari is literally the best thing that has ever happened to me. I never want to hurt her or be unappreciative to her. I know why I married Kari. I married her because first and foremost I am deeply in love with her. I fell in love with her because I knew who she was. I knew that she was the most pure girl I had ever met and that she will be able to put up with me and even be able to help me improve myself better than I or anyone else on this earth could improve me. I knew that I wouldn't ever have to help her with her testimony of the gospel. I knew that her smile melted me. I knew that she loved to have fun and play. That has always been one of my favorite things about Kari is her ability to have fun and play as if she was ten years old. She loves sweets and games and surprises (even though I am not too good at surprising her). Kari is smarter than most people I know and she knows how to put those brains to work. Kari knows how to make success. This is another big big reason that I fell in love with her. I knew that she would be successful in whatever she did and if it was marry me then we get to be successful together. I love it when I impress her. I love all the times when she looks at me like she did when we dated. I love when she says things like "Wow Brigham, that is so good." or "Brigham you are such a good man and I love you and I would have no one else." Kari doesn't say a lot of things like that. She isn't really sentimental. I understand and appreciate that. I can be the sentimental one out of the two of us. I have enough of it to share. On my Facebook page where it has favorite quotes, my most favorite is "I love you" - Kari Ann. I love when my wife tells me that she loves me. I love to know that she does. Not because of ego or anything like that, it is because I love her and I realize how incredibly lucky I am when I get her love. I am the luckiest man in the world for several reasons. A few of those reasons are as follows. I have the most precious, beautiful daughter in the world, I have the most amazing and capable of anyone in the world to be my child's mother and I have the most amazing wife that anyone could ever have. My wife makes my lunches for work every single day and has since we were married and a little before. Kari smiles at me when I come home from work. She helps me with my homework and she helps me when I get worried or stressed. There is no one in this world that can calm me like Kari can. I think everyone needs someone like Kari in their lives because Kari's hugs are always so sincere. Her kisses are so passionate and absolutely amazing. I love Kari Ann because I feel like I can be better when I am with her and I strive for that. My wife is amazing!
Happy Anniversary Kari! Thank you for putting up with me for three years so far! I can't wait for the rest of eternity!

Burned

So I was reading an article in a magazine the other day about skin cancer. It was saying some pretty intersting things such as, if you are under 30 and you lay in tanning beds, you increase your chances of melanoma by 75% (holy crap that's high! Stay out of tanning beds!)! Also if you have freckles, they should be in places that the sun shines on you. If you have them on your shoulders or other places and they don't go away when not regularly exposed to the sun then it means you've had severe burns in that area. This is the case with my shoulders, they are covered in many freckles due to multiple burns (this is bad!). Basically if your freckles don't go away when they are no longer exposed to the sun, it's bad because it means your skin is damaged.

Also if you are under 30 and you have face wrinkles when your face is relaxed then it means you've had too much sun on the face as well. :( well frowny face for me because I have forehead wrinkles. Well this made me determined to do better with the sunscreen. Brigham has had multiple burns on his nose that have made it turn into a giant oozing blister (gross, scary, and sad). Well besides taking better care of us I wanted to make sure to take really good care of Lydia because she is so fair skinned.

However, the other day I went for an hour long walk and it was really cold out side. So I bundled Lydia up really well and felt like a good mom. That is. . . until I got home. Her whole face was red and puffy and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe she had an allergic reaction to something outside? Well it wasn't until she woke up from her nap that I realized . . . she was sun burned! Augh! I felt like the worst mother ever. I didn't even think about sun screen and I don't even HAVE baby sun screen. It was so bad that she even got a blister on the side of her nose. So much for taking good care of my family's sun exposure.

More Easter

So I must admit I again (of course) went a little crazy with my easter pictures/documentation. So . . After checking out these videos don't forget to view the next three posts after this to enjoy our Easter experience.

This is Lydia playing with her eggs.

This is Lydia chasing daddy in her easter dress.

And I have another video of Lydia finding all her eggs in the morning, but it's too long to upload here so you'll have to check out facebook once I post it :)

And of course, the real reason for Easter... I'm so grateful for my Savior who died and then rose again three days later. I'm grateful for His sacrifice for me and because of Him we all get to celebrate life, spring, and forever families. General Conference was perfect this year on Easter to help keep all of this in perspective. It also reminded me to teach Lydia to remember Jesus and the real reason for Easter. No age is too early to feel the Spirit as we teach of Christ. Happy Easter!

The Dress

For Lydia's Easter dress, I was walking through the Shopko at the beginning of the year. I wasn't looking for an Easter dress, but when I saw this dress I stopped dead in my tracks. I fell in love with it in an instant. I knew I wouldn't find another dress I liked better. That's how I am with a lot of the things I like. I find what I love and can have nothing else. I sat there holding the dress, stroking it, and admiring it. However, I didn't want to buy prematurely just in case there was something better. After looking at other places, I was right, I only wanted that first dress. Maybe it's because my favorite colors are green and purple, or maybe it's the polka dots. I just know I loved this dress! And Lydia is SO adorable in it!!! :) I went back and bought it at over half of the original price!

Lydia also loved the dress. She kept sitting down and smoothing it out, swishing the dress with her arms, and lifting it up. It was so cute. She would also run down the hall so she could see herself in the big mirror we keep at the end.

This shows how happy she was. I think she's going to be a girly girl :) It was a success this dress. SO CUTE! I am thrilled with it. It's funny how I get more excited over clothes for Lydia rather than myself now :) What a mom I am.

First REAL Easter

Even though this wasn't Lydia's first Easter, it was the first one she could really experience. The night before, while Brigham was at priesthood the "Easter Bunny" set up the room. Here's a picture of the room with the eggs hidden for Lydia to find and the baskets prepared.

Lydia found all her eggs and even though she wouldn't put them in her bucket, she would hand them to me to put in her bucket. This is Lydia next to her Easter basket that had peeps and baby puffs with her Easter Dress. The Easter basket is my old basket that my mom made for me when I was a baby girl.

Brigham next to his 4 different flavors of ice cream! Wow Easter Bunny! He also got his precious dark chili chocolate and cheez-its.

During conference Lydia was making her monkey face while playing with Dad's banana. Unfortunately I couldn't quite catch it on film. And of course, Lydia in her beautiful Easter Dress. She just looks so grown up in this picture it makes me want to cry. (Never mind her crazy hair!)

Easter Eggs

Lydia loved playing and finding easter eggs this Easter. This is at an Easter egg hunt at my cousin's house the Saturday before.

Easter morning she found all her easter eggs and then we let her play next to her basket with the eggs. She still doesn't care that much about the candy inside, she just likes the eggs. Here she's making her ususal face. We have a million pictures of her and this face :) She loves to hold the eggs up for everyone to see.