Our Christmas card.

Well my friends, it has been 1 month since we moved to St. George. This month went by way too fast! It still feels unreal. I keep thinking I just need to pinch myself and we will be back in Davis county. We miss all of you that we left behind. Some days we wonder if there are actual people outside of our little world. And then Aunt Darlene to remind us about Sundays(ice cream) on Sunday at 7 and that helps us to feel more civilized.

Things really aren't bad here though. We have started to make friends. We have neighbors that live below us in our building that have been very kind. We met them at church and started our friendship. They have a little girl is is 1 week younger then Kate. Her name is Eloise. They love to look and point at each other. Kate and I went on a walk to the park with them and played on the swings and went down the slide. It's good to know we have people around us who are in the same situation.

Ben still hasn't found work. He has applied to so many jobs and nothing has worked out yet. We are pretty sure it is going to be pretty difficult especially with a school schedule issue, but we are still hopeful.

Kate is growing up so fast! She has started standing in place for a few seconds. I doubt it will be long before she starts walking! I know right? It seems crazy! She is so entertaining. She likes attention from anywhere she can get it so we get a lot of random people from everywhere we go coming up to talk to her.

I'm still trying to make sure everything has a place. Most of our boxes have been unpacked but there is still a lot of home decore and shoes(mostly bens) and junk to go through. I'm sure a trip to DI will be coming up soon. I've had a lot of fun cooking and baking for my little family especially during the holidays.

And for all of you who are curious about our new life, this is what is going on.

As I think of the past year I feel very blessed. We have had so many wonderful things happen in our home. Our beautiful baby. Wonderful family. Spiritual growth. Our new home. An awesome adventure. What more could we.ask for?

Merry Christmas everyone! And a Happy New Year!

Love, the Johnsons.

Remember to click the FOLLOW button.

I know some of you are having trouble viewing our blog. So i decided to help you so you can view anytime, instead of me having to invite you to view it.


Once you open your invitation and get to my blog, up at the top there will be a button at the top left that says FOLLOW. Make sure you click on that button. Then it will ask if you can follow me privately or publicly with your name/email address. You do need to have a blogger account to do this. If you do not have one, I suggest you to set one up. Click on the follow publicly. This means if you want to leave a comment, your name will appear on my post.

If you are still having trouble, let me know so we can get if figured out.

You can also check out some of my older posts. To the right on my blog it says BLOG ARCHIVE. This means you can click on the month you want to view and read the posts from that month. You can also scroll to the bottom of my blog and it will have a button that says OLDER POSTS. Click there and you can see what else there is to view.

For those of you who have a blog, or a dashboard, you wont see when I post something new because it is a private blog. I usually post when i update my blog on Facebook. But, If you don't get on there often either, then just check my blog every now and then to see if if i have posted anything new.

Thank you all! Let me know if this post helps you! I would love your feedback.

Diy wreath

I made a Christmas wreath today. I had a lot of fun doing something crafty. Best part of this was it didn't cost me a thing. This was all stuff I had laying around.
1. I started with a wire hanger. I bent it until it made a circle.
2. Then I found five different scraps of Christmas material.
3. I cut 1 inch strips out of the material
4. I tied each scrap, in a double knot, in a pattern around the wire 
5. I bent the top piece to make it look more round.
6. Hung it on my door.
Here are the pictures. ENJOY

Hanger bent into a circle

Christmas Material

Tying scraps onto wire

Finished wreath

Tour of our new home

This is our new home in St. George. We are loving the weather. I can't say we have met many people yet, the neighbors don't seem to be really friendly. Maybe that will just take time. We went to church on Sunday and our ward is full of mostly old people. I think we saw like two couples that might be around our age. So we came home, did some research and figured out that there is a student married ward that meets at 1 at the same building. We are for sure going to try going to that ward this Sunday. Ben's family has been really welcoming. We spent Thanksgiving with them and then enjoyed having Ben's parents and sisters here for his Grandma's 90th Birthday party. I am very grateful for my loving husband. We have had a lot of fun with just our little family these past few weeks. Even with the stress of packing and unpacking. It's almost like living in our own little world/

Any ways here is our apartment. With time I am sure things will get moved around or more decore will go up to make it more homey.

Here is the entrance

Kitchen

Family room with a sliding glass door to our balcony. We live on the 3rd floor.

Master Bedroom with a ceiling fan. I am very thankful for that!

Our two bathrooms

Boy Bathroom

Girl Bathroom

Kates room

Third bedroom. We still have a lot of unpacking to do!

our bed 

Dining area and Laundry room


Well it isnt all in order, because blogger kinda pisses me off when it doesnt let me put the pictures i upload from my phone where i want them to be. But i am sure you all get the picture. Hopefully now you can picture us somewhere.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Love Story

Steph, This is.. for you.

Ben and LeighAnn, it was not love at first site. I was dating this guy named Kendall. Nothing serious. My friends and I decided to go play at Nichols park(aka Castle Park in Kaysville). I decided to invite Kendall. He texted back and said he was going to bring a friend(Ben) with him so he wanted me to make sure there was a girl for him there I told him there were a few around i am sure he would enjoy. I tried to convince my friend Lexi to flirt with him, but she had recently been in a car accident and didnt feel like herself. So i got my friend Chari to try to keep him away from Kendall and I. Chari failed miserably. Ben followed us around everywhere we went. I didn't get a second alone with Kendall. I was so annoyed(even if he was good looking, i didn't care. He was ignorant and rude for not letting Kendall and I be alone to talk or hangout.) I didn't see him again, until he showed up at church with Lexi. I hadn't talked to Lexi in a while and she went through guys quicker then you go through toilet paper. I was surprised to see Ben with her though, I thought to myself, now that must be a very interesting relationship.
From time to time we hung out over at Lexi's house with her annoying boyfriend. I was still mad at him for not leaving Kendall and I alone. Even though that relationship never would have worked out. I slowly decided to change my opinion of Ben. He was very clever and since he was my friends boyfriend, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. So i tried really hard to be nice to him. He introduced me to a friend of his named Andy. Andy and I dated for a while, and we would go on double dates with Ben and Lexi. Ben and Lexi always fought. About everything. Andy and I got so annoyed, so we would end up ditching them. A few weeks later Andy and I broke up. This relationship just wasn't going to go anywhere.

 Over the next few months I had many failed relationships. Ben and Lexi's relationship also failed. Big surprise. Ben decided to text me, and we started to have a little friendship over text. I would tell him about my guy problems and he would help me out. Then he asked me out on a date. I said no. And he said, "oh come on. I know you flirted with me when I was dating Lexi, and I know i flirted with you." I had no idea he was into me. Even a little bit. I really thought we were just friends. A week or two later, another one of my bad relationships failed. I texted Ben and asked if he wanted to do something. He got the impression i wanted to go on a date with him. I just wanted to get out of the house and didn't want to be sulking over my bad relationship. I went along with the date. We went to Temple square to see the Joseph Smith movie. This is when i was able to see there was more to Ben then just good looks and sarcasm. I remember thinking, okay, this dude is actually kind of cute. We went to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins, Then back to Nichols Park. This is where we shared our first kiss. Perfect date until... The rest of the night he talked a lot about his ex girlfriends, so i still wasn't too sure about him. We drove around, ended up sitting in a parking lot talking about his ex girlfriends still. And then.... yes it gets worse.... A cop drove up to the car and asked us for both of our licences and wanted to know what was going on. We told him we were just on a date and talking. He went back to his car and looked us both up and i swear he was back there for way too long. I asked Ben if he thought we would get arrested for anything. Ben said he hoped not because he had a ticket that he took a while to pay and he wasn't sure if they had received the check yet. I was out with a guy who possibly had a warrant out for his arrest because of an overdue ticket expense. The cop finally brought back our licences and let us go. I made Ben take me home. After a day or two of thinking about it, i thought okay Ben isn't a bad guy. Maybe I should give him another chance. He came over and hung out with me a few more times, and then i didn't hear from him. I figured he had moved on to some other girl and i should move on too. Again there were many failed dates and relationships. Finally i heard something from Ben. Months later. I asked him how he had been. He said He was starting to feel better, but not like himself quite yet... That's when i found out he didn't just write me off. He had been practically dead, in a coma, in the hospital and now in recovery. May 30, 2008 Ben had fallen out of the back of a pickup and had a Traumatic Brain Injury... I felt so stupid. I had no idea. I didn't date him for very long and i didn't know many of his friends or any of his family, So i had no idea. He came over to my house and we sat on the front porch while he told me the full details. He didn't remember anything from the whole month of June. We decided to remain friends. We tried to hang out a few times, but something else would come up and we didn't start dating again until October. That's when it happened. Annoying Ben almost completely disappeared and i fell really deep in love with this boy. I was never bored with him. He was so fascinating I always wanted to be around him. And him with me. He came to Thanksgiving with me in Idaho. We went to his family Christmas party, We spent New Years cleaning his room and dancing to Garth Brooks song To make you feel my Love, Kinda lame for New Years i know, but it was amazing. A few months later Ben started to get a little worried about our relationship. He realized we were heading towards marriage. This freaked him out. He quickly and out of no where broke up with me. I was devastated,. After spending everyday together it was hard to not see each other. We still dated, but we saw other people as well. I feel really bad for all the guys I went out with at that time, because i think i cried on almost every date... These guys were not Ben. This breakup only lasted a month at most. He missed me too. We got engaged quickly and married with in 3 months after we got back together. Our first year or two of marriage wasn't the easiest. We were broke all the time, still are, and it was really hard to learn how to live with each other. I'm a clean freak, and he is not.. Overtime we have made it work. Learned a lot about each other, and we have fallen even deeper in love with each other. More then i ever thought i could Love any one. We have a beautiful baby girl together and couldn't be happier.

And so my friends, The moral of this story is... Love isn't always Love at first Site.
As my friend Stephanie said in her blog post, What is your love story? I would love to read about it.

Moving in Less then 2 Weeks!

We've decided that December 1st was too far away, and it didn't make sense for us to live with Family for a few days before we move in to our apartment in St. George.... This means we are going to be moving in on Thanksgiving Day.

Ben's parents are going down to see Grandma Alldredge over Thanksgiving weekend, and for them to take some of our stuff and then for us to bring more stuff and move in would be to crazy.

So friends, This is probably my last blog post while living here in Davis County. I've lived in Davis County since I was 9 years old. Time for NEW ADVENTURES! If you ever come our way, give us a call. We would love to see you. Keep in touch!

Weaning Kate.

We visited the doctors office today for katelynn's 9 month checkup. They checked her height, weight, head circumference, and iron. Her iron was a little low so we discussed how breast feeding is going. Lately Kate has been too preoccupied with being too busy to eat. The decision to wean now seems to be the best for her. She loves solid foods and only likes to breastfeed morning and night. So, for now that's what we are going to do with formula during the day.
I didn't realize the emotions that come with Weaning. Now she can feed herself and I don't need to be the only one that can do this for her. That bonding experience has been amazing. I've had some hard times with breastfeeding for sure, but so many good times as well.
We have all been feeling like the time for Weaning was getting close. She seems ready. She is very independent and loves to view all of her surroundings. The time is here. Wish us luck.

Here is a list of things I will miss:

-Bigger boobs ;)
-Being so close
-Not having to worry about finding    warm water every where we go
- The convenience
-The antibodies so she didn't get too sick
-The love
- Being able to watch what I want to watch on tv while Kate eats

Things to be excited for
-More freedom for mommy
- Kate can watch elmo while she eats
-Daddy can spend more time with Kate
-Mommy and Daddy can have more alone time
- Still being able to cuddle while she drinks her bottle
- Kate gets more independence
-Some one else can enjoy feeding her

And here is a picture of our first Weaning experience

Getting fit

I gotta say, I haven't done extremely well over the past week on eating right and exercising( or blogging about it.) Every time I see something on pinterest or see a friend on Facebook talk about losing weight it sparks a little more determination. So I am now up to doing 100 jumping jacks, running in place for 3 minutes, crunches, stretching, and some yoga poses.

Also, I have decided there is no point in doing this unless I'm eating right too. So I'm trying to stick to the basic eat more fruits and veggies, whole grain, lean meats, and cutting down on sweets. Today I ate an apple, raspberries, small portion of hashbrowns cooked in olive oil, with a little bit of turkey bacon and one egg-fully cooked. They say that eating 6 snack sized meals a day will speed up your metabolism.

The biggest reason why I am slowly working into getting fit is because I am breastfeeding. And I've heard if you jump into it your milk will dry up. So I gotta start slow. I'm hoping during my next pregnancy I will be able to work out the whole time( as long as i'm not throwing up all the time like I did with my last pregnancy.)

Here are some motivational pictures and good tips I found on pinterest and other websites linked to those websites.

My goal!

To give my hubby a healthier sexier me for Christmas. Oh ya, its gonna happen! Today was day 1. I plan on blogging about all of this too if you all want to join me on my exercise plan then please do. Today I only worked out for 25 minutes. This consisted of some yoga- like downward dog, child like pose, and warrior. And lots of stretching, that I remember doing when I took dance, and sit-ups, push ups. Then running in place for 10 min. Walking around for a few min. A little more stretching. Big glass of water. And a shower. And tomorrow I am going to start this... I found this on pinterest! Good luck to us all!

Our new niece. Baby Ella :)

Katelynn got a new cousin yesterday. My sister kayla gave birth. Thank goodness for skype. It was amazing to be able to see her. I only wish we could have been there to hold her. One day soon I hope we can see them.

New News :)

We have some really exciting news to share today. Ben and I got called to be nursery teachers in our ward. Yay! Today we went in to see how this would go... The kids are so cute! Some might be a little difficult, but they seem to be a lot of fun too. It's kind of funny they just gave us a calling when we are getting ready to move... But if this is where the lord wants us, then here we will go.

I just have to say, today was a very good day. Well this whole week has been amazing. With conference, my awesome birthday, getting our new calling, and Ben and I have witnessed a lot of blessings in our lives lately. Ben stood up and bore his testimony on the power of prayer today in sacrament meeting. It is remarkable how well the Lord knows us. How he knows when we are ready to learn things. He is very good at preparing us for what is in store for our lives. Ben and I both feel really blessed. Everything seems to be going the way it should. We also feel like heavenly father has a great sense of humor... He does a lot for us, and puts us in nursery for payback! Lol.

Thankfully, Kate had a blast playing with the kids and the toys. I just hope this will continue...

My birthday!

Ben is the best husband ever. He did everything he possibly could, to make my birthday a special as it could be.
First he took me to lunch at Little Taste of Britain. That place is amazing. You should try it if you haven't yet. Then he took me shopping at rue 21, where I got new shoes and a scarf.  
Then he made me close my eyes as he drove us to Centerville, when I opened my eyes I saw a couple of our good friends holding cupcakes for me. They are very sweet. Ben got this all planned out. He is very sneaky. He knows how much I love surprises.
This birthday made me feel very loved by many people. I can't thank everyone enough for making me feel so special. 
Katelynn played a big part of my birthday as well. All of her cute smiles and giggles are the best gift ever. How I love this little girl. I love my family so much. I am so blessed to have them in my life!

Pictures from Missouri trip

Missouri

We traveled to Missouri to see my family. While we were there we saw... The new temple that is being built, liberty jail, a soccer game, legends which is kind of like gateway but bigger, adam on di amen I don't know how to spell that ..., jamesport which is an amish town, and the emergency room because katelynn had a fever for 4 days:( people out there were very friendly and very nice. It was good to see my family, and their everyday life.

Update.. short but sweet.

New blog for new adventures. And so I can blog on my phone.
The past few weeks have been busy. We visited Missouri, celebrated my birthday, and got the news that we got our apartment. Move in date is December 1st.

I will write more about our trip later, and my birthday and all the fun stuff going on.

Loves!