it's been 2 months?

i can't believe i haven't updated in 2 months! that's how crazy busy we've been. mike and i finished up our semester the second week of december. we were very ready for a break! Christmas was a great success, we spent the night at my parents house Christmas Eve and woke up bright n early with my little siblings, went to church and spent lots of time with family. {p.s. i don't know why my christmas pictures always come out blurry}

2nd exciting update: i'm 35 weeks as of YESTERDAY! Which means, i can FINALLY count on one hand how many weeks i have left. i've been feeling pretty good, minus the lack of sleep from being pregnant. {i'm worried my baby's going to be a night owl, as soon as i lay down for the day, he goes nuts} I cannot wait till Max gets here! we are SO ready.

{the letters are to add color, painting's such a hassle in an apt!}

{our $20 goodwill find :)}

i recently put in my 2 weeks at the gym, and quite nannying a couple of weeks ago. {i was nannying a 2 and 1 year old and with a big belly it was getting really difficult lifting them and chasing after them!} so now it's time for me to prepare as much as i can while i have the time!

mike's going to be the greatest daddy.

xoxo, the Harrison's

grateful hearts.

words cannot explain how grateful i am.

i don't know why this hit me so hard today, but i'm really content right now. yeah, there's some things here and there that could be better, but there i really need to remain positive because i have been blessed with soo much. [really].

#1: my husband. he's handsome, loveable, and just OH so perfect for me. he always knows how to cheer me up, how to make me blush, and all around how be a better person. the other night we were talking about how much our relationship has developed over the past year of marriage. and really, we have gotten to know each other so much more. we have had so many wonderful experiences together, and we're going to continue to have these forever.. even bad ones! but i wouldn't want to experience these things with anyone else. he's truly, an amazing guy. i adore him. and can you believe we're approaching a year of marriage? crazyyy.

#2: sweet little max. we are so blessed to become parents soon. i can't even begin to explain the excitement that we both have for the day that our baby boy comes into this world. we feel so lucky to be able to have healthy bodies to provide for our mini us. throughout this pregnancy, i've had a real tough time with some body image issues. it's strange because never before have a been self conscious of my body. but as time goes on, and i look way more pregnant, the worry has turned into a blessing. i'm aware that some people aren't able to have their own children and keep reminding myself, "it'll all be worth it". our baby boy is quite active lately, and i just love him so much already. we are more than ready to become parents and are so grateful that Heavenly Father would send down one of His children for us to guide here on this earth. [100 days to go!]

#3: the gospel. wow, where would i be without the church. i'm so lucky to be a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. i've been a life-long member, and continue to see the good that it has brought me into my life. i have received so much peace and love from my Father in Heaven for trying to make the right decisions in my life. I know my Savior lives. he wants the best for all of His children. and i'm well aware of the blessings that have come in my life for obeying his commandments.

#4: families. another HUGE blessing in our lives is our families. every once and a while i get a urge to move back to Idaho and continue my schooling there. but then i realize what a huge blessing it is for mike and i to literally live less than 5 miles away from us [both of them!]. they are all such great examples to us and we enjoy their company. they have helped us so much in the past year, with getting our lives together and on our own i don't know how we would have done it without them! they are truly the best <3

#5: jobs. it's hard to say, but we're so very blessed to have good jobs. as our country is struggling, and tons of people are without work, we were able to hold some jobs that will take us through school and help us raise our family. yeah, we're extremely busy [especially mike] but we do know that we are doing everything we can to start out right. as our baby arrives, we will be very lucky to have me stay home with our baby. that is a major blessing right there.

#6: education. so this is really hard to count education as a blessing sometimes. most of the time i just want to quit. but i know that when we work towards something, we will be blessed in the long run. also, our prophets tell us over and over again that we must further our education in today's world. so i'm going to listen, because i want to see the blessings that going to school will bring!

#7: the temple. we have a temple so close to our house. it takes us no longer than 15 minutes to get there. sometimes, it's hard to make it there with our crazy schedules. but when we do, i feel an amazing peace inside that is unlike any other feeling. the spirit there is so strong, and i feel so close to my heavenly father. even when we're just walking on temple grounds. i'm also very excited to see the progress on the new Gilbert Temple! which will also be less than 15 minutes away. wow, so blessed.

looking at the good makes me forget about bad. yes, we've had our stressful, not-so-good days. but when we look at all the blessings that surround us. the bad seems so minute.

i'm forever grateful for these blessings.

xoxo, the Harrison's

crafting fun

Wooohooo! I finally made a cupcake liner wreath. I'm absolutly in love with the way that it turned out. Since Mike is at school every night, i've had a LOT of crafting time (that probably should be homework time). This was in fact inspired by pinterest. Surprise there. Funnny thing is is that my husband actually asked me the other day while I was on the computer, "are you pinning?" haha. He even knows the lingo!

What's new with us?

No much... just the same old work and school. We are loving our new apartment and new ward. We were called to be primary teachers (CTR 6). We have been warned by the whole ward that these are the most challenging kids. Thankfully, we have found some ways to calm them down! They have even taught us some!

My next doctors appt is September 29th and hopefully will be the day we get confirmation on our baby BOY :)

That's all for now,

xoxo, the Harrison's

the craze: pinterest

need a fast, cheap & fun craft?

I made these coasters for our home, and got the idea from Pinterest.
And this is how they turned out! I'm very pleased :)

xoxo, the Harrison's

little man

Thank you 13rock Photography for helping me document my pregnancy!
Visit 13rockphotography.blogspot.com for more of his work!

settled

we are finally all settled into our new place. {except for a few cutesy things to hang up and of course, the nursery}. we realized in this move that we have a lot more than we thought. here's a few pics from the move, please excuse the dirty hair & scrubs... it was a long day. but we are so grateful to have a home and we are loving it!

xoxo, the Harrison's

the update.

so here's the scoop, last week we found out the gender of our baby! we weren't expecting to find out so soon but the baby was in a position to tell us haha. it's a BOY! we couldn't be happier. and mike is extremely excited of course ;) since the baby's coming i've been lining up projects for me to do before then. i made my own diaper bag! i hadn't seen any in the stores that i fell in love with so i decided to just make my dream bag! i'm very pleased with how it turned out, i was pretty nervous. (the sewing machine and i don't get along very well!) the total cost of the bag was probably around $30-$40 which isn't bad because that's how much i would have spent on a bag anyway. a bonus: i have extra fabric for other projects!

xoxo, the Harrison's

HEAT

so lucky to be only 6 hours away from the beach <3

ringling bro's & barnum + bailey circus, so goood!
longboarding on my families fav beach, manhattan.

huntington beach.

we're back from our week-ish long california trip! let me tell you, it was so much fun. however, we are very sad to be back in this terrible heat. our trip was very relaxing and we got everything we wanted to done. we were able to be there when the Us Open surf competition was happening and were able to watch some of those festivities. we enjoyed longboarding, beaching it, shopping, and also the circus! we are so very blessed to have some family friends who have a beach house right on laguna beach. the beach they are on is private so you have more space than in public beaches, which is really a bonus! we had such a good time and wish we could live there as beach bums but as mike says, 'it's back to reality'.

happy days.

(above) this is a cute little project that i've been working on. i started out with mike and i so as our kids come along we can do them one at a time. just a neat little way to display your family.

(above) us and hattie before the baptism.

(above) 50's Nerds!

not much is new at our home. just the fact that we're super excited for our almost-week long California trip. Countdown: 10 days! We had a wonderful weekend, here's a sneak peak at what we did: Friday, date night! We dressed up as "50's Nerds" to receive a free milkshake at Chick Fil A. Oh, what we do for free stuff! haah we got funny looks but many compliments on our 50's outfits. Later that night we went home to have a movie marathon. We didn't even make it through our 2nd movie. Saturday was catch-up day. Mike had to teach piano lessons & prep the car for our road trip. I stayed home, catching up on much needed housework. That afternoon we were extremely blessed to participate in a baptism. Mike & I are ward missionaries and have been interacting with an investigator that the full time missionaries had been associated with. Such a neat experience to feel the spirit and see someone so happy to have the gospel in her life. It makes me feel like I should cherish that gift always. That night we went to the Harrison's to have dinner and catch up with family. We then went to Dave & Busters with Mike's sister & husband. It was a blast! We haven't been out that late in a while but it was well worth it.. haha. Sunday was the typical church, nap and dinner at my parents house. It was great to see my dad who's only here for the weekend and I haven't seeen him in weeks! It was such a wonderful weekend, filled with fun activities.

xoxo, the Harrison's

so, it's been a while!

So, it's been a while... My excuse: Blogger hadn't been working for some odd reason on my computer. Things have been going well in our family, Mike has been in school for the last month. He's been extremely busy with that & work! So I soak up any time that we have together. We recently found out that we're pregnant! We are so excited to start our family. I have my first appointment next week so I will be updating all of you on that. Telling our families that we are pregnant was priceless. Each reaction was so awesome. I'm so glad that we have such a great support system though, our baby is going to have one big family. There are 3 pregnant women on Mike's side so not to mention tons of cousins!
That's all the exciting new on our end

xoxo, the Harrison's

gratitude.

yesterday, i believe the Lord was trying to teach my husband and i a lesson. when mike got home from work, he was telling me about his morning run earlier that day. he said that as he was running, he had a overwhelming feeling of gratitude... he then asked me if i had ever had that overwhelming feeling. we went on and on at how blessed we feel to have all the things that we do. last night was also temple night (one of the things that we are extremely thankful for..especially with it only 10 minutes away!). as we were headed to the temple it was just like any other temple night. we found a awesome parking spot, got out of our car and went on our way. as we were walking to the temple we heard a frantic "sir... excuse me...excuse me.." the voice that we had heard was desperate. we both turn around to see a woman walking rapidly towards us. she was in hysterics. kind of hesitant, we walked towards her. she was crying... and i mean crying. she began to tell us that she's homeless and someone had just stole all her things. she had found a place to stay with a friend but the only problem was she needs to get there. we pull out my husbands wallet to find a $20 and handed her the money. she was so grateful. here was this woman who had absolutely nothing. she had to have the courage to ask someone for help. as we walked inside the temple, we were kind of shocked because the moments we had shared with this woman were intense. i don't mean like scary intense, just kind of that overwhelming feeling that we were talking about earlier that day. but that's not all... after the temple we had to run to walmart to grab some cereal (my forgetful mind forgot this on the grocery list). we went down the isle, it seemed like forever to pick one of the many options of cereals. we headed out to the parking lot where our car was. and guess what happened. a man was standing outside the store with his wife. he looked kind of depressed. he then proceeded to ask mike and i in desperation, "could i please earn some money from you, i promise i'll do anything my wife and i are on the streets tonight". welp, here we went again, into the store to get cash back to provide to another family in need. i think that's when satan was starting to work on me.. i started to think things like... wow, that was a lot of money to just give away. and all the excuses i usually think of when i see a homeless person on the street. you should have seen the look on this mans face. the face of hopelessness. this is when the overwhelming feeling came over me, we have so much. sometimes i say silly things like, "oh, we're just a poor married couple" or "when are we going to get a home?". we have much more than this. we have jobs, family, friends, the gospel, and more love than anyone could ever imagine. yeah, we have a tiny apartment and we don't have very much money. there are people out there who have much less. i'm so grateful that we can help others that may need our help. and i hope that we can continue to help others, to make our world a better place.

president monson said, "as we go about our daily lives, we discover countless oppurtunities to follow the example of the Savior. when our hearts are in tune with His teachings, we discover the unmistakeable nearness of his divine help. it is almost as though we are on the Lord's errand."

Oh, the wonderful weekend!

We had such a great weekend! It started off on Friday, we went to a wedding reception for one of Mike's friends. It was beautiful! Afterwards, we needed to do something fun because of the great excitement that I have since school is DONE! We got dessert and quickly ran to Golfland before it closed. It was so much fun! Plus, it was a beautiful night out! We were up pretty late so we slept in Saturday morning. Saturday we went to a lizard pit at a family friends work. It was disgusting and cool all at the same time. haha, I was freaking out at how many lizards there were! On our way home we stopped at my aunts bakery in Phx for some yummy yummy mexican food. After, we washed our car out in the warm sun (Mike did most of the work while I layed out.. hehe). That night we stayed over at my parents house while they were out of town. We went to go get dessert and took a nice drive with the windows down because of the wonderful night weather that we've been having. Sunday was wonderful as well, even though we were extremely tired from our weekend activities. I love summertime.

Above, Mike and I at Golfland!
I told Tanner and Mike to do a scared face because we were surrounded by reptiles.

A project I've been working on for the week! A big H now hangs in my family room...So much fun to do. :)

xoxo, The Harrison's

precious.

hands down, i nanny the cutest little boys.

jackson (left), brayden (right)

sisters/mothers/award.

Friday, Mike went to Fathers and Sons.... in place of a date with Mike, I went on a "Sister Date" with my one and only sister Nicole! I love spending time with her! We went to her favorite restraunt In-N-Out and then headed to the Buttes Resort in Tempe to go hot-tubbing! We had so much fun and it was good to spend some quality time. I love my sister!

Yesterday was Mothers Day! What a beautiful day to reflect on all that our mothers do for us. I'm so grateful for my mom and all she has done for me and the unconditional love that she has. I always have so much fun with her and we know how to make eachother laugh! Over the years, our relationship has only been better and i'm so grateful for the great relationship that we hold! She will always hold a special place in my heart!

I added a link of a video to the post today, because on May 5, 2011 my husband was awarded from the Chief of Police for saving someones life. At about 13:45 on the video, is when this special moment happens! I'm so proud of him and his bravery in saving this mans life

http://http//gilbert.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=452

something borrowed.

i've been quite the crafty lady lately. sad to say, I have already tuned out this semester and just wanted to work on projects around the house. here's my latest creation. this was a hand-me-down... i had to make it my own somehow. haha. our home is getting more and more homely :) (not sure if that's a word...)

xoxo, The Harrison's

catchin' up

So, I feel like it's been a while since i've updated everyone on our lives...

First thing's first, we bought a car! I don't have any pictures of the car but it's a grey Honda Accord and we LOVE it. We're also going to love the gas mileage compared to the truck. We also just purchased a new scoot for Mike, the one we had just had a wimpy engine. We needed something more reliable to get to work and school for the both of our busy schedules. This past weekend was a wonderful one, after work on Friday I got to see my really good friend who's living in Australia. We went to lunch and just caught up on each others lives. ( The middle picture is me and Kelsey ). That night my husband and I went with my Dad and Grandma to the temple for my family. It was such a wonderful experience. It's amazing the peace you can feel when you're on the temple grounds. After the session, we went to Costa Vida! YUM!

^ This picture is Mike and I in the back of the truck at a drive in in the church parking lot, watching Despicable me! ^ :) we love date night!
^Kelsey & I ^

^ Haha we had to take pictures of all the cash we had when we bought our car... so just in case you were wondering... those are all Benjamins.. ^

xoxo, The Harrison's

chairs.

Soo.. this past weekend has been nuts. We have been extremely busy. It's coming to the end of the semester, we're workin jobs and today (hopefully) we will be buying a car :) We finally came to the decision that the truck was just TOO much gas at a time like this and we really need to do our best to save as much mula as we can...Mike's sad we're getting rid of the truck but luckily it's staying in the family so we more than likely will be able to borrow it. I've been having so much fun decorating our little home, it's the best! I remember going into home-y stores with my mom growing up and I did not like them, and as soon as I got my own home I absolutely love everything that has to do with a home. It's really got me thinking about going into Interior Design, seeing as the Elementary Ed thing isn't as attractive anymore. We'll see how it all plays out...

before

Here's one of the latest projects... My mom was so kind as to let us have her old kitchen chairs, but to get the style of my home, I decided to recover them!
after

stay tuned for pictures of our car.... :)
xoxo, The Harrison's

the utah thing

this last weekend, mike and i had the wonderful oppurtunity to go to Utah for his cousins wedding! We took off Thursday night straight from my class to Vegas to stay the night with my bro in law (Josh)'s friend. On the way up, my sister in law began to feel very sick so we had planned to take the following day pretty easy. The weather in Vegas and Utah was beautiful! Once we got to Utah we unpacked all our stuff and hung out with some of mikes extended family. Saturday was the best part of the trip! I was able to go to breakfast with my darling best friend, Stephanie. We went to McDonalds because that's our favorite, cheap breakfast place. We were probably gone for a couple of hours just reminiscing (*) and laughing. I miss her so darn much. Then we went on with the rest of the day to mikes cousins baseball game. You should have seen the people at the game when we were cheering all loud for dillon. We were the biggest support group there! Then it was off to get ready for the wedding... I love weddings. The bride looked beautiful and they both look so happy! I just love LOVE. I especially like being in love, that's even better :) i'm so grateful for wonderful in-laws who provided us with a wonderful, quick weekend to Utah! Here's a few pics from the trip...

now here's an incredible story...

It was a Saturday afternoon, beautiful day around 4:30 pm.

My husband and I had just been at my parents house relaxing and enjoying a good weekend. Around this time we left my parents home we hopped in our seperate cars to begin the drive home. I was in front of him by about a half mile, while he was following behind back to our house. I got home before Mike, thinking that he would follow in shortly after. But he didn't. I began to get extremely worried thinking that he should be home by now and maybe he got into some trouble...

As Mike was driving down Val Vista, he caught eye of a car that was about 100 feet into a neighborhood. In this car, he realized there was a person in the driver seat. As he looked closer, he noticed little orange flames coming from underneath the car. By pulling out in front of other cars, he pulled into the neighborhood to do some further investigation. When he pulled over he realized that the driver was passed out and had no way of helping himself out. Mike ran to the nearest intersection and flagged a car down that had a mother and her son in the car. He motioned to have the mother call for help and motioned the boy to come and help him get this man out of the burning car. They boys then brought him out of the car, safely away from the scene. By this time, the car was fully engulfed by flames.

I finally got a hold of my husband after much worry, and he began to tell me what had happened. I admire all those who were around and quickly took action to remove this mans life from jeapordy. For whatever reason my husband looked over to the side of the road that day, no one really knows . This man could have easily lost his life that day. But he is now safe and here to remain on this earth.

(a picture i found on the internet)

Birthday Weekend :)

What a busy weekend we had!

Mike and I have been looking forward to this weekend for a while,

because our birthdays are 2 days apart.

This was actually the 2nd birthday we have spent together and it's been a blast.

Mikes birthday was on Friday, so that morning I woke up 20 minutes earlier for work to decorate the apt. Instead of using traditional birthday decorations, I covered the cabinets & doors with sticky notes saying some lovey birthday things:).

After work I ran to the dollar store to pick out a balloon and gummy bears (mikes favorite candy)... I put it in the truck for when he left work. I think it kinda spooked him a bit because of the tinted windows. haha. Once we were both home for the day we went to Joes BBQ. Yum. From there, we went to the mall and did a little shopping. Since we were in the area, of course we had to pick up the free one dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts they give out on your birthday!

Don't worry, we didn't eat the whole dozen...yet.

Later that night Mike went away on a "man-date" with his little bro to the Suns game while my dad and I went to Outback Steakhouse since he would be travelling on my birthday!

Saturday was just as busy..

we took my dad to the airport and then stayed at my parents for a while watching Bait Car.

We love that show.

That night we went to a beautiful wedding reception for Matt and Sarah!

After which we went to yet another restaurant (PF Changs) for my birthday dinner.

It was so much fun to spend all that time with my wonderful hubby & family.

We have much to be grateful for :)

a night in mayer

This is the only picture I got of this weekend, so bummed!

On Friday afternoon, my sister in-laws,mom and I went up to clean up the house that we were staying at in Mayer, AZ. While we were there early, we also decorated for Mike's birthday which is this next Friday, he's gonna be 24...so old ;)

That night we had a fire, and popped in a flick ("Get Smart").

The next morning while the boys were shooting, all the girls went to some local antique shops. We went to one where it had 13 rooms, however, the floors did not seem stable whatsoever. But there was some cool things to look at and some VERY old stuff. Haha. Later that afternoon we went on a ride to Crown King, 1 hour there and 1 hour back.

For any of you who have never been to Crown King, I highly recommend it.. it was such a cool town and would be a great camping spot. We got home very late, so Mike and I's date night consisted of cleaning my dads truck, unpacking and then off to bed..

We had such a great time with good company!

Mike had climbed this rope all the way to the top! ( He was one of the few who could do it ).

This was the ongoing challenge on the trip.

xoxo, The Harrison's

Startin off right

It's finally Spring Break!

Even though I'm only taking a few classes, with everything else going on this is a much needed break... We decided to go to Payson to spend the night in the woods, just me and him :)

The weather was abolutely perfect

Instead of freezing my booty off, I was taking of my sweater and socks throughout the night, my husband was proud! It was so much fun relaxing around the campfire and sleeping under the stars in our truck! We love the outdoors!

Right when we got there, we had to take a picture... we need to start taking more pictures cause we are really bad at doing that.
Our fire looks kinda lame but I promise, it wasn't!

We found snow on our afternoon walk.

Roasting our hot dogs for lunch :)

xoxo, The Harrison's