Nieces and Nephews

Thomas and I have seriously the cutest nieces and nephews. 

Here's Josie! She is Thomas' brother James' little girl. So cute. I love her pretty eyes. I babysat her the other night for a little bit. We had fun playing =] 

Jamison!! Cutest little round face I've ever seen. 

Emery loves to strike a pose. 

Paige on her 2nd birthday! 

This little munchkin is always up to something! 

Here is Jett. He was born 4 days before Thomas and I got married. He is such a sweet little baby. 

Landon and Elliot are very hard to take pictures of haha. They love to run around and play!! 

Jamison loves to listen to Grandpa play the guitar!

My Ian boy!! 

Yeah ASU! 

Haha this one and the one below are from Christmas when we did the nativity with the kids. Landon and Elliot were shepherds. I love Landon's super cheesy smile!

Honeymoon

We went to California for our honeymoon! We had such a great time. We definitely did not want it to end! We went to Disneyland, California Adventure, Hollywood, and the beach. Our favorite parts were: Disneyland, eating yummy food, being lazy, driving around and being in traffic for forever (ok that one's a joke haha that was the worst part!), and eating more glorious food. Here are some pics from the trip! 

We were waiting outside our hotel for the shuttle to come to take us to Disneyland. Yay! we were stoked! Oh and by the way... we stayed at a Hilton about 2 miles from Disneyland and we got it on priceline for $55 a night. Such a good deal! 

The castle! This was the morning when hardly anyone was there yet so no one was in the background of the picture... yay =] 

Cute little ducks!!

California Adventure!! This was Thomas' first time there. I'm sad Cars Land wasn't opened yet when we went.... I guess we'll have to go back soon =] 

Always gotta get a picture in front of the Mickey Mouse 

We love Splash Mountain! 

haha yesss one of my favorite pictures 

Anybody know where this is?? It's at Innoventions in Disneyland =] Thomas was happy to find a piano at Disneyland! PS that place is so cool... we definitely had a fun time in there. 

Being silly waiting for World of Color to start! That show is magical. For reals. Definitely a great experience. 

Hollywood! We didn't really take any pictures in Hollywood.... it wasn't even that cool. There was just weird people all around and dressed up haha. It was fun, though. 

Cheesecake Factory! Here we are about to inhale this delicious slice of red velvet cheesecake. It is heaven on earth for reals. We are obsessed!  

Beach! We had fun digging holes....

And covering ourselves in sand haha  

More Disneyland pictures! We went for 2 days. 

Us with our "Just Married!" pins we got

This was definitely a great trip! I had so much fun with my cute husband. =] I can't wait to go back, hopefully sooner than later! 

Our Wedding

April 27th was a day I will never forget... Our wedding day =] It was perfect. I loved literally every second of that day. Nothing seemed to go wrong and I couldn't help but smile the entire day!


Let's start with the night before. I remember going to bed super super late because I was with Thomas of course. I knew I had to wake up the next morning at 7 to get my hair done, but of course I'm not going to go to bed early. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep anyways! I remember waking up off and on the whole night. It was seriously the longest night of my life. Knowing that the next night I would be sleeping next to my husband made me so excited. I couldn't wait =]
I woke up super early and watched The Office on my laptop in bed for like 2 hours haha. It was so cute because I remember getting a text from Thomas really early that morning saying he couldn't sleep at all that night because he was so excited. My cousin, Kim Willis, came over that morning to do my hair. It was such a weird feeling knowing that in a couple hours I was going to be a married woman! Crazy stuff! I was so stoked. I got in my wedding dress and my mom drove me and Thomas to the temple! Our sealing was going to be at 11:15 =]


The sealing was so great. I didn't know what to expect because I didn't know how weddings went in the temple, but it was perfect. Our family and a few friends were there. I'm so grateful for all who were able to come and share this special experience with us. Kneeling and looking at Thomas across the alter was an amazing thing. I seriously couldn't stop smiling the whole time! (Oh and later I was told that I kept moving my feet haha. I swear I can never sit still... I'm always moving).

Coming out of the temple was fun!! We had to wait a few minutes because there was another bride and groom who were out there taking pictures. Busy day for weddings! When we walked out, everyone who was at the sealing and a few more people were there to see us. We took pictures with everyone and then left to go to our luncheon!


Our luncheon was at Mi Amigo's. It was so yummy but I remember I didn't hardly eat anything because I just kept thinking how crazy it was that I was officially married to Thomas. Like really...? Did that just happen?? Haha I felt like it was a dream. A really good dream. I'm glad it was real! The luncheon was great. Our parents bragged about us and then Thomas and I shared the story of how we met.


Our reception was that night, and it was at Nanette Brinton's house, my good friend Heidi's mom. Heidi's reception was there as well, and I remember loving it and thinking that I wanted my reception there. Nanette emailed my mom after Thomas and I got engaged and offered her backyard for our reception. I was so happy about that. The reception was great! I loved it and had a lot of fun. We had super amazingly delicious food- pork sandwiches, macaroni salad, beans, crackers and cream cheese dip, and cake. We did the line for an hour and then did dancing after that. Thomas and I surprised everyone by starting out with a slow song (one of Courtney Cotter's songs) and then busted out into a dance we choreographed. Haha it was the greatest thing ever! I'm so glad we did it- it was so fun!!

We left after the reception to an awesome hotel in Tempe called The Buttes! =]


We have now been married almost 2 months! Yay!

April 27th..... I Can't Wait!

We are getting married on April 27th!! That's only in 29 days! I am so excited to marry my best friend and be with him forever!

How We Met

My friend, Courtney Cotter, and I decided one night that we were going to go to this luau stake YSA party thing at someone's house in Gilbert. She had heard about it from another one of our friends. I remember not really caring about it and kind of didn't feel like going, but since she wanted to go, I went along with her. We ended up staying until the end when there was only a few people left, and that's when Courtney and I saw Thomas and Brian Nielson. Courtney had heard about Thomas in high school and kind of knew him, so she started talking to him. I started talking to Thomas' friend Brian. Courtney and I left the party super happy that we had just talked to 2 really attractive guys. We wanted to be brave and bold and ask them on dates, so a few days after that or so I think, we got their numbers somehow and called them and asked them on dates. Courtney went with Thomas, and I went with Brian.

We planned a super fun date! We were really excited. We went goofy golfing at Golfland and then went to Courtney's house and made pizzas and watched the movie Matilda. I had a great time with Brian and I remember thinking he was really cute and fun.

I remember totally trying to pursue Brian. I texted him quite a bit and we hung out quite a few times. Thomas liked Courtney after the double date. Him and I a few times got together and would just talk about how neither of them liked us. I remember one night we talked on his roof for a while about our situations. That night was when I realized that I might like Thomas. The more I thought about it, the more I knew it was true. I had so much fun being around him. We loved talking and could easily talk about anything for hours.

There was a week when we watched all the Harry Potter movies. Yeah.. we're kind of obsessed. I knew that Thomas didn't know yet that I liked him, because I hadn't shown any signs yet, so I remember that during one of the movies I put my legs on his lap. That was my type of flirting I guess haha. Anyways, during the 7th movie (part 1), we held hands. Awwww! Haha so cute, I know. Stephen was there to witness it! Haha I feel bad... probably so awkward. Especially because after the movie ended, the room was dark and we were just quietly laying there, and all of a sudden our faces were close to each other and we kissed! Yeah... with Stephen in the room... He had no clue this was happening haha. Welp, the rest is history! Oh and this happened on Memorial Day, so May 31.

Valentine's Day

Before Valentine's Day, Thomas and I had talked about getting married, and we'd even gone to a few jewelry stores in the mall so I could find out my ring size and show him what kind of ring I wanted. 

Valentine's Day was coming up, and he wanted to plan something special. His brother told him about this amazing restaurant called Mastro's City Hall Steakhouse in Scottsdale and made a reservation for us. Thomas told me that is was really expensive and fancy, so I was super excited to dress up nice and go to dinner there. Earlier that week I had talked to someone who had been there, and they told me how nice it is and how it will cost at least $150. I was like holy crap.... dang haha. I had no clue it would be that expensive. She said that if he's taking me there, he's planning on doing something special (aka propose). I wasn't sure, because we had talked about waiting a couple more weeks at least. He seriously threw me off and made me think that it wasn't going to be on Valentine's Day.

Dinner was perfect. We had shrimp that was seriously the best I've ever had, and amazing steak. My favorite part of the meal, though, was the bread. It was delicious. I'm craving it now..... The dessert was fabulous, too. 

At the end of our meal, the waiter comes to us and says "I'm sorry to tell you this, but I have some bad news..." We were like crap what is he going to say?? But then he goes on to say... "Your meal has been paid for." What?? We were so confused. He told us that Thomas' brother, Aaron, who made the reservation for us, had paid for our meal. It was like a Christmas present. Thomas almost started crying he was so happy (remember it was like a $150 or more meal haha). What a great start to our evening together =]

After dinner, we were talking about what we were going to do. We talked about maybe just going somewhere and talking, or walking around somewhere. He got a text from his mom saying that he needed to get these chairs from his aunt's house. Thomas felt bad because he said he was supposed to do that earlier but he forgot. I didn't think anything of it and didn't mind at all, because his aunt lives right by his house. We get there and start going through the side gate when I heard drums. I was like what is going on?? Thomas said it was probably the neighbors.... Liar! We go in the backyard to get the "chairs" (yeah that was a lie... and I totally didn't even expect anything because Thomas was so chill about everything and didn't even act like anything was going on!) and there was a band set up. Guitar, drums, piano, everything. There was a bench in the middle of the grass. Thomas told me to go sit down. Right when I saw this set up I knew he was going to propose =] 

They played a song (Thomas, Ryan, Justin, Brian, and Stephen) that Thomas had wrote. It was about me and it was the sweetest thing ever. I was just sitting there with the hugest smile on my face. I was shocked to say the least. After the song, everyone left and Thomas came down to where I was sitting. He told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. I seriously don't even remember him asking me to marry him... I was in shock haha. I just remember grabbing his face and kissing him- so happy. I finally realized he was waiting for an answer haha so I said yes! Of course! We called family and went to see our parents and show them my ring. It was such a perfect night!!!!