Happy Birthday!!!

On this beautiful Monday, the 22nd of March, I am excited to wish my little sister a very happy birthday!!! I love her so much---she brings so much happiness to my life. I am grateful to have such an amazing sister and have loved getting to know her these past 17 years. Some favorite memories and things I love about Kate:

She used to wear this Gap sweatshirt EVERY day. I'm not kidding--every day. It was quite simple for her to get ready in the mornings. I think she went through 2 or 3 of this exact same sweatshirt. The girl knew what she liked and stuck with it!

From the time she was 5 she LOVED chihuahuas. She used to make lists of what she would name her 101 chihuahuas! Well, she never did get 101, but she did get Tito for Christmas all snuggled up in a basket and left on the doorstep with a note from Santa--she bawled.

Kate and I were the only kids at home for two years until I went to college, and after two years of college I decided to move home and commute to school. We had so much fun just being "us two" all that time together.

I love this picture!!! During the time I was living in Provo she came and slept over at my apartment--she partied hard and conked out on the couch.

We have hundreds of pictures that look like this--us goofing off. We always have fun together.

I love that she wears the slippers my Grandma gave her--they seriously have holes in the bottom from her wearing them so much! They are so old ladyish and Kate just loves them.

I love that we both have green eyes :)


I love to watch Kate dance. She has a dancers body and is absolutely amazing!

I love that Kate continues to ski despite all of my pressure to try to get her snowboarding. Hey--as long as she goes with me I can't complain.

I love that Kate rocks at piano and isn't afraid to sing and play and perform for anyone who will listen.

I love that she likes to scrapbook with me :)


For her 15th birthday she let me embarrass her at Build-A-Bear--they stopped everyone in the store and she had to ring the birthday bell and we all chanted some cheesy birthday saying. It was great. :)
She is always there to support me through the big moments in my life.

She knows just how to cheer me up.

And its pretty cool that she looks ridiculously like Emma Watson from the Harry Potter movies.

Kate I love you and hope you have a great birthday! Here's to another great year of memories.

-Jacquelyn

A celebration to remember...

D and I just got home from nannying my four cousins for the week--it was a long week but it was fun to spend time with them. He is playing X-box (he turned it on the moment we walked in the door--I think he might have missed it all week) so I thought it would be the perfect time for me to post pictures of Clint and Melissa's beautiful wedding!

Coming out of the Bountiful Temple--their sealing was wonderful.

Her colors were pink, black, green and white. I chose a black dress with white accessories--I LOVED my dress! (below)

D looking sexy :)

The happy parents of the groom--my dad was goofing off as usual :)

so fun to have a new sister-in-law...isn't she gorgeous?!!

From the Temple we went to a wedding dinner at Joseph Smith Memorial Building to celebrate with Clint and Melissa's closest friends and family. I tried to take an artistic picture of our name tags with their favors--nummy dinner mints.

Melissa's sister designed the centerpieces--I thought she did such a good job! There were candles throughout the whole room which warmed things up and made the banquet hall glow.

Sisters :)

Sorry to not have one serious, normal picture of D. Let's just say I married someone very similar to myself!

Melissa has 3 nieces and they bought these adorable skirts for each of them--one in pink, one in black, and one in green. I loved them.

When I got married my siblings made a gift for D and me meant to "help keep me happy." It including things such as movie passes, gift cards to Nordstrom and CPK, Diet Coke, and Clint made me an amazing custom longboard. We decided to make it a tradition and made a similar gift for the newlyweds. Ours included a mix D made for them since Clint loves new music, a notebook to write down all of Clint's big ideas in, movie passes, a gift card to Texas Roadhouse (Clint loves their ribs), and some boating stuff. Clint is definitely the most into wakeboarding/boating in our family. We got him new swim trunks and a sweet Ronix hat, and then got Melissa a boating hoodie (to wear on our 5:00 am boating excursions to get the smoothest water) and a Roxy hat. They are currently on their honeymoon--a cruise through Mexico!!! I'm jealous.

I thought this would be the perfect picture to end this post.

I don't think it needs a detailed description. One word: Happiness. :)

Hope you all enjoyed a snippet of their wedding!

-Jacquelyn

Movies!!

Friday night we went to see Alice in Wonderland!

It was such a fun movie. I will admit it was slow at some parts--but I a loved Alice in Wonderland as a little girl and watching it Friday just brought me back. Tim Burton did a cool continuation of the original story and I would recommend it to anyone.

Last night we watched the movie Dragonfly.

It's an older movie starring Kevin Costner that D had seen before and he remembered thinking it was cool so we decided to rent it. It was a bit jumpy and even somewhat scary at parts, but definitely more of a drama than a horror movie. It was really entertaining and the plot was very creative. Another movie that is definitely worth watching.

Today we watched Michael Jackson's This Is It.

Wow. I am not a huge Michael Jackson fan, but the movie blew me away. The time and effort everyone, including Michael, put into planning his concert is unbelievable. And after all that work, he died less than three weeks before the 50 concert series was supposed to begin. All 50 shows were sold out with ticket sales totaling more than 300 million euros--around 600 million dollars! His passion for every detail of his music was meaningful to D and me because of our love for music. Michael was involved with every part of his show--I don't think any other pop artist on the planet has the combined musical, dancing, and artistic talent. He was truly one of a kind and the movie was an excellent tribute to him. It has been out for quite some time--I know we are a little behind seeing it--but if any of you haven't seen it yet, go pick up a copy. I really think you will like it.

I'm sorry if any of these recommendations lead you to seeing a movie you don't enjoy--I should let you know we love love love movies and I can usually find redeeming qualities in any movie. I am not an intense critic. That being said, all of the movies mentioned in this post really were enjoyable and I don't think anyone would feel they wasted their time after watching them.

Amongst our movie watching this weekend, we attended my brother's wedding yesterday and it went beautifully. I will upload the pictures and post about it this week!

--Jacquelyn

Welcome to "Inspired"

Hello fellow bloggers and welcome to my new and improved blog (which will hopefully motivate me to blog more!) I was about to quit my blog, seeing as I hadn't updated since last October. I just never got in the groove of getting on and updating regularly. The fact is though, I have really enjoyed reading blogs, whether you are family, friends, or strangers--I have truly been inspired by you all. SO I have decided to forego deleting myself from blogging world and try to give it the chance I now think it deserves. I am excited to post on the many things in my life that inspire me day to day and also feature many of the blogs that have inspired me over these past few months. Wish me luck as I truly dive into the world of blogging.