rushley & crew

Guys. I'm so tired. Over the past three days, I've spent 26 hours in the sewing lab, and today I'll spend about 10 more. Too many projects to complete in the next barely-more-than-two weeks! So today's five will be quick. My brother's family comes into town today and they'll be here for the next couple of weeks! So I'm suuuuper excited to see . . .  one.  My brother and sister-in-law! :) Happy birthday to Tyler TODAY! :) two. Cute Noah who turns eight this week! three.  Sweet Naomi.  four. Mischievous Abram. five.  This adorable hunk of love, Joseph. Happy Friday!

It all comes to a close today! But if you missed any part along the way, here they are: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , and 9 . Part Ten - The End of the Beginning So we had just broken up, and it was awful. I loved him. I wanted to be with him. I didn't want him to be with anyone else. But he had a date with another girl, and we would be broken up at least until then. So we were both miserable. It was so annoying. He hated being broken up just as much as I did, but he still let the break-up stand.  I told him that I hoped this whole "feeling that he needed to date this other girl" was just so that he'd realize that he only wanted to be with me. He said he hoped the same. The Friday that we were broken up, I went out with a bunch of girlfriends, and he went out with his brother and sister. He was talking to Lacey (his sister) about the break-up and she said something along the lines of, "Well if you're having doubts, it's good that you...

I recently had a birthday . I've been planning to make a bucket list for a few months now, but I was waiting until my birthday so I had some sort of start-mark. So here it is, my list of twenty-three things to do before I turn twenty-three! :) Go to at least three different national parks or monuments { Dinosaur National Monument } { Zion National Park } { Mesa Verde National Park } Do work in all the temples in Utah { Mormon Temples } Make a baby { an update } Scrapbook at least 23 pages  { 28 in one week! } Get Zumba certified (or at least find a Zumba class that I like enough to regularly attend)  { Zumba! } Read 23 books (especially look into more intellectually enlarging books about things like business, leadership, politics, finance, and history) { group 1 } { group 2 } { group 3 } Grow my blog to at least 75 followers Meet a blog friend in person  { blog besties } Start a successful crafting group--a group that consistently has at least four peopl...

Okay, so that's not completely true. I'm generally pretty good with bigger decisions. But when it comes down to decisions that don't really matter, I'm helpless! Please help me choose my next phone case :) one two three All of these monogrammed phone cases and more can be found at the  Simply Monogram etsy shop .

one.  Is it just me or is everyone  pregnant/just had a baby? I currently have three sisters(/in-laws) who are pregnant (one who just announced this week). That's half of them! (Well, half of the marrieds.) Crazy, fun, and exciting :) I even live by two of these sisters, so that means I'll actually get to be around more nieces/nephews! I currently have eleven nieces/nephews and live by only one of them. So two more is exciting! :) All of our nieces/nephews when we got married. There are now two more, plus the three on the way! two.  Speaking of nieces and nephews, my brother's family is coming for a visit in like a WEEK! And bringing these four to see me! Well, not just to see me, I suppose, but I'm excited, nonetheless :) I love when family comes to visit!   three.  I'm currently in the middle of taking three of my last five classes, and something happened for the first time at the testing center yesterday. It felt pretty good :) four...

It's been a long love story, so if you'd like to catch up, here are parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , and 8 ! :) Part Nine - The Twist in Our Story Shortly after Russ and I said I love you  to each other, we made things official. We had been dating exclusively for four or five weeks, and had been spending all of our time together, but we had both been hesitant to make anything official too quickly.  But one day, he called me girlfriend . And after discussing it for about five seconds, he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend, to which I responded, "I think I'd be okay with that ;)" So even now, even with official boyfriend/girlfriend status (though not on Facebook--I think people should only be "in a relationship" on Facebook if they're like . . . almost engaged), I was writing to my missionary. (At least in theory. I hadn't actually written to him for a week or two, because it was getting harder and harder to keep talking to him wit...

A couple months ago, I came across  this blog  which recommended a few books. One was called The Happiness Project. I loved  this book. When I first started reading it, I wasn't sure it was what I had bargained for, but now, two months after finishing it, I still can't stop bringing it up in conversations that have any sort of depth. It's not a novel--more of a self-help kind of book. I like novels, but I really prefer books that help me think about how I could make my life better, which this book does well. Gretchen Rubin (the author) sort of prefaces the whole thing by saying that her life was pretty good; she didn't really have any complaints. But she hypothesized that she could probably be more proactive about generating more happiness in her life. Hence, the Happiness Project was born. Most people set New Year's Resolutions in January, only to break them a week or a month later because they've just set too many high-reaching goals. Rubin's i...

This week, I celebrated my birthday ! So here are 5 ways to enjoy a birthday :) one. Eat donuts for breakfast. two. Have a lunch date at Kneaders with the husband. Bonus points if you see at least three other people that you know while you are there. Bonus  bonus points if you see your boss, who proceeds to buy you a fruit tart and a Kneaders gift card! three. Eat dinner at Macaroni Grill. Do something out of the ordinary and get their amazing raspberry lemonade. Make sure you get your free dessert! four . Find the cutest guy around and spend as much of the day as possible with him. Jump for joy when his second job says he doesn't have to work that day  :) five . Watch Hitch . Snag lots of cuddles throughout the movie. Do you notice a theme to my birthday? Well don't worry--calories don't count on your birthday. I'm 99.9% sure of it ;) Happy Friday!

Yup! That's the theme of the day because it's my birthday! So I don't know about you , but I'm definitely feeling 22! :) Hope you all have a great day on my birthday! ;)

Last week, I promised part 8 would come out on Tuesday instead of its usual Wednesday because tomorrow is my birthday so I have something else planned for a post! So hopefully I can get that finished in time to post tomorrow, but in the mean time, here's part 8! Catch up on what you've missed with parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , and 7 . Part Eight - Love So there I was, with this dilemma about what to do and who to choose. But I kind of decided that I didn't have to choose yet. Russ now knew about my missionary, so if he wanted to call it quits, he was free to do so, but until then, I could date him and see what happened, while still writing to my missionary. So for the moment, I didn't worry about it. I decided I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. And I kept dating Russ. And loving every moment I spent with him. And I realized I was falling in love.  Russ was so good to me. He cared about both my stress and my happiness. He listened to what I ha...

one . New blog design! A while back, I noticed how the really cute blogs didn't use regular old templates--they were custom designed. I knew that I was more drawn to blogs that had good design, so I figured my blog was easily dismissible because it was just a boring old template from blogger. I started looking for blog design websites, and I found a lot of great options, but the lowest price I found was $40--not bad, but more than I wanted to spend at the time. Then, I found  A Ziggy Designs , and her price was a mere $15! That was a price I could definitely afford! So we started the process of me communicating what I wanted and her doing so well in delivering. She was great to work with me as I changed my mind and got really detailed about what I wanted. And now, I'm so excited to finally have something a little more personalized and exciting :) But I'm still working on the info under about and love story , so be patient with me while that space stays blank for a few da...

New here? Don't worry! You can catch up with parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , and 6  :) Part Seven - Some Truths If you're not a fan of long love stories, I'm sorry, but A. This is my blog and I'll be detailed if I want to, and B. I think the beauty of the story is in the details :) If I gave a five-sentence condensed version, it might sound just like someone else's story. It's the details that make it ours :) That's why this series is turning out to be so long :) So six installments later, we had met, realized we were both crushing on each other, and had finally had our first kiss. After we had our first kiss, things took off real fast. We started spending all of our time together, and texting when we weren't together. The semester had just ended, but since Russ had a seasonal job at FedEx, he could only take off four days to go home to Idaho for Christmas. Since my family lives in Orem (in Utah, where we were both going to school), we were both ...

My father-in-law emailed out this gem yesterday. The picture was taken on Lance's (my bro-in-law) sixth birthday. This is my husband as an almost eight-year-old: Do you love it as much as I do? Probably not, but that's okay.  I love my weird and adorable man . . . He's the greatest :) **ashleynicole

Parenthood. Such a mysterious calling, both before and during the process. For those like me, with no kids, it's easy to say what great parents we'll be. We'll do this  the same way our parents did it, we'll to this in a completely different way. But no matter what, we're gonna rock this parenting thing, because we know it all. Okay, so I'm being a little dramatic. I don't really think I know it all, and I know that parenting is no picnic. I know that it's both the hardest thing I'll ever do, but also the most rewarding. But as a non-parent, it really is easy to imagine somehow being able to do the never-done-before and be that perfect parent. Parenthood is a mystery, so for now, I can imagine it any way I want.  For those who do have kids, I think parenthood remains a mystery. Sure, you get experience as you go along and you figure out a bunch of things that do and don't work for your kids, or things that work for one child but not another...

Russ and I spent last weekend in Seattle visiting his brother's family. We quite enjoyed ourselves, and so I've decided to make today's five all about what you should do if you find yourself in Seattle. one.  Go to the Japanese Garden . It is beyond gorgeous, and it may cause you to want to move to Japan. Or to create your own little (or big . . . ) Japanese garden in your backyard. two . Eat tasty food. We enjoyed a Greek place and a delicious teriyaki place , as well as home-cooked steak, pulled pork sandwiches, and pizza. Food is really one of my very favorite things in life, so it's always a highlight of any trip. And because I like it so much, I rarely take a picture of it. I'm always too busy eating it :) So one of the only "food" items I managed to snap a picture of was our root beer. There is a tiny little place filled with a bajillion different flavors of root beer! We got five different flavors . . . and to be honest, I didn't re...