rushley & crew

My Mother's Day weekend was pretty perfect. It started out with Ada having the flu/a fever on Saturday morning. She had thrown up in her bed (had no idea til I went to get her out -- she never cried about it!), so I quickly cleaned her up and put all her bed things into the wash. Then we spent the entire morning cuddling and watching Balto 2 and 3 on Netflix (it was the perfect time to get some things off my list! haha). Ada only cuddles long-term when she has a fever, so fevers are my very favorite sickness. At one point, I wanted to make myself a quick breakfast, so I left Ada on the couch by herself, watching a show. She was okay, but she kept, like, whimpering for me to come back. Haha it was so cute! Another time, I was holding Ada but had to put her down so I could go move the laundry (so she'd have her sleep stuff in time for her nap!). Ada is usually soooo quick at following me up the stairs, but because she was sick, she'd only made it halfway up the stairs by th...

We've had a busy weekend filled with lots of wonderful things! Caro's Wedding Reception Caroline and I met in Spanish 206 our first semester at BYU. I'm really pretty terrible at talking to people in a sea of faces I don't know, but Caroline is bubbly and outgoing and she makes friends everywhere she goes! And thank goodness for that, because she talked to me and she talked to Sarah and she brought the three of us together. I spent so much of my freshman year in Caroline's dorm room and at the Cannon (the dining hall) with Caroline and Sarah. I planned what Spanish and religion classes I could with the two of them for the rest of my college career, and we're all still friends years after graduating. Other than roommates and my husband, Sarah and Caro are pretty much the only lasting friends I made in college, but I'm okay with that because I'm all about quality over quantity. Sarah was one of my bridesmaids and Caro was one of my honorary bridesmaids ...

Dear Ada, Today was a good day :) You were happy and smiley and so much fun, like usual. I spent some time playing with you and some time working on things next to you. I finally wasn't being consumed by the stress of getting you to nap and I was just enjoying you :) But the best part of the day was after putting you down for bed. Daylight Savings just happened, so we're working on transitioning you back to a 7:30 bedtime. We were just going to move bedtime by 15 minutes each night, but you were fussy so we tried to just put you down at 7:30 -- 45 minutes earlier than yesterday. You were not a fan. After letting you cry (hard) for a few minutes, I went up to see if you had a stuck burp or something. Although you had been fussy and rubbing your eyes before we laid you down for the night, you now seemed completely awake; however, I wasn't just going to let you get up and play because we'd already done your whole bedtime routine. So instead I just held you, all swa...

I've mentioned my involvement in the cultural celebration a few times on the blog, but now that it's all over, I wanted to take some time to write about all the things I thought about and felt throughout the experience. It's difficult to write about, because so much of it is just feelings, and the feelings feel personal. Guess that's the trouble with a public blog that also serves as a personal journal haha :) +     Youth are so cool. They are fun and pure and wonderful. I had SO much fun working with them every week. I loved seeing them work hard and improve. I loved seeing their bright smiles that could light up their whole face. I also loved the healthy amount of teasing that went back and forth between us all. It felt like a little family sometimes :) After every Tuesday rehearsal, we'd all dance to the Electric Slide together, and it was so fun! These kids just all have such great personalities and it was fun to get to know them through this experience. +...

We had soooo much fun last weekend! I think it's because we really filled it with lots of fun and friends! We had a date on Friday that involved hanging out with some of our really good friends, and then on Saturday we got to work in the yard, go to a housewarming party for Lacey , and a cabin with Kristalyn and Luis! We bought our house brand new, so we got no yard to speak of. Since that's an added expense and we didn't work quickly enough last year, that's on the agenda for this spring. I'm actually super excited! We've started making plans and now we've finally started to do a little bit of work! Nothing too huge yet, but there is concrete, sprinkling systems, sod, plants, and other fun yard additions in our near future. I know it will be a lot of work, but I also think it will feel really good to say "We did that!" Or at least, "Russ did that!" Haha since we all know he's the manpower behind my landscaping dreams ;) It was so...

Russ and I usually do three different celebrations of Christmas--one with his family , one with mine , and one just the two of us. But this year, Christmas for us just never happened! We kept talking about when we would do it, or what kind of gifts we would buy each other, but we just never solidified anything. At one point, I proposed just giving "one thoughtful gift" to each other (because I hate the idea of saying "Hey I want that purple shirt in a size medium" and then opening that up on Christmas Day because it was obviously something that he had to put zero thought into). However, that kind of just made me feel pressure, so then we weren't sure what we were going to do and then we never did anything! However, it seemed to work for us this year. We just didn't want the stress, and we had two other lovely celebrations, so I guess we didn't feel the need for it this year. However, we're actually really smart about saving for Christmas, if I ...

We moved into our house in May of 2015, so Christmas 2015 was going to be our first Christmas in our new home. The only difficulty was that it was a Holmes family year for Christmas! For a while, we considered this being the year that we started to stay home for Christmas, but I didn't really want that; we don't have any kids yet and I love spending holidays with lots of people! But everything ended up working out perfectly because at one point, Russ's parents said that maybe they should come to Utah for Christmas; after all, Lacey, Russ & I, and Lance, Mackenzi, and Zander all live in Utah, so it made sense for 3 (mom, dad, & Chantry) to travel instead of 6. We offered to host and Mom & Dad Holmes accepted. Somewhere between those plans and Christmas, Lance's family changed their plans and decided to spend Christmas in California, making it so that whether we spent Christmas in Boise or Utah, 3 would have to travel, but the Holmes folks were great and sti...