C H A P T E R . T E N

this week, i had liv help me write some missionary letters for christmas.

her letters were adorable and said something like,

"merry christmas! i hope your day is good.

love, olivia brooks"

too cute, huh?

six letters later & we were done!

i also put this in every letter:

i love this quote & it was super easy to make. & free. win-win.

& these are all the missionaries:

from left to right>>elder shaw (the tall one haha), elder hill, & elder harris.

from left to right>>sister hosking & sister nielson.

i am so thankful for these missionaries. they have all been huge examples to me & make me want to serve so badly.

they are truly amazing.

merry christmas elders and sisters. 

liv and i sure do love you!

C H A P T E R . N I N E

today, liv and i had a monster's university party.

if you haven't seen the movie...

see it! it's so cute and funny.

this is liv's favorite movie so obviously we had to go all out!

we had monster's university mac & cheese before the movie

and then had quite the movie party!

she knows that movie word for word. it's impressive.

we also had a mini photo shoot today because i really wanted

a cute picture of the two of us! here's a couple of my 

favorites..

^this is too classic haha i love it.

i hope that you all have a great thanksgiving.

i know that i have so much to be thankful for and 

liv is one of those blessings!

"there is always something to be thankful for. so let gratitude be an attitude."

xoxo

C H A P T E R . E I G H T

last week was sister brooks birthday so we obviously had 

to make her something!

i asked liv if she had already given her mom a card and she said,

"uh no!"

haha so we made her a giant card. it was fun and crafting is my favorite so i was happy! after the card was done, we played wii wipeout 

(but what else would we have done?:) 

it was a good day and liv sure loved it which made it even better!

and here's a little throwback to halloween because i just found this picture and it's adorable:

liv: turtle man  emily: flapper girl

C H A P T E R . S E V E N

what up, what up? 

liv and i have had some fun, fun, fun these past couple weeks.

for one, she went shopping with me for sadie's shirts.

i loved having a shopping partner and an "advice giver" on what shirt was the cutest. and on the way home, it started pouring rain. not just raining. 

pouring people! it was an adventure and she thought it was the best thing ever.

plus, there was a ton of traffic so it was the perfect time to take some selfies :)

now onto the reason behind the title of this post!

yesterday, i went to watch liv cheer at a basketball game at her middle school.

it was such a sweet experience and i will definitely remember it. 

she did such a great job and was so good at all of the cheers!

she never, ever does the cheers for me, so i had to go surprise her so i could see them for myself! 

even though our team lost, it was a fun game and i loved every minute of it.

way to go, liv!

but really, isn't she the cutest?

C H A P T E R . S I X

i have slacked a little big time on this blog!

big posts are coming. i promise. 

and the blog needs a makeover so that's exactly what it 

is getting. designing this blog is

f u n.

i just love it and hopefully you will too.

xoxo

C H A P T E R . F I V E

bumper cars

this week i decided that i wanted to do something more active with olivia. so i thought we could play outside and have some games. we have these little cars that are basically little bumper cars and liv loves them! i set up some races and holly, owen, and liv had me time them to see how fast they could finish the course. it was so funny to watch them all and they were so cute!

swimming

one of liv's favorite things to do is swim. she's on a swimteam and talks about swimming all the time! she had been asking me if we could go swimming for a while and it would always be too cold or something. but, i finally took her swimming and i have never seen her happier! she's such a good swimmer, too. i'm sure we'll go again!

fred meyer

this week i took olivia with me to go fill up my car and then we shopped around in fred meyer for a little bit. she seriously loves shopping..girl after my own heart! we also stopped at target and obviously had to get slurpees there:) After three hours of shopping she still didn't want to go home.. love this girl!

ice cream

this was such a good idea but it didn't really turn out like i wanted. i thought that since it was a  h o t day, we would make ice cream because who doesn't like ice cream?! we made the ziploc baggie kind and she was so excited. she loves cooking so anytime we do anything in the kitchen, she gets super excited! anyway, we go to eat it and it's really salty..oops. i must have not zipped the bags up tight enough or something. olivia didn't care though! she was so cute and kept asking for seconds and just loved it.

i know i say this all the time, but i feel truly blessed to have liv in my life. she is such a sweetheart and she makes me want to live my life better. i never want to do anything that would disappoint her. last week we had girl's camp and she amazed me the entire time. we went on a hike that wasn't too hard, but it wasn't easy either. a lot of us would stop and feel really tired and kind of down on ourselves because we did not want to do the hike! at one point i had just finished climbing up this really steep hill and i was so tired and hot and just wanted to be done. in the middle of my whole pity party, i looked behind me and saw liv. She was smiling and climbing up that hill. never once did i hear her complain. i felt the Spirit really strongly then and i knew that she was one of Heavenly Father's choicest Spirit Daughters. He knows and loves each of us. He knew that i needed motivation from liv to get me through that hike! He wants each of us to be happy. we are on this earth to experience joy and to learn. "Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." that quote is my new favorite. be happy. And if you're not happy, pray for help to become happier. that's what i did and not even a couple weeks later, liv came into my life. i love being happy. yes, there will be trials. yes, there will be hard days. we all have them, but it's up to us to not dwell on the hard times. through the Lord we can make it through anything. and remember, you are n e v e r fully dressed without a smile!

happy monday!

xoxo

C H A P T E R . F O U R

this week i didn't really have a plan of what i wanted to do with her, so i figured we'd just do something low key. she loves popsicles though, and i just so happened to have a lot of them! so we ate popsicles! then i asked olivia what she wanted to do and she told me she wanted to play the wii. i let her choose the game and she chose our wipeout game. it was seriously so fun! she thought everything was hilarious and she was actually really good at it..i loved every second. it went by way to fast though, and when her mom came to pick her up she didn't want to leave. luckily for her, it's summer now, so we can hang out even longer. :)

every week i find myself feeling more and more blessed to know olivia. i am also grateful that i can be an example for her. it's a constant reminder to do what's right and to keep all the commandments because i want to be someone she can look up to! i am definitely so far from being perfect and i mess up constantly but i am so thankful for the Atonement and the opportunity it gives me to keep striving to become like my Savior. He is the perfect example for all of us.
xoxo