Suggestions...anyone?

This is a request for some of my fellow utahns...my fellow Utah brides in specific...

I need some ideas....

Where did you have your bridals/groomals taken??

I was married during the summer and my photographer took pictures of us only at the temple which was fabulous...but I'm looking for some different locations. I grew up in Utah so I should know of some, and I'm starting to lose it all living in Idaho... BUT I'm looking for some help and I am kind of in a time crunch SO... if you have any ideas of a great/unique location to shoot some bridals I would love you forever...and we would be really good friends...and I'll give you a huge hug next time I see you...please help me :)

Just leave me a post of any ideas/suggestions you have...thanks and I love you... really I do!
ps any sweet indoor location suggestions gets an even bigger hug

Confession to make

Okay the news is out... I'm a stress case
Its true. Really... I am!

I always feel like I have something I need to do! And it stresses me out :)
Granted I feel like I have a lot on my plate lately with school full time, more photo shoots than I thought I'd ever have, a man to take care of, a house to clean, meals to make, laundry to do...etc. You know what I mean ya?

But I get stressed... really stressed sometimes with all of it! And then I whine to myself when I don't have time to just sit and not think about what I should be doing, instead of just sitting :)
I've always known I stress kind of easy...I stress if I see Tyler eating cereal for 2 meals of the day, or if I'm pulling underwear from the dryer all week because I haven't folded them yet... you know normal things.

BUT THEN... it hit me about 5 minutes ago... I was blog surfing and I realized EVERYONE IS HAVING A BABY!!! So I got...stressed??!! So then I thought...

Does this mean I'm supposed to be having a baby too?!

I'm a stress case!

Disclaimer: I'm not pregnant! The point of this post was to illustrate my feelings of stress and having a lot of things to do sometimes. In my mind I added "Give birth" to my list of things to do. Again, not preg! However, I am excited to be pregnant some day :)

Thankful List

I've seen a few people doing Thankful list's on their blogs for every day of the month and I thought, well darn it thats a good idea. I think I need to work on having more gratitude in my life, I'd be a happier girl I'm certain of that. At first I was like "Whoa every day-not uh!"but then I thought what could it hurt (unless it bores you out of your mind...sorry) So since today is November 5 I will do 5 things :)

1. My man- Wow... where to even start...my best friend, my other half, my comedian, my sweetheart, my shoulder to cry on (and I need one of those- I'm a cry-aholic)... Tyler could not be more perfect for me. I can't imagine life without him, let alone eternity without him. He helps me be better, he forgives my crazy outbursts and faults, he holds me tight and cuddles with me in the morning, he scratches my back when I'm stressed, he kisses me and hugs me a lot, he works hard for us, he is so patient with me and my womanly habits (shopping, crying, etc).... simply put, he loves me and I love him. Not to mention he is ruggedly handsome. Can't deny it! I love you Tyler!

2. Family- What would I do without them?! I call my mom and sisters way more than they'd like me too I'm sure, and I annoy my Dad and brothers with questions and pointless phone calls...but they love me right? My nieces and nephews are so fun. They make me smile just thinking about them and I love them too much! My in-laws couldn't be better. I'm so blessed with great family.

3. Photography- My creative outlet and my passion... too much to say.

4. Scentsy candles (these are in no particular order ps) I am a smell person. I'm always worried if my house smells good and I think something about a good smelling house makes you feel at home and warmer. My scentsy are wonderful...I could smell them all day long

5. My home with my husband. Love Love Love my house and I'm so grateful for it. It was hard for me to move a little ways away from my family and home town after I got married, and I know I shouldn't complain because its only 6 hours away, but having a home really helped me feel comfortable. It gave me something to make my own and made me feel like I created a new home even though I was in a new state. I love my house, its smells, my kitchen (the granite counter tops that are going in right now!), bedroom, etc. I also love that Tyler puts up with me changing things every other week ;)

Halloweenie Weekend!!

WARNING: MUCHO PICTURES IN THIS POST!

We had an absolute blast this weekend over Halloween. Here is what went down. Tyler and I have these 3 other couples that we are the best of friends with. The men were all roommates/friends in college and the wives were friends in college or became friends after we all got married. 2 of us live in Idaho, and 2 of the couples live in Utah. So we try to get together for a few weekends during the year, or as much as we can. We always have so much fun together! Its nice to have some good friends. So anyway we planned fun filled Halloween weekend for us all to get together. On Friday night we played a How to Host a Murder game. SO FUN! For those of you who have never played one of these, they are a blast! I have played 4 now I think and they are SOO fun. You dress up as characters in a murder mystery and solve the murder together and one of you is secretly the murderer. Oh man they are way fun. Our mystery game was 50's themed, so we all dressed up 50's style and ate pizza and milkshakes! Heres some pictures.

Trevor and April :) our favorite cousins
Jemaica and Troy. They take awesome pictures together!





Brenda and Paul. Our fellow Idahoians! Love them!


So anyway the next day all the wives had some girl time and went shopping while the boys watched the BSU game and did whatever boys do. So we had fun trying on makeup ay MAC and just having a fun afternoon together. Then we went back to our house and dressed in our costumes for a Halloween party our other really great friends were throwing. So we dressed up, went to dinner at Wingers, and then headed off to the AWESOME party. I was pretty proud of Tyler and mine costumes. Tyler came up with the idea and I thought it turned out pretty funny. We got a lot of laughs especially when we were at the restaurant :)
Paul; 70's man, great wig! Brenda; Cutest little duck ever!

THE biggest losers!!

Troy; A ghost...a friendly one. Jem; A sexy witch :)




Trevor and April; Michelagelo and April O'Neil from the ninja turtles!!!
It was a fun weekend and I'm sad its over. I just love having fun and being able to forget about all the stressful stuff, relax, and laugh a lot! It makes life much easier! Its also a huge blessing to have such great friends. Especially couple friends! We had fun taking a break, staying up late chatting, dressing up, eating :), and just hanging out.

Now I have Thanksgiving to look forward to! Life has been crazy lately! Tyler has been busy on the hunt for a job here close to home. We'd like to find something close because we would be sad to leave again for the summer so cross our fingers! If not APX is a fabulous job that we are super grateful for and we're up for another adventurous summer! So we'll see what happens :)I've been busy doing photoshoots and just having a blast learning more about photography and meeting a lot of great people and capture some of their moments. I love taking pictures! I'm so happy I'm able to do it! Things are great in the Markus household.

More house pictures...

Okay so I seriously redecorate or rearrange things in my house like every 2 weeks or so. Its a bad hobby to have I think :) but its so fun. And I'm so excited with the holidays rolling around because I can get to put up Christmas decorations!! Yesterday we bought all the ornaments to go on our tree (costco 84 pack! Ya!)So anyway... we have this big, massive, kind of a pain, bookshelf. We got it for free right after we got married and for a year straight I've been meaning to add some shelves and get it repainted, so Tyler and I finally got it done and I think it looks pretty sweet fot getting it for free!
Initial dingy dirty bookshelf= free
Added shelves= about $15.00
Leftover paint from bedroom to touch it up=$12.00
Getting the boards cut about 5 times til they fit, sanding it down even more so it fit, not putting anything too heavy in the new middle shelf because its bowing= PRICELESS




Here is a view of my man in the living room... I'm pretty sure he is watching a football game AND checking his score on his fantasy football league. Wow. The multitasking taking place here is amazing :)


And here is the bedroom finally! Okay before it was dark brown, tan, and flat paint. So we repainted to back dark wall and painted all the tan walls a nice light cream color. It makes the room feel a lot brighter and not so heavy. Sorry its only one view. The room is still under construction on the other half and is covered with piles of pictures and decor to hang up still.

We have yet to someday get a bedroom set which will be awesome when we do...someday :)

Oh and I thought I'd throw this one in there. Its my new decal in the kitchen ;) fancy stuff eh?


Oh well thats all. Does anyone know of any good websites or home magazines that give good decoration ideas? I love looking at new ideas but can't seem to find any super good ones.

Things that still need to get done ( the list is endless really)
-Granite in the kitchen (can't wait)
-Furniture for the front sitting room (ah someday)
-A desk for Tyler
-Spruce up the laundry room with some girly decor (I figure I'm usually in that room so I'll make it all girly and cute since everything has to be gender neutral now!)
-Someday...bedroom set

Things are looking up ;)

So Tyler and I had an interesting week/weekend... I guess week would be all inclusive but whatever. So I was extra emotional this week... and I had no idea why! I'm a pretty emotional person generally, I just cry, its how I express my feelings I guess. And according to Tyler I have pretty large tears, he claims he can hear them hit the ground. ANYWAY, like I said I really had no idea why I was being extra sensitive, but when your man asks you, "Whats wrong? I want to help." You want to jump on that offer but all I had to say was "I DON'T KNOW" and I probably yelled it...to a degree. It was frustrating to say the least. And to top it all off I was legitimately sick ALL week. It was no fun. I started off with a little cough then had a horrible headache. Then I had a horrible cold, and then a fever! Yuck. But I still had to go to school, because it was midterms this week. So instead of taking it easy to get better, I was going to school, then I had to come home and study my butt off, with a cold and a fever, and EXTRA emotional-ness... are you feeling sorry for me yet? So anyway on Friday I figured out why I had been such an emotional wreck all week. :) My husband gained back some self esteem and I gained some peace of mind. So come Saturday things started to look up. I have been wanting to re-paint our bedroom ever since we have moved in. For some reason the paint was flat (meaning not smooth, marks super easy, and not shiny, pretty dull looking) so every time I walked into our bedroom all I could see was all these little marks on the wall and it drove me batty. So we made our way to our friendly neighborhood wal-mart and bought some decadent chocolate and baked custard (those unfortunately are paint names not desserts) so Saturday we spent all day painting til we got an unexpected call from some friends in need passing through our neck of the woods with some serious car troubles. So we picked them up then had fun the rest of the night with them eating all you can eat Pizza at Primos and just relaxing. So after our friends were all repaired and on their way we starting painting again because I was going nutty with our bedroom is total disarray. But of course as it goes... we ran out of paint!! So tomorrow we will finish painting the ceiling in our bedroom room (never paint ceilings!! I normally never do but I had no choice in this case) I'll be sure to post pictures when its all done. So good things...
1. we finally painted the bedroom...almost!
2. I am no longer sick! Yahoo for health!
3. midterms are over :)

The story of our bedroom and its ceiling is to be continued...

Family Pictures :)