For these things I give thanks...

(Third post - let's see if my post shows up this time!)

In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day today. It is a day set aside to give thanks for the blessings and things we have in our lives. It began hundreds of years ago with the Pilgrims who first came to our great country - having a feast with their new friends, the Amerian Indians, and giving thanks for their new home, community, religious freedoms and the opportunities now available to them.

I have so many things to give thanks for this season (and everyday for that matter). Here is a short list..

• I have Steve. He is my husband. I am his wife. We are in love - and though it is new, it is ours.
• Steve and I both have our health. While we both have our medical challenges, we are both healthy, mobile, and mentally coherent.
• We have the freedom to choose our religious beliefs.
• Steve and I both have fruitful jobs. Our employers may present challenges from time to time, but currently we are both gainfully employed.
• We have a beautiful comfortable home (though the spare room is still loaded with boxes) that gives us shelter from the outside world.
• We have all of our "needs" taken care of.
• We live in a country which grants us so many freedoms.
• We have LOTS and LOTS of family - who all love and support us in everything we do! They really do!
• We have great friends who we enjoy spending time with - and who are there for us when/if an immediate need arises.
• I'm thankful for the people I've met all over the world as I pursue my papercrafting love. I'm grateful for all of the students and now friends I've met over the course!
• I'm grateful for a Father in Heaven who loves me (and Steve) despite my faults.
• I'm SOOOOO thankful that my mother is such an incredible cook, and that she shared this talent and skill with me (see Mom, I did cook Thanksgiving Dinner this year! I have the photo to prove it!). I'm thankful that my family ate (normally) my creative concoctions - and that they continued to encourage me. I'm also VERY grateful that my parents allowed me the choice to take the years of cooking classes - and supported me financially through it.
• I'm thankful for my mind (although crazed at times), body (although gravity has started to take effect... YIKES!), and strength (even though Steve can out strength me ... grrr).

I have SO much to be thankful for. I am a blessed girl, a girl who loves her husband, a girl who loves who loves her life...I will sleep well tonight.If you are reading this I hope your day was filled with gratitude.

Love,
~ heather (& Steve)

Our One Month-aversary

I can't believe it's already here! Today marks the first month that we've been married. WOW! Time has seriously flown by! Steve was a SUPER stud and had flowers waiting for me when I got home from work - AND sweedish fish too (they're my addiction)! Here's a quick photo of my lovely suprise!

I'm SO glad I kept one of the silver vases we used as decorations for the open house! It was THE perfect size to arrange my flowers into.

Being married is an adjustment - but there's no one else I'd rather spend my time adjusting to! He's a great guy and he does sweet little things (that I sometimes fail to immediately notice) for me. For instance - I am ALWAYS cold (or so it seems). He set the heat in the house to turn up an hour before I get up in the morning so that the house would be warm when I am getting ready for work. He brings me a quilt when I'm watching TV - before I even think of getting up to get one for myself. He's SUCH a great guy!

Love,
Heather (& Steve)

It's the most edible time of the year....

Ooooooh Thanksgiving is only a few days away! Wahoo! It's a FANTASTIC day, set aside for being a complete glutton - and enjoying every moment (and not counting the thousands of calories that you're ingesting) of it! This year, as Steve and I celebrate our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, we're having a few friends join us. Tom and his girlfriend, Stephanie, will be there. Melissa, Tim, and their daughter Phoebe will also join us. We might have a few more friends with us - and there will be PLENTY of food! There's going to be SO much food - I don't know how we're going to be able to handle ourselves! Here's a sneak peek at our menu...

20lb. Fresh Turkey

Homemade Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes with Homemade Turkey Gravy

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole

Homemade Cream Style Corn

Homemade Sweet Potato Casserole

Homemade Rolls

Frog Eye Salad (Beste Family Tradition)

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Homemade Pecan Pie (a Stephanie request)

Homemade Apple Pie

Homemade Choco Choco Chocolate Graham Pie (a Tom request)

Beste Christmas Cherry Bread (another Beste tradition)

Homemade Boysenberry Pie (a Steve request)

Oh the food will be delightfully plentiful! How do you store your leftovers? Are you a Food Saver user (we are!!)? Are you a use up your leftovers until everyone is sick of them family (we are too)?

Love,
Heather (& Steve)

.... and we said OK.

A friend passed this great message onto me today. I've read it before, but it's one of those messages that I should probably read more often. It really does make me think about my beliefs, priorities, and standards - and just where do they fit into my everyday life?

In case you haven't read it before, here it is to share.

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it's not funny, and it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (Regarding the attacks on Sept. 11). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.

She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about.

And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

~ heather

Thank you to all of our Veterans (and Active Duty Service Men & Women!)

Today is Veteran's Day. I am blessed to have a heritage rich in patriotic service. My father served as an officer in the United States Air Force for almost 30 years. My grandfather, James Cash, also served in the military. Steve, my husband, has also served in the National Guard. My cousin (kinda sorta) Chris Peterson recently returned from serving with the Army in Iraq.

How blessed we all are to have men and women, who are willing to put their lives on hold to (sometimes) leave our country - to defend it. To defend the freedoms and rights that so many of us take for granted. I consider myself blessed to have grown up as one of the millions of military brats.

Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I traveled the world.
Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I saw things that most others only read about in history books.
Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I have a different attitude about freedom - I've seen others live with out it.
Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I appreciate, and respect our government.
Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I pray for our service men and women - and for their families. I was one once too.
Because of my father's career with the Air Force, I am who I am today.

Please take a moment to thank a Veteran today! You may be who you are today without them.

Words of Wisdom from my little sister, Bekki

My little sister Bekki (aka Crab, Boo-Boo, Becca, Rooba-Hoo, or whatever crazy name I came up with at the time) had a birthday yesterday. I'll never be able to forget how old she is, because she's only 9 months, 3 weeks, and 5 hours younger than I am. Today, as we were chatting about how she celebrated, about kids, and about life in general, she shared some sage advice with me.

Bekki and Shaun have been married for almost 5 years (it will be 5 years on December 21st). They now have 3 adorable children whom I adore (Arissa, Micheal, and Ainsley). Her words of wisdom are:

Get used to it.

Get over it.

It's not going to change.

How's that for a happy thought? I wasn't complaining about the adjustments involved with married life, I was simply telling her the fun stories about things we've experienced. One of these days, I'll make Steve sit down and post an update to our blog. But, until he does, you get to have the fun of MY side! Here are a few of the "fun" stories I shared with Bekki-Boo:

• Why is it that we can have two bins to put dirty clothes into, but Steve doesn't seem interested in using either of them?
• Why is it that I bought a shower organizer (the kind that hang over the shower door) that has hooks on the back to dry our towels from, and he hangs his towel over his clean hanging clothes in our closet?
• I woke up early the other day, and it was one of his off days. I have a process each morning after I wake up. I get up (sometimes before my alarm, sometimes when the alarm wakes me up, and sometimes after hitting snooze a few times on the alarm), go potty, and then I stumble over to my computer and check my email accounts, bank accounts, and friends blogs. Steve was awake before I got up and was in super spaz mode. Doesn't he understand that in my world it is 6am, and I'm not coherent yet?

Married life IS good. It's only been two weeks (well two weeks and 5 days to be precise), but I think we're adjusting okay so far. I hear that the first year is the year of adjustments, and that we should expect a bit of difficulty as we adjust to living with each other and how we each operate. I would have thought that dating for more than a year would teach us everything we need to know about each other - but thats what I get for doing my own thinking, eh?

It's a good thing we love each other!

~heather (& Steve)

Traditions, Holidays, Recipes & Love

Traditions have always been special to me. There's something about traditions that bring family and friends closer together. Typically, we see traditions occur more around the holdiays than in normal, everyday life - but they're fun to have nonetheless.

Yesterday, I spent a bit of time chatting with my sweet Aunt Carolyn yesterday. After our call, I started thinking about the importance of the simple everyday traditions. My Aunt Carolyn rocks my world. She came into my life as my babysitter when we lived in Illinois. Later, she continued in my life when she married my Uncle Ernest and became my Aunt. Over the years, I have in turn, babysat her children - and they've babysat (well kind of) my darling neice Arissa. Someday, when my family starts to grow (No, we're not pregnant! No, we're not trying! ) they'll have the opportunity to babysit our children. Something so simple, and service rendering has become a tradition of sorts in my life.

Caroline asked me what Steve and I still needed for our new home/life. In reality, we don't need anything. We're both very fortunate, and we've both had our own homes. The things we registered for were either to replace the things that needed replacing, or were items so that we could build 'our' collection versus mine and his.

What I would LOVE from everyone, is your favorite tradition. What is it? Is it personal, private, or a family tradition? Why is it your favorite? Here are a few traditions that I've come to love:

1. General Conference - It's not only a time to build your spirit, and to gain additional knowledge from our leaders and Prophet. I love to have homemade cinnamon rolls in the morning, and everyone's favorite lunch foods in teh afternoon. It gives us something additional to look forward too.
2. Celebration Plate - A few years ago, I made a "celebration" plate, and a matching booklet to record when it is used. I love to use this plate to serve celebratory stuff on every day celebrations, birthdays, cupcakes at work, promotions and anything else that's celebratory. I love that I can look back in the booklet to see when it was used, and remember all of the fun times I've had with friends, coworkers, and family.
3. Birthday Dinner - For as long as I can remember, when it's your birthday, you get to choose what the family has for dinner. Growing up, it's normally something that Mom makes. Sometimes as we got older, and everyone's schedule gets busy we would go out to eat. But, it's so fun knowing that on your day - you get to choose!
4. Thanksgiving Thankfullness - Whenever I'm home for THanksgiving, our family goes around the table during dinner sharing what they're thankful for. This coming year, as Steve and I celebrate our first Thanksgiving together, I'm looking forward to continuing this tradition. We have a few friends who we're having over for dinner, and I'm sending each of them 5 slips of paper on which they should write what they are thankful for. They'll go into a jar, and before we eat dinner, we'll take turns reading them out loud.
5. Birthday Wake-Up Calls - When I moved out of my parents home (over and over again) it's always fun to be woken up by your parents calling to tell you Happy Birthday. It reminds me that they love me enough to get up extra early (different time zones) and that they thought enough to call.

What are your favorite tried and true recipies? Are there special foods you have at certain holidays or events in your life? There are SO many of mine, but here are some of my favorite family foods:

1. Christmas Bread - Cherry Christmas Bread reminds me of the holidays with my family - and the fun silly things we've done.
2. Cranberry Salad - Again, another of Mom's DELICIOUS treats. Mom makes this YUMMY Cranberry Salad. It looks SO unusual - but it is SO yummy!
3. Party Chicken and/or Rice Casserole - Again from Mom's fantastic cooking skills! It's a SUPER simple recipe, but it reminds me of home everytime!

Please take a moment to email me your favorite tradition and/or recipe. I LOVE to cook, and having special recipes from each of you would be the bomb! You can email them to us at steveandheatherales at yahoo.com (use @ for at). I'll be glad to compile them and share them back with you all!

There's something about traditions, holidays, special recipes that just mean love to me.

Love,
~ heather (& Steve)

I married a Stud!

Okay, so maybe he's not a stud to the rest of you - but he is to me! He woke me up this morning (it was the first of his days off) and asked me to get up (it was at least an hour earlier than I normally get up - and on a work day too!!!). I started questioning him as to what could be wrong.

Me: What time is it?
Steve: It's only a little bit before you need to get up. (I guess he doesn't understand snooze buttons)
Me: Is the house on fire?
Steve: No, the house is fine.
Me: Are you okay?
Steve: I'm fine. I'm okay. There's nothing wrong.
Me: Why do you want me to get up?
Steve: Just trust me.
My thoughts: Okay, so it's WAY early in the morning, and he's asking for TRUST??

So, I get up, and he leads me into the kitchen. He had prepared everything to make me breakfast! He asks, "Do you want scrambled eggs plain or with cheese?". Awww how sweet. How could be I be cranky so early in the morning when he has gone out of his way to make me a nice, and absolutely delightful breakfast?? So, I sat at the table trying to locate my coherence, while he made us breakfast.

While we were eating, I asked him what made him decide to make breakfast for me. His answer was "well, I read that I need to invest in the things that matter - and I want us to have a long happy marraige." How freaking sweet!!! (He's been reading my copy of Steven Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. I don't think I've actually ever read the whole thing - so he's gotten MAJOR points from me!!)

I am so lucky! I married a wonderful man! He's [normally] thoughtful and wonderful. He took awesome care of me yesterday while I was recovering from my dentist appointment and the procedures I had to endure (I'm a dental wuss!)

And of course - I'm assuming that the breakfast mess will be cleaned up when I get home!

Love,
~heather

The photos are ready!!!

Melissa let me know that our photos are ready to be picked up and I couldn't wait! I begged her to send me a few photos to tide me over! Here's one to share! I can't wait to see the rest of them!!

How time flies...

It's hard to realize that we've been married for a week now - well over a week actually! All of the family and company has returned to their homes. I'm working on unpacking, getting my studio situated, and setting up 'house'. We're trying to settle into "married life" and get things like chores, responsibilities, and our budget situated. It's nice that the wedding is over and now we can continue on with our lives together.

It's been fun finding storage spaces for the items we recieved as wedding gifts. It's been really fun using each item for the first time. Saturday morning, I made breakfast for Steve, Tom, & Andrew (Tom's friend and soon to be roommate) with our new wafflemaker. Yesterday, I made Garlic Chicken in our new crockpot. We used our new Food Saver to freeze some of the left over vegetables from the open house (I put them in soup kits!), and I can't wait to break into them later! We've had such fun going and buying the little things we needed for our home (a new phone - WAHOO!, etc) with the gift cards and money we've recieved. It has been SO fun - and INCREDIBLY appreciated!

It's even been fun to sit down and write the Thank You cards to everyone for our gifts. It's been great to reminisce and realize how generous our benefactors are! No, our cards haven't gone postal yet. We're waiting to send them until we can include one of our wedding photos - especially for our friends and family who were not able to make it to our wedding. So, look in your mailbox early next week! We should have the photos back in the next few days. By the time we have a few printed up and get the cards going postal it will be Thursday or maybe even Friday of this week! Oh fun tasks, fun tasks!

It's interesting though; part of me (in my crazy mind) is saying "now what?" I've been so focused on wedding plans for the last few months and it was hard to see past the wedding. Well now we're there. I guess we should make plans for the "what", eh?

Before I end today's post, a few have asked what my married name will be. My name will be Heather Ales (so, yes I'm having to change everything .... what fun... blah). My legal name however will be Heather Lynette Beste Ales. No, I'm not hypenating Beste Ales. I'm moving Beste into a second middle name spot. I'm rather attached to my name - I wasn't born with it you know. And it (they) chose me. My name is an important part of who I am. The new name, that's been added to it (Ales) is also an important part of who I now am, and more importantly where my life is and is going.

Love,
~ heather