Small Thoughts

So for Christmas I bought Jasmine a book called "How To Be An Adventurer Of The World". It's a fun book with silly activities and things to do to get you thinking and observing the world around you. On the back of the book it says, "At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting." So, Jasmine and I did a few of the activities at church on Sunday (yes, I know we should have been paying better attention...haha we're working on that).

The first one we did was called Right Where I'm Sitting. You had to observe ten things from where you were sitting that you hadn't noticed right when you sat down.

This was my list: 1. Messed up hymn books. 2. Warm (almost too warm and there is no room to take off my coat). 3. Smells good (but the smell comes and goes or I'm just used to it now). 4. Crayon on floor (blue, under pew, rhymes!) 5. Green thing on floor (gum wrapper possibly?) 6. Crying kids (unlike the SILENT singles wards) 7. Jazz is sitting way too close! Haha. 8. I can hear the speaker (not too loud though). 9. Blue and redish maroon design on pews. 10. Our pew is smaller than the one in front of us. So that was my list. Then Jazz and I exchanged our lists. It was interesting seeing the differences in our lists.

Here is Jasmine's: 1. The bench in front of me is made out of purple material instead of the usual odd green they have at church. 2. They decorate with wreaths at this church which I've never seen that before in the chapel. 3. This is the kind of thing Knowlton does at school. This must be the page in the book he read when Emma showed him. 4. There is a blue crayon on the ground. 5. The exit sign is red not green. 6. The baby next to me has a sister with a really big bow on her head. I'm surprised she doesn't fall over. 7. The missionary talking is boring. 8. There's a camera or projector in the very back of the room. 9. There is a sweater on the bench next to us and it matches with the bench. 10. Emma is really antsy about me finishing. Hopefully she doesn't make fun of my spelling.

So those were our lists. It's funny to notice that I stuck mostly to things super close to me (usually within a couple feet) and Jasmine branched out a lot more. And even included some of her thoughts that had nothing to do with the things around her.

The next thing we did was answer five questions that they had in the book. They were: 1. What is your current favorite book? 2. Who would you like to have dinner with? 3. What super power would you most like to have? 4. What food would you eat every day? 5. What is your favorite smell?

I said: 1. Nineteen Minutes 2. My Grandma Usher 3. Elastigirl powers. 4. Potatoes 5. Apples

Super random, I know. But fun to think about. The final thing we did was to write down every thought that comes to our minds. It is harder than it sounds because our minds think crrrazy fast. We did this for a while and it was pretty interesting and funny.

Here are my Small Thoughts:
1. I still don't like Jazz's green bag.
2. I suck at paying attention in church recently.
3. This guy has a really deep, kinda weird voice but he doesn't speak too fast. That's good.
4. His voice doesn't match his looks.
5. He's kinda cute but lots of missionaries are. And who knows if his personality matches his looks. (yeah I know I shouldn't be thinking about missionaries like that. I promise I don't ever go after them)
6. I wonder if he has a good singing voice or one of those annoying deep opera voices. (sorry to anyone who has an opera voice...)
7. I wonder what Jazz's weird thoughts are.
8. Skylar took his suit jacket off. I wanna take my coat off but there's no room.
9. Bishoprics are always funny to watch. They look so bored sometimes. Or like they are trying REALLY hard to look like they're paying attention.
10. My hand hurts.
11. I'm coming back to Flag on Thursday I think. For New Years.
12. Hopefully we can find something to so.
13. I love having lots of quiet time to read. I forgot how much I love reading.
14. Nineteen Minutes is a good book but it sounds like they might make it seem okay that this kid shot people at school just 'cause they've always teased him and I don't agree with that.
15. I can't imagine raising a kid who did something like that. I would feel guilty even though it wasn't my fault. Or would it be my fault?
16. Jodi Picoult really makes me think about controversial stuff like that.
17. The Lovely Bones was a weird book. I liked it though.
18. I love my big black bag. I can fit so much stuff in it!
19. So many people have been and are getting married! Super exciting!
20. My hand still hurts.
21. I skipped over some of my other thoughts. Is that cheating? (Jazz says it is.)
22. I wonder if we're gonna stay for one, two, or three hours of church.
23. One more minute.

This is a super interesting activity and a fun one to do when you're bored. I did it a few times in my classes last semester and it's always funny to go back and read them later because daaang do we humans think some random stuff. Anyway, there's a little glimpse into what Jasmine and I do when we're bored and a little glimpse into my brain. I hope you enjoyed!!

Wedding&Christmas Bells :]

My brother is officially married! :]

And Christmas was woooonderful.
So that's what I will be blogging about. Sorry I'm little slow.
We'll begin with the wedding!

On Saturday, December 19th, 2009 my brother,
Jonathon E.B. Olmstead was sealed for time and all eternity to
Jaclyn Anne Francois in the Mesa Temple!
It's crrrazy having brothers get married.
Crazy and exciting of course.
Here are some pictures of the beautiful wedding and reception
Here's the happy couple right outside the temple:
Here are the handsome groomsmen:And the bridesmaids :] :
And here is my ENTIRE FAMILY (all eleven children and two in-laws) at the reception:Daaaang good looking people. :]
I love my family and it was so wonderful to see
my brother get sealed in the temple.
Both of my brothers and both of my sister-in-laws are wonderful examples to me and
I am so grateful for them.
I can not wait to follow in their footsteps and get married in the House of the Lord.

So only a few days after the wedding came another wonderful thing...
CHRISTMAS! :]
My family does not have very many consistent Christmas traditions because my parents like to mix things up every year. Some of the traditions I can remember doing over the years are:

• The Twelve Days of Christmas (they tricked us into thinking someone else was doing it for us). It ended with delicious cinnamon rolls brought to us on Christmas morning by my little brother.
  
• Some years we go to the church and my mom plays the piano or organ and we sing the Christmas songs from the hymn book.
• One year we had Christmas on Thanksgiving (as a surprise) so that we could focus more on the real meaning of Christmas as it came about.
  
• We make gingerbread houses almost every year.
• And we of course always read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 in the Bible.

I am grateful for these traditions and for the different things that my parents have tried over the years. It keeps things new and I love that they always keep us kids focused on Christ and serving others during this season.

This year as we read the Christmas story and sang Christmas songs in our living room I was filled with an overwhelming love and gratitude for the wonderful family that I have been blessed with. I was able to hear stories about the lives of my grandparents and I was able to hear their testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was able to see my parents and my siblings and some of my cousins and my aunt and uncle and my grandparents and feel the love that they have for me as well as the love that I have for each of them. Along with this I felt the love that my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for me. This love cannot be captured in words or pictures but I did take some pictures of that night so that at least I can look back on them and remember. Maybe the love, warmth, and comfort will translate through somehow...

Here are my grandparents and one of my cousins:

More family (we sit on the stairs a lot since we never have enough couch space):And some more family (we are happier than we look...I promise. Haha):

Well, that's about it. The next day was Christmas and it was quite fun as always. Opening presents took FOREVER cause we have so many people and we open one present at a time starting from the youngest and going to the oldest but by the end I think we all cheated a little bit and opened presents in secret...I did at least. Oops. ;)

Oh, one more tradition that I have with my two sisters, Helena and Gelsey is that for the past four years we have gotten matching or at least similar pajamas every year that we wear to bed on Christmas Eve. So here is our picture from this year of us in our super comfy and warm FOOTIES! :]

Home Sweet Home

I am home for the holidays and it is absolutely wonderful! :]

In the Bible Dictionary under the word temple it says:
"Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness."
Each and every time I go home I am reminded of this phrase as my parents have done such a wonderful job making our house a HOME.
Today I was sitting at our extra-long kitchen table that we've had forever
looking at our white board/bulletin board and noticing all the little things that have been stuck to it/written on it over the years: Family engagement pictures, pictures of new baby cousins, a picture of Jackie we've had up since before E.B.'s mission, a dollar bill, a picture collage Gelsey made when she was in kindergarten (or maybe it was Solomon), notes on the whiteboard, new cell phone numbers; just lots of random things that have little memories connected to them.
I love my family and being at home around them all the time despite all the chaos.
Over this break I decided that I am going to work on being "More Diligent and Concerned at Home" as Elder David A. Bednar challenged us this past October General Conference.
I am going to work on:
1. Expressing Love and Showing it.
2. Bearing Testimony and Living it.
and
3. Being Consistent.
There are lots of things to focus on during the Christmas season and
family is a very important one.
I hope that I can share my love and my testimony with my
family through this season and through the coming years.
I have been blessed with wonderful parents and siblings who do this for me and
I want to return the favor. :]

So far this Christmas season I have taken the kids to get their hair cuts for my brother's wedding this Saturday. This turned out.....not so great. Here are some before and after photos...the boys' hair honestly did not look very different. And my mom was not too happy about that. But I'm not a mom so I didn't know what to tell the hair cutting people. :/
So here's the before. I love how they are all sitting the same. Hahaha. And I told them to look mad. Gelsey did an acceptionally good job.

Here is the after picture.
Uhh yeah the boys' hair does not look different.
We might take them in to get it fixed before the wedding this weekend...
But Gelsey's is nice and cute and short though. :] Like mine! GO SHORT HAIR! Also over the break I have taken kids Christmas shopping. It is our first year doing Secret Santa with the whole family (now that the kids are all old enough to earn some money with chores and pick out presents mostly on their own) so I get to cart the kids around to all different stores to get this final shopping done. YAY! ;)
Today I made three double batches of chocolate chip cookies for the wedding luncheon dessert. Holy heck that was a lot of baking for me! (Roommates: I thought we baked a lot...this topped it all (at least for in one day) and I still have more to do. HELP!!! :/)
I have also been able to spend time with my Grandparents (they are here for a month and for my brother's wedding)
With having my grandparents here I get to here my Grandma play the piano and it is absolutely beautiful. I tried to upload a video but I couldn't figure it out. So I'll try again later.
Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed being home although I'm sure in about a month I'll be ready to head back up to Flagstaff with my wonderful roommates :]
To end here are some WONDERFUL pictures!

Here are the Olmstead girls (plus Jasmine and minus the sister-in-laws)
Here is one of Rachel and I at the temple lights. I was also able to see Katie Wilson, my friend Chris Brown, and I got to meet Katie and Rachel's friend Ryan, but I forgot to take more pictures. :( But here is one of Rachel making me look RIDICULOUSLY short!
And here is one of me trying to make Rachel look RIDICULOUSLY short. Haha. Did it work??
Well, that's all for now. There will be more very soon though because we have a WEDDING coming up! :]

Random Facts About Me :]

I did this for some thing on Facebook and I not everyone has facebook so I thought I'd put it on here too. Just some random facts about myself. Enjoy! :]

1. I love making sound FX. (Examples: GAHHH! Psh! Bleh! GRRR! Argg!)
2. I try to write in my journal every day and I love going back and reading my old journals although they are sometimes ridiculously embarrassing.
3. I love buying school supplies, especially notebooks...I don't really know why though 'cause I'm not a huge fan of school or anything.
4. I love making lists (packing lists, grocery shopping lists, things to do, goals, etc.)
5. I talk to both of my parents about pretty much everything and I love them sooo much! It's hard to be away and not get to talk to them everyday. Lucky for me technology is amazing and I get to call/email/web chat with them quite often. I think my parents are two of the wisest people I know.
6. I write everything in my agenda but rarely ever look at it when I'm doing homework and stuff. I guess just writing it down helps me remember.
7. My name is Emma Olmstead and I am addicted to Spider Solitaire. (It is distracting me as I write this)
8. I love YouTube and could watch it for a really long time but I never find cool videos myself...other people have to tell me about them.
9. I can touch my tongue to my elbow and to my nose. (No, touching your tongue to your elbow is NOT impossible)
10. My all time favorite color is red. I have four pairs of red shoes, a pair of red rain boots, a pair of red slippers, at least four red sweatshirts, two red bags and I don't even know how many red shirts.
11. I am 5 foot and almost ½ of an inch tall. My 15 year old sister is taller than me and so is my almost 13 year old brother. And my 7 year old sister is about the same size I was in 5th grade! Once everyone in my family is grown up I am pretty sure I will be the shortest. And no one knows how I got to be so short because none of my relatives are nearly as short as me...as far as I know.
12. I love getting dressed up and doing my hair all fancy (when it's long enough) but I have never really learned how to put on makeup all fancy. But I'm not a big fan of makeup so it's all good.
13. I have eight brothers and two sisters and I love all of them more than I could ever explain. I am the fourth child but first girl so I am a middle child as well as an oldest in some ways.
14. Losing someone I love is one of my biggest fears although I do know that I will be with them again.
15. I love reading but I have a hard time finding good books so I rely on other people (mostly my mom and sister) to suggest good books to me.
16. Shopping is one of my favorite things to do...when I find things for super good deals.
17. I love getting compliments on my clothes and being able to tell people how cheap I got the shirt/shoes/pants/whatever for. I think I like being able to say that more than the fact that someone complimented me. I hate when I didn't get something for a good deal because then I don't know what to say. And I almost always know the exact amount something cost me (not including tax).
18. I wish I had stayed in gymnastics after sixth grade but I am also grateful that I was able to try lots of different things over the years (diving, dance, choir, piano, sewing, cooking, pole vaulting, running, public speaking, swimming, etc.).
19. Doing backflips on trampolines is one of my favorite things to do so when my parents bought a trampoline the week after I moved away from home I was bit upset.
20. My little sister, Helena, is my best friend in the entire world. I don't know what I would do without her and I am so lucky to get along with her so well. It's hard being away and not knowing about everything that is going on in her life and being able to tell her all about what is going on in mine.
21. My sister and I shared all of our clothes when we were living together. Before I moved out we had to do a week test-run to see if we would be able to survive with only half of our wardrobe. Luckily we did!
22. I crashed a motorcycle when I was 12 or 13 and now have a fear of riding them. So I have a goal to get over that fear.
23. More than anything else I want to be a mom when I grow up.
24. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I love it.
25. I love to dance but I'm not all that great at it. My sister and I dance to pretty much everything and now I dance with my roommates (especially to the Evolution of Dance on You Tube). Interpretive dances to EFY music are the best. I would love to learn to ballroom dance but I like other kinds of dancing as well (jazz, ballet, hip hop, etc.).

Blast to the Past!

It all began with a pair of FOOTIE PAJAMAS!

The first pair belonged to my beautiful roommate Aubree Stradling.
This pair of footies became an inspiration in Apt. #96
(That's where I live by the way...I haven't updated in forever so no one knows that).
Because of this pair of footies my best friend Jasmine Storm Kvavle and I bought footies later followed by Aubree buying a new pair and gifting hers to Katie.
And FINALLY Rachel and Kylie bought their footies after some ultimate convincing
and secret telling. We are all officially converted to the comfort and warmth
of FOOTIES (AKA BLANKET SLEEPERS OR ONESIES)!
This is me, Katie, Aubree, and Jasmine in our FOOOOTIES! We don't have a picture
of all six of us just yet but we will soon enough!
So once you own a pair of footies you have every right to act like a five year old...
Only when you are wearing them of course. ;)
One of the things that I did when I was little was building forts with my brothers.
So, a few weekends ago when Knowlton and Helena came up to Flagstaff with Jasmine and I we decided to build a fort in my apartment.
This was after playing very many rounds of hide-and-go-seek in the dark!
This game is basically a way to scare your friends over and over again.
Jasmine is super fun to scare so Helena and I thoroughly enjoyed scaring her and hearing her scare herself as she searched for us with Knowlton.
And Knowlton did a good job scaring her. The best thing about this was when we turned the lights on she would be curled up into a ball on the floor.
If only I had a picture of that. But! I do have pictures of our beautiful fort! After making it we watched a movie in it. Gooood times!
Here are Jasmine and Knowlton (and Helena sleeping) after a lot of hard fort building work!

Here's Knowlton, Jazz, and I inside our fort and ready to watch a movie!!

Another thing that Knowlton, Helena, Jasmine and I did was put up and decorate a Christmas tree in our apartment. Jasmine and I saw a Christmas tree on sale for $25 dollars on Black Friday and we could not pass up the wonderful deal. And we wanted our apartment to feel a little more like home. So we bought a 6 foot tall Christmas Tree with lights included!! It looks amazing and we bought some ornaments to decorate it with. We each picked one ornament out and then made a show of putting them up while listening to Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree!

FINALS week was amazing! How often can you say that?!
Well, I can say that this week. It wasn't ALL good but well it was pretty amazing because...
We had one and a half SNOW DAYS! :]
The snow days came in perfect timing for me because they cancelled ALL of my finals.
I had a Monday final at 12:30 and they closed the school at NOON!
Then they closed the school for all of my Tuesday finals!
HOLY HECK how amazing is that?!
So here's some pictures of the snow and some of the fun that we had in it!
This is what I woke up to around 9:00 am on Monday morning. And it then continued to snow all day long.

This is what we woke up to on Tuesday morning. Beautiful white sparkling snow. :]
Rachel, Katie, and I went for a drive in the crrrazy blizzard with our friend Troy and then we jumped into huge piles of snow on the side of the road. This is me jumping into a HUGE pile of snow. I disappeared into it after. It was wonderful! Cold but wonderful :] Here are Katie and I with Troy :]Here are Katie and I in the fort that we built with our neighbors and Aubree. Pretty freaking sweet, huh?

The institute had a Christmas dinner and talent show on Tuesday night and my roommates and I decided to put a little skit together.
It is based off of an SNL skit. (Hopefully those links work...)
If not check out my facebook for our video at least.
Oh, did I forget to mention that we performed in our footies?! 'Cause we definitely did!

There is so much more that I would like to blog about so hopefully it will help me blog more often so I do not have to play catch up every time that I get on here. But anyway, I would like to end with some things that I am very grateful for as I near the end of this year:

• Amazing Roommates and Wonderful Friends
• My Wonderful Family
• The Scriptures
• Institute Classes/Teachers
• Wonderful Church Leadership
• The General Conference Ensign
• Footie Pajamas!
  
• Snow/Snow Days
  
• Warm Clothing
  
• The Power of Prayer
• Wool Coats
• Sleepovers with my Roommates
• Making Memories
• Learning at School
• My Patriarchal Blessing
• Technology (my camera, my laptop, my phone, the heater at our apartment, our electric piano, lights, etc.)
  
• The Sister Missionaries at our Institute (who make me want to go on a mission!)
  
• And so so so much more
  

And finally I would like to say that I am so grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It brings joy to all aspects of my life and has helped me through good times and bad times.
I am especially grateful for the birth, atonement, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. As the holiday season is here
I am reminded of this even more.
I hope that we can all take time to remember our
Savior this season and throughout the coming year and strive to become more like Him. The First Presidency of the church shared wonderful messages of our
Savior in the Christmas Devotional this season that everyone should take the time to listen to.
I am so grateful for the lessons that
I have learned this year and the many ways that my testimony has been strengthened.

P.S. Jasmine wanted me to share with the world that she bought a new pair of footie pajamas tonight. And here's a picture of her foot in them and me. :]By the way, Jazz's favorite color is green and her new footies are green with MONKEYS on them in case you can't tell. If only she had bought me an extra pair of footies as well...haha.

Summertime Bliss

This summer has been simple yet wonderful. It may very well be my last summer that I get to be lazy and do pretty much whatever I want and I have enjoyed pretty much every second of it. :] I am grateful for the time that I got to spend with the people that I love and all of the memories that were created and I wanted to share some of those with all of you.

Day Trips with Friends (Sedona)

Hula Hoops

Shopping

Family

Cute Kids
Matching with Sisters

Road Trips
Cute Sandals/Shoes

Summer DressesSundaysTemples

MusicGrandparentsCute Brothers

Hiking