Beautiful Bella. I LOVE YOU

One month ago I held this precious little girl for the last time in this earthly life. Bella passed away one month ago today. I know that I will see her again and she will wrap her sweet little arms around me and give me kisses. I am so grateful for the love of our Savior Jesus Christ and the knowledge of the gospel because it is the only thing that brings me comfort.

~ This is the last picture I took with Bella over July 4th weekend. ~

Bella brought so much love and joy into the lives of so many and her sweet spirit continues to touch so many lives. She showed us how to love and laugh with her great sense of humor even at her young age. Jessie and I lived together while she was pregnant with Bella and our best friendship was pretty much instant. In our hearts, Jessie and I are sisters and I was Bella's Auntie Danielle. Jessie was and continues to be an amazing mommy to Isabella Rose. Jessie is so devoted to Bella, it is absolutely remarkable. Jessie shows Bella more love than anyone can imagine and Bella knows the love of her mama. I love Jessie and Bella tons and tons. Words cannot express how much the both of them mean to me.

The week that Bella passed away was probably the most difficult week of my life and so i can only imagine how unbelievably difficult it was for Jessie as Bella's mother. I cried a lot, but I also smiled when I thought about all the moments that Bella made me smile. Bella will be missed by so many, but we know that she is in heaven and is a celestial daughter of our Heavenly Father. Bella is in a place that is suited for an angel because she is too beautiful to have to play in the mud with the rest of us in this world.

I love you Bella xoxoxo

In Loving Memory of Isabella Rose Brunson

March 7, 2009 - July 13, 2010

Fun with my cousins!

I went and had dinner with my cousins last night and then we had a little entertainment. My cousins, Max and Felecia, each sang us some songs. It was fun. Here are a couple videos I took of them singing some beautiful songs. I love my family!

By the way... poor Felecia got interrupted a couple times by the phone and the dogs :)

Still great!

P.S. I had another crazy, funny dream that I will be saving for my next post.

Mom knows best.

Today I really wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies. I just wanted to make a couple dozen. My mom has the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe. I am sure we all think this of our mom's chocolate chip cookies. My mom's recipe uses shortening and I didn't have any. SO... I thought I will just make the recipe on the back of the bag of the Nestle chocolate chips. Bad idea! They were nothing like mom's and I hate them. Waste of chocolate chips and waste of calories, not eating them. I thought that the Nestle Tollhouse recipe was Phoebe's (from Friends) Grandma's "famous recipe" so I thought they would be semi-yummy. Probably shouldn't use a TV sitcom as a reason behind my logic. If you have not seen that episode from Friends it is hilarious. It is called "The One With Phoebe's Cookies" look it up.

Moral of the story: STICK TO MAMA'S RECIPE. THE END.

Dreams

Dreams are very strange. I hardly ever remember my dreams. On the rare occasion that I do remember my dreams, the details are often blurry and I remember specific parts and bits. Sometimes I wake up from my dreams and I have a smile on my face, I may be laughing, feel as if I may cry, or even feel somewhat confused. Today I woke up with a big smile on my face because my dream was about this sweet little face...

Some may call me pathetic, but I had a great day and it may have been attributed to this little fairytale dream I had last night. It was a very sweet innocent dream. The dream mainly consisted of him and I riding around in his nice car while drinking Diet Coke and talking for hours. In my dream Taylor also loved Diet Coke. I mean a manly man that loves Diet Coke as much as I do, really... what more could a girl ask for?

for kassandra

i am pretty sure that kassandra has said to me, "let's change our blog backgrounds" about 15 times in the last couple months. now she has just started saying, "danielle sign in to your blog so i can change your background for you" i know it has been like probably about a year since i have changed it, but the fact is i don't really care BUT since i want kassandra to be happy i did it. now don't expect it to be changed for another year. don't get mad.

and yes kassandra i say "don't get mad" a lot. don't get mad.

here are also the highlights from my last week of life...

1. i spent almost every night in the library this past week.

2. was on campus for over 10 hours on monday, tuesday, wednesday, & thursday.

3. spent 1 hour and 10 minutes waiting in the testing center line on thursday evening.

4. took my accounting test, walked out of the testing center and saw the phrase "Perfect Score" next to my student number.

5. went to lunch with holli, anna, & alyssa. we had a lovely time :)

6. cooked dinner for my grandparents with jen and hopefully made their day.

7. went and saw Dear John with kassandra on saturday evening and cried periodically for about a hour and got a huge headache. highly recommend it... the movie not the headache

8. went to church today and got a new calling: co-chair for the family history council

9. watched the super bowl. GO SAINTS!!!

10. used absolute horrible grammar and punctuation in this post. don't get mad.

life is crazy happy

Hi friends, family, everyone lovely that I love!

I have neglected my blog for a very long time. Christmas was wonderful. I miss California every day. Lots of pictures to post at a later time.

I am happy.

School is crazy but I am still happy even if I don't seem to be.

I mean... today I was watching Jeopardy! while making a study guide of course because school work is coming out of my ears, mouth, nose, everywhere... I think you get the picture.

... anyways back to Jeopardy! The category was "Brian Wilson songs" and... I got every answer correct. Yes! I know my Beach Boys! I am a true Californian! Hooray!

So... come on... what's not to be happy about???

festival of trees.

Yesterday I went to the Festival of Trees in South Jordan with my Aunt Julie and my cousin Jen. It was way cool. The event has a ton of trees that are all decked out with tons of fun and unique decor. The trees are for sell with all of the decor and the money goes to charity. 100% of the proceeds that are made at the festival are donated to Primary Children's Medical Center. The trees are decorated by many different organizations and families. Many of the trees are in memory of someone that was treated by Primary Children's Medical Center. Each of the trees has a sign with them and on the back you can read the story of the person who is being remembered. After reading about five of the stories... I had to stop or else I would have been bawling the entire time at the festival. There were many GORGEOUS trees but, I mainly took pics of the funky fun ones :)

The Nightmare Before Christmas tree... kinda awesome. right?

This "I Love Lucy" tree was a little intense.

This cute little girly tree was in memory of a sweet little baby girl. The pink hydrangeas on the tree were absolute genius... don't be surprised if you come to my house in the future and I have them on my Christmas tree :)

This tree was in memory of an ultimate BYU fan. Go Cougars!!!

An ice cream theme tree

The Peacock tree!