Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Ok I know this sounds a little self centered, writing a whole post all about me. None the less I am going to do it anyway. But I am not just going to talk about my 20th birthday (which was amazing by the way) I am going to take this opportunity to introduce myself a little bit more. This is really just for those of you who don't really know me that well, so if you are my mom or sister you can just skip to the bottom because you should hopefully know everything.

My name is Kajsa C Pace. I was named after my great great great great grandma who lived in Swenden. When she was an adult she left her seven children in sweden and moved to Salt Lake City with the other saints and settled in Pleasant Grove, Utah. She never saw her children again. But luckly her son August, my great great great grandpa moved to Utah later and our family has lived in Utah ever since. Cool story huh? I hope I can be as righteous as her someday!


This is me by Kajsa's (my great great great great grandma) grave

I was born on Feburary 17th and I was born seventeen days late (my due date was Feb 1st


This is my first picture. My parents tried to be good parents and take pictures of me at the hospital, but when they got me home they realized that there wasn't any film in the camera. Oh the good old days before digital cameras. :) So hence my first picture was when I was three days old.

I was born in California and lived there for the first three months of my life. That was my first and my last chance for it to be warm on my birthday.


This is my dad holding me by one of the Yuca Valley trees in California before we moved back to Utah. Oh don't we both look so young. ;)

I have three sisters, one older and two younger. Their names are Larissa, Corinne and Mykelti. We have tons of fun together.







Lets see what else, well I have two amazing parents who I am so grateful for. I am the person I am today because of them. Their names are Carolyn and Tony. My dad is a teacher and coach and my mom is the world's best librarian.


I also would not be who I am today without my husband, McKay. We just got married in December and The past two months have been so amazing. You can scroll down a few posts to check out our wonderful wedding pictures.

This was taken while we were engaged. Thanks Aunt Heather!


This is us on our wedding day. Thanks CioCo Photography!

Since I was lucky enough to marry McKay I also gained 6 sisters and 7 brothers along with some cute nieces and nephews. I love hanging out with all of them and I am excited to get to know them all more.

This is everyone at our wedding. One brother (who is on his mission) and a brother-in-law (who had to work) are missing, but other than that, this is everyone

Now besides the people previously mentioned here are the things that I love...


Hanging out with my family


I love running


I also love watching new movies that I have never seen before (if I have seen them I will just fall asleep) This picture is from when we went to see the midnight showing of the sixth Harry potter movie this summer


I love aggie basketball at Utah State. It is an amazing experience!


When I was younger I loved to dance and I took dance classes for 10 years. My favorite style was Ballet.


I am a beginner cook, and am enjoying the process of learning. But I hate the feeling of cutting up lettuce and the onions always make me cry.


Everyone thinks that I look a lot like my mom (What a compliment!)


People also think that Corinne and I look like twins or they say that she is the older one. I have to agree with the twins one, because sometimes I will be looking at pictures of us and I have a hard time seeing which is which.

My dad is my hero. Through his example I have truely learned the meaning of sacrifcing for your country. He has served with the national guard twice. Once in Iraq for a year and a half and once in Afghanistan for a year. I was amazed at how well he handled all of the trials that came while being deployed. He was always still very involved in my life and tried to help me as much as possible even if he couldn't be there. And no, Freedom isn't free. love you dad.

Me and my dad the night before he left for Iraq


Talking on the phone on my highschool graduation with my dad who was in Afghanistan


My dad and I on the day that he got home from Afghanistan last April

Other random facts about me...
My favorite colors are orange, purple, and red.
I am not one that likes to take risks
I would much rather shop till I drop than play football.
I can't stand playing volleyball, but I love ultimate Frisbee and basketball.
I would rather go run five miles then go swimming and I LOVE sleeping in on Saturday mornings.
My weakness is ice cream and chocolate milk
I love drinking water.
I don't like shirts with horizontal stripes. I own one shirt with them and I am not a huge fan of it.
I am obsessed with the show 19 kids and counting and I can name all nineteen kids in order.
I love the movie Pride and Prejudice and watch it about every week
I think Julia Roberts is gorgeous.
I am glad to be done with my teen years
I always wear two shirts
My favorite temple is tied between the Salt Lake Temple and Draper and I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Well that is all for now about me. Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes, It was such a fun day. My parents were great and we went to a movie and out to dinner on Presidents for an early birthday present. I was also spoiled by McKay and didn't have to cook anything or wash one dish yesterday. He also gave me the coolest GPS watch for me to wear when I go running to calculate how far I am going. Thanks Babe! Then that night we went to institute and then a aggie basketball game, which they won (but it was a close call).


After the game we made a midnight run to Smith's for E.L Fudge cookies and Rocky Road icecream for my birthday dessert. YUMMY!



Thanks again for reading my blog, have a fantastic day!

All you need is...LOVE...is all you need

So this weekend as I am sure everyone is very aware was Valentines Day! Since it was our first valentines day as a couple I wanted to do something special. We were going to my parents house for the weekend so we decided to celebrate Valentines day on Friday. So Friday morning I woke up early and made McKay one of his favorite homemade breakfasts of french toast, sausage, hash browns, and chocolate milk. (ok I won't lie the chocolate milk was mostly for me)


This is the table all decorated and we were about to start eating

After breakfast we exchanged gifts. I gave McKay a new shirt and tie this was my first time buying clothes for him all on my own, and I think I did pretty darn well. :)



(by the way these pictures were taken in the morning so forgive us if we don't quite look awake)

McKay gave me some seeds to replant in my pot instead of the smelly flower and the movie No Reservations (love it!)




Unfortunetely after breakfast we both had to go to class and so we left all the dirty dishes in the sink and gift bags all over the floor. We started walking to class and McKay announced that he was going to ride the bus. So he left and I walked to class on my own. BUT, here is the good part... when I got home from class I walked in and found a perfectly clean apartment, and a trail of rose petals leading into our bedroom where a beautiful card and present waited for me. McKay had ACTUALLY, not gotten on the bus and he had gone back to the apartment to set up the amazing surprise. I was thrilled! he had taken me completely by surprise and I was SO excited to not have to do the dishes. It really was the perfect valentines gift and the card that he gave me was so sweet that I actually cried when I read it. It was just so overwhelming to me that I am so lucky to have an amzing and thoughtful husband. He truely puts me first and is always wanting to make sure that I am happy. Thank you again McKay for being so sweet and cute and making my first "offical" Valentines Day wonderful.


This is what I found as I walked in the door from class


This is the trail leading from the kitchen to the bedroom


This is in the bedroom where he had left the present and beautiful card. By the way he gave me brand new pink headphones to go with my Ipod. Thanks again McKay. Happy late Valentines Day everyone!

Bills, Budget, and Taxes OH MY!

So this week hasn't been too eventful around our house, just the normal "real world" stuff. I say real world stuff because before I got married I never worried about my budget and I definitely never paid bills. (unless giving my mom thirty bucks every month for my cell phone counts and even then I was allowed to skip a month or two with no penalty). So when our first gas bill came this month I MADE McKay take my picture with it.

This is our faces before we opened it, and...


...this is our reaction after we opened it. Needless to say, I probably wont be looking forward to our gas bill anymore.

Along with paying bills this week we have also been working on sticking to our budget, which is going really well so far, but Valentines is this week and I am afraid that no budget was set for that... So I am going to take that as there is no limit to how much I spend. Sound good McKay? haha I am just kidding...sort of. And last but not least we cannot forget the wonderful taxes. This year was a whole new experience filing joint. But have no fear we finished them up and are still married so no harm done. :)
Thank you for joining me on my first steps into the "real world". It really wasn't that bad and with McKay there with me it was actually fun. Well that is all have a great day!

WHAT?! is that horrible smell?

So a couple of days ago, 4 to be exact I was in our apartment and I kept getting a whiff (I think that is how you spell it) of a horrible smell. It was the same day that I made bread so I was just wondering if it was a normal bread smell. But later that night I walked into our office and the smell hit me full force. Glad to know that it wasn't the bread that was making the smell I quickly started searching the office to find the source. It took me no more than ten seconds to spot it. The source of the smell was a plant, flowers to be exact. They are featured below.



I was shocked! A flower could not smell bad, I mean it was so pretty and the plant had only started blooming that very day (hence why I had never smelled that horrible smell before). This was our first plant that we had ever owned and unfortunately, out of the apartment the plant went. But it was ok because I had already planted it wrong to begin with and the bulbs were now poking out of the soil because the roots were so strong and huge that they had no where to go but up. So needless to say it was doomed from the beginning. The new home of our first plant is out on our back porch being frozen to death in the -10 degree weather because I wont let it stay in the house and McKay wont let me throw it away. Nice compromise right? :) Hopefully our second plant will have better luck, or maybe this one will miraculously survive till spring.


McKay smelling the flower, and let me tell you that is not a happy face!


Kind of a funky looking plant to begin with

So I just had a random thought that maybe someday I could use this story in a church talk about how some things appear to be wonderful and great in the beginning and yet are not good for us in the end... ha ha ok that was very random. Well that is all for now, have a great day!

If You Can't Stand the Heat... Get out of the Kitchen

So this past Tuesday...

My amazing and talented Mom came up to my apartment to help me make...


THIS! Homemade Wheat and White bread with my fancy new...



Kitchen Aid that members from my ward in Draper gave to us for our wedding.


P.S. This isn't really what my Kitchenaid looks like, I just thought this one looks cool :)

Also a huge thanks to Aunt...



Kristen! for her wonderful and easy white bread recipe. McKay LOVED them and we ate almost two loaves in one day. By the way this is the only picture of Kristen that I could find. It is of her and her son from our wedding. Isn't he cute!

It was so FUN hanging out with my mom! It was both of our first times using a kitchenaid (she has a bosch mixer) and I am excited to try making more bread and other recipes with it. I never realized how detailed bread making is, and a lot of it seems like trial and error. Already I didn't cook the wheat bread enough and the white bread was a little dense because I put it in pans that were too big, but that did not stop McKay from eating them. So if anyone has yummy recipes that can be made in the kitchenaid I would love to try them out. :) Well that is all for today, have a fantastic day!

Just keep drilling, just keep drilling, just keep drilling...drilling...drilling

So we have loved being in our new apartment the last couple of weeks. The ward is great and we both have just been loving being married and going to school. We had finally finished purchasing and exchanging everything that we needed. The kitchen had been put away and organized for awhile, and our bed, TV, and couch were all set up. But I had not even started on the decorating. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with all of the pictures, frames and candles and the task of trying to decide how to hang them was a little too scary for me. So I tried to ignore them. But as the days went on the bare white walls started to bother me and I slowly started to think each room through about where I was going to put things. I mean this was a BIG deal! You will always remember how you decorated your first apartment. So the next obstacle was how to hang these pictures on the wall. Now in our apartment we don't have nice pretty normal walls, we have painted cinder blocks. And no a nail will just not do. Because first of all you have to be able to get it into the cement and then you have to try and avoid having the cement crumble around the nail. So we talked to our neighbors and ward members and they told us that you have to use a drill with a cement drill bit for EVERY picture that you hang. After we crossed over that obstacle we realized that McKay's drill was at his parents house and no where near us. So we switched to plan B. We borrowed a drill from his previous roommate. Thanks Adam! So to make a long story short after a couple trips to walmart and Hobby Lobby, seven hours of drilling and hanging (sorry neighbors, but I am sure you did it too when you moved in) We had a beautifully decorated home thanks to a lot of work from McKay. :) Yet sad part is that we are still not completely done, we still have some last minute touches, and hopefully we or should I say McKay will get to them done the next couple of days. But I am still going to go ahead and post the pictures now. So here are some "before" pictures then some of us in the process followed by the wonderful "after" pictures. And if it is hard to tell what everything looks like from the pictures, then you better just come visit us because it looks tons better in person.:) Thanks for reading everyone, have a great day!



These are the before pictures of our bare wall above our couch and the boring walls in our bedroom. This last one is of the pictures layed out on the floor of how I wanted them to go on the wall.



These are the during pictures :)

This is my favorite thing in the house. I loved the design and so I MADE McKay buy it. Thanks McKay! It was basically my inspiration for the rest of the house.





These are the final touches for the Living room and Kitchen



And last but not least here are pitures of the bedroom.