Spotlight - Krysta Moes

It is past due for my turn to take the Spotlight - unfortunately! :) I have to say thank you to Laura for taking my place while I was trying to get things back to normal after Hurricane Ike. Thank you also to Andrea for being so patient with me and letting me get this done on my own time frame, which sometimes can be a little bit of a wait!

Where to start??? I'm really not that interesting, but we'll see what I come up with! I grew up in California. A place called Clovis, it's right outside of Fresno. After graduating high school, my parents and siblings moved to Dallas, Texas and I moved away to school. I started out in Rexburg at Ricks College and after a semester of that, I decided it was way too cold for my California blood and headed to Texas to spend a little bit of time with my family, then ventured on to Utah. Which is still a very cold place, but I fell in love with Utah! I knew that I wanted to be there for a long time. Shortly after moving there I also fell in love with my husband. We got married in the Salt Lake Temple and headed up to Logan to go to Utah State. He graduated from Utah State and I graduated from beauty school and became a cosmetologist. I worked in a salon for several years and even worked at home after having my kids. We had three kids there and were absolutely loving life in Cache Valley, when all of the sudden we decided that we needed to change things up a bit. We didn't want to leave Cache Valley, but we felt the need for a new job. Since there wasn't much to choose from in my favorite little town, we had to look outside and chose a job offer in the Houston area. This has been a blessing for us to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone. There are so many wonderful missionary opportunities all around us. I need to keep stretching myself even more in that department! We have been here now for a year and we really love where we are in life right now.

Casey and I have been married for 10 years. He is a consultant for a small software company just about 8 miles from where we live, which is a blessing all in it's own. The Houston commute is AWFUL! We have 3 adorable, spirited children. Kaylee is 7 and in second grade. Jake is 5 and in Kindergarten and Drew is 3 and stays at home with me. I am blessed to be able to have "retired" from doing hair and now stay at home with my kids and take care of them, without having to squeeze in time for work. Somedays I wish I had somewhere to hurry off to... BUT there are always little moments in my day that make me realize, with absolute certainty, that I am doing what I know I should be doing right now. My family is my life. Everything I do, I do with them in mind. Even my hobbies are linked back to my family...how did that happen??? :) They are just so cute, I guess I can't help it!

In addition to my family, I have 3 passions in life that I just can't seem to escape.

SCRAPBOOKING - I have been an avid scrapbooker for as long as I can remember. Even in my years of growing up I remember putting albums together and adding extra things to make them special, instead of slapping just a picture on a page. I didn't realize what I was doing until I moved to Utah after high school and was opened to the scrapbooking world. A world of bringing pictures to life, making friends and treasuring family memories. I have since been converted to digital scrapbooking about a year ago and now I am trying to soak up as much information as possible about this new passion!

PHOTOGRAPHY - This also goes way back in my childhood. I remember wondering why my mom didn't love taking pictures. How could you not like to take a picture??? I would go and find my parents camera and snap shots all the time. I always felt the need to document important events and highlight the fun things that were going on. This passion has never gone away, it's only gotten more passionate! I love looking at good, quality pictures. I find myself on photography blogs all the time, staring at their pictures and wondering how they get them to be so...perfect! I have recently bought my first SLR camera and I am enjoying every second of it. I am also trying to learn everything I can about this, as well!

DECORATING/ORGANIZING/CLEANING - I love to decorate. Anyone who knows me already knows this. BUT, I also love to organize and clean. Sounds CRAZY, I know, but it's true. There is something soothing and so calming about it to me. I am not a very calm or soothing person when my house isn't organized or clean, so that's motivation enough for me. These 3 things: decorating, organizing and cleaning are great tools for me as a mother that I am constantly using to better myself and my family. I love to do anything that makes my house a home and a special place for my family to be.

The very most important tool I have as a mother, wife, friend and all the other titles I carry, is the gospel in my life. I am so thankful for the gospel to teach me what my purpose is in life: where I came from, what I'm to do here and where I'm going after this. I can't imagine not knowing this and that makes me want to be a better missionary. I also have a testimony of prayer. I absolutely know that every single one of our prayers are answered, no matter how big or small they might be. The power of prayer is real and it is there for us to use...daily. I am thankful for the scriptures and for the infinite amount of knowledge that is available for us through the words of our prophets. I know that the scriptures are here for us to search and ponder about...daily. (so hard to do sometimes), but every time I take advantage of this blessing, my day turns out so much better which makes it worth the daily sacrifice.

Thanks for reading about me. I can't wait to get to know all the other girls contributing to this blog even better!!

Edit: I forgot to choose someone to go next on the spotlight. Steph Austin...I pick you!