Seasons Blessings

Today I was sitting in church thinking about how things are going to get much more complicated in a few short months and how I should bear my testimony while I have the opportunity. That got me thinking about what I would say and I could not stop thinking about all my blessings and the things I was grateful for. With all due respect to those who get up and talk about what they are grateful for, I know that's not bearing testimony. But it was all I could think about. I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for Jake, I'm grateful we have a baby on the way, I'm grateful for eternal families, I'm grateful for my testimony of eternal families and that I want to be with my family forever, I'm grateful for the addition of another family this past year, I'm grateful for the restoration, I'm grateful for temples and the joy I get when I go, I'm grateful for all the people who have blessed us recently with their friendship, or baby clothes, or maternity clothes, or just those who have given me a good example of service, etc. And then I realized that it is because of many of these blessings that I have learned the things I have learned. My mom is probably my greatest example in the world. I'm pretty hard on her, but hopefully my love and respect shine through. She has taught me everything. Through having the mother I have--WHAT A BLESSING--I have learned about my Savior, I have learned about consecrating my life and time and talents to the Lord for the building up of His kingdom, I have learned about the Savior's love and sacrifice for others. Through the blessing of this pregnancy, I have learned to trust in the Lord's timing and to trust that He is mindful of me and that myself and my baby are in His watchful care. Through the blessing of service I have received, I have learned to think of others and what I can do for them in return or to pay it forward, and that the Lord knows what we need and helps to provide it. Those are a few examples of this concept. The Lord can teach us through our blessings if we remain humble enough to learn from them. The Lord can also teach us through our trials, but I hope I remember to always learn the lessons of the blessings first and always, and maybe I'll learn the lesson before He has to throw a trial my way.

I know the Savior lives and loves us. I hope to spend the time between Christmas and Easter really thinking and learning about His life and trying to be more like Him.

We had a wonderful holiday season. We spent a lot of it with immediate and extended family, which was great! We were also able to spend some time with some good friends showshoeing, visiting, and playing lots of games.

Some of the other highlights: the live nativity at Grandma Hansen's, singing Christmas carols here and there, being beat at UNO time and time again by my 7-year-old neice, Hannah, seeing my 5-year-old neice's utter delight at seeing that Santa brought her a remote control tarantula, just like she'd asked for, hearing our Watson neices and nephew recite Luke 2 from memory, seeing ALL of the Woolley's (my favorite cousins!), playing games with my family and watching how it's growing, and having my brother Randy and his wife Amberlee in town and spending time with them. Oh, and setting up the nursery with Jake!

We didn't take any Christmas or New Year's photos. Sadness. But here are a few of our other adventures I have mentioned. Happy Holidays!

One-Year Anniversary and flowers

We had our 1-year-anniversary last week. Can you believe it's already been a year? I had some beautiful flowers delivered to me at work the day before, a wonderful surprise. These flowers really are beautiful. I thought about taking a picture, but didn't think it would do them justice so I've just been enjoying them while they are around. Lilies, roses, and snapdragons. Roses make me think of Jake. I will never forget the first time he brought me a rose! What a delight!

Snapdragons remind me of my Great Grandma Fern. She always had snapdragons in her yard and I'd play with them and make them talk. I can't help it now when I see a snapdragon.

I've never had lilies before. They smell delightful! What intricate flowers they are.. Anyway, they are still blossoming in our home, how fun.

The anniversary was special. Not because we did anything super amazing to celebrate, but because it was a day to remember everything. Why we got together, our wedding day and the many memories wrapped up in that, our honeymoon cruise, our continued love, everything. He reminded me of some things I'd forgotten and I reminded him of some things he'd forgotten. What a wonderful day to celebrate! Nothing beats good memories. They can be revisited over and over again.

And I love having our anniversary close to Thanksgiving. I'm able to be thankful again and again for Jake. He is an excellent husband and I'm eternally grateful for him. And I'm proud of the awesome watch I gave him for our anniversary. You'll have to check it out.

D.C. and Virginia

Jake and I got to go out to Virginia in October (I know this is way late..) and visit his sister and see some of our country's history in D.C. It was a quick trip, but so wonderful! The fall leaves were beautiful and the trip to D.C. was so cool! I learned so much about history and it increased my desire to learn more about everything that has happened in the world. Jake's sister, Sarah, was a wonderful host and has spent a lot of time in that area, so she was able to teach us about Williamsburg, Jamestown, and about the Revolution. It was awesome. I wish we would have had more time. The pictures below have captions, which will pretty much tell you all about our trip. We got to see a lot of cool places and took pictures at most of them.

This slideshow is cool, but I could not for the life of me get the pictures to go in the right order. They play backwards. I reordered them 5 times switching back and forth, and everytime, it plays them in the same order. So it will make more sense if you just use the arrows and go backwards..



It was a great trip and we were so lucky to have Jake's frequent flyer miles and hotel rewards to make it probably our least expensive trip of the past, present, and future. And of course, our big thanks to Sarah and Daniel!

My pregnancy..

pregnancy calendar from WhatToExpect.com

Halloween

We had a simple Halloween, but it was nice. Look what we did..

Jake had a good idea for what we could do with our two pumpkins..

Isn't my husband the cutest!?

Our pumpkins were famous by the next day at church. We heard about it from several different people. I had fun passing out candy for the first time and we enjoyed going out to dinner with some friends. Happy Halloween!

Our little miracle!

Jake and I are the only ones who know what a miracle we have, so I thought I'd put a sparkle to our news of our pregnancy and tell the full providential story. Here is why I believe this little girl is surely meant to be. Some people attribute things to chance, others clearly recognize when God has performed a work, however great or small it may be. I attribute the procession of occurances we experienced to God.

We had been trying to get pregnant for a few months without success and God told us it just wasn't quite time yet. When He decided it was time though, there was no stopping it!

First, Jake was going to be in Germany for 2 weeks during the small window of opportunity we had to yield a pregnancy in the month of June. We had even planned our own little trip to take advantage of the free airline ticket. But even with my flying out to Germany as planned, we still would have completely missed the small window. Before we made any definate plans, however, his work postponed the trip until August. Jake was grateful because he wasn't planning on staying with the company that long and didn't want to be away for 2 weeks anyway. So that meant no trip to Europe for me, but that he would be home.

Then his work scheduled him for a business trip to Oregon just overlapping that small window.. Oh well, maybe next month, I thought.

Nope, then his company had something urgent come up in Quebec. So they had Jake cancel his trip to Oregon (which was no small deal because he had to cancel an airline ticket, a hotel, and forget about all he had done to get ready) and schedule a trip up to Quebec for the week following.

So first it was out of the question because Jake was going to be in Germany. Then it was out of the question because he was going to be in Oregon! So after changing the plan 3 times, God was able to bring us together during that critical week.

What a miracle! I can't wait to meet her.

Car troubles and wonderful parents

Jake took his car in for inspection on Saturday and when they gave him the report, it said "FAILED." Apparantly there was a rear brake light wiring problem (whatever that means.) When the headlights were on, the rear brake lights and cruise control both stopped working. Super strange. I was sure that this PROBLEM was caused by the people who worked on his brakes a while back; however, they said there was no way it was related to the brakes. (I guess that makes sense when I really think about it.) They said to take it to the dealer because they probably always deal with this problem. Wrong. Jake spoke with the dealership, who said they have NO IDEA what it could be and that it would cost $85 to assess the car. YIKES. So I did the typical Holland thing and went to my dad for his expert wisdom (and consulted the internet, of course.) Well, an hour or so later and after spending $4.00 on some new light bulbs, the car is fixed! AMAZING. My dad is amazing! He can fix anything.

Jake was out of town for the night and it was wonderful to spend the time with my family. My parents are my greatest examples of selfless giving. It's fun to have them checking in about everything and know they truly care and will help me out in any possible way they can. And they do.