Oh, what a Beautiful Sunday!

Today was the switch! The switch that I've been waiting for for two long years. The day we go back to 9:00 church! Ahhhh! Sweet blessed Sunday.

For the vast majority of our marriage, we have met for meetings at 1:00 or later. We've moved a lot, student wards rarely change meeting times, and every time we've been about to change to an earlier time slot, we move again. I do not like meeting at 1:00. With or without children.

Today was such a lovely, lovely day. We were up and ready by 8:45 --- all except me, who, because of my lack of hairdryer was . . . struggling. But the children were pleasant and relatively reverent through Sacrament meeting. Hazel bore her testimony today - all by herself. It was short and so very sweet. She knows that Jesus died and was resurrected. -- I love that girl. -- And then we had the whole day to spend together. Quiet. Easy. Happy. It was so nice. Rejuvenating.

Today has helped me to feel a lot more excited about the coming year. Not that I wasn't before, but it's given me some quiet time to reflect on it. A knowledge that each of the coming weeks will begin with a day of rest.

I'm not really into resolutions. I figure I can make changes in my life daily, if I so choose, but I have reflected a bit upon some much needed changes in my life and in my family. I'm also not one to really share those ideas, as I've found that I am far more productive with internal rather than external motivation. However, I do hope that the coming year will bring a measure of growth that I've been craving. Another year of change. Another year of joy. Another year of the Lord teaching me who I need to be and how to achieve it.

This year Nels will turn 30. I will turn 28. We will add another sweet little child to our family! Four children!! I'm so excited. My Lilie will turn FIVE. Hazel will turn SEVEN. And my little baby Elsie will be THREE. Nels and I will have been married EIGHT YEARS! I will have my TEN YEAR class reunion. TEN YEARS. A decade. Lilie will start Kindergarten and Hazel will be gone all day in First Grade.

Along with the excited expectations of the coming year, there is also a small measure of loss. I love this time in my life. I love the ages that my children are right now. Can't they get older and stay the same age all at once? It's hard for me to have my babies grow up. Really hard.

I have never really loved change. I like rearranging furniture, painting a room, cleaning a mess, losing weight. :) But growing up? That's been a hard one for me for as long as I can remember. Making new friends: hard. Moving as a teenager: hard. Graduating from High School and going to college: painful. Learning to pay my own bills and manage my own finances: undesirable. Learning how to be responsible: resisted. I could go on.

The only major life change that was never much of a challenge, never really painful or hard? Marrying my dear sweet Nels. I have been thankful for that decision ever day of the past seven and a half years. Even becoming a mother was hard. --- Until I asked the Lord to teach me. Teach me how to love being a mother. And he did. I. LOVE. BEING. A. MOTHER. It's hard. It's stressful. It pushes me to (and past) all limits I ever thought or think that I have. It is humbling. ----------- It is Joy. It is pains me when my children have to change, have to grow. But it's obviously necessary. :) For all of us. I am so proud of my children. The way they try. The way they learn. It brings me so much JOY to see them grow, as hard as it is on me personally.

There's a lesson I'm learning here. A link through my rambling. A thought surfacing.

As I look back through the past decade. A decade of adulthood. There has been a lot of change, a lot of growth. Some of it harder, some of it more pleasant. -- Most of it both. -- The times that it is most attainable is when I've got the Lord on my side. When I stop myself and ASK the Lord to teach me. Teach me how to feel the joy that can come from and during times of change and growth. When I put my faith in Him and his plan for me. Joy can be there throughout all of it. Through the hard and the happy changes. If I ask. If I truly WANT it.

I hope that more than anything else, this coming year will bring me closer to my Father. I have learned that so much of parenting teaches me about Him. My relationship with my Heavenly Father. His unending patience and understanding of my irritating weakness and shortcomings. I realize that I am truly a child. Learning, growing - just as my children are from me. It helps me to be more patient with my children and myself.

I am so thankful for this past year. For this past decade. And I am so looking forward to the coming one. For the changes in store. Hard and happy. Regardless of what this world and future brings, I know that it can be a time of joy and happiness for me and my family. I'm excited!

Happy New Year!

Life just keeps on chugging away, doesn't it?! I can't believe another year has past. My mother often quotes the scripture in the Book of Mormon where Jacob says that their lives passed away as if it were a dream. I think the more years that go past, the more I understand that statement. I look at pictures of my girls from even a year ago and realize how little they were - how much they grow in a year.

It's been a year filled with lots of growth, renovations, changes, and learning. Hopefully (although I secretly doubt) I've grown as much as my girls. I'm looking forward to a new year with new challenges. More refining and growing. More kindness and laughter. More JOY. :)

These past few weeks have been chaotic ones for us. We were planning on spending our first Christmas as just a little Chick family here in Idaho Falls and then traveling to Utah to be with family the following day. However, due to the projected storm, we decided to delay our "growing up" one more year and trekked down to Bountiful Christmas Eve for a wonderful night filled with Moons. We had a wonderful time and were truly spoiled (yet again) by my wonderful parents with fabulous food and generous gifts. The girls got to open their nightgowns and LOVED them! I was so happy that they were excited! Hazel danced all around, nearly squealing to every person (sometimes twice) that she had Hello Kitty pajamas! "I'm so excited!!! I'm so excited!!! Hello Kitty!! Hello Kitty!!" That's my girl! I laughed and laughed at her reaction. I explained to my sister that it's not as if she didn't know what she was getting. She's tried her nightgown on for me at least three times to get the fit right and it had been sitting out on the couch for at least three or four days. Nevertheless, she is such a sweet little girl and made her mommy's heart glow by showing so much happiness over her present.

Christmas morning was so much fun, watching my little ladies open presents. Genny was thankful to have us there, so she (as the baby of a large family, all with families of their own) didn't have a lonely Christmas. (Hopefully next year, she'll have her very own "family" ;) LOL! I'm funny!) Friday we went up to my family's cabin and got to spend the rest of the week snowmobiling, playing games, eating and eating, laughing, and sledding. My only regrets from the weekend were first, Wendie not bringing more sugar cookies :) and never getting to see the completed snow cave that my brothers started! :) Ben spent several hours snowblowing more snow onto the already ENORMOUS pile constructed by Jake! :) Hopefully somebody will get full use out of the monstrosity! LOL!

Never one to miss a party, Sunday I made the impromptu decision to send Nels back to Idaho by himself to work for the next two days, while I high-tailed it down to St. George for more partying, games, and eating. Thank you, thank you, thank you Wendie and Russ for letting us come! It was a lot of driving, but WELL WORTH it! The girls and I had a great time enjoying some sunshine and warmer weather. Hazel and I also had a wonderful time together hiking around the gorgeous red sandstone and later Hazel and Lilie graced me with a performance of "Give Said the Little Stream" at the Tuacan amphitheater. Despite the ants that I got to shake out of all four bags, at least twice, we had a LOT of fun! Thank you, again!

I feel such amazing gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all that he gives to me, especially the sweet family that Nels and I have. The older I get, the more I realize how truly blessed we are with the amazing people that make up our lives, both family and friends! It is one of the most evident blessing that I can see in my life on a daily basis. People who come into our lives, touching and changing who we are and how we see the world. People who love us and teach us. It's truly not by accident and we are all interconnected the way we are. Thank you all for your friendship and love!

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. Hopefully I will have more Christmas pictures for future postings, but this is it for now. I'll have to get pictures of the girls all together in the new nightgowns as soon as they are all washed and clean.

My one Christmas picture!! Isn't she adorable!?

Hooray for snow!!

Nels' favorite winter chore! :) You can tell by the look on his face, huh? :) Actually, truth to tell, I usually spare him this job. But he did do it this first time, what a swell guy! :) LOL!

Gotta love Idaho winters! :)

Happy New Year! :)

Such fun little ladies! Chee!!!!

This picture is just another evidence of how much the Lord loves us! 

One cold morning, before it started snowing, Nels went out to go to work, only to find that his car wouldn't start. Lovely, eh? Well, we couldn't afford to have it fixed immediately, so it sat in front of our house until one lovely day when the city finally decided to plow the streets. (Do you see how much snow is on the roads!? It had been snowing for weeks before the decided to plow the roads ONCE! Which they STILL have only done ONCE even though we have well over a FOOT of snow! You Utahns have no idea how good you've got it!) SO. Anywho, a wonderful friend came and helped us tow it over to the mechanic at that point. The next week, we got an extra check from some of Nels' side jobs. And just the other day we got the car fixed and paid for with said check. And what was wrong with the car, you might ask? Well, the timing belt went out. Right while it was sitting there in front our house - and not when it was going down the road - where it could have caused severe damage to the engine. Strange, huh? Heavenly Father loves my little family. :)

{{{{Now, before you see this last picture, I must warn you beforehand of it's graphic nature. It is quite disturbing and scary, but I just couldn't help myself. This picture is a teaser of a posting yet to come (HOPEFULLY TOMORROW!). As I said, prepare yourself, before you scroll down, but try as I might, I just can't help but laugh hysterically every time I look at this picture, blurriness and all.}}}

 

No. She is NOT screaming because I am pulling her hair -- in fact, I'm NOT pulling her hair, just holding it up for inspection. This, my dear friends, is what happens when you tell your (well, I guess - MY) three year old that you might have to cut her hair like a boy. :(