Happy 3rd Anniversary Jared!

Once upon a time, on a summer day, there was this guy who met this girl at church. She was immediately very attracted to him, but it took seeing her in a hot pink sundress a couple of weeks later for him to really notice her in a special way. They became friends and after their first time hanging out they knew that they wanted to marry each other and they told each other that. On Sept. 5, 2004, after asking for her parents' blessing, this guy asked this girl to court him with the intention of marriage. She said yes and 2 weeks later, she left to go to Bible School in England for 6 months. Before they had started dating, this guy had already bought a plane ticket to come visit her in Europe during her Christmas break, so they spent 2 1/2 weeks traveling around Europe together. After 6 months of dating long distance, this girl finally came home and 4 months later they were engaged, followed by their wedding almost 5 months after that on Dec. 17, 2005. They lived happily ever after.





































































Jared, I love you more than the day I married you. It's been an amazing 3 years and I look forward to growing old with you.

Kiera Is Now Mobile!

I'm very happy to announce that at 13 1/2 months old, Kiera is now finally moving around the house! She is not crawling or walking; she is scooting! She's now been getting into everything! She started doing this on Friday and just in that one afternoon she found the cleaners, light bulbs, knives, electrical cords, and almost pulled a lamp down on top of herself, which I caught just in time. I may eventually get cupboard locks, but for now I've just rearranged the things in the cupboards so that they're safe for her to open and I've hidden cords and been watching her a lot more carefully. It's an answer to prayer because I was having bad pains in my lower stomach and right hip area for about a week and at first I had no idea why, but I soon realized it was from carrying Kiera around because she's getting so heavy and my body can't handle her weight as she is almost 1/4 of my weight. I still obviously have to carry her at times, but now she can move herself to wherever she wants to go in the house, instead of fussing and putting her arms up for me to pick her up all the time. I got a short video of her scooting and also saying, "Hi!" in her singsong voice, so here it is.

Kiera Gets Her Groove On

Last night was our church's Christmas program. Kiera + I were both involved (I held her on the stage while I said my line and she shook her bell ornament) including me leading 2 Christmas carols by myself. That was quite a bit out of my comfort zone as I'm used to singing with a band and "hiding" behind a keyboard and not being the leader. It was just me + a boy playing acoustic guitar. It went alright. Here's Kiera in her Christmas dress that my mom sewed:
























It took me over an hour to edit that picture because she was sitting on my mom's lap and I wanted an all black background. At the end of the program, there were a few groups of kids who did some dances, which was Kiera's favorite part (and my favorite, too, because watching her was highly entertaining)! Here she is dancing along.

Week-end Getaway

On Sunday morning, Jared's dad + stepmom came and picked up Kiera and Jared + I drove to Grand Forks to stay at the beautiful Canad Inns hotel in celebration of our 3rd anniversary which is next week! A little while after crossing the border, Jared got a text message from our friend saying that his mom passed away that morning and asked for prayer for the family. She had cancer and almost every night Jared + I prayed for her healing. As we were driving down the interstate, we were both wiping tears. Right before that, I had been upset with Jared about something and suddenly that didn't matter. I know that she is now fully healed as she is with Jesus and I don't know why God didn't heal her on this earth, but He is still in control. She was in her early 50's and has 3 grown children. Although it's incredibly sad, we decided not to dwell on it for very long and just prayed for the family whenever we thought about it. We arrived at the hotel and because of the coupons we had, they gave us a free upgrade to a suite! This was the living room:
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Fancy alarm clock/radio/c.d. player thing


















Ensuite bathroom


















It was wonderfully spacious and for an hour on Sunday night, we watched our own t.v. shows as I wanted to watch a wedding show in the bedroom and he wanted to watch a fighting movie in the living room. On Sunday, we did some shopping in the afternoon, relaxed at the hotel, went out for supper to Buffalo Wild Wings, enjoyed the waterpark for half an hour


















and then relaxed some more until we went to sleep. On Monday morning, we enjoyed a free breakfast at Aalto's and drinks were included, so I had a cherry, apple, and lemonade slushy drink (I enjoy mixing flavors) with my eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and toast! We checked out of our hotel at 11 a.m. and then went clothes shopping for Jared. He bought dress pants and a sweater and all I bought was a $10 black sweater the previous day. We ate "lunch" at Cold Stone Creamery where we shared "The Pie Who Loved Me" which was cheesecake ice cream, oreos, graham cracker pie crust, and fudge. It was amazing! We came home after that, Jared's dad dropped off Kiera, and we watched the finales of Amazing Race and So You Think You Can Dance Canada that we had taped on Sunday. It was such a wonderful time together! :)

Apparently Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

It's been another quiet week at home, but I haven't been quite as bored as last week. Yesterday, I got paid for December piano lessons (yay!) which we were desperately needing as we had no money left for groceries. It's been interesting seeing how God has been stretching our money. We had $8 to last us for a week of groceries and we made it! We had enough ingredients for all the suppers we had and we just had to buy things like milk + bread. I try to only buy what we absolutely need and I often buy the no name brands because it's cheaper and still we almost run out of money every time. We've never gone hungry, though, so God is faithful. He provides exactly what we need! We've talked about me getting a part-time job outside of the home since piano teaching is barely enough, but we both feel that God is calling me to be at home with Kiera full-time, so He will continue to provide. Thankfully Jared has been given insane great budgeting skills and he has a detailed spreadsheet in Excel that we carefully follow. We bought "So You Think You Can Dance" tickets with extra money that we're getting in January, but we rarely ever prespend money like that. I know that God wants to stretch our faith by stretching us financially and it's not a very comfortable thing, but He knows what's best for us and if by living off less we grow spiritually, then it's worth it.

Washington + Vancouver Videos

Since there's nothing very exciting going on in my life this week, I'm posting two 30-second videos instead. The first one was at Art + Jenene's house in Washington and the 2nd was at Casa Gelato in Vancouver.

My Purple Marshmallow

This is our little purple marshmallow this winter.























Just makes me want to squeeze her and squish her all day long! She's 13 months old now and still not crawling, standing, or walking. People keep asking me all the time, "So is she crawling or walking yet?" I try not to compare her to other kids, especially all the ones at church who are younger than her and crawling. I'm trying to be thankful that she's not able to get to the Christmas tree and pull ornaments off of it or get into all sorts of other trouble. She's wanting to stand more often these days and of course we have to hold her because her balance is terrible. I suppose that's a step in the right direction. One guy even asked me yesterday if everything was ok with her physically because she's not crawling and climbing over everything like his son was at 9 months old. She's fine! She's perfectly healthy and content to scoot around on her butt. She's talking more than some 13-month-olds, so at least she's not behind in every area. She says, "Hi Dad!" and although she's been saying "mama" for a long time, I think she's now saying it with the knowledge that that's who I am. I think it's great that she's starting to put words together. She might be like Jared's dad who didn't ever crawl and then at 16 months old just got up one day and started walking. I'm sure there will be days when I'll be chasing after her and thinking, "Why was it that I wanted her to start walking?" God has perfect timing for everything and He is never late!