5 years ago, on a cold, blustery winter day, I married the man who asked my parents for permission to court me with the intention of marriage, then waited for me for 6 months while I went to England, and then made me his wife less than 9 months later.
Today, I look back
and see how tremendously blessed we’ve been to have walked together through the last 5 years.
They’ve been 5 amazing years and each one just keeps getting better! I look forward to spending the rest of our lives together!
Blake’s 1-year pictures got taken in 2 phases this year. The outdoor ones were taken the day after his birthday, Nov. 7, and the studio pictures were taken this past week-end. I can’t believe that the weather was so warm the week-end Blake was born last year and then again this year! I did not think part of his 1-year pictures would be taken outside, so that was great! Thank you again, Mom, for the fantastic pictures!
I love this one of the 2 of them
One of my favorites…such a serious little man!
Jared + I have been doing an Advent reading from the Bible every night this month to keep our focus on Jesus and the real meaning of Christmas. After the reading, there's a reflection part and a suggestion of something to try. The suggestion last night was to write our own version of the "12 Days of Christmas" song and write down what Jesus, our true love, has given us. Yesterday was also exactly 12 days until Christmas. I wrote out all 12 verses in my journal, but I will just share the last one with you. There are many other gifts I could have included, but these are the ones that came to my mind.
"On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
All that I need
His faithfulness
A family
His healing
Abounding grace
His perfect joy
His holy Word
For - give - ness
Hope for the future
Unending love
His righteousness
and everlasting life!"
That's much more exciting than a partridge in a pear tree! I want to focus on the gifts that truly matter this Christmas and the greatest gift of all, Jesus.
Jared + I just got back from a night away in celebration of our 5-year anniversary, which is coming up this Friday! It was my first night away from Blake and although I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids, it was absolutely wonderful to get away just the 2 of us for 2 days, 1 night! We dropped off Kiera + Blake at Jared’s Dad + step-Mom’s and Kiera got picked up later by my Mom and spent the night at my parents’ house, so they each had one kid. When we first arrived at our destination, we went straight to IHOP for lunch. That is one of my favorite restaurants and they have the best breakfast food EVER! I had Cinn-a-Stack French toast (french toast with cinnamon roll filling and cream cheese icing drizzled on top), scrambled eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns for $6.99! After lunch, we hit up our favorite clothing store, but this time the only thing I only bought there was a red shirt for $6.99. After that, we went to our hotel. Jared surprised me with the hotel, which I was pumped about because I love being surprised! He kept slowing down in front of other hotels as if to turn in, then would speed up and say, “Nope, not that one.” He ended up accidentally missing our hotel turn-off, so he had me completely thrown off by the time we got there! He booked the top-rated hotel in the city and it’s a Marriott hotel that was built last year! SO nice, modern, and cool! This is the lobby with a circular front desk
Inside the curtained area (in front of the curtained area was where we ate breakfast)
All of the rooms were set at angles like this…again, so cool!
Inside our room
I really liked the vase
The toilet room was separate from the shower/vanity room
This mirror was super cool! First of all, the rim of it lights up, and the circle part of the mirror is zoomed in compared to the rest of the mirror!
After I oohed and aahed over how cool-looking the hotel was, we headed to the mall. I bought a dark gray hoodie at Aeropostale and bought a $5 necklace.
The last time I was at Victoria’s Secret, I really liked their perfumes, but didn’t buy one. I normally buy all-natural cosmetics and things like that and then found out that their PINK line of perfumes has less chemicals than other perfumes. I REALLY like them and had a hard time narrowing it down, but Jared helped me narrow them down from 8 to 2 and then I picked my favorite which is called “Sunny + Happy” for $15.
After some shopping, we went back to our hotel for some relax time and then went out for supper. We have been wanting to try a certain steakhouse restaurant, so went there. We found out it was going to be a 45-55 minute wait, which is normal for that restaurant, so I put our names on the list and then we went to Target. We picked up a few grocery items and then went back to the restaurant half an hour later. We still had to wait another half hour before our number was finally called! They gave us some rolls that were fresh from the oven right away and we had looked at the menu online ahead of time, so we ordered right away. I had a really great drink called a Strawberry Cowboy. I ordered a steak and ribs combo which was only $15.99! My steak was kind of dry as I had ordered it medium well and it came out well done. The ribs were very good and the meal came with 2 sides, so I also had caesar salad + mashed potatoes, both of which were great. I had to box up half my meal to go since there was so much food! After supper, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed the hot tub and uninterrupted conversation! It was so relaxing! We had a king bed, which I also love, and we both had a good night’s sleep.
This morning, we had breakfast at our hotel (I had a waffle + an apple cinnamon muffin) and then spent 20 minutes in the hot tub before going back to our room and getting packed up and ready to go at noon. We went to 2 more stores and I bought this shirt for $15.
Then we went to Qdoba’s for a late lunch which has our favorite Mexican food! I wasn’t overly hungry, so I had taco soup and a small taco salad which was great! It was FREEZING outside, so this is what I looked like going from store-to-store:
Blake didn’t even recognize me at first when we got back, until I took off my hood, and then I got a smile! I must say I am EXTREMELY thankful for heated seats in the van. Despite the cold, we had a fantastic time away and I look forward to celebrating many, many more anniversaries!
I know this is way past due, but I kept forgetting to post some videos from when my sister + brother-in-law came to visit. Here are a few short clips.
I'm back from my sort of week-long internet break. I didn't take a break for the whole week since I did go on Facebook twice and read some blogs one evening, but I tried to stay away from it as much as possible. On Friday afternoon, one of the most exciting events I've ever witnessed took place! Kiera + Blake were playing on her bed and suddenly Kiera said,
"He came to take away my sins." I've been telling her that Jesus comes and takes away our sins when we ask him into our hearts and she knows that sins are "bad things we do like not listening to Mommy + Daddy and being gentle with Blake." So I asked Kiera,
"Who came to take away your sins?"
She answered, "Jesus!"
I said, "That's right, when you ask him into your heart, he takes away your sins."
Then she said, "Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart."
After picking my jaw up from the floor, I said, "And to take away my sins."
She repeated me and then said, "Amen."
WOW! WOW! WOW! She just made the best and most important decision of her life! I've been praying for salvation for both of my kids since I found out I was pregnant with them, so almost 4 years of prayers were answered in about 10 seconds! After that, we went upstairs and Kiera started singing which I believe was a song from the Lord. She started singing, "Praise Jesus higher, praise Jesus higher..." over and over again. She lifted up her hands, so I joined her and we sang and danced in the kitchen. I totally felt the Holy Spirit and it was so incredibly amazing, I felt like my heart would burst with joy! Later on, when I was by myself, I cried and cried tears of joy. I was such a bad example of a Christian last week as I was irritable and short-tempered with Kiera and had to apologize to her every day for snapping at her when she did something wrong. Obviously, God doesn't need me to be a perfect example in order to save someone. His grace was so evident to me, I was overwhelmed.
Some people may think, "Kiera just turned 3. She didn't know what she was doing." To that I say, her faith may be very simple + basic right now, but she knows that she does bad things and needs Jesus to take them away. Yes, she has many, many more things to learn and understand, but that doesn't make her decision any less valid. I praise God for His goodness and for answering simple prayers and many prayers! Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
