Rose at 9 Months

Rose is 9 months old! I cannot believe that it has been 9 months since I gave birth to her! Parenthood isn't the most glamorous lifestyle in the world, and sometimes we consider selling her to the circus (just kidding, we would NEVER sell her to the circus!) but in all seriousness, she has brightened our lives SO much! We love having her around. She is the sweetest little baby. Rose is almost always in a good mood and has smiles to share with everyone. She shrieks with joy every time we park the car and she sees Ryan walk past the back window to come get her out of her car seat. She pops her head up over the side of her pack n play with a big grin when we come to get her out of bed in the mornings. Every time she does something cool like sitting up by herself or finding a toy she looks so pleased with herself. Just recently she has been figuring out how to pick up food (or crumbs off the floor...) and stick it in her mouth, which she thinks is pretty impressive. She loves to pull on my hair and play with my glasses. Her favorite toys are the car keys, any drawstring from sweatpants or hoodies, water bottles, and literally anything dangerous like medicine containers, plastic grocery bags, etc. (which, she isn't allowed to play with, but that's what she always aims for.) She has two little baby teeth coming in, and hasn't been too grumpy about that. She is however super frustrated with us every time we wipe her nose. She has a cold so her nose is very runny, but you'd think the world was ending by the way she responds to us wiping her nose. She loves solid food, especially bread and chocolate. (Big surprise there, what else could you expect with her being my daughter??) We let her try chocolate milk once and I'm pretty sure that was the best day of her life. 

We love this girl to the moon and back. We are the luckiest parents alive. 

#blessed

Enjoy all of my favorite pictures of her from 2019 so far. 

Valentine's Day

I LOVE Valentine's Day! It's probably in my top 3 favorite holidays. (It's tied with Christmas and my birthday.) Growing up, my mom always made Valentine's day a fun day. We put a tablecloth on the table, heart shaped chocolates were scattered on the table along with some flowers, and then we had a yummy meal. After dinner we always got a Valentine gift from our parents. Sometimes my mom would even hang up heart garlands on the wall (which I don't think was as common as it is now with Pinterest and Instagram.)

My mom signed me up for a bow subscription from Little Poppy Co. and in February they sent out a bonus Valentine's Day bow that I just HAD to use. And since Rose is such a willing subject, we had a fun little photo shoot. (I can't think of a better subscription than to get little baby bows in the mail every month! #girlmomlife )

My freshman year of college my parents sent me a little care package and my dad accidentally switched the valentine he wanted to send me with the valentine for Carson's teacher. So I got a little valentine that said "Teacher, You're Great!" haha!

As a lame teenager, I always wanted a Valentine, but the holiday was never dampened if I didn't have one. For me, the day is about love. Not just for a significant other but for my friends, for my family, for the people around me that I care about. I am so so so blessed to be surrounded by people who love and support me and who love and support my little family. Valentine's day was a wonderful day to reflect on that and feel gratitude for everyone in my life.

Because our anniversary is only 4 days before Valentine's day we have decided that we want it to be more of a family holiday where we celebrate how much we love being a family and being together. Ryan is a romantic at heart and still felt like leaving me a trail of Hershey's kisses and fancy chocolate for me to find when I woke up (leading to some flowers), which I didn't mind, of course. And we finished the day off by making homemade pizza (because that's what I did last year and I thought it would be a fun tradition.)

Isn't he sweet? He did all this while I was asleep and was late to class because of it. 

I know I'm like a week and a half late, but I hope that everyone was able to feel loved and important on Valentine's Day. If not by the people around you, then at least hopefully you felt the love that Heavenly Father has for you.

“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

Anyway, I hope you feel loved and remember to love the people around you every day of the year! Happy Valentine's Day!

Ashes and an Anniversary

Today is our TWO YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! Phew! We made it this far! ;)

It's only been 2 years but I look at this picture and I think "Babies!" We look so small!

I think I'll write another blog post tomorrow about what we did to celebrate our wedding anniversary, but I've been wanting to write about something else for a couple of years now and I've been waiting to write about it around our anniversary. 

Around the time we got engaged, we were trying to figure out all of our wedding plans. My parents lived in Texas, but my extended family all live in Northern Utah and Idaho (and Florida part of the year). Ryan's dad at the time lived in Southern Utah, and all of his extended family lived in Central Utah and Alaska. Figuring out the best and most convenient temple to get sealed in was a little difficult. 

One night, we were walking around the Provo City Center temple (because I was living in Provo going to BYU) and I told Ryan that I wanted to get sealed here. 

The story behind the Provo City Center Temple is SO cool to me. 

Before it was a temple, it was a beautiful, historic tabernacle that caught on fire and was destroyed. The outside was able to be preserved and from the inside out it was turned into a temple, a sacred house of the Lord. 

When I stood outside of the temple with Ryan thinking about marrying him, I knew I wanted it to be this temple because of it's story, it was a perfect fit for us. The tabernacle was beautiful. It was a great building with great purpose, but something happened and it burned down. It can be hard to see something so wonderful turn into something so awful, but God always has bigger plans that we can't always understand. He knew that the tabernacle was done with it's time just being a tabernacle, it needed to be destroyed so it could be rebuilt as something with greater purpose. 

It reminds me of that CS Lewis quote:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Before meeting Ryan, it felt like Heavenly Father was messing up my plans and getting in my way. I made mistakes and I felt pain because of them. I went through my refiners fire, and so did Ryan. It took a lot of banging and bruising and wrong paths and right ones. Bad choices and good choices. I never wanted to serve a mission, but Heavenly Father pushed me in that direction. Ryan had his own struggles but was pushed in that direction as well. Sometimes it blows my mind all the tiny little details that went into Ryan and I meeting. Heavenly Father knows us so well.

I just feel like I had no idea what wonderful and beautiful plans God had in store for me, or what plans He has for my future still.

I love this picture because it's right as we are walking out of the doors of the temple after getting married, and look, Jesus is standing right behind us holding a lamb. I just think it is so symbolic of how He is looking out for us, and our marriage/family. 

When the tabernacle caught on fire, some people were upset that God would let something so horrible happen, but they had no idea that it would turn into the most beautiful and best temple in the world (in my totally unbiased opinion...) Now, it's a place where families can be sealed together forever, and I am SO SO grateful for that blessing.

Any opportunities to share my wedding pictures are opportunities I will take! This one is my very favorite.

Happy 2 years to us! I can't wait to see what the rest of eternity will bring.

#SOblessed