Every bit as peaceful on the inside as it is on the outside. Every bit as beautiful in its purpose as it is in architecture. Every bit as strong in its mission as is its powerful presence.
Yesterday in church during Relief Society (the portion where women get their own class and the men have their own class separately) we discussed a talk given in the general women's conference last year (oct 08) that for several reasons—mostly being out of town and on the road for a family event—I had missed. I suddenly felt guilty when everyone was discussing this talk given by Pres. Uchdorf that I didn't recognize at all. I hate missing things like that. But it was a good reminder to go back and watch all that I had not heard or seen, and I then realized where the following clip that has been circling around the blogosphere was from. I loved it when I first saw it posted on my cousin Kristin's blog, and and then I started to see it everywhere, but I had no clue where it was taken from. Now I know!!
I had Jon sit down with me last night and watch his whole talk titled "Happiness: Your Heritage," and I LOVED it. Everyone should watch it. I mean obviously it was directed toward women, but I think everyone can benefit from it and be inspired from it. As a little taste from his words, here is his preface leading into the rest of his talk:
"Today I would like to speak to those who have ever felt inadequate, discouraged, or weary—in short, I would like to speak to all of us...
We know that sometimes it can be difficult to keep our heads above water. In fact, in our world of change, challenges, and checklists, sometimes it can seem nearly impossible to avoid feeling overwhelmed by emotions of suffering and sorrow... I recognize that in all of our lives there are real concerns. I know there are hearts here today that harbor deep sorrows. Others wrestle with fears that trouble the soul. For some, loneliness is their secret trial. These things are not insignificant... However, I would like to speak about two principles that may help you find a path to peace, hope, and joy—even during times of trial and distress. I want to speak about God’s happiness and how each one of us can taste of it in spite of the burdens that beset us...
You are choice daughters of our Heavenly Father, and through the things you create and by your compassionate service, you are a great power for good. You will make the world a better place."
The Sunday we were in AZ Jon and I had dinner plans in Mesa to go see all my extended family (no really, almost all, it was awesome. Aunts, uncles, cousins, babies, the works. I hadn't seen them in so long, so it was so great that they could all make it. The bad thing is, I totally spaced taking a picture with them, so lame, I know. But we love you all, picture or no picture!!! Thanks so so so much for getting everyone together for us!) so we wanted to drop by the temple on the way there. It was beautiful as always, and I especially love seeing the Mesa temple since my parents were married there (almost exactly 32 years ago), and my dad proposed to my mom on its temple grounds. Aww.
okay, so these are a lot of Easter photos of the dude. And technically I should probably only post 1. Maybe 2. But I didn't have the heart to cut any out...I mean look at the way those cute little chubby hands reach for the basket, then hold the egg, then pick up the grass, and then he's staring at the mess he's made...it's a process really, and I couldn't rightfully go excluding any key steps. (there is more to the post than photos of Van, if you care to keep reading) :)
and to make his dad proud, one must include the football in a photoshoot. Plus it's the only photo he would look at me for. Isn't he the cutest thing ever all dressed up?
I love holidays. Every time a new holiday is coming up I ask Jon what our family tradition should be, and then think really hard about it and usually don't come up with anything until after the holiday has passed. For some reason I'm totally into making our own traditions that will last while all our children are growing up and will encompass everything we hope to get out of the holiday.
Easter's kind of a toughie, because while we all know Easter is actually the celebration of new life for everyone thanks to the sacrifice and resurrection of the Savior, it can easily be drowned out among other things, especially since it doesn't really have a "season" like Christmas does—you know, a time when everyone tries to be a little better because of it. We of course succumb to the candy tradition and fill plastic eggs with many more sweet things than we need, but both Jon and I were hoping for a way to intertwine a spiritual tradition along with the light-hearted easter bunny tradition instead of separating them. One big pillow talk later on Easter night, and I think we came up with a good one (a small one), and I'm so glad.
Since of course we didn't decide on our new tradition until that night, Easter for us this year was simple. Simple=beautiful. We decorated some sweet eggs the night before {see post below for their full beauty}...
On Sunday morning, Jon had Easter basket duty and hid some little candies around the house for Van & I to find together, we had yummy waffles and strawberries for breakfast, and then headed to church for wonderful songs, talks, and lessons based on the Savior and His eternal sacrifice for us. I taught the Sunbeams (3-4 year olds) and I think I'm finally getting the hang of captivating their attention. We only had one emergency run to the bathroom, and no one pretended to be like a lion when we walked down the hall to class. This is an accomplishment. I even got to throw in a spiritual message to them, and I'm just hoping something stuck. I love coming home to tell Jon all my Primary stories, the kids are hilarious.
After church Jon and I took Van on a walk down a trail through a beautiful neighborhood in McLean. A place where the backyards and/or front yards look like this: Yeah, don't worry, we weren't house-shopping, or even dream-house shopping (seeing as we don't have an extra 4 mil on hand), but the houses were AMAZING. We mostly just appreciated the 2 hours alone outside enjoying a quiet Sunday evening together. Except for that one part when I got bombed by a bird doing its business 30 feet above me. On my head. In my hair. I know, that's disgusting, it was pretty hard for me to keep from gagging too. Yuck. Jon thought it was hilarious, and I was just glad that burp cloths are now something we don't leave home without.
We came home, read the First Presidency Easter message (and LOVED it, it's really short, you can read it by clicking here), and recapped some talks from General Conference last weekend, which led to another long talk and inspiring new goals. I love General Conference, the inspiration of the leaders of the church, and the ideas I get when I'm listening to them of things I need to change and do better. It helps me to put things back into perspective, to remember what matters most, and to try harder to let go of what doesn't matter most.
I'm so grateful for Easter and for all it means for each of us. Elder Jeffery R. Holland (one of the 12 apostles of the church) says it so much better than I can, though. Watch and listen to his inspiring words here:
Here, of course, are new photos for your viewing pleasure. These are from our walk in McLean, pre bird-poop bombing.
The night before Christmas Eve, we wanted to go to the Festival of Lights again to hear the violin performance of Jenny Oaks Baker, so we bundled the dude in his white snowsuit, braved the cold, and joined the masses at the Visitor's Center that night. The concert was amazing (well, at least the 1.5 songs I was in there for, instead of out in the hall consoling Van, were amazing. Looks like our days Mr. sleep-through-everything are officially over. And we never even took advantage of it to go to a movie with him!) and the turnout was impressive--she agreed to do a 3rd concert that night just to satisfy the lines.
Afterward we walked around outside for maybe 10 minutes max--that's all we could stand in the cold, especially with little Van--to check out the lights and take some pics. Jon sure knows how to rock depth of field with the Canon! And our little baby was so fascinated with the lights that even in freezing temperatures, he still wanted to lift his cute little polar bear head and stare at every glowing orb in sight. It made his poor little eyes water to stare at them in the cold though, so we bailed quick to keep all our suffering to a minimum. And plus there was hot chocolate back home calling our names...
After much debate on whether we should have Van blessed here in December or wait until we went to Utah in January, we finally decided to have him blessed in the ward he was born in, here in Arlington. It was a super hard decision to make, especially with family so far away and so few able to come, but we were glad that Jon's parents and Jeremy could be in town, as well as Jon's cousin & wife and their 5 cute kids (thanks Wakefields!), and we were especially grateful to all our dear friends who live in the area that came to support us on Van's special, simple day. We definitely focused on simplicity, and it almost made it seem unreal, but it was perfect for our little boy. The meeting was at 9:00 am on Sunday, December 7, and Van was blessed by Jon, being joined by his father, brother, our bishop, and a few friends. Thank you so much to all of you that went out of your way to be there for us and Van! It was so good to see you all and it meant so much to us that you would come.
We missed our family greatly (and you were definitely all in our thoughts!!), but we're grateful that all gospel ordinances and blessings can be performed anywhere in the world and still have the same meaning and validity. I'm so grateful for the priesthood and that Jon strives to live his life in a way that respects the priesthood he holds. We're just a little family, and this is just our little beginning, but I love every part of it! Thinking of the things Jon mentioned to Van in his blessing makes me amazed that we will see this little one grow from infancy to manhood, from being completely dependent on us to being an independent and responsible adult, and every step in between. I can't even imagine it!! I hope and pray every day that we will raise him the way he deserves to be raised, and that we will bring him up according to the Lord's will. It's a great responsibility, but I know that it's definitely not one that we will fulfill alone, and for that I am eternally grateful.
For the record, Van was silent as ever for the blessing, even though he was awake, and the best part was when Jon slightly raised Van for the congregation to see, because Jon's friends from work loved it--they later told us it reminded them of the Lion King. :) So here's to our sweet little Simba with his whole little life ahead!
{I may or may not have completely forgotten to take pictures of any kind until 10:00 pm that night...at which point I may or may not have made Jon get back in his church clothes as soon as I changed Van back into his blessing clothes to look like I remembered as soon as we were home...obviously still new at this mom stuff!!}
And this is how Van felt after his blessing day (the same as every other day I guess!).
We were fortunate and very happy to have Jon's parents and little bro Jeremy out to meet Van the man and visit us for a long weekend at the beginning of December (December 4-8), and we definitely took advantage of their time here to show them the sites! We hope we didn't tire them with our excitement to go out and see it all despite the freezing weather while they were here!!
They managed to time it just right to go to the Festival of Lights lighting ceremony this year, which is always fun to hear great musical numbers, wonderful speakers, and to get excited for the Christmas season. The Festival of Lights is an annual month-long event at the LDS Washington DC temple that is open to everyone and has free (not to mention amazing) musical events every night until January 1st that are open to the public. The lighting ceremony is the debut night of the Festival, and this was the 2nd year we were able to attend. Elder Neil A. Anderson spoke this year, and he shared a wonderful story reminding us to 'have room in the inn' (see the December Ensign for the story in full). We loved seeing all the nativity scenes from all around the world, checking out all the lights, and seeing Van sleep through yet another event, as photographed below :). Jon designed the invitations/logo again this year for the Festival, so I threw that in for fun at the bottom of the post.
Clearly, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas is right around the corner now, but I felt I needed to do some belated recapping of the last couple weeks anyway so I could feel like I at least attempted to document it all.
Thanksgiving was great this year. Even though we couldn't be with family, we were blessed to be invited to join some friends at a large Thanksgiving meal with people we mostly didn't know, but everyone was so kind and fun and we had a great time. Our only assignment was to bring a dessert or two, so I made a super easy family chocolate cream pie recipe, attempted a coconut cream pie that for some reason ended up tasting more like a sweet egg quesh (oops), and a classic pumpkin pie that I was delighted to find out tasted just like pumpkin pie. :) The rest of the food was fabulous, and all we had to do was show up and eat it.
Van was a little sleeping saint, as he tends to be when we go out to loud places with lots of people, and probably didn't even notice we'd left home. There were probably about a dozen kids running around, playing and screaming, and he was totally unaffected. We love that!
So, I didn't take a picture of his "first thanksgiving" or anything, especially since he was just sleeping through it, but I was fortunate enough to get some pretty amazing day-after Thanksgiving photos, thanks to our amazingly talented photographer friend, Alia. Alia was so patient and totally worked around Van's schedule so we could try to get him both asleep and awake, and Jon and I were soooo impressed with the photos she got. Plus it gave Alia and I an excuse to hang out all day, which is rare for us, and I loved it. Thanks again for the pictures Alia, they turned out so good, you did an amazing job!! (see some of our favorites below)
And since this is a Thanksgiving post, I thought I should say just a few of the many many things we're grateful for. In no particular order:
God, and His perfect eternal plan for each of us. family {x 2}. old friends. new friends. an apartment perfect for our needs with a rent payment within our means. our marriage & our fun, growing, ever-increasing love and relationship. all the giving people that helped us fill and furnish our apartment when we moved. popcorn. jon's stable & secure job that allowed us the blessing of me staying home to be a full-time mommy. the amazingly created human body. the gospel and its incredibly clear principles & doctrines that teach us why we're here and what we need to do to return to our Heavenly Father someday. the blessing to have a living prophet and twelve apostles in our day. ice cream. my coworkers from my job I left that are some of the greatest people i know. jon's coworkers that are also some of the greatest people I know--and they're the reason he gets excited to go to work every day. having enough food and clothes. babies. our baby. van's health. answered prayers. music. the man handing out newspapers at the metro that smiled at me and said something nice every morning when I commuted in for work. people who offer rides to me because they know I have no car in the day, or just because they're nice like that. democracy and the ability to vote. america. baby smells and tiny new baby smiles. the priesthood. temples and the blessing to be sealed to my husband for time and all eternity. seasons. eternal perspective.
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