Christmas Fun

I love Christmastime and the wonderful feelings that come with thinking more about the Savior. I know-I should think about him more through the year, but Christmastime seems to make His birth so much more real to me. When I think about all the things that the Savior did for us, I am truly in awe. I am so grateful for all of the blessings in my life-especially great family! Both the family that I was raised in and the family that I married into.

As a teacher I think that I get more excited for holidays simply because my students are SO excited. But this year seemed to be a little different. Every year we are supposed to give a list of students who need coats to the police department for a fundraising thing that they do. I had 1 student this year that didn't have a coat. I will never forget the look on that student's face when they came back into my classroom and told me that they had received a coat. It reminded me that there is so much more to Christmas than just getting presents. It's about being more of a Christlike person and trying to help others see how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love them. That is truly what Christmas is about. After that experience I was once again reminded how blessed I really am. I am so grateful for little tender mercies that help remind me what is really important in life.

As for Christmas itself, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with my family since Curtis' parents are on a mission. We had a good time with my family and enjoyed the time we spent with them.

The day after Christmas all of Curtis's brothers and sisters came to our house to celebrate Christmas. It was so much fun to watch the little kids open presents and play with their toys. They are just SO cute! We had a good time with them too.

Our little baby is still doing well. We find out if it is a boy or a girl on January 18th. We are really excited!

Updates on Exciting Things!

Well I haven't updated our blog for quite a while, but there have been several changes in our lives!

FIRST:
YES, you guessed it, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY! We are really excited for this new adventure in our lives. The baby (we don't know if it is a boy or a girl yet) is due on May 27. It was so fun at the first ultrasound to actually see that there was a little, living baby inside of me. The baby moved around so much! We asked the doctor if this was normal, and the doctor said that our baby was the most active one she had seen all day long. She told me to enjoy my sleep while it lasts!

SECOND:
Curtis' parents left for their mission last week. It was really hard to see them leave, but also exciting at the same time. My mission was one of the best experiences of my life and so in some ways I am a little jealous of the time that they get to serve the Lord, but on the other hand I'm excited for the new adventures that we have in our life here. We wish them the best on their mission and know that it will bring not only them, but us many blessings. We will miss them greatly, they are a huge blessing in our lives.

THIRD:
Because Curtis' parents are leaving, we are in the process of moving into their house. It will be a good experience for us.

Other than that, life has been really good to us. The other day one of my good friends posted a link on facebook to a youtube video that was about being thankful. It totally changed my attitude that day-because I was not in the best mood. I realized that I really don't have any reason to be grumpy. I have SO MANY wonderful blessings in my life! When I think about all the things that Heavenly Father has given me, I am truly grateful for all of the blessings in my life. My list could truly go on forever, but here are a few things that I am thankful for: my wonderful husband, my family, Curtis' family, the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ himself, the atonement, a job, a wonderful class this year, the USA, a warm home, food, laughter...there are just so many things to be grateful for!

I hope that as Thanksgiving comes this week we will remember how blessed we have truly been. If you want to check out the link on being thankful here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuwid8_O8dk&feature=player_embedded

Yellowstone Trip

We celebrated our anniversary a little early this year because UEA was earlier this year. (Last year we got married over my UEA break.) We decided we wanted to go somewhere, so Yellowstone it was! We had a great time, even though it was a little cold!

This is a picture of us near the lower falls. It was a lot of stairs, but totally worth the hike!


We didn't see as much wildlife as we would have liked to, but we finally did get a good picture of this buffalo!
It had snowed the day before we got there and so driving around was really pretty! We were glad that there wasn't any snow on the road.

This is a picture of an elk bugling. It was really neat to see that!

All in all it was a relaxing trip! We had a really good time.