The hand of God

On Christmas Eve, for a special family home evening, Margie (Scott's mom), spoke about Henry B. Eyring's talk about recognizing the hand of God in our lives on a daily basis.
One thing that was noticed was the fact that on a daily basis we may not see it unless we make the effort to take notice of it.
She handed out A Notebook to each of us, labeled "The Hand of God in our Lives" on the cover, for us to write in everyday.
This assignment is actually something I'm pretty excited for, because as a missionary I always wrote the little things that Heavenly Father did to help me and my companion every day. At the time I was writing in it, the blessings didn't seem that huge...just everyday life. However recently I was leafing through it and got pulled in and just started reading and reading, and I couldn't believe how many miracles came to me during my mission, and everyday for that matter. Things that seemed insignificant back then, now amaze me...especially knowing the things that I know now.
This afternoon, there were already several things that we wrote down. One that was the most prominent to Scott and I was that we had each other and Crystal on Christmas. Obvious, I know, but I really sat and thought about all the lonely people in the world who have nobody during Christmas. It's one of the loneliest holidays of the year for some people. I thought about people who were less fortunate that us. We're by no means well off right now, but I'm not just talking about money. I'm talking about people who are suffering right now because of death or tragedy, or something else. I thought about the widows and widowers as old or young as they may be, alone without their husband or wife today.
Back when I was still working as a dental assistant, one of the women I used to work with, would always tell us about her husband. One day he was really in the dog house because he sent her flowers during work, which he didn't usually do. After the oohs and ahhs from the us at the office saying how sweet that was, she laughed and said..."yeah, he's an idiot." She then told us what he did and why he was in so much trouble. I can't remember exactly when, but a few months later, he was killed in an accident, and all of us that were gathered there laughing, were at the funeral. I'll never forget hugging her and crying when she whispered in my ear "ALWAYS appreciate what you have. Always." I still think about that day. I loved my friend, and it hurt to watch her go through that. It hurt even more because she didn't have the blessings that come from being LDS.
The longer I thought about how lonely or sad people are on this holiday and why that may be, it made me pretty sad...but also extremely thankful. It makes me want to think twice every time I get annoyed and roll my eyes when my husband or child do something I disapprove of. If anything ever happened to them I would feel completely lost. They truly are who I am. They are my life.
It's so easy to get distracted with the Christmas shopping, and parties, without stopping to really reflect. This vacation has kept us busy, and it's been one thing to do after another for this past week. I always try to think about the Savior this time of year, but sometimes I don't take ENOUGH time to think about specifics.
So this year for Christmas, one of the things I'm most thankful for is my family. I will have them forever.
The Savior made that possible.
I'm so glad that Margie handed out those notebooks for Christmas Eve. It's already made me stop and think about a lot, and it's probably the best present I got this year.
Anyway, I highly recommend starting one, as just having one is turning out to be a blessing in itself.
I hope you all have a
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Preggo again

Sorry to those of you I haven't told yet. It's a long story including an actual false negative on a pregnancy test when I first suspected what was going on with me...so naturally I didn't even know what was happening at first. Not to mention the many scares that my crazy body brought on once I found out for sure. So I didn't say anything for a while to a lot of people mostly because I didn't know if the outcome would be happy or not. Anyway, I figured enough time has passed to make sure the world knows, since my pot belly is now visible, and people are finding out anyway. We find out if it's a "He" or a "She" next month. I think having two is still scarier for me than having one was, mostly because I still don't know if I have the ability to handle two...guess we'll find out soon enough.

3 years!!!

Monday was our third Anniversary.
We were able to spend it out here in Philadelphia, which is great since we had a babysitter and we could go out to eat. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory. It was nice to take some time away and chill out together as a married couple.
We love being married to each other. Having a bad day when your married is still ten times better than when you have a bad day as a single person.
When you're too old to really care about your birthday coming up again, your spouse cares for you, and makes you enjoy it anyway.
We're officially out of the "newlywed" stage...at least they discontinued the show "newlyweds" after 3 years, so for us, that counts. (:
If the third time's the charm, than this year is going to be even more awesome than the last two!
We still make each other laugh every day; not to mention we understand each other's humor.
We still say "I love you" every day, and we mean it.
Even though some people thought we were a little impulsive for getting engaged after only a month and a half of dating, we know just as much now as we did then, that we make a great pair, and we can't live without each other.
We both knew after only a week of dating that we wanted to marry each other, even though neither of us told the other yet. We both had really strong spiritual confirmations about it. Later on we discovered that both our patriarchal blessings have very similar descriptions about our marriage and how to choose whom to marry. There's a line in both our blessings that's almost word for word about our relationship.
Of course, like all married couples, we disagree and sometimes argue, but it seems that every night before we fall asleep, we're completely in love and whatever we were bantering over is completely forgotten.
We're so thankful for our marriage, and even though it's only been three years, we know it's only the beginning of our wonderful life together! Cheers! (:

Horray!!

Last night Scott finished his last final and won't have to go back to school now for the rest of his life! We went to wingers last night to celebrate with Crystal at our side. We're really happy that he's done with school now.

Happy Holidays from the Itris!!

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