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!!

This may take a minute to load depending on your computer, but be patient...it's worth the wait!

Non-Crappy Starring You! eCards on JibJab

Festival of Trees

We went to the festival of Christmas trees at the South Towne Expo Center this afternoon. For those who've never been, they have Christmas trees decorated to every possible theme you can imagine. Anyway I'm posting a couple of the trees that Crystal liked the best:

Elmo Christmas Tree:



Snowman Christmas tree:
(Crystal loves snowmen)


And the Star Wars Christmas tree
(You have to zoom in to appreciate the detail)

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Crystal Screamed at the Nutcracker tree...she's terrified of nutcrackers, don't ask me why. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of that one. After we had enough of looking at trees we went to Black Angus for an excellent meal and called it a day.

November/Thanksgiving

Okay people, sorry it's taken a while to get on the computer. This break has been pretty crazy with the holiday season, and it just seems to keep going and going. Thanksgiving was great. We spent it at Lisa's parents home and actually ate early since Denise and Jared (Lisa's siblings) had to go to work. After the feast we just hung out at the house and picked at leftovers for the rest of the day if we got hungry again. We watched some thanksgiving movies; "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," (which is a tradition in both Scotts and Lisa's family to watch every year for thanksgiving), and "The Ultimate Gift," which just came out this year, but we like it, so we watched it as a big family as well.
After Thanksgiving we went to temple square during the weekend to show Crystal the lights and enjoy some holiday fun with Todd, Megan, Johnny, and Dani. (From scott's side of the family.) Then we went to Macaroni grill to enjoy some warm food because it was freezing.


We also set up the Christmas tree, which is fun with a nearly two year old because she was so excited she couldn't stop squealing the whole time. Daddy would unwrap an ornament and give it to Crystal, and Crystal would walk it across the room to Mommy and Mommy would hang it on the tree. Now Crystal insists on watching T.V. on the floor next to the tree because she likes to be next to it at all times.

So we've been having some fun.
Getting ready for Christmas is always fun. We went and bought some toys already (also during thanksgiving weekend), to get some holiday deals and get Crystal's presents ready. Just being in the toy store was an exciting field trip for her. The great thing about toddlers is they don't really care about the expensive stuff yet. When Lisa was three she wanted a little plastic alligator to play with in the tub. When her youngest brother was about that age he wanted a bag of marbles to play with. Crystal seemed the most happy by a little mock cell phone and some plastic bath toys...(she's obsessed with bathtoys, much like her mom was).
We're also planning on going to the Festival of trees tomorrow since Crystal is so obsessed with Christmas trees.
In a few weeks we're taking off to spend our Christmas in Philadelphia with Scott's family, which will be fun because we don't get to see them that often. Scott's parents are nice enough to fly us out there as a graduation present to Scott...who's graduating in a couple of weeks. Life has been busy and will continue to be for the next couple of months with some of the stuff that we have planned and some other things that have come up.
Well sorry if this update has been a little long and maybe boring. I'll try and do better next time. Here are a few more pics for the friends who love to look at pictures and don't get bored by them:

Fake Smile

Crystal has a fake/courtesy smile she uses whenever we've asked her to smile for pictures lately. The problem is, it looks nothing like a smile and she just looks like she's crazy. I had to get it on video before she stops doing it and it'll just be a memory. Kids can be so odd...but they make me laugh.

fake smile from Lisa on Vimeo.

How we spent our Halloween

This was a fun and memorable Halloween. First, we ran to the Grocery store to pick up a pumpkin to carve for Crystal at the last second. Then we headed over to Lisa's parents house to get ready for Halloween night. We got Crystal dressed up in her bumblebee outfit, and then Lisa carved the pumpkin for Crystal. Crystal got to watch and really enjoyed it. Once it was carved, she immediately played with it, and looked for things to hide in it. After that was done, we immediately started helping Lisa's dad for the preparations in the scare fest, that was to follow in the front yard. For those who don't know, Lisa's parents go all out for Halloween. There are all kinds of gross and scary things on display in the front yard, from impaled heads, to bloody corpses on nooses. The real fun, however, is on Halloween night, when all the men in the family along with some of the neighbor boys, participate in scaring any brave trick or treaters who come to the door. On Halloween, all these boys replace the dummies in the front yard with themselves, and jump out and chase children all over the yard. They had smoke machines, strobe lights, sound effects, and a professional amplifier with a microphone where Lisa's dad would scare the children with his evil laugh when they would try and ring the doorbell. Lisa's brother, Matt, would be posing as a corpse in a coffin, that was also on display in the front yard and pop out at anyone who came near. He asked Lisa to do his makeup. Lisa used some latex, fake skin, oil paint and fake blood to makeup his face and it took a couple of hours, but looked great. In the meantime, Scott got dressed up in an extremely scary Devil Costume to pose as a statue at the front door, opposite the witch statue that Lisa made with her mom which was pictured in an older post. Crystal is afraid of the devil costume, so we had to hide her with grandma where she watched beauty and the beast, while he got dressed up in it. Anyway, when kids were getting close to the door, Scott would break his statue pose and try to grab them, which was usually a huge shock as you can imagine. He made many children cry this year. Jared and Mike, (Lisa's two other brothers) were also dressed in scary costumes and mingled themselves in with the display to scare the children. As sneaky as it was, it's also a little funny to watch little batman see a dummy come to life, and turn and run down the street as fast as he can without looking back. All the kids who were brave enough to make it to the doorbell were rewarded with king sized candy bars, and large packets of skittles. The really little kids that made it, got the most candy since they were so brave. So we did try and make it worthwhile for them. Every year, the whole neighborhood looks forward to the scare display in the front yard at Lisa's parents house. There were a lot of groups that came this year...so many in fact that it took nearly an hour longer than other years to shut down. Obviously the parents who had sensitive children knew not to bring them to the house, but it's a lot of fun for the kids who want to see how brave they are. During all the scaring, Lisa took Crystal around the block to go trick or treating for the first time. Crystal took to it like a duck to water. The only problem was that instead of saying "trick or treat" she'd say "More candy?" when people would open the door. After they would close the door she'd look up at Lisa and say "Nother house?" She got so used to this routine that sometimes she would embarrass Lisa when a neighbor would take out the candy by digging both of her little fists in the bowl and trying to pull out as much candy as possible to stuff in her bag. After trick or treating, we went back to the house (the scarer's kindly stopped scarring long enough to let us in the house) and crystal got out of her costume, and immediately went through her bag of candy, unwrapped all the suckers, and made a sucker bouquet to lick as she toddled around the house. Lucky for us, Crystal doesn't really like candy, and after a few licks gets bored and gives up. Crystal would take a plate of broccoli any day over a cookie. We have no problem with that, and as a result, don't really have candy at home, so we don't know what we're going to do with it all. So far, she's just been laying it all out and organizing it into little piles...but once again, won't eat it, which is perfectly fine with us. When the boys finally shut down the haunted front yard, we sang happy birthday to Lisa's mom, who's birthday is on Halloween, and we all had some cake. Everyone enjoyed themselves this year.

Clean teeth

As a dental assistant I saw many unspeakable things happen to peoples mouths when they didn't take care of their teeth. This has made having clean teeth a big deal for me, and as a result, I always try to make sure Crystal's teeth are clean too. (Little kids with big cavities in the dental chair is a heartbreaking sight).
Anyway, I'm glad to report that Crystal loves brushing her teeth. As a matter of fact, she's slightly obsessed with it, and would do it all day long if I let her. When I tell her it's time to put the toothbrush away and do other things she gets really upset and cries and cries. I guess if I were a nicer mom I'd just let her do it all day, but I'm afraid she'll spill water everywhere if I'm not watching her, and I don't want to deal with the mess. Here's a 12 second clip of her brushing her teeth. The background music is Scott playing his xbox.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN.....

Welp, it's about that time. I am really not looking forward to this since I potty trained two of my brothers and my cousin when they were toddlers and it was horrible. Of course I was much much younger, so I'm hoping that it will be easier for me this time around. She's still pretty young though, so I'm not going to pressure her. POTTY ON DUDE!

Pushing the limit

I told Crystal today that she was not allowed to get off the couch while I went to make her chocolate milk, because I didn't want her to take out all the toys I'd just put back into her box. She knows when I mean business and knew that I didn't want her off the couch until I got back at all. I explained to her that when I got back she could come off the couch all she wanted, but not until then. The problem is like all toddlers she gets bored fast, so instead of climbing off, she just found a more interesting way to sit on it....she took her pants off and climbed to the very top. When I came out she just waved at me. At least she's obedient.

"Honey!"

Crystal is having her friend Gabriel (the son of Scott's friend, Mark Owens) over everyday this week for an hour or so, and for some reason when he came over yesterday she decided that she needed to refer to him as "honey" instead of Gabe. I guess she just copies what she sees at home. She did this the whole time he was over. If you listen carefully she keeps saying "Thank you honey!" every time she hands him the ball.

Crystal is ready for Halloween!

Here's Crystal looking festive for the season. Unfortunately by the time we were done taking pictures it was naptime so she had a tantrum in the last picture...but it looked really funny cause of the outfit, so I posted it in the slideshow.

Lazy

To keep her out of mischief, I let Crystal have her own little bowl of popcorn in her playpen while I got ready to go out. When I came back she had it balanced on her tummy and was laying on her back eating it like a lazy bum.


What a little Goof ball! She never ceases to amuse me.