Inner Peace

Recently we watched Kung-Fu Panda 2- I have to admit I am not a huge Jack Black fan, okay, I'm not a fan at all, so even watching an animated movie where plays the voice of the main character was less than appealing to me. That being said as we watched the movie I found some very profound truths in there. In the beginning Master Shifou is telling Po that the final lesson of Kung Fu is finding inner peace. Each person finds it in a different way, but once it is mastered your potential is increased. Throughout the movie Po is dealing with flashbacks from his childhood and discovers along the way a lot about his past, who he really is, and who he is meant to become. A couple of things that I pondered on were 1) When the world sends the waves of life rocking our boat, how do we react to that, how can we learn to deal with the rocking boat and continue on our journey, and 2) We all have that discovery process of self in this life and we have a lot of people who help us on the way. We all are children of God who have a divine purpose here on earth and we have things that we all need to accomplish on this earth, each very unique and differen,t as we strive to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ in hopes to one day return to him.
When I was on my mission my sweet little sister sent me a letter and a note card that contained this quote by Bishop H. Burke Peterson, "One of the greatest challenges is to overcome the feeling that we are unimportant, that we are not special and unique. Do you think for a moment that Heavenly Father would have sent one of His children to this earth by accident, without the possibility of a significant work to perform?...
My dear friends, you are a royal generation. You were preserved to come to the earth in this time for a special purpose. Not just a few of you, but all of you. There are things for each of you to do that no one else can do as well as you. If you do not prepare to do them, they will not be done. Your mission is unique and distinctive for you. Please don’t make another have to take your place. He or she can’t do it as well as you can. If you will let Him, I testify that our Father in Heaven will walk with you through the journey of life and inspire you to know your special purpose here." (New Era, May 1979, pp. 4-5) I kept that note card and nearly 6 years later I still reflect on it often. I know each of us has a divine purpose here on earth, we truly are a royal generation, I know this is true.
As I've contemplated on "Inner Peace" or being at peace lately I've really tried to understand what it means to acquire peace and to let it flourish in my life. It hasn't been easy and I'm only just beginning. I often imagine myself standing on a boat staring off into the distance enjoying the sunshine, turning around for just a moment only to see a storm looming overhead, wondering what I'm going to do- metaphorically speaking, of course. Life can be hard, the waters rocky and toss us to and fro. Amidst adversity how can we still remain at peace? Marvin J Ashton said,
"Certainly peace is the opposite of fear. Peace is a blessing that comes to those who trust in God. It is established through individual righteousness. True personal peace comes about through eternal vigilance and constant righteous efforts. No man can be at peace who is untrue to his better self. No man can have lasting peace who is living a lie. Peace can never come to the transgressor of the law. Commitment to God’s laws is the basis for peace. Peace is something we earn. It is not a gift. Rather, it is a possession earned by those who love God and work to achieve the blessings of peace. It is not a written document. It is something that must come from within." (Oct 1985 Conference address)
I know I have a long way to go, but I enjoy those peaceful moments when everything in the world seems just right. The worries and stress aren't gone forever, but they seem to melt away, and I am left feeling sunshine on my face and the feeling that through God all things are possible.

Such a cutie!

As I mentioned earlier I missed a lot of key events due lack of blogging this summer. One important event that I want to make sure I write about is my cute new niece Lilly! Ryan and Jennie had their second girl in August, and boy is she a cutie!! We were super lucky and happened to be in Utah when she was born, so we got to see her when she was barely over a day old. Such a sweetie, I LOVE her cheeks!

Emma is an adorable older sister, always making sure that her little sis is okay.

Emma just turned 2, Happy Birthday Emma!!

(all pics stolen from Ryan and Jennie's blog :))

We are so grateful for wonderful family, Gabi and Madi just love their cousins!

Santa Clause is coming to Town!

Last night was our ward Christmas party. We recently combined wards- I'll update on that later- so there were a lot of new faces there. I wish I had taken more pictures, it was set up beautifully. The program was wonderful too. They retold the Christmas story and had live Nativity along with singing. The youth played the parts and did a fantastic job! The baby Jesus was an actual baby, our friends little guy who is SO CUTE and was so good. The spirit was so strong. I love moments like those where we are able to take some time and think about the real meaning of the season.
Of course afterwards Santa came, and I'll be honest folks, I think he's the real deal. Check out the pictures and decide for yourself. I have to say that I was a little apprehensive about Gabi meeting Santa for the first time, we've never done the Santa thing before for whatever reason. So I tried to prepare her all day yesterday by telling her that she was going to get to see Santa that night. All she was interested in meeting, however, were Santa's reindeer. So as we were waiting in line to meet him I was getting really stressed out. I turned to talk to Isaac and then someone told me that Gabi was sitting on Santa's lap. Apparently she totally cut in front of like 5 kids (she didn't know :)) walked right up to Santa and sat on his lap!! What happened to my shy little girl?! She sat and chatted with him for a bit and loved every minute of it. As you can see from the pictures, Madi wasn't quite as taken with the jolly old man. He was super nice and all of the kids loved him!!

Sometimes it's Okay to Cry Over Spilt Milk

You know those days when you've gotten a great nights sleep, you wake up to sunshine and happy kids and you think to yourself, "Life is great." Life is great, but today was not one of those days. The sun was shining and I was optimistic about the day until my one-year old woke up early, my three year old thought potty training is sitting on the potty after you pee your pants, and right after getting dressed spilling a glass full of milk all over myself and then realizing that I have no other clean clothes because today I was going to do laundry. I have to admit, I did cry over spilt milk today. My sweet little 3 year old was very concerned for her seriously hysterical mama. I decided today that sometimes it's okay to cry over spilt milk. Because you have a good cry, clean up the milk and  life goes on. After that spat life got a lot better, and yes the sun was still shining.

"I have little doubt that many of us are troubled with fears concerning ourselves. We are in a period of stress across the world. There are occasionally hard days for each of us. Do not despair. Do not give up. Look for the sunlight through the clouds. Opportunities will eventually open to you. Do not let the prophets of gloom endanger your possibilities (President Gordon B. Hinckley from Ensign, Apr. 1986, 4–5)."

The Perfect Day- at least it was supposed to be

We have been looking forward to today all week long! This morning we had a Glanbia Christmas Celebration for the family- they rent out the theatre and we get to go as family and enjoy a family appropriate movie (This year was Puss in Boots) complete with popcorn and a drink compliments of Glanbia. After the movie Santa comes and the kids can sit on his lap if they want and take pictures and then each child gets a gift. Later we planned to go out to lunch and enjoy family time, come home and finish putting up decorations and then go with our friends to see some awesome lights.
We were soooo excited!! Unfortunately, as it usually seems to happen, none of that happened. We made it to the movie theatre and were about 15 minutes into the movie (mind you this is about 9:15am) and Madi starts losing her breakfast all over me, Isaac, and the seat in front of us. Interestingly enough my purse caught most of it...inside. I guess I know what I want for Christmas- ew! So we rushed out, and got Madi all cleaned up, poor thing!  :( She wasn't looking so great, so much to our chagrin we left the theatre in search of a new outfit for little Madi since where we were was 30min from home and we felt like that would be undue punishment to ride home stinky. So we zipped over to Fredmeyer's and grabbed a new outfit for Madi and a new shirt for Daddy. We had a few errands we needed to run, so after Madi had a few crackers and a sip of water, she was out and we tagged teamed getting our errands done. Not quite the afternoon we had planned.
When we got home not a one of us were in the decorating mood, so we all took a nap. We were hoping that Madi would be feeling better so that we could at least go see the lights. But alas, after a 2 1/2hr nap, she woke up really pale and had a fever. So, sadly, we had to forgo the lights and seeing our friends, our last hope of reviving our wonderfully planned Saturday.
Instead we went for a short car ride to see some of the lights around the neighborhood and came home and let the girls open one of their Christmas presents early- Rio (sorry Brit!)
So I guess no matter how well we plan, sometimes it just doesn't work out and you just have to roll with the punches. Even thought not a single thing went as planned, we were able to spend the entire day together as a family, and that was wonderful.

Watching Rio, highlight of their day!

Gabi saying "cheese" and super excited to watch Rio

4th Anniversary

November 17th we celebrated our fourth anniversary being married. In some ways time has gone by super fast- it seems like we were just newly weds finishing up college, scraping to get by, and living on dreams of the future. Some of that may still hold true, but it's amazing to compare where we are now to where we were four years ago. I heard a million times when we first were married, and madly in love, that we would continually look back on when we were first married and be amazed at how much our love had grown. I felt like I was bursting at the seams with love and didn't think it quite possible for the love to grow, and yet it has. We have two beautiful little girls and another on the way and a marriage I really only dreamed would be this wonderful. Life isn't perfect, not for a single one of us, but I like to think that for Isaac and I, "it's our imperfections which make us so perfect for one another." So here is to another wonderful year, and to eternity. I love you Isaac!