Christmas Eve with Christ

On this Christmas Eve, I've found myself stuck here in Connecticut alone, unable to travel home to Utah this year to visit my family as I typically do. I've been sitting in my apartment feeling the crushing loneliness surrounding me all evening and feeling very resentful of the holiday season when I have no one special to share it with this year.

Under my little Christmas tree in the corner of the room sat one solitary gift from my mother. I knew it was a book, as that has always been our Christmas Eve tradition. I also knew it would be a book to enrich my testimony as she has made it a habit of giving me wonderful gospel books.

As I sat there, feeling completely alone, I saw the book under my tree and knew it was time to open it. As I pulled the paper off I was instantly struck with the burning of The Spirit, just from the image on the cover:

One glimpse of the nail print in Christ's hand and I knew I'd found my company for the evening, I am not alone tonight, my Savior is with me.

I devoured the beautiful book, its a coffee table style book where the photographer has brilliantly captured significant moments of the life of Christ. The photographers story touched my heart and pictures brought tears to my eyes. There is also music (which I just bought on itunes...my "Christmas" music for this year) as well as a DVD (which I totally want as well).

The Website: http://www.reflectionsofchrist.org/

My two favorite photos:

Walking on Water

Resurrection

"He is not here: for he is risen." ~Matthew 28:6

Mom, thank you so much for this most wonderful of Christmas Eve books! I love you!!!

Snow, snow, a sore throat....oh yeah...and more snow!

Okay, so Thursday night the kids' school called a snow day for Friday. When I woke up on Friday morning our yard looked like this:

I know! What a blizzard!!! Thank goodness for a snow day huh??? *insert eye roll*

It was all okay though...we got to sleep in and have fun the whole day. The fun started with Alexander, my 6 yr old, suggesting that we make crepes for breakfast. I got very excited! Crepes are a *MAGICAL* food (according to Kate the Great - have I ever told you the story of how Kate once wrote a whole paper for my foods class on crepes? I haven't?? Well that's a fabulous story...remind me to tell you someday! haha) Anyway....the trouble was, I've never made crepes! And those who know me know that I'm not the greatest chef on the block (unless you want enchiladas....then watch out Food Network! You got nothin on me!) but I decided to be brave, looked up a simple recipe online and went to work. Low and behold my made-from-scratch crepes were a tremendous success! So yummy! I was quite proud of me! :D

Around lunch time we finally started getting the promised snow (kids could have totally done a half day but whatever!) and boy did it snow a ton! Quite the blizzard...so the kids and I played outside for awhile....even made snow angels on the tennis court! LOL

So thanks to the blizzard we've been stuck at home all weekend and thanks to the snow angels I've had a sore throat as well :( Ugh...nothing but chicken soup and herbal tea for me! Hopefully I'll be better soon!

Its A Waveny Park Christmas Buddy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Blessings & Happiness

So this past week I've received so many blessings I can't even count them! However, I need to mention the two that are the most significant and have brought the most tremendous joy!

The first was receiving my Endowment at the Manhattan Temple last Friday :)

The lead up to it was crazy and drove me nearly insane, I know that opposing forces were working on me right up till the moment I walked through the temple doors (as was evidenced when I burst into tears at the counter in the distribution center where I'm sure the lady who helped me thought I was a lunatic!) but once I was inside I felt so peaceful and calm and wonderful. The Spirit that day was stronger than I've ever felt it and having my mom by my side and my best friend there to hold my hand made it all the better! It was easily one of the most, if not THE most amazing and marvelous day of my life!

Sitting in the Celestial Room (yep, that's it in the pic!!) all I could think was how grateful I was for being there and the feeling I had there and how that moment wasn't worth trading for ANYTHING in the whole world. Not one single stupid sin could EVER be worth trading that moment! It was wonderful and I can't wait to go back again and again (starting with this Saturday!)

The second great blessing this week was my new little nephew: Elijah James Willis

Elijah James Willis
12-10-08
7 lbs.
19 Inches
Born: 10:01 am

Ward Thanksgiving

Half Way There!

So yesterday I had my Bishop Interview for my temple recommend! Yay! Just one more interview to go and it'll be official! I can't wait!

I went to the temple for baptisms again on Saturday which was really neat. I was supposed to be joining another youth group but they did not show up so I was the only one there. That meant I ended up getting to do about 3 times as many baptisms and confirmations as you normally do which was fun. I know after I go through for the other things I probably won't do baptisms very often so I'm glad I've been able to go each week and do a lot of those now.

The bishop asked me yesterday to make a goal for how many times I'll use my new recommend over the two years that its good for. I've decided to try and go twice a month so that's almost 50 times! Its a lot but I know I can make it happen. Going every week has been really nice and I may even try to keep that habit up but I figure if I shoot for twice a month that's more do able. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend! :)

Rain Rain, Go Away!

So the last few days have been depressingly dark and dreary here in CT and I can feel it starting to drag me down. I miss light during the day...it feels like constant evening here. I miss the sun and the energy it provides my life.

Other than that though things are going alright. Working on my temple preparations! Yesterday I read several chapters of scripture including Matthew 18 which talks about forgiveness. Last night at Institute we talked about the Beatitudes, more forgiveness and about proper communication with the Lord through the marvelous prayer! All good messages :)

I have a goal to try and read Matt, Mark, Luke and John all before going through the temple. My dear lovely Aubrey Dee has informed me that she feels the best way to prepare for the temple is to get to know The Savior so I felt reading through his life here on Earth would be a good way to help do that. I had also planned to read Jesus, The Christ but I've been horribly slacking on that one. I know its available on lds.org for audio download so perhaps I'll put it on my ipod and try to get through it in time that way.

Last Sat at the temple I talked to the distribution center and ordered my temple dress :) I'm getting very excited, its coming so fast! I can't wait for my mom and Aubrey to get here too! I need time with them very much...its been way too long!

Um....no words for this....lol

Okay, so tonight I went onto Facebook to check things out and discovered that a friend in my ward had some fun with a website he discovered...Volkswagon Babymaker!

We now have a folder full of babies that would be born in our singles ward if we all hooked up! lol I was looking through them and was quite surprised to discover that MY future offspring had been invented if I were to reproduce with my friend Rob....here's a pic of me and Rob:

And here is a picture of our...um....adorable?....baby, who apparently has been named Tayshaun HAHAHA

Too funny...I'm at a loss for words! Anyway if anyone else wants to see how they're babies might turn out check out the site...its hysterical! http://www.vw.com/vwhype/babymaker/en/us/

Oh and FYI: with the results it's sort of animated...not sure how my friend got just a normal pic of them...must be some sort of screen capture trick I don't know lol

My New Obsessions

So at my ward Halloween party a week or so ago I played Rock Band for the first time and oh my gosh I'm now sooooo addicted to it! I played it again this past Friday at another party and was sold...I went out this weekend and bought it! lol I'm rocking out on guitar...now if I can just figure out how to set up the silly drums cause I'm not good at playing those at all, I really need the practice! In the next week or two some girls from my ward want to get together at my house for a movie/rock band party :) That will be fun! Also in video game obsessions my other new favorite game is Singstar where two teams of karaoke players battle it out to see who sings better. We've been playing it in our ward at parties and even at FHE last night and it is such a blast! That's on my soon-to-purchase list as well haha

Another recently discovered obsession is these lovely little candy eggs.....caramel creaminess, marshmellow fluffiness, chocolatly covered heavenly delicious! Seriously....Cadbury has NOTHING on these things! Its very good for me that these are a seasonal item and now the season is over! lol

Last but certainly not least is my new joyous obsession with the Manhattan Temple! Not everyone is probably aware of it...its sort of been a quietly made decision, but I'm going to be going through the temple for my endowment in about a month. In preparation for this I've been visiting the temple to do baptisms every Saturday and have been loving it. The peace and calm I feel in the temple is so amazing. Right now I can feel opposing forces dragging me down, trying to keep this choice from happening, but when I'm in the temple all that force just melts away and I know I'm exactly where I need to be. Going to the temple is amazing! I love it and I'm so glad they built the Manhattan Temple so that I have one close by as I prepare for this big moment in my life.

Unexpected Company

Isabella, my little 4-yr-old I nanny is home sick today...her brother supposedly didn't get much sleep because he kept getting woken up by his sister so he's home to today "much too tired for school"....right, whatever lol I hope I'm never a parent that is that ridiculous!

Oh well, at least when they're sick you just spend the day relaxing. Right now we're watching Enchanted, this movie is excellent! haha

Welcome To My Blog!

My dearest friends and family...welcome to my blog! So lately I've been reading blogs from other friends here on Blogger and feeling rather jealous. Though my life isn't all that exciting and entertaining I still want to make my own blog just because I can...and it will give me something to do during my free time rather than be lazy (as shown above haha)

If nothing else, I'm way over here in CT and my dear family and many of my closest friends are in fact not way over here so I figure if nothing else you guys can all check this out and see how I'm doing out on the East Coast. I love you all, enjoy the blog!