Woogy!

One of my favorite traditions is taking pictures of my friend Liza and her cat Woogy for her Valentine's Day cards.

Woogy is a very silly cat, but also beautiful!

It's so fun catching up with Liza and wandering around our old neighborhood.

#3

Before January was over, we found out that we were pregnant once again. I start feeling symptoms more than a week before I can take a pregnancy test. I can't really describe the feeling, it's just different than how I normally feel though sometimes it's accompanied by some of the typical symptoms of increased sense of smell, fatigue, and queasy stomach. I started feeling symptoms in the middle of the month and had to wait well over a week before I took the test.

Early Sunday morning, I had a clearly positive pregnancy test. It was a relief to see the two lines, but it also came with some anxiety. I've been here before and I wasn't sure how long this baby was going to stick around. I called my Reproductive Endocrinologist for an appointment. (The previous summer I saw a Reproductive Endocrinologist because I thought I might have endometriosis. Even though it seemed like I had it from my symptoms, I had surgery just to find out nothing was wrong. After my post-op visit he said to call him after I had a positive pregnancy test.) Dr. M was happy to see us and together we saw our teeny tiny baby at 4 weeks 5 days.

Aaron is that tiny white blob in that dark blob in the middle of the picture. At that point he was too young to have a heartbeat, but it was clear that a baby was there. Again I immediately felt relief, but still that anxiety of how long was this baby really going to stay with us creeped in again.

After the ultrasound, I had my least favorite part. The blood draw! I had a hard time with it the previous summer in the lead up to my surgery and this time was no different. My veins are not the easiest to get and so it took four different sites to finally get the sample.

This is our first family picture as the three of us.

In spite of the anxiety I was feeling, I wanted to record as much as I could of this pregnancy. I don't have any pictures from my first pregnancy and I haven't made that mistake again.

Jonathan was very happy that tiny baby A wanted In N Out.

Instead of making this one huge post, I'm going to break it down into where it fits with other things that were going on in our lives.

One More Time

 We made it one more time to the temple during 2020.

It was a sweet experience as we served not realizing that it was the last time until who knows when. I am grateful that we take advantage of going to the temple as often as we do. That way I don't feel any guilt now that I can't go.

One day the temple will be open again and we will go as often as we can!

We Did It All!

I have had a kind of an idea/goal/dream of doing all of the ordinances of the temple in one visit for a few years now. Well January 2020, we made it happen! We got there in the late afternoon and headed for the baptistry. It's been a long time since we've done baptisms thanks to my nephews that are old enough to go to the temple in California.

It was a wonderful experience especially since we haven't been able to go like we used to.

 

Six hours later, we were all done!

I am so grateful to do this work for my family. Each and everyone of them matter and deserve to choose whether or not they want to follow Jesus Christ's example. It's been hard not being able to go to the temple like we used to, but eventually we will be back and doing more work for our family.

Riding Around

Jonathan and I spent quite a bit of time during the rest of his Christmas vacation riding our bikes. We rode around the bike trails in our town.

On New Year's Day, we started out with a delicious breakfast and then took our bikes to ride around in Austin.

I enjoy the view of the city from across the river.

At the end of our ride, we found a few murals and had to take pictures with the Winnie the Pooh one.

We love the mild winter weather that enables us to ride all year long!

Merry Christmas!

We're finally to Christmas! We had a nice and quiet Christmas Eve with a yummy cheese board and more Christmas movies.

In the morning, we opened presents and ate delicious homemade breakfast tacos.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too!

Another Early Christmas Present

 I almost never know what I want for gifts. It makes things difficult for Jonathan, but a few days before Christmas I realized that I really wanted a bike. I did some research and found the one I wanted and we picked it up a couple of days before Christmas.

We rode to the library and found that they had a library bike!

Riding a bike makes me feel free like I did when I was a kid. I may not go as fast as I did back then, but I still enjoy it!

After Church Presents

I didn't realize so much happened in December 2019! I'm glad that I'm taking the time to go through it and remember now. In the lead up to Christmas, we attended church for our Christmas service.

After we got home, we opened a couple of Christmas presents early. I don't feel any guilt about it because they were both food. First up was a pound of one of our favorite See's Candies.

The other was an entire jar of my absolute favorite hot salsa from a family owned restaurant back in California. I'm still working on finding a Texas alternative, but until that happens luckily I have family willing to send it to me.

I don't know who was more excited about these gifts, but they were delicious!

 

Kind Of A Big Deal

Jonathan and I hardly ever go to the movies. Neither one of us pays much attention to what's coming out, so we just don't think about it. Jonathan saw that a new WWII movie was coming out and he wanted to see it. Lucky for Jonathan, that is one of my favorite genres of movies and so we went and saw Midway. I was more excited about it because I don't know much about the Pacific theater of the war and wanted to know more.

I really enjoyed the movie and Jonathan was happy with the accuracy of it. The only problem he really had with it was when the plane wings would touch the water. If that happened in real life, the planes would crash into the water. Besides that, it was a very realistic war movie and I plan on watching it again.

Christmas Time is Here With Lasers

Back when we still lived in Utah, my mom sent me the letters for the Christmas song that is in the Charlie Brown movie. I did my best with sticking it to the wall, but it wasn't perfectly level.

Well in 2019, we broke out the laser level that we got from my grandpa and it made the process so much easier!

Of course, I don't have a picture of the whole saying, but this is the best one I have!

Little Bethlehem

We found another new Christmas tradition in 2019. The First Baptist Church of Burnet has an interactive nativity of downtown Bethlehem. We drove out there early and stumbled on a Christmas activity in the town square.

I don't know where it came from, but they had snow that kids were playing in.

They were also raffling off bikes for kids of various sizes.

The line was reminiscent of the various lines at Disneyland, but it moved rather quickly. Once we were inside, it really felt like we were transported to a different time. There were Romans, tax collectors, people baking bread, others were weaving baskets. It was very impressive.

In the distance was the new star that marked the birth of Jesus Christ.

We followed it and eventually found Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

It was a really cool experience and I hope that it comes back for this Christmas.

Last Visit for the Year

We started the month of December with our last trip to the San Antonio Temple for the year. Before we went inside, we took a family picture for our Christmas card. I love the beautiful stained glass windows there and wanted to have them in our picture. The way the light comes through the tree reminds me of the tree of life that Lehi saw in vision.

After we finished an endowment session, we sat in the celestial room together. This is one of my favorite parts of spending time in the temple. I take time to ponder about my life and pray for direction from the Lord. It is such a peaceful place.

Christmas Ornaments

In the build up for Christmas 2019, I felt strongly that we needed to add more traditions that focus on Jesus. I had extra clay from a project I did years ago and finally knew what to use it for! We rolled it out to make Christmas ornaments and stamp some of the names of Jesus that are found in the scriptures.

After they finished baking, I used a black sharpie so the names would stand out.

I plan on adding more each time we find more of His names as we study the scriptures.

Dusting Off The Cobwebs

 I looked at my last post here and was shocked to see that it was all the way back to November 2019. A lot has changed both in our lives and in the world. 

We finally used our cookie jar for cookies back in November 2019!

One reason why I stepped away from blogging was because I was trying to figure out how social media fits into my life. I'm still trying to figure it out, so we'll see how much I use this old blog. 

This is our family this past November.

For now, I plan on going back and recording what has happened since my last post since this is kind of a family journal.