Waving My White Flag

I've been thinking a lot lately about the kind of Woman and Mother. I want to be a Woman who dresses well with impeccable style. I want to be the perfect homemaker with a spotless house and home cooked meals. I want to have a perfectly organized day where my baby takes naps at the same time every day. (ha!) I want to plan the best parties with great attention to detail. I want to be a mother who provides an amazing childhood experience full of activities to remember a lifetime.

I've come to notice that all these things, while not seemingly wrong, were taking away from my happiness as I was putting too much importance on them and forgetting the most important of them all. When I think of the Woman I really want to be I know it's to be a righteous Daughter of God.  And when I meet Him face to face again, and I know I will, I want more than anything for the words I hear to be "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

What more could I really ask for? I can't. So I'm waving the white flag on myself. Time to start again and get my priorities straight.


Easier said than done however, I've had this feeling of my happiness has been taken from me for awhile.  I couldn't figure it out why even though the answer was whispering itself to me in the back of my head I ignored it and kept looking for other ways to fill it.  Everyone morning when I woke up the little voice would say Courtney if you would just do this you would feel so much better, but what did I do? The complete opposite. My eyes were completely blocked from what was really going on.

 As I was explaining this to David last night that I felt like I just couldn't get a grip on it, that I couldn't find my happiness, we concluded that our priorities have been off. We've been trying to build consistency in all the wrong places. In stead of trying to build a schedule for ouselves in this new life with a baby we needed to put God first. Then everything else would fall into place.

So simple. But even the best of us fall down and loose sight. So here is to a brand new day, for starting fresh and putting the most important things first, and being the people we really want to be. Like my Mother use to tell me, we are blessed to only have 24 hours in a day. Every day we get to start over and try again.


* please don't be concerned, I am doing well and am happy. Its just easier for me to understand my thoughts when they are written down and organized. It also helps me to move forward. 

Rivers Blessing

It's inevitable that whenever you see a baby blessing take place, you dream of your own baby being blessed one day. Even before you are married or pregnant, the dream is there. It's not so much that you've anticipated the blessing but what that day represents. For me it meant I had made it, years of correct choices, living worthy, and working hard so that I could make it to this day. Taking the steps to sealed in the temple to a worthy priesthood holder, creating a wonderful marriage, and then bringing this beautiful baby into the world who will one day hopefully be where I am today.

So as I watched David carry our baby up to the front of the chapel to be blessed, my heart swelled with joy and gratitude that I had finally made it to the place I've so longed to be. A wife and Mother.  

David gave a beautiful blessing and even though there were four other blessings that day that could have taken away from that special moment they didn't. We looked around for blessing outfits but in the end decided to just swaddle him in the blanket I had been making for this very day. Something I hope he will treasure way more since it was made out of love, even if it does get gradually shorter. 

We had a small luncheon after at our house with Davids family and a few friends. I wish I could have gotten more pictures for how hard I worked on it, but I was trying to hurry so people wouldn't have to wait. We did a simple lunch, something that I could prep mostly the night and morning before.

We love you Rivers Aiden! So glad you're finally here!!

Rambling thoughts on a Wednesday

Taken May 15th

I love being this kids mom even when he is screaming in my face and I'm not sure what to do and all I wish I could do was scream right along with him. I sometimes worry he got all my nasty traits, like impatience, quickly frustrated, and the ever so popular crying it out method. David is the complete opposite of all these things so lets hope Rivers takes after his amazing Dad. But really this week Rivers has loved testing out his vocal cords on Mama and as soon as Dad gets home it's all smiles and giggles. I'm hoping this is a growth spurt and will pass. 

It's interesting to me that Mothers are not valid more, and not looked at with more respect with all that they do, this motherhood thing is not for the faint of heart.  The constant question of so do you work? The judgemental faces of how do you help support your family? Don't you do hair anymore? Geez, if I were a lawyer you wouldn't be asking me if I was going to practice law out my house would you? Is it not enough that I sacrifice everything to be his mother, and that at the end of the day that's all I want to be. Must I do more? Really? A mother is who I am and what I do, I couldn't be more grateful for that. My place is with this new baby, and I'm going to give it everything I got. Because after this life that is what will count. 

I was reading a popular Mormon Mommy Blog, as they say, and she was talking about our Heavenly Mother in reflection of Mothers day. I myself have always believed we have a Heavenly Mother, I do not believe God could be God without her. But now that I am a mother she seems more real to me, and as I held Rivers today and thought of all the love I had for him, I thought my Heavenly Mother must feel this way about me and just as much as my Heavenly Father wants me to succeed so does She. I thought of how much I would miss Rivers if I had to send him away, and felt that this is how She must feel for both of us.  

I felt so re-assured of my calling as a Mother as I thought of Her today. I've heard it said that we don't necessarily know about our Heavenly Mother because God could and would not stand for us to speak badly of her. She is too sacred to our Heavenly Father and too important, and as I thought about that, I thought you know Women are pretty important to our Heavenly Father. From Him we are given much respect and the work we do is seen as important to Him. And that's enough for me.

A Gift

This tree sits beautifully right outside our house, and it can be seen from all three floors, the very top just reaching high enough to peak into our bedroom window and say hello. Right before Rivers was born David was mentioning how nice it will be when this tree finally blooms and fills our window space with beautiful flowers.

The day after we got back from the hospital I looked out the window and the tree had blossomed what seemed like over night, I couldn't believe how many flowers were on her. My first thought was oh how nice it's finally bloomed, but when I looked farther down the street to see if the rest of the trees had bloomed they had not. They were still completely and totally bare, not even an tiny sprout.

At first I thought this was odd, but then I got a feeling that this wasn't just an accident.  I realized that this tree was a gift from our Heavenly Father, announcing the birth our beautiful baby boy, not only we were excited that Rivers was finally here but so was Heavenly Father. So whenever I'm having a rough time or I think this is all too much or too hard I look outside and am reminded that my Father in Heaven is aware of me and Riversr and loves us so.

The Temple

 

35 Weeks

 

On Saturday we took a trip to Salt Lake to visit the temple we were married in almost 5 years ago this July. I really wanted to attend a session in "our temple" before he was born because after he comes it doesn't seem likely that we will leave him with someone while we make the trek to salt lake to do a session when there is a temple so nicely placed across the street from us.

I'm so glad we did too, not only is it just fun in general to visit the Salt Lake temple but having been sealed there it makes it all the more special and it was so fun to go now pregnant. Of course when we walked out of those temple doors for the first time as a newly married couple we knew children were in our future, but it was so cool to return actually on the path to becoming new parents.

One day we will take him back to visit and hopefully all of our other children as well and take yet another picture on those beautiful steps, and be a testimony to ourselves and others that families are forever and it all starts at the temple.

Primary

So we got called to teach Primary.... AGAIN!! Actually this is David's first time teaching primary and my 3rd!

I am so grateful that I am teaching with David instead of by myself this time, he is so good with the kids they just love him and think  he is all that! We teach the 5 year olds and they are too cute. A lot of the kids don't come but we have 5 that are always there. 4 girls 1 boy. The girls are so cute and always want to sit by me in sharing time haha. Each of their little personalities are so cute they had my laughing to tears last week.

With that said I am seriously curious as to what it is I am suppose to be learning that I've been called to teach Primary 3 times! I can't figure it out.

I really am grateful to be in primary it just makes me laugh everytime we are called, seriously when the bishop told us he wanted us to teach primary I just LAUGHED!!! Of course he did!!

Anyways David was King Benjamin last week and it was too funny, the kids of course LOVED him and just giggled through his entire presentation completely missing the point, and instead asking him how he has lived so long.... we tried. 

Our time spent in Seattle

Warning: This post is extremely long, and written 100% for myself and future self to remember.

 

I know this is really cliche to say but I can't believe how quickly this past year went. It seems like nothing and everything has happened. As we often do at the beginning of a new year I started to reflect on everything that happened this past year, and got really focused into our time spent in Seattle and before I knew it had written our entire Seattle story. It feels good to have it written down, it was such a difficult time in our lifes, and I feel like it has taken me a whole year to see the purpose of the whole experience. So I was able to write it with a clear mind. I do write this as though all of this knowledge came to me while we were still in Seattle, however it took this entire year for me to figure this out. Slowly it came together, while Heavenly Father continued to mold me into who he wants me to be as he does on a daily basis.

The beginning of 2012 was really hard on us, or at least me. David had just finished his last chemo treatment, was graduating, and we got rid of everything we owned to fit what we could in our little car for the move to Seattle. We had felt like Seattle was the place for us to go after feeling prompted that we shouldn't move to New York. However from the second we got to Seattle it felt wrong, I was so caught up in being out of Rexburg it was hard to recognize those promptings from the spirit and I believe Heavenly Father took the time to teach us a lesson since I was so unwilling to listen.

We arrived in Seattle a week before Christmas and  immediately started the hunt for an apartment in downtown Seattle,  something to remove the gaping hole in my heart that was no longer the dream of New York. We found the most amazing apartment and I honestly felt like this was the apartment the  Heavenly Father had saved from the moment we felt prompted not to go to New York. A peace offering if you will. He was giving me the New York City without being in New York, I took it as a peace offering and I gladly accepted.

 

(view from our balcony)

But really that's just what I had hoped for. Since New York wasn't possible I was going to get it somewhere else. I could still have the downtown apartment and the city life if I looked hard enough. I believe He let me feel good about this apartment as I pleaded on my knees that he would allow us to have it. I was too broken to come to my senses and he knew it, so he let me have it.

Our apartment couldn't have been better, we lived right above the hustle and bustle of Seattle. Our back door opened up to the famous Pike Place Market and I couldn't have been happier. Only I wasn't. 

Shortly after things were not working out, David didn't get the job we thought for sure he was going to get, and I never heard back from the salon I interviewed at before Christmas. We spent our days exploring our new city, riding the free bus, and getting soaked in Seattles daily rainstorms. We drank hot chocolate and ate cookies at the first ever Starbucks, we received our downtown Seattle library cards and searched its never ending sea of books. We got our produce from Pike Place Market and at night we cooked dinner in our tiny studio apartment and watched Downtown Abbey season two on Davids phone in bed.

Looking back we were not happy, it was an extremely difficult time but we didn't even realize it.  The spirit was trying to speak to us but we would not listen.

Eventually there was a breakthrough. An extremely random job offer in Rexburg came to us shortly after New Years and for the first time in a long time there was hope. We went to the temple almost daily seeking guidance as to weather we should take the job or not. I mean didn't we feel like Seattle was the place we should be, why would He want us to move back to where we just came from?

In those frequent temple visits my heart was softened and I felt at peace with the decision to move back to the place we so desperately craved to get away from. This time it was different though, this time we were making the decision to move back and we were excited.

We spent our last month in Seattle hanging out with Davids parents, and chatting about our new life in Rexburg. There would be an actual income, we could afford to do things. I would go back to school and get my degree. We were able to quickly find an apartment in Rexburg that allowed pets and I was able to secure a job at a salon. Things were looking up. We did end up spending our entire savings on getting out of our contract in Seattle and moving everything we had boughten for the new apartment back to Rexburg. We didn't care though, we were on a mission to do what the Lord had wanted all along, the path that would bring us true happiness.

We were finally able to follow his will instead of the path we thought we should take. And even though I look back at our time in Seattle and wish there could have been an easier way I am so grateful for the hard lesson our Heavnely Father taught us. Because of it I have learned to rely one hundred percent on his guidance, I know we are in the place he wants us to be and I don't look for something better because I know there isn't one. It has allowed us to be a peace with where we are going and allowed us to see that there are more important things than the city you call home.  Most importantly we are bringing a new life into the world because of our obedience to His will, and that will be our greatest adventure yet. 

Moments That Matter Most

 


"Diligently doing the things that matter most will lead us to the Savior of the World"

We watched this at the end of my parenting class, and I couldn't help be but completely overwhelmed with gratitude to my Heavenly Father for this beautiful life that I lead. For the gospel in my life and all the joy that it brings me. For the knowledge of eternal families and that if proven worthy I will be able to return to my Father in Heaven to live with him again.