Christmas festivities!

Merry Christmas! It came and went so fast and I had such an amazing time with my family! On my dad's side of the family we have Swedish blood running through our veins so we have many Swedish traditions! Almost all of our traditions are during Christmas Eve (except when we sing the Swedish birthday song) and basically all of our Christmas festivities are Swedish.

We usually get together during the evening around 6 and have dinner. It is a very humble meal. It definitely is not my favorite! I remember asking my dad why we couldn't have good food and he responded by telling me that we eat these foods as remembrance of our ancestors and that it was probably an amazing dinner to them. He also told me we eat the humble meal as remembrance of Christ's humble beginning, so I try not to complain too much. Some of the things we eat are Korv, (a sort of sausage-like food) Lutfisk, (which is a fish), and boiled potato chunks. The bottom left photo is Swedish Cake. We usually cook those all December and when we were younger we used make a TON of them and hand them out to everyone in the St. George Police Department and our neighborhood. They are my favorite!

After dinner we eat rice pudding and everyone has to say a poem. It usually consista of something like "Rice is nice especially with spice. Thank goodness I don't have lice!" Some of us go all out and some of us are totally lame (me). My poem this year was.. "This rice is fantastic.. there is a new movie coming out about a park called Jurassic". Lame right? haha! Once you say your poem you can dig in to your pudding. There is an almond in one of the bowls and whoever gets it gets good luck for the year! This year Luke got the almond! Lucky! 

After dinner we gather around the tree and have a Christmas program. Everyone has to participate or NO presents! Someone usually reads in Luke 2, my dad usually plays the guitar, I read "The Three Trees" book, and everyone else does something Christmas-like! 

After the program we open presents! Yes we open presents on Christmas Eve! Well half of them. Basically we open gifts from each other on Christmas Eve and the rest from Santa on Christmas Day. My dad is the unofficial official distributor of the presents.

Its Emma's first Christmas! Christmas with a child is so much better! It was so fun to watch her tear into the presents and look at all the fun gifts. My family got her some great stuff!

I really didn't want to go home Christmas Eve night so I slept on the couch while Trevor slept on the floor at my parents. I couldn't sleep AT ALL! I seriously slept like 1-2 hours.. I must have been excited for Santa! ha.. So we all woke up around 7 and went upstairs to see what Santa brought us! Santa brought Emma a walker! She doesn't know if she likes it or not yet.. We had breakfast and played with all of our new things! It was such an amazing Christmas! It was so fun to have my Uncle, Aunt, cousins, and grandparents there! My nieces and two families came to our Christmas Eve program, too. 

I'm so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ. I love Christmas and the spirit of Christ that we all feel during the holidays. I hope to keep that feeling all year long. I'm so very grateful for his atoning sacrifice that he made for us so that we can return to live with him. I love my Savior. Merry CHRISTmas!

Grateful

My heart is just so extremely full right now. I am feeling so grateful! I have such amazing people in my life and I really don't know how I got to be so lucky to have so many amazing people here on this earth with me. I know Heavenly Father knew I couldn't make it through this life without these people! I seriously want to cry right now out of gratitude! I am so grateful I have the gospel in my life as well. It scares me to imagine what my life would be like without it. Seeing the blessings and happiness I get just by doing what's right makes me want to share that with the world!  It's so true that if we do what's right we can be blessed! I'm not saying I'm doing everything right because I'm so far from that, but I think I'm a lot better than I used to be. I've been on both sides of doing what's right and not doing things I probably should.. And I can see a huge difference! I'm so grateful for the Atonement so that the things I did in the past can be washed away and I can start again! Can you imagine if we didn't have that? I'd be in so much trouble! But we do and I'm so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins so we can repent and be clean again. I'm so grateful to have a Heavenly Father who loves me and is always there for me. It is so comforting. No matter how hard life gets its so reassuring to know I can always turn to him. I love my relationship with him and I'm so grateful I have one. Sometimes I get discouraged.. like I wish I had money to do that.. oh, I hate the way my stomach looks.. yikes, I wish my crooked teeth weren't so messed up.. I wish I had that car.. Or whatever it may be.. And I just have to stop and think about how much I have in this life! A relationship with my Heavenly Father, the gospel, an amazing husband who loves me, a beautiful daughter, the best parents and siblings a girl could ask for, great friends, good health, a home, car, and good job for my husband. I have so much. Anyway.. I guess what I'm trying to say is.. I'm so grateful for all that I have. 

Emma's Blessing Day

Emma was blessed yesterday by Trevor at my parents house. Unlike herself, she screamed the entire time. It was actually pretty funny. Poor Trevor. Even through the screaming, he did such an amazing job! I'm so grateful that Trevor is worthy to hold the priesthood and give Emma a blessing. The reason we waited so long to bless her was because my cousin got married on Saturday and so a lot of my family were in town so we decided to make it the same weekend. It was a great experience and Emma looked like a little princess!

For Eternity!

Trevor and I had the wonderful opportunity to go through the St. George, Utah Temple yesterday! It was such an amazing experience. I love the Temple. It was so great to make it there finally. We did everything that day instead of splitting it up but it was so worth it. Getting sealed to Trevor was amazing, I was trying so hard not to start bawling. It is so nice to know that we are sealed and will be together forever! Especially now that we are about to have a baby! It definitely was one of the most amazing days of my life! I could not stop smiling afterword. Again, I love the Temple. I can't wait to go back! We had such great support for us as well. We have amazing people in our lives, thats for sure! I'm so grateful that we were able to go and I'm so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice so that we could make it there. My testimony of Christ has grown so much in just one day! I love this gospel and I'm so grateful for it in my life! Wow.. such an fantastic day.

31 weeks and other things!

How far along?

31 weeks!

Total weight gain? 

Wow.. I really hate this question. Let's just say.. a lot. 

Maternity clothes? 

I definitely can't fit in to most of my shirts, but I've made it work with only a few maternity shirts and leggings. Thank heavens for thrift stores. Seriously.

Stretch marks? 

No and I'm wondering how that is possible because I swear one day I just blew up like a balloon. 

Sleep? 

Oh it's been HORRIBLE!! My sleep schedule is so messed up. I guess that it's a good thing that it's happening now so I won't be TOO surprised by the sleep changes when the baby comes. 

Best moment this week? 

It was mine and Trevor's 1 year anniversary this week! We got to go to the temple to do baptisms! I've missed it so much. It was so fun to go with Trevor! Also, Trev and I registered! It was fun. 

Miss anything? 

Hmm.. hot tubs, running, sleep, eating what I want.

Movement? 

She is going to be a little runner, I swear. Or a black belt in karate. She is starting to hurt this mama!

Food cravings? 

Anything salty. Probably because I'm trying to lay off the salt because my face, hands, and feet are soooo swollen!!

Anything making you queasy or sick? 

Only when I'm nervous for something..

Gender? 

Girl! Can I say how fun it is to shop for girls? I have a hard time stopping myself when I see something cute! She already has a huge chest full of clothes. Spoiled already. 

Labor signs? 

No, I don't think so.

Symptoms? 

No energy.

Belly button in or out? 

It totally depends on her position. Sometimes it sticks out way bad, and then other times its in.

Wedding rings on or off? 

On for now.. but it's getting to the point that I may have to take it off!

Happy or moody most of the time? 

I've had a couple of days of being cranky, but other than that I've been so extremely happy!

Looking forward to? 

My baby shower! It's in a week and a half and I am getting so impatient! I just love decorating for parties, so it's been fun finding all the cute pink things :)

 Luke, Trevor, Me, & Breanne. It was so much fun to go back and do baptisms! It was so fun being there with Trevor. Don't mind my nasty hair.. Also I looked like a hippo in my jumpsuit! It was quite funny.

 Registering at Target! The best place ever!

 We went to fiesta fun.. Trevor was like a kid.

 Hitting baseballs at fiesta fun!

 We went to Sakura for our anniversary dinner since our favorite place Samurai 21 closed. They are pretty close to the same thing though so we were satisfied. 

 My beautiful flowers Trevor bought me! They are still alive and look just as beautiful!

For our girls night we made these fun crafts!

Jayden & Payton's Baptism

Yesterday my nieces Jayden (11) and Payton (8) were baptized and today they were confirmed members of the church and received the Holy Ghost! It was such an amazing experience. I'm so glad that I was able to be a part of the process and go through the missionary lessons with them. The missionaries we had were so amazing and I'm so glad they were there for Jayden and Payton. I'm so glad that it was their decision to be baptized and how excited and happy they were. They are such great girls and are such great examples to me and all their friends. They definitely emulate the love of Christ to all those around them. My brother Luke (their uncle) baptized and confirmed them. It was such a cool experience. I'm just so proud of them and girls they are becoming!