Father’s Day 2017

I don’t have too many pictures for Father’s day, but I definitely had some I wanted to share ;)

It was so nice to have John home for most of the day – he had canceled his extra meetings before church so we got to have him home in the morning AND he didn’t have interviews in the afternoon, so we got him for most of the afternoon too!

In my opinion, John is really hard to shop for (he’ll tell you he’s really easy, he says wants a truck and a racing bike and he’s good ;) ) but I managed to find some fun things for me and the boys to give him. My favorite though, was this really awesome car track massage shirt – it has a little car track on the back of the shirt, so John puts it on, lays on his stomach and the boys play cars on his back, giving him a massage. Brilliant, right?!

It worked great until - Spencer decided to sit on John’s head…

I think they all still had fun, I think John’s used to being a human jungle gym by now. ;)

We are sooooo lucky to have John, he is seriously such a wonderful husband and Daddy to our boys. We love you!!

Berry Picking!

We LOVE 3-day weekends! To celebrate our 3-day weekend, Independence Day AND John's birthday, we went berry picking at one of our favorite places: Larriland Farms. We've been several times now, for apples, peaches, and we picked berries last year with my family as well. It is just so fun and we always end up dreaming about what kind of garden we'd like to have someday. :)

Each time we go Nathan is a little older and this was probably the best trip yet for him, now that he's figured it out a little more and we had to slow him down a little on the raspberries - he just kept eating them! But we had a very fun time.

We also tried out the cherries this year, and we started with that.

We found a smaller cherry tree with low hanging branches with LOTS of cherries to pick that was perfect for Nathan. He loved it! We had to stop him after we'd filled our container.

 He even tasted one! Though he kept calling them grapes. ;)

After cherries, we headed over to the raspberry bushes and picked black and red raspberries. The black raspberries quickly became Nathan's favorite and we had to keep him from eating too many while we picked! We think he had a pretty good time though.

It was getting pretty hot by the time we finished, but we had so much fun! Can't wait to go back for peaches and blackberries again next month!!

All Tied Up

I actually made most of these a while ago, I just kept forgetting to pull them out of Nathan's dresser to take pictures, but I have been wanting to show you all the cute ties I've been making!

I've mentioned before that the fact that I have boys does not stop me from dressing them up and I love having Nathan looking dapper for church. So I found this tutorial through pinterest and made up a tie or two. Then realized that I had so much fun and it turned out so well that I went a little crazy and made a bunch more. At this rate, Nathan will have more ties than John! ;)

(sorry for the bad lighting - it's rainy and gloomy today...)

Aren't they so fun?! They are a little big, but I wanted them that way so that he could grow into them and he'd have lots of ties for months to come!

I also ended up making a grown-up-sized tie for my brother as his graduation/birthday present this year. He picked Star Wars fabric and I must say it turned out pretty awesome. I used this tutorial to make this tie. It was skinnier than I had expected, but Cameron doesn't seem to mind.

After making most of these I thought it would be SO FUN to make John and Nathan matching ties for Father's day. I cleared this with John first, asking if he'd actually wear a tie I'd made and one that matched with Nathan. He was all for it (yessss) and I let him pick the fabric so that it would be something he'd actually wear. I used the same tutorial as the one for my brother's.

Aren't they so stinking adorable handsome?!? Love them!

Soooo fun! I'm going to have to make Spencer a bow tie to match the other two!  :)

Called to Serve

Heavenly Father has a funny sense of humor sometimes. I didn't think that my summer/life could get any crazier this year.

He likes to prove me wrong. I shouldn't have said anything ;)

Today John was sustained and set apart as the new bishop of our ward. For those who might not know what I am talking about, our local church congregations are called wards, and the presiding leader of each ward is called the bishop. The church is operated by unpaid clergy, and we call these assignments to serve 'callings'. We also believe in continuing revelation, meaning that God still speaks to us today. He speaks to us on a personal level, as well as to the leaders of the church, inspiring them on to whom to give specific callings.

Two weeks ago we were asked to meet with the Stake President. (A group of wards in an area is called a stake and is presided over by a Stake President). Knowing that our current bishop was moving away I had a couple of guesses on what the meeting was about. Before we went to the meeting, we joked that Nathan was probably going to be asked to be the Stake Nursery Snack Coordinator. He'd be so good at that!

Then the call to be the bishop came. I was floored. I thought maybe it would be a stake level calling, or a counselor to the new bishop, but I hadn't actually expected John to be asked to be the new bishop. It is such an enormous responsibility. John accepted the call, as I knew he would. Then I was asked if I could support him in his calling. I said yes. But I will be completely honest with you - with a toddler and a new baby coming in a month, it was (and still is) a leap of faith to say yes.

After our (rather emotional) meeting we came home, went about the rest of our Sunday, and tried to process what we had just agreed to. A feeling of peace came over me that afternoon, and I knew that this is what God wanted for the ward and for our family. That doesn't necessarily stop me from being slightly terrified, but at the end of last year we were thinking of moving out of state, closer to family. Somewhere during that time we both felt impressed that we needed to stay in the area, and so we found a new apartment in the area to accommodate our growing family. But since then I had wondered why we needed to stay. I started wondering if it was for the baby, maybe we needed to stay and have the baby here with the financial/health benefits we receive from John's job. But now I think this is why. The Lord already knew that our ward would need a new bishop and that He wanted John to be that new bishop.

So this weekend John was presented to the ward as the new bishop for the sustaining vote (when people receive new callings, their names are given to the ward and the members of the ward are called to sustain, or to support that person in the capacity in which they have been asked to serve) and the ward was unanimous in their support. Never have I been so grateful for the support of my ward. It was also Fast Sunday today (once a month, we come to church fasting for at least 2 meals that day and the money that we would have spent on those meals is donated to help the needy. During church that day members of the ward are invited to share their testimonies of the gospel and the Savior) and I was overwhelmed with the support given along with the wonderful testimonies. Up until now, John has been serving as the Young Men's president and it was really sweet of the several young men that came up and shared their testimonies and showed their support for John. It was also so wonderful to have my in-laws and my parents in town to be there as support (it also really helped to have so many people to keep Nathan entertained after John had to go sit up front!).

Afterwards, so many people came up and offered their love and support to me as well and I wish I could have articulated right at those moments how much that meant to me. My emotions were a little too close to the surface at that point. ;) So I hope some of them are reading this now. Thank you so much for your words of love, comfort, and support. Being a military brat, I have lived in many different wards in my lifetime, but I have never felt more at home than in this ward and never so strengthened by my ward family until today. Thank you doesn't really even begin to cover it.

I still don't really know how we're going to make everything work, but I do know that God is aware of me and my family and that He knows what we need and will take care of us. It will take some getting used to our new normal but I am grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow and strengthen my relationship with my Savior.

But if you want to keep us in your prayers for the next couple of weeks, we'd really appreciate it. ;)

Holidays 2014 Catch Up

Oof, I have a lot to catch up on! Get ready, this is a crazy long picture-filled post!

I guess to start, just in case you hadn’t noticed on facebook…

We’ve expecting Baby #2!! Due at the beginning of July! We are so excited! We found out at the end of October. November and December were that much more exhausting for me, but I took the opportunity to put together a pretty adorable (if I do say so myself) Christmas card this year since we announced it in December:

Hee hee hee

November was totally crazy. I taught a cookie decorating class for Relief Society, made Alice in Wonderland Cookies, and got ready for a pop-up boutique shop that I was doing with a friend. Then we spent Thanksgiving with my family in Virginia. Nathan and I actually spent about 10 days there because my parents were putting in tile flooring in their kitchen and long story short, they suddenly needed an adult present at home while the contractors worked (as both my parents work) so we went down a little early to be there while the flooring went in and then John came down for Thanksgiving. It was about that time that I started to get really hungry and tired and slightly carsick if I hadn’t eaten. But we had a fairly good time and a yummy turkey dinner and pie night and Nathan loved being at Nana’s house.

December was really crazy too. My friend Karen had invited me to participate in a little boutique she was putting together at her house the first weekend on December. I made 20 felt play sets to sell, as well as some sugar cookies. I started work on the play sets in October, but still barely managed to get them all done in time! The boutique was awesome though (aaaaaannnnnd I have some play sets leftover for sale if anyone is interested!!). The apartment was completely overhauled to make room for all the fun crafts we had to sell.
I also had to help put together our Relief Society activity for December, and though it felt kind of thrown together, it still turned out nice. We had a yummy ham dinner and a musical program. Once that was done, most of my holiday craziness was over. Thank goodness! Then I was really able to enjoy the Christmas season with John and Nathan. It was a lot more fun with Nathan this year since he’s bigger and can do more things.  We took him to the train garden at the Ellicott City Volunteer Fire Department and he loved it!

We also met up with my family to go to the German Christmas Village in downtown Baltimore. Wasn’t quite the same, but the pretzels we pretty good. ;) I didn’t get many pictures since it was already really dark when we got there.

On Christmas Eve we went to see the temple lights. Nathan seemed to enjoy it more than I thought he would, and he really liked the life-size nativity display.

Christmas morning was so fun! We were going to be spending a week in PA with my family right after Christmas, so we decided to spend Christmas day as just the 3 of us and it was really nice. I had a lot of fun putting the presents out under the tree after Nathan had gone to bed on Christmas Eve :)
Look at that cute face!!
Are those for me?!
We got him a super cool Melissa and Doug shopping cart and a couple of books this year.
Grandma and Grandpa Moffat got him a play cash register and a riding scooter!
Nathan was having a hard time figuring out the scooter at first, so John took it upon himself to show him how it’s done…
Can’t have pictures of Christmas without a picture of the aftermath! John got me a spiffy tool belt for my building projects and this awesome apple peeler/corer/slicer thing. It’s pretty awesome. And my parents and in-laws got me a new stainless steel cookware set! It’s amazing. And shiny.
My in-laws and I went halfsies and got John a home theater sound system. He was pretty excited! After Nathan went down for a nap we set it up, and had to literally fish the wires behind the media center to get it to all fit – hence the fishing pole.
One of my favorite parts of the day was getting some cuddles from my non-cuddly Little Man!

We spent most of the rest of the day facetiming with family and hanging out. We finished the day with a steak dinner (I’m thinking we might need to do that every year) and packing for our PA trip!

We made the drive up the day after Christmas. On the way there we stopped in a little bitty village called Cumbola, which is where one of John’s ancestor’s was born. I want to say this ancestor was the first born in the US in that line.

Fist Bump for family history

It took us about an hour longer than it was supposed to (lots of food and potty breaks for the pregnant girl here), but Nathan did extremely well in the car. Once we were checked in, Nathan wasted no time in checking out the condo’s amenities.
On our first full day we went to a town called Easton, which was about an hour and a half away (PS – our condo was nice, but in the middle of no where, no joke) to the Crayola Experience. It was like a big activity center. I think it was definitely better suited to older children, but Nathan still had a good time and the rest of us really enjoyed it.

The world’s largest crayon!
He’s a little more into it now, but Nathan didn’t have much interest in coloring while we were there.
You could make your own markers and watch how they are made and put together.
At the gift shop they had allllll the colors they make on display and what year they came out. They had tins that you could fill, customizing which colors you wanted. Papa ended up getting us a tin of crayons and markers! We managed to get at least one of every single color and most of the markers. Thanks Papa!
Quick photo bomb by the brother…
Nathan loved the marker display
And they had this cool crayon crosswalk…
We also went to the movies a couple of times to see Night at the Museum 3 and the last Hobbit movie. we played games and I binge-watched HGTV. We don’t have cable so whenever we’re on vacation I watch as much of it as I can and I don’t feel bad because I hardly ever watch TV. ;)  And Nathan got a haircut (he was getting so shaggy!!!)
And while my Mom was away for a day to go to a wedding in Vegas, the rest of us went to a pretzel factory (relatively) close to where we were staying. I joked that I was so hungry, I was going to eat like 5 pretzels…and then actually ate 4. I was really hungry…and they were super tasty!
We could watch them make the pretzels through these large windows.
Someone also came out and gave us some dough to try to make the pretzel twist. It’s been forever since I shaped pretzels as an intern at pastry school, but I don’t think I did too badly. ;)
Afterwards we bought pretzels to eat and Nathan hung out on this sweet bike he found while we were eating.
On New Year’s Day most of the family went skiing. I was a little bummed I couldn’t go (with the baby and all) but I needed to stay home with Nathan anyway and it didn’t really snow while we were there, so all of it was man made…and I don’t think I really missed much. ;)

And then it was time to go home! Nathan loved being able to see my family that whole week, I think he’s missing all the extra attention now that we are home. ;) It’s good to be back but it’s been tough coming back to reality!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!