R+C=Love

David went on his mission to Southern California. He met several great families/people that he keeps in touch with. One of these great people is a darling girl named Rashelle. She ended up moving up here not long after David got home from his mish to go to school so we've been able to hang out and see here every now and then. Recently she got married to a great guy named Colby. They're so perfect together and we loved being a part of their big day. We got to go to her sealing in the morning which was so special. I love watching others sealings since I remember nothing from my own. It happened to be like -9 outside (maybe I'm exaggerating a little..but it was cold) so we didn't stick around the temple long but of course we went to the reception that night to continue the fun. I'm so happy for these two and can't wait for several date nights with them in the future! Here is the gorgeous couple...and me. David was taking the pic.

Tender Mercies

Today David spoke in church. It was about Tender Mercies. I was so proud of him. His talk included doctrine, excerpts from Elder Bednar's talk in 2005, and personal stories. I love having a husband that I can learn from and grow in the gospel with. I'll be the first to admit that I am no expert when it comes to the gospel. Far from it. Today I learned a tender mercy is anytime the Lord gives you personal answers to prayers, strength, guidance, assurance, consolation, support, and blessings of every kind. That means I am receiving tender mercies from the Lord all the time. He is ever present in our lives and I'm going to make more of an effort to recognize the daily tender mercies I receive from Him.

Woke up to this

Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen? I asked him to make my sandwich for me last night because I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed. I woke up to this in our fridge. He's freaking darling.

Do you smell that?

Natural Gas. Yep, I smelled it. I woke up around 4:30 or so yesterday morning to go to the bathroom. I smelled it instantly and wondered what it was and where it was coming from. I know what natural gas smells like but recently (this is gross btw) we had a weird smell in the basement and it turned out to be a dead mouse in our walls. The smell was VERY similar to a natural gas smell unless you got close (which I didn't) and then you smelled the rotting I guess. So when I smelled the gas I thought maybe there is another dead mouse down there and its next to our heater or something so its coming through the vents. I don't know why I thought that, I was half asleep! I woke up for work and it was still there so I woke David up. He got up and smelled all the vents. He went downstairs, in the garage, in all the rooms. It was definitely coming through our vents. He said he didn't think it was a problem. I was skeptical as I drove off to work thinking, you don't smell gas for no reason. There has got to be a problem somewhere. I called David when I knew he was up and told him he had to call the gas company to come check it out just in case. It wouldn't cost us anything and its better to be safe then sorry. He said when he woke up he hadn't really smelled it anymore so he thought it was fine. I felt really unsettled about it so I asked him to call just to make me happy. A couple hours later I got a call from the good old hubs saying he was leaving work because the gas company came to our house and the gas reading was off the charts high so we definitely had a leak somewhere that needed to be taken care of right away. They shut off our gas (that includes our heat...did they know its winter??) And started digging up the line outside to trace where it was coming from. David hung out at the house in the freezing cold with all our windows open to get the smell out until I was on my way home from work. When I got home the gas guys said they found it and fixed it and he just needed to re-light our furnace and water heater and we were good to go! Whew, I'm glad it was that easy of a fix. I'm glad I made David call, the gas man said he smelled it the second they got out of their truck in the visitor parking at our complex. I'm glad our house didn't blow up when the garage was opened several times for all of us to get out in the morning. (They wouldn't let David open it when he came home because they didn't want any electric anything around the gas just in case it lit it on fire and blew up our bloody house. No big deal) And I'm so glad our house is still standing and not reeking of gas anymore. Blessed. The end.

The Padgetts

Something I've learned from David and his family is that the friendships in your life are important. They have so many close friends from the moving around when Davids dad was in the army. Its like your family away from your family. Even though my family is here, I still love this mentality of making life long friends and letting them have an impact on your life. I love being close to lots of people. I have several best friends that I would call if I needed something and several mother figures besides my own that I know I could always rely on. How great is that? Everyone can have these types of friendships, you just have to be open and loving to everyone around you. I'm a people person by nature so I love having people over to our house. Whether we're playing/talking/watching a cinematic adventure/or bantering with each other there is nothing I love more then having people around us. I'm blessed with amazing friendships with people that will be Aunts and Uncles to my kids and I love considering them all part of our family.

David's dad went on a mission to Florida. A little bit of Georgia was in his mission and he met a great family named the Padgetts. He stayed close with them over the years and years later he was stationed in Georgia and they got to see them fairly often. The whole family became close to them and its stuck over the years. When Davids parents divorced the Padgetts stayed as close with Kelly as they did to Scott. They loved her and the kids and wanted to always be a part of their lives despite knowing Scott first or having any "loyalties" to him. They didn't judge or pick sides. You can love everyone and I don't see this attitude as much as I wish I did. Recently the Padgetts were in town and I got to meet them for the first time. They are such great people. We chatted WAY later then we should have since I had to work the next day at 6:30am but I loved getting to know them. I'm so impressed with how warm and welcoming they were to me. I might even consider making a trip to Georgia (despite the humidity and bugs) to see them sometime. I love friendships like these and can't wait to keep the ones we have forever and make more as we go.

How It Happened

As you may have figured out from my last post, I'm pregnant! I though I'd tell you about how it happened. When two people love each other very much....wait thats not where I was going with this. You know that part :]. I just wanted to tell you about our journey for the last 10 months. I went off my birth control in Jan 2010. I was at my RA drs appt and she told me that if your arthritis isn't under control, your body can't sustain a pregnancy. Ok, I'm ahead of myself..let me back up. When I was first diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis I was put on a drug called methotrexate. Its a terrible little chemo drug that I hate more then anything. The side effects are terrible but when I was on it I always felt like I didn't have Arthritis at all. It definitely did its job. I went off this med in Aug 2009. You have to be off for atleast 6 months before you can even try to have kids to get it all out of your system. When I went off I wasn't really planning on getting pregnant 6 months later, I was just so sick of this drug I couldn't take it anymore. My arthritis payed the price and it wasn't doing so great. Now, back to where I was. My dr told me if your arthritis is out of control, you'll have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining that pregnancy. Then it hit me in the face like a freaking brick. If I wanted to have kids I needed to now before it got worse and I missed my chance. I went off my birth control that night and thought we'd be pregnant right away. I even cried after the first time without birth control because I was like, we can't take this back. I'm pregnant and am I really ready. Haha, needless to say I was not pregnant and would go several more months thinking I was and would not be. I was so confused on why I received this inspiration to start trying for a child when nothing was happening. Everyone around me was getting pregnant no problem but I sure wasn't. I wasn't upset at them though because everyone has their challenge in life and I didn't know their situation and couldn't judge it at all. It did make me wonder if I would ever be that lucky however.

Well fast forward to a couple of months ago. My arthritis dr always ran a pregnancy test with my other labs I was getting drawn. Just because I was already getting my blood drawn so why not. I got my labs done one morning at my work because it was a fasting lab so I wanted to do it in the morning. Around 11:00am I got a call at my desk phone from my dr. She said "Liz, you're pregnant." I said "No I'm not." She said "Yes, the test came back positive!" I said "I have to call you back." I had a patient at my desk staring at me like I was crazy and I was trying to process this information. I had to redo that girls chart 3 times before I got it right. My head was no where to be found that day. I didn't want to tell David over the phone so I called Kateka. Bless her freaking heart. She was so excited for me and helped me plan the best way to tell David that night. She called David and told him we should all go to dinner and her and her husband had some news to tell us. After Kateka got off work we met up and planned how to tell him. Since we were together already we met the boys at their house and went to Olive Garden. Kateka gave David this little gift bag with the surprise inside. He opened it and found this.Sorry, I don't know how to flip that. Anyways he stared at it for a minute and then looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "Your pregnant?" He never thought it would happen this way for us. He was way more skeptical then I was the whole time we were trying. Since it had been 10 months and nothing was happening he thought we'd have to adopt or do IVF or some other method and that broke his heart. Obviously we all sat at the table like a bunch of boobs and cried for a second before pulling ourselves together.

Since then we've had several ultra sounds and tests to make sure my high risk pregnancy is going well. I've never focused or worked so hard in my life to keep my blood sugars down and under control. I have to work to get this baby here healthy but I can't think of anything I want to do more. I feel extremely blessed that it happened now, when the timing is right. I know the Lord had full control of that even when I felt like maybe he wasn't paying much attention to our situation. I know many others that have tried for longer to get their babies here and I'm grateful for the perspective I have and for the gospel in my life. I always knew in the back of my head I would get my baby the way that was right for me and at the right time.

Bun in the Oven