Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

 What our Christmas Eve looked like before putting Natalie to bed

 You like the shake weight Justin won at a white elephant gift exchange? 

He is excited to get super toned arms with it.

 

 Justin was reading a John Deere 'Johnny Popper' story to us. 

It was a gift from my parents for Natalie and Justin. 

He then read from the Bible the story about the first Christmas.

  

After Natalie went to sleep we watched "It's a Wonderful Life." I had not seen it in quite a long time and thoroughly enjoyed it. I do believe life really is wonderful! Especially at Christmas time.

Lastly,

 Santa made it!

Christmas Morning

 Natalie enjoyed ripping the paper.....

 and some chocolates, and then she headed off to do her job for the day of unloading the DVD's

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Trick or Treat

No this is not a trick, and some of you may find it a treat. I know these are a bit late, but needed to include them for family history purposes. I think this may be a new tradition because we have done it the last two years. Dinner and carving pumpkins in October, with our good friends Garrett and Nicole.

Three little pumpkins right in a row....

 Pretty sure at this point she tried to eat it.


Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Five Years....

December 19, 2013

 

FIVE Years

FOUR different kitchen tables (and still waiting to get the perfect one)

THREE different homes (hoping to stop paying rent and buy our own this coming year)

TWO imperfect people who sometimes drive each other crazy, but are still crazy in love,

ONE Marriage for eternity.

Brought to you the thoughts before you fall asleep of yours truly! 

Seriously though... Five Years! 

I can't believe it, and I can.

It has been a wonderful road full of twists and turns, and I feel like quite a few steep slopes.

I am so grateful Justin chose me, because he is my best friend.

 Here is to many more years of laughter,date night movies, pick up rides, disagreements, dinner conversations, buying our first home, babies, and sticking it through because you know that you made the best decision back in 2008. 

Our anniversary celebration consisted of a salmon dinner at home, 

watching a movie because this is our favorite date night activity, 

and attending the temple the following Saturday to perform sealings. 

Justin of course brought me flowers, because he does that every year, and yes

some of them were Red because that is my favorite color.

 

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Life Right Now

I realize that I post ALOT about Natalie and maybe not so much about how life is for Justin and I these days. Mostly because Natalie pretty much is ALOT of life right now. Here are a few other updates on us.

1. Justin has been home alot more this fall and early winter compared to last year. I really appreciate this and he is glad the GP is running like it should.

2. He is going to be doing a speech in front of the Oregon Logging Conference in January about this new product. I am really excited for him as they are hoping to sell a lot more next year. Right now there are 10 in production mode. Pretty good for the first year of sales.

3. I now serve as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in our ward. This has been a huge blessing in helping me study my scriptures at a deeper level. I have expanded my understanding a lot of church history as well because we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year. Next year will be the Old Testament and while I think it may be a little harder to teach, it will be great to learn about. Sometimes this calling is hard for me because I am the youngest adult in the ward and that can be intimidating. Everyone is very kind and helpful with their comments though and I call on them alot. I mean I only have 25 years experience, many have 40 plus!

4. Justin is serving as the First Counselor in the Elder's Quorom Presidency. He is enjoying it and is learning a lot about leading by example.

5. We are saving, praying and hoping with all our might to buy a home next year! We still live in a little apartment and most days I am grateful for the safe shelter over my head, but getting into a home will be a big needed step for us. I feel like I will be able to do so many more things for my family that I can't right now. Like have a chest freezer, DIY furniture projects, have a garden, be able to host people for parties, and give my children space to play and not worry about being to loud for the neighbors beneath us.

6. This will be our first Christmas with just our little family. I am very excited to not be traveling, but a little nervous about really making the day and the whole vacation special. I have definitely been doing some planning, so here we go! Bring in Christmas Morning and a Happy New Year!

7. One of the best parts of my day each day is to work out. After having Natalie I had obviously acquired some extra pounds. I was excited to get back into my daily routine of working out. It was very difficult at first. However, as I have kept my consistency of just doing anywhere from 10-45 minutes a days, I have been able to fit back into all of my clothes and they are loose now! This has reaffirmed the principle of small and simple things. By doing a workout everyday, even if some days it was not much at all, I have seen great results over the period of 7 months. 

8.  We are glad where life has taken us and are learning just how important each person's role is in the family unit. Justin is an awesome and amazing husband and father. I could not do all that I do without him. We are celebrating our 5 year anniversary on Thursday! So crazy how quick and slow life seems to go. Quick while looking back, and slow in the moments. We never thought we would make it out of college, but some how we did!

We have been richly blessed with wonderful family and dear friends. 2013 has been good to us and we look forward to all 2014 has in store.


Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Utah Trip

 

In October we went on our first plane ride with Nat to Utah! She was her normal social self and did remarkably well. The only fussing was for about 10 minutes on our flight home. Both ways she slept and looked around. Her favorite part was the silver thing that holds the trays up on the seats. She really wished she could have gotten one in her mouth.

 Our main purpose for going was to see Josh and Brandi (Justin's youngest brother and sis-in-law) get sealed. It was a beautiful ceremony and the spirit was definitely there. I love going to sealings. It always brings to the fore front of my mind the importance of eternal marriage.

 We also did several fun things. All of them included visiting with family. One evening we went with Brad and Riata to the Desert Star in Salt Lake City. It is a small theater company that performs parodies. We hadn't been on a date in a while and it was alot of fun. Especially with these two!

 

 Justin's mom with her three granddaughters. She had only boys and now the next generation so far is only girls. It is always interesting to see how families play out.

 

 I thought this picture was darling. Brandi seemed so happy! These are the wives of the Blazzard boys. They are all great individuals and I am blessed to know them.

 Another highlight of the trip was meeting the family of an elder who served in our ward. His family lived in Heber which is only 20 minutes from Justin's hometown. We enjoyed meeting them and seeing exactly why he is the great missionary he is. 

The trip was fun and exhausting. We loved every minute of catching up with family members and even friends. However it is always nice to return to the normal routine of life. Natalie was very happy to be home, she calmed right down when she realized we were back in our apartment. 

Families are definitely the heart of life.

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Eight Months Old

I strongly dislike having so many accessible pieces of technology that can take pictures. It means that I have pictures spread out on four different devices and when I sit down to compile them, never are all four handy. For this reason, it has been a while since my last blog post. Good thing Natalie's monthly posts get me back in the habbit.

The 'baby' as the three year old boy I tended this morning calls her, is now EIGHT months old! The doctor assured me that she would be entering the stranger danger time and would start having anxiety when she was separate from me. I questioned this, knowing just how social she is. I was right, so far she hasn't shown many signs of being stressed by other people or being away from me. In fact, when others say "Hi!" and talk to her she leans into them and wants them to hold her for a short period of time. It is very nice because alot of people like to talk to her.

She is working on the crawling position and gets closer every day. If you try to read her a book she grabs the book from you and precedes to look at it. If you pick up another one while she is reading she will grab that book from you. It is a vicious cycle, but one that I can support for now.

She started getting a tooth right before the eight month mark. She loves to squeal when she is happy or tired and sounds very similar to a tea kettle. I think her favorite part of the day is bath time. Justin usually does this and she loves playing with him and the water.

She also started a break through of sleeping through the night. The first morning after this transpired I really believe I heard a "Hallelujah" chorus. It is WONDERFUL!

She also had her first time of escaping us in church a couple of Sundays ago. She finally put her rolling skills together and was happy to roll over to those sitting close to us. I feel as though it all goes down from here as far as church is concerned. The days of chasing her up the aisle are quickly approaching.

I just can't believe what a joyful, pretty little red head we have been blessed with.

P.S. She only wore that ponytail for a total of 2 minutes. If you look closely you can see the elastic is not actually tight around the hair. In order to get it tight I would have caused tears from pulling the hair. It was definitely not worth it, but without it being tight it wouldn't last. I have really got to work on my little girl hair doing skills. 


Justin and Ruth Blazzard