I knew enough.

The other day I read a talk in the Ensign, "You Know Enough", by Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Presidency of the Seventy. In the talk Elder Andersen spoke an impression that he received while giving a blessing to a friend who was struggling because he had recently lost a young daughter in a tragic accident. He said, "The impression that came to me was: Faith is not only a feeling. It is a decision. He would need to choose faith. My friend did not know everything, but he knew enough. He chose the road of faith and obedience."

As I read this I was transported back almost five years ago. Only a year before I had experienced the most wonderful and the most frightening moments of my life. I had given birth to Becca and within a few days nearly died as my body failed to endure the stresses of child bearing and birth.

Pregnancy and child birth had been glorious to me. I treasured every part of the experience. Even more I treasured our sweet child and the tender mercies of the Lord that allowed me to continue to live so that I could be a witness of her life. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to have this experience again. Even more, I knew that my Heavenly Father wanted me to have this experience again.

Just weeks before we found out that I was pregnant again, I had been taken completely off of heart medications and given a clean bill of health. However, I had been warned that pregnancy would be a great risk.

Once my pregnancy had been confirmed, my doctor suggested that I call the cardiologist and find out from him if there were any preventative measures that I should take to help decrease the risk of reoccurence. The answer was straight forward, simple and bold. "Have an abortion. The risk to your health is too great." Fortunately when we had prayed to know whether or not our decision to have another child was right, the answer was equally straight forward, simple and bold. "Yes."

I was all too aware, though, that even when the answer is "Yes", it doesn't necessarily mean that everything will turn out as hoped. I was overwhelmingly aware of the possibility that the Lord's plan for me could have been to give birth to this child and then leave mortality and the life and family that I treasured so much. I did not know what the outcome of my pregnancy would be, but I knew that it was my Father's will that I have another child.

Throughout the nine months of pregnancy, child birth, and the few weeks following Isak's birth I did not always feel full of faith. Many moments of many days I had to, as Elder Andersen said, "choose faith". I "did not know everything, but [I] knew enough".

This has been the single most faith building experience of my life.

Last month Isak turned four. He is healthy, sweet, silly, energetic, fun and smart. I am so thankful to be his mom. He fills my life with joy.

But, without a doubt, the greatest blessing that I have received as a result of his birth, is the assurance that even when trials come, when the outcome of a situation is frightening and unknown, we can rely on our Father to guide us and we can choose to have faith in His plan for us. This knowledge has helped me through difficult times that have come in the past four years, and I'm sure will help me through many more.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have been able to reflect on the multitude of blessings that our Father gives us.

Loads of Leaves

Earlier this week I recruited the kids to help me rake the leaves. Well, actually I told them that we were going out to "play" in the leaves, and they were eager to help me get the leaves into a pile so that they could jump in them. Once we got our huge pile made (we even raked our neighbors leaves so that we could have a super huge pile) we all enjoyed some time jumping and playing in the leaves. And then, alas, the leaves had to go into bags. Oh well...we have next fall to look forward to.

Zoo Boo

We must have chosen the wrong day and/or time to go to Zoo Boo this year, because it was way more crowded and unenjoyable than I remember it being in the past. Still any day that I can hang out with my mom and sister while the kids have a great time is a good day. And, of course, getting to dress up in costumes and run around the zoo in search of candy is a blast for the kids!

October Traditions

There are so many fun things to do in the fall. I absolutely love it! Some of the fall traditions that I enjoy are going to the pumpkin patch, Zoo Boo, the Children's Musuem Haunted House, our Halloween party, and just being outside and enjoying the great weather.

This year my mom and step dad had arrived in Indy for a visit the day that we planned to go to the pumpkin patch. It was fun to have them and other family members and friends join us for one of our favorite expeditions of the season.

Here are Becca, Isak and Emma (my niece) with their pumpkins.

Biting off what we can chew

I am a bit impetuous. When I decide that I want to do something I want to do it all the way and I want to do it right now. Because of this I often get into new projects way over my head. Such was the case last year when I decided that I wanted to start gardening. Some friends of ours had been renting a plot at the Mayor's garden (a communal garden owned by Indy Parks) and enjoyed it, so I thought I would give it a try too.

I don't remember the official plot size of our garden last year, but I quickly realized that I was in over my head...again. By mid-summer our plants that had acutally grown were dwarfed by weeds and barely producing fruit. I let nature take its course and chalked it up to experience.

I wasn't about to give up though. This year I decided that we would create a small garden at home that would not overwhelm me (hopefully).

Here is a photo of our tiny garden. It was 2' x 3', which seemed almost pointless, but it was a much better experience for us than last year. And, as was last year, it was a great learning experience.



One fun thing that we grew in our garden this year was cotton. The owner of the garden shop where we bought our plants (that was one thing we learned - it is so much easier to plant plants than grow plants from seed) gave the kids a cotton plant - just for fun. This is a picture of one of the pods before it opened. I have to admit, I kept expecting it to say "feed me, Seymour", but it didn't. Eventually the pods did open, though, and we had cotton. I was going to take a picture of the cotton, but I never did and eventually got tired of it sitting around the house and threw it away. But it was kind of cool to see how cotton grows.



This last picture is of some mums that I planted last year. They bloomed so beautifully this year that I actually would walk out to the sunroom and look out the back door for no other reason than to see my gorgeous mums. They made me happy.

Catching Up

In spite of my promises to do so, I never got around to posting more about our summer. Now with fall in full swing and going into the holidays, I've decided to give up on posting about summer for now and move right into fall.

One part of our summer that carried over into fall was our visits to Kings Island. Our good friends live in Cincinnati and have season passes to Kings Island. Last fall we went to visit them and to go to Kings Island and ended up buying season passes. We went to Kings Island several times this year and went one last time during their Halloween celebration.





Of course, we loved the opportunities that our trips to Kings Island gave us to visit with our friends, the Hudsons. They were generous hosts and our kids absolutely loved playing together! Becca especially loved playing "mommy" to baby Tate.