Thankful for...

Our Little Ones

As I've said before, we love our nephews and niece!! And since Abbi is only a year older than our oldest nephew, she is also one of our little ones!! 

Such a sweet moment with my new little sister!

Hahaha :)

Claire-Bear!

It was hot that day...isn't her dress adorable??

He's such a goof!

Clearly I knew he was being silly since I'm laughing so hard??

My sweet Taylor <3

My sweet Marcus <3

For weeks leading up to the wedding, I asked
Taylor if he would dance with me on our wedding day.
He was very apprehensive about it beforehand,
but at the reception he told me he wanted to!

This was definitely one of my favorite moments of the night.

Abbi didn't need any convincing to dance with us though!! :)

<3

Thankful for...

Marriage

As of today, we have been married for 100 days! 

That is pretty much unbelievable to me!

Marriage is a wonderful blessing. I am so grateful that families are the center of everything and that families begin with marriage! And I am very blessed to have been able to marry my sweet Mathew just 100 days ago. Part of me feels like it was just yesterday...but part of me feels like we're so comfortable in our routine and life as a married couple that it's hard to think that we're just now hitting triple digits! 

These are a few of my favorite pictures from our "First Look". This was just a couple of hours before the wedding. I got dressed in the temple and went out to see my waiting -almost- husband. These moments were some of the most emotional moments of the whole day for me! 

From the minute I left my little dressing room where Mom, Julia and Jennifer helped me get into my dress...as I walked through the temple in my wedding dress, on my wedding day, I was overwhelmed. I got tears in my eyes in the temple and had to walk all the way out to meet Matt...trying to contain myself the whole way. The whole time I was telling myself that I couldn't cry already!! We hadn't even taken one picture yet! 

Once he turned around and we saw each other I had a few tears fall. But other than those few tears, I didn't cry for the rest of the day!! (if you know me, you know exactly how much of a surprise that is!!!)

Trying to hold on to those tears!

 

 

 

There's a couple of them!

And probably a couple more...

I LOVE this photo. It's one of my absolute favorites from the day!

  

Thankful for...

The Temple

I am incredibly grateful for the blessings of the temple and the sealing power. I am so thankful to have been sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. 

Here are a few pictures of some of the temples I have visited! 

The Lubbock Temple. I should go take some
more pictures of it that really do it justice!

Diane and Mom in front of the Provo Temple

The Sacramento Temple

The Salt Lake City Temple

Matt and me in front of the
Dallas Temple on our wedding day.

Thankful for...

Siblings

I love my siblings. I am so grateful for each of them. We are all so different from one another, but there is such a bond between each of us. And sometimes I'm surprised to notice the similarities we do share! Each of these people have added a great deal of happiness and love to my life. I am incredibly grateful that Heavenly Father has blessed me with each of these wonderful people in my family.

The original four!

Marshall

Peter

Julia

Jennifer

Jordan

Thankful for...

Loving Parents

I don't know where I would be without my wonderful Mom and Dad. They are the most generous, loving, hard working people I know.The older I get, the more I realize how much they have always done for me, and the more grateful I become!

So, thank you, Mom and Dad for your love and continuous generosity!! I appreciate that you have always encouraged me to become the best version of myself, without pushing me to be someone I'm don't want to be. 

 Thank you for supporting me and loving me and teaching me all about life.

Thankful for...

America!

I am grateful to live in and be a citizen of this blessed country and for the freedoms that I have as a result of that! I am grateful for the men and women who risk their lives so that I am able to live this life that I'm used to living. 

Happy Veterans Day!

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine! 

Thanksgiving

If you want a Thanksgiving print that looks like the one below, then just head on over to this blog and leave a comment on the post and she'll email you a copy! She has three colors: green, brown, and red! I really love that you can print this, put it in an empty frame you have sitting around, put it somewhere you'll see it often and then (for me at least) be reminded regularly of the real reason for Thanksgiving. It's not all about turkey and decorations and family time, although those things aren't bad! But November is a month of the year which we should set aside to remember the countless blessings that the Lord so generously gives us on a constant basis.

With all of that said, I'm going to start doing what my friend Mel does at this time of year. I'm going to blog every day about something that I'm thankful for! I'm excited about this opportunity to have you guys keep me accountable for spending time each day thinking about some of the countless blessings which the Lord has blessed me with.

Jenna Cole is my Favorite!!

Yesterday, we received a package from our wedding photographer, Jenna Cole.

She is fabulous and I am SO glad that we made the decision to go with her as our wedding photographer!! 

I knew she had mailed the package on Saturday, so when I checked the mail yesterday afternoon and saw that we had a package, I wasn't expecting it to be this one already!!

The package in the special mail box that you're
given a key to if you have a package that day.

The open box with the copyright release, sweet card from Jenna,
and the heart pendant she bought me in Poland last month!
It's so pretty and I love it!

That wig you see on the boxes is her logo, and I just love it!
She also gave us some strawberry jam
from the Farmer's Market in Chicago!

That little love tag is from Paloma's Nest and is
one of my absolute favorite parts of the whole thing!

The bigger box was holding the 8x10 that she gave us
for getting a certain number of comments on the blog
post she put up with pictures of our wedding.
I adore this picture of us!!

The smaller box was holding the tin with the DVDs of our wedding
pictures in it. I LOVE how she labeled the tin "Tovar Wedding"!

Also in the package, she included 3 green suckers, (so fun!)
and these way cute blank note cards! I love them so much
it's going to be hard for me to write on them and give them away!
:-)

Also, all of the letterpress stationary is absolutely beautiful!! Unfortunately my photography skills are no where near Jenna's so I didn't do a good job of showing it off!

I am absolutely in love with all of it, plus now I can start showing you guys all of our wedding pictures!!! Hooray!! :-)

I looked down at my hand this morning...

...and THIS is what I saw!! 

Yikes!!

I had just gotten out of the shower, so Matt and I looked for the missing diamond for a few minutes, but we pretty much figured it was a lost cause. 

Luckily, we got the warranty on the rings when we bought them, so I'm not too concerned about it. As I told Matt, "hey, at least the warranty is going to pay off!"

UPDATE: We took the ring in today and learned that I'm not going to get my engagement ring back until after Christmas break! Bummer!! :( And the other two diamonds in the ring are apparently loose, they're fixing that too! 

Grateful

I'm grateful for my husband. He is kind, loving, selfless, patient and hard working. 

Three months ago, on our wedding day.

He's my favorite. <3