Happy Thanksgiving!

I love this time of year and the reminder to count your blessings and realize how wonderful life really is.  We have truly been blessed!  I hope you will bare with me as I share a few things we are especially grateful for this year:  Our family: Jordan and I both have wonderful parents and siblings.  You are all wonderful! They have all been so supportive of us in our ambitions.  We only wish we didn't live so far away.  We are also so grateful for our sweet Brynlee.  She makes everyday an adventure.  We love her smile and laugh, and we enjoy watching her learn new things.  I am so grateful that we all can be together as an eternal family.  We are so grateful for the gospel and for the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We are grateful for our opportunity to learn from the Book of Mormon, from living prophets, and that we can commune with our Heavenly Father in prayer.  We are grateful for wonderful friends, both here in Des Moines and ones we miss from places we have lived before.  We are so excited for Jordan's opportunity to become a podiatrist.  He has enjoyed his experience at DMU and we are also thankful that it is nearing its end!  We are so grateful that somehow I have been able to work two nights and week so that we can be self reliant and have rarely needed a babysitter.  We are grateful that we are able to live comfortably in this free country. It is really amazing what we have been given and these things are only the beginning! 

I wouldn't feel right about my post without a few pictures of our Brynlee!  She is turning from baby into little girl.  Some of her latest new words are "nana" (banana), "teeth," "outside," "cheese," and "story."  She tries really hard to say nose...sometimes she comes close but its funny that it comes out "nana" the rest of the time and you can tell she realizes thats not what she meant to say.  It's cute.  My dad took these pictures while we were in CO for my brothers mission farewell.  Pathetic, Mark's not in a single one!  Sad day!  We miss him already.

Look what she did to Uncle Luke!

With cousin Aliyah

I was recently released from Young Women and we were called and assistant nursery leaders.  We are happy we get to do it together.  It means Brynlee gets to go to nursery 4 months early.  That will be fun as soon as I get over being a germaphobe. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!