Selected!! :)

I have to share this, the Lord is there and when we trust Him He can bless us with miracles.

A few months ago Jeremy was in the middle of his last semester in the masters program at BYU, along with the other three guys in his cohort. Three of them, including us, were scheduled for CHBOLC and we were all actively working to get our packets in to get orders. Everyone was under an extreme amount of stress with tons of homework, families, and everyone running out of money to provide for their families. We found out that Frank (he's over military relations for  the church) would only allow two guys to put their packets in the June board and the other one would need to wait until August. Without telling us (it wasn't intentional) the two other guys contacted Frank and talked to him and both felt that they had more priority then us to go to the earlier board. Jeremy and I were both very upset and very hurt. Jeremy was trying to be fair, and we realized that all of us wanted to go to the earlier board, so we suggested that the three of them draw straws to give everyone an equal opportunity to go to the earlier board, one of them was willing, the other outright said no and that he would be going to the earlier board no matter what. I won't get into the details, but it was not a good situation. Jeremy contacted Frank about what was going on and Frank said he didn't think it would matter so much if we waited until the August board. We didn't want to cause a big fight, but at the same time, we wanted to continue our progression in this career and be able to provide for our family. I was still really frustrated and upset, so I asked Jeremy for a blessing. In it, I was told that I needed to not worry anymore and that things would happen at the right time and we will be in the right place. Even though we still felt upset with that specific person, we decided to go ahead and trust the Lord and do the August board and to not cause a big fight about it, trusting that it is all in the Lord's hands and we will go where and when he wants us too.

Fast forward a couple months, Jeremy was just finishing up his packet with his recruiter (who has been amazing) and Soler kept saying we needed to go to the June board (there are a lot of diff circumstances right now with the covid virus that were making the June board a little easier to get the paperwork in for), but Jeremy kept telling him that the decision was up to Frank, and Frank had been adamant that only two LDS chaplains could go to a specific board at a time. Jeremy finally told Soler that if he wanted to try to get us to the June board he would need to call Frank and talk to him. So, he did. And Frank said we could go ahead and put our packet in, we could hardly believe it! We were so grateful, so we went ahead and put our finished packet in last week. Jeremy and I fasted on Sunday that if it is the Lord's will our packet would be selected. Boards were this week, June 2nd-5th, and we got a call from Soler this morning, much sooner than expected (we thought we'd have to wait 2-4 weeks to hear). He asked if Jeremy had a place to sit down because he had the results from the board already, and then he told us Jeremy has been selected! He also said that CH Wallace would be in contact and that he is planning to have our order date start the day we are available, which is September 3rd, right after CHBOLC. After Jeremy got off the phone with him we hugged and cried because we are so grateful, and also feel overwhelmed and terrified, LOL.

The Lord knows. He is in control and all He asks is that we trust Him. We chose to trust, even though it was hard to let go of the situation and take the higher road, and we were able to go to the June board and get selected anyway, and without ruining our friendships with these two other guys. Taking the higher road is really hard sometimes, but the Lord asked us to, and then helped us get into the earlier board anyway. Our hearts are full of gratitude to the Lord for blessing us with this opportunity and His tender mercies.

Jeremy leaves for CHBOLC in two weeks, he has two weeks of quarantine first (another tender mercy, he gets an extra two weeks of pay). He will be there until September 3rd, we will miss him so much, but we also know this is a big step in fulfilling the calling to being a Chaplain.

8 months!! :)

This little lady is 8 months!! She is the sweetest little sugar drop. We can hardly handle how absolutely adorable she is. She is chatting SO much now, and we love how her smile lights up her entire self. Her beautiful blue eyes sparkle and she can make every single one of us smile whenever she wants to. The boys love to get on the floor and play with her, she is a little magnet! Now that she is scooting around she is getting into their toys, too, and it has been so cute to see how patient and sweet they are with her. 

Tiny little curl!

Two tiny teeth!

This last month she started what I now call "booty scooting," lol. Let me tell you about it. We put her down on a blanket with a bunch of toys around her so she's entertained for awhile, and a few weeks ago I noticed that I would put her down and come back a few minutes later and she would be a few feet away from where I originally set her and I could not figure out how! lol. I kept watching and just couldn't figure out how she was moving so far, so fast, without crawling. So over the course of a couple weeks I watched her really close, she stretches as far as she can for things, and would put one leg to the side sometimes to reach further, and this movement would scoot her forward toward things. So I wondered if she was ready to crawl, and I've been trying to get her to hold the "crawl" position, and she's done it a couple times so I know she can, but most of the time when I try she just throws her arms and legs out and gets really mad! lol. She does NOT like tummy time. But in the last couple of weeks she has gotten so fast getting around, even without "crawling," she's got it down so good that I actually consider her booty scooting a form of crawling now and I wonder if she will just stick with it until she's ready to walk. It's so cute. lol. We will see! Either way, we are having to be really careful about what is on the floor now, she's so busy!

Some other adorable things she does:

• She is loving solids!! Most of the time I put food in her little teether mesh thing and she just sucks and chews on it, but if we have something for dinner that I think she will like I put it in our baby food grinder and feed her with a spoon. She eats one meal a day of solids, right before we eat dinner, and she nurses 4-5 times per day still. 
• She goes to bed at 7 PM, wakes up between 11-12 to eat, then sleeps until around 4 AM and nurses again, then she usually wakes up for the day between 6-7 AM. She takes one long nap from about 11:30-2:30 everyday. I still can't believe she only takes one long nap already, lol. She sleeps with Jeremy and I, and we love to wake up to her sweet, happy smiles and chatting in the morning. :) I lay down with her to get her to sleep at night, if she's really tired she will fall asleep nursing, but most of the time she nurses and then sucks on her binky, chats, plays with her toes, pulls my hair and nose etc. and rolls around and plays until she starts to fuss a little bit and then finally goes to sleep, lol. She still really likes to listen to smooth jazz, or sometimes Scripture Lullabies.
• She does NOT like boogers in her nose. If she has boogers she will breathe in and out of her nose really hard with this grumpy look on her face, LOL. She is adorable. 
• She really loves her binky! She is a pro at putting it in, even if it's upside down she knows how to turn it around the right way, lol. 
• She tried puffs and some really tiny pieces of whole wheat bread for the first time. She also tried brown rice, avocado, black beans, sweet potato, coconut yogurt, and peaches. She has liked almost everything, but she didn't love the peaches a lot. She also really loves bananas or watermelon in the little teether. 
• She loves to clap her hands! Her tiny claps are absolutely adorable. 
• She does the most adorable little lip spits, she squishes her lips together to make spitting sounds and it is seriously the cutest thing to watch. 
• When she hears music she rocks backward and forward to dance, it's so cute.
• She shakes her head back and forth when she's getting tired or fighting sleep.
• She loves to talk, she says "bah bah bah" a lot, she also says "mama."
• Her hair grew so much this last month! She has these cute little "tufts" on either side that are turning into little curls. 
• When she is going to eat I will put her in the high chair and she gets so excited, she kicks her little legs so fast and clenches her tiny fists and rolls her little hands, lol. It's so cute.
• When we lay down together to nurse on our bed she gets so excited, she starts breathing so fast, and then when she latches on she lets out the longest tiny sigh. And sometimes she makes these little contented sigh sounds after every gulp. It's so sweet. She still likes to tuck her little feet between my legs, all cozy. 
• She started doing this nose-growl sound, and it is SO funny! She also does a regular growl and has started yelling "bah bah bah." 
• She thinks peek-a-boo is SO fun! I'll be holding her and Daddy or Grandma will hide behind me while she looks over my shoulder, and then they'll go from one side to the other playing with her. She leans all slow over one shoulder looking for them, and then goes to the other side, it's so funny.
• If I leave the room she cries every single time! She is super attached to me (and me to her, lol). Even in the morning, while I'm busy in the kitchen with vitamins and breakfast, I started putting a blanket where she could watch me while she plays with toys and that has helped so much. 
• She still loves to swing in her swing while Jeremy or I work out, she loves her bouncer, and she loves to play on the floor with toys. She is not a big fan of the Ergo carrier yet, but hopefully soon she starts to like it better so we can go on hikes! 
• Anderson had a bag of popcorn that he spilled near where she was playing and she was trying so hard to get a tiny piece in her hand to eat it. Another time, Anderson just gave her one to eat because he wanted to share, lol. He's so sweet.