2023

 I’m sitting here holding my beautiful newborn, Aranui. I was just overwhelmed with gratitude because this time last year, I didn’t know when she’d come. We’d been wanting to get pregnant for a while with no luck. Oh how badly I wanted her. In so grateful she’s here. 

We went on a family walk and we started talking about this year and next year and I realized that because of a rough pregnancy, 2023 was one of my hardest years of my life. I was taking care of 3 children, ages 5, 4 and 2. And was battling morning sickness every single day. I also had sciatica pain and round ligament pain. It was so hard. 

I had exclaimed how grateful I am to end this year and move ahead.

Which I still am. But in this moment… just a few days after our Māori Nana Marara has gone to the other side of the veil… I thank my God for the rough year!! It brought us sweet Aranui Mere! 

2024 will be hard and great as well. And I hope it is. Hard things bring growth and happiness. 

Here’s to whatever the next year brings!!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Angels

Image
      I am so grateful to be alive. Starting with that because today and this week have been so wonderful. Things have  been going like planned. My babies are healthy. I am healthy. I've gotten a lot done and spend great quality time with my family, but also had a lot of good breaks and me time.      However, a couple of weeks ago I was having a very low day. It was Sunday and my littles were having a hard day. It was really hard to stay at church and be reverent and feel good. Let's spell it out a little bit  more. My husband serves in the bishopric in our ward so I sit with 4 kids under the age of 6 by myself and try to keep them quiet, listening and holding still. Yeah, hard to do.       This was a special Sunday with a lot of our leaders speaking so I really wanted to listen, but my 2 year old was mad at everything I did or his siblings did. He did not want to play or eat or draw or anything lol. So needless to say, I ...
Read more

2024 Closes Out

Image
 I had hoped to try and share my testimony today at church. However, my son got pink eye which is very contagious. So we needed to stay home. Nevertheless, I thought I’d share my testimony in blog form today.  It’s momentous to me that it’s December 1st. Wow. I thought 2023 was a hard year… I had a really really hard pregnancy and scary medical news with our daughter. It was tough. But 2024 has it beat by far. I experienced multiple traumatic things that will impact me for the rest of my life. Most people know about our house flood. But there was other stuff that I haven’t shared that also made this year hard. Not to mention applying to and starting nursing school. But I wanted to share my testimony that I really felt like God was here through it all. There were days I’d cry the second I woke up until the second I went to bed. Days where we had no place to go, no home, no safety and nobody knew. But God knew. He sent us saving graces. It wasn’t the way I wanted it. It came thr...
Read more

year of faith

Image
      It wasn't a direct invitation, but it felt that way... The 1st counselor in my stake talked about how at church, the room fills from the back to the front. I then felt a personal invitation to sit closer to the front. This would be very hard for me. We've worked hard to set a habit of getting to church early. I am grateful for that. However, I always sit in the back lol. I have 4 kids who can be disruptive and would not want to draw any attention to us. So the back has been our spot lol.     I brought up this to the primary president, and she shared that it would be amazing. That she has done it with her family and that it has been good for their family.     So I did! And honestly it has been a few months now! Our kids know our new spot and it has made them more attentive to the speakers. Yes, we still have disruptions or diapers that need to be changed or kids that simply need to leave the chapel. However, 90% of the time, sitting near the front...
Read more