Baby Harvey's Blessing

Harvey Gene Smith was blessed today. It was so beautiful.

Sacrament meeting in the Naches ward was cancelled due to dangerous roads, but they got permission to bless him anyway, as Captain is leaving for infantry training on Jan 2. Once everyone was there it was decided that we should have our own mini-sacrament meeting. There were 24 people in attendence (3 more came after the sacrament was passed). Leslie led the opening song while I held Harvey. After that he was blessed, then Leslie and I traded places so she could hold the baby, and I led the music. The sacrament was then passed by Steve and Captain. Captain's father blessed it. Afterwards we had a testimony meeting. It was very beautiful and touching. There were at least 9 testimonies bourne, including Leslie, Captain, his parents, Doug Harvey, and my own.

I've had a special week. I spent my first Christmas with my new family, which means becoming a part of other people's traditions and remembering my own. Yesterday I attended a beautiful funeral for Randall Marquis. He was truely an inspiring man, and it made me feel like I need to strive to be better. It also made me feel so grateful for the faithful man I married, who has big dreams and who already makes me dream bigger.

I'm grateful for the gift of the spirit and them time I have to reflect on the things I have been given.

December!

The month is already half over and I'm only now sitting down to blog all our Flynn fun this month.

We found out at the beginning of the month that Western has turned down Steve's request to begin school in Spring rather than January, so now we have no idea what we'll be doing. It'll be fun to see how everything works itself out, but for now its the "maybe we should do this" game. Steve is looking for a new job, since we'll be here awhile longer.

We went up to the mountains on the 6th to go get our Christmas tree. No snow! It felt weird, like we were going too early. It looks very lovely sitting on the table in our room- we picked a short one as we are quite limited on space.

You can't tell from the picture very well, but we have an ornament with a picture of the 2 of us, celebrating our first Christmas together. We decided on our honeymoon that we would collect Christmas ornaments to commemerate special trips and occasions. Unfortunately we seem to have packed up and hidden the one we bought in Victoria when we made that desicion in the first place! Oh, well, there is always next year... and the ones after that.

Speaking of ornaments, this year I joined my mom and her girlfriends in their annual ornament exchange. I made some cute felt poinsettias and figgy puddings and received some really lovely ones (and ideas!) in exchange.

In other craft news, I've been busy this month sewing new stockings for Steve and I. He designed them both (with lots of input, of course) and I sewed them up. I just finished this afternoon. Steve's is Santa, and mine is a snowman. Santa's hat has a real jingle-bell, and my snowflakes are beaded and there is a row of little bells along the bottom of the cuff. We had a lot of fun with these, and we are very excited to hang them for years to come.

We both enjoyed my work Christmas party last week. I was (foolishly) quite concerned about what to wear, but Steve surprised me with a beautiful red sweater and a pretty pin and some earrings, and made me feel beautiful.

Yesterday I threw a baby shower for my friend Leslie. I forgot to get any pictures, but we had a good time. I made an ice cream cake. Leslie requested one when we were teenagers for her wedding cake- I was a little late, but at least I made her the cake. We played Nursery Rhyme Jeopardy and guess which flavor of baby food was in the jars, and she took home so lovely gifts. It was a lot of fun to spend time with her and friends and family. And of course, baby Harvey is the most fun of all- he gets cuter every day.

We are looking forward to a busy week of cookie and candy making, followed by Christmas!!! We hope you are all enjoying the season as much as we are.