Christmas Time Is HERE! :)

So, I know I promised pictures from when my mom was here and I totally failed. My moms visit was so much fun! We shopped, got pedicures, stayed downtown in nice hotel, and ate too much wonderful food! Here are is a picture of my mom, sister, and me in Kansas City

I have one more final on Friday and then I will be done for the semester! I can't believe how fast the months have been going. I have had to get into "wedding mode" because we are down to 6 months! It will be here before we know it! I can't wait!!

Brady got a job at Cerner- a medical technology company. He is in his 3rd week of training and he is loving it! He has made some good friends and is learning all about the company. He won't know his official position until training has ended, but most likely he will gain the title of "business consultant". This means travel, travel, travel, and more travel. It will be weird to be married and have my husband gone all the time, but we will be fine, of course. I will be in school full time by this time next year so it will be nice to have some time to study.

God totally blessed me recently! I have been looking for a new job because I haven't been getting many hours at Old Chicago and I found one! It's so perfect for my future too! I will be working with a 7 year old girl named Katherine. She is autistic and needs help with speech. For those of you who don't know, I am working towards being a speech therapist so this is the perfect job for me! Katherine's mom, Robin, has worked hard with a speech pathologist to get an in-home program running. It will be great to start learning how to teach speech before I start in my classes and it will help me understand my classes more having this experience! Also, there is a woman in my bible study that is a speech pathologist. She works in a hospital in Kansas City and she is open to me shadowing her whenever I want to. That will also be a great experience. She is very sweet and helpful, so I know she will help me with my classes if I need help. Just getting the exposure to the field I want to be in will be so helpful for my future. PRAISE GOD, He is so good to me and I know He has great plans for my future!

For Christmas I will be going to Washington State to see my parents. Brady will be coming with me. It will be a bitter-sweet experience for him because his whole family will be in Indiana except for him and this will be the first time he is away from home for Christmas. It will be hard when we get married because our families are on the same rotation of the holidays. We have to figure out a way to see both sides of the families- one of the challenges of marriage is the holidays! We both love our families and our new families, so we'll make a way for it to happen. Back to Christmas in Washington...everyone is coming so it will be very special because who knows when that will happen again! My brother Ryan and his wife Bailey, my sister Stephanie and her husband Stinson, Stinson's mom, and my Grandma will all be under one roof!! We are going to have so much fun! We have plans of playing games, going to Seattle for some fun, going to the Nutcracker, Christmas Eve Service, and much more fun! I love this time of the year! It's great to have a new perspective on Christmas as you grow up. I have always know the reason for the season is the birth of Jesus, but instead of being "wrapped" up in presents and all the material things, it has become important to just enjoy the company of my family and friends. God has blessed me with so much and my family and friends are the best blessings of them all!

When I think about Christmas, I think about children and how excited they get for this time of year. I have a "child" of my own. I am so thankful for Brady and his child-like spirit! I always say that I will always have one more kid in addition to our kids-Brady. That is one thing that I adore about my husband to be. Last week at church there was a big tree set up with paper ornaments, and the ornaments had names of people or kids in the church that would not receive gifts and a list of things that they wanted for Christmas. Brady searched the tree for the perfect ornament and he got a little boy who wanted car, trains, and airplanes. He was so excited to provide gifts for this boy, and it made me smile and thank God for Brady. He has such a giving and loving heart and his child-like spirit radiates for all to see. It is such a wonderful reminder to have have faith like a child, and I am the luckiest girl in the world to be marrying a "boy" that will remind me to have childlike faith! The little boy is very lucky too because he got 3 boxes of cars and planes, and because of Brady he will have a huge smile on his face Christmas morning! :)

Brady has also been volunteering in the nursery with me! We work with the 2 year olds and he is so great with the kids! I love that he is willing to deal with crying, pushing and shoving, reading "Farm Animals", putting together puzzles, and cleaning up spilled drinks. It means so much to me that he volunteers with me and we are giving back to the church with our time!

This blog was random updates, so sorry if it was hard to follow!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!