Thanksgiving

As I was baking pumpkin pie and making my Mom's famous sweet potato stuff I started thinking about Thanksgiving. And am glad that it is a time not only to eat delicious food but also to ponder all the things that one is thankful for and since I am not always diligent in letting people know how thankful I am for them I figured it was time to break out of my blog slumber and let you all know.

Just thinking about all the people and things I am thankful for makes my heart swell up so big I feel tears coming to my eyes. It is a little strange not being surrounded by large amounts of family this year for this thanksgiving weekend but I am thankful to have my family here (Ian) and also that Caleb can come and celebrate with us!

I am so thankful for my wonderful husband Ian and all that he does for me and with me. I am thankful that I can say I love him even more than I did the day we got married and I loved him quite a lot even then :) I am thankful for my parents who have always been there for me and I am thankful that they showed me what it was to be in a loving relationship and that I can call them my friends. I am thankful for my two beautiful sisters. They are always full of wise advise and laughter and are always willing to listen to me if I need to cry or vent. I am thankful of their friendship and all their love. I am thankful for my parents-in-law who have accepted me wholeheartedly into their family. I am thankful for my brothers-in-law who also have accepted me as their own little sister (and big sister in one instance). I am thankful for my adorable nieces and ruggedly handsome nephew. I am so thankful that they are healthy and thriving and hope I will come to know them well. I am also thankful for my parents parents my Grandparents! They raised up such wonderful people to be my mom and dad. I know we are not all close but I want you all to know that you are always in my thoughts and prayers and I love you so much. I feel so blessed to have you in my life :)

I am thankful also for my beautiful lady friends here in Calgary. You are all wonderful in so many different ways and mean so much to me.

I am thankful for a steady job, health, a roof over my head: (Here are some pictures... I was planning on waiting till our paintings went up but that might not actually ever happen :S):

And because I can NEVER get these pictures right.... I am also thankful for the beautiful purse I got for my birthday which no one has seen yet:

And now our much more functional spare room:

And our "master suite" haha:

The bathroom (essential!):

Our living room/dining room/huge window that brings in tons of light:

Our kitchen (with very small area for doing dishes ...) :

And our laundry room with tons of storage YAY!:

So that's the little tour of the house that I am thankful to be living in!

And last but definitely not least... I am thankful that God is so good. He is so good.

Psalm 118: 24 "This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it."

Psalm 118: 29 "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever."

Enough said. I love you all.

With love.

Isabelle Siebring

I am thrilled to announce that I have a new niece as of early this morning! EEEE! No pictures because ... well, I haven't seen her haha but I just wanted to share the happy news and say another Congratulations to Erin, Chris, and Gray! YAY! So excited to meet your baby girl! And if anyone (Mom and Dad) has pictures they should post them! Or email them or something :) Thanks!

With Love.

Bad Day? ... Rejoice!

Romans 5:3-5 says:

"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."

How great is that!? I definitely feel like there is hope at the end of this not so great day. I hope you feel it too.

With love.

Spring Wedding? You tell me...

So... It's not our actual anniversary today but you will see what we were doing on that day, March 15th! I was thoroughly convinced that we had gotten married in the Spring.. or at least it seemed like it on our wedding day. See March 15, 2010:

(Cutest ring bearer ever! Wish I could have seen him walk up the isle...)

Everywhere it looks like spring. What a beautiful day to marry my best friend! Buuut... guess again. I now give you March 15, 2011:

I look sad because I thought I had found snow just as deep as Ian's but I hadn't....

This is the ice castle they make on Lake Louise at the Fairmont Chateau... It was a very very windy blustery day. (But still beautiful in a wintery way).

We saw this couple ice climbing on one of our "hikes" (more like a snowy walk haha). Looks impressive hey?

CHECK THIS WATERFALL OUT! I don't know how they did it but THAT'S impressive. They made it to the top safely and we didn't see them come down.

Anyway. It was a wonderful anniversary. And an even more wonderful first year of marriage. I love you Ian :)

Early Nights and Early Mornings

Good Morning Everyone!

So anyone who knew me when I was younger can attest to the fact that I was not a morning person. I stayed up late and I loved to sleep in. I am not sure when all this changed but I no longer stay up late and I love to be up early! Not if I have to set an alarm but one of the benefits of going to sleep early is that you naturally wake up early too! Recently (and honestly this has not been the norm and I don't think it will stay the norm, hoping not anyway!) I have been falling asleep at 830pm sharp. Hahaha I think it's because I have been sick and worn down for the past 3 weeks. Yesterday Ian and I were joking that when I am older I will be needing to go to bed around noon if already at 25 I fall asleep at 830. Anyway... it doesn't matter what I am doing. Watching something or reading or just hanging out ... I fall asleep and cannot keep my eyes open. It's a little bit comical in my mind but I think I will get back in to a regular sleeping habit once I am fully better.

The nice thing about it is that I then wake up around 630am and cozy up in bed for about half an hour and then am up at 7 to start my day with some quality time with God. It's so refreshing. When I am doing my devotions I like to feel like I am all by my self or I guess I should say I like to feel like it's just me and God in the room, and so it's nice to be up before Ian and to not feel rushed to get on with the day. It's more difficult on the day's I work but I don't work today so I will just drink it in and enjoy.

My small group is going through the book "A Heart Like His" by Beth Moore right now and so I was reading about David this morning. David and Goliath more specifically and there was one passage that stuck out to me so I will share it with you although you've more than likely read it a few times.

1 Samuel 17: 45-47

David replied to the Philistine, "You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I dome to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven's Armies-- the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone assembled here will know that the Lord rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the Lord's battle, and he will give you to us!"

So.. it's a pretty gruesome passage but what stood out to me is David's complete confidence in God. He is a living God, he is with us, and he protects us. I just really liked being reminded of that.

To close I wish I had some pictures to show you all. Pictures are always so much fun on blogs... Ian and I are just really bad at taking pictures. We take our camera everywhere and then come back and realize we didn't use it. So, sorry for all the text. I appreciate everyone who puts up pictures! I love seeing little Esme and Gray and bits of what everyone is up to! When I have pictures of anything that's going on here I will post some. For now you get a glimpse as to what is going on in my mind and life!

Lots of love!

PS...

Happy New Year!

I hope and pray that it's a good one for all of you who read this blog and for those who don't :) I have high hopes for the year! I hope you do too :)

With love.

Snowshoeing!

Yesterday Ian and I went snowshoeing for the first time with our new snowshoes! We were headed to a lake that was recommended to us but alas, we found the road closed:

It turned out to be fine because the road was closed right at the beginning of a trail we have hiked a couple times during the summer (Ian more than myself). AND it was probably a good thing because after looking at the hiking trail and surrounding area map we discovered we were WAY off on our directions and it would have taken us all day just to get to where we were originally headed! ha!

It was a good day :) Enjoy! Love from the both of us!