like beans and cornbread.

i'm five months pregnant with eve (my seventh) in this picture- just so you know.
most pictures you see of me, i'm pregnant with someone :)

todd's family is vanilla.
my family is rocky road.

we met at church while we were attending byu.
i shared my testimony one Sunday and had 8 dates the next week.
they called todd "Mr. Mom".
he baked bread, he kept his apartment clean, he never skipped class, he knew all the answers in sunday school class, and he left parties early so he could get to bed on time.
i was a convert to mormonism.
my mother met mormon missionaries around the time she was separating from my first father.
todd's ancestors were mormon pioneers.
even though i was teaching seminary (an lds religion class) i was intimidated to read scriptures with todd because he knew the hebrew root words and i pronounced the words incorrectly.
i cried because my jello didn't get hard.
(fyi- you can not be a good mormon wife if you don't know how to make jello.)
i thought marriage was everything hard in life.
todd thought marriage would be bliss.
we were both in for a surprise.
todd's parents rarely disagree.
i come from a family that fights big and loves big.
todd had never seen people drunk until he came to my first family reunion.
i had never known a family that wasn't affectionate until i hugged todd's uncles and kissed them on the cheek and got a look of complete alarm... these were farming folk who were not the huggy, kissing type.
i'm still embarrassed by my immersion into todd's family.
i was an outspoken girl from the east visiting a small western town.
i didn't know who john wayne was and i thought they were kidding when they said they could never go to Provo, Utah for school because the town was too big.
i remember being reprimanded because i was too rowdy.
it was explained to me that visiting cousins was formal, like visiting teaching.
when todd came to my family it was like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
he said to me in awe one evening, "I just never realized that non-mormon families loved each other this much."

do you ever wish you could go back and re-live a certain part of your life?
i know i could do a bang up job of high school a second time around, but for sure i would relive this engagement time of my life.
i would be less insecure.
i'd spend less time trying to get them to think i'm great and spend more time trying to show them how great i thought their son was.
because, even though we were from different parts of the country... we had a LOT of similarities.
we both have big hearts and kind souls.
we love easily and forgive quickly.
we both LOVE children and family.
we both try really hard to do what is right.
we are both committed to our faith and our God.
we love to learn, we love to be together, we're funny and have so much fun together.
and, we really, really love each other.
we really wanted to make things work... and we knew we would.

because i'm peanut butter and he is jelly... and we're so good together on our little piece of bread.
{pardon the random song that i had to type because it has been running through my mind as i type this post.}

i often reflect back on these early days.
we were both so young.  i was 19 and he was 23.
for months we spent every free moment together talking and making out in the front seat of his car.
i still imagine i can hear the ticking of his grandfather's watch by my ear when he kisses me.
i felt todd's wisdom and his innocence... he felt my raw goodness.
and soon, we just knew that we had found someone we wanted to share forever with.

i'm not sure that many people were super excited about our decision to get married.
but we knew.
for todd it was a dream, for me it was the quiet whisper of the Spirit and an image embedded in my mind.
i could see todd pushing my future daughter on a swing.  they were both smiling and so happy.
i knew that this was the man i would choose as the father of my kids.
i knew this was the man God had led me too.
my life is forever blessed because of this one, good choice.
i like to tell my young self-- you might have muddled up a bunch of things in that marriage transition, but you did a heck of a job picking a man!
and, i'd pick him again today if i had the choice.

oh, it is so good to be home!!