Gratitude

W have been busy but that is no excuse for not keeping up.  Summer has come and gone and school has started.  As has the first parent teacher conference and it is almost thanksgiving.  I have been caught up or consumed with things I which I have no control.  It is hard to let go of those things some times.  Things that we want and can't have or The Lord does not see fit to give us right now.  And with that comes angst in not getting those things.  But in time my heart has settled and has been pacified all through the Lord's own way.  It is a good thing he know what is best for each of us and he truly does.  He knows us far better than we know ourselves.  He knows how to succor us and fill our hearts with peace and gratitude.

With that succor I have felt that peace and gratitude.  I have decided to move forward with a grateful heart in knowing I have two wonderfully amazing children who truly are bests friends.  The are over two years apart but are the same heart and it has become an every outing question if they are twins.  Maybe they are in spirit?  We went to parent teacher conference only to be told that our children our polite and kind and want to help everyone they can.  We walked away thinking we may be doing something right in this whole parenting adventure.  ( sometimes I think the politeness and manners end when they walk in the door to our home). We are working on that.  They are doing great in school and and they love it.  What a relief.  So knowing that I may not have any more children but that I have two great children with me through this life journey and a wonderful husband to join us will make the reunion with our heavenly children that much sweeter.  And what a sweet reunion it will be.

I truly have so many blessings.  I think of the sweet people in the Philippines suffering right now and wish I could help them, hug them, heal them, and I will through prayer.  And hope that they can feel those prayers from around the world.

So if you are suffering In any way, please know that you are not the only one with trials.  We all have them, we all struggle to bear our burdens and through the power of the atonement we can be lifted.  We can feel that peace and comfort from our Savior Jesus Christ.  I know I have and I continue to feel that each day through the eyes of my family and feeling that gratitude in my heart.

Great things
Peace
Children
Feeling the love of The Lord

Hope

I have always wanted to be a mother.  I think maybe most of us have.  I have two kids.  I don't think I ever thought I would have a huge family but knew I wanted some kids.  Sometimes, when it looks like a tornado has hit your living room and your kid's hair hasn't seen a comb for at least a week, the arguing, whining and whatever else it may be you start wondering what exactly you got yourself in to with this whole kid thing.

Words of advice:  Be Grateful.

I may have two children but I also have struggled with infertility on and off for years.  I am very grateful to have my children.  I pray for them daily and thank Heavenly Father daily for them.  Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if we just knew Heavenly Father's plan he had for us.  Things would certainly be clearer and probably easier.  But the cloudiness of trials sometimes allows us to see the bigger picture.  The refined fire.  While there is always something to learn from those trials sometimes I think that I have already gone through this before, what did I learn then?  Do I need to learn this again?  But I think that perhaps I am not learning the same thing again but learning differently this time.  Now I don't know yet what that is but I do hope it will come to me.  Now I do not know if there will be more kids on earth, but Heavenly Father knows me best and I believe I will get to raise a large brood in heaven.  I am focusing on being content and happy with what I have.  It is hard and it might get harder still but I can have faith in the bigger picture and know most of all that I am loved.

Good things
1.  Peace
2.  Love
3.  Gratitude

Children

Sometimes I get frustrated about the best way to teach or handle my children's tantrums.  Brian and I have been not really knowing what to do with Jaxon and kindergarten.  He has a super late birthday (August) and we have not been sure if we should put him in kindergarten or not.  I have asked a lot of people about what to do and they have given my suggestions.  We have gone back and forth for months about it.  I am probably worrying way too much about this.  Oh well.  Some days I feel that he needs to be held back and three days later I feel that there is no way I can hold him back.  He is bored at home, loves school, and seems to be mostly on top of things... I think.  Well a few weeks ago I happen to ask the kindergarten teacher who happens to be in our ward what her thoughts on the subject were. 

The Best advice I ever got.  She simply said to me, "Ask the Lord, he will know what to do with His child".  I thought,  genius.  Anyway, since that day, I have given this a lot of thought.  I get advice about my children a fair amount,  I ask around maybe someone else has been through something similiar.  I have read parenting books and so forth.  But since she told me this, I have thought, Do I ask the Lord first?  I should.  He knows my children better than I know my children.  He has entrusted me in their care, why shouldn't I ask him.  He is all knowing.  So I am going to try to make a better effort of asking the Lord for help in my parenting.  They are His children too and I should go to Him first.

Good Things
1.  Realization
2.  Holy Ghost
3.  A Loving Heavenly Father

Awareness

Over the last month, I have been pondering.  Not so much one thought in specific but many things.  I have been thinking a lot about trials and tests that we have on during our time on Earth.   While some may seem to be minor and others are perhaps much larger, there is a common theme.  After pondering this for awhile the thought occurred to me that is seems simple.  If we put our trust in God, he will take care of us and not leave us floundering.  It seems like in times when we are struggling that we lean to him more.  Why is that?  Should we not pray just as often during the regular times in our lives as we do in the times of trial?  Or is it that when we are comfortable with life we get lazy and when we are struggling we are truly seeking and praying for an answer to our struggle?  As we bob our heads above water, we grasp for anything and that is the time when Satan can find us so easily sometimes.  If we pray to our Heavenly Father and put our infinite trust in Him, he will throw out the life vest to help each of us in our time of need.  He will not fail us.  Things may not go just as we planned, but will go just as they were suppose to.

Sometimes that trust is hard.  I am a planner.  I like to have a schedule and know when things are happening and when they will be over and such.  I am not always a go with the flow kinda gal.  I like to be prepared for upcoming things so sometimes the fear of the unknown can overcome me.  It is in times of the unknown that I need to put that infinite trust in my Heavenly Father.  I am working on it and it really is an ongoing process.  I have to be reminded that He will always be there for help if I just pray for help.  So I continue to work and push forward.  I can not know everything that will happen but I hope that when things happen I can adapt and adjust and keep working.  I don't know Heavenly Father's plans for me but I do know that He loves me and is always aware of me.  And I always have friends and family that our aware of my struggles as well and can help me along the way.  I love them dearly for it.  I have such a great husband that is so supportive of me and is there to comfort and help me along. 

Good Things
1.  Family and Friends
2.  Faith
3.  Trust in God
4.  It is all going to be okay.

I hope this all makes sense.

Change

The last few weeks I have been reflecting upon the seasons and time of year.  I see everyone's gratitude posts on facebook.  I am truly grateful for so many things.  As I think about all of those things I fell such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude.  I feel so blessed.  I try to teach my kids to be grateful and it is hard to understand when everything you see is what you have.  For example, I try to teach my kids that there are people who have no home, no clothes, no food and that we have so much.  I feel we have excess of everything, we have 2 cars to drive, more clothes and food than we probably really need, a great house to live and that has heat.  We have great jobs, opportunities to attend school, anyway I could go on and on.  But the point of all of this is:  As we approach the holiday season, let us try to make a sacrifice on our part for someone who may not have as much as we do.  It could be locally, internationally, wherever you may want.  I know this can be hard, but I also know the blessing that will come from giving of yourself are immense. 

Jaxon, my 4 year old, when we were talking about this, I asked him what he thought he could do, if he would be willing to give something up of his.  He looked at me and told he could give his train set to somebody that didn't have toys.  Keep in mind, he just got this train set last year for Christmas.  It was easy for him.  I kept asking him questions to make sure he knew what he was doing and his response was, " Can I just play with it one more time?"

I was overwhelmed with everything I think, that he didn't have to think twice about it.  He said that that is what Jesus would want him to do.  I know that the kids these days come stronger in spirit to withstand the temptations of Satan.  It may not be that easy for everyone or even myself but we can do it. 

If you are looking for something check out this blog Here about a simple sticker project to help kids in Argentina.  I know the girl who is spearheading this and it is such a great way to help.

In other news,  I got released from being in the Primary Presidency.  This time around it has been almost 3 years.  Total time in primary since I got married:  approximately 9 years.  I have been married for just 10 years.  I wrote 5 primary programs.  It was easy for me.  It was kind of a relief, I thought.  Until I got my new calling and now I may want to go back.  I am now the teacher of the 14 year old for Sunday school.  I looked at the curriculum.  It is new for the youth, with not really a lesson plan.  It is teaching as the Savior taught, guided by the spirit.  After looking at it, I was overwhelmed and decided I want to go back to primary.  That was where I knew what I was doing, I was comfortable, it was easy, second nature.  But I also know there wasn't much growth there for me right now and I need the change.  I have known I have needed the change for awhile and really tried to have a better attitude about it and change.  I felt like I did better the last few months.  Well I got that change and I am uncomfortable and it will be good for me and I will grow.

Good Things
1.   Change
2.  Growth
3.  Learning through the eyes of a child

Lambs skin

A couple of weeks ago, I went down to Salt Lake to attend the Relief Society Conference.  It was so good.  I  loved it.  The seats were so amazing.  Right by the stairs going up to the podium.  We were sitting among apostle's wives and daughters.  So much fun.  Got to shake Sister Dew's hand and chat just for a brief second. 

The general relief society presidency all spoke and really liked each of their talks.  Then President Eyring spoke.  He told such a touching story about his daughter that had a baby 15 weeks early obviously unexpected.  As they were at the hospital which was 20 minutes away, the Bishop came to visit them.  His first encouraging words to the couple were "My team has it under control".  I thought that was a funny statement.  Yet as I thought more about it, it is true.  What he meant by that was, there was a sister arranged for meals to be brought in, and others had arranged to drive the mother back and forth to the hospital, and others to watch the older two girls while the mother was gone and so forth.  All of these little arrangements had been made out of service.  As I thought about this, wondering if something like that happened in my own ward, what would have happened.  I pondered and decided it would have been the same thing.  "My team has it under control."  My ward would have gone above and beyond to make similiar arrangements to accomodate any situation.  The church is amazing.  It is all these people that have the same common belief system all working to grow closer to Christ.  And it is such a true example of Sister Dibbs statement.  I am a Mormon, I know it, I live it, I love it. 

The other thing that I have thought about since that time.  As we walked through Temple Square, it was beautiful weather and scenery.  As we got closer to the conference center, directly across the street actually, there was a lady dressed in a nice dress with a basket full of tissues wrapped in a ribbon.  She would hand them out to people saying "this meeting is going to be a tear jerker".  Most people thought it was a little weird but maybe she knew.  As we got closer to the conference, we found out that inside that nicely wrapped tissue package, was some literature against the church.  My sister made the statement that it was like "a wolf wearing lamb's skin".  I have thought a lot about that.  The world makes it so easy to find things that initially looks okay and after examining may not be.  It can be found on the internet, at school, and sadly enough among friends.  This is how Satan works.  Little by little he can eek into our lives if we are not prepared spiritually.  Sometimes the sin starts small and you may think it is harmless but can quickly expand to destroy lives.  Just like that little piece of paper stuffed into the tissue.  You didn't know it was there at first glance.

Over the past couple of months, we have had neighborhood children constantly over at our house.  My kids are overly friendly , which can be good and bad.  As a mother, I am always trying to protect them from harm.  After a day when some older kids were using language that I didn't like and punching each other, we left and I talked with my kids about the friends that make.  I just told them that we get to choose our friends and we want to choose friends who lift us up and are good examples to us.  As we were talking about it Jaxon says, "but Mom, they were nice".  Isn't that the same?  They are nice but yet they swear and wear immodest clothes and do naughty things, but they are nice.  On the outside they may seem nice, but what is on the inside is sneaking slowly into our lives.  I hope you see the parallel, it is hard to explain.  Let us always be caution as to what we let in, you never know where Satan is lurking.

Good Things
1.  Choosing the Right
2.  Recognizing the lure
3.  Having the gospel and knowing what is right

It's coming....

I love summer.  I really do.  It has been a pretty hot summer and I have loved every minute of it.  I haven't complained of the heat.  Here is my theory..You see I thought I liked winter.  As a kid it was great.  All the snowman building and fort building was so fun.  But now that the kids want to do all those things, it is not nearly as much fun plus it is cold, bone chilling cold.  And I am a wimp when it comes to cold.  So this summer has been exceptionally great.  My garden has been maybe the best garden I have had.  It seemed like everything was mass producing.  The peppers slightly out of control along with the weeds.  I kept a pretty good handle on it though.  Yesterday, I told Brian we needed to start getting our yard ready for winter.  He looked at me and said, "that's depressing". 

I used to like fall a lot.  But now I just realize that winter will be next.  I don't complain about the heat anymore, because when it is freezing cold, I will realize how awesome the heat really was.

Blah, blah.  Anyway.  I was looking through my blog, reading stuff and decided that I still need to blog.  It is a great way to document things and someday I will make it into a book.  Last month, our beloved hard drive on our Mac died.  It is 5 years old, which in computer hard drive life, I guess is old.  Out of the blue she died and so did all my pictures.  They were miracously able to recover everything else but not my pictures.  It was a sad day.  I can not do anything about it though.  Deep down I am hoping the guy at the Mac store will find some new knowledge he had never unearthed in his brain and figure it out.  But I don't anticipate that happening.  Is the lesson learned?  I have about 900 pics on a jump drive.  But I think I lost thousands of pics.  It will be okay.

I am boring.  In July, we went down to Heber Valley Camp, where mom and dad are on their service mission.  Such a cool place.  We stayed in cabins that had bunks in.  Did a challenge course and enjoyed one another's company.  The day before we hiked Ensign Peak, did some shopping, swam in a pool and fun things.  The following week we went to Island Park with Brian's family for a reunion.  It was also fun.  We went to Wade Lake, played horseshoes, again enjoyed company and had a good time.  Brian finished up his 2nd semester of nursing school..  We took the kids to the parade, saw fireworks, and had good times. 

In August, was Jaxon's birthday.  He turned 4.  He was so excited.  He is a sports kid and wants to play ball all the time.  Both kids learned to ride their bikes.  We go on family bike rides now.  That is fun.  We pulled up one section of weed mat, got bark, need lots more.  Brian and I went to Sun Valley for the whopping 10 year anniversary.  We went to a thrift store ( right up my alley).  Had some good food and enjoyed a weekend away.  School started for everyone but Brooke.  Reagan in first grade, Jaxon in preschool and Brian's 3rd semester.  It is half over (this part).  It has gone pretty fast to me, maybe Brian not so much.  Just to think that he could apply to grad school next fall.  Wow.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  No pictures, because well there are none.

Good Things:
1. Having some routine
2. Learning
3. Being so blessed.