Gratitude

One of my favorite primary songs, one that I repeat in my mind more often than any other, is A Child's Prayer. The lyrics I repeat most are, "Heavenly Father, are you really there? Do you hear and answer every child's prayer?" In a way it is my way of praying while moving about daily, a prayer that is often in my heart. It seems to me that lately, however, I've taken Heavenly Father for granted. I certainly go through times like this often in my life, but this time it has gone for too long.

I was able to attend the dedication of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple this past Sunday. I went alone so Tyler could stay home and watch the children. I enjoyed the speakers but was not fully touched by the spirit until we sang The Spirit of God together. Tears started streaming down my face and I couldn't finish the verse. I felt the spirit, something that I had not allowed myself to do in a very long time. Lately I've felt I've been past feeling in many areas of life and feeling the spirit and love of Christ included. I was grateful that I was able to be there to be reminded of this wonderful feeling.

Recently I have been able to notice the simple things that the Lord has done for me and my family. Things I did not notice, or even ask for, until after receiving the blessing. Simple, and not yet small to me. Here are just a few things that He has blessed us with.

In May Tyler completed more steps in his educational journey. But we were also jobless. We decided to move in with his parents for 5 weeks and then mine for 5 weeks to earn and save money. This meant we had to sell our contract for our apartment otherwise pay two months rent to be rid of it. That was over $1500. We took the chance and moved out anyway. Fortunately for us, we only had to pay for 1/2 of another month before it was rented out to another family, saving us over $1000. We were blessed financially to not have to pay rent while living with parents plus carry the burden of an unfulfilled contract.

Then we had arranged to live with my grandmother in her basement once school started. Tyler and I spent the first two years of our marriage here and it was a blessing. We wouldn't have had to pay rent, had a private kitchen and been able to help my grandma. However, we would have had to do some renovating to make another bedroom and the kitchen was lacking a few things to be desired. However, as she is aging (she's 92), her ability to drive and take care of herself caused her to move out quickly to a retirement community which left us homeless come August. We didn't know where we were going to live and taking out even more student loans to pay for rent seemed overwhelming. But my dad has a friend who owns a home in Provo. It was vacant and they were seeking caretakers. They are generously allowing us to stay in the basement of this home while they renovate the upstairs. And the biggest blessing is that it's a better arrangement than my grandma's would have been. It has a nicer kitchen, closer to campus, 3 separate bedrooms, as many loads of laundry that we need, and the BEST part of the whole deal, it's virtually free AND it has a huge enclosed backyard with lush green grass, friendly blue jays and visits from snails. It's wonderful. Another sign that He is really there.

The third and final blessing (because this post is longer than I expected) is about our car. We bought a mini-van in cash (because we sold our Sedan to Tyler's sister) almost a year ago. It was fairly cheap and fairly new. However, it's a Ford, and I have reservations with American cars. But it was all we could afford so we bought it. It's been very handy, especially for moving. When we moved we were able to fit our big sofa bed in the back with a little sticking out. Mini-vans aren't as bad as we once thought. But anyway....we (and my father-in-law) had noticed our steering was a little crooked. The steering wheel would be turned nearly 45 degree angle while driving straight! The front right wheel had been banged up so we had that replaced and had it re-aligned. But they couldn't completely align it and suggested we take it somewhere where the frame could be looked at. In the meantime, I procrastinated in doing this. Tyler was too busy working and it was my responsibility to get it checked out. But being sick all summer I dragged my feet. We drove to Utah and Lake Powell and back, putting more miles on the tires and neglecting to have it looked at. But this week as we were driving on the freeway Tyler noticed the problem worsening. The steering wheel would give on it's own, like on a windy day, when the car sort of moves by itself. That scared us enough to just take the darn thing in. The guy said we were extremely lucky that the wheel had not already popped off because it was basically bare bones in there. With all the highway traveling we have done this summer, our lives and car were spared. Yes, we'll have to pay at least $1000 to get it fixed but our children are still living and we were never in any accidents. It scares me to think of what could have happened to us. The wheel could have fallen off during any of those trips but He looked over us, even when we didn't' realize we needed it.

Why does He do this? Why does He look after me when I regrettably have forgotten about Him? He does know our thoughts and our desires. Even when I am not communicating with Him my needs, wants, fears, gratitude's He still blesses me. Even when I don't feel worthy of His blessings He still shares them with me and my little family. The only explanation I can think of for his outpouring of blessings is because He loves me. He loves my children. He loves my husband. He must trust me and Tyler enough to raise them and even bring another to this earth. Even when I don't trust myself He must.


I am grateful that He loves us.


I am grateful that He is merciful and forgiving.


I am grateful that I know Him.

This is me

Yes, I am still here. Somewhere amidst mountains of boxes and house guests. I have felt like Punchinello a little too much. But it is so nice to not be living out of a suitcase especially after doing so for nearly 4 months!! And Jocelyn and Sammy love our "new home" which makes things so much nicer.

Actually, our mountains of boxes are pretty much gone. It is such a nice feeling to be able to walk through our living room without tripping on corrugated cardboard and piles of "stuff to go back into storage." Now I just have to organize the stuff, find new homes for the random things that had a home in our last place, and then hang up photos, art, etc....

I haven't posted in over a month. Have you missed me? I have missed blogging a bit, but only a little bit. I will blog as often as I can fit in in the next few days, which, let's be honest, probably won't be much :). And I will be starting backwards with what has happened this summer like my sister's wedding, Lake Powell, ER visits and Tyler's graduation clear back in May!!

Perfectly slow

Since summer began my Etsy shop has gone perfectly slow. I've only had a handful of sales in the last month but it has been such a blessing.

As soon as I hit 6 weeks with this pregnancy I was sick. And then it just became progressively worse each week. I honestly had no desire to work.....on anything. Not even checking blogs or writing emails. I was so out of touch, I felt.

But when I did receive orders I mustered up the desire and energy to complete them. In one weekend, I had 3 separate orders, one to Scotland even! I made 200 cupcake flags!! That's a lot of flags. I also thought of a new way to package them. With all my orders, I package them in pretty tissue paper and tie them with string. Then I realized I should add an additional little flag for an extra touch. Wouldn't you love to receive this in the mail?

It's starting to come back to me as I feel better. I have some great ideas coming soon! And shop announcement: I will be closing from July 22-26th and again from August 7-15th for personal reasons and vacation. Wahoo!

You can tell that I am feeling slightly better since I am blogging again. I am only sick from 2pm on instead of 11 am on.

Living in the rural life is not for the faint of heart. Jocelyn came rushing to me, through the usual barricade of grasshoppers that adorn the sidewalks/ground here at my parents. She kept saying, "ants" and brought me her book that had a couple ants on it. Big deal, I thought. They are everywhere. But she kept insisting that I come "show me." So I went downstairs and found a trail of ants, 2 ants wide, going through my entire bedroom! Like one of those ant trails you see in cartoons that steal picnic food off the red checkered table cloths. Ya, I've never seen one so prominent before. How do they get in? They find the tiniest crumb and then tell all their little ant friends to join the party. I got the vacuum and got rid of them. But any little tingle or itch I am afraid it's an ant crawling on me. Yuck.

And Samuel came downstairs adorned like this. He wanted to be "cool." He insists that I can't wash it off---ever. I think he's been watching daddy and uncle Levi play too many computer games. I also later found out that he did the same to his bike. That's not so cool.

First broken bone

You may have noticed that Jocelyn had a cast on her arm in the previous post. I neglected to blog about that experience. Here is what happened.

While we were in Colorado Jocelyn fell down the stairs, about 4 of them, carpeted. She was carrying her princess dress in her arms and tripped. She tumbled actually. She cried right away and I could tell she was in pain. Her wrist was a little red and I iced it and the redness went away. She immediately wanted a nap (at 11:30am) and woke up in pain again. So I gave her pain reliever and monitored it for the rest of the day. When Tyler examined her much later in the day he noticed it hurt when he turned it a certain way (like when his arm broke so many years ago) and it was starting to swell a lot more. So after calling insurance people and trying to find a provider that would accept out of state insurance, we took her to the ER the next day. She did great. Didn't cry once. After the X-rays she perked right up and became more active with the Dr's. Of course, I couldn't go in with her to get the X-rays but she did fine with Tyler. So, she came away with a splint and a sling. It's really cute actually. She has two minor buckled fractures, one on each of her arm bones. I am glad we went in to the ER! (we were only there for 2 hours!). And the attending nurse said we did the right thing by waiting to see if it got worse before taking her in.

Here are the photos of her right after we got home. Sammy took the "leg" shot.



She'll have to wear her cast for 4 weeks total and she does great with it. Even with the little blisters and chaffing it causes her. And by the way, try, at all costs, to avoid doing any medical stuff out of state. Even if your insurance is willing to be billed....the other state may not be willing to bill them. So you'll get stuck with the bill. Such a pain!! We even waited a few extra days (with permission from the nurses, of course) to get her cast on so we could drive to Utah early and not have to pay for an orthopedic surgeon to put it on in Colorado! Crazy!

So, we have our first broken bone with the kids. But like I said, Joc is a trooper. If Samuel so much as gets a splinter, he shrieks, kicks and screams in pain. I am glad it was Joc and not Sammy. Knock on wood he doesn't break anything any time soon.

Independence Day 2009

We had pretty fun time for the fourth this year. In short, we attended the Mt Pleasant parade, ate hot dogs for lunch. Then we drove down to Richfield to hang out with my brother Alex and his family. The kids loved this the best (okay, after collecting candy at the parade) because they were able to play with their cousins and their cute little kitten. We then drove back to Mt P and witnessed a really cool fireworks, I mean, lightning display that spread across the whole valley. The lightning was better than the fireworks that we did actually see in Mt P!



I am grateful to be living in this country. I am worried about the course it is taking (politically speaking) but for now, I know that I am safe. I feel blessed to live in a land that we are still free to practice our religion, have access to great medical treatment and public schools. Happy Independence Day!

Emu's

We're staying with my parents in Mt. Pleasant, UT for the next month. Mt P is a podunk town but it's quiet and peaceful.

As I mentioned earlier, my parents have peacocks that live next door. But there are also Emu's.

Pronounced Ee--meeew. They are quite unattractive creatures. Sort of like an pre-historic ostrich. 3 toes, fraggle rock like feathers, big orange eyes and a long neck. But the best part about these birds is that they sound like drums. They make this sound in their chest that sounds like beating a barrel drum. It's pretty cool.

Today I took the kids on a walk past the emu's. We also saw some baby peacocks and fed the horses. But the funniest part was when Samuel named one of the Emu's Parker, after his best friend in Utah. That made me laugh (maybe you too, Meliss). They do not resemble each other at all and I have no idea why he made the comparison. Lol. I guess Parker is just on his mind.

Here are the two together. I see no resemblance. Unless Parker can make a drum sound in his chest.