Another dose of gratitude before we leave town...

Well, I can't tell you how much it has blessed my December to try to focus on my blessings. It really has opened the way for me to feel so much more joy than I would have been able to otherwise. So we're getting ready to drive to Utah soon and I thought that I would do one more post before we take off!


I'm grateful that I got to sing to Audrey this morning. Audrey is a woman I have known since I was little--and she used to play for me and my siblings to sing in church. Amazing pianist and musician, and such a sweet lady. She suffered a stroke last year and then her husband passed away shortly after. My good friend Lisa thought it would be fun for a few of us "young moms" to go carol to her and she offered to watch all of our kiddos while we went. The whole experience was the spirit of Christmas. I know Audrey is so frustrated by all the things she can't do anymore--like play the piano--but she still feels music in her heart just as strong. She waved her arms and directed us on a few of the songs and joined right in on Jingle Bells and even sang the "ha ha ha" part. I'm grateful for the power of music to say what words can't, and for how our hearts can sing, even if our mouths can't even remember the words. My Christmas is complete. :)

I'm grateful that my boys love singing "Angels We Have Heard on High." Several nights, as we have gathered around the tree to sing carols, instead of peacefully sitting by the glow of the lights my boys have stood up and joined hands with each other and danced around the room as we sing. Pure joy. So fun to watch.

I'm grateful for all the kicks from the little lady in my tummy. It's one of my favorite parts of pregnancy. It's like, "tap, tap! Keep it up, mom! You get to meet me soon!" I love that my cousin brought me over a few baby girl clothes and Ethan held up a pair of pajamas and said, "Oh! Those are cute! I just want to hug her right now, mom!" Me too, Ethan.

I'm grateful for the way my focus on gratitude has spilled into the whole family. :) The other day Ethan came and randomly hugged me throughout the day like 15 times and said things like, "Thanks for letting me go to Franklin, mom. It's a great school." Or, "Thanks for buying this piano, mom. I'm glad we have it." Or, "I'm really grateful we have a house, mom." (These kinds of statements are not incredibly typical for Ethan, so it has been a great gift to me to hear them!!!) The feeling of gratitude in our home this month has been like a sweet air freshener, wafting in every room and reminding us of our blessings!!!

I'm grateful for all the stories and songs and traditions of Christmas that give us a piece of the puzzle of God's love for us and the significance of the Savior to each of us. I love getting a few more pieces of that puzzle every year and standing back in awe as I comprehend more of God's greatness and his plan.


Well Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry for lots of boring posts without pictures! We'll remedy that in a couple weeks. :)

Gratitude unlocks the fulness of life!

Well, I have been grateful every day this week, just haven't posted about it. It's December and I'm pregnant. Don't even try to make me feel guilty because I am impervious to guilt trips. (heh heh. Trying to be. )

I'm grateful for my diabetes educator, Judy. The first one I've ever had who is actually diabetic and on a pump! So she actually knows how to help me!! Throughout the last months of pregnancy, the need for insulin steadily increases and so we have to constantly be upping the amount that is programmed in my pump per hour and also per carb when I eat. The last adjustment we did helped SOOO much and I feel like now I can actually eat food and not automatically have awful blood sugar afterward!! This is a great blessing when you need to be eating a hundred times a day. :)

I'm grateful that my husband has a job. 8 years of marriage later after lots and lots of school and very limited funds, it's awesome to feel like we are actually adults now and that we are a "real family" that can pay for the basics ourselves. And for the first time this year we've been able to be on the giving end of some generosity and it feels great!!

I'm grateful that I got to sing in a quartet with my high school voice teacher and her husband and my husband this week. We sang some 4-part christmas carols for a church event she was in charge of on Tuesday, and then for Kyle's company party last night. It felt good to sing full voice and with such great people and singers! (breath support is a bit trickier these days, but it actually felt good to engage those muscles and give it my best try. It's been awhile!)

I'm grateful that Ethan got to have 1st grade "Polar Express" day and wear his pajamas to school and bring his favorite stuffed animal. I dropped him off this morning and thought--"this is as good as it gets. This is the magic of childhood!!"

Okay, last one: I'm grateful that we won't be traveling for Christmas with a baby yet! I am a bit overwhelmed by the project of getting all the presents ready and all the people ready and all the everything else ready and driving to Utah this year, but I'm grateful that we don't have diapers or naps or feeding schedules to worry about this time around!! The boys are going to love it!!


I'm grateful that I'm going to go sleep with my snoogle!!

Abundance and Lack

I'm grateful for the awesome talk I heard in Stake Conference about gratitude on Sunday! It was totally on the same wavelength as what I have been feeling the last couple of weeks about the power of being grateful and choosing to focus on our blessings.

President Anderson talked about Jesus healing the blind when he was on the earth and that He can also heal our blindness, and help open our eyes to see our blessings and help us be grateful. He pointed out that abundance and lack are both always present in our lives and so it's just a matter of which garden we choose to tend--and whichever we focus on will grow. Love that idea.

So today I am grateful for a dishwasher!! We spent the first 3 years of our marriage washing everything by hand, and the last 2 weeks have been a reminder of how much time that takes! Our dishwasher started leaking a while ago and 3 service calls later we're still trying to get it up and running. So I'm grateful that we have one, that it HAS worked, and that soon it will work again! And grateful for paper goods which we have been using to lessen the load. :)

I'm also grateful for these cute guys!! They found some missing pieces to this potato head family on Saturday and we ended up setting them up by the tree and taking a potato head family picture.



I'm grateful that Ethan drew a picture of our family today and drew a baby sister, dressed in a tutu.
"She's a ballerina, mom."
"And this is Jake, watching over our baby sister. See his eyes are looking at her. And mine are too."

I'm grateful that she won't stay in my tummy forever! And that when she comes out I will get my back back to myself!! :)


God give me the eyes to see my blessings, no matter what else tries to come into my view!!

My Snoogle!!

Today I am grateful for my new Snoogle. Have you ever heard of one?

So when I'm pregnant, I get some crazy lower back pain and through the last 2 and a half pregnancies have experimented with all kinds of ideas to help alleviate that. 1st time around we bought a body pillow and a theraball and I would stretch constantly throughout the day and night. We got through it. 2nd time around we bought a new mattress and I would also ice my back daily--and I took tylenol pm several times during that last trimester just to survive. :)

I am now to the point in this pregnancy that I can't lie flat on my back or I can't breathe. I have been sleeping on my side with my body pillow but then switching onto my back periodically, but the other night when I would switch to my back I would start to suffocate and Kyle would nudge me or I would wake up and try to go back on my side. At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom and was on my side, and all of the muscles in my neck and lower back sort of charlie-horsed and when I tried to get out of bed I totally collapsed on the floor and couldn't move. Ahhhhhhhh! I guess that's why I've been switching to my back, to just give my muscles a break. Anyway, I felt kinda scared about the next 2 and a half months and just how we are going to get through if I can't sleep/breathe/move throughout the night. :)

So, my genius husband chatted with some ladies at work the next day, researched products online, and as a fun surprise went a got a "Snoogle" on the way home from work!





So it's like a body pillow, but way cooler. The package says it's "The mother of all pregnancy pillows."

I tried it out last night and am pleased to report that it made a HUGE difference!! I'm a Snoogle convert! And now I feel like maybe I just might make it through the next several weeks of getting bigger and more uncomfortable every day!

So, I'm grateful for my husband. And for my snoogle!!

The end.