Authentic Thankfulness

This Thanksgiving Holiday I am feeling so grateful for the little small things the Lord has blessed me with today. Some days I have not felt that gratitude and I want more than what God has allotted me that day. Its in those times where I have learned to make the best of that day with what I have been given. Over the passed 3 months since I became aware I had injured my back I have come to realize the Lords hand more readily as I have tried to take care of my kids every day.

Here is what I have learned and I am grateful for:
1) There were multiple days I was in so much pain with my back that I dreaded putting Asher down to sleep. He is a fighter tooth and nail and I had no strength to hold him. I said a prayer asking for guidance and help and it was like Heavenly Father was speaking to me telling each step of how to get him calm and to go asleep.
2) My mother taught me since I was a child to trust the Lord in the decisions I make with my health. I prayed, and received guidance of the medical direction I needed to take. I know and understand and trust that doctors can help us but ultimately it is the Lord that can help us make the right decision. Since making this decision my back has improved although a slow process it had improved dramatically since the beginning.
3) Some days I did not know how I was going to to do my calling in Young Women's. Let alone support my husband in his new calling as Elders Quorum President. The very same week Michael got this calling I found out about my back. I don't know how I survived those nights on my own with the kids. But the Lord in his mercy calmed my kids and helped me just get through those nights. The Lord is still helping me with that.
4) Yesterday I pleaded with my doctor to let me do some form of exercise. He told me I could walk for 20 minutes and push a light stroller. I am thankful I am allowed to walk for exercising now.
5) There were days I needed a shoulder to cry on and it was like Heavenly Father knew I would need that and had planned someone to come be with me that day. I am grateful to those that have listened to the spirit and acted on those promptings. I learned specifically from one that when we provide service to others we allow God's love to touch that soul. To feel He heard my prayer and someone listened. Then when we accept of that service it was if I was accepting of God's love for me. That producing a grateful heart, a loving heart.
6) I am truly grateful for those Little Hugs and Kisses from my kids when I felt down and needed a lift.
7) I am grateful for priesthood blessings. I don't know how well I could handle life without the priesthood being a part of it.
8) Asher is better now but for quite some time he would not eat solids, which means getting up more frequently at night. My husband got up and toke care of him. That's not easy for him. But he did it for me and I am grateful to him for that.
9) I am not going to lie. I pretty much need chocolate everyday. When I feel like crud. This is my comfort food. I am grateful for chocolate.
10) I am grateful for general conference talks. They have literally carried me in my darkest hours. Recently the talk "Drawing Closer to God" 2013 by Elder Vinson has really comforted me. One quote in particular has helped me rely on the Savior during this trial:

A young boy was trying to smooth out the dirt area behind his house so he could play there with his cars. There was a large rock obstructing his work. The boy pushed and pulled with all his might, but no matter how hard he tried, the rock wouldn’t budge.

His father watched for a while, then came to his son and said, “You need to use all your strength to move a rock this large.”

The boy responded,

 “I have used all my strength!”

His father corrected him: “No you haven’t. You haven’t had my help yet!”

They then bent down together and moved the rock easily.

 The Lord really does help us when we seek Him and ask. There were days I tried doing it on my own. They were hard. They were painful both physically and spiritually. But the days I truly sought God's help, He was there for me. I have been feeling God's love for me more constantly than I have my entire life. He is aware of ours needs. He is aware of our struggles. Some days I have just wanted healing and He has given me strength to endure another day. His hands are in the details of my life. I don't see them every day but I am learning to look for them. I am learning to seek after Him. I am learning to seek His will and my purpose of what I need to accomplish on this earth. I don't know what He wants me to accomplish in the future. But today I know He just wants me to be grateful.

The Inner Child

I love my little boys. Today I find myself on a quest to find the inner child in me. So I spend probably 90% of my day playing referee to these crazy energetic balls of energy. Most of it spent trying to keep ethan from giving asher another black eye.....don't ask I am not telling you what he did. Well in my feeble attempt to keep this from happening I had ethan help me make brownies. I also put Pandora on....country music..the get down with it kind of music. So ethan is standing on the chair, stirring the brownie mix, and he is dancing. Like I am not just talking a little bounce like my husband likes to call dancing....ok actually when michael dances it looks like a flamingo bobbing his head and flapping its wings. Just don't ask him to dance in public please. Anyways ethan is getting down with it and has this huge grin on his face. All the sudden flash backs of when I was a kid and ahem...college dances came flashing through my head. I then realized I haven't been acting my true goofy self for a while now. Here is glimpse of what i was like as a child: I would burst out singing on our porch to some Broadway song I just made up and as soon as a car drove by I would act like nothing ever happened. I would dress my male dog up in girl clothes and put flowers in his hair and take pictures. That dog never bit me though. I am pretty sure I did pranks all the time because I remember one time it was my dad that put a rubber band around the nozzle of the sprayer in the kitchen sink. Well my mom turned it on and it sprayed her right in the face...and guess who was blamed for that? Me! There are some other things I did I am thinking  of but it's TMI. My family will know what I am referring to. College I really was no different. Ok I didn't sing Broadway down the side walk on Rexburg campus but I did love kareoke nights and I loved going dancing and pretty much saying the random funny things at 1 in the morning. Michael rarely stays up with me that late these days. That's when my roommates would start putting up the quote wall.

What is it about growing up that we hide that inner child in us. I am not talking about the childish behaviors but the characteristics that make up our personalities. Lately I have been dealing with a back injury. With 2 young boys this has been a really hard trial for me. I feel like when that goofy self wants to shine its ruby face I pull back into my shell like I am in survival mood. I look at others who are dealing with sicknesses that threaten there life and I see most the time they are happy even through the trial. I love seeing that example. It helps me be content with what is going on in my life no matter the difficulty. Well today I am challenging to say those things that randomly pop in my head and do that dance that makes everyone feel uncomfortable because they want to but don't have the guts to do it in public. No I am not going to embarrass myself nor I am going to act like a child. I am however going to let my personality shine. Not going to hold back because others around me are more serious or stressed out being adults. I have a strong feeling that's this is one of those things Heavenly Father wants me to do because in it I will be able to open the doors of the spirit more readily in my life. He wants us to become as a little child. Not to act like children but to be who He already knows we are. We all have different personalities for a reason. Let them shine. Let them be used to make others happy, Care for the sick,  lift up the broken hearted and on and on. So to start here is a picture of my personality. Yes they are rubber ducky and yes they are comfy. Now do you wish you had a pair?

Family Pictures!

"As I Am"

  When I was preparing to go the temple for the first time, I played this song over and over and over again. It is the one I connected with because it truly spoke to my spirit. It gave me confidence that I was worthy enough to be in the Lords House. It gave me hope that even though I am not perfect, I am good enough to be in this holy place. I have come to realize through the many years I have been serving in the temple that its is a place of learning, a place of hope, a place of comfort, and a place where I can receive inspiration. Attending the temple gives me peace in a world that screams at me that I am never good enough.
       In the temple I learn what my Savior has done for me and what I must do to become like Him. Line upon line, precept upon precept, we are taught those things that prepare us to return to Him. I love the phrase in this song "As I Am." The Lord takes us where we are at and lifts us to new levels. He teaches us how we can go from good, to better, to best. No matter where you are at in your life, whether it be getting that temple recommend or just finding the time to go to the temple. I know that as we make those sacrifices of attending the temple the Lord truly blesses us beyond measure and more than you recognize. The Lord wants to gives you all of these blessings. He's just waiting for you to come to His House and receive them.

If I Only Had Today

 

I put together this video to remember the fun times our family has had since Michael and I met. Each picture has a story behind it that mean a lot to us. Take the time to tell those you love how you feel about them. Take the time to listen and truly be 'present' when you are with them. Don't let your mind get distracted with fruitless things. Live in the moment. You never know if tomorrow they won't be there. Michael was told right before his mission from a good friends father to "collect a bag full of memories."  Each of these pictures brings a heart full of memories that if I could I would live each day again, even the hard ones. I am so grateful my family is sealed in the temple. I know as we help each other along we will have the wondrous gift of eternal life. That we will be able to live with each other for eternity, creating even more memories there. I love my family so much! I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful husband and kids. If I only had today I definitely would just be with my family, loving them, talking to them, taking care of them...I do this everyday and for that fact I wouldn't want anything else exciting to do. If you only had today, what would you do?

Trials

       I have been trying to figure out a new post for a while now and well nothing really has been coming to mind. See I have been trying to keep my posts as positive as I can to bring upliftment to others that may need it. Lately life has been full of challenges both mentally and physically for, oh, I don't know the passed year for me. So while I have been posting things positive, they really haven't been specifically about myself. I have realized  as of late that the best "therapy" or "pill" is being honest with who you are no matter what farmer joe may think down the road.  I am also a skeptic about putting things out there on the internet so this is actually a big step for me. I do hope that sharing my thoughts will be of benefit to someone else in its own special way.
      I look back the passed year and I realized Heavenly Father gave me some hard trials. I don't know why they came about the way they did but I know I have grown immensely from them. Here is my story. The 2nd semester of Michael's grad school got really intense. To the point I hardly ever saw him even when he was home. We both had callings we were faithfully fulfilling. And some very hard news of a death in the family and a tragic incidence of another family member. You mix that with a little boy you NEVER slept through the night till he was 14 months old and you can say I was exhausted. Actually exhausted is an understatement. I honestly can't remember everything that played out together or even how it all happened, but I guess I just got to the point I was so depressed with life and everything in it. This is actually something very new to me because I had never been that depressed in my whole life. Even when I had really hard times in the mission I never got that depressed. I remember even getting one of those awards in Girls Camp for being "the most bubbly." I am a very happy person and to go through that was just so hard for me, especially when I have the most wonderful husband and child to tend and take care of. It was hard for me to grasp that I had no control over what I was feeling or how much pain my body was feeling from it. I just had to get through it. Keep reading my scriptures, praying, attending the temple, serving, and most importantly trusting the Lord that He will help me overcome those feelings. It was especially hard knowing and being told I was being obedient to God and realizing I couldn't get myself out of feeling that way. I found outlets and eventually I overcame those feelings even though some days those feelings come back I do my best to not let them happen.
      Well not much longer I found out I was pregnant with Asher. Ok, not the timing I was hoping for. Because that is when we would be moving AGAIN. Ok, sidenote: we moved just after Ethan was born too and lets just say I am going to to everything in my power not to have that happen again....right....like we can ever plan things like that. The pregnancy was just what it is. Some women can handle pregnancies great and more power to them but others like me just want to survive it and be done. When I hit 34 weeks I found I was already dilating. Which technically wouldn't be too bad but I had Ethan preterm so my doctor told me to stay down a few days and take it easy. Honestly, she hardly knew me, especially since Michael was in his last semester of grad school and we were planning on moving after he graduated. But I did, watched movies with Ethan ect. ect. I lasted 2 days and landed up in the hospital with a really bad infection and too many contractions. I spent a couple days in the hospital trying to get things under control and then was put on bed rest for the next week or so. I then continued having VERY painful contractions for 4 more weeks after that. These contractions felt like bone on bone. I carried him so low the whole pregnancy that these contractions I was feeling I couldn't even walk them off, I just had to lie in bed for an hour or two till they eased up. Fast forwarding.......labor was long when it finally came but I was very relieved to be done....or so I thought. I recovered well and what I mean by that is I didn't hemorrhage like I did with Ethan. I had absolutely no energy for weeks after I had Ethan but with Asher I was up and about pretty quick.
      So 2 weeks after I had Asher, the moving company came and packed what else I hadn't already packed up and started its trek to Washington. So we spent a week literally camping out in our apartment while Michael finished up his finals. We then got to Washington and ended up spending a week with family while we waited for our stuff to arrive. The truck hit every storm they said on its way here. In the meantime, we realized that in our new home the heater convienantly decided to stop working. So even if we wanted to go stay in our new home we couldn't. And with it being the Christmas season, once we got our belongings no one was in the office to come and fix the heater. So here we go to Colfax, Wa to spend Christmas with family while trying to get someone to get out and fix our heater before we got back. By this time, I was very glad to be with family but it had been 3 weeks with a newborn and a toddler. Michael and I both were exhausted. So we made it back home and got a lovely cold. So no sleep for mommy with all my coughing. I got a blessing and literally that night I slept like a baby. Yes, Heavenly Father is aware of the small things we ask for. After all this you think I was done right? No. I started realizing something was wrong with me. I was still having painful cramps and still bleeding. Honestly I didn't even know any better because of the hemorrhaging I had with Ethan and the contractions I had FOREVER it seemed with Asher. Mix all that with moving and the last thing I was thinking of was how i was feeling.I was just surviving. So here I go to the doctor and mind you with no insurance to figure it out. $1,000 dollars down the road for just a comprehensive check and ultrasound I found out I still had part of the placenta still inside of me. This is something you are supposed to get taken care of right away or you could get infection or start hemorrhaging. Needless to say we could not afford a $5-10,000 surgery to get a D&C done. So we weighed out options with the doctor and we had a lot in our favor and waited till we could get it figured out. The Lord blessed my body to hold on and Michael to get temporary insurance through his work. I am not going to lie it was extremely painful. My uterus got to the point it was rock hard and I was still taking care of our kids on my own. So a week and a half later I had the surgery. My amazing in-laws came and literally saved the day. My mother in law took me to get the surgery down and my father in law took care of Ethan and Asher. The surgery went well, I just bled a lot. Which if I did have energy this took more of it.
     I am doing great now just trying to deal with all the emotion behind it all. When you feel like you need a break and the next thing is another trial, life can get so bleak. Through it all I am now realizing that yes, the Lord does only give us what we can handle. But He also doesn't have us go through it alone. I had an amazing family, husband, and friends give me the support I was needing. I realized I needed to let them know what I was going through and not worrying if I was going to burden them by sharing what I was going through. We also had a great ward we moved into and although I have only been able to go a few times I have already felt there love and friendship. Its great to feel that from others even when they don't know all the details of your life. I have learned to trust others too in sharing the things I am going through and not worrying if they think I am complaining.
    Something I have had a hard time seeing is that people can be answers to our prayers. It may sound really bad but I have felt in the passed where I prayed for someone to come and help me with a need I was having and no one came. Truly and especially in Georgia, I know Heavenly Father heard my prayer and sent a new family into the ward that really meet that need for me. It just felt like everything I prayed for that I needed was met by having them in our life. I needed someone to talk to and she was there. I needed someone to help me with Ethan and she was there. I also came to realize that maybe those times when i felt like my prayer wasn't answered was because maybe I needed to get outside myself and serve. In that I may have been able to feel the comfort I was seeking to find myself.
    Everyone has challenges and struggles. We feel and handle things differently from one another. What may seem easy for someone handle may be extremely hard for someone else. I have learned from my own struggles never to judge someone else’s hardship as a thing of naught because unless you are in there shoes you will never fully grasp the heartache or pain they are going through.
    The scripture that stands out to me as I look back is this: “Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst and ye cannot see me” (D&C 38:7). So many times, especially in my darkest hour, I have felt that Heavenly Father was there standing right by me but I just could not see Him. And at times that he was literally holding me, carrying me, and just helping me survive the night.

   I look back at all those trials one after the other and I am grateful. The sun is shining and I am looking forward to this new life here in Washington. Life is great and wondrous. I am looking forward to the new adventures that await or family. Trials make us stronger, that i do know. Trials make us who we are. I hope that with each trial I have, I can always look on them and see the things I have learned and grow from them. Its not easy when you are going through it. If the Lord expects me to become like him and through these trials I learn to do that then that is the way it needs to be. Until I finish the course I started in this life, I will continue to serve Him with all my might, mind and strength.

Just Laugh About It!

So the other day, I decided I was going to take a nap on the couch while Ethan played. Now before you think, "parental neglect"....I have to say I was dealing with a headache that I had for like 4 days straight. Now usually even if I think I am going to just sit and relax, it just doesn't happen. Anyone that has a highly energetic toddler knows what that's like. Well, I got my nap..I think it lasted a half hour!!! Yeah, go me right?! I am in heaven now right? Well lets just say I woke up to a not so pleasant smell, and a toddler beaming his adorable smile at me.......

      AND then I looked around...............................The music and video clipping going through my head at that moment was this:

Ya POOP EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! On the couch, on the floor, on the toys, on his legs, on his hands, in his hair!!!And since it was everywhere....it got on me too...cause what did he do to wake me up??? Jump all over me, right?

So since I painted such a beautiful picture.....you are probably wondering why I am telling you this. Well I learned something from the "poop fiasco." Hahaa like poop to teach you a life lesson, right?
Ok so the moral of this story is...you know CRAP can happen in life, LITERALLY! I see 2 choices  though either you can A) laugh about it or B) get mad. At the time I was soooo grumpy! But being grumpy didn't help my headache any, nor did it help the poop clean itself up! I do know that laughing about it would of eased the tension though. Laughter would have helped me get through the moment instead of showing off my colorful attitude Ethan witnessed me having.

I love these quotes:

"Laughter is an instant vacation"-Milton Berle

"Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects"-Arnold Glasow

"An optimist laughs to forget; a pessimist forgets to laugh" — Tom Nansbury

"And keep a sense of humor. It doesn’t mean you have to tell jokes. If you can’t think of anything else, when you’re my age, take off your clothes and walk in front of a mirror. I guarantee you’ll get a laugh" — Art Linkletter    (ok I am sorry but I laughed really hard when I read that)

"Laughter lets me relax. It’s the equivalent of taking a deep breath, letting it out and saying, ‘This, too, will pass’. — Odette Pollar

"Remember, when you're with me it's the only time that you're not the strangest person in the room. So go ahead, get weird on me"--

Ally McBeal  (hahah I love this wish more people acted how weird they reallly are...aren't we all weirdos?)

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans" --Woody Allen ( I am pretty sure God has laughed at some of the plans I have told Him)

"It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either"--

Wayne Dyer

Dude there are too many good quotes on laughter. If you have a good quote that makes you laugh do share with me...I would love to hear what gets you laughing or keeps you sane!