Gratitude

Today I feel grateful. For the past few hours (too many to admit), I have been sitting here reading the blog of Nie Nie. There is a link to it on the right side of the screen, at the bottom. Nie is a mom that I have never met. Her writing style is very engaging, it's as if I've been reading a novel all day. Last August, she and her husband were in an almost fatal plane crash in Arizona, and are gratefully recovering. Reading about the accident, and her family's faith that we also share touches my heart. Nie has inspired countless people all over the globe with her blog, even before the accident. Her profile has over 200,000 hits alone. So today, as I admire her decorating sense, her love of her husband, kids, and Heavenly Father, I am grateful... Life has been rough lately for a lot of us. Chris and I have been down the roughest road of our lives, but today, I am grateful. We're still on the rough road, in some ways, but we love eachother more now than we ever have.

Today, I am grateful for the love for my husband and the love he has for me.

Today, I am grateful that Chris is so talented in his work. My favorite is the tile backsplash that he did for us.

Today, I am grateful that Chris takes us to church and puts his arm around me in sacrament meeting.

Today, I am grateful that it was Chris' idea to have fhe every week. I hope to get through it, one of these days, without the girls screwing around the whole time.

Today, I am grateful that Chris supports me in whatever I want to do at the moment.

Today I am grateful that he values me and my opinions...because I have a lot of them.

Today, I am grateful for Shelby putting dinner in the oven last night and eating it even though she didn't like it.

Today, I am grateful that Shelby is honest and responsible.

Today, I am grateful that Shaylee loves her green jacket so much that she continues to wear it even though it is stained and holey. One of these days, I am going to sneak it away and give it a proper burial, but for now, she doesn't want to let it go.

Today, I am grateful for Shaylee's sensitivity and funny jokes. Next time you see her, ask her what a girl and boy Beta fish do together!

Today, I am grateful for Samantha's joyful singing while I did her hair this morning.

Today, I am grateful for Samantha's big grown up teeth and sparkling eyes when she smiles. Her joy is contagious.

Today, I am grateful for the sunshine trying to peak through the blinds.

Today, I am grateful for the soil and seeds I just bought to plant a garden; and for the miracle of planting seeds and watching them grow.

Today, I am grateful for a loving, forgiving Heavenly Father.

Today, I am grateful for the birds singing in the trees outside my window.

Today, I am grateful for technology. How cool that I can sit here typing this and in a few moments, it will be accessible to the entire world. (If only the entire world had my blog address! :-)

Today, I am grateful for my best friend Melanie who is always here for me. Besides Chris, she's the only other one that has stayed up late making jewelry with me so that I can meet my deadlines.

Today, I am grateful for good food.

Today, I am grateful for my body, my hearing, my sight, my ability to smell, my ability to feel, and of course, my ability to taste good food!

Today, I am grateful for bargains, whether groceries, furniture, or yard sales.

Today, I am grateful for a mom who taught me to be a good mom. I think I do an okay job at it...most of the time. But keep in mind, I only work set hours; 7:15am til 9pm. Then Mom is off duty for the night! (Please don't anybody throw up or have bad dreams in the night!)

Today, I am grateful for a dad that loved me even when I was born with a cone head...and loves me even more today.

Today, I am grateful for my sister and sisters in law. My heart overflows with love and admiration for all five of my sisters.

Today, I am grateful for the wisdom of my brothers and brothers in law. They are all so smart at everything they do. Not to mention really funny...all of them.

Today, I am grateful for the hot shower, that I am finally about to take!

Today, I am grateful for the money that is sure to be heading our way.

Today, I am grateful for heat, water, and electricity that make life comfortable.

Today, I am grateful for hope.

Yesterday, I read the conference talk "Come What May & Love It". I can't remember who it was by, but what a beautiful message of gratitude. My favorite part of the talk is also my favorite scripture. D&C 121:7-8. It reads "My (child) peace be unto thy soul; thin adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shall triumph over all thy foes."

Making bread & naughty girls!

To save money, and also because we love it, we've been making bread in our breadmaker about 4 times a week. This is the loaf that we made on Sunday. I don't know what we did to make it so big, but it rose so much that it touched the lid!



I had to sneak a peek because we couldn't believe how big it was growing! It was like looking out the window (more on that in a minute) and seeing a bean stalk growing all the way to heaven.

The bread rose so high that it touched the lid, which caused the top to cave in a bit.

Can you smell the fresh hot bread? yumm...yummmm...

So as I am taking pictures of our loaf of bread that Chris and I are so proud of, I look out the kitchen window and see this...

Shaylee had this brilliant idea to drag the trampoline over next to the garage and then to climb up there and jump off. I told her that I might take the halo off of her stick-figure picture (at the very bottom of our blog). Samantha shows no fear as she goes flying off the garage!

Shaylee on the other hand, stood like this for five minutes before she dared to jump off.

Shelby tried and tried to get herself up on the garage so that she could jump off, but she just couldn't do it. One last jump, and then mom & dad said that if they ever see girls jumping off the garage again, they'll be grounded.

"What will you celebrate?"

One of our goals this year is to take the girls to Disneyland. They've never been and we've been talking about it for years, but we never had the money to go. Rent, food & utilities have always been more important. So we started a Disneyland Jar. The girls all put money in the jar and we were up to about $80 in the jar. Then right before Christmas, in sacrament meeting all of the speakers talked about charity and service. I had a warm, fuzzy feeling that we should give our Disneyland jar to the bishop to help out some less fortunate families in the ward. The girls were reluctant but agreed. Then I remembered how our friend Lance had surprised his wife Melanie with a cruise for their anniversary that he paid for by donating plasma. So in January I started donating plasma and saving the money to go to Disneyland. Donating plasma isn't all that bad; sometimes it hurts, and other times it's like a day in the park. It depends on the technician who does the poking! At least I get to relax and read a book twice a week!

I found out the KUTV2 This Morning News is doing a contest called "What will you celebrate?" The four winners of the contest get a trip for 4 to Disneyland for 2 nights & 3 days. To enter, you have to become a fan of 2News This Morning on Facebook and submit a photo of a celebration. So I decided to enter. This is the picture I submitted:


And this is a picture of Chris, Shelby, Shaylee & Samantha when I told them that

WE WON, WE WON, WE WON!!!

I told Shaylee that she won us a trip to Disneyland and she couldn't have been happier!

Happy enough to give Shelby a hug! Now that's happy!

So to answer the question "What will you celebrate?" Taking our family to Disneyland on Channel 2's $$$! (Okay, not completely their money...we have to buy another ticket, figure out how to get there, and feed ourselves why we're there). So I'm not done donating plasma yet...but the end is near, I can feel it!

One more thing...on Sunday, I paid tithing for the first time in a long time. I think Heavenly Father is telling us loud and clear that if we do what we are supposed to do and stay positive, He will bless us! WOW!

The Ultimate Blog Giveaway!!

This little blog is having a BIG giveaway. In fact, we’d like to refer to it as The Ultimate Blog Giveaway.
One lucky reader will enjoy a private dinner for SIX PEOPLE at Sonora Grill, including appetizers, entrees, and desserts.
But you don’t have to rely entirely on chance to score this delicious feast. Although the winner will be randomly selected, you can earn up to seven entries into the contest. Here are the rules:
Leave a comment on their blog and you will be entered into the giveaway ONE TIME.
Write a post on YOUR blog about this giveaway (http://thesonoragrill.com/blog/wordpress/) and you will be entered THREE TIMES.
Add their blog to YOUR blog list and you will be entered an additional THREE TIMES.
Be sure to indicate in your comment if you added things to your blog so they can award you the proper number of entries. You are welcome to use photos from Sonora's website on your blog.
The contest will conclude Monday, March 16 at 9:00 P.M.

People actually live like this?

Last night we were invited to our friend Preston Palmer's birthday party. It was held in Salt Lake at one of their friend's houses. I've never seen a house this big in Utah! You can see part of the main house in the background of the pics of the girls riding the ponies.
Here is Samantha riding Cookie Dough. Everytime they made a lap around the corral, they would ask, "Do you want to go again?" Of course she said YES! I lost track of how many times she went around.

Shaylee riding Cookie Dough.

Shelby riding Snickers.

After the girls rode the ponies, we saw an emu and some really cute ponies next to the barn. The girls went over to the fence to say hello. They were scared of the emu even though it had a look on it's face that said "Please pet me!"

It looks like Shelby is talking to the emu and it is totally dissing her by looking away....here's what really happened... Shelby was standing there, thinking about petting the emu, but her fear was getting the best of her. Suddenly, one of the ponies said HEEEEHEEEEEEE!!! Right then, Chris snapped the picture.

This is a picture of the "BARN" where the party was held. This picture only shows the top two floors, it actually had 3 floors. Behind the "barn" is the guest house, which was probably at least 3 times the size of our current house.

Inside the "barn", here is Sami standing on the stairs.

This fireplace came from Europe. (I wonder how old it is)... They cut it into pieces to ship it to Utah and then reassembled it in the "barn".

These gorgeous doors are on the main floor of the "barn". It's hard to judge the size, but you could have driven a car in these doors. The woodwork, ironwork and windows are exquisite.

This hay in the corner of the ground floor is the only resemblance of a "barn". But notice the wood and stone work! I still can't believe they call this a BARN!

Here is the birthday boy, blowing out his candles!

Preston's mom, Christy and me. She looked so darn cute in her cowgirl outfit!

V-day Fun

We intended to take the camera, but were so excited about our night out that we forgot it. So just imagine the fun we had...

Chris and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday, the 13th instead of on the 14th because we thought maybe we'd miss most of the V-Day crowds. We went to Ruby River for dinner and ate at their Anniversary table. It's a small table for two at the top of the stairs, and it's kind of tucked into the corner of the balcony so if you didn't know it was there, you'd miss it. We know the manager so Chris called him ahead of time and reserved the table. This is where that old saying "it's who you know, not what you know" comes in handy! But I don't think you need to know the manager, just know that there is an anniversary table that can be requested. It was cool to walk in with people waiting everywhere and be escorted immediately to our table! We should have dressed up like the rich and famous!

Dinner was fabulous and then we headed off to Layton to go Go-Cart Racing. The racing was fun, fast, and a bit expensive. But it was worth it for a special experience. Chris totally kicked my butt on the track. It took me a few times around the track before I figured out how to go around the corners without sliding around the track. Of course, Chris mastered it right away. Our top speeds were right around 22mph, but in a go cart, inches from the ground, it felt like we were going 60!

Shelby's growing up...

It's happening already! Shelby has been 13 for 55 days, and already she's behaving like a teenager... We finally decided to let her have a phone after what seemed like years of asking for it. We were pretty set on making her wait until she was 15 and able to pay for it herself. But there are times when we need to get ahold of her. Plus she's getting pretty good grades. But the real deciding factor was that the phone was on sale for $29 (after the mail-in-rebate), and Shelby had the money saved up to pay for it. So we decided it would be a good time to get her a phone.
The rules are that she has to maintain good grades (only A's & B's, with more A's than B's), she can't talk on the phone until after 6pm unless whoever she's talking to is on the same network as us, and she has to pay the bill every month.
She's a pretty responsible girl, so so far we're happy with her having a phone. Except for the fact that she is ALWAYS texting someone. (Thank heavens we have unlimited texting!)

Last night we took Shaylee & Sami to see Madagascar 2 at the theater in our neighborhood. They are reopening and had a FREE movie night to celebrate! Yay for us! They even gave out free popcorn and candy! It can't get any better than that! Shelby didn't go with us because she had Young Women's and had went to the free movie the night before with her friends. (There's proof of the teenage thing again!)