What if...

I listened to Women's conference, and General Conference, and have spent some time in group meetings for single women who are pregnant, among other things; and there's been a lot to think about in the messages that I've been exposed to lately. I can't really go into alot of detail about this...sometimes words aren't enough to express the feelings, the understanding, the realizations, the blessings. But I have been reminded, because I already knew it, that God is tender, and merciful, and aware...very aware of each of us. During the past few weeks I found this song by Laura Story and it says it for me. It's a good one. Enjoy!

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace Comfort for family, protection while we sleep

We pray for healing, for prosperiity

We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need

Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

CHORUS: Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes thorough tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights Are what it takes to know You're near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear

And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love

As if every promise for Your Word in not enough

All the while, You hear each desperate plea

And long that we'd have faith to believe

CHORUS

When friends betray us

When darkness seems to win

We know that pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise?
Good thoughts right

A time wherein we actually did some fun stuff...

That's right folks, you read that right. We did some fun stuff, and now you shall witness some pieces of said fun stuff now.

Camping at Navajo Lake...booyah!

Expressions of love

http://youtu.be/hkOnH36S_pY

I love the message of this video...it's how it should be in love.
And Elder Scott's message got me *sniff*

The Shine Project and my change

Hey you guuuuyyyyssssss!

Seen Goonies lately. No. Well, that's besides the point here today. I've pledged myself to help with a cause that I think is worthwhile and if you'd like to help (ie. donate $$$) let me know. OR if you'd like to do your own jars then you should. I mean, helping out others always earns you happy points right?

I came upon The Shine Project blog rather accidentally by being lazy one day and blog hopping (yes, I'm embarrassed by that a little). But, Ashley's message resonated with me and I couldn't stop thinking about her Change4Change cause and the help she was asking for. I became inspired by her attitude and perspectives and realized that to get out of a big slump I've been in, I needed to make some changes to my life. So, I decided to start by joining her cause. I think it's great and I feel like every little bit will make a HUGE difference. Take a gander and consider it will ya :) LOVES - G

Summertime

Last summer

Can you believe it's almost July and we haven't even opened our pool up yet. I know, right?

Well, it just goes to show the dynamics of our family I guess. With small kids, splash pads are the way to go really, and the cost is cheaper (you check out the price of chlorine these days...no? you haven't....weird.) But when I hear fun songs I can't help but think I need to crank open the pool cover and chill in my own back yard instead....

We'll just have to see who wins this battle....cool, new summer music vs. my laziness and practicality......it's a close battle and it's gonna get bloody my friends.

Our grandma's the greatest!

No! Our grandma's the greatest.....no our's is.....

I know you may THINK you have the best MIL, but I'm pretty sure mine's the greatest! She is so patient, fun, loving, giving, easy-going, etc. and my kids pretty much ADORE this sweet lady
She does all sorts of fun things for and with the kids...I'm beginning to think she lives FOR them....not sure yet, but I'm getting suspicious. Anyhoo....I'd never move far away from her because she makes my kids so happy and they'd die if we did, and so would I. I love you "Wa Wa" (Emily's nickname for grandma).

Kids making Easter treats at grandma's house...she does this with them a lot, and let's them help, and YES, we do dare eat the treats once their made cause I'm pretty sure there's nothing bad about them...even if they are made with little sticky hands.

The REAL life

***Disclaimer: no children were seriously harmed in the living of this morning.

First of all, I'm impressed with myself for blogging not once, but twice this week. It had to be recognized. Now on to the good stuff.

So, this morning, being April Fool's Day, I should have expected more than normal right? Well, it still caught me off guard when my lil' sweet daughter pulled a lump of poop, actually more of a nugget really, and threw it down on our kitchen tile floor this morning. What the...? Did THAT just happen? And did it make a sound...like a dull thud..and bounce once or twice? I laughed, it was still early. I grabbed the poo and said offender and went back to change the diaper and clean offending hands, all the while my son narrating what just happened and then says to his sister "you're not supposed to touch the poo sis, you have to wait til mom changes it" Thanks bro.

I get Adam some yogurt to eat while I go shower (Emily had already eaten 2 yogurts by now) and when I'm done and dressed and come out I find Emily in the highchair demo-ing another yogurt. My nephew Kaden had saved the dog and floor from being covered in the yogurt that she got from her brother and had put her in a safe spot (kuddos to him). So, I removed her and carried her to the bathroom to shower it all off because that really was the best idea. After drying her off from a bath, she ran naked to the kitchen. I gathered a diaper and clothes and went after her. Right when I grabbed her hand to lay her down to put on a diaper, she pooped....again.....luckily on the tile. It dropped from her naked bottom to the tile with a plop and it took me about 3 seconds to realize what had just happened (I think it was mild shock and disbelief). WHAT???? THE....HAYWIRE????? Kaden was just as surprised I think. No freakin' way. I grabbed a paper towel, but the dog was a little quicker (that's right folks....dogs. are. gross.), so I cleaned up the rest. But not before lil' Miss E dug both of her pointer fingers right in her butt crack. Ok, Kaden gets the gross dog outside, I grab gross daughter by wrists and carry poop covered index fingers and butt to my bedroom to clean and diaper and dress. I'm mildly annoyed now.

I clean up the mess and go to finish getting ready. All is normal for about, oh, maybe 15 minutes until my daughter comes into the kitchen covered in RED, screaming red, lipstick. Now, I keep my makeup in a kid-lock proofed drawer, but somehow heaven smiled upon Emily and she got my most scary bright lipstick out and covered her face and hands and arms and shirt and spots of her pants in it....all the while I hear the grandma voice in my head saying "take a picture and laugh honey, it's not that big of a deal." But I didn't listen to that voice, I listened to the "spank her rear end and teach her a lesson" voice, and I'm not proud of that....I'm just VERY human. (notice disclaimer...I try not to go ape on my kids' rear parts,) I cleaned her off, and threw away the shirt because I'm really annoyed now.

Ok, let's take a break here. Do you ever have those days (could be weeks, or months, or just moments) that you look to heaven and say aloud "REALLY? I mean.....really. I was having one of those moments.

Keep in mind, all of the above events happened by 11:38 this morning...cause I DID look at the clock. I was trying to get ready to go to lunch with some old friends this morning, and it just. wasn't. happening. I was bummed...put out....ticked...whatever you want to call it.

Suffice it to say that by 1pm today, the most normal thing that happened around here was that Adam found a dead mouse on the back lawn and I carried it to the trash with a paper towel.

The great thing about being a mom is, I can still eat refried beans for lunch after dealing with that much crap :) MTV has nothing on this.

Dreamin'....

I want these

They only cost $121.00 (before tax) from Threadsence

and I want my kitchen to look like this

Not sure how that'll happen yet.....

So I'll just keep dreamin.

Oh...and I want to go dancing. The end.

thank you JJ Heller

This encompasses my feelings as of late....(cue music)

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor thing to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
-Romans 8: 35; 37-39

Can I get an Amen? Preachy, maybe...true, absolutely. Now you read your scripts today, pat yourself on the back. Peace out- G

What the........

There really are no words to express my thoughts on this.

Christmas cookies

My s.i.l. Lindsay is such a great sport. She always invites us over to do the funnest things at their house for the holidays...but it's always a messy deal too. She had us come over to decorate cookies for Christmas again this year, and it was fun to see the kids get into it a little more then last year. Next time we'll have to mess my place up instead, but we had fun! Thanks aunt Lindsay, Kashy-man, Ella, and Evie....we love you!

Holly Jolly

Am I the only one who felt that Christmas just flew by this year? I kept feeling like it just wasn't Christmas....and it never felt like Christmas this year to me. I put up lights, a tree, bought all the presents well in advance, procrastinated giving presents out to neighbors and friends like usual (some of them are still sitting in my living room to be delivered, my husband tells me to give up, but I WILL deliver them come hell or high water)....we even went to the ward Christmas party this year. But it just never felt like it should be Christmas or was. I'm not really sure why, except that since I was put in as YW pres. in our ward, I've been running from one thing to the next and don't ever quite have the time to catch up. Don't get me wrong, I love working in YW and we have a great group of girls....but there's always something going on and I'm on my 3rd set of counselors since being put in 2 years ago, and 2nd set of teachers and somehow I still end up doing more then I'm supposed to be doing. I'm beginning to develop a complex about how much of a leader I AM NOT. I'm definately not a born leader....meaning, I don't particularly care to be in charge. I can do the job, my organizational skills are lacking though...which I think leaves everyone under me scrambling.

Well, I just felt like Christmas was another thing on my proverbial list of things to get done. And that's it. It was one more thing to get done and over with and move on to the next thing. So, we did. We got it done, and now we're moving on to the next thing....which for the past 2 1/2 weeks has been being sick with the nastiest cold ever! It's been a lesson on being grateful for good health and that we aren't sick very often around here. I really have compassion on people who are sick chronically or a lot because I don't like being sick, or seeing my family be sick, and I'm sooooooo grateful we aren't much of the time. Being sick is a great way to put those new year's resolutions into a kick start....you know....the ones like: go to bed at a decent time, eat healthier, spend time as a family more, eat less candy and chocolate....

My other REALLY BIG new year's resolution for this year is to get my life/home/etc. organized. As noted earlier, I've basically stunk at this for awhile, and I'm tired of living a crazy life. So I started, partly as a Christmas present to my husband...slightly lame I know, to get my home organized....and I'm talking: pulling crap from every corner closet out and throw away/donate/clean/organize type of organizing. It's been GREAT!!!! And a LONG LONG time coming....but I'm determined to get my house in order and do it NOW! It's never, and I mean NEVER, been that way since we moved in 7 years ago...we've always had crap stashed around and I'm done with it. It's not healthy and not good. So, as overwhelming as it may seem (those of you who've been to my house know what I'm talking about here) I'm going to get it done. I rarely put my mind to doing something, but once I do, it happens. I'm super excited though. I had some really inspirational moments pre-holiday time to help me figure some things out, and so I'm excited. Did I say I was excited....cause I'm excited. Well, I probably won't blog until after this massive undertaking is done *shocker* so until then...have a happy life :)