It's the Thankful Month moment

Okay so I'm going to do the corny thing and do a bit on being grateful.  I've been compiling a list in my head and I think that this is a better use of my time than talking about the state of the world.  I say that because if I were to start, I would never stop, things are already that bad and crazy.  (Poverty, inflation, jobless numbers are up people and Europe's entering a 2nd recession, that means we're next.  And don't get me started on Benghazi and the Patreus thing, I'm never one for conspiracy theories but this one is definitely more than just a bunch of paranoid people looking for alterior motives. Just keep in mind that they are aiding the transportation of weapons to al queda.)

See? There I go.  Anyways....let's begin

Um this is kind of a "duh" moment but I'm so grateful for this kiddo right here.  Who's life wouldn't be better hanging out with him all day?

 I'm grateful for my two boys.  They bring fun to my life.  I'm a pretty serious person so fun happy people are needed for me to thrive.  I'm also grateful for this picture for obvious reasons.

 

Next, and this comes as a result of watching Teen Mom, I'm grateful for Tommy.   Sometimes I literally have nightmares that I'm a single mom and I'm grateful that Tommy's not a dead beat. He loves me and Zach so much.  He makes sure to take the time to hang out with us, even at the expense of his grades (just a little bit).  He takes care of us and is there for us.  I'm so glad I'm not a single mom, which in part comes from my own decision making but also Tommy's.

Aren't they so cute together?!

 I'm so happy that Zach is pretty much done with baby food.   Negatives to that: eating is now a big mess 90% of the time (The kid loves to run his hands through his hair.  Imagine a mad person pulling their hair out to the sides and that's what Zach does for fun) and decided what he's going to eat is pretty difficult because you can't just grab a jar.  Positives: eating is now a big mess 90% of the time and I don't have to sit there and spoon feed him.  I can just put the food on his tray and enjoy my meal (or do some dishes) Also, we have more cupboard space, which is seriously an issue in our place.

 Next, how is this not awesome? And who thinks to do that? My husband, that's who.

 I'm thankful for dinosaurs that crawl up my stairs

Oh thank goodness for the holidays and egg nog being right after the election.  I'm going to need all the joy I can get 

I'm grateful for little explorers

Okay so I woke up on Halloween day and Tommy had picked out my outfit for the day.  He said I was the pumpkin queen.  ha!

Zach has taken to hiding under things while I come find him. 

I'm thankful for my son that gets me out of church meetings.

I'm thankful for christmas pajamas!

 Zach has now learned how to catch.  I'm grateful for the opportunity I get to watch him learn and grow.

He also already knows how to laugh at himself.  I'm glad he's learned that lesson now and not later, because to survive in this family, that's a very necessary skill.

 I'm grateful Zach is finally big enough to wear the super cute clothes that don't seem to start for boys until they're a year old.  This shirt might be slightly oversized yet but how could I wait any longer.  Also, check out that jack-o-lantern smile!

I'm grateful for the nights when he wakes up and still wants to hang out with us.  Most parents may think I'm crazy for saying that but it's not for very long (1/2 hour usually), it's not very often, and there's always a part of me (sometimes it's a very small part of me, depending on Zach's mood) that is sad to put him down to sleep each night.  So I love just another moment with him.  It's like the last little clip after the ending credits in a movie. 

 I'm grateful for the gospel and the joy and peace and happiness it brings to our family.

And last, my dad shared these natural, no caffeine, energy pills from GNC with me.  It has changed my life.  Ever since I was pregnant with Zach, I have felt the need to take a 2 hour nap every day.  With working while pregnant and having a baby after pregnancy (go figure that's the result), You can imagine how little that has occurred.  Especially since Zach seems to think most days that a half hour nap will do.  For me working out has seemed impossible with how tired I always felt.  But these pills are literally a God send.  Not only am I not crawling back into to bed for a quick cat nap at 10 am in the morning (yeah, it was that bad), but now I'm working out almost every day.  Which is awesome because I'm now able to say bye bye to the baby weight.  I've lost 5 lbs already and I'm 10 away from my goal.  But honestly at the rate I'm going I think I could lose  another 15.  (I set my goals low because I was seriously that pathetic about working out).  So that is my little "look at how awesome I am, but not really because it's really the energy pills" moment. 

Thank Goodness for the Gospel or I might be at a Bar right now

Okay so I've been overly depressed about this whole election thing.  In a family of very passionate, well informed, people, I've probably handled it the worst.  When Obama had all but sealed the reelection and the emotions started to flood in, I thought, "Wow.  I do not want to feel this right now.  I just want to put these in a box and deal with them later.  How can I do that?" That's when alcohol started to look like a REALLY good idea.  Don't worry, I put on a Harry Potter movie instead. 

I am one to allow myself a moment to grieve.  I gave myself 24 hours.  I tried to find ways to ignore the way I felt.  We bought Zach's first birthday present, which I have been looking forward too.  We bought Pizza Hut pizza (because I hate cooking and we never get our fav. kind of pizza).  We bought donuts for Tommy and me (because those are Tommy's favorite sugary treat).  I hopped on my stationary bike, cranked up the Taking Back Sunday, and pedaled as hard as I could. It all helped a little.  But I just felt angry still. 

Today was the day that it was time to buck up and move on.  But I still felt this frustration.  I did some cleaning, chased Zach around, got him giggling, started to move forward.  Then it was nap time for Zach and scripture time for me.  I have been really bad about scripture study in the past year and a half.  I blame my bad attitude during pregnancy which led to me doing a whole lot of nothing and then when Zach was born, trying to pick up a good habit is never an easy thing to do.  So this week I was making my 4th attempt at doing what I know is most important. 

Well thank goodness for that.  I love that no matter where I am in the scriptures, somehow the spirit is able to teach me from the words on the page.  I don't need to go rifling through and open to a random page.  I can just pick up where I left the day before and find answers.  (Opening to a random page works also though, I'm not knocking that technique).  So I opened to 1 Nephi 21.  Here's what I read:

13 ^aSing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and ^bbreak forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his ^cafflicted.

 14 But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.

 15 For can a ^awoman forget her sucking child, that she should not have ^bcompassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may ^cforget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel.

What I learned is that I have been asking, "Why did the Lord allow this to happen?" The answer I kept coming up with was, "To allow the people to make their own decisions that he might cast righteous judgement".  That's doctrinally sound right? But then a better thought from the Spirit came to me during these verses.  The Lord allows things to happen, even to the righteous that he may show forth his power.  When Alma and his people were taken into bondage by the Lamanites, the Lord promised them that:

Mosiah 24:14 And I will also ease the ^aburdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as ^bwitnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their ^cafflictions.

I know that the Lord is there.  He will visit us in our afflictions.  I think part of me has been fighting the fact that we must accept the state that we are in.  If I were a pioneer being asked to cross the plains, I would have been sitting on a log next to the Mississippi river with my arms crossed, saying "no, I really just don't want to."  (I would have failed that whole trial.  Thank goodness the Lord knew that about me) But I forgot that the Lord is here and has a much better plan than I can imagine.  Thank goodness for that otherwise the world would be a very negative place.  I feel renewed and energized to take up the Banner of Truth and share it with the world.  

p.s. Don't think that I'm not going to pound on Obama for every lie he said to get himself re-elected.  Nor am I going to easily forget how many people allowed themselves to walk blindly "Forward" with him.

The Allegory of the Cave

So I couldn't understand why this election season has gotten me so riled up.  But I saw this scripture reference on facebook today and I think this sums it all up.  For some reason this makes me feel better and not worse. 

Mosiah 29:25-27
25 Therefore, choose you by the ^avoice of this people, judges, that ye may be ^bjudged according to the ^claws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

 26 Now it is not common that the ^avoice of the people desireth anything ^bcontrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the ^cpeople to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.

 27 And ^aif the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

I'm grateful to my mom who is just has passionate about politics as I am.  She called me today and acted as though nothing was wrong.  If you know my mother at all you know that I would expect her to be the first person predicting the end of the world.  But to hear her be so positive and upbeat about the everything.  To express her faith in knowing that the Lord is close at hand despite what happened.  It was really great.  

On that note I'm off to the library to get an biography on the King of England during WWII.  It's about a man thrust into a situation he would rather have not faced and faced it with integrity and strength of character.  Tommy also noted the irony of this fact since it's about a monarch from the country we chose to separate ourselves from during a time when we have a president exerting huge government influence in the same fashion as the King did during the Revolutionary War. 

Happy Birthday to me and other important halloween traditions

A couple of days ago I turned 25.  People ask if it feels any different and I say, I still feel like I'm 21.  The years seem to have blended together since then.  Probably the only thing that makes me feel old is how difficult working out is for me anymore.  I have aches and pains in places that never hurt before and I blame my years of bouncing around on a cheerleading mat and running around the football field with a bass drum strapped to me.  But other than that, I'm doing good.  Tommy made me dinner and we did a little birthday shoppin.  And how can I not be happy with Tommy and Zach around?

I also got this in the mail for my birthday!  I'm so happy. :) What did Obama do for your birthday?! (Okay okay, that's pretty unfair.  This just HAPPENED to come in on my birthday.  There was no coordination on the Mitt Romney camp anywhere. But still, go Mitt!)

This year Tommy and I decided we would definitely dress up for Halloween.  we haven't the last two years and with a child we decided to get into the Halloween spirit.  In some ways our costumes were an epic event and in others they were an epic fail.  It took us forever to find a costume that I was willing to do that would take about $5 to do and less than 5 minutes to put together.  I'm not exactly crafty and so resist anything that requires thinking outside the box.  Zach's costume was easy and he's been wearing it for over a month as pajamas.  

Our little skeleton (His pj's glow in the dark!)

Now, when it came to Tommy's and my costume, we finally decided on Sam Sparks and Flint Lockwood from probably our favorite kids movie "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs".   Now I think we did an awesome job of recreating the characters, I even bought a scrunchy! And for Tommy we made 'spray on shoes!' and we got Steve put together (the monkey) with a head band and monkey thought translater (if you don't know by that sentence alone why we love this movie, then you'll never understand us) So that's the epic event part of it.

 

The fail part was that not a single person asked us who we were.  So then we just felt stupid.  We were so excited about our costumes only to see it fall apart (wa wa).  This may have deterred us from dressing up next year, but we'll see.  I'm sure a lot of people assumed we were nerds (which is funny if you've seen the movie) but I don't think I took it far enough if I was just a nerd.  I mean what's a nerd doing dressing in bright colors and purple skinny jeans and flats? Also, what's Tommy as a nerd doing with a monkey with a headband on and sparkly shoes? Okay, I'm done with that rant. 

Also, we spent a lot of money on Halloween candy this year.  $15! And our child didn't even go trick or treating.  We are definitely going to have a new plan of attack next year.  First, buy the crappy candy that no one wants (I didn't want to be that family and I was hoping for left overs.  And who wants crappy left over candy that will sit in your cupboard for 4 months before you finally toss it?) And then buy the good candy that's on sale Nov. 1.  Also, our doorbell rang 3 times.  3 measly times!  Granted, that meant we got to eat a whole bowl full of candy (the good kind).  But I guess that's the price you pay when you live next to the best neighborhood in town for trick or treating and not in it.   Also, Zach didn't get to wear his costume on Halloween because the awesome mother that I am, I forgot to do the laundry that contained his costume.   So this was Zach waiting for trick or treaters (who never came).  He seemed okay with it because he got to stay up a half hour later in case people were still ringing the doorbell until 8:00 (they didn't)