Danielle's Thankful List

Shoes.

My brothers.

Oranges.

Isaac's Thankful List

I'm very thankful for scriptures.

I'm thankful for lizard.

I'm thankful for our family.

And I'm thankful for my robot friend.

And I'm very very thankful for our table. (When asked to come up with one more thing to be thankful for.)

Alison's Thankful List

This week, in conjunction with Thanksgiving, our family has been remembering things we are thankful for. In family morning prayers, we have been saying only "thank-you prayers" for this week preceding Thanksgiving, in response to Elder Bednar's counsel to "periodically...offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. Ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts."I thought I would post each person's list separately.

My Thankful List:

Opportunities to create music.

Prayer.

That I unknowingly married an incredibly forgiving man; that I knowingly married a loving, kind, compassionate, incredibly brilliant, outgoing, entertaining, respectful, encouraging, slightly clueless, righteous man, who loves me and helps me to become a better person, on my personal time-frame.

For Isaac's laughter, his desire to help others be happy, his honesty and imagination, that each bring a sparkle to my life.

For Jeremiah's sweetness, his capacity to learn, his need for physical affection, "kissing fights," the bedtime stories that he tells to me, the Primary songs that he sings to me.

For Danielle's willingness to obey, to be happy, to be a helper, to be my shadow and my friend, that she's a child I can love and not worry about (so far).

Good food. Fresh fruit, homemade breads in many varieties, good tasting water.

Chocolate.

That clean, well-fitting clothes are a normal part of life.

That I have so many simple ways to communicate with my friends and family over long distances.

For my testimony of Christ, His life, His Gospel, and His love for me.

Grocery Shopping...with Children

I went grocery shopping with three kids this morning, something I typically try not to do. But John needed to get to school, and our refrigerator is in a state that makes it very easy to clean (ie, empty other than condiments and eggs and leftover pasta salad), so I took the kids to the grocery store.

Danielle was buckled in the front, Jeremiah was sprawled out in the back with his Leapster2, and I convinced Isaac that it was advantageous to walk because then he could help me choose what to put in the cart. He helped pick out apples, we found out that 5 apples weighs twice as much as a bag of baby carrots, voted on whether to get red potatoes or yellow potatoes to make mashed potatoes with in a couple days but got both because we had a tie, and decided that since the bag of mini Oreo's weighed a lot less than the package of regular sized off-brand creme-filled cookies we should get the bigger of the two.

An interesting event from the store: While we were in the beginning of our excursion, choosing our apples, a lady stopped us and said, "I need to tell you: You're a wonderful mother." Hmm, interesting.

A fun conversation from the end of our trip: We had a cute (old, very old) gentleman bagging our groceries, and he asked, "Where'd you pick up those things in your cart?" "Well, this boy came from the produce, this one from the meat. But the little girl definitely came from the chocolates." They didn't have any bars to scan, though, which is good because I'm sure sure if I'd be able to afford them. They're priceless.

Maybe I'll take my kids with me more often. :)

Indulging

I've decided that instead of trying to achieve balance in my life, I should instead indulge.

I haven't been able to figure out how to do everything "completely" all the time, so I'm going to do the minimum most of the time, and then splurge every month or so.

Like getting dressed. Sure, in high school and college I would shower daily, dry and curl my hair, put on make-up, wear cute clothes that didn't have kid-stains on them...but now that is a ridiculous thing to attempt. Well, and have any sort of a life. So, I take a quick shower at the YMCA, dry off, put on some clothes that fit, run a brush through my hair and scrunch it with some mousse, and call it good. Fancy days I put on mascara and lip-gloss. Much more reasonable, and then I can "really get dressed" every couple months (maybe for a date-night or a wedding) and be pleased with myself.

So, I decided taht I should do the same things with cleaning our apartment and reading books. Instead of thinking I should be able to do it all, I am instead going to indulge. Every month, I can "indulge" in a clean house--get it all clean and make it stay that way for at least a day, and truly enjoy it, knowing it won't last for long, but also knowing it's possible on an irregular basis.

And, every month, I'm going to stay up way too late reading some book I just don't want to put down, and probably eat an entire bag of chocolate candy while doing so...and not feel guilty because I only do it once a month...and then truly enjoy it.

I think it's a good plan. :)

Personal Revelation

John spoke in Sacrament meeting a couple months ago, but I just spoke on Sunday. My topic was Personal Revelation, and I shared a few personal stories. I'd like to share them here, too, because the people who read this blog know me more than the people in our new ward, and I feel a little awkward with these other people whose names I don't know yet knowing more about my personal life (well, just a few stories) than my friends and family. Here are some fun stories, straight excerpts from my talk:


When John spoke, I told him that he could introduce our family however he wanted, and that I'd correct anything that needed correcting when it was my turn. While the things he said were all true, I'd like to expand on how we met. I believe he said that we met at a ward prayer, the Sunday our sophomore year began. He was right off his mission, as were his friends. I was nervous about meeting new people, and one o my friends and I got up the nerve to go talk to some very awkward-looking guys who looked worse off than we felt. These two students were right off their missions, and were also John's roommates, who he always declares I was flirting with. John and his roommates, and my friends and I, became good friends, and started going out on dates in different combinations. Pretty quickly, John decided that he liked me, and tried to pursue me. I wasn't so sure. After a couple months of this, one of my friends pulled me aside one night, and we talked and talked...and then she decided it was time to tell me all the wonderful things about John and why we were so obviously perfect for each other, how we were alike in these ways and complemented each other in these other ways. It went on for about two hours. Me trying to leave, her coming up with impossible amounts of ways we were perfect for each other. (She was a national-level debater in high school, and went on to graduate at the top of her class in the BYU Law School, so I was way out of league.) When I finally got free, I went to my room and knelt to pray before I climbed in my bed, and in the middle of my prayer, when it was clear I definitely wasn't going to pray about John, I heard the words, 'You should date John," in my mind. Instead of being humble or polite and agreeing to the task or sentiment, I thought back, "But I don't like John!" And again I heard the words, "You should date John." Still not humble, I made a deal. I thought, "If I like him when I wake up in the morning, I'll date him." I thought it wouldn't happen, but I was curious if it could. When I woke up, I liked John. I flirted with him extremely well, got invited to go shopping and to lunch with him and his grandparents, and we were dating the next day.

Just a year ago, I was struggling with my son Jeremiah. He has autism, and I don't remember exactly what he was doing or needing, but I was having a very difficult time trying to figure out what he truly needed. I knelt in prayer, because I knew that even if I didn't know what he needed, I knew that my Heavenly father did and could let me know what it was I could do to help him. As I was pleading, I heard the words, "Talk to Avis." Our branch had just combined with a ward, and I sort of knew Avis by sight but not personally since she was in the ward, and I had no clue why I should talk to her. I tried coming up to her in hall at church, but she was always busy talking to someone, or getting things ready for Primary...and I didn't talk to her. A couple weeks passed, and I was praying about Jeremiah again, and I heard this "Ahem. Talk to Avis." I felt slightly reprimanded, a little ashamed. And I made it a point to approach her the very next time I saw her. We made a plan to talk in a few days, she wasn't sure what about, but she got sick, and it fell through. When I finally caught up with her again, in passing on the way to Relief Society, I told her "You probably are wondering why I wanted to talk to you. My son has autism, and I've been having a hard time knowing what to do, and I was praying, and I felt I should talk to you." And she said, "Oh, I have some information for you." It took me a year, but I'm fairly certain that my answer, to talk to Avis, wasn't because she could tell me exactly what I needed to do with Jeremiah, which was what I wanted to know, but because my Heavenly Father knew what I truly needed was someone who understood from experience that sometimes having a son with autism is just hard.

When I was finishing my junior year in high school, my best friend peer-pressured me into taking the ACT and SAT. There was a place to write in colleges to send my scores to, so I chose a few from the list, including BYU because that's where many of my friends wanted to go. A few weeks later, I went to get the mail, and there was an envelope with "BYU" in the corner. And I simply knew that I needed to go there. It was just a simple feeling of "yes." I only applied to BYU, and I went there, and I learned many things, made wonderful friends, and met John. BYU was a wonderful experience for me.

A few weeks after I left for BYU, my sister left for a mission in Brazil. I think I was very homesick, but having so much fun that I didn't realize it. I think that my homesickness took the form of writing my sister letters at least weekly. Long letters. When my parents dropped me off at school, though, my dad bought my sister and I matching CTR rings, and I treasured mine. Because it was from my dad and reminded me of my sister...it meant so much. After the first real snow, my friends and I had a huge snowball fight. at some point my gloves had come off, and when I put them back on, my CTR ring didn't make it, which I didn't discover until I was getting ready for bed. We had been all over in the snow. I looked for my CTR ring the next day. I couldn't find it. I got some of my friends to help me. And as I was looking with them, I prayed that I'd be able to find it, that it was important to me. I felt that I should look by the sidewalk, far enough away from our snowball fight that it was very unlikely, and kept looking where I was for a few minutes, thinking that it was more likely to be where I was looking than where I was prompted to look. A few minutes later my friend went directly to the spot that I felt I should look, and picked up my ring. I didn't receive an answer to my prayer to find my ring because it was valuable or important or life-changing or critical to my testimony. It was a very little thing.

Candlelight Carol

Our ward choir will be singing Candlelight Carol by John Rutter. I hadn't heard it before, and I wanted to get an idea of what it sounded like as I learn to play it on the piano. This is the best video I could find, and it's in Welsh, so I don't understand much other than the "Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!" part. But it's gorgeous. And reminds me that Christmas isn't far off, when we can remember the birth of our Savior and rejoice in Him.