Okay, so didn't celebrate Thanksgiving in December either but it's a little late as well! We went up to West Jordan for Thanksgiving and had a lot of Peter's extended family there. We had so many people that we just reserved the church and ate in the cultural hall! Here are SOME of the family that was there:
David and Linda's Family:
RJ and Jennifer's Family:
Matt and Carrie's Family:
Steve and Jeanine's Family:
and Anna (with little Davis):
The kids even put on a play for us on the stage called "The Thanksgiving Turkey" (Nicole organized it and cast herself as the star of the show, the Turkey!)
Grandpa Jay sat near the door to the cultural hall and when I asked him if he was sitting there so he could greet everyone as they came in he said, "Nope! I'm just here keeping this heater warm!" Grandpa Jay has the funnest sense of humor and always keeps us laughing!
I'm so grateful that my kids have been able to live close to Grandma and Grandpa Jay and get to know them and feel of their sweet love and special spirit! They truly are such wonderful people and we feel so very blessed to be a part of their family!
Sweet Emily always gravitates to Grandma Jay whenever we are with them ever since she was a baby! She's always content to just sit on Grandma's lap or by her side and tell her story after story. What a sweet relationship they have!
The boys had a good time playing Basketball after dinner and we were so glad to be able to see Pat too. He's been living in Salt Lake and it's been awhile since we'd seen him! We were glad to have Lisa (Tim's fiance) join us for Thanksgiving too! She is such an awesome girl and we're so excited to have her as a part of our family!
The girls all fought over who got to hold Logan the whole time we were there.
We finished up our Thanksgiving with a bang... literally! Nathan pulled my camera case off of the stage and shattered my camera lens. Ooops!
A few weeks ago I came home from seeing a fabulous movie (The Blind Side) with my amazingly wonderful husband and walked into my warm beautiful home all decorated for Christmas to hear the sweet sound of silence (5 children sleeping) and a sweet mother in law cozy on the couch reading a book and felt so richly blessed.
I wake up every morning in our beautiful new home and look around feeling so humble thinking, what in the world did I ever do to deserve such a beautiful home and such an amazing man who loves me for reasons I may never understand and five wonderfully healthy sweet children? And I realize that the reason that I can never find an answer to that question, is that there isn't one. We will never deserve the blessings that we receive. At the end of the day, all that we have belongs to Heavenly Father and we should not feel entitled to any of it - only grateful when we are blessed with it.
I felt overwhelmed that night with gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all that I had. I was talking to a neighbor the other day who said that she and her husband noticed my mom coming and going from my house frequently even though she lives 12 hours away and said that my mom was always DOING something for us or helping us with something and always here. She said that one night as they saw my mom carrying a load of boxes into the house they said to each other, "We wish we had moms like that!" And I DO. My parents are always helping, always serving and always sacrificing for someone and they have always been that way. I watched this movie about this boy who's mom wasn't even sure who his father was and who didn't have anything and I just felt so grateful for parents who care and who read books to me and sang songs and told stories to me. My Dad when he was up visiting for Thanksgiving this last week gave us a performance of his famous "Head Story" called "The Magic Purple Tennis Shoes". Growing up my dad would tell stories to us at bedtime. He would usually make them up on the spot so we called them "Head Stories". He is an AMAZING story teller and gets so into it with voices and actions! There really is nothing like it! Well he made up a story once about a little boy named Timmy who meets an elf who grants him a wish and he chooses to wish for a pair of shoes. The elf decides that a pair of shoes is an awfully boring thing to wish for so he instead granted him a pair of magic purple tennis shoes that could run faster and jump higher than anything you've ever imagined. So Timmy ends up using his new magic purple tennis shoes to save his friend Suzie who gets kidnapped from the local candy store. Anyway! It was our favorite as kids and we would often ask him to tell that same story over and over and last week my kids got to experience my Daddy telling my favorite head story!
I am so grateful for my wonderful Husband. Peter is truly and simply just amazing. He is "good to the core" as my dad once put it. He wants to do what's right and he works hard to do just that. He sacrifices so much and gives so much and loves so much. He is the sweetest most sincere man on the planet and I am SO grateful for him!
I am grateful for my sweet kids. I really do adore each one of them.
I'm also SO grateful for Music. I am always amazed at the influence that Music has on me. Last week I was having kind of a hectic day (to say the least) and I was not handling things so well. I finally brought my little stereo into the Laundry Room with me and shut the door and turned on some church music while I did laundry and tried to finish a project that I'd been working on all day. I could not believe how quickly my mood changed as I listened to the music and felt the spirit come back into our home after I chased it away with my sour mood! Then on Sunday we had a musical testimony meeting where members of the congregation could go up and and share their feelings about a particular hymn and then we all sang that hymn together. Immediately the spirit flooded into the room and my heart was full as I listened to a neighbor open the meeting with a piano solo and with each hymn that followed I felt the spirit so strongly that I could hardly swallow the warm lump in my throat.
I'm grateful for service. I'm grateful for all of the people who helped us move and pack and clean and watch kids. I'm grateful for family who steps in with support and love just when you need it. I'm grateful for good friends and neighbors and fun times that we share.
What a wonderful time of year! I'm grateful also that I am now caught up on blogging! Now I just have to finish Christmas Shopping, wrapping presents and packing before we leave for California on Friday. I'm also grateful that Peter's youngest brother is getting married this month to a WONDERFUL girl! (oh I guess I'm not quite caught up on blogging, I still have to post a few of their engagement pictures that I took!) We love Lisa so much and we are so excited to have her as a part of our family! Happy Late Thanksgiving!
RJ and Jennifer's Family:
Matt and Carrie's Family:
Steve and Jeanine's Family:
and Anna (with little Davis):
The kids even put on a play for us on the stage called "The Thanksgiving Turkey" (Nicole organized it and cast herself as the star of the show, the Turkey!)
Grandpa Jay sat near the door to the cultural hall and when I asked him if he was sitting there so he could greet everyone as they came in he said, "Nope! I'm just here keeping this heater warm!" Grandpa Jay has the funnest sense of humor and always keeps us laughing!
I'm so grateful that my kids have been able to live close to Grandma and Grandpa Jay and get to know them and feel of their sweet love and special spirit! They truly are such wonderful people and we feel so very blessed to be a part of their family!
Sweet Emily always gravitates to Grandma Jay whenever we are with them ever since she was a baby! She's always content to just sit on Grandma's lap or by her side and tell her story after story. What a sweet relationship they have!
The boys had a good time playing Basketball after dinner and we were so glad to be able to see Pat too. He's been living in Salt Lake and it's been awhile since we'd seen him! We were glad to have Lisa (Tim's fiance) join us for Thanksgiving too! She is such an awesome girl and we're so excited to have her as a part of our family!
The girls all fought over who got to hold Logan the whole time we were there.
We finished up our Thanksgiving with a bang... literally! Nathan pulled my camera case off of the stage and shattered my camera lens. Ooops!
A few weeks ago I came home from seeing a fabulous movie (The Blind Side) with my amazingly wonderful husband and walked into my warm beautiful home all decorated for Christmas to hear the sweet sound of silence (5 children sleeping) and a sweet mother in law cozy on the couch reading a book and felt so richly blessed.I wake up every morning in our beautiful new home and look around feeling so humble thinking, what in the world did I ever do to deserve such a beautiful home and such an amazing man who loves me for reasons I may never understand and five wonderfully healthy sweet children? And I realize that the reason that I can never find an answer to that question, is that there isn't one. We will never deserve the blessings that we receive. At the end of the day, all that we have belongs to Heavenly Father and we should not feel entitled to any of it - only grateful when we are blessed with it.
I felt overwhelmed that night with gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all that I had. I was talking to a neighbor the other day who said that she and her husband noticed my mom coming and going from my house frequently even though she lives 12 hours away and said that my mom was always DOING something for us or helping us with something and always here. She said that one night as they saw my mom carrying a load of boxes into the house they said to each other, "We wish we had moms like that!" And I DO. My parents are always helping, always serving and always sacrificing for someone and they have always been that way. I watched this movie about this boy who's mom wasn't even sure who his father was and who didn't have anything and I just felt so grateful for parents who care and who read books to me and sang songs and told stories to me. My Dad when he was up visiting for Thanksgiving this last week gave us a performance of his famous "Head Story" called "The Magic Purple Tennis Shoes". Growing up my dad would tell stories to us at bedtime. He would usually make them up on the spot so we called them "Head Stories". He is an AMAZING story teller and gets so into it with voices and actions! There really is nothing like it! Well he made up a story once about a little boy named Timmy who meets an elf who grants him a wish and he chooses to wish for a pair of shoes. The elf decides that a pair of shoes is an awfully boring thing to wish for so he instead granted him a pair of magic purple tennis shoes that could run faster and jump higher than anything you've ever imagined. So Timmy ends up using his new magic purple tennis shoes to save his friend Suzie who gets kidnapped from the local candy store. Anyway! It was our favorite as kids and we would often ask him to tell that same story over and over and last week my kids got to experience my Daddy telling my favorite head story!
I am so grateful for my wonderful Husband. Peter is truly and simply just amazing. He is "good to the core" as my dad once put it. He wants to do what's right and he works hard to do just that. He sacrifices so much and gives so much and loves so much. He is the sweetest most sincere man on the planet and I am SO grateful for him!
I am grateful for my sweet kids. I really do adore each one of them.
I'm also SO grateful for Music. I am always amazed at the influence that Music has on me. Last week I was having kind of a hectic day (to say the least) and I was not handling things so well. I finally brought my little stereo into the Laundry Room with me and shut the door and turned on some church music while I did laundry and tried to finish a project that I'd been working on all day. I could not believe how quickly my mood changed as I listened to the music and felt the spirit come back into our home after I chased it away with my sour mood! Then on Sunday we had a musical testimony meeting where members of the congregation could go up and and share their feelings about a particular hymn and then we all sang that hymn together. Immediately the spirit flooded into the room and my heart was full as I listened to a neighbor open the meeting with a piano solo and with each hymn that followed I felt the spirit so strongly that I could hardly swallow the warm lump in my throat.
I'm grateful for service. I'm grateful for all of the people who helped us move and pack and clean and watch kids. I'm grateful for family who steps in with support and love just when you need it. I'm grateful for good friends and neighbors and fun times that we share.
What a wonderful time of year! I'm grateful also that I am now caught up on blogging! Now I just have to finish Christmas Shopping, wrapping presents and packing before we leave for California on Friday. I'm also grateful that Peter's youngest brother is getting married this month to a WONDERFUL girl! (oh I guess I'm not quite caught up on blogging, I still have to post a few of their engagement pictures that I took!) We love Lisa so much and we are so excited to have her as a part of our family! Happy Late Thanksgiving!
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