Count Your Many Blessings

My 26th birthday was Sunday. I think it was the first time I have experienced the "your an adult your birthday isn't the most important thing today" birthday. It was sad. Then to top it off Carson started throwing up and other lovely things, then Micah and I got sick, I miss my family, we are alone for thanks giving,I want another baby, and life is not what I would like it to be right now. As I sat feeling sorry for myself on the couch the other night this came into my mind:

 "when upon lifes billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count your many blessings name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the lord has done. so amid the conflict whether great or small, do not be discouraged God is over all. Count your many blessing angels will attend. Help and comfort give you to your journey's end." 

My attitude totally changed. I felt stupid for being such a debbie downer even though i'm the only one who really knew I felt that way. Life is hard. But I feel like I spend too much time thinking about what I don't have rather than what I do have. I have wanted to move back by family pretty much since the day I moved to Washington. Oh silly me. If I have learned anything in the past 5 years it has been that my plan and the Lord's plan are very different. I might think I have a plan, but every time I make one it usually doesn't happen the way I think it should. I know his time is not my time, and that if I am happy with my right now, and count my many blessings life will be better, and better days will come by faithfully living happily now. I have had times where I've felt forgotten and unheard, Or that Heavenly Father didn't care what I wanted. But that is just not true. He loves me and wants me to be happy and I need to trust in his plan for me. I am grateful for my little family. I'm grateful for our home and food to eat, I'm thankful for a wonderful loving husband who works so hard for our family, I am so thankful for a knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father, because with out that I don't know where I would be in life. Today I forgot my little experience of remembering to count my blessings. I laid carson down for a nap and started in again. Thinking I don't know what we are supposed to be doing, or  where we are going, I felt stressed and unsettled. I said a quick prayer for comfort, and had a good cry for a few minutes. The same thought came to my mind. A little while later I saw a messaged David A Bednar shared on facebook. It said:

"A number of years ago, our family learned a meaningful lesson on gratitude that we have never forgotten.

While I was serving at Brigham Young University–Idaho, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visited our home. Earlier in the day Sister Bednar and I had been informed about the unexpected death of a dear friend, and our immediate desire was to pray for the surviving spouse and children.

As I invited my wife to offer the prayer, the member of the Twelve, unaware of the tragedy, graciously suggested that in the prayer Sister Bednar express only appreciation for blessings received and ask for nothing.

Sister Bednar responded in faith to the direction she received. She thanked Heavenly Father for meaningful and memorable experiences with this dear friend. She communicated sincere gratitude for the Holy Ghost as the Comforter and for the gifts of the Spirit that enable us to face adversity and to serve others. Most importantly, she expressed appreciation for the plan of salvation, for the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, for His Resurrection, and for the ordinances and covenants of the restored gospel which make it possible for families to be together forever.

Our family learned from that experience a great lesson about the power of thankfulness in meaningful prayer. Because of and through that prayer, our family was blessed with inspiration about a number of issues that were pressing upon our minds and stirring in our hearts.

The most meaningful and spiritual prayers I have experienced contained many expressions of thanks and few, if any, requests. Let me recommend that periodically you and I 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 will leave it at that since I cant say anything much better than an apostle. I'm grateful for the peace and comfort that I am able to ask for and receive. I know I'm continually learning and will probably need to be reminded of this like 20 more times in the next year. But I know that if I continue to trust in the Lord's timing , and be grateful life will be just fine. 

random thoughts

It has been a while since I blogged last. Life is fun and crazy, and sometimes I forget to keep up on blogging. I love to blog because writing and music have always been my outlet. that is how i feel like i can express myself and get out the feelings that i need to in a healthy way. As a kid I remember always writing stories, and being excited for the writing tests in school. My plan was to become an English teacher some day, instead I went to hair school. I am glad I did hair school, it was a crazy time in my life and i did a lot of learning and growing. Some day I hope to go back to school and become either an English Teacher, or a Special Needs teacher.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about goals and who i am as a person. I feel like every once in a while I hit a point where I feel lost for a little while. I feel like I'm not progressing. That's when the anxiety hits and I spiral down into the pit of grumpiness and depression. I find myself being angry at myself. I have PCOS. And I know a lot of people have it. I understand it's not the end of the world. But I feel like it has majorly impacted who I am as a person. My whole life (until i found out what was wrong) I was always so confused about why I had so many emotions and was so passionate. Well my hormones were out of balance, and what i ate and the exercise I got was super important. Now as an adult it is still frustrating. I have emotions I want to control, and in certain situations, I feel a million different emotions inside, but the worst emotion is always the outward expression. I have facial hair which is extremely embarrassing to be the girl with the beard when i forget to constantly be waxing, tweezing, or nairing. (is that a word?) I hate that pizza (my favorite food) makes me really sick, and bloat as big as a blowfish. I hate that I am constantly tired, and battling anxiety and depression. I hate that I have to work 2 or 3 times harder than everyone else to lose weight. I ABSOLUTELY hate that it causes infertility. BUT. that is what I've been dealt. I can't change it, I can only deal with it, and try to make the best of my crazy (i'm literally crazy sometimes) life. GOALS have so much to do with this. I find myself having pity parties for myself quite often. Luckily I have an amazing husband who tries his best to understand this lame condition. He pushes me to eat healthy and pushes me to work out. We both fall off the wagon sometimes, but he helps me pick my pmsy self up and start again.

This Spring I lost 20 pounds. I was so proud of myself. I noticed a lot of my symptoms disappeared when I was taking care of my body the way I needed to. Life happened, and I found myself back where I started a few months later. I have been super disappointed the past few weeks thinking of where I could have been if I didn't get lazy, and put it on the back burner. My parents always taught me that quitting was not an option. I needed to follow through with my commitments. I decided I made a goal for myself that I was going to take charge of my health. I was going to control my pcos rather than letting it control me. So that is what I need to do I know I can do it, and I've done it before. I'm also making a goal for myself to write and blog more. It's an outlet, and believe me I NEED an outlet. It is so important that we take care of ourselves and make sure we do what we need to for ourselves so that we can do what we need to for others. My goal is to continue bettering myself so that I can better my family, and strengthen my relationships with friends and family members. Goals keep us progressing. Successful people set goals, and My goal is to be successful. :)

we have had a crazy summer. Micah has been working like a crazy person again, Carson and I have gone to Idaho for a few visits, and we got a much needed new car. On the upside, this summer has gone so fast. As a kid summers were my favorite, and it may be Micah's job  mixed with no a/c in our apartment, but these days I find myself dreading summer. We make it work and we have had a surprisingly fun summer. We had Micah's brother Jaron come stay with us for a little bit, and we had lots of fun. Carson loves his Uncle Jaron and keeps asking "where Jaron go?" Carson also got to meet his cousins Claire and Callie. HE LOVED THEM, and now keeps asking where they went. My conclusion: All of our family needs to move closer together. I was put in the Primary Presidency at church. I LOVE IT! I always told Micah I never wanted to be in Primary, but it is so much fun and I just love the kids to death. :) Micah is starting school again in a few weeks, and I am so proud of him! He is such a hard worker and now to add school on top of it. It will be rough on both of us, but I think in the end it will be worth it when he finishes!

Carson is almost 2!! He is seriously so cute, and i might be a little biased, but I feel like most people would agree with me on how cute he is! He is talking up a storm, instead of telling you what he can say, it would be easier to tell you what he CAN'T say. His little personality is so funny. I think he is going to be like his dad. I've notice he LOVES to get reactions out of people....which sounds a lot like his dad. He loves music, and dancing. Recently he realized he loves Iron Man. He thinks he loves Pooh Bear, he always wants to watch Pooh, but then I turn it on and he wants something different. He loves Foxes. I think because we told him he has a grandma Fox. But I think he actually thinks his grandma is a fox. ;) He loves to read books, and play ball. So far he loves basketball, football, and soccer. I'm pretty sure he does most things that almost 2 year olds do. and we are having a blast with him. Hopefully he can have a brother or sister to play with sometime soon.

The other night Micah and I were able to go o a date to the Temple. Sadly it is the first time we've been able to go to the Temple together since we have lived here. It was such a great experience and the perfect date night. I forgot how much I loved going with Micah. Lately I started taking some medicine that is supposed to help with my PCOS and Fertility problems. Before I started taking it, I had been feeling so sick, and icky. After I started taking this, I have felt 100% better. I am so excited and feel myself again! It is amazing!! Hopefully it can help with the fertility issues! I have been trying to simplify my life, and focusing more on making myself better for my family. It has been wonderful, and I feel a lot happier.

Family update

Life is a rollercoaster. That is a fact. The other day I was sitting on the couch thinking about trials I've had, and how I gotten through them. I realized every hard thing has brought me to something better, but it only stays better for a little while before something hard happens again. We are continually growing and progressing whether we want to or not, and I guess how much we grow and progress is up to us. We choose what we take from each experience and how much we grow. Honestly, I think too often I stop myself from growing a lot. Instead of wondering " how can this make me better? Or what can I learn from this?" I usually think "why is this happening to me? Or what did I do wrong?" I've come to learn recently I've done nothing wrong, and it's because Heavenly Father knows I can handle it, and trusts me to handle it, and if I do, the blessings and knowledge that come from it are great. 

Last week my parents came to visit! Which means we got to go out and have fun! We went to the grotto, and we drove to lake quinault! Seriously so pretty! Our little family has been really busy lately. It is busy season for Micah at work, so life is lonely and boring most days. And hot! I guess us Idaho people are spoiled with A/C because it was important for them to put in most apartments. The past few days have been nasty. 92 degrees in humid climate with no air conditioning is not a fun time. When our lease is up I will move somewhere with a/c.

CARSON update!!

He is growing up too fast! I keep buying him new church pants and within a month they are high waters! Maybe he will not grow out of the next size so fast! Fingers crossed. He is learning new words like crazy and is a chatter box. His favorite question is where daddy go? And favorite phrase is I see you mama! He loves boots! Hazel his cousin has rain boots and every time she wears them to our house the end up on his feet. I bought him boots to wear to church, and he brings them to me all the time and says my boots pease! He loves his boots! He loves walking down the stairs at our apartment, he gets pretty upset if we don't let him. He loves dogs and pretty much every kind of animal probably more than me, which is a lot! He loves swimming a lot! Last week he learned to jump in the pool. (Oh no!!) he loves pizza and grapes right now. He is like his daddy! 

My feet, Kira's feet, moms feet, and carsons feet on the labyrinth at the grotto.

Carson next to the largest spruce tree in the world. 58' 11" in circumference and 191' tall

Carson had some ice creAm while we hiked up to the top of multnomah falls. A white shirt wasn't the best idea. 

We live in a beautiful world

We live in such a beautiful world! This weekend we took Jaron to a few of our favorite places. When we went to cannon beach it was pouring down rain. That did not stop little c. He had his rain coat on and was ready to go! We had to keep stopping him from running into the piles of blue jelly fish on the beach. I'm sure he would have probably been ok, but it still made me nervous. If he wasn't running to the jelly fish, it was towards the water at turbo speed. We made it from mo's to haystack rock with Carson walking, which seemed like a miracle that took forever. I looked away at something for a few seconds and heard Carson no! I looked back and saw Micah and Jaron chasing in the water after Carson. I was terrified for a split second because there was a pretty big wave going towards him, but luckily they got to him in time. My heart was full and grateful watching my cute family walking back towards me grumpy and wet. The boys were all complaining about their wet shoes for. Few minutes but then decided we needed to help Carson not feel miserable. We all sang him baby beluga the few miles back to the car. As Carson laid his head on my shoulder and relaxed and started to sing along I looked around and was in awe at how beautiful our world is, and how beautiful and wonderful families are, and how grateful I am for mine. I'm so luckily to live in a place with such beautiful surroundings. 

General conference

Holy moly general conference! I have never come away more uplifted and enlightened. I had been praying about several things and recieved lots of answers! I have always been a firm believer in what you take into it, you get that much or more out of it. I definitely got more! Today I even re read the talk by president monson on temples. I loved it. The other night we took Carson to the temple and walked around with family. A temple worker approached us and encouraged us to take the kids into the garden area inside the temple. I was a little hesitant going into the temple in my sweats and nikes. As I entered the indoor garden area, I felt an overwhelming love from my Heavenly Father. A love and comfort I had been needing lately. A reassurance that I'm going to be ok, and that I'm a daughter of God. Tonight as I read the talk by president monson, the same feelings came rushing back. I decided I need to make the temple a bigger priority in my life. I need to be reminded of who I am. I'm so grateful for general conference! I'm so grateful for inspired leaders who know exactly what we all need to hear. Here are some of my favorite quotes: 

Having gratitude

look at this handsome guy! How could I not be grateful for this goofball. Carson decided to put on his daddies glasses at hat, and thought he was the coolest guy around. I love him and am so grateful for him. Part of the reason I started my weightloss this year is so I could be a better mom to him, and so I could have another baby! I have been able to be a better mom and it has been amazing. The baby part hasn't happened for me. I know you're probably thinking it's only March, give it time. It's hard. When you're trying and it's not happening , time means thinking about why it's not working, beating yourself up, and feeling sad. At least for me anyway. I feel guilty sometimes for feeling sad I can't get pregnant on my first try. I feel guilt that maybe I'm not grateful for the amazing child I do have! I feel bad because some people have tried for years and haven't even had one. I've been angry because I want good things for my family, I want my husband to finish school, I want to spend time with him, I want to live in a nice/safe place, I want more children, and I want things to flow the way I think they should. And the things I want are good, and I've been living the way I should, so why aren't they happening? 

On Saturday was women's conference, and there were talks I really needed to hear, because I've been angry and frustrated at life lately. I've felt like I'm doing the things I should but I'm not getting my way. I've felt angry, lonely, frustrated, and felt like a failure. But I realized, it isn't always on my time table, and there is a bigger picture, and a plan for me. I just need to be grateful for what I do have, even if it isn't exactly what I want right now. Which is hard, and I'm working on the attitude thing this year remember?!? Sister oscarson said, "Heavenly Father has a mission and a plan for each of us, but he also has his own time table."  She also said "one of the hardest challenges in this life is to have faith in the Lord's timing." It was so funny because right before I turned on conference I was whining to Micah about these things. Then president eyering said "only God knows hearts,and so only He can say in -truth, 'I know how you feel.'" After conference I was a little less angry for living somewhere I don't want to live, and not getting my way. ( I promise I'm not a spoiled brat, even though that sentance kind of sounds like it) I'm heart was filled with gratitude for the things I do have. I'm grateful for the time I do get to see my husband, and I'm grateful for my chubby little hulk baby. I'm trying to be grateful for our tiny apartment, but hey would could live in a box on the corner right? I'm grateful I have things like women's conference that keep me in check and remind me that I need to stop having a pity party and that my Heavenly Father has a plan for me, and that I need to trust in that plan, and trust in his timing.