gratitude #30

i LOVE amazon!

Why go to Black Friday and deal with crowds and chaos and no sleep when with a few clicks of the mouse your entire Christmas can be sitting on your doorstep?!  I love online shopping.

gratitude #29

I just love this baby because she's so dang happy and she sleeps!
 I'm so glad we had another girl!

gratitude #28

I love how excited Kit has become about life and most of the time I love how eager she is to share every detail.  I especially love how she finally loves to read and how much she loves, loves, loves fishing!

Charity's my friend and it makes me sad to think how quiet it will be next year without her (I guess that's why we had Mollie!).  I love how much she loves to learn and how creative she is when she plays.  And I love how much she loves horses!

I love Allie because of her enthusiasm for life. She has a talent for teaching and I love the things she's been able to teach Charity. Amazing!

gratitude #27

I love that Sarah makes Sunday dinners!  So nice for me!  Today it was baked potatoes, italian chicken, jello, and her first attempt at homemade rolls.  Yea Sarah!  How cool it is to get woken up from a Sunday nap with the news that dinner is on the table!

gratitude #26

This post is in memory of grandma's couch!

She's getting a new couch next week, so we needed a picture.  It was cheap and is worn out, but it's the most comfy couch ever to have a nap on.  We'll miss it.  But we're excited that they are finally getting new carpet and a new couch!

gratitude #25

McClure Thanksgiving

*hopefully a picture later*

I love that we have so much fun with the McClures!  All 34 of us . . . and counting.  And I think it's fabulous that we always do Thanksgiving on Friday so we can be together every year.  It was a fantastic idea that has worked out so well! 

gratitude #24

The day with most of my favorite foods (and looking forward to Saturday with my favorite food--Hawaiian Haystacks!).  Need I say more!

Okay, so more may need to be said:

Ben loves gnawing on the bones and my dad was happy to put the leg on the turkey platter in his honor.

gratitude #23

Mollie's First Trip

And four girls who got yelled at as we were backing out of the garage, but then did a fairly good job of traveling.

gratitude #22

I Love Sunsets!

gratitude #21

Major shopping day!

We left at 10 this morning and got back about 5:30.  It was a long day made longer by the fact that Mollie had to get her first shots (it broke Charity's heart and she had to turn and face the wall and cover her ears with her hands).  But Charity and Mollie were awesome and we got a ton of food storage shopping done and got some great deals and had a fun time at Wendy's.  Thanks girls for being fun to shop with!  And thanks Ben that I have money to shop with!

gratitude #20

A Pinch of . . . brown sugar!

That's all it took to convince the girls to do a quick Sunday night clean up!  And they did a fabulous job so we had a clean house going into Monday.  I love girls who are old enough to be very helpful . . . but I guess young enough (or fun enough) to do it for . . . a pinch of brown sugar!  (Forget the stickers and pennies Marci and Marilyn!)

gratitude #19

SMILES!

gratitude #18

This is what we woke up to this morning-SNOW and lots of it!  And that's after being awakened during the night to a very loud rain/sleet storm.  It was gorgeous!  But looking at the girls' handcart, I'm so thankful that we don't have to be out in it!  I'm thankful I'm not a pioneer mom!

gratitude #17

I can exercise!  And I don't hurt!  I think this is the fastest recovery ever!  Yea!  Walk away those pounds!  And that silly c-section stomach pooch! 

gratitude #16

I'm wearing jeans this week!  I couldn't wear any jeans at all while I was pregnant--they caused contractions immediately--so I have spent the last 10 1/2 months wearing sweats and skirts.  But I wore real jeans this week and it worked!  Now if I can only get to a point where I can fit into more than one pair!

gratitude #15

I'm thankful for my friend Sonya!  I love having a friend I can be totally honest with and (hopefully) she's not offended.  And she forgives my spaciness (forgetting the dessert we were taking to another friend today) and helps encourage me to do good things (actually visit the friend instead of just talk about it).  And on top of that Charity absolutely loves "Lasonya!"  =)

And she gave us the outfit in "gratitude 11" that I love so much and made the tutu we used for Mollie's pictures.  How nice to have an awesome friend even if she is mad at me because I tried to talk her out of going shopping and saving money!  =)

gratitude #14

The Ultimate App

My husband's randomly weird beliefs--

I have the answer to all my problems! 

I can eat whatever I want. 

I don't have to exercise.

This app is going to make me lose weight.

(And then after paying $4.99 for it, he realized that it's $9.99 a month for it to be as good as the reviews said--so maybe now he can't eat whatever he wants and maybe he'll have to exercise occasionally!  So maybe apps aren't the answer to all the worlds problems!)

gratitude #13

An answered prayer before I'd really known what I was asking:

"The Holy Ghost satisfies and fills up every longing of the human heart, and fills up every vacuum.  When I am filled with that Spirit, . . . my soul is satisfied."     

(Eliza R. Snow as quoted by Sister Thompson in October conference)

gratitude #12

Sarah and Allie are amazing at preparing and giving talks.  I've been amazed at how calmly they do it and then how good they are considering they have little if any help. Kit stresses more about it, but she's finally brave enough to give them and did such a good job this summer (I wrote it, but she had it mostly memorized and figured out that she loves giving talks) that they asked her to give hers in the program and she was excited to do it. Charity on the other hand is terrified to do anything, but she did her part in the program (with her eyes closed like her teacher suggested), so there's hope.

It sure make life easy for me!

gratitude #11

11:11 on 11/11/11

My favorite veteran!

(Yes, even with the silly mustache!)

gratitude #10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAheGUPJI8Y&feature=player_embedded

I love Will's reason for serving a mission--"giving thanks" for his blessings!

Our church is amazing!  There are the most amazing videos out there right now.  Amazing people.  Amazing technology.  Amazing ways to share that the gospel has been restored!

gratitude #9

I love a digital piano!  It can be turned down so it's fun to listen to little girls practice instead of torture!  And when really needed they can plug in the ear buds and practice without us hearing a thing.  =)

gratitude #8

Marci was only going to come for a few days and just keeps staying.  We've loved having her and her kids!  It's fun to have someone to talk to and Charity and Abby have had fun playing together.  I especially like how she does dishes and sweeps the floor.  =)  And Hyrum's smiles are amazing!

gratitude #7

2 months old!

gratitude #6

Mollie's Blessing

Another little girl's blessing day.  I love the blessings Ben gives.  I love that she calmed down and didn't fuss during the blessing.  I love how much family came to spend the day with us.  I think it was the most ever for a blessing and we loved it!  The girls love to have cousins come to our house since it doesn't happen very often.

Thank goodness Allie took a few pictures.  But we didn't get any really good ones so I'd better do some later!  And we still don't have a picture of our entire family!  But we did get pictures of everyone that came.  Thanks for coming and being part of our day!

gratitude #5

Jon Schmidt Concert

Ben has been wanting to go to a Jon Schmidt concert and it finally worked out for us to go . . . kind of.  We're blessing Mollie on Sunday so we had lots of company, but they were nice to entertain themselves, make pies with the girls, and take care of Mollie so that we could go!  Thanks Krysta, Nate, Marci, and Marilyn!  It was fun to see Jon and Steven Sharp Nelson (he's my fav) live.  Now we just need them to come back so we can take all of our girls because they love them more than me I think!

This is our favorite youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ThePianoGuys

gratitude #4

At the moment I'm just glad that it's nearly quiet in our house.  My sisters are here with their 4 kids and it's been VERY loud the last 6 hours while the kids have played and we've sorted through clothes to make sure everyone has the right things (it's great to hand clothes around but every so often we have to take time to sort and then share with cousins).  But almost all the bags of clothes are put away in the right spots and 4 of my 5 children are in bed and as soon as I put the sheets on my bed (and get Mollie to sleep) I can sleep too!  Thank goodness for bedtime!

gratitude #3

"What if we only received today

the things we gave thanks for yesterday?"

Our girls still say in their prayers,

"We're thankful for our new house."

We are so thankful for our house!

(Notice the pumpkins and gourds--
the girls put them EVERYWHERE!)

gratitude #2

Girls who get their homework done!

(without a lot of help from their mom!)


*I shouldn't have posted this--we ended up having a very frustrating long night with homework that even went into the next morning when I had to drive them to school to sign a paper that had been left.  But hopefully "she" learned her lesson!

gratitude #1

"Field Trip"

Charity has really started thinking about things.  One thing she's very interested in is how you buy a car.  She is really worried about how she'll get to a car lot to buy the car she wants.  I've promised I'll take her.  So a few weeks ago she asked more questions about the "car store" and so today we took a field trip to the "car store."  We planned on talking to a salesman (hoping he'd be nice) and wandering around the lot, but it was freezing and we weren't dressed right for the day, so we just did one thing . . .

We found a YELLOW vehicle!  That's what color she's going to buy when she's old enough.  As we left she said, "I hope it's still here when I get big!"  (Of course, usually she wants a car not a huge truck, but it was the only yellow one on the lot.)

And then we went to her favorite place in the world!

She said it was essential to go there for her "field trip" and she got a chocolate Frosty, so she was thrilled.

She didn't get to do preschool this year (there weren't enough kids her age who wanted to do it) and we're both so sad, so this was our attempt at doing something educational.  I had great plans, but like most of my plans, they are still in the planning stage!  But she's been my huge helper the last two months and we are doing some fun things together.  She is hilarious and makes life fun!  I'm thankful I have Charity!!!