McKayla

5.4 years ago a little girl came into our lives and she was perfect. Well, a little gross looking, but all babies look gross those first couple of minutes. Still she was our to take home and care for. I must say that I am daily impressed with what a little lady blesses this home. She is so friendly and sweet. She cares for everyone and she amazes me the amount of love she can give to people and never expect any back. She is a wonderful girl. Today at 6:00 am I had to entrust my little girl over to a surgeon to remove a cyst that had grown on her eye lid. The doctors were sure that it wasn't harmful but it still needed to be removed. I started the timer on my watch the moment she left my sight. She was only away an hour, but it was a very long hour. She was grumpy when she woke up but I can't say that I blame her. She is sleeping now, after her bowl of honeycombs and a glass of strawberry milk. Yes, I tried to convince her of toast with apple juice but she said no! I told her that I would declare October 18th national Mckayla day because she was such a brave little trooper. Cheers to the doctor that helped her and the wonderful nursing staff that had the good taste to tell her what a beautiful girl she was and to ask about her pet unicorn.

Sisters

I am the youngest child in my family and the only girl. My husband is also the only child and only has 1 sister. With my super deductive reasoning I thought we would have boys. I thought that boys would be easier and so much less drama. However, Heavenly Father in his wisdom gave me not one but two precious little girls. How they love each other. They play together and are so good to one another. I am glad that I received these two gifts from heaven. While there are days I scream and yell or tell them that I'm taking a time out, I love them with all my hearts. Yesterday they were out back playing and I caught this picture. How it warms my heart to see them smile and hold hands. While I know that drama, tears, and fights may be in our future, for this moment in time they were sisters and best friends.

On Saturday and Sunday our church had what we call General Conference. We have the opportunity to hear from our leaders on various topics. One talk that caught my attention was about gratitude. It discussed that it is easy to say thank you once or even feel grateful for a moments, but that we all need to be living with a feeling of gratitude in our hearts everyday. This talk touched me because I realized how ungrateful I have been. Rather then rejoicing that we have been able to make ends meet during this financial hardship, I have been grumpy over the stress and our credit card bills. Rather then being grateful for the opportunity to watch my children grow I have been longing for the days when I felt smart and appreciated. Rather then being grateful for my Savior I have been wondering why I have to have so many trials. Today I feel grateful to be me. I am not the best at anything, but I have so many great blessings in my life. I am blessed beyond measure with a wonderful family, a lovely home, a fabulous neighborhood and a deep faith. For that I am grateful.

October

Can you believe it is the first of October? I am so shocked. It is the spring board for the holiday season. I want to have a Halloween party this year. I really do, but I stink at these things. I never know where to place the food so there is no bottlenecks, and how do you keep the kids entertained while the adults get to talk. I also wonder how to keep everyone involved. Maybe I stress too much and should just say come to our hour and bring a yummy fall treat. I think that we will decorate tomorrow. Of course first I have to mow and put down grub eliminator, fertilizer and grass seed. Then I need to water. Hopefully by putting down all of these products I don't have grubs that are bigger and have grass growing on them. Back to the party...Maybe we should all have a blog party. Someone could post pictures of the decorations, another person could post pictures of the food, someone could post pictures of the games we played and then we could all post about the awesome conversations. Am I nuts?

Roof

Did I tell you all that we finally got our roof re shingled? It was a very tough decision. 1). No matter if we hired someone or we did ourselves it would cost a lot of money. 2). Money is always tight. I don't know anyone that thinks to themselves "we have money lying around. Let's spend it on something practical rather then fun." 3) my beloved husband is working 45 hours a week and is in his last semester of grad school. This means that he has 25 hours of homework on top of his jobs. Plus, I have a hard time letting him study because he is my very best friend in the whole world so I always want to talk to him when he is home. And his two daughters love to play with him and they love to have their daddy's attention. So after researching different companies and pricing it out for ourselves we finally had it done on Monday. It looks so pretty and I can stop looking at my ceiling wondering if a brown spot is going to show up. I'm glad it is done and I love it. Next year we are going to add insulation and replace the basement windows. I think in 15 years our house will be just how I want it. I love our little home and I am so blessed to have it. It's not the biggest house or the newest bit it suits out little family just perfect. Plus, I have the best neighbors and friends close by.

Marriage

So, my hubby and I have noticed that the stress we have been under is starting to affect our marriage. We have noticed that we are snapping at each other and not communicating like we ought to. We know how to communicate and we know how to show each other love, but we have been allowing contention into our marriage. We decided to start reading a book together every night. We really like the book we are reading. While it is an LDS book, I can see where anyone would find value in the teaching in it. Last night we read about having a nightly couple prayer. We have family prayer, but we don't take time to have couple prayer. The book explained about how family prayer is important but we need to approach the Lord as a couple as well. We need to kneel overnight before the Lord and report in. It noted that as a couple we may have issue that we need to discuss with the Lord that our small children don't need to hear about. Also, if we are reporting back to the Lord every evening then we can't be angry with our spouse as we go to bed. The second thing we read about was talk time. Really taking the time to talk to our spouse like we did when we were dating. It is very interesting to note that it is true that when chad and I first married we knew everything about one another, but as we have grown and changed in the last 10 years those things have changed. We as a couple really need to take the time to talk to one another and discuss our day as well as learn about one another constantly. It is important to never take for granted that we think we know what the other person will say. I think I keep blogging about out this goes for us. I know that when we knelt last night as a couple and we talked to Heavenly Father about our concerns as a couple we felt closer. I am glad that we are taking the time to talk and we discovered that both of us feel like the other is not always listening to us. I hope those reading my blog will try this with their spouse as well. If you are not the praying type then a simple assessment of your actions with each other at the end of the day will work too, I think. have a great day!

Sweet

My poor McKayla has been having a very difficult time with bees lately. Prior to last Friday she had been stung only once in her life. Then we were on a walk. Okay I was walking while pushing Ariana and McKayla was riding her bike. I received a phone call so I stopped to answer the phone. Suddenly McKayla started to scream and yell. I quickly got off the phone and she claimed that a bee stung her. She wasn't moving or trying to irritate the bee, it just came and stung her. We got home as quickly as we could with me trying to encourage her to peddle her bike while I am pushing the stroller and trying to reassure her. It was very sad. A cold compress and a Popsicle made things much better. Then the other night I was getting her out of the bathtub and she started screaming again. She claimed that a bee stung her. I thought maybe she had seen a fly or something and panicked after being stung on Friday. I asked her to calm dawn and explain. She showed me that on the bottom of her foot there was a welt. I looked at the little bath mat in front of the tub and there was a tiny little bee about half the size of a fly. I was in complete shock and disbelief. Really?!! A bee on the bath mat at 8 o'clock at night? Why? Somehow it was in the bath mat and McKayla stepped on it. She told me that she was becoming really frustrated with bees. I agreed that it was very odd and then I told her its because she is so sweet. That made her smile and feel better. What she doesn't know is that I am going to Home Defense this house on Saturday and buy a bug zapper for anything that flies. The Mom is very angry at bees and I will take them all down.