Could I be any more blessed?

I feel so blessed in my life right now!

Tonight my cousin Eliza came over and had Family Night with us.  It was an adventure.  We learned all about being kind and saying we're sorry.  Jesus likes when we are kind.  We talked about Nephi and his brothers when they built the boat and how the brothers weren't nice in the beginning.  We then built a boat of our own, in our imagination and sailed to the promised land.  I held Kately and Eliza held Emberly as we sailed across the sea and were tossed about the waves.  It was fun.

Father's Day: Kately decorated the frame (which would soon hold a picture of daddy and his girls)
and breakfast in bed with chunky monkey pancakes!

After Family Night was bed time.  Kate kept coming up with excuses with why she couldn't go to sleep.  And every time impatience would creep in, Kately would look at me and say, "I love you Mama."  I couldn't be more blessed!

You know, I have hard things going on in my life:  Chris is gone all the time with work and school - He is Superman I don't know how he does it.  I am fighting depression.  We are struggling financially, a little.  Kate is struggling with diabetes . . . BUT!!!
LIFE IS WONDERFUL!!!
I feel so blessed with my situation!  I get to spend every day of my life with these two little pixies.  My pixies were sent from heaven to make my life wonderful!  I have an amazing husband who works 40 hours a week and goes to school whenever he isn't at work.  We don't see him much, but he NEVER complains.  Wow.  I love my little family!

Life is definitely hard, it is also, SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS.  It is the only word that I feel like could even possibly come close to explaining my life.

Thank you HEAVENLY FATHER for everything thou has given me!

Come What May & Love It

I watched this Mormon Message tonight and really liked it.  How often do we dwell in our troubles longer than we need to?  What I mean by that is how often do we let our troubles completely consume our lives and not let us see the joy in them?

I loved the things that Elder Worthlin said in this video.  Learn to Laugh!  I am getting better at this one, of course I'm not perfect at it.

Here is a story that I can laugh at now, that counts right, to at least be able to laugh at it later?

On Sunday we were sitting in Sacrament meeting trying to keep our girls under control, which is usually a chore.  I was holding Emberly on my lap and she was kind of fussing.  I thought that maybe she would like to stand next to me on the pew.  I picked her up and moved her over, but I guess my angle was slightly off because I bonked her head on the back of the bench.  She immediately starts to scream, of course, so I picked her up and started to head out of the meeting.  Kately was sitting at Chris' feet and I tried to step over her, but I knocked her head in to the pew in front of us.  Needless to say, she started to scream.  So, both Chris and I, girls in arms, headed out of the meeting.  You ever feel like there should be an award for times like these?  The Stupid Parent Award.  We hereby declare Christina Myers the winner of this prestigious award.

The wife of the family sitting behind us caught me after the meeting telling me how funny, yet sad that was.  Yes, funny, but sad, and remarkably stupid.  Oh, well.  Neither of the girls were permanently damaged and I cried longer in the lobby than they did, utter humiliation.  But, guess what?  I can laugh about it!!!

I would like to put a few pictures below that show you everything that I have had to love over the past little while.  My family is wonderful and here are some fun videos and pictures to share.

I HAVE SO MUCH TO LOVE IN MY LIFE!!

Kately tells us what an elephant says.  (I tried to get her to sing at the end of the video, but it didn't work, Just stop watching at the end of the elephant part, I wish I knew how to cut the video down)

Kately went around to about 25 of the 50 rocks that made a wall around this park and sat on everyone.  She had to tell me as she did this, "I'm sitting on the rock, Mom."

I made this poster/poem for Chris' birthday!

Don't you love my wrapping job?  All of these odd boxes actually had birthday presents in them :)

Chris got a tool set for his birthday from my parents

Happy Birthday Daddy and Uncle Jacob!  31 years-old

Kate's cousins dug a whole in Grandpa's sandbox and what did Kate decide to do?  Sit in it of course, and get stuck.

The Renaissance Fair

Here is a link to a Google Story of us going to the Renaissance Fair

Emberly learned to climb the stairs all by herself!

Sweet Dreams my loves!

Emberly's first pony!

Zions National Park

Zions National Park

SmOREOS,  yum yum yum

I think the squirl liked the hashbrowns more than we did

Kately taking Emberly for a walk

"Look at the rock mom!"  "Hold still so I can take your picture, Kate!"

Easter Egg Hunter

Easter Eggs are fun!

Family Fun at Grandma Myers'

Singing her new favorite song:  Let it Go! (we're not quite sure how she knows it, since she had never seen the movie before this)

Watching her favorite movies:  The Fishie Movie (Finding Nemo) and the Wizard of Oz

Who said you need to be able to walk to play Ring-Around-the-Rosies?

Emberly and I (in the stroller)  playing follow the leader with Kately, way up there!

Park Time Fun with my Sis

Our friend Reed

Kately's little house under the playset

Will she go down alone? 

She did it!

Kately closes her eyes and says, "Grandma, it's dark!"

Kately and her new diabetes purse to hold all of her equipment

Mom and Kately wearing the cool slippers Grandma Dew made us for Christmas

Kately's first selfie

Heavenly Father Loves Mommy and Daddy

About 2 weeks ago we went to a family party.  One of my nieces told us that she was playing with Kately and they were looking at a picture of Jesus.  My niece asked Kately if she knew who that way.  Kately responded, "Jesus.  Heavenly Father and Jesus love Mommy and Daddy."

At our last Stake Conference (a church meeting with several congregations meeting together)  a lady got up and talked about Family Home Evening.  She said that when her children were toddlers she and her husband would teach lessons from the Nursery manual.  Nursery is the Sunday school class for the 18 mon - 3-year-olds.  I thought this was genius and Chris and I have been using the Nursery manual to teach lessons for Family Home Evening.  The lessons are no longer than 5-7 minutes long, but they obvious must be doing some good.

It is so neat to watch these little souls that the Lord has so lovingly given to my care.  I know that my daughters have testimonies of their own, already.  They may be young, and maybe not able to talk for themselves very well, or at all, but I know that they know Heavenly Father loves them.  I remember when Kately was about a week old and lying on the edge of the bed.  It was 6:30 am and Chris had jsut left for work.  I was about to change Kately's diaper, she was fussing and squirming and fell off the bed.  I was horrified.  I was sure that Kately was going to be hurt in a serious way, or damaged somehow.  I called my parents, waking them up, of course, and asked my father to come over and give Kately a blessing.  They were very kind and came over.  I still remember parts of the blessing that my father gave that newborn baby.  He blessed her to know that Heavenly Father loves her.  He blessed her mother, through her, to have peace and know that all would be okay.  Kately was, of course, just fine.  I have often pondered that blessing in my heart.  A newborn child being told that her Heavenly Father loves her, but not only told that, but blessed to KNOW that love.

My daughters bring such a sweet spirit into our home.  I have found Emberly often staring at a picture of Jesus and smiling.  I'm sure she remembers Him.

I love my little pixies and I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus loves them.  We tell the girls often how much Heavenly Father loves Kately and Emberly and Mommy and Daddy (and everyone else she knows).  We are truly blessed!

God Gave us Mothers

I wanted to share my love to all the mothers around me who have taught me and loved me and have guided me in my life.  I love to write poetry, although I don't do it enough.  I decided to write a poem about Mothers.  Mothers come in all shapes and sizes.  There are the Mothers that give us life, there are other Mothers that teach us along our way.  I believe that we do not have to literally bare children to be mothers, but rather those who teach and guide and love us along our path are all Mothers in their own way!  So here is to all the mothers in my life, my Grandmothers, my Mother and Mother-in-law, my sisters and sisters-in-law, my aunts, my friends, my teachers and all the other women who have touched my life!

God Gave us Mothers

By Stina Myers

God sent us down

Down to this earth alone

Alone to find our way back

Back to Him once we’ve grown.

No, no we’ve not been sent

Sent alone, without someone

Someone was given to help

Help us through what we’ve begun.

God gave us someone to comfort

Comfort us when we’re afraid

Afraid of failure or pain or monsters

Monsters within our minds we’ve made

He gave us someone to catch

Catch us when we fall

Fall to the ground or farther

Farther, farther, we feel so small

He gave us someone to teach

Teach us what to do

Do when life gets tough and hard

Hard, but we’ll make it through

He gave us someone full of love

Love that’s unconditionally there.

There for us no matter what

Whatever may happen, Mother is there!

God gave us Mothers to help us glimpse

Glimpse God’s beautiful love

Love that’s unconditionally there

There for us, sent from above.

Because God loves us so much

Much more than we’ll ever know,

Know this, He gave us mothers

Mothers alight with Heaven’s glow.

The mothers from my family:  Annelise, Jolene, Lexia, Karissa and Me

The mothers from Chris' family:  Lara, Kimberly, Jan, Brittny, Gaylynne

Grandma Veda 

Grandma Arda Jean

Good Eats

I decided that I wanted to become a little more organized and I created a menu planner.  I have thought about doing this for quite a while and here it is; finally done and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

This was a pretty easy make.  The frame used to be attached to a mirror that had been left at my house years ago when I was renting my bedrooms to single girls.  I've never used the mirror, but I rather like it as a frame.  I was able to disconnect the mirror and put scrapbook paper on the backing.  The little basket at the bottom came from the dollar store and I the cute stickers that make the "Good Eats" and the little dots that have the Days of the week on them came from a scrapbook kit that I bought years ago and have never used.

I chose 4 different categories for my food:  Mexican, Italian, Breakfast, and Other.  We eat breakfast for dinner quite a bit in my house! The 5th slot is "Used".  I put the meals in there after we eat them so that we get a variety and then I will sort them back in later.  I have color organized my meals to help with sorting.  After using this a few weeks I have started putting other ethnic foods in my "Italian" slot.  I felt like my "Other" was getting rather full.  I do have one more color that I just hide behind my "Breakfast" category (it's the least full slot).  I have a few cards that are red.  They include:  new recipe, eat out, and left overs.

To fill up my menu with recipe cards I first went through my cook book from my mother and a few other books that I have and wrote down the recipes that I liked.  Then, when I was at my sister-in-law's house a little while ago, she has a menu board and I wrote down all of her recipes.  I made them into cards.  It is kind of fun because I don't know exactly what all of her meals are, so I choose one out and then look it up on the internet,  It is a fun wild card.  I have also been doing a freezer meal group and once a month I get a bunch of freezer meals.  If I like the recipe I've made cards for it.

What do I think of my menu?  I haven't been using it long, but I will say that the weeks that I have used it; I have been happier when dinner comes around.  I am not stressing about what to put on the table.  This week I was sick for a couple days and didn't use it.  I can definitely tell you that I prefer to use it!

Every time my mom sees my menu board she tells me that it needs to go on pinterest.  So, please, fill free to pin :) 

GREAT Great-Grandparents!

I am very blessed to have both of my grandfathers and my Grandma Arda Jean still alive; Grandma Veda passed away last September.  We named Kately Veda after her.  It was so cute, at the time that Kately was born Grandma Veda and Grandpa Dew lived in the basement of my parents' home.  My Grandma's memory was going, but the one thing that she could remember was that Kately's middle name was Veda.  When we would come visit, Grandma would turn to Grandpa and say, "LaMar, do you know that little girl's name?  She's Kately Veda, named after her two Grandmas!"  We chose the name Kately because Chris' great-grandma was Kate.  I love that we named Kately Veda after my grandma who has now passed on.  I feel like she is still with me to help guide me in raising my daughters. :)

A while ago we had family home evening with Great-Grandpa Dew. Kately and Grandpa played hide-n-seek.  It was so sweet to watch.  Kate and I would run and hide and Grandpa, in a wheel chair, would putter himself behind us asking where we had can and where we could be.  Kate just giggled.  We love to visit Great-Grandpa Dew.

One Sunday Kately sat on my Grandpa Christensen's lap and read a book all about tractors, quite fitting for my farm-bread grandfather.

A few days ago my mother took another video of Kately reading a book with Grandma Christensen.  She even began a video again, but the TV was on in the background and a Viagra commercial came on.  Needless to say I won't be sharing that video.

Kately and Grandma Christensen

My daughters are so blessed to know their great-grandparents!  We love them!!!  They are so kind to everyone.