It's Snowing Again

While, I'll refrain from singing another Christmas song, or making another Christmas list, I decided I was long over due for a gratitude post.

I'm so totally in love with this girl!!! From her golden hair and perfect ringlets, to her "spicy" little personality. I cannot get enough. I kiss and hug and treasure her every second of every day. Just today as I was sitting on the floor getting angry at her for her unceasing demands to be eating something other than what I have just served her, she smiled at me and tore her English muffin in half and offered me half as a peace offering. Who can be angry at such a smooth little bugger. She makes me smile and laugh every single day. She's a good listener, and heaven knows after Dylan I deserve and need that. She is clever and analytical, she can be mean and stubborn as a mule...but she's so darn cute and clever when she misbehaves, that I get a bigger kick out of watching her manipulating everyone (including me), that I forget to be angry or put out. I love how she loves to dress up, I love when she runs around naked, but insists on wearing her shiny black heels, I love that she demands a pink plate when her place at the dinner table is set. I love that every time I walk in the door she SQUEALS with excitement to see me. I love watching her get excited over seeing her Grandma and Grandpa. I love that she told the missionaries that sat behind us at church that she was a "PRINCESS"! I love that her daddy is as smitten with her as I am and that she brings out his soft side.

I'm grateful for the man I call husband.
I'm grateful for his sacrifices and his struggles to keep our family going. I'm grateful he's strong enough to carry his burdens as well as mine. I'm grateful that every once in a while he makes me fall in love with him all over again, and that he does it so rarely that I'm always taken aback and eager for the next time. I'm grateful that he holds and honors the priesthood. I'm grateful he is everything I am not.

I'm grateful for my sweet, sweet, Dylan.
I can remember the day I found out I was pregnant with him and my life has never been the same. From the time he could smile, he was always eager to make a connection with people, he's always had a deep desire to be with and be a part of others. He's always kind and I love his laugh, it's always so unexpected and delightful to hear.
He's mercilessly teased and tormented by Alivia, but is the first to come to her defense! Just the other day Alivia was picking on a little boy at the park who happened to find her rather intimidating. She managed to bring the little boy to tears just by looking at him wrong and as he was screaming to his older brother about the "mean little girl", Dylan quickly tried to set him straight by telling him that he had no right to scream about HIS sister and that she was only two years old!
Dylan is my dashing little social butterfly and I enjoy having someone else around the house that needs and craves interaction with other human beings. According to the throng of little girls that assail me in his kindergarten class, when I go in to volunteer, he happens to be the cutest catch in his kindergarten class. Every day when I come to pick him up there is always a girl or two giving him hugs goodbye...I'm going to enjoy this while it's still cute and innocent, heaven help me when they start doing this and he's a hormonal young man!

I'm grateful for carbohydrates
And even though I'm sort of joking, I'm certainly glad I have something to take my rage out on.
Stupid, stupid... thieves, stupid, stupid...insecurities, stupid, stupid...bad luck, crappy, crappy ...weather. It all seems a little less irritating when I'm indulging my carb addiction...

I'm grateful for good neighbors.
My neighbors rock! I sure wish I could take them all when we finally move away. They are all so kind to put up with our family and me and my garden and yard madness. Each year I get all sorts of quirky ideas in my head, and every year one of my neighbors borrows me their things so that I can accomplish just what I had in mind. Here's to you Brother Jorgensen for always letting me borrow your tiller, and shovels. Here's to the Rosenhan's who let me use their little garden cultivator this year, so that poor brother Jorgensen could have a year without me begging at his door step. Here's to Caroline who picks up Dylan every other week from school, even though I'm not part of the car-pool crowd. Here's to every one on Coolidge street who has ever made us feel like we belonged here. I live for the day when I have a home of my own and I hope that I can be as good a neighbor and friend as all my current neighbors are to me now.

I'm grateful for the gentle and sweetly sublime whisperings of the Spirit.
When I'm full of hate and anger and I doubt everything I think I know, when I loose all hope in myself and the people around me, when I feel like I just can't bear one more dissapointment or setback....There's always been that whisper.....
I've never had dreams or visions that help me find my way through my confusion, or that answered questions I don't dare speak aloud, but every time I quiet myself long enough to hear something other than the rattling inside my head, there has always been a gentle and calm whipering of hope. It's there and I'm eternally grateful for it's reassurance and the ability it has to make me reach just a little longer.

I'm grateful for laughter
I pulled this picture out of Dylan's church bag, it was just too funny not to post! His candles...Do you think his teacher about died when she saw them??? Or am I the only one that took a double take?