a thAnKfuL {H}eArT

I am thankful this year for so many things.  We have been through a tough couple of years.  This year seemed to be the hardest one knowing what was coming and wondering how we would face it.  I often wondered how things were going to be okay.  I started to really depend on my Savior for strength.  I knew that my faith needed to be fully with my Father in Heaven.   I had been really trying to do so much on my own and not really understanding that I could just knock and have it open unto me.  Our trials did not go away in any sense of the imagination.  The thing that changed for me was a peace that  I could face what came no matter what.  I will always have my faith, and I will always have my family.  Nothing else in this life matters.  My theme song for a while has been "Lord, I Would Follow Thee."  There is a line that says "Finding strength beyond my own." It has helped me get through some rough patches.  I don't have a crystal ball, I can't see the future, and sometimes I really struggle not knowing what is coming.  This is when I turn to my Father in Heaven and I know He has the strength that I lack so greatly.  I am such a worrier and so this has proved to be a trial that focused right in on that very thing.  I don't know what happened but I decided that this time I couldn't do it on my own.  I would need to find a strength that was better than mine.  I prayed, and prayed, and did something I don't think I have ever done, I TRUSTED...This along with my Savior's gentle love for me helped me have a knowledge that things don't always go the way we want but we can still handle them.  I still get sad, I still worry, but in my dark moments I now can see a strength that is not my own.  I pull with all my might to get to that strength and then my worry, fear, frustration seems to go and I am left saying "come what may."  All that really matters I have with me and always will.  The knowledge that no matter what I will ALWAYS have my relationship with my Father in Heaven, my Savior, and my family is what gets me through it all.  So, like always this year I am truly thankful for my knowledge of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

I kind of touched on this in my first one but I am so thankful for my FAMILY!  They are my life.  There isn't one moment that goes by that I am not so thankful for them.  Okay, maybe one moment here and there but for the most part I am ALWAYS thankful for them.  I bragged about my kids already so you can refer to that post.  Now it is Jeron's turn.  I think we have been through a lot together.  In the past 12 years we have battled a lot of things that have really been a lot for a marriage to take.  In fact in one year we had 3 things happen that are the leading cause of divorce.  We made it through that.  We seem to be growing in tune with each other more and more lately.  I love him.  I married a very loving, giving, and understanding man.  He has such a good heart and I am so thankful that I get to always have him as mine.  I am so thankful that he gets up every day and  goes to work to take care of all of us moochers.  He doesn't have many perks to show for all that he does because he gives it all to us.  He is very selfless.  I am lucky to have a man that makes me laugh.  He is very funny and we have the same humor.  I like that we are so much a like yet so very different.  He is the biggest pest a girl can find.  Holy cow does he drive me crazy sometimes.  He tells me all the time this is how he shows love..I then beg him to not love me so much.  He has been a strength to me in so many ways and I am truly thankful for him and our beautiful little family.

My parents, Jeron's parents, my siblings their spouses, and my in-laws make my world a little brighter. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. I could list so many things that each of them have done to make my year better but this would be entirely too long.  So just know that we love you and are so grateful for you.  

 I am so thankful for the beautiful scenery around me.  Yesterday I heard it refereed to as a set design for a movie.  We have one of the best back drops around.  I look at the mountains and just marvel and their beauty.  This hillside is one of my favorite places.  When ever we pass it I always wonder what it would be like to run up it.  I was thrilled when Emma asked if she could.  We pulled over and all the older kids ran up the hill.  It made my heart happy. 

I am thankful I was raised a UTE fan.  It is so much fun to have a team that you really love and cheer your guts out for them.  Win or lose I love my Utes!  See I told you I have great parents.  They taught me in my youth to love this team and it has brought me a lot of joy over the years.

 After my trip to DC I left feeling a little upset with our great country.  That is a weird thing to say about a trip to DC, I know but there was some things that just irritated me.  So when I got home I studied these things out.  Discussed it with many and now I am fully back on board with AMERICA!  I love this great nation.  I love that we fight to have freedom.  I love that we can have a voice.  I voted a few weeks back and there is something about being able to vote that make me feel that I am being heard.  I am thankful that I am an American. 

 I am so thankful for PBK!  I mean look at this picture.  I could just go sit in that room forever.  I tell people that this is what my heaven will look like.  I walk into PBK and just the smell makes my heart happy.  Plus it has helped inspire me to create.  LOVE IT!

 I love getting new recipes and trying them out.  If they are good they make it on my blog.  If they are not my family has to suffer through a night of hard to swallow food.  This has become a new passion of mine and I love it. 

 I love to blog.  I use to keep the best journals.  Then I got married and had kids and I couldn't find the time to keep one.  Now, with blogging I am back on track.  3 years of journal entries about my family and what we do.   I even get to do the fun things like put in pictures.  That is why I loved my journals they were so fun to just open up and look at.  With blogging I feel the same way. 

 I shouldn't be thankful for this but come noon today I will be so grateful that I can open my fridge and pour me a nice tall glass of delicious addiction.  Mmmmmm

 Speaking of Addiction...I love me some lotion.  Recently I have really had to try and settle this one down.  One of my kids is so addicted to it that I am now trying to watch how much I use.  I am going through a lot less these days but I still love the stuff.  I put a little squirt on my hands and all is well with the world. 

I am so thankful for great friends.  I love the ladies in my life that make my heart smile.  I can tell them anything and know that my feeling are safe.  It has been fun making new friends also.  Thank you for bringing some humor and silliness into my life. 

 I am thankful that Jeron and I got to take our first kid free trip this year.  We headed to our Nations Capital and had a blast.  We loved every minute of our trip and have been itching to go on one again. 

 I am grateful for the newest edition to the Meads family.   I can't even tell you have much I love being an Auntie to my sweet little Lucy.  I just love this little squishy pants so much.  She is darling!  I hope we are always close and that she knows that I just LOVE her. 

 I am thankful for "Pig Rocks" and all the other adorable things that Elsie says.  She says the cutest things and each day I just die laughing at something she has just said.  I love the age of two and how everything is so new. 

I am thankful for crafting and being creative.  I love to create something from nothing.  I wish I had more talent so that I could do more but it still brings me joy.  

 I am thankful everyday for my phone.  My dad and mom keep me in the modern world with this.  I love it!  I love my apps., my ability to email right there, I can even tell you if I am going to have PMS that day.  Love the phone.  Yes, I am spoiled. 

 I love Thomas Jefferson.  I am thankful to him for his brilliant brain.  That he used it to do good.  After learning about him this year I am just so impressed with all he did.  He even wrote his own bible.  He just never stopped.  He was a good person.  I read the accounts of his grandchildren and they just loved him. It made me love him more. 

I love my new hobbie.  I am not good at it but it is a lot of fun for me.  I have taken my first set of family pictures, and wedding pictures.  Even though it freaks the crap out of me I love it.  I can't wait to be able to find the time to learn more about the camera so I can use it better. 

There is so much to be grateful for and on Thanksgiving I love that we express what those things are.  I could go on an on about all that I am thankful for.  I just hope that each of us will take the time to remember all that we have been giving and remember those that don't have all that we have.  I hope this year I can focus more on what I have not what I don't.  Last, but certainly not least, I am so thankful for YOU!