30 Thankful Days

Day 18: Audio Books.  I do a lot of driving for work.  I have enjoyed listening to a variety of audio books. I was very grateful for my audio book today.  I needed to escape in a world of fantasy.

Day 19: Sick Kids.  I know most people are not very happy about having sick kids around, but in my line of work sick kids can be a good thing once in a while.  Today was supposed to be a crazy day with tons of back to back appointments, but because of a bunch of sick kids my 7 visits got reduced to 3.  Ahh!  Such a wonderful day.

Day 20: The Mysterious Ways of the Lord.  It never ceases to amaze me at how the Lord works in such mysterious ways.  Today events unfolded that really reminded me that I need to trust in the Lord with all of my heart.  The Lord knows each of us and knows what we need.  I just need to keep the faith that he knows what he is doing for me and my family.

Day 21:  Peaceful Saturdays.  Today was a wonderful day.  Kyle had to go to work for a while this morning and so Grant and I made waffles for breakfast.  I love waffles.  We played and read books.  He went down for a nap and then I got to work on my website for a little while.  Kyle came home and we hung out for a little while.  I got some of the "junk" organized so our spare room doesn't look quite so trashy.

30 Thankful Days

Day 15: Blair.  My little brother's birthday is  November 15.  I can't believe he is 19!  Holy Cow where does the time go. I have many fond memories of hanging out with him.  There is quite an age gap between us, but we still had fun cruising around in my dad's truck right after I learned how to drive.  I moved away to college when he was 10 so I feel like I have missed a lot of his life.  Oh wait I have! It was great to celebrate his birthday and spend time together as a family.  He is really cute with Grant.  Grant loves his Uncle Blair.

Day 16: Monday.  I honestly really don't like Monday's at all.  I have the hardest time getting back into the swing of things after the weekend.  I was grateful that I had home visits over the internet.  We call them VHV (Virtual Home Visits) and some people hate them.  I actually kind of enjoy them.  It is nice to just sit at the computer and wait for your families to log into the computer.  It's a nice break from driving around to their houses.

Day 17:  Kyle.  I am very proud of Kyle.  It is not new news that ATK keeps having lay offs.  We weren't super worried the first two rounds, but when last time Kyle's direct manager was laid off our worry boxes got full.  Kyle has since applied for a number of different jobs.  He had an interview today for a job at Hill AFB.  We won't know for at least 3 weeks because they have to do an extensive background check.  The job requires top secret military clearance and so they have to find all of Kyle's skeletons in his closet.  (He doesn't have many.)

30 Thankful Days

Day 13: Evy and Erin.  I got to meet up with my sister for a few minutes today.  It was a nice little surprise in the middle of a crazy day.  I miss my niece a lot.  I don't get to see her often enough.

Day 14: Run. Run. Run.  Today in the middle of the snow my mom and I ran the 5K turkey trot.  My mom  won first place in her age group and so she got a free turkey.  I was fourth in my age group so I got the gratification of finishing the race.  I have slacked off a little bit on my training and so I was impressed that I could even run the entire time.  Thank goodness my mom was running with me.  We keep each other going.

30 Thankful Days

Day 10: Rescued!  I have already mentioned how excited I am about going down to 75% time.  I still get health insurance and all of that great stuff.  I just won't have to work every. single. day!  I am really looking forward to January.  Today it really hit me as we sat down and sorted out our kids on our caseloads.  I really love my job and I love the people I work with, but I love Grant more.  I have felt like such a terrible mother.  Especially when Grant screams for Aubrey when he is mad.  It just about breaks my heart.  I know my boss understands and has tried to help me as much as she can.  I really appreciate her.  I am just so very grateful for my work right now.

Day 11: Homemade Bread.  Today at one of my home visits a mom was baking homemade sour dough bread.  It smelled so good!  Right as I was leaving the bread got done.  She gave me a slice.  It was so yummy.  I have really learned to like sour dough bread as I have gotten older.  She could see I was being sincere and so she just gave me a whole loaf.  Wow!  How wonderful.  I came home and made soup for dinner.  Nothing is better than homemade soup and bread.

Day 12: The Rain.  I love the rain and I was so happy to see it raining this afternoon.  I wish it would rain all day.

Day 9

Day 9: Today was just an ordinary day.  A typical Monday.  I am very thankful for the afternoon I had to myself.  It was nice to have some quiet down time to do some things I wanted to get done.

Thankful #8

Day 8: I am very thankful for the church.  I had a wonderful time at church today.  All of our lessons and speakers were excellent. It was nice to feel so uplifted.

Old Car is Money Saved

Day 7: I am very thankful today.  We took our car into a dealership to get a second opinion on our check engine light.  Good thing too!  We will be able to get our car fixed for about $500 vs. $1200.  This means that it will be cheaper to fix our car than to buy a new one.  As much fun as having a new car I am really grateful to not have a car payment.  We owe less than $200 on the car we own now.  I have been looking forward to not having a car payment for a long time now.  I know $500 is still a lot of money but it is less than 2 months of a new car payment.

Happy Halloween!

I promised pictures from Halloween and here they are!

We were the Flintstones and the Rubbles.  Kyle was a stink about dressing up.  So Betty was flying solo.

Here is Pebbles and Bam Bam!

Bam Bam got a little too into his character.  Ironically, Pebbles loved it!

We always carve pumpkins for Halloween.  I tried to take a picture, but none of them turned out very good.  Oh well, the next pictures are worth a 1,000 words.

I brought some paint so the little kids could paint their pumpkins.  Grant was done in about 2 minutes.  You can see him in the background.  He is trying to get a ball so he can play basketball instead.  So boy!

Evy got into her painting.  She had a grand time.

Auntie thought it would be funny to ask Evy to say, "oh no."  Evy was so obedient.

Now Evy has paint all over her face.  Oops!  Naughty Auntie and silly Evy!

Happy Halloween!

Love, Evy and Grant

Thankful

Day 5: I love fall weather.  Today is perfect fall weather.  Warm enough to not need a jacket and cool enough to wear just about anything in my closet.  Love it!

Day 6: I love relaxing Saturdays at home.  Here are the components of a wonderful Saturday: sleep, exercise, shower, breakfast, Elmo, play, nap, and blogging.

I am Thankful

I always get these great inspirational ideas way after the fact.  I figure 4 days isn't too terrible.  My friend is doing this on her blog and I think it is a great idea.  All too often I count the things I don't have instead of all the things I do have.  Here are some things I am grateful for the last 4 days.

Day 1: Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup- I went down to my parents' house on Sunday for dinner and there is not very many things in this world that are better than your mom's homemade soup.  Thanks mom!

Day 2: Jodi- My babysitter called me this morning to tell me her daughter was sick.  I had to find a spare babysitter fast.  Thanks to Jodi Grant had a great day playing with his friend Matt.

Day 3: 75%- I found out today that I am going to be able to drop down to 75% time by the first of the year.  I can't even tell you how excited I am.  (Thanks Kyle for watching Grant today.)

Day 4:  Tardy and Free- Grant has been super cranky the last few days.  I was running late and the doctor office wasn't going to let me stay, but they were nice and said they would see him any way.  We found out he has a double ear infection.  Now we can start medicines and wait for our happy boy to return.  Thank goodness this is our first ear infection ever!  We have been very blessed.

Working Out

Grant was playing in our toy/storage/t.v./treadmill room.   I left the room for a minute and when I came back this is what I found.

If you leave shoes out he will find them.  He likes to walk around the house with shoes on.  I usually run when Grant is asleep, but apparently he has seen me on the treadmill enough to know what he is supposed to do.  I love to capture these candid shots.