full of thankful

I'm thankful I had a good morning with the kids. they had a non-oatmeal breakfast of eggs and/or leftover French toast and got showered and dressed in time for Brady and Abigail to go to church with honey.  and Abigail and Elizabeth matched (right down to their sandals... too bad I didn't get a picture) and Brady had his gray suit like honey and Andrew was wearing white shirt and tie (the fancy pink one... which actually perfectly matched Abigail and Elizabeth's dresses!) and WE WERE ALL ON TIME FOR CHURCH!!!

I'm not that thankful for my short temper with Abigail and Brady during sacrament meeting, but I am thankful for some pretty awesome testimonies that were shared, namely from Rebecca and Shannon and Stephanie.  I can't remember what Stephanie said because I was busy with the kids (there was a reason for my short temper and impatience), only the spirit I felt.  but Rebecca's story about the cell phone that dropped in the creek and her daughter that prayed it would be okay and her sons that searched for it and fished it out a long time later and miraculously it was still ON and WORKING PERFECTLY... that was amazing.  and I loved that I talked to Abigail and Brady about it before bed and they'd also heard it and thought it was great (although Brady of course had additional questions about the technology and waterproofness of things).  and Shannon's story also about the prayer of a child.  so great.

I'm thankful for Kelsey's lesson second hour and especially for my talk with liz in the mother's lounge and bishop's combined lesson third hour.  words can't express my gratitude for that.

I'm thankful that after church with the kids went relatively smoothly.  that even though Brady was STRUGGLING when we got home, he spent some time in his room (took an extra long time changing out of church clothes) and was calmer when he came back downstairs for lunch.

I'm thankful that Abigail and Brady nicely watched scripture bugs while Elizabeth napped and Andrew continued to sleep in his carseat in the kitchen.

I'm thankful that honey came home! it wasn't right after church, but when he came home, he didn't have to leave again after that.

I'm thankful that he played the new frozen box of 6 games with Abigail and Brady while I locked myself in my room with elizabeth and Andrew.

I'm thankful I didn't ignore the call from an unknown number because it ended up being Abigail's new second grade teacher, just calling to introduce herself and ask me about my child and her personality and interests and what I hoped for her for this upcoming school year etc.  I'm SO thankful that Abigail got this teacher... by all accounts, she's the best and most coveted second grade teacher. she's also the one Abigail really really wanted.  it was a great phone call.

and I'm thankful that bedtime went well and that I could do the bedtime routine with the kids while honey spent some quiet time with Andrew.  I'm thankful that we read the kid book of mormon story of the 2000 stripling warriors and Abigail was super excited about it and telling us all about it before it happened because she'd had this lesson at church recently and remembered it all.  and I talked to the kids about Rebecca's testimony and I'm thankful that BOTH kids remembered hearing it and were engaged in my conversation to talk about it.  I'm most thankful that Abigail was engaged in the conversation with me and even shared that one time when she was in preschool, she dropped something in the crack between her dresser and the wall and she couldn't reach it so she prayed about it and then reached as far as she could and was able to grab it.  it's sad but true that I was shocked to hear her openly share a story about a time that she prayed, completely unprompted, and received an answer to her her prayer.  also, she was able to correctly and confidently answer all of my questions about "what does righteous mean?" and "what does it mean to have faith?" etc. because normally, whenever I ask her questions that she likely knows the answer to, she acts uninterested and says that she doesn't know or has no clue.  I'm thankful that we had that time where it was like we had a normal mother/daughter relationship!

I'm thankful that I could just hang out in the yellow room and just talk with honey while I held Andrew.  it was a quiet moment that stuck out to me as being unique because it so perfectly hit the spot that it felt like I was in a new place experiencing a new thing.  we didn't come up with any answers to what we discussed and we still need to figure out a solution to our too-small garage, but I loved talking with him.  I always love our conversations.

I'm thankful that I did the dishes and was able to start the dishwasher, but that I stopped short of cleaning the whole kitchen and chose to spend time with my honey instead.

I'm not too thankful that I've stayed up till after 1 again even though every night I swear I'm going to go to bed at 9pm so I can take advantage of Andrew's longest sleep stretch, but I AM grateful to have been able to blog tonight.  my life is happier when I write about it.

on that note though, I'm thankful to have this all written down so I can finally go to sleep.