Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Count Your Blessings

When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings; ev'ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings; money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven nor your home on high.

So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings; angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey's end


This week I have really learned to take comfort in this song. It’s been a rough couple of months. Since Callahan has gotten here, life has felt a little crazy. Callahan was born with fast breathing nearly 100 times in a minute. Then Callahan and I both got sick with a virus that made it VERY hard for Callahan to eat. After all of that, I got Tonsolise. This week I thought we were all in the clear, then I took Mr. C to the doctor and he hasn’t gained enough weight.
It’s been a whirl wind two months. In the last couple of days, I all started to get me down. And then I started to remember all the blessings.
Our number one blessing was that Callahan was a BIG boy! Those 4 extra days and all 10 lbs 7 oz. allowed him to come into the world good and healthy!! All the doctors have commented on how well his body as compensated for the breathing problems. Because his lungs and heart were fully developed they seemed to be able to handle all of the extra work they were doing.
Next was all the support we received from our family and friends!!! We have been so blessed with friends who researched and helped guide us in the right medical direction. And my family!! Oh how wonderful they have been! Between bringing dinners and watching Stetson, they have made it possible for me to focus on baby #2 and have helped keep be saine!
Lastly, the blessing that Callahan has been hitting all of his markers, even a little early. This, I think, was just Heavenly Father’s way of reassuring me that everything will be ok! Right before our doctor’s appointment,


where we heard Callahan has gained very little weight, he giggled and giggled for Mack. That helped me not worry too much.
And there are so so many more!!
All in all, I’ve really come to realize the difference of focusing on the negative and counting your blessings!! I’m so glad for all of my family’s blessings and hope to be able to always remember to count them.

So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings; angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey's end






Sunday, July 20, 2014

Stetson's One

My wonderful sister-in-law took some BEAUTIFUL pictures of Stetson today, to document his first year. I love them so much!































Thursday, February 27, 2014

New Beginnings

Last night we had the New Beginnings program to introduce the new girls, turning 12, and their parents to the Young Women's program. It was a blast!! Can I just say I love our girls, their parents, and the AMAZING leaders who do so much!!


 These are our three new girls! We are so excited for them to come when they turn twelve!!!



These next two pictures are some of my favorite!! They are our girls who are currently in YW (minus a few how couldn't be there). There are all so sweet, and each one of them brings something fun and new to the group! There are allways laughs when we get together, can you guess why I love these pictures??





Each of our girls got to get up and describe the 8 values in the YW program which are: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity and Virtue. I'm proud of them for this because public speaking is very scary to a couple of them, but they did it wonderfully! 
Paula, She said her's in Spanish (my favorite) for her parents.


Paiton 

Monica 

Anna
 We also played a game of Jeportey about YW's. The girls won..... I think it was rigged ;) but that's ok because we love them



Another exciting part of the program was the skit!! The older girls put on a skit to show what Camp was like. It was HILARIOUS! They all climbed out of this little kid pop-up tent (priceless), they sang us camp songs (they picked one of my favs!) and then I even got a shout out at the end!!









We also had a STUNNING Duet by Bethany and Anna. It was beautiful!







 These were our little gift to the girls. They are a (cute) bag of Blue jelly bellies. This was the ingeious ideas of some of the leaders (definitely NOT me!). 
 They are to represent our blue bean goal jar. The girls and leaders get to come every Sunday and tell us how many times they have read their scriptures that week. For each day they read, they get a blue bean! I love to see how the girls are improving already in their scripture studying! 

I love our girls!!