Grateful praise

I loved listening to conference. One of the talks that especially touched me was Elder Eyering's talk about remembering and recording how the Lord has blessed our lives. Here are some blessings I have need of remembering that are particularly relevant to me right now:

1. Wyatt, my six year old son. This is a picture of him on his birthday, wearing the same thing he wore when he was born. Our new tradition we are stealing from Alan's family is that on your birthday you can bathe or shower in Mom and Dad's bathroom. We started Wyatt's birthday with a great bubble bath with an exciting ending--the girls didn't know you should turn off the jets before you drain the tub. They came running to pull me away from the pancakes I was flipping, screaming, "Mom! The jets are posessed!" as my bathroom was being doused in bubbley bath water. After pancakes and bacon, then school, we took two of his good friends to Build-a-bear, then soccer practice. The day ended with a LOUD fun party with just his best friend Michael and our family at Rainforest Cafe. He even got to open his presents (finally!) All day long, besides being glad I wasn't pregnant with a nearly 10 pound boy, I was just so grateful that I got this insightful, fun, super-cute son with a calm soul six years ago. His smiles light my days.

2. Alan, my husband. It is a tender mercy that the man Heavenly Father gifted me with comes home and makes me feel better just with his smile and his touch or even just his presence. And even when I see he isn't quite perfect, I still can't help being passionately in love with him.

3. Where we are right now. We were, without doubt, led to this house. The wonderful neighbors and quiet beauty of our neighborhood are gifts from above. These are pictures of some of our neighbors. Wyatt is with Michael at soccer, and the group shot is the girls who live behind us and came to Willa's between-conference tea party. All these kids make our lives a much better place.



















4. The beauty of the words in the scriptures. Every once in a while--okay, quite often really-- it catches me off guard. I'll be reading along and come to a few verses that are just extravagantly gorgeous. A recent example is this gem I found in Romans:

35 Who shall separate us from the ^alove of Christ? shall ^btribulation, or distress, or ^cpersecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written, For thy sake we are ^akilled all the day long; we are accounted as ^bsheep for the slaughter.

37 Nay, in all these things we are ^amore than ^bconquerors through him that loved us.

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to ^aseparate us from the ^blove of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Just beautiful.