Gratitude Post

We just got the internet installed at our house yesterday, and I’m super grateful to have it, but it’s a little sketchy, so Hiram suggested that I copy and paste my post into Word before trying to publish.   I should have just typed it in Word to begin with, because I had a nice, long start to my post done and then I went to upload some pictures, and the internet pooped out on me, and I lost a bunch of it.   Oh well.  The main gist of my post is how truly and wonderfully grateful I am for my beautiful life and everything in it, and I guess complaining or freaking out over downed internet would be the exact opposite.

The actual purchasing of our property and attaining our cute little home were huge blessings, and then all along the way we’ve had a great opportunity to gain a real appreciation for a lot of the blessings in life we take for granted most of the time.  You’ve been following along with the developments, I’m sure, but we have a come a long way since we first moved our house onto our property.  We have clean, running water; we have a flushable toilet and working shower and sinks.  We have power throughout the house.  We have a water heater, a washer, a dryer, an oven, a fridge, a microwave, a swamp cooler!  We can turn on lamps and watch movies.  We have our boxes (except for just a few) unpacked, and we have a lot of nice things.  We have a place of our own where we are comfortable and alone and our boys can play outside.  

I want to mention a few other things that I am grateful for today, at this moment, before I do a few pictures and news.  I am thankful that Brigham’s taking a nap.  I’m thankful that when he wakes up, I will be able to take the boys for free lunch in the park and swimming.  I’m thankful that we have good friends that will most likely be there to play/socialize with.  (When I don’t have friends in the place that I’m living, I’m okay with that because I have my husband and boys, my faraway friends, my siblings and parents and wonderful extended family, but it has been so super nice to develop friendships with the other young women in my ward.  It makes my life fuller and happier.)  I’m thankful that I’m to the point with my house where I feel I can relax much more.  If there is just a slight improvement from one day to the next, I’m satisfied.  I can take it slowly from here, and I like being to this stage.  I’m thankful Hiram only works to four this week, and then he has two weeks off.   I’m thankful for our health, for food in the fridge and on our shelves, for money in the bank, for a car to drive, for my library card.  I’m thankful we have a drive-in movie with friends to look forward in the near-term and a visit from my parents to look forward to at the end of the summer and a life-time of developing our land and growing our family.  I’m thankful for the gospel, for my testimony and the testimonies of others, for the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the example and sacrifice of my Savior, for this beautiful world and the beautiful plan of our Father in Heaven.  

I obviously can’t mention everything that I am thankful for, but I would like for people to know that I am grateful, and I’m grateful to be grateful.  I am so happy when I am looking for the good in the world and in my life and recognizing God’s hand in all of it.

Now for some pictures:

 

I think this is cool.  This duck sat on some chicken eggs and is now raising these three chicks as her own.

This mother duck had FOURTEEN babies.

Moses died.  I was saddened by that.  Interestingly, Israel didn't care too much.  We were at my in-laws for something and he asked to see the kitty.  I said, "Sorry, Honey.  The kitty died."  "Oh. The kitty died?" he asked.  And that was the end of it.  We had two kittens show up on our porch one day last week.  The next day there were three and the day after that there were four.  One has died, and the gangly, emaciated mama cat showed up here to take her last breaths, but these three seem to be doing fine.  Israel loves to feed them and put them under buckets and throw them out the door when they come in the house. Hopefully these cats will keep down the mouse population.  I had only seen one the whole time we'd been here and then the other night after we had cleaned up the mess you're about to see, we saw a huge influx (of course they had swathed the nearby field too, so that could be it) and Hiram caught SEVEN.  We haven't seen one since, but peanut butter was missing from one of the traps this morning.  Its a shame.  They're cute little things.  Israel is okay with the dead mice, but he told us the other day, "No kill kitties."  And also, "No kill babies."  We can kill mice and snakes but not kitties or babies.

Most of our property is pristine desert, but an acre or two of it is a HORRENDOUS mess.  I figured if we just took a little section once a week or something, we could get it cleaned up without overwhelming ourselves.  We took this section a few days ago.  Here's BEFORE.

And AFTER.

I took charge of the Father's Day gifts in our ward.  I created labels to put on the sodas and then we had root beer, diet root beer, cream soda, and black cherry for the men to choose from as well as a bowl of bags of almonds or crackers.  The tables looked very appealing with the bright colors.

Sunday night.  Hiram helping Israel get water for the little tree we planted.

Brigham doing his "this ground is too hard for my knees" crawl.  He took his first little step Sunday at church.  Yesterday he probably took six or seven.  I'm going to get it on camera today if its the last thing I do.

These are Hiram's new chicks.  He ordered them the other day with some birthday money from my mom.  He doesn't get real excited about much, but  he was up and out the door when they called him at 6:15 yesterday morning from the post office to say that they were in.  I can't wait to see him when he buys our first goats.

I just love the back of this boy's head and his cute, chubby ears.

 

I love Hiram's sense of humor.  We were at the pool the other day when a really cute girl from our ward (about 9 years old) came up to me and asked, "Am I supposed to be watering that tree you gave me?"  I told her, "No.  It's fake. Have you been watering it?"  She hadn't, but got worried after an encounter with Hiram.  He had asked her in an anxious tone, "You've been watering that tree, right?  If you don't water it 2-3 times a day, it will die!"  What a kidder.

Israel says some cute things.  If I ask him if he's poopy (even though we started potty training AGES ago, he's not completely broken), he'll tell me I'm ARE poopy!  (Yes, he says it like its a good, exciting thing.)  He might also say, in response to an "Are you" question, "I'm ARE hungry," "I'm ARE tired," or "I'm ARE ready." He's working on the concept of "after" and "later." If I suggest doing something he doesn't want to do he tells me, "After later, Mama."

I'm impressed with how comfortable he is with the water this year.  All on his own, he's started putting his face in the water and holding his breath.  He's shown interest in the diving board and has walked to the end of it a couple times.  I waited for him below one time, and I guess I wasn't reaching up high enough for him.  He told me, "Big arms, Mama."  He gained some real respect for me after watching me go off the high dive.  He mentions it most days out of the blue, "Mama go on diving board.  The highest, tallest one!"

Brief Update

There used to be like NO young people in our ward.  Now, seemingly all of a sudden, there are a LOT, and they're all really neat, fun people.  We've become good friends and we like to do something all together once a month or so--though, smaller groups get together more frequently.  This isn't everyone, but quite a few of us at our cookout/camp-out at Rye Patch Dam last month.

This is our kitten Hiram rescued from a ditch a few weeks ago. 

This is the face Brigham makes when Israel won't let him play with the kitten.

We were in a prime spot to view the solar eclipse (or partial eclipse or whatever it was) in May.  I had some sweet glasses that I put over my camera lens to get this picture.  Pretty cool, huh?

Notice the odd double shadow thing going on.  It was kinda trippy.

Paul came to visit and to take his M-CAT (is that what it is?) in Reno.  He was here for Hiram's 28th Birthday.  It was awesome to see Paul.

These two pictures are the BEFORE the exterior paint job.

And these two are AFTER.  I know the door seems extremely bright in these pictures, but I think its absolutely beautiful.  I am SO glad to have my house painted.  I just can't even tell you.

A woman in our ward is living with a man who wants to be baptized, so they were told they had to get married.  I was so happy when they announced that they were going to be married that I offered to do ANYthing for the woman.  She asked me to make her wedding cake.  Okay!  I had never before made a wedding cake, but with the help of utube and one of the new young women in our ward, I accomplished THIS!  I started it at 5:00 in the morning and wasn't done until 10:00 at night!  And then my friend who was helping me spent three more hours doing the piping, but it was all worth it because it was BEAUTIFUL and delicious.

No one that came to visit would know it to look at it, but we have been doing a TON of work on our little house.  We are busy ALL the time.  Here is Israel helping me pull up the kitchen tile.

We took the boys to the pool a couple days ago.  It was the first time this summer.  They were so excited and had a blast even though the temperature began to drop dramatically and the wind started blowing a million miles an hour or so.

I thought this was funny.  Israel spilled the mini m&ms my mom sent in his carseat.  See his rainbow bum?

Brigham loves to help his Daddy.  At first we had to plug our fridge into an extension cord because we had no functioning outlets in our kitchen.  And if we wanted to use the microwave, we had to unplug the fridge and plug the microwave in.  Yesterday, Hiram remedied THAT problem.  SO exciting!

Here the boys are waiting for our frozen pizza to be finished.  I have an oven!

We have been sleeping in our house since the 31st.  It is so nice to be out on our own.  Here we are eating our first sit down meal together in our beautiful home.

We're painting the wallpaper. 

So much better.

 

 Well, we've been busy and mostly well.  The boys both were pretty darn sick for a few days but they are doing much, much better.  We knew Israel was doing poorly when he refused fries and cookies.  He's made up for all the not eating though.  The other morning he ate FOUR bowls of oatmeal.

He's growing up so much and talking like crazy.  Every day he says something we've never heard him say before.  The other day, driving in the car, Israel was stroking Brigham's face and saying, "Stay awake.  Stay awake, silly head."  He's also called Brig a "goof" recently and likes to call his dad and me "idiots."  Its sure fun to have a three-year-old.  I love having a just-year-old too.  Brigham has the cutest face and voice and butt.  I love him. 

That's all for now.  I have to get loaded up (I'm still moving my stuff out of my mother-in-law's), and go pick up Hiram who has been sleeping since he got off his grave this morning at eight and drive to Fernley (50 miles roughly) so we can get to a Wal-mart to load up on groceries and other essentials.  All I  have in my fridge at this moment is some butter, a few eggs, a package of hot dogs, and some strawberry lemonade.  Love everyone who takes the time to read my posts!