10 for Tuesday--Giving Thanks!

Where did November go? Seriously. Well at any rate, I wanted to take a minute and give thanks for all that I have been blessed with and what better way to do it than with a top 10?

1- My husband. He is seriously the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I love that he compliments me in every way. Yea we are both stubborn and always want to be right, but he usually lets me win. He is great where I falter a little. I think we compliment each other so well. We are starting to get to the point in our relationship where we can read each others mind. It is a little scary at times, but fun too. He is a great husband. He is an excellent father. He is a better housekeeper than me and I know what a rareity it is to have a husband who actually helps out around the house.

2- My beautiful children. To the outside observer my kids seem like they would run my ragged and keep me going constantly, I call it curious. They are a little crazy at times, but I call it adventurous. They are always asking questions and never stop talking, I call it observant. They are all super smart and very interested in the world around them. I LOVE that. I hope they never stop wanting to know why. They have all been blessed with sharp minds and I am grateful for them.

3- Our little home. I know it is small and we are packed in here like sardines, but we have a place to call ours and it is warm. As inconvenient as it may seem at times, I am happy to have a place to live and enough to provide for our family. The essentials are covered. Sometimes money is tight, but we have what we need and there has never been a day when we have not had food to eat or a bed to sleep in.

4- Ryan's job. With the economy the way it is, he is in a relatively secure position. Education, though poorly funded, is a staple in our country. I asked him at one point last month if he was at all worried about losing his job and he said that it had never occurred to him that he ever would. His job security is a luxury not everyone has and I am grateful for that.

5- The Super Van. Having a vehicle that runs and gets decent gas mileage is a blessing. We took it in for a few repairs a while back and since then it has run great. Knock on wood. It is nice to not have to worry too much about it beyond the normal maintenance. Something I have taken for granted in the past for sure.

6- Talents. I have been blessed with a desire to learn new things and I am grateful for the abilities I have developed over the years. I like to try new crafty things and I am pretty good at a few of them. I love to cook. I am told I am pretty good at it. Plus I really enjoy doing things that take a long time to complete. I get a real sense of satisfaction when I complete something I worked on for a long time.

7- Good friends. Over the years I have been blessed with a select few that I still cherish. For me, it is about the quality not the quantity. I don't keep in touch with all of them as much as I would like, but they know who they are and I love them dearly. Having moved this last year it reminded me how important they truly are to me. I have yet to find my niche here so keeping in contact with my far away friends has become more important to me as of late.

8- Opportunities for Service. I have a tendency to get a little down when I have too much time on my hands, so volunteering in my children's schools has filled up the void for me. I have been able to help teach kids to learn letters and handwriting skills as well as help with fund raisers for the school. The best part is getting to know more about what my kids do all day long and the people who are teaching them. I am grateful for the good examples they are to my kids.

9- A small ward. When we moved here, Ry thought we were going to get to sit on the back row and "do nothing" in a sea of people. Not true. We landed smack in the middle of a huge stake with huge wards in the smallest ward that exists in Idaho Falls.(I don't know if that is true but it feels like it) It was hard at first to feel like we fit in here, but I have come to enjoy the smallness especially in Sunday School and Relief Society. (I like to sing but I am not super good at it so it is hard to do that when there are not tons of voices to drown me out.) It does not have the same feeling that Lamar did, but it is growing on me.

10- Idaho. For lots of reasons. I enjoy being close to my family and feeling a part of things. We can go to a birthday party with our cousins if we want too, before it was not even an option. I love the mountains and going camping. I love the wild life aspect of it. There was a moose just off the freeway the other day. We have good friends from when we were first married that we have been able to reconnect with being back here. Mostly I love it because when I moved away for college I was never going to come back. Circumstances changed and if it were not for being here I never would have met Ryan and had the life I do today. It is home and always will be.