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Seriously, So Blessed

Did you ever follow that blog? I loved it. The posts were so funny and so Mormon.

Well, you’re about to get a post like that from me. Except, it’s not a joke or sarcastic.

The past few days I have felt overwhelming blessed. The majority of worries I have had this summer are taken care of and I just have felt love and friendship from so many people. I feel like I have been blessed more than I deserve, and it’s just amazing.

So, tonight for our FHE, T.J. and I decided to write down as many blessings as we could (separately) in three minutes. (I had 36, T.J. had 30… so I won.)

Here are a couple of my favorites that I wrote:

  1. The Gospel (and everything it encompasses… I wrote them out, so don’t judge me.)
  2. My husband and our marriage
  3. Our healthy baby on the way!
  4. Jimmer
  5. Baby Elephants
  6. Diamonds
  7. Clothes
  8. Pinterest
  9. My Blog
  10. My friends
And some of my favs from T.J.’s list:
  1. Shark Week
  2. Baby “No Name”
  3. Pie
  4. Beautiful Wife, My Wife, My other half, Katie (He counted this as 4, ha!)
  5. Electricity
  6. Love
  7. Physical Health
  8. Church so close
  9. Katie’s Degree
  10. Family
We had a lot more that were more serious, too. So like I said, don’t judge us! At the end of our activity my new Visiting Teacher came by with her husband to drop off dinner! She said she made too much and wanted to share… sweetest thing ever? Yes. And it wasn’t just like a normal meal. It was ratatouille. Delicious. To top off the wonderful night, some of my friends in the ward were having a Bachelorette Finale party. I hadn’t seen any of the episodes, but I knew it was a girl’s night I needed to be at! It was so fun to be around these girls and made me so thankful for my ward! I have wonderful friends, visiting teachers, and am blessed abundantly!
See, told you it would be one of those cheesy “Seriously, so blessed” posts.
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Make do or do without

As soon as I got back from Danica’s sealing on Friday, I picked up T.J. and we headed off for St. George. Our sound system in the car has been broken for quite a while and we keep saying we’re going to fix it, but it’s hard to spend a couple hundred of dollars on that when we have other expenses, ya know? So, my creative mind finally came to work and realized, we could just hook up my portable iPod speakers to my iPhone and we could still listen to music! It was brilliant and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. Granted, it doesn’t get as loud. But it made the trip much more fun.

The trip down there was beautiful. We pulled into St. George right at sunset, when the sun was hitting the red rock perfectly. Man, I love that place. I know it’s hot, but one day I hope I can live there. We stayed at T.J.’s aunt and uncle’s house, missed the pool party unfortunately, but played lots of card games (such as Blink!) and hooked up the Kinnect to their ginormous TV.

We woke up on Saturday early, ate the most delicious pumpkin waffles made by T.J.’s aunt Karen, then headed down the road to Enterprise for the Pioneer Day festivities.

The parade made me chuckle a couple of times. I just loved how “Mormon” the floats were. Check some of these out:

After the parade, the whole family got together for a family photo. This is the first time I’ve ever experienced this. And yes, I say “experience” because it was just that. It wasn’t just point, shoot, done. It was a large process and by the end, I was laughing in all the photos because the babies wouldn’t stop crying, the toddlers were running everywhere, and everyone was getting so tired and anxious. Oh boy, it was so funny. Next year there will be seven new babies, so I’m hoping we won’t have to do it again or else I’ll have to hold my squirming little one too.

Those pictures of the whole family are coming soon, from T.J.’s sister Lacey. Until then, here are a couple I took. I love the one with Mark and Kelly with Kelly’s grandpa who is 102.

After that, we just hung around the house, had a delicious BBQ, and played some games. I talked to T.J.’s great-grandpa (the one pictured above) and fell even more in love with him. He is such a cute old man and I am so amazed at how sharp his mind is still. I talked to him about when he was Bishop of the town. He told me it was 64 years ago and he was over 800 people. Now there are many wards in the city so it’s been amazing for him to see the city and congregation grow. He also told me about the promise an apostle made to him that he shared with the people of Enterprise. As long as they were righteous, they would always have water. I asked if they were always righteous, and he laughed and said, “I guess so, we always had water in the reservoir.” I hope Leland is around another year so our daughter can take a five-generation photo with him! She is going to have a great-great-grandfather!

To end the night, we headed over to the rodeo. I was not feeling that great and sitting on the wood bleachers started getting to me, but overall, it was a blast. I took a couple of walks around the place, pet the donkeys, and watched the disgusting and large bulls in their pins. I wish I taken more photos over the weekend, but Lacey had her camera out so I figure I’ll steal some of hers soon.

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R+D

Ryan and Danica’s sealing was beautiful. Ryan’s grandfather was the sealer, which was so nice. I always get a little choked up when I see grandparents in the sealing rooms watching their grandchildren get married in the temple. They are so blessed!

I kind of look like a black blob, but I love this photo of Eliesa, Danica, and me. All three of us are married now, it’s so exciting!

Best wishes, Danica! You were a beautiful bride and I loved being able to witness the ceremony!

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Pioneer Day


If you’re LDS, then I’m sure you’ve heard that story. But it gets me every time. Especially to hear it told by President Hinckley. I appreciate all the pioneers who made those sacrifices so that we could worship freely. They were so brave and so strong. I don’t know how they did it, but I’m sure glad they did.

I don’t have direct ancestors who crossed the plains or were early Saints in the church, but I do have parents who were, in a sense, “modern-day” pioneers. In their early 20s, they both converted to the gospel, against their families and friends wishes. They sought out the truth and because of it, were married for eternity. It changed my family’s life for the better and I am so grateful that they took those brave steps of conversion. I am grateful for them and hope that I can also live as a modern-day pioneer to follow in their footsteps.

So, since this practically sounds like a Relief Society lesson already, I want to ask YOU… How are you going to become more like a “modern-day” pioneer?

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Bliss

Today is one of the best days. Ever. I’ve been looking over some financial stuff, trying to plan for the baby, and then I thought I should check T.J.’s BYU financial account to see if his FAFSA went through or if there were still some to-do items there. Mind you, I hadn’t checked for about a month, and then randomly I decide to check today. Today. Which happened to be one hour after they posted his financial aid money!

T.J. was granted more than enough money to pay for both Fall and Winter tuition. Pell Grants. We will never have to pay it back because sometimes it just pays to be poor.

Also, because T.J. is a very talented graphic designer (I’m not kidding, I’m always amazed when I see his work), he ALSO got a scholarship for Fall semester. So, that will cover for other costs/insurance/etc.

This baby won’t be delivered in a cardboard box after all! Things really have a way of working out, don’t they!

And… I get to see Harry potter in three hours.

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Be of good cheer.

Today I met with some people today to move the medicaid process along and it turns out we do not qualify this month because we are so dang wealthy. Oh wait a minute, we are still really poor and are just barely over the limit this summer because we have more hours. Fortunately (?), next month we will qualify, but it just means that the process is going to be dragged out even longer.

Upon hearing this news, I had a mild meltdown in my car, but then some words came to my mind.

The future is as bright as your faith.

President Monson said that two years ago, and someone mentioned it at church this past Sunday. Pretty cool when we get those little promptings right?

Things will work out, they always do. Not always in the ways we plan, so we just need to have faith.

The following Mormon Message is more for me than for you. But maybe you need to hear it too.

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The word is marriage.

“Some marriages do bend, and some will break, but we must not, because of this, lose faith in marriage nor become afraid of it.”

I came across an article by Boyd K. Packer today and I want to share it with you all. He gave the talk in 1981 and it is still, if not more, applicable today. The concept of marriage is being degraded and destroyed by the world around us, but we must have faith in the principle of marriage, as well as defend it. Read the whole talk and share it with your friends. I love Elder Packer and the way he just lays it all out.

 


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Food Fest

You might remember a post a couple weeks back announcing the Relief Society Activity at our place, it was a recipe exchange and boy, the food was incredible. They put some of the photos from the activity on the RS blog, so I snagged them. If you want the recipes to any of these delicious items, check out my RS blog. I think they’re posting the recipes soon.

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Recipe Exchange

I had an idea a few weeks back about having a bunch of girls over, everyone brings one of their favorite and easy dishes with the recipe. I told the Relief Society Pres. about it because I thought it would be a fun way to get to know all the new women in the ward. So wham bam, tonight we’re having the activity at my house!

I can’t wait, I love hosting parties, I wish I could do it professionally. The only thing is that my house is a reck and I’ll only have an hour to clean it up. But nothing makes you move faster than procrastination, right?

So, what will I be making for tonight? I wanted to make beef enchiladas or stuffed peppers because both are fairly easy (and delicious), but I didn’t want to have to buy lots of stuff. Instead, I’ve decided to make the classic “Easy Cheeseburger Pie” recipe by Betty Crocker. It’s kind of lame, but it is a good recipe to share because there are only a couple of ingredients and it’s a quick meal to make and eat. I posted about this dish last July, back when I cooked all the time. I recommend substituting the ground beef for ground turkey, limiting the cheese a bit, and using reduced sodium bisquick. That way, your mom won’t be as worried about your health!

 

1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 oz)
1/2 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1 cup milk
2 eggs

 

  1. Heat oven to 400°F. Spray 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray.
  2. In 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain. Stir in salt. Spread in pie plate. Sprinkle with cheese.
  3. In small bowl, stir remaining ingredients with fork or wire whisk until blended. Pour into pie plate.
  4. Bake about 25 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

 

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It always works out, I tell you!

K, so you see my last post, the one how I was worried about how to pay tuition? Well, we honestly didn’t know how we were going to pay. In the past, miracles have happened right when we needed them, such as the FAFSA coming through paying for all of our tuition or our tax refund being larger than expected, paying for T.J.’s hospital bills. But it’s not FAFSA or tax refund season, so unless we found a check for $1000 in our mailbox from a stranger or deceased relative, we weren’t sure how we going to pay for the tuition next week.

Then last night, I kept having thoughts about loans going through my mind. T.J. really doesn’t like taking out any loans, obviously, so I kept putting off the thought.

But this morning, I received an email notifying me about BYU’s short term loan. If you pay it back in six weeks, there’s no interest or extra cost to you. It’s basically like a payment plan.

Miracle.

I’m in tears writing this, which isn’t saying much considering I’m a hormonal pregnant woman who cries about everything. I just have such a strong testimony of tithing and that our Heavenly Father is aware of our personal needs. He looks our for us and when we do what we’re supposed to do, things will work out somehow.

And when things work out, it isn’t just a coincidence.

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