Grateful in Any Circumstances

Tonight's Family Home Evening lesson was inspired by a blog post I read last week from one of my college besties.  I was reminded of her post today after experiencing another long and stressful getting-the-house-ready-to-sell-with-six-kids-underfoot kind of day.  I told the kids HER story -- where she was able to find the moments of gratitude in a difficult day of her own after listening to and being touched by President Uchtdorf's talk from a few conferences ago called "Grateful in Any Circumstances" -- and I followed up by telling them that on the day I read her post last week, while I was cleaning out the craft cabinets in the computer room, I found a single sheet of notes I had taken from that EXACT talk a few years ago!  It was crazy -- there weren't any other conference notes with it, and I have no idea why this one talk's notes would have been in the craft bins anyway.  I felt in that moment that perhaps Heavenly Father was trying to teach me an important lesson.  ;).

As a result, I've decided to blog about the things I'm grateful for today...

• Beautiful spring flowers! And for the friend who watched Isaac this morning so that I could run out and find these cheerful blossoms to help out the curb appeal of our house.  

• Being in the home stretch!  The carpet cleaners finished up today and so did the painters with the deck and the handyman who took care of some other household repairs. 

• This cute little crazy toddler!  Hahaha.  This kid!  He is a whirlwind of activity.  I was SUPER grateful that he weathered the restriction to the kitchen caused by the carpet cleaning.  As a result, we had a grand old time this afternoon playing with play-doh and waiting for the kids to get home.  

 Giving his play-doh guy a "haircut."  He LOVED this activity.  Hahaha.

 (He wanted to take a picture to send to dad.  Fun fact -- Scott HATES play-doh.)

• All the rest of my crazy, cute kiddos, as well!  Hahaha.  While they certainly drive me nuts on the regular, I wouldn't trade them for anything else -- not even mild-mannered versions of themselves.  ;)  As part of our FHE lesson tonight, I had everyone go around the room to name something they were grateful for today.  The answers were interesting and insightful -- Ethan was grateful he finished an outline for school today; Alex was grateful for the Wii U; Jane was grateful that she could go to school and learn stuff; Sophie was grateful that I let them all sleep in this morning (blast that Daylight Savings change!) and drove them to school after they missed the bus; and Grace was grateful that even though she hates her new elective this quarter and thinks it's so boring, at least she has a few friends in the class.  Hahaha.  Those kids!

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(I love finding Jane selfies on my phone.)

• And finally, I'm grateful that one week from now this will all be over!  Hashtag fingers crossed.  Hahaha.  Seriously, though -- it would be spectacular if the house sold this weekend...

(My single page of notes from that conference talk!)