Thankful for Stacey's suggestion

So here's my "thankful" list. I am thankful that:

~I have such a great husband

~he has such a good job

~he has changed so much for the better in the last few years and that he has been so affectionate this last week

~I had SUCH a great 4th of July this year

~I am still losing weight

~Joe and I are having scripture and Church History and novel study every night. (we end up talking alot during that time which is really nice.)

~we have nine wonderful children and nineteen sweet grandchildren who bring us such joy

~everyone in our family is healthy

~I have been feeling good for several weeks now

~that the heartache I had for one of my children is resolving itself somewhat

~that I live in SUCH a good country

~that I have daughters-in-law that I really like (yes, I love them, too, but liking is really important as well)

Thanks again Stace for suggesting this subject.

Random thoughts

~I got my hair cut today. I'm not wild about it. She thinned it out a little too much.

~I'm in a stew about two of my children. I won't say who but it is causing me to actually hurt in my heart. I'm not sure how it's going to work out. Actually, There are four other of my children that we pray for special blessings on them in our family prayers. Of course we pray that all nine will prosper and have their faith strengthened, but this heartache is real sorrow and hard for me to bear.

~I haven't yet written about the 4th of July, so I will now. This was the funnest holiday we have ever had, for me. I loved the squirt gun/water fight the kids and grandpa had and seeing them play in the pools and on the water slide. The huge blow up slide was great (though I was too old to do it, it was fun to see everyone else on it.) But best of all for me was the "Second Annual Southern's Not So Special Olympics." I loved seeing the children and adults compete together. The balloon toss, three legged race, the wheel barrow race, the "gunny sack" race, the pie eating contest and the family obstacle course were so incredibly fun to watch! And the obstacle course the men did at the end was the greatest. I'm glad everyone was such good sports though next year we may have to be more careful about who is disqualified on some of the games so the scoring is fair, but even so, it was the funnest holiday I've ever had, a I said above. The fire works with Jonathan's music was a fitting end to it all. Thanks Emilee and Daniel for organizing the Olympics and thanks everyone else for making it such a good day. I'll remember it forever! I can hardly wait for next years 4th to come.

~I've been going to your Uncle Joe's house every Thursday for the last month to work on our genealogy. We had a slow start due to our lack of experience but this last week we actually started making some progress. We have about fifty cards/names that need temple work done on them. Janice and Jennifer have taken all the female names and are doing the baptisms, confirmations and initiatorys so now we need all the women in the family, who are willing, to take some names for endowments and sealings. We need to have the men in the family to do the same. I am going to check to see if I can get the youth in our ward to do the baptisms of all the men unless someone wants to do it. If so, let me know. (Wives, if you will pass this along to your husbands it will help.) I guess I should put this in an email and send it to everyone. If I do, I hope you'll pardon the repeat.

~The mission is going great though I still haven't received an official call or been set apart.

That's all for now.

Hugs to you all,

Mither

It's too late to write!

I just stopped to read the latest posts from everybody from the last 6 days(which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way) on my way to bed tonight. I am too tired to comment on everyone right now but I especially loved everyone's description of the 4th of July celebration we had. I would love to have hard copy's of all the pictures. I can't see them well enough on the computer.

Just one comment on Stace's last post.....

There was a Sunday that I was crying in my Bishop's office about my situation at your age. In fact I even had 4 children at the time. I'll just say this. Things have a way of working themselves out. Keep praying and keep serving the Lord and He'll find a way for us to win in the end no matter what the problem. That's a fact.

That's all for now. Love to all my blogging buddies