10 things that Make Me Happy

First let me just say, that as I tell my children, happiness is a choice. Nothing can make you happy. You choose be happy in spite of the things happening around you and to you. That said, I compiled the following list (with revised title) after some reflection this past month.

10 Things that Help Me Choose to Be Happy :-)

1. A clean house. If I can't have a clean house, a clean room will do. Just enough that I can walk in, breathe deeply, and release all the tension of the day. Please don't laugh, I'm completely serious. Well, you can laugh, but I'm still completely serious.

2. A pile of freshly addressed and stamped envelopes. This works even if they are just bills ready to mail, but even more so when some of them are letters to people I love. I don't know what it is, perhaps the anticipation of the the excitement of the letter recipients, but mail makes me happy.

3. Milk breath. I love when my babies (not all at once :-) are nurslings and they get done eating and smile at me with their sweet milk breath. Nothin' like it!

4. The song "Happy Girl" by Martina McBride. Brings back memories of when I was dating Aaron and I would drive home for the weekend and play it really loud with the windows of LuLu (the blue Volvo) rolled down for A/C.

5.My sister, Maggie. She has always been my baby sister--the one I tucked in at night and read stories to. Despite my early indoctrination in the art of boy-crazy, she's turning out okay (although she probably would have been better off without it). She is the only sibling that has come to live with me--and she's done it twice! She keeps my cell phone voice mailbox full with calls from Celine Dion (asking me to be a backup singer), Madonna (calling for tips on music), and Veronica from Planned Parenthood (requesting to give me a consultation on birth control methods). Maggie is hilarious! She helps me be happy. We (I mean Matt) even NAMED her "Happy" for a while.
Note: None of my other siblings are allowed to get upset by not being included; you must realize how valuable "Maggie Points" are worth, and none of you live within close enough proximity to be free babysitters :0)

6. The funny things my kids say. I try to write them all down, but I miss a LOT. Today's quote was by Gideon. "Mom, Malachi likes to help clean up so much! He cleans up, and then he gets everything out again so he can do it all over again!!!" So true, so true!

7. Free Stuff. In our family, the cheaper,the better. And when anyone compliments us on something, we're often heard responding, "Thanks! I got it at the D.I./a garage sale/from a friend/from the diving for _______(mega cheap price). Along this note, I also love gag gifts--most of the time.

8. My food storage room. Even before the shelves were filled, it was my favorite room in the house. Ask Larry (our builder). I would (and still do) walk in and look around whenever I need a boost. The shelves are pretty well stocked right now, and although I don't enjoy the canning part, I do enjoy looking at the results.

9. Letters from Aaron. I like to make sure he still loves me, so sometimes I'll read the letters he wrote to me in college--complete with typos and grammatical errors. I'm glad I married him in spite of his hick grammar. (LOVE YOU FARM BOY!!!)

10. The gospel. Not to be my mom (LOVE YOU TOO, MOM) here, but I have a strong testimony that when I follow the commandments, I'm happy. I have tested this theory many times,and I know that God wants us to be happy, He truly does, and He tells us how. I'm thankful for that.

Some Kids Are REALLY Talented!

I just wanted to tell you all, that some kids are SUPER talented. Some kids can magically eat cookies without even knowing it! That's talent, I tell you. BUT SOME KIDS can throw up in their SLEEP and not even wake up! THEN they sleep all night next to a pile of vomit, and awake in the morning, look at their bed and the floor, and say, "How did this get here?" Then you remind them of the previous day where the following dialogue occurred:

Talented One: Mom, if I drink milk, will it make me really strong?

Mom of Talented One (MOTO): Yes! Milk is really good for you.

Talented One: Can I have another glass? (drinks it quickly) I want to be strong!

MOTO: Here you go. Don't drink too much.

Talented One: (running around the room) Look! I'm running faster than I did before! I need to drink more milk so I'll be strong enough to beat up Paul!

MOTO: Okay, I think you've had enough!

And then, of course, you know the rest of the story. Oh wouldn't we all love to have a child so gifted. Oh, and did I mention, this child is mine! You already knew that, but see if you can guess which one!!! I need to go, I'd better finish cleaning up the side effects of being the MOTO.

I swear I've been busy

I've been wanting to post for a bit--the last two posts were actually by Aaron--but I've been busy, I swear. I mean, I don't swear (usually), but I promise! I was going to take a picture of my food storage room and show you all the canning I've been doing, but the camera is out of town. Then I thought I'd upload some pictures of previous Halloweens and show you all the costumes I have sewed (and am NOT currently sewing), but they are not digitized, and I'm not smarter than the average computer scanner. I thought I could take a picture of the leather I am going to make baby shoes for Malachi out of, or the deer carcass outside from the deer we spent two days packaging, but again, no camera. Alas, I don't even have anything worthy enough to essay about, so, to tide you all over until I blog again, I have included the link for one of my favorite movies of ALL TIME!!! And once you watch it, you'll know why. Enjoy!!! THE PHONE CALL