Blessed beyond belief

I have to start this post with a funny story about Evan. First let me say that he has been running down the tantrum road. Man can he scream and tell me what for! It's a good thing he is number 4 and I have learned some patience. It makes the older kids look like angels! Lately I have been threatening to drop him off on the side of the road to get him to stop screaming and kicking everything. In fact, we were in Provo yesterday during one of these fun moments and I pulled out the "I will drop you off and make you walk home" bits and Kaleb thought I was serious. He started crying and hiding his face in his hands because he was so worried about Evan. I quickly touched his hand to get his attention and let him know I was bluffing. It sounds terrible that I would do this to a 2 almost 3 year old, but it works sometimes. Of course, I would never follow through, but sometimes when I actually pull over, get out of the car and walk over to his door and open it, he gets worried enough to think he may want to stop screaming. Anyway, I totally digress because I wanted to tell an endearing story of this "terribly 2" year old. I think I already posted about how he ads an r into any word that has a double "o" sound in it, like "goord" or "courd". That was good and could by the way. And it sounds more like gerd and curd. Hilarious. Anyway, we were eating dinner at the table and Gary was joking and playing with the kids about them smelling stinky. This is a common thing in our home. If you are ever told that you smell like poo, then you must be considered cool enough to the Christensen family to be included in the family joke. Anyway, Gary is telling them they all smell and Evan gets off his stool and walks over to his dad and tells him, "Dad, you stinky. You smell like poo!" So Gary responds appropriately and tells him, "Nuh-uh Evan, you are stinky!" Evan gets this serious look on his face and says, "I not stinky, see, (as he turns around and pulls his pants down to show Gary his bum) my bum is not stinky. It's clean." It was so unexpected and funny. We all started laughing and so did Evan. He thought he was pretty cute. He can be at times. I just have to remind myself that he will get better. Tanner was a bit of a stinker as well, and now he is such a sweet boy and is so nice to his baby brother, Ryan. He is a total tease though, especially to Evan and Karly.

So I titled this entry "Blessed beyond belief" for a few reasons. Now, I am not blogging about how wonderful my life is and how nothing is ever wrong and life is sunshine and lollypops. In fact, there is a lot of turmoil going on within both of our families at this time. My personal family of Gary and our kids is going great. Without going into details about the stressful and sad details plaguing our families, let's just say that it's sufficient enough problems to ruin sleep and increase prayers for those involved as well as those affected. With all of this going on, I have a better awareness and appreciation for all the blessings I have been given by my Father in Heaven. We recently came into a wonderful circumstance of being able to pay off our business loan and will be paying off credit card debt in the next month. I wake up every morning and go through my day seeing the small blessings as well as the big ones. I am grateful that I have the gospel and can hear the Holy Ghost speak to me as well as others that in turn serve me in ways they may not view as service. I know I am where I am supposed to be and that being a mother is the most important role I will ever play. I worry all the time that my efforts will not be enough or I will fail to prepare my kids in something. Even with that worry, I know that every day I have the opportunity to be better. With that said, I am grateful for a healthy family that loves one another and knows they are loved by their parents. I am also grateful to be married to my best friend and for the relationship we share. I know he respects and loves me. It repeats through out the scriptures that if we follow the commandments of Christ we will be blessed. It's that simple, and I am happy to say that I know this to be true for myself. If you are struggling, try it out, it really works. Life still sucks at times and you will still have drama, chaos thrown at you and other trials, but it's that much easier when we are doing what we are supposed to. Hopefully I will stay vigilant! I want to.