The Gift of an Ordinary Day...

I have been noticing a theme lately from some of the posts on different social media I follow...and that is the thankfulness for the ordinary days. We all know life can be hard and some people around me are facing great trials that are testing them to their very core. When these trials hit, whether it's cancer, a hospitalized child, unemployment, or losing a loved one, the longing is simply for an ordinary day, where you get up,  make your kids breakfast, pack their lunches and send them off to school. It's driving carpool, attending sports games or recitals, doing the laundry and making dinner. So on this Thankful Thursday, I am very grateful for the ordinary days. I am thankful that today I DID get to get up, make my kids breakfast, pack their lunches and send them off to school. I am thankful Hailey can text me during lunch at school to ask if she can go home with a friend after school and if I can pick her up later tonight. I am thankful I can pick Nick up from school and take him down to meet with a counselor at UVU to talk about concurrent enrollment during his high school years and I'm thankful I can come home afterwards and make dinner for my family. I'm thankful I am sitting right now in front of my portable heater writing this post and that I have a stack of resumes sitting beside my computer for positions I have to fill at work and that I can read them and set up phone interviews from home. My days are not glamorous, they are filled with laundry and cleaning and grocery shopping and getting in and out of the car 50 times a day (I can't wait for Nick to get his license) but I love these days and I am thankful for them.

I'm also thankful for some of the sweet surprises life has to offer. Like Nick walking to the store to buy me flowers for Valentine's day and making me a heart shaped egg in toast Sunday morning. I was also thankful for the opportunity I had to surprise my kids with heart shaped red velvet pancakes Valentine's morning and sending them to school on a sugar high. :)

 I'm also thankful that we got to celebrate Bryson's 20th birthday with a family lunch at Kneader's on Monday. I LOVE this kid and am thankful he has moved back in with us so we get a little more time with him these days.

I am thankful for every ordinary day that life has to offer!

Thankful Thursday

Today's Thankful Thursday is a hard one for me to write...because what I am most thankful for today is what another family is missing most. I am thankful that I can walk downstairs this very minute and hug my son if I want to. I can also walk down the hall this very minute and hug my daughter and my step-son. I was able to hug all three of them before they went to bed and I was able to get the low-down on their days when they walked through the door after school/work today. I am thankful that Brian and I could have a fun conversation with Nick and Hailey tonight at dinner about normal, everyday life as junior high students.

On New Years Eve we went to dinner with some friends and their kids. One of their daughters brought a friend named Madison with her to the dinner. She was an outgoing, smart college student who had no idea her world was about to be rocked. (Madison is on the right in the picture below.)

Some of you might have heard on the news recently about the 16 year old boy named Parker Allred who was a healthy, football playing teenage boy. He came down with the flu, was hospitalized, found out he had a serious staph infection, and passed away from the complications within a week of the first sign of illness. Parker is Madison's brother. My heart just aches for this family. (You can read the blog Madison started when Parker went into the hospital at http://www.sweetblueeyedboy.blogspot.com)

Everyday since this boy passed away I've hugged my kids tighter and longer and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do that. I also know that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of our lives and we don't know when our time on this earth is done. I do know that our hearts can be healed from the pain of this brief separation from our loved ones through the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. I am thankful for this knowledge!