Gratitude

It's still November, so I'm allowed to talk about what I'm grateful for still, right?

I wish I were organized enough to be one of those people to post every day something that I'm grateful for, but I honestly didn't even think about Thanksgiving-related stuff until the week beforehand. I do TRY to focus on gratitude more often than just this one time of year, though, so I'm not feeling too badly about it. But I think it's a nice tradition and I do love hearing what people are grateful for.

This year, we did a little "thankful tree" where each day we said what we were thankful for, wrote it on a leaf, and taped it to our tree. I thought of doing it about five minutes before we started FHE, so it wasn't anything fancy. But Dane REALLY got into it and reminded us every night that "we have to say what we are thankful!"

I am so very thankful for many things. Let me list some here and pretend that I did this for a month.

1. My boys. First and foremost, my three boys. 
2. Our good health. I am so grateful that Dane is better. (I could tear up every time I think too much about it, so I won't.)
3. Good doctors, since I am seeing so many of them all the time lately. 
4. Good health insurance to help with those hospital bills, and a prompting we had about six months ago to start an emergency savings fund--which we are going to have to start again from scratch after paying for these bills! I am just so grateful we have it.
5. Our lovely, lovely, lovely house, which I will never take for granted because of our years of apartment living, and which I love with all my heart. 
6. The good weather we have in Texas in November. The BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR here.
7. Safety, which we take for granted. I think a lot about the refugee families and how blessed we are here in our small little world, and how so, so, so many people are not safe like us.
8. Tommy's good job, and the fact that he loves it.
9. My good job, and the fact that I love it, and also the fact that I am going to take a break next semester with the baby coming. Yay for a break! (But this was my BEST semester of teaching so far. I had my last class on Tuesday, and two students came up to give me hugs and thank me for being a wonderful teacher. And about seven of them asked if they could take my class next semester. I felt so, so appreciated and happy.)
10. Our marriage and how happy it is.
11. This baby girl coming, who is constantly kicking me and moving around. I don't feel ready for her yet, but I am excited to meet her and for the challenge she will bring in 2017.
12. That this pregnancy is healthy and normal. 
13. Books and reading. My favorite thing to do.
14. Reading books with my boys--and that they LOVE reading. One of my favorite things to do with them (most of the time). 
15. The Fun Club. This is what Dane calls the gym by our house. I love being able to exercise, and they love being able to go play. I haven't been taking them since Dane got out of the hospital (I have been going in the morning before Tommy leaves for work), and Dane has really missed it. The Fun Club has been a big deal for us and has helped us maintain a healthier and happier lifestyle. And it's only a 1.5 minute drive away. We love it.
16. Dane's Joy School and his friends. They bring him so much joy and the same for me. 
17. Our families. We have the best families. We have a ridiculous number of siblings between us, and it is the best. Dane and Graham have NO IDEA how spoiled and lucky they are.
18. My extended family. We went to Houston for Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle and cousins there, and had the nicest time. Dane and Graham are in heaven there and it's like a vacation for us too. I am so grateful for extended family that feels like going home, since my parents are too far away for us to visit right now. 
19. A change in perspective. I was getting unnecessarily stressed about something until I read something that totally helped me to feel happy and excited about life. I was worried that this holiday season was going to overwhelm me, but I am feeling so much more excited about it and ready to serve others.
20. Tommy's helpfulness. He is more than an equal partner in this parenting thing; even though he is gone most of the day it still feels like he carries more than his fair share of the load. I know not all dads/husbands are like this. I am grateful for this every day.
21. Our beautiful earth and the resources that we take for granted. 
22. That I live in this free country with free elections and free speech. I may not have been happy about the results of the election, but I am so grateful that I am able to vote and able to express my opinion.
23. Good friends here and far away. Nothing makes a day better than getting to talk to a friend and have a really good conversation with them.
24. Christmas cards. These make me so happy every year. I love hearing about everyone's lives and seeing their pictures.
25. Making and setting goals. I am starting to look ahead to turning 30 in less than two years, and thinking about what I want to do by then. It is very fun to set some goals, and maybe I will be able to accomplish at least half of them.
26. Music, which helps me get through the roughest hours of the day and can lift my spirits like nothing else. 
27. The great city that we live in, which is not the prettiest of places but is so very convenient and has so many wonderful parks and amenities for our little family.
28. Reading my scriptures. I am not always the most consistent--summer is always my worst season because whenever I travel I get thrown out of my routine--but I have been in a good spot lately and I feel generally more peaceful and happy when I read my scriptures regularly. Same with General Conference talks. I feel inspired by reading them. 
29. Belonging to our church and having the gospel. I am grateful to know I am a daughter of God and that I can pray to him and feel peace. I am learning to trust my feelings more, because I really do feel more peaceful. I am grateful to have the gift of the Holy Ghost that I can access every day, because I need it. I truly don't know how I could be a parent without it, or face the horrible things the world has in it without that gift and that peace.
30. Our Savior--who I hope to focus on during the upcoming Christmas season. When I take a minute to think about Christ's mission--which isn't often, let's be honest--I am overwhelmed with it all. And I am so excited to take December to teach Dane more about Jesus and the true  meaning of Christmas. I am really touched by the Church's service initiative for Christmas and the connection the video makes between the life of Christ and what we should be doing. I am really going to try and make service a focus for us this Christmas season. I have found a couple of little service projects that Dane and I are going to do: buying and filling stockings for Frisco Family Services, and making and decorating Christmas cards for the residents of the senior center outside our neighborhood. I am trying to talk to him about doing service and thinking about helping other people instead of focusing on his Christmas list (although he really is thinking a lot about that already). We can make a difference and make people happier this season. And we are going to try!

Watch the video here, for some inspiration. I really love it:

Adele Concert

Okay, all those posts with our "best pics"--hopefully that wasn't too cheesy or annoying to anyone. It just felt so satisfying to go through all our pictures and pick out the best ones. I looked in our Trash folder and I got rid of over 2000 duplicates. Haha, that is embarrassing. (Obviously there are plenty of other ones that are still saved on our computer that I didn't post on here.) But I'm so happy because it will make our 2016 photobook so much easier to make. I am starting to plan the projects I want/need to get done before the baby comes, once this semester is over and I am done teaching, and that is one of them. Also, I won't be teaching next semester. I taught the semester that Graham was born and I don't think it was worth it; I had to get a sub for a few weeks and then go back to working when he was two weeks old--and it's only one night a week so it's totally manageable; it's more just that I don't think I will be able to mentally handle a class on top of a newborn and two other kiddos. I may not teach in the fall next year either--just looking at what I will be able to handle. I am looking forward to a little break!

Anyways, last week, Tommy and I had the BEST DATE EVER going to the Adele concert in downtown Dallas. I heard last year--literally, a year ago--that she was coming here and that the tickets were going on sale at 10:00am on a certain date--and I thought, why not try to go? I mean, who DOESN'T love Adele? I hadn't listened to her much beyond what was on the radio, but I knew I liked her. So I logged onto Ticketmaster at 9:55 that day and actually got some tickets! In the cheapest section of the house, of course. And then we had to wait for a whole year. We tried to listen to Adele's newest album in the weeks leading up to the concert so we could enjoy it even better and I really, really liked it.

In the parking lot on our way into the concert.

Literally three rows from the top, haha. Us and all the other grown-ups at the top.

The beginning of the concert was so, so awesome. She started with her "Hello" song and dramatically came out of the stage in the middle of the floor. Her voice was amazing, even more amazing than you expect from her songs. She could really belt it out and it was so impressive. She was also really funny and chatty and talking in the middle of her songs, and it was fun to hear her conversation and her accent. I didn't want the concert to end, even as I got more tired by the end--but she was so good.

It was awesome. I wonder why we don't do stuff like this more often, and then I remember how much we spent on tickets and the babysitter, and the inconvenience of it all--but it's totally worth it every once in a while! We felt so cool and hip going to Adele, especially in the middle of the week, haha!

Our Best Pics of 2016 (September-October)

September:

I had to include both of these pictures of Dallin and Krystel's exit from the temple because of mischievous Dane. They both make me laugh so hard because he surprised all of us and did that all on his own.

October: 

Our Best Pics of 2016 (July-August)

July: 

August: 

Our Best Pics of 2016 (May-June)

May: 

June: 

Our Best Pics of 2016 (January-April)

I am starting to go back through our pictures from the year, and trying to get rid of at least half of them (because we have WAY WAY TOO MANY, and most of them are duplicates, and it's hard for me to be ruthless at getting rid of them). But there are some that just make me so happy as I go back through them. Some are really good photos, and some are just from happy days that are sweet to remember, and some just make me laugh. It's nice to look back over the year and think of what a wonderful year we have had and how we are blessed. I wanted to just look at a few that are the best, happiest pictures from this year. (It will probably take me a few more weeks to go through all the rest of them, so this is just for the first few months of the year.)

January: 

February: 

March: 

April: