When upon life's billows....

I need to take a minute to publicly count my blessings. I am so fortunate and filled with grattitude to the Lord for the abundance of blessings Kevin and I have, I am going share just a few, for I do not think I have the room to list them all, it would be a never ending list.

First and foremost, I am so very grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. I would not be the person I am today if my Savior had not atoned for my sins. Words do not do justice to the feeling of grattitude in my heart to be born into the covenant with the gospel in my life and for living prophets that guide us today. I am thankful for all it's teachings and today am so grateful for the law of tithing. I was cleaning my house this morning and listening to conference talks from a few years ago and in one of the talks by Bishop Keith B. McMullin he said this "As we obey the covenant of tithing, we are shielded from want and the power of the destroyer." It really touched my heart and I KNOW this gospel is true and that tithing is absolutly a God given principle.

Second, I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband. I have no doubt in my mind that he is the one that I am supposed to be with for eternity. I can think of no better match in this world for me, I don't know if there are many people in this world who can handle me. He is so loving,thoughful, and would do anything for me. I am truly blessed to have married the right man, in the right place, with the right authority. I LOVE YOU KEVIN!

Next, I am so grateful for the 2 wonderful families I have, The Bennetts and The Taylors. I can not think of any parents or in-laws who love and serve their children like our families do. Our parents would do ANYTHING for us, they love us so much and want to see us be successful and happy. Our siblings are the same way, I cannot express how much I love each and every one of the Bennetts and Taylors. Everyone in our large families I LOVE so much and don't know where I would be without them.

I am thankful for the MANY MANY great friends I have. Each friend uplifts me and teaches me in ways that I don't think many of you know. I am grateful to have such wonderful people to talk to and so many shoulders to cry on!

I am thankful that I have a job, that my salary can pay a mortagage on a beautiful, warm home. (That is still for sale, any takers?)

I am thankful for the scriptures.

I am thankful for warm water, this is one of my favorite blessings!!

Like I said the list could go on forever, but I need to thank my Father in Heaven for I know he watched over us and guides our lives. I debated whether to do this post, because we are not looking for sympathy or anything like that, but when I read Brandi's blog last week, one principle touched my heart, "It's funny how sharing burdens make them lighter". Kevin lost his job yesterday, with the economy the way it is, there just isn't that much work right now. We are going to work full time to get his another one, and we pay our tithing, so I am very confident that the Lord has a plan for us and that everything will work out. As I listened to the same talk I mentioned above there was another line that made my heart fill up with hope. "If our hearts are right before God, adversity will school us, help us overcome our carnal nature, and nurture the divine spark within us. Were it not for adversity, we would not know to "choose the better part." Adversity helps us see where we need to repent, to bring into subjection baser instincts, to embrace righteousness and enjoy "peace of conscience"."

So thanks for listening to be count my blessings I love you all!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Nixon!! Today is Nixon's first birthday. He was born January 28, 2008, but we didn't adopt him until he was 6 weeks old. To celebrate, we gave him the "good" dog food, it is the wet kind from a can instead of dry food. He is such a cute puppy and really well behaved. He listens and knows just what you are talking about. We love him so much and hope he had a great day!

FYI

While Kevin is doing homework I have become a little bored. I thought I would update everyone to some interesting facts for your information.

#1 The music on our blog, at times you may think "what is this song?" Most of you probably just mute it or while annoyed scroll down to the bottom of our blog and stop it. Kevin is in charge of our blog music now you know why it is so weird all the time.

#2 Just so everyone knows the proper way to spell IKEA is just like that. Yes, it is all caps.

#3 I don't really know the proper way to use commas. I spent all of my college English classes trying to learn and I still don't know. I even had a professor who took one entire class dedicated to teaching me and the other students the proper way to use commas, alas I still am quite confused. Like that last sentence, does it go before or after alas? AHHH!

#4 There is a great article in this months issue of Real Simple magazine. It is called "Eating Right For Life". Everyone should read this article, it offers some great tips, and has really made me re-think my habits. Thank you Tracy for introducing me to such a wonderful magazine! It also has the BEST recipes. A trick I have learned to curb my eating habits is lipstick, if anyone is curious let me know!

I know this is a totally random post, that is what you get sometimes from boredom.

Christmas and New Years

Well I thought I would give a quick recap on how the holidays went this year! December was a crazy month with a bunch of get togethers with work, friends, and family. The weekend before Christmas Kev and I headed down to St. George to spend time with my parents and Randall and Traci! It was a lot of fun, I love seeing my parents, I miss them and wish we lived closer! It was also really great to see Randall and Traci, since they live in NYC our visits are few and far between. We exchanged gifts on saturday and every one else was such good gift givers. Although if you live in New York you have an unfair advantage because there are really cool places to shop there! We speant Christmas with the Taylors and that was fun and crazy with all the little kids and their Christmas excitement! It was fun to play games and hang out with family. For New Year's Eve we hung out with Kevin's friends, the Klc's hosted a get together at their house and we played the game Things, it was tons of fun! 2008 was a fun year and we look foward to a great 2009!