Grateful...

I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for a roof over my head, money in the bank, food in our pantry. Since returning home from Peru, I have learned to be grateful for carpeted floors, running water, hot water, toothbrushes, air conditioning, a solid roof over my head and easy to prepare meals ( I have never had to kill my own chicken.) I am grateful for opportunities to serve and love people all around me. I am grateful that my husband can continue his education so easily, and by his own freedom and choice. My gratitude list could go on for years.
    I am grateful that things take time, God's timing. His timing has always ended up being a lot better than my own timing, albeit I rarely thought that at the time.
      I am grateful for the challenges and trials, because I know that they could always be worse and a lot harder. I am grateful that my Heavenly Father is always there for me. If I could tell my 19 year old self what I know now, ten years later, I would tell her to be grateful for everything, no matter what. Sometimes I have caused myself my own trials in the past, thinking I was worse off, or that life was harder than ( now looking back) it really was.
  Gratitude can change how you see your day and week ( and year), even if the tasks seem mundane at times. Gratitude can make a "bad" day, be a good day with quite a few frustrating moments. I am grateful that Heavenly Father has given me trials to teach me to be grateful and to realize that they are really manifestations of how much He loves me and desires for me to be better.
     I truly love finding the blessings in the midst of a trial, albeit not always easy, it is always humbling and I always feel blessed and watched over.
I am grateful. And I am grateful for that feeling.

Onesie Cupcakes...

So my creative juices are finally flowing lately, mostly because I was dealing with a lot of stressful issues in my life right now and realized that I was forgetting to let myself de-stress. Which to me translates into crafting. Since this semester Bryan is in class on Tuesday and Thursday nights, Tuesday has become my "Kara" night. I absolutely enjoy it and look forward to it! It's nice to have that time again.

So this evening I made something else. We have 2 women in our branch/ church that are expecting boys this month.  ( I know, alas, no excuse to go into the girl clothes section.) So I thought I would try to make their gifts a little fun.

(I really like Pinterest because instead of me buying and looking through several magazines for ideas and then cutting those ideas out and putting them in a binder to take up more space in my closet, I can look for ideas for free online and organize them without making a single mess.)

So I made these: Onesie Cupcakes.

All it is, is a onesie wrapped into a receiving blanket. Then kept together with a rubberband, coffee filter, and ribbon. I am hoping to get some free bakery boxes and put them in the box for an overall presentation. I think it should look pretty fun:)