VERY blessed...

Happy Easter everyone!!! It's been an interesting holiday for us. Today, Tyson and Troy are sick and didn't even make it to church and didn't really want to go through their Easter stuff either. They mostly laid around doing nothing except watch TV and sip soda. What a life! We also couldnt' find any eggs to color. Everyone was out, so for the first year ever we didn't get to color any eggs. Oh well....at least I didn't have to clean up that mess. :)

I've been watching Julie's blog for her blessings and I'm a little inspired to do a few of my own. I'm not going to do the one a week that she does, but I'm feeling very blessed today and I thought I'd share why.

Earlier in the week I was looking at our checkbook balance (which isn't good) and our savings account balance (which isn't much better) and worrying (which is my normal job). Annie was very sick last weekend and required a trip to Urgent Care with an upper respiratory infection. She then passed it on to Kevin who then required his own little trip. With that Troy and Taylor have been fighting colds and Tyson is teething (thank goodness I'm not sick...what a mess that would be!). So, between doctor visits, medicine and lost time at work, we've been feeling the pinch a little harder than usual.

It hasn't been easy with Kevin losing his time differential and then having his hours cut and then having everything under the sun go up in price on top of that. Needless to say, It's been a little painful and we've been pinching every penny possible and it's been very frustrating trying to figure out where grocery and gas money will come from and what more I can do to help our family.

Anyway...hope I'm not sounding whiney (which I probably am) but now you know what my state of mind was this week.

I was praying for a little help and guidance so that I can keep our family finances afloat without going outside of the home to work and I keep telling Heavenly Father that if he'd just bless us with enough money to pay off the house or Kevin's student loans, I could serve him and my ward better because I wouldn't have to work so hard to help out. (keep in mind I have no idea where this money would have come from...I must have been tired)

I even whined about this to Kevin, who was kind enough to just listen and not remind me that I shouldn't really be telling Heavenly Father how to bless us.

So, on Wednesday, we were working outside and Taylor and Troy were digging a hole for a bush we had to plant to replace one that had met it's demise. Troy was stabbing at the dirt with a pointed shovel and for whatever reason, Taylor reached into the hole with his hand right as Troy pushed the shovel in. It hit Taylor's hand straight on and he SHOULD have lost a finger. It was a small miracle that the shovel only cut one finger and then took the skin off of the inside of the other finger.

Then yesterday, Taylor was at my parent's home and was riding the kid quad for the first time. He went over a hill and then opened the throttle full force and was going as fast as the machine could go. He didn't steer or anything...just headed to the back of the property. Now, this quad isn't very big, but probably weighs 125 pounds or so. Taylor weighs 47. Anyway, he hit a small dirt hill at the back of my parent's property and the quad went up and tipped back. Taylor landed on his back and the quad came down squarely on top of him. I don't know why we aren't in the hospital with him right now. He escaped any injury except a scrape on his chest (right over the ribs above his heart) and a couple of scrapes on his tummy. Even now as I think of it I start to cry because it could and probably should have been so much worse.

Also yesterday, Kevin accidentally left our garage door open and it was open from the time he left the house until we got back last night...about 8 hours. We were amazed that our home was not robbed. We even had everything still in the garage including Kevin's tools and several bikes.

So, I was thinking about this today and I've realized that we may not have any money and we may not ever be free enough financially to do the things we want to do, but Heavenly Father is protecting our little family and watching over us. Any of the things that happened this week could have devastated us emotionally and financially. We are ok because we are blessed.

Count your many blessings and it's amazing how little your problems look.