Celebrate the life of little Adrianna Read

Celebration!!

I just got back from the most amazing funeral ever. I been to some that are just so depressing and sad, but this one truly lifted my spirits and I am so glad I went!!
My senior year in highschool, I had a seminary class at about 6:30 in the morning. I met this realy awsome and fun girl, who's name is Natillie. We became realy good friends, and I often think that she was a better friend to me than I was to her. The last half of my senior year I ended up transferring to a different school, and I remember her eyes twinkling with tears the day she found out I was leaving. That meant so much to me! We still lived in the same area, but now we would only see eachother during seminary and not during school anymore.
After I graduated, we didn't see eachother very much at all, and the last time I have seen her in person was when I got married to my dear husband almost 6 years ago. I finally found her on facebook.com a couple of months ago, and found out that she was married too, and was pregnant with a little baby girl! I was so excited for her!! And so excited to have come in contact with her again.
Yesterday, I looked at her facebook status and my heart litterally broke for her. Her sweet little 6 week old baby girl Adrianna passed away. At first I couldn't believe it, but then all I wanted to do was cry for her and hug her! I never got to meet the little angel and I wish I had been a better friend to go and see her.
I went to the funeral today, and I am amazed at the strength Natillie and her husband Joe have shown. She sang a beautiful song to her little girl and then talked about her, and told us how much she loved her baby. She talked about the last time she got to hold her, and how she didn't think she would ever get to hold her again, and how she just felt so rich! She talked about being a little jealous of her, because what she has done in her 26+ years of being here, Adrianna was able to accomplish it in just 6 weeks. Her ability to lighten our spirits with giggles while she spoke, showed me how strong she is, even though I know this has got to be such a hard thing for her.
At the beginning of the funeral, she got up and said she wanted everyone to snuggle. So everyone got up and gave her hugs. Natillie has always had such a happy and loving personality, and for her to make it that much easier for everyone else to feel happy, just realy was neat!
After the funeral was over, she was giving hugs again and everyone that came up to her, she gave the biggest and longest hugs to. When it was my turn, she realy showed me how much she cares for me, even though we never see eachother, and I walked away from there, thinking, what an amazing friend I have missed out on all these years. I realy hope I will never take hers or anyone elses friendships for granted. It meant so much to me to me to hug her today, and to watch her say goodbye to her precious angel with such strength was just so uplifting and hope filling to my own self. I went to the funeral with a fear of how this traumatic event would affect me with my own fears of making sure my little ones are healthy and well taken care of, and with me, and left with peace in my heart knowing that I am so blessed to have the family and friends that I have, and my little girls, and that no matter what happens, we have a loving heavenly father that is in charge of everything, and he loves us and if we remember him, we will always have the comfort and joy that we need to get through this life. Thank you Natillie and Joe for your amazing examples. I know it will probably be rough for a little while, but I know you will do just fine!
I love you!!
Love, Julia

Wednesday

I am thankful for my angels and for their help in orchestrating the events and blessings in my life that I need and want.
I am thankful for my house, and for the shelter it gives.
I am thankful for my warm bed, and good food especially at this time of year when it is cold outside and there are others who are less fortunate.
I am thankful for our income, and to be able to stay at home with my kids during the day.
I am thankful that they are all asleep right now and relaxing.
I am thankful for my new neice and wish I could kiss her and squish her.
I am thankful for my friends.
I am thankful for my relatives.
I am thankful for my religion and my ward and the good people in it.
I am thankful for my calling as visiting teaching supervisor, and for the opportunity I have to go visit lovely ladies in the ward.
I am thankful for my visiting teaching partner and for her happy personality.
I am thankful for Christmas!
I am thankful for my new dishwasher, and hope to get it installed soon, so I can stop washing everything by hand. hehe
I am thankful for my kids, and my wonderful husband and for the happiness they bring to me.
I am thankful for my camera, so I can take pictures of their cute faces.
I am thankful for my computer.
I am thankful for my van, and for Chris' bike.
I am thankful for chocolate and for the natural endorphines it releases. hehe
I am thankful for healthy food and water, and for good health overall.
I am thankful for the good feeling I get when I am thankful, because it makes me even more thankfull!!

New baby!

Its a girl!!
Kerissa had her little Jessa Alice Morgan at around 11:40 something p.m., on December 1st 2008.
She was 6 lbs. 15 oz. and 20 1/2 inches long. My mom says she looks just like her older sister did. Way cute!
I haven't been able to see her yet and its killing me! No photos either! I know my mom is working on it though, so hopefully soon. I wish I could get out there earlier, but I might not get to go out until this weekend. Bummer.
We have had a baby every year for the last several years in our family, so now that it is going to be 2009 soon, the pressure is on. I am nominating my sister Tara, hehe, or Gwen!
Babies are so fun!!

I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above.

I love that song "Angels among us." It is so true!
I have been practicing a lot of energy clearing and asking my angels for things, and I have been quite emotional over it the last week. Some amazing personal things have happend and I only wish I would have known about all this sooner.
I have had a pretty awsome life, wonderful family, the best parents ever, a strong testimony of the gospel. So many blessings! I am quite relieved though to be learning something new and totally awsome!
I have learned recently how to ask your angels for things, and that if you don't ask them for things, they go unemployed. I believe they are a tool given to us from our heavenly father, that we can use to help us throughout our lives.
Carol tuttle encourages us to write down the things we need and want in life, and one way to do it, is to write our angels in letter form. Thanking them for their help, and using gratitude and humility and faith. I learned that you need to have your desire and belief on the same level. If your belief isn't the same level like on a scale of 1-10, as your desire is on the scale, the negative energy will make it hard for your desires to be brought about. If they are both a 10 though, the things you ask for are guaranteed!
I wrote a letter to my angels last week, and I have been amazed at how fast things have shown up. I asked my angels to help me get 2 more daycare kids, that will bring love and joy into our home. About 4 days later, my brother in law called me to ask me if I would like to watch his 2 younger kids starting January! I am so excited!! We also recently had our dishwasher break down, and I asked for them to help us either find the knowledge or the money to get it fixed. Last night, my mom told me that her and my dad have a dishwasher for us. They had been looking online for one for us, and then realized that they have one sitting in their basement not being used! Those were just two of the things that have been showing up all week. I am so thankful for the help of my angels, and my family members who were being so thoughtful of us, and especially my heavenly father.
So go and write your angels a letter. You will be suprised at how quickly they want to help you!!
My sister is in the hospital this morning, she is having her 3rd baby!! No one knows what it is yet, except my grandma. Everyone thinks its a girl. That was my first thought too, and have thought that the whole time, but I was thinking this morning, "what if everyone thinks its a girl, and it comes out as a boy!" That would be a fun suprise! Its been almost 3 hours since she left to the hospital, so I am hoping I hear some more news soon!!

Chakras

O.k., first of all, I am 28 almost and I just learned that I have been spelling exercise wrong, and didn't realize it. I have been spelling it Excersize, which just seems like it should be spelled that way. hehe Funny me.
So I have been learning all kinds of stuff from an awsome lady named Carol Tuttle, and my cousin Karey, and sister Kerissa who do the same kind of work. The website is caroltuttle.com if you ever want to check it out. She sends out weekly e-mails that are very helpfull too.
I learned that you have 7 energy points on your body, called chakras. This is a really cool thing, because they all focus on different things in your life. I learned that each chakra has a color too.
Your first chakra is red, 2nd orange, 3rd yellow and so on. Carol says that wearing these colors also helps feed those energies. So I thought that was pretty awsome, considering the color of shirts I wear each day.
Having a certain color each day, not only satisfies my compulsiveness to have organization with my clothes, but now they mean more to me. So today, since it is my blue shirt day, I am feeding my 5th chakra. I am focusing on my celestial goals, and marriage, but I am also helping my will power, speaking my truth, listening and being heard, communication, finding my true voice and expressing my truth.
You can find out more about it on the website thechakrastore.com.
Take a look at it!

Today, my poor husband is sick. I wanted to go on a date with him, but he doesn't want to go anywhere, which is fine.
He is going to pick up a pizza for us tonight and we will probably all just watch a movie together.
I decided thought that to help strengthen my marriage since its blue day, I am going to attempt his never ending laundry pile, that I am sure he doesn't want to get to while he is sick. Poor guy, I told to take cold ease, and he told me he was conducting an experiment, to see how long his cold would last without cold ease. I had a cold start on monday, and it was gone wednesday, because I used cold ease. He didn't believe that it helped though. This morning he was coughing and sniffing, and miserable, so he came and asked me where the cold ease is, so he could take it to work. Funny guy!
One way to help heal negative energy is to tell yourself positive things, so here goes:

I am thankfull for my marriage.
I am worthy of an eternal celestial marriage.
I am worthy of love.
I am sooooo thankfull for my family!
I am creating ways for my family to feel happy.
I am creating ways for happy and exciting things to come our way.
I am allowing positive energy to enter our home and family.
I am creating ways to allow more money flow.
I am happy with the way my marriage is now.
I am thankfull for the things we are provided with today.
I am thankfull for the knowlege of the gospel that I have.
I am thankfull for the knowlege of angels.
I am allowing my angels to help me with the things I need and want.
I am happy with my body how it is today.
I am creating ways for me to help it be healthy.

Strengthening friendship

I was supposed to work on strengthening my friendships yesterday. I can't say I did a whole lot there, but I did check out my friends blogs and got caught up on them, and learned more about them. I am so thankfull for the friends I have, and the ones that I used to have. I wish I was better at keeping in touch with them. Thats why I love e-mail and blogging. I also love all their pictures. That way I don't see them face to face sometime and have to say, "wow your kids got all grown up!"
I need to focus on getting in touch with friends that I haven't talked to for a long time too.
Yesterday was election day. Chris says we may be in trouble because all of the house/senate spots filled up with democrats. Not that I have anything against democrats. I really don't. I personally would choose a more conservative/republican way, but Democrat and Republic points of view are just personal opinions in my opinion, and I actually think there are good and bad to both sides and they even eachother out. Thats why it would be bad to have all of our leaders democrats. We need both parties. I am so thankfull for knowlege of someone even more powerfull thats really in charge. The scriptures say our country will be hanging by a thread, it talks about a lot of things that are going on now. I know they are just signs of the last days, and the rightous will be protected. I am not scared, because I have been blessed with the knowlege I need to help me feel prepared. We have been through times like this before, and its all in gods hands. I am thankfull to know that we will be o.k. no matter what.

Monday

A day of love. hehe
To be honest and dissapointing, (sorry) I forgot to focus completely on why I was wearing my red shirt. I did however get my living and kitchen all cleaned up so when Chris got home he could come into a nice clean loving place. Plus, when he got home I was in a really good mood. Last monday I was really irritable, because it was getting late, and Chris wasn't home, and the kids were getting tired and cranky. So when we tried to start Family home evening, it ended up just being are normal evening devotional and putting the kids in bed. And then I ended up indulging on the cookies that my husband made for treats, and my kids didn't get any. I felt really bad afterwards. Yesterday, was good. We read a story out of the LDS Friend magazine for little kids. Then we attempted a game, but it didn't work so well. I ended up putting the kids to bed by myself, because my brother in law called, and my husband talked to him for a while. I decided it wouldn't do any good to get upset over it, and they don't get to talk much, because my brother in law lives a good 17 hour drive away. I guess thats where the love comes in. Treating my husband the way he should be treated, especially after he goes to work all day, and usually works a couple extra hours of overtime a day to help provide the income we need. I love my husband sooooo much! I need to work on showing it more. Sometimes I feel like staying home all day, only having kids a babies to talk to, feeding them, and changing their diapers, and then cleaning up everything to top it off, drains me more than it would to sit at a desk all day, playing with 3d glasses and maps, but when I think about it.. He gets up earlier than I do, he has to deal with the cold weather, and messy traffic while driving, he works for someone else, which I have to be my own boss, or I go nuts, he has to deal with making sure people in other countries get their work done right, and he has to make sure we have enough income every month to provide for his family. I bring a small amount of income with watching other kids during the day, but I think his responsibility for keeping a job is much higher than mine. I appreciate him so much, and I am thankfull that he is willing to provide a way for me to stay home with the little ones. I know it makes him sad to know that he misses out on cute things the kids do during the day. I think that would be really hard. I have a tremendous respect for stay at home mothers, but I also have a respect for the fathers that are willing to provide the way for stay at home mommy's.
I didn't really practice my talents yesterday, but I did dance for about 20 minutes with the kids, and that was a lot of fun. I am so glad I have the privacy of my home to do dance moves and be completely goofy and not have to worry about people seeing me do it. lol Its fun.
Well, I will work on showing more love on mondays.

Sunday-
We had a really good lesson in sunday school again. She talked about how we can have healthy food, but in order to really benefit from it we need to actually eat it. The same is with the gospel. We can go to church and learn about all the things we need to know, but in order for it to benefit us the most we need to actually practice it.
I am starting to learn something that I knew allready, but hadn't really practiced it a whole lot.
Prayer.
The last two sundays, we have had a family prayer in the morning, and we asked for help to make it to church on time, and for help with getting the kids to have the desire to be reverent.
The first week, we not only made it to church on time, but we were about 10 min. early, and we were on time yesterday too, and our kids were sooooooo good the last two weeks! I only had to take Adria out to change her diaper. She was quiet and manageable the whole time. It was so nice! I will continue to pray for those things. We are allways late to church, and so it was kind of weird to walk into the chapel and be almost the first ones there. It was really nice to not have to walk in and have everyone watching us and wonder why we were late. hehe
We came home and our evening was peacefull and quiet. I love it when my sundays are like that. I also think that having my house clean and dishes and laundry clean helped with that a lot. There were no worry's or stressing out. It was a good day.

Good works day

Saturday-
Chris took Adria for me and went to his parents house so I could get some stuff done, and only worry about one kid, and she takes long naps, so it was even easier. Kimberly and I went and did some grocery shopping. While we were out I started to just feel really happy for some reason. I don't know if it was the break, or Kimberly's cuteness, or the fact that it was good works day, but I just really felt like making other people happy too. My neighbor down the street just had surgery and so I was buying food to make them dinner with also, and I think that put me in the happy mood also. I couldn't help but smile at everyone and be really friendly to them. It was fun! People that were feeling grumpy weren't going to get past me without having to smile back at me. lol
I was going through an isle that was a little crowded and a young father started to tell his daughter to move out of the way. She was allready moving and he continued to get mean to her by degrading her worthness with mean words. He told her "you are allways in somebody's way" "like mine". I will never forget the way she looked at her dad when he said that. He didn't even notice her hurt face, and she quickly walked away from him and went off to hide her tears. He didn't even realize that she had left. I felt like going to her and apologizing because I was the one he was telling her to move for. She looked to be about 12 or so and was such a cute girl. I couldn't believe the harshness that her dad had used with her over something so silly. He started to go to a new isle and was calling her name. I knew where she was but didn't want to tell him. I wanted him to find her upset. As I past him again( I was going all sorts of directions trying figure out what I should do, hehe) I decided I would apologize to him, so he could realize that I saw the way he treated her. I told him "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get her in to trouble", and then he said "what? Alysa? Oh, I was just teasing her." Then he walked past me and found her and said in a jerk tone of voice "lysa I was just teasing you". I thought to myself, if someone was teasing me like that, I would have been hurt too. I didn't see them after that, but I hope he realized he needed to be more gentle to his own daughter.
Then, as we walked around, I proceeded to smile at everone, and I am a sucker for the elderly. I just loooooooovvvveeee them!!! In fact if you are retirement age or older, you are probably on my list of the cutest people in the whole world. Don't worry if you are not that old yet, you will get there someday and then I will absolutely just love you whether you are grumpy or not! This little old man saw Kim and said, "oh, is this a little boy or a little girl?". I told him she was a girl, and he said "Oh, she's a cute one!" I loved it! I just wanted to hug him for being so cute!
After that we left and were walking out to our van. I noticed an old couple outside there car, and I wanted to hug them too. I thought about the turkey vouchers I have been collecting. I don't really have a need for them, so I got in my van and pulled out the ones that I had. I had $2.00 and .50 cents towards a Macey's turkey. Just then a little blue toyota pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot. Inside was the sweetest little old person. I decided I would see if he wanted them. So I jumped out, I think I may have suprised him a bit, and then said to him while handing him the vouchers "These are for a turkey, I am not going to need them and I was wondering if you would want them." He took them, and said "By golly! I think we will!" and then he thanked me and told me I was kind. AAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!
I went home smiling ear to ear! I was so thankfull for the opportunity I had to do something for someone else. I know heavenly father blesses us for our good works, if anything he blesses us with happiness. Which we all need!
I went home and cleaned up our house for the sabbath the next day. I got everything done that I wanted to do, and really enjoyed the rest of the night. I am thankfull that I have been taught the importance of giving off posotive energy. Its so true that positive thoughts and deeds attract positiveness. When you allow yourself to see things the happy way, you are able to find other things that make you happy. I think with the law of tithing. Its not just to show obedience, but I think we have it to help us attract posotive things. When we give our tithing, we are showing an act of service, which makes us feel good, which attracts posotive energy, which allows us to attract positive experiences. I see it the more I use it. Its great!
I am gratefull for my saturdays, and for the opportunity they give me to create good works, to make others happy and myself.

Sorry!

I know this blog has just been sitting there since I created it. I promise to start up on it.

Today is Halloween. My friend Gwen told me it is a day that we as Christians celebrate lives of those who past on. I think thats a great way to incorporate my blue shirt day. Remembering my ancestors and the things they did to provide such a happy life for us now.
One ancestor that I am most gratefull for his my great-great-great grandpa Hyrum Smith. His Brother Joseph Smith reorganized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints almost 200 years ago. I am so thankfull for his faithfullness to ask our savior and Heavenly Father which church he should go to, only to find out that he would become a prophet himself to restore all the keys and knowlege that we had when Christ reigned on the earth 2000 years ago. I have a firm testimony that things of this gospel are true, I can't explain the happy feeling it brings to have a testimony of these things. I know god wouldn't just communicate with prophets of old, and leave us abandoned in the last and most important times of this earth before our savior comes again. I believe it would be sad if we all had to fend for ourselves in learning about what our heavenly father wants for his children. I know President Thomas S. Monson was reserved for these latter days to be a prophet of god to lead his children and to prepare us for things to come. I am so thankfull for these things too. My grandpa Hyrum stood by Joseph and was probably his most helpfull companion in leading the church besides his beloved Emma. I am so thankfull to know that he loved the gospel so much to die for it himself on the night that our prophet Joseph also gave his life. I am so thankfull for my other ancestors who took faithfullness and courage to continue living this gospel and traveling across the plains, losing many loved ones to bring us to the Valley of Salt Lake to create a safe place for the gospel to grow and become one of the strongest religions in the world. I am so thankfull for the temple and the temple ordinances that we are able to recieve and perform for those who have died before us, that didn't have the opportunity to recieve those ordinances before they died. I hope we as latter Day saints, will be able to continue to do as much work as we can for them. I believe it is extremely important to get these ordinances taken care of for ourselves and the dead before our savior comes again, and especially while we have so many temples throughout the world.
I used to have a really negative perspective about Halloween, but I am gratefull to know the reason we celebrate it, and that its not just a day to dress up weird, and have evil and scary things happening. My husband loves horror movies. I could really care less for them. hehe
I like to find the happy reasons that we celebrate things, and not the worldly things.
By all means enjoy your Halloween holliday, and go have some fun with your little ones and trick-or-treating, but be safe. Hopefully this post will help you reflect on your loved ones that have past, and celebrate their lives, as I will be thinking about many more of my own loved ones and the things they have done for me!