There's so much to be thankful for

I just finished reading "My Story" by Elizabeth Smart, and if anyone hasn't read it, I highly suggest it! She tells about her story of getting kidnapped for nine terrible months. Throughout the book, Elizabeth constantly wrote about how she never gave up and when things were at their lowest, she still found things to be grateful for. I was amazed at the way she lived those months with no one to trust but herself. At the end of the book she writes the things she is grateful for and it touched me. Since it's the Season of thanks, I thought that I would do the same thing!
I'm extremely grateful for my Heavenly Father. Although I've made a lot of mistakes, I always knew that my Heavenly Father was there to love me and guide me in the right direction. I can't begin to imagine what my life would be like or who I would be today without Him by my side.
What would I do without the most amazing, understanding, and loving husband in the world? I really don't think I'd be able to function without him. I thought I knew who I was before I met Brady, and boy was I wrong! He has shown me what life is and could be. I was never so excited to live eternity with someone until Brady came into my life. He is always there for me and listens to me when I'm having a hard day. I never knew someone was so capable of loving someone so much. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have met him. I wish there were enough words to describe how much I love him.
My house. I think we all take for granted the home we live in. When it's hot outside, I'm cool in my house. When it's freezing, my house is warm. Just that is enough to be extremely grateful for.
My kids are everything to me. They turn a bad day into the best day of my life! Although I have harder days than others, they always seem to do something to make me feel like the best mom in the world. I might be thinking how hard life is and stressing about something, and Brooklynn will come in and say "I love you mom" out of no where. Just when I needed to hear it. Changing diapers, spit up on me, crying because of time outs and saying no to ice cream for breakfast is all worth it when I get kisses and know that they love me.
I could never have enough clothes, shoes, makeup and hair stuff in the world, when there are people out in the world that hardly have a change of clothes. I'm here with a closet full of clothes thinking "Gosh, what should I wear today?" ANYTHING! I take for granted all the things I have to wear when I should be focusing more on how I can help other people get more of what they don't have.
I'm so grateful for my family. They have been huge supporters throughout my life. Thick and thin, they have always been there for me.
This brings me to my brother Kole. We lost him when I was young. I might not know exactly why he had to be taken so early in this life, but I know he has guided me throughout my life to where I am now. I'm not sure how other people got out of bad situations or what made people think, "I don't want this in my life." For me, it was Kole. I want to see him again one day. And I have and will continue to think about what I can do to bring me one step closer to making that possible. I know he's somewhere rooting for me everyday and I hope to make him proud.
I am so happy to have so much positivity in my life! We all have trials and hard things to go through, but I do my best to look for the good in everything. There's nothing worse than feeling that bad feeling of resentment, contention, feeling like a failure, not being good enough. Those are all such common and easy things to feel when things aren't always going your way. When those things come into my life, I have really tried to focus on the positive in my life. That not only makes you a happy person, but also makes a happy home.
There are so many more things I'm grateful for in my life. I can't even express how happy I am and how wonderful my life has turned out so far.  I never thought I would be worthy enough to have such an amazing life. I strive to be better everyday. I know I'm not perfect and I make a lot, I mean A LOT of mistakes! But we are here to learn, and I know as long as I'm moving forward and trying my best, that's all I can do and my Father in Heaven knows. He is the only one that will judge me in the end. He is the only one that knows where my heart is. I try to remember that through all the mistakes I've made, I know I'm trying. There is so much I am grateful for, but not enough time in the world to write them all, because it grows every second of every day.

You're Insecure Too?

One thing I'm extremely grateful for in my life; my parents taught me to love and accept everyone for who they are. Granted, I've made my share of mistakes and I'm an not even close to being perfect. But we live in a world where "pretending" to be perfect is so common. I see it a lot in everyone, but notice it in so many women. I could ask each one of you to raise your hand if you've ever betrayed, gossiped about, or hurt another girl in your lifetime and every single hand would go up. We all have done it and still possibly do it. I feel like it has a lot to do with each of us feeling insecure and not good enough for the world.
I was reading on Oprah about women betraying each other and there are several reasons why we do it. Self hatred is one of the biggest ones. We see things in other people that we refuse to see in ourselves. Another thing is we care so much about ourselves and making ourselves sound as amazing as can be, and when someone else does that, it's annoying right? We end up not wanting to be around that person, and eventually gossip about them. We think they are the selfish ones, when we, presumably act the same way. We as women, don't honor who we are! We should embrace what we have and run with it. There is NO ONE in the world quite like you. We are all different.

We all have imperfections, and things we dislike about ourselves. I have one I've struggled with my entire life. I have a lisp. People that know me well, know that I don't like it much at all. It's not a bad one though. In fact, everyone that has talked to me about it has said how much they love it. It makes me who I am. But I'm insecure about it. When I first meet someone, I think all they notice is that I don't talk normal. It must be an over exaggerated feeling, because I swear they lose focus about everything I'm saying and look directly at my tongue sticking out every time I say the letter S! It's so silly, I know! But I feel judged right then. It got so bad at one point, usually when I'm feeling really bad about myself, that I wouldn't go to any parties or get togethers. Especially if it was a loud environment. That was when I could hear myself the most. This is a challenge I've had to live with my entire life. I've had to accept who I was as a person and know that there is so much more to me than that silly lisp I have. I had to accept that if people didn't like me would make fun of my lisp. They would mimic me and say things I would say with an S. I also had to accept that people would ask me about it, and ask me why I talked the way I did. Before I could do any of that, I had to learn to love myself. As long as I loved the person I was, I wouldn't be bothered by what people said to me or about me. 

This is what we as women all have to do! Learn to love ourselves as individuals!! We all struggle with something that we hate to accept. But before you can really learn to love yourself, you have to open that can of worms, and eat it all gone! Haha. Not really! Learning to love yourself, you first have to accept the good and the bad about you. Care for yourself the way you would care for someone else. You deserve it. Take care of yourself! It's so important to get ready everyday and feel good about yourself. These are steps we can all make to learn to accept and love who we are and be the person we want to be friends with. That's the most important thing to remember. I hate to say that my parents were right, but you are who your friends are.  

Be who you want to be around.

Where it all started

My life started May 25, 1991 because that's when I was born. But where it really started is September 21, 2012. That day has forever changed my life in so many ways and I could never forget it ever! To give a little background of myself, I grew up in good old California! My parents moved me to Utah in 9th grade and I only stayed here a couple years before moving back to California to graduate with friends I grew up with. I ended up going to back up to Utah to go to cosmetology school to escape a few different things back in CA! But that's a whole other story! Anyway, I got pregnant right before I graduated and had the most beautiful daughter December 28, 2010. I married the dad a couple months later and we were divorced very shortly after in the summer of 2012. (Again, another long story!) As I was figuring out my life and was NO where near wanting to get married again, I was looking for a job on a nice September 21st evening. As I was writing goals down of where I wanted to be, I became really lonely. I thought to myself "Am I going to be alone forever?,  No one is going to want me now that I have a baby." I never really thought of all these things until now. All I focused on was getting out of a bad marriage. Now here I was thinking I was going to have to make a career, have one kid and be alone forever. I knew there had to be guys that would want to marry me even with a kid. Maybe I could marry someone with kids too. But where would I meet someone. The first thing that pops in my mind is that my mom met her now husband online. I figured I would give it a shot. What else did I have to lose right? I just thought I would be completely honest about my situation and you could like it or leave! So I get on this dating site, and I'm completely embarrassed because only losers go on dating websites right?! I always make fun of people that say, "We met at eHarmony" and here I am doing the same thing. But I had nothing to lose and if it didn't work, I wouldn't tell a soul. So as I'm scrolling around the first person I see is Brady Hansen. I thought he was a pretty cute guy, so I clicked on his page. I was shocked! He has the LONGEST biography about himself. To make it short, it just said "I'm an honest guy, looking for someone to make my forever. I don't want to waste any time. If you're not for me, you're not for me and we will leave it at that and part ways." This whole long thing about him and how he is and stuff. At the bottom he writes his number and says "If you're interested, text me and we can take it from there!" So, I grab my phone and text him. It was pretty late at night, so I figured he wouldn't text me back until the next day. And he ended up texting me the next morning!

I had to show the picture I sent to him! I know it's not my best, but he couldn't just like me for my good looks! We texted for a couple weeks non stop. We asked each other millions of questions and stayed up late texting. We never talked on the phone for some reason. I'm not sure why we never did. But one day we were texting and he said that I should come visit him at his work and meet him. I had to act super busy obviously, so I told him I would try to make it there if I had time (you know, doing nothing!) I ended up leaving Brooklynn with my mom and went to meet this guy I've been talking to for two weeks. Honestly, I was really scared to meet him. He was amazing to me while we were texting, but what if he wasn't like I thought he would be or what if he was a dweeb! I was so nervous while I was driving and I got lost, which isn't a surprise. I finally get there and he was walking outside and my stomach just dropped. He was FINE as fine could be!! We talked for about an hour outside and then he said his ride was leaving (his car just happened to be in the shop) so I told him I could take him home. We had the best time talking and as we got closer to his house I didn't want to drop him off. I was seriously in LOVE. Just kidding, but I was really into him! I honestly didn't think I would be good enough for anyone ever again and he made me feel like the most amazing, and special person in the world. And it keeps getting better. The night before Halloween, he came to my house with roses, 1 fake, and said, "If you'll be mine, I'll love you as long as this rose lives." I know it's super cheesy but I loved it!

We got serious pretty fast. I knew pretty quick that he was who I wanted to be with forever. He has every single quality I wanted in my husband and MORE. I didn't know a man was capable of loving as much as he did. He gave me confidence again, and self worth when it was gone. He always made me feel special and beautiful when I didn't think I was! We got married February 2, 2013. It was absolutely the best decision I ever made. And I would make it again and again and again!