{Twenty Eight}

{I found this post sitting in my drafts and feel compelled to finish it and to keep up my 365 Days of Gratitude, even if it's not consecutive days in a row.}

Drafted Text:

I love my calling... I'm the YW Secretary and Personal Progress Advisor. At first I was nervous... I didn't know anything about Personal Progress or YW to be honest, but I knew that they had faith in me and that it was the right place I was needed.

Last night we had our New Beginnings Program for Young Womens. We talked about Personal Progress and the importance that it has in helping the girls to develop who they are, build their testimony, prepare for the temple, and to just be amazing young women! Kara and Laurie put in so much work to make it such an amazing night and I wish I could have stayed for the whole thing (I had to leave early to finish my homework). I am so grateful for the church and how much happiness and joy it has brought into my life.

I didn't even have a big part in the program, as the Personal Progress Advisor I was just asked to talk about the new changes that have been made. They have added some really amazing things {which I would link to but my editor is being lame} including a new medallion, a book mark with ribbons that coordinate with the value colors, and a new book that is pink! If the girls weren't motivated before... they are totally motivated now! I mean, I want a super cool bookmark :) But, as I stood before the room of the Young Women, their parents, the amazing women I serve with in the Presidency, and our Bishop I was overwhelmed with the spirit and bawled my eyes out with joy and happiness for my calling. It has been so helpful to me and my progress in building my testimony, having a connection with people in a new area, and making new friends. I am especially thankful for the women I serve with and Louanne. If it wasn't for her I don't know if I would have ended up in YW in the first place. She was the YW President when I got my first calling. They have all been so helpful to me in every way possible! Any time I have felt overwhelmed or lost or just having a bad day I know that if I need their strength or help they are there for me in a minute. I wish that everyone in the world could say that they have people they can turn to in their times of need. For me, I can say it honestly and truthfully. That in itself is enough to be grateful for. However, that is not why I started out writing this post. I started it because I was starting to doubt my calling {I am aware that I shouldn't} and last night I was reminded why I was given my calling. It is where I am suppose to be and with people I should be serving with. I am grateful for the way in which the spirit works and I am humbled by it all the time.

{Twenty Six}

When I started this blogging adventure I thought "Oh, this will be so easy! I have so many things that I am thankful for!" Well, while this statement is true, I will tell you the adversary has gotten the best of me some days. Especially last Friday! I was so overwhelmed with life in general! My house was a mess, I had weeks worth of laundry to do, I had a bad day at work, and to top it off my lovely husband had to work late. When thinking back on that day I just thought, I have nothing that I was thankful for... I have failed. But, today I was on my friend Andrea's blog and I realized I have so many things that I am thankful for that I haven't even shared with the world! As I have stated in previous posts... Arkansas is not my ideal place for living; however, I am so thankful that I am here. If I hadn't moved here almost two years ago I don't even know what my life would be like. I wouldn't have my two wonderful baby boys, I probably wouldn't have joined the church when I did, I wouldn't have met the amazing friends I have made in our ward, and I probably wouldn't be in school. Its so amazing how Heavenly Father blesses us without our knowing. I am the one who convinced Kevin to move to Arkansas because I thought I had an amazing job and school opportunity lined up. I was wrong about that... but our family has been so blessed in so many other ways. If I wouldn't have followed the prompting I had who knows where our lives would be at his point. I am so thankful that my husband loves me and listens to my crazy ideas (it didn't hurt we found an amazing house either). So, from this point forward I have decided to remind myself of the many wonderful blessings I have received all for moving a measly 1,000 miles from home. Plus, I have learned the meaning of the phrase "Distance makes the heart grow fonder" for the simple fact that I cherish the time I get to spend with my family and do not take it for granted any more. I love you mom!! :)

{Eighteen}

ENRICHMENT!!! Ok, so I have to admit I love enrichment activities... maybe its only because I go to ones that sound like fun? I dunno, but our RS presidency is so creative and I was totally inspired last night! We learned how to make bread in an hour from start to finish! The only downside was that I do not have a mixer... so it is in my plan to BUDGET for one! That was the second part of our activity, learning how to budget. Lets be honest, I am not exactly perfect with money. But, after listening last night and taking notes I am motivated to do much better! Plus, if I can figure out how to budget... I will be able to figure out food storage, my other nemisis! I'm so glad I went last night and was taught new tools to apply to my life.

{Day Fourteen}

I am thankful for the NURSERY! Ok so I know the rule is your baby(s) must be 18-months before entering nursery but yesterday Sister Smith said she wanted to break the rules and take our babies in. Am I going to argue with her? NO WAY!! Not that now Kevin has a calling in YM so we are both busy third hour and I'm scared to death that a boy will smash my child when he rocks his chair forward. Is that normal? Probably not. Anyways... They went into nursery for 2nd & 3rd hour and they said that the boys did great. Not necessarily with one another, which is normal, but they played with the other kids and even had snacks. It was nice to be able to sit in RS and listen to the lesson instead of playing crawl all over mommy with one, or both, of the babies. I don't know how often we will be able to break the rules, but it was a nice change... even if it only was for one Sunday.

{Day Twelve}

Sorry I didn't post yesterday... I had to finish all of my psychology homework which was 6 chapters and 5 quizzes. Thankfully I had some help at my house! :) There is a family in our Ward, the Wells, who live fairly close to us. They have four kids from age 16-8. I often call upon them in my desperate times of need for a babysitter! Thankfully their mom, Monica, is awesome and lets them come over to my house and play with my babies when I have things to do. So, yesterday they arrived a little after 9 and played with the babies all day while I worked diligently on my homework. Without them I don't think I would have been able to get it all accomplished. I am thankful that the Lord has blessed us with such wonderful help close by.

{Day Four}

Jumping on the BED!!! I know that all our parents told us that this was bad for us and very unsafe. However, I am not gonna lie, I am a kid at heart still. So tonight in our hotel we decided to have a jumping party!! I almost thought the bed was going to break a couple of times... but hey its not my bed, right? Here are our festivities:

Kevin got some super height!

I did as well!

Kev being silly. :)

The poor bed we took out our fun on...

Kev & Keithy jumpin on the bed.
Don't worry, no one fell off or bumped their heads.

On a side note:
Kevin is amazing at sharing the gospel! Tonight he sat down with a lady who works for us and discussed the Book of Mormon and how it testifies that the bible is true. Its so amazing to experience him in that element. If you would like to delve more into the topic of if the BOM is a valid companion to the Bible read, Isaiah 29.

I'm Sorry Blogging World

So it seems as if I have been gone longer than I thought from this world of blogging. Our lives have been so extremely busy the past couple of months! Let me fill you in:

In May we had two auctions for our business. The first one was in Tupelo, Mississippi. It's only about a 4 hour drive so it wasn't too bad. Plus, it was a one day auction. However, about a week before the auction I was bit by a spider and I had to go to the ER because apparently Arkansas doesn't have Urgent Cares. (Lame ) So I got put on a super strong anti-biotic that had sulfa in it. Apparently I am allergic to sulfa and after taking the pills for a week I had an extremly terrible reaction to it. While in Mississippi I had a fever and this terrible rash all over my body. It was gross and I was probably more miserable than the last week of my pregnancy, which was bad. So I decided to wait it out and go home and then decide if I still felt bad, then I would go to the doctor. Well we had to stay in Mississippi saturday night because there were really bad torandoes and no one wanted us to drive home. So instead we stayed the night, each of us had to sleep with a baby (did I mention Kevin & the babies came?) then we departed in the morning. I was feeling better until we got home and I took more antibiotics. Then I got worse, the missionaries came over and gave me a blessing, Kevin's mom came over to watch the babies, and we headed to the ER. There they informed me that I was having an alergic reaction to my medicine which included my symptoms, plus I had pnueomia in one of my lungs. So, I stayed in the hospital till Monday afternoon, got put on steroids and realsease. I am happy to say I have not been sick since! Well, after that whole ordeal we went to Missouri to go to Kevin's nephew's graduation. It was really fun seeing the whole family and the babies love their dogs. After that we came back home, and had another auction in Hot Springs (thats in Arkansas). Thankfully Kevin's sister and her family came down from Missouri and took care of our kids for that weekend. They got to sleep in, and be spoiled, which I think all kiddos love. After the auction was over, we went back up to Missouri for Kevin's neice's reception. That was lots of fun, but I think it stressed me otu more than my wedding! Kim had me doing so many things, but I was so happy to be a help to her because she is such a huge help to me ALL the time! Seriously. Since then we haven't had any crazy travel adventures, but I have been super busy with school! YES! I am back in school. I signed up for two summer school courses that I can take online. They are a little challenging trying to balance my family life, work, and school, but I am doing well. I'm not sure if its because I'm used to doing "university" quality work (I'm going to a Techincal school) or if my work is really good. Either way both of my teachers are commenting on the good quality of my work, which makes me want to do even better in school. Now that you are all caught up on my life here is what you really wanted to know...

ALL ABOUT THE BABIES!!!
Aiden and Cooper have made such gigantic strides over the past couple of months! They already weigh over 20 lbs, they are in big boy car seats, they feed themselves, they are trying to walk, they can stand, and already have 2 teeth! They are currently in the process of cutting their top teeth and I know that it hurts them :(

Also, Kevin was able to give them their blessings on Father's Day and it was such a special day for our family. I was so glad that Kevin's dad got to come down and stay with us that weekend. Fathers day is always hard on me because I had such an amazing father. I'm am thankful that Kevin's has a good relationship with his dad and that he is close enough for us to visit.

I am sorry there are no pictures but, I will make an effort to post them and silly videos of the babies. I am trying to be a better blogger again!!

Inspirational Sunday

Its been almost seven weeks since the babies were born and prior to their birth we went to church every Sunday. Once they were here we stayed home for a couple of weeks because I was/still am completely afraid of them getting sick. However, I am so grateful that we went to church today. For those of you who are not LDS the first Sunday of the month members of the church bear their testimonies. This week I was so inspired by all of those who shared their testimonies; especially the women in Relief Society. I have been inspired to ask Heavenly Father what I can do to become closer to him and grow closer with the members of our ward. All of the people we have met and befriended have been so wonderful and helpful over the past couple of months. I am so thankful to have these people in our lives. Kevin and I are blessed to have such wonderful people around us.

Our First Post

Kevin and I have been talking about starting a family journal for a while and after getting input from other people I have decided to start us up a family blog. So much has happened this year and we are so blessed! Here is a little update for you in case you haven't heard or didn't know:

February 10th we got engaged. To top it off he got me the greatest ring and proposed to me on a mountain top over looking a beautiful scenery.



Later that month we found out we would be having a baby. We were both excited but were unprepared for the news we found out 3 weeks later. While sitting in the doctors office getting our first ultrasound we got a big surprise! The doctor simply said what do you see on the screen there?


We both looked at one another and had no idea what we were supposed to be seeing. We just sat quietly waiting for something to come out of our doctors mouth when she said "Twins. You are going to have twins!" It took us a couple of days to process the fact that we were going to have TWO yes TWO babies!

In May we found out the sexes of the babies. I was really hoping for a boy and a girl since they are fraternal however, it turned out that we would be having two little boys. After getting over the fact I wouldn't have a little girl to dress up and play with, I came to terms with two little boys and was very excited that they could look out for their little sister one day.


Both babies at 18 weeks.

It only took us a week to pick out names:
Aiden Howard (after Kevin's middle name, grandpa, and my brother's middle name and grandpa)
&
Cooper Morris (after Kevin's other grandpa)

May was a busy month! We had an auction in Maryland and I had a wedding to plan!

We got married on May 31st and it was the absolute most perfect day of my life! I felt like a princess and Kevin was my knight in shining armor. It was one of the best days ever.




You couldn't even tell that I was 5 months pregnant with twins. Everything was just amazing!

Things have calmed down since then I guess you could say. Our lives have been much less stressful now that our wedding has come and gone. We are officially Mr. & Mrs. Tutton. I still find it weird to say.

On July 12th I was baptized and became a member of the Church of Jesus Crist of Latter Day Saints. It was definately a humbling expereince for me. I love our Ward and how great it is. I feel like it was definately the right choice for me and I know that Kevin was proud that I chose to join the church.

Since then not much has happened. Our babies are growing at a good rate and are the same size as one baby at their "age." We have had no complications thus far and the doctor is really happy with our progress. As of right now we are not at risk for preterm labor which is great! Hopefully we only have six weeks left until our little guys come into this world. We are so excited and could not be happier with where we are in life.