What a difference a year can make!

Well I should totally be cleaning my bathrooms right now but I will seriously do anything to avoid that task. I already have dinner in the crock-pot so it's O.K. for me to post to my blog rather than clean right? I have just been thinking about 2008 since it is gone now. It was such a busy year for us. It really flew by! In January we had a newborn baby (born in Dec. '07), in February we sheetrocked, in March we sheetrocked, in April we finally finished sheetrocking, in May, June, and July we trimmed, painted, hung doors, stained wood, laid laminate floor, trimmed, and painted more. We really were beginning to think it would never end. In June I told the kids just a few more weeks of hard work and we will be done. Well that turned into a few months. Finally on August 5th we moved in! We were so grateful to be most of the way done. There are still a few pieces of trim left to do and our front door needs to be stained (problem because the instructions make it a 4 day process and it is the only thing between the inside of our house and the outside/dirt/snow/mice) I'm sure we will come up with a solution sometime. Oops I almost typed about spring '09 yard work to be done. Back to 2008. Now we have a beautiful 1 year old, 3 other wonderful children, and are thoroughly enjoying our new home. One of my favorite quotes goes something like this
The days go by slow, but the years go by fast
As I look back over the last year that quote rings so true. We have had some really long days, yet I don't know where the year has gone (make that years). This isn't what I planned on blogging but Kelly and I are the Gospel Principles teachers in our Ward and in the last lesson that we taught part of it was about the trials that we have here on earth. The manual says "We learned that all of us would have trials in our lives: sickness, disappointment, pain, sorrow, and death. But we understood that these would be given to us for our experience and our good. If we allowed them to, these trials would purify us rather than defeat us. They would teach us to have endurance, patience, and charity." (pp. 14-15 Gospel Principles) I pray that I can choose to be purified by my trials, and have the endurance necessary to make it through this life successfully, and gain patience and charity!
I just tried to upload pictures but it won't work for some reason so I guess you just get my thoughts for this posting. I hope that you have a wonderful day, now I have to get back to what I was avoiding.