30 days of Gratitude.......days 18-22

November 18th:
Today I am thankful that I'm the teacher and I have the freedom to decide whether we do school or not. Today.......it's a not. Well, technically it's a half-day. We did do some work, but we enjoyed a nice break from mid-morning on. It's days like this that I love that we are homeschooling. I can easily see when my kids are tense or stressed out from school and I have the ability to say, "That's it. Close your books. We are done for the day." What a wonderful feeling! I'm pretty sure my kids would agree that they are thankful I'm the teacher too...............at least for today :)

November 19th:
I'm thankful for my family today. My heart is full and I am a blessed woman.

November 20th:
I love my church family. I love that we share the same passion for seeking God and a desire to dwell in His presence daily. Most of all, though........I love how we worship together. It's truly amazing. One day it will go on and on and on and on and on.........................................

November 21st:
I'm thankful that God trusts me enough to raise these four amazing children. I thought about saying something profound about how I watch them grow up day by day, but in reality, I often have my head down and my mind is occupied by thoughts and plans, reminders of upcoming appointments or various scheduling arrangements I need to figure out, wishes for more time in the day, wonderings of whether I'm really reaching their heart with all the teaching and discipline and endless training and praying. I go through our life together on a day by day basis with a list of things I'd like to accomplish that day in hand (or in mind). One day I look up from all of that and watch for a minute and I'm amazed all over again at how much they've grown. How much bigger they are not only physically, but spiritually too. These children are my blessings. Four kisses straight from Heaven. Right from the Father and intended for the enriching and blessing of MY life. I sit and stare at them as they chat or joke with each other and notice that my oldest is so much like I was at 15. And she has a beautiful smile. My son is so handsome and has grown up to be so like his father. (One day, some lucky young lady will fall in love with an amazing young man) My youngest daughter is nearly as tall as I am. Wasn't it just last year that she was in "little kids' class" at church? Now she's in middle school. And my baby boy.....................he'll turn 8 this year........that's almost 10! When did that happen? I can't imagine life without any one of them.

November 22nd:  Today I'm thankful for smiling. It's my favorite. :)  It needs no translation. I want to cover an entire wall in my house with pictures of people smiling. I love to see other people smile. I watch for their eyes to light up. Genuine smiles are like a healing balm to the soul. We need them. A friend recently shared this video and I. Love. It. You have to see this: (remember to pause the background music and you should know the next 16 minutes could change your perspective .......if you let it) Enjoy! 

30 days of Gratitude.........days 15-17

November 15th:

Today, I'm thankful that even long difficult days eventually come to an end. This day was full of challenge after challenge and seemed to stretch on and on and on and on. I really despise days like that. I'm so glad this one is over and I will get a new day tomorrow.


November 16th:

I'm thankful today for all the really great, hard working teachers in our schools who pour themselves into their work and into their students. Every year Life Bible church blesses all the teachers with a free handmade lunch to say thank you for their dedication to our kids and this year I got to bake the cookies that went into those lunches. I loved most of the teachers my kids have/had throughout their education. Some of them I've loved more than others, but on the whole, I think my kids have had a majority of great teachers. For that, I'm thankful.


November 17th:

Today I'm thankful for my sister. She currently lives in Arizona with her long-time boyfriend/soon to be fiance. (eeeeee! so excited for that to finally happen!) We've had an interesting relationship. I am 8 years older than she is so I've often been more of a mother-type figure to her. We got along most of the time. Though, we did have a rough patch when she was about 17 and our mother needed to go to Oregon to care for our grandmother who was in the end stages of liver cancer. I was left to keep an eye on her until Mom could come back. With her being left pretty much on her own (as youngest of the three siblings, at 17, she was not keen on being babysat) and with me being married with a baby and living 20 miles away in another town, we had a few headbutting occasions. But all in all, I am so happy to have her in my life.  Our mother passed away about 6 years ago and since then we have grown closer than we've probably ever been. I miss her.

30 days of Gratitude.....days 7-14

Well, as you may have noticed by the previous post, I will obviously by combining the days as opposed to posting every single day. The reason being that I don't always have time every day to sit down and record my thoughts on what I'm thankful for. So, on that note, here are my thankful thoughts for the past few days.

November 7th:
Today I am thankful for new mornings and our free will. That's right. I said I'm thankful for our WILL. That means we are free to choose what we will do. How we will behave in any situation. What we will believe. Today, I choose to practice patience and diligence even when I don't really want to.

November 8th:
Today I am grateful for God's faithfulness. I am so relieved that God is constant. That means He is trustworthy. I can stand on His promises because He does not ever change His mind. He is reliable that way. I really need that today.

November 9th:
Day 9....today I am thankful for my kids. Every one of them. They are each so different and yet they share so many things about themselves and their personalities. I love watching them grow each day and wonder all the time at the marvelous creativity of a wonderful God.
(I'm also thankful that slumber parties do not last for more than a night. :]  I'm stinkin' tired.)

November 10th:
Today I am especially grateful for the blessing that is my youngest daughter, Miss B. She turned 12 years old today. Oh my. She's growing so fast! It won't be much longer before she is on her own out in this world living the life she chooses for herself. What will she do? Who will she meet? Will she keep the knowledge of how much her God loves her with her in all that she does? Will she be a missionary to some far-off country? Or maybe one right here in our own area? Will she lead many people to Christ? Will she move far away?
These are the things that fill a mother's heart as they watch their children grow up before their eyes. It's a miracle and a sacrifice all wrapped up together. There are a multitude of smiles and memories and buckets full of tears and worry that we aren't doing enough for them. All of that wrapped up in a wonder at the thought of the once tiny human we took care of someday off on their own....without us. Well, not totally without us, of course, but that's sometimes how it feels in the overwhelming nature of our job as mothers.
There is one thing I'm sure of. I am confident that she will be amazing no matter what she chooses to do or be.
I love you, Bean. Happy 12th Birthday!

November 11th:
Today I am thankful for every soldier who has chosen to give their lives to the job of protecting my freedom and my country. Their sacrifice is a treasured thing to me. My husband is an Air Force veteran. We have several friends and a few family members who are or were enlisted members of the military. I say a mighty big thank you to every one of these brave people who daily lay down their lives to keep mine safe. Enjoy your freedoms today and remember to say thank you to a veteran today or any soldier serving our wonderful country.

November 12th:
Today, I'm happy that we have all been given the ability to change. We can change our mind, our position, our attitude, our health, our legacy......even our own destiny.

November 13th:
Today  I'm thankful that the house is still clean! Believe me, after this week that is a total blessing. Thanks, Lord.

November 14th:
Today I'm thankful for warm soup, hot fresh bread with butter, a cozy blanket, and sipping tea with honey. It's a good day.

30 Days of Gratitude.....day 6

November 6th:

Today I am thankful that my husband loves me. He is my help-mate. My kiss from heaven.
I am feeling under the weather today and he has lovingly picked up the slack for what I am not able to do and even though I know it is not how he was hoping to be able to spend his day off, he has taken care of the kids and even patiently rearranged the living room for me simply because I wanted it done. He never complains even though I am SURE I've given him reasons on many occasions to do so. He just loves me. Remember in the movie Princess Bride where Wesley always tells Buttercup "As you wish" because he loves her? Yeah, that's my husband. He's my Wesley. I love him with all my heart and he is the biggest and best blessing God ever gave me. I'm thankful for him today.

30 days of Gratitude...days 3, 4, and 5...

November 3rd:

Today I'm thankful for "Mom's Night Off" times and that I get to spend a little time connecting with my friends again. My husband has always been very good about letting me have days "off".

Being a mom is a lot of hard work and sometimes (especially after particularly difficult days) it is necessary for us moms to take a little time for ourselves. I know I can sometimes feel like my entire identity is all wrapped up in being my kids' Mama. At times, I've found myself feeling like I can't remember what life was like before kids. having a night occasionally to myself helps me remember some of those bigger-than-the-present-moment type goals I have for my life.

November 4th:

Today I'm thankful we finished all of our home school subjects by noon so we could have a half day. Trust me, it's the little things like this that make my day sometimes. We had a good day today. The kids earned their first Book-It coupon for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut so we met Dad for lunch, which was fun and yummy. Then little Z-man got to spend the rest of the day tagging along with Dad at work while the rest of us headed north to drop B at her volleyball practice (where big sis came to encourage her and walk her home afterward) and Big E and I drove up to the eye doc's to pick up his much needed new pair of glasses. I love it when busy days work out well. It makes the tiredness more worth it at the end of the day.

and November 5th:

I'm so thankful for the ending of Daylight Savings time. I am really happy to have that hour back!
And I actually got to sleep in until 10a this morning! Whoa. That was such a nice blessing. Especially since I'm not feeling completely up to par lately. Having that extra rest was lovely.

Dad is putting Big E to work alongside him today and now, the girls and little Z-man and I are getting ready for a little friend's 8th birthday party this afternoon. Little man doesn't even mind that he will be the only little guy amidst 10 little girls at Autumn's tea party birthday because he LOVES tea and the cupcake is a bonus :)  He's such a little stud.

So, what are YOU thankful for?.........

30 Days of Gratitude.....days 1 and 2

Hello everyone! Can you believe it? November already. Where has this year gone?
There are only two months left in the year. 

The last couple months have come with mixed emotions here in our house. Homeschooling is harder than we were hoping, yet at the same time it comes with even greater rewards than we thought it would. Some days are way better than others and some days make us just want to climb back in bed and cry our eyes out with frustration.

Speaking of frustration, recently we had to deal with replacing the transmission in our primary vehicle, the '04 Honda Odyssey. After paying for WAY more than we intended and dealing with ridiculous obstacle after obstacle (like getting our transmission accidentally sent to Washington......we live in Oregon), we finally have a working vehicle again. We've owned the van for about three and a half years and up until October had absolutely no trouble with it at all. It still holds the record as the most reliable vehicle we've ever owned despite it's tranny trouble. On a slight side note, there are lots of ways to test a person's attitude, but I think car trouble has got to be somewhere near the top. My husband and I had many opportunities to practice our virtue muscles!

Well, looking back on that whole trial and with this being the beginning of the Thanksgiving month, I have decided to post at least one thing every day that I'm grateful for. After all, God is good ALL the time, right? This month will be my 30 days of Gratitude. Feel free to join me! If you do, please add a link to your post in the comments to this one. I would love to read what you all are thankful for.

So.......here goes (one for yesterday and another for today):

November 1:
I am immensely thankful that today was a far better day than yesterday. His mercies are truly new every single morning.

November 2:
Today, I am grateful that the sun came out even though it's quite cold outside. Sunshine always brightens everyone's spirits. It's made today better than it was.

Ok, there you have it. Let's hear what you're thankful for................