Gratitude

Gratitude is a sincere appreciation for blessings or help we have received.



Today, I taught a lesson at church to seven 6-year olds about gratitude and showing thanks to others, especially our Heavenly Father for all that we have. Their list of things that they were grateful for ranged from Pokemon to food and shelter to Jesus' birth. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to teach them each Sunday.

When I came home from church, I watched the above video and felt that I should write down some of the things I am grateful for.

There are the obvious ones like my husband and 3 daughters, our home, good health, and food to eat.
I am also thankful for my sisters (all 8 of them). I am grateful for telephones that I can call and talk to them whenever I need to and that I was able to get a phone call a few weeks ago at 11pm hearing the news that I was surprisingly a new aunt.

I am thankful for my moms and dads and the relationship they each have with my children. I love watching and hearing them interact in person and on the telephone.

I am so thankful for Chuck's job. When we know so many of our family members and friends that are struggling with work, I am grateful that he loves his job so much.

I am thankful for free stuff. I know that may seem silly, but when we are trying to pay off debt it is so nice to do something fun with and for our kids that is free. For example, Lowe's Build and Grow or "dining" at Sam's Club. I love how excited the girls get when we do something like this with them and how they remember it later. Last year, I got a box of winter girl's clothes from freecycle.org for Leland and now that Lucy is almost wearing Leland's size, I have enough clothes for both of them.

I am grateful for our mini van that fits our 3 children safely. I am grateful that I have enough room in a van to take others places too, along with our family. It allowed me to take care of my 2 nieces this week, so their parents could go on a vacation. I am grateful that we were blessed to be able buy the van just weeks before Charlotte was born while Chuck was unemployed.

I am grateful for nap time - my own and my children's. I feel rested, so I can make it through the rest of the day and I am able to have some me time and write blog posts.

I am grateful for blogs. Having a blog has allowed an outlet for me to finally get excited about record keeping. Tracking our families joys and struggles, creating a history of our day to day lives. I have already been blessed by going back and reading things that we have written. My girls love to look at old pictures on our blog and our family and friends' blogs. It has allowed me to feel connected to those that we do not live close to, but wish we did.

My list could go on and on, but I will end for now and say that I am most grateful for my Heavenly Father and the relationship that I am able to have with Him through prayer. It is a feeling of great comfort to know that He is there and that He is listening. He is from which all good things come. Prayer is a powerful tool to show our gratitude and also ask for help.

Fancy dining

Tonight, we went to our new favorite "buffet" restaurant, well actually it is more like a private club we recently joined. A special thank you to Amy for inviting us to become members of such a swanky club with her. Who says private, members-only clubs with fancy dining options are only for the wealthy?

For our appetizer, we had 6 types of fancy cheeses and an "order" of bbq chicken wings. Our main dish was crab cakes, sausage, and bruschetta pork, with sides of green bean casserole and asparagus. Dessert was cheesecake, coconut cake, and a lovely nutty, cranberry, chocolate dish. Sure, the plates are pretty small and sometimes only napkins (let's call it American tapas style), and you can't allow yourself to feel guilty going back for extra helpings, but it sure is tasty!

I guess, when you are too poor to afford a true fancy dinner, you are not too difficult to please.

Every day moments

Our girls are all in such a great stage right now. I just want to capture some of their cute every day moments that make being their mom such a joy.

When Lucy closes her eyes she can't help but smile too and she usually giggles. It's just so adorable and makes prayer-time extra fun.


Lucy = brown eyes, curly hair. Leland = blue eyes, straight hair. But both love to cheese for the camera.


Before we went to Train Day in Ashland on Saturday, we stopped by Lowe's for a much anticipated Build-and-Grow Clinic. Over a month ago, Chuck put it on his calendar as a must do because it was building a Lowe's #48 Garage for Jimmie Johnson, complete with a car for the garage. Leland was very proud that she did it by herself (with some help from the Lowe's employee, but mom and dad were not allowed to help).



Leland hasn't been a big colorer lately, but give her paper, scissors, and tape and she goes to town crafting. She has been making crowns, bracelets, rings, and little people.


She makes crowns to fit all sizes.


Charly is such great baby. I'm still in awe that she sleeps all night - 9 pm to 8 am. If only my if big girls would sleep like that. She is growing so fast. She's not a big fan of tummy time or her bumbo chair, but loves all the attention she gets from her sisters.


When we are in the car, Leland and Lucy act like they are on a roller coaster. I don't feel like I'm a crazy driver, but I frequently see them with their arms in the air saying, "Wheeee!" They also yell "DUCK!!!" whenever we go under a bridge, signs, power lines, stoplights, or pretty much anything.The best is when Leland asks for me to crash into other cars on the freeway, "Like the cars that crash in the race" (aka NASCAR). She's not convinced that us crashing will not be as fun and exciting as Daddy makes it out to be while watching the race.

Now to bed - I have 2 extra little girls for the week. My nieces Emily (3) and Sarah (1) are here for fun while their parents vacation. Dinner and bedtime went surprisingly smooth. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Train Day in Ashland

On Saturday, we went to the 7th Annual Train Day in Ashland. Rob Bradham, a friend of Chuck's through his lobbying work, told him about it late Friday. He invited us to join his family for the afternoon.

The Town of Ashland is located only 20 minutes north of Richmond, but has done very well at maintaining its small, historic town feeling. The people take pride in proclaiming that Ashland is the "Center of the Universe." The town began after the Civil War as a stop on the rail line from Richmond to DC. The tracks run down the middle of the main street of town, and the area near the Ashland train station is a popular train-watching site. All of the stores and restaurants have train-related names like "The Iron Horse" or "Red Caboose."


For Train Day, the town does all sorts of model train displays, train rides, train bounce house, train story telling at the library, and train music at local coffee shops. And of course, every so often a freight train or Amtrak train will come right through the middle of it all (even two at the same time).


It was lots of fun, but I felt guilty doing all of this train stuff without Connor. Now that we know, the McBride's will need to join us in Ashland on the second Saturday in November 2010.

Lights Out

Last week, it rained here for about 3 solid days. On the main street through our neighborhood 4 huge trees fell into the road and knocked down power lines. At about 6pm on Thursday evening, the power went out and did not come back on for 18 hours (Friday at noon).

There's nothing like a trial by fire to test your emergency preparedness. Dinner was in the oven, minutes away from being done, but I had just put a pie in the oven for a recipe swap that I was planning on attending that night, but missed.

We got out some candles and flashlights. The best addition to our emergency box were head lamp lights (think coal miners). We got them this summer to use while camping and have loved them. You can have a light right where you are looking and both hands free.

The girls had the best time playing in the dark, especially Lucy. Our little scaredy-cat who has become scared of everything lately loved the excitement of having no power. With her headlamp she was just fine and confident to go into any dark room.



We had a fun night with a candle-lit dinner and cuddling in bed. I would have thought with it being so dark the girls would have gone to bed quickly, but it took forever to get Lucy to sleep. The next morning with the power still out, we decided it was a great excuse to have breakfast at McD's. We have one close by with a great indoor play area. My biggest 6'2" kid had the most fun. Hearing him come down the twisty tunnel slide was hilarious. I wish I had a video of that.