Day 30

Thankful for a guy who insists on making the pizza dough entirely from scratch while the stand mixer is broken.  Yes, he refused to use the hand mixer and did not even consider getting the bread maker from the basement.

He even fixed that giant gapping hole that has been in the kitchen ceiling for the past few weeks.

Day 25

Thankful today for kids and art projects and a husband who will do them with the kids while I am gone.

Day 22

Girl time.  Enough said.

Day 21

Silly surprises. That is what I am thankful for today.  Like yesterday when I heard Ellie's muffled voice coming from behind a door and found her sitting in the pantry on a cooler, neatly crammed between the wall and the shelf, shoveling cereal into her mouth as quickly as possible. Notice I did not say as neatly as possible.

And tonight when I was getting ready to leave for karate and I looked into the pantry and saw this.

How can you not smile when you see things like that? And shake your head and wonder what the heck your kids are doing when you are not looking.

Day 20

Today the yearly box of sweaters arrived. The kids were thrilled. I knew if I announced when I saw the UPS man walking up the driveway that he had the sweaters, the poor man would have been run over by the children. So I waited until the box made it into the house to tell them what was inside.

Thankful for handmade sweaters and goofy children.

Day 14

Yes, I know I'm a bit late on this one. Life got in the way.

Day 14 and I'm thankful for this picture.

The girls are all learning to crochet and Ellie is trying to join in on the fun.

Day 6

I meant to do this earlier but life got in the way a bit.  We make plans for our life (big or small) and God laughs. I should know that by now.

Today I am thankful for my youngest child.  A brief time spent with us but a presence felt in our hearts much longer.  She looked like her oldest sister. She captured our hearts and minds. It's been a long lonely year without her. A year spent worrying about how the older children were handling things, a year watching one son become overly protective of me, a year watching my husband still fight with the guilt of could he have done more, a year of learning that you frankly can't lean on anyone because they just can't be there for you.

Thankful for this picture because it represents the generosity of a group of people I don't know.  You see we'd priced things out and saved money until we could afford a simple stone. Then we called the church to see who we needed to talk to and were put in touch with the one guy who handles everything for the cemetery. We were then quoted a price 4 times what we'd been prepared for. In a bit of shock and dismay, I sent an email to a friend telling her what I'd learned. I just figured we'd save longer and figure it out eventually. But she reached out to her local friends (all of whom I've never met) and they donated enough to cover the cost of the headstone.  Seriously amazed by the generosity of strangers.  Truly touched. And it also makes me wonder why it's so much easier to help those we don't know.

So today I am thankful for generous hearts, small souls, and mournful spirits. May we all learn to treasure those things in front of us just a little bit more than we do today.

The Blurry Halloween Pics

My camera has been dropped a few times. You now have to turn it on and off repeatedly to get it to even attempt to focus properly.  And even then, it sometimes changes it's mind. As it did while we were taking pictures last night. But telling all the small people to stand still while we figure out the camera is just not happening so imagine the picture all sorts of clear and such things.

There were several last minute costume changes and in the end we had a princess, a chef, a pilot, a frontier girl, an astronaut, a boy scout, Indiana Jones, and 2 MiB.  I told the kids all costumes must come out of the dress-up box or stuff we had at home.  We attended a trunk or treat at a local parish that was sadly very small because from what I've been told, there has been a huge exodus from this parish as a fall-out from people being people.  And Father decided the two handing out candy resembled the Blue's Brothers so that's what he called them. A fun time was had by all, especially the younger ones who have only been trick or treating once before this.