TTA: Giving Thanks

This post may end up being a jumble of my thoughts, but I hope it will have a theme of gratitude. I could do a top ten list like Shannon or a daily theme of what I'm grateful for like Leslie or a 100 things I'm grateful for like Brandi. But while I have been touched by each of theirs, I wanted to do my own thing.

On Sunday, the talks at church were on gratitude. One was based on President Monson's talk "Joy in the Journey." He talked about not getting caught up in life and stopping to enjoy the ride. One thing he said was to never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. I've reflected on that a lot over the past couple of weeks. I am so grateful for people in my life who have taken the time to love me. I hope that I show my love and keep my focus on people, not problems or tasks or to-do lists.

I am grateful for my family. I adore my children. There are days, though, when I get aggravated or annoyed or frustrated by the endless tasks associated with being a parent. This quote from President Monson reminded me how fleeting these years are:

"If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly." (I don't think I will ever miss the laundry though!!LOL)

Said one well-known author, Sarah Ban Breathnach: “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”

During college, I read Sarah Ban Breathnach's book, Simple Abundance and I kept a gratitude journal. Every day I would record 5 things I was grateful for. She says that you won't be the same person if you take time to express gratitude for the abundance in your life daily for at least a month. I found that to be true. Gratitude changes our outlook, our attitude, our thoughts for others. Which "secret garden" do I tend?

I wish I could find the exact statistics but a year ago I read something that was along this vein. If you live in a house with more than one room and something else (I don't recall what) you are wealthier than something like 50% of the world's population. If you have flooring (carpet, wood, etc.--not dirt) and glass in your windows, you are among the top 20% of the world's population in wealth. (or perhaps it was the other way around, but you get the picture.) Again I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but this hit me profoundly when I read it a year ago. It is easy to want more and more or to focus on what we don't have. But we are so blessed! 80% of the world has less than we do when it comes to material goods.

And then you add to that the fact that we live in a free country where we are educated, we have the right to vote, we can choose what church to attend (or not to attend at all), we can read what we choose, choose what profession to have, choose who to marry and how many children we will have and on and on. And most of us come from loving families and have never been abused. Most of us have the problem of deciding what to cook for dinner, not how to find food to eat. We live in a country that is (relatively) peaceful where no war has occurred on our soil in a very long time. Where we can change leadership (president, etc.) without any major uprisings or difficulties.

I'm not saying life is easy. We all have our challenges. But we are so lucky to live here and to live now! I know I need to be careful to not take these and many other things for granted.

Dear Tooth Fairy,

Dear Tooth Fairy,
Please come and visit our house tonight. My tooth has been loose for at least a month now and finally tonight, I let Janene pull it out for me. For the last week or two, I have gotten out of bed each night to ask my daddy to pull it. He keeps saying that it isn't quite ready and to go back to bed.
Today Janene offered and after some convincing, I finally decided to let her try. And she pulled it right out. It only bled a little bit and I didn't cry at all.

Tooth fairy, I am wondering: Where do you live? What do you do with all those teeth? Do you like collecting teeth? How much money will you give me? Do you get paid to collect teeth? What do you look like?

Sincerely,
Michelle

our new family member

We adopted a new family member from Alfredo's boss yesterday. His name is Chester and he is a borador (border collie and black labrador mix). His mom is a border collie; his dad a lab. He is 7 months old. Alfredo's boss' son has asthma/allergies and the dog was exacerbating the problem, so they needed to pass him on to a new family. Alfredo has been trying to talk me into taking him for a week or so now. He originally told me that his boss had emailed me and to read the email and tell him what I thought. So I checked my email and it says that they have a dog that they need to give away. Attached is a picture of a 4 year old boy playing in the snow. I went to Alfredo and said, "I don't get it. Is it some kind of joke? Because I don't understand." He came and saw the email and said there must have been a mistake made, but that his boss wanted to give away his dog and was I interested in getting it? I must admit that I was surprised. Alfredo has always said we wouldn't get a dog... and if we did it would definitely not be until the girls were older and could help take care of it. Now he was trying to talk me into a dog?!

My main thoughts on the matter were that a dog would provide one more mouth to feed, one more living thing to clean up after, one more thing to train and teach. Almost like having another child. With a full time job and 3 kids (one a newborn), I'm still not sure if I'm up to having a dog. But the girls and Alfredo fell in love with Chester and last night he made our home his own. He'll be a (mostly? entirely?) outdoor dog. And he seems very nice. He needs more training but I think he'll be a nice dog. But I'm still filled with mixed feelings, I must admit. So all of you dog lovers, reassure me. Tell me how much I'll grow to love this dog and how good it will be for my kids and such. (Don't lie and say it won't be more work or anything, just tell me all the good parts of having a dog! Please!) He is cute.

Gobble, Gobble

A teacher at my school did a really cute Thanksgiving turkey project. I decided to do it with the girls and their friends yesterday. I must admit that the ones done at my school were more professionally looking, but I think Michelle, Ella, Bryce, Sylas and Kodi did a nice job.

We had to improvise a little. I thought I had brown construction paper, but I didn't. So they had to color the construction paper brown (or blue, as Brycie did, or multi-colored like Michelle). I didn't have a pattern for the turkey's head and my hand drawn ones didn't look very much like a turkey's head. (Sylas informed me that it looked more like "that red thing they have" --the waddle). But the kids had fun and each of their turkeys has personality!

tres meses

Gabrielle is now 3 months old (yesterday). She is getting so big and strong. I can't believe how fast time is going. She is now trying very hard to sit up on her own. She can't yet, but if you put her in her car seat without the buckles, she sure tries to pull herself up. Here's a couple of shots of her efforts to sit up.

Look how far she is able to pull herself up! She is so strong.

At three months, she smiles and coos all the time. If you say "hola" slowly she imitates the shape of your mouth like she will echo it back to you. She laughs more and more often. She still laughs the most for Alfredo, but I have some success at getting her to laugh now. She loves her hands. She loves to suck on her fingers and just stare at her hands. She still sleeps curled on her side.

We love our sweet Gabrielle! She brings so much joy to our home!

(Funny side note: Since Ella was sick on Monday, I stayed home from work yesterday. I took Ella and Gabrielle with me to take Michelle to school and then we stopped at my school to finish up lesson plans for my sub. One of the teachers saw Gabrielle and told me how beautiful my girls are. She said I'm so good at making babies that I should have at least a dozen more. :) She said, "Anyone who can have a baby on a couch should have a housefull." LOL!)

kindergarten drama

Michelle talks a lot about all of her friends at school. (I'm thrilled because that was one of my concerns about not sending her to the neighborhood school. Would she make friends? Would she be happy?) She has mentioned her friends from after school program quite a bit: Sergio, Brenda and Donna. Yesterday her after school teacher told me that Michelle thinks Sergio is cute. Brenda overheard and said that Michelle always sits by Sergio and that they like each other.

Today I asked Michelle about Sergio. She said, "He is SOO mean. He is not my friend any more. He is not cute." I asked what he did. She said that he said something mean about Brenda and Donna's mom (they are sisters). So Brenda was sad. Michelle told the teacher and told Sergio not to be mean. So her 5 year old crush is over. . . . At least for today.

TTA: Flat Stanley and Lottery

This week's TTA is to write about your latest reads. I haven't done TTA for awhile, but I have a few minutes tonight and as you all know I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to read. So this TTA appealed to me. So I thought I would share two.

The first one is Flat Stanley. I just read this to my class at school. It is a clever little book about a boy who has a bulletin board fall on him. He isn't hurt but he is flattened. So he has several adventures while flat. Including being mailed to California in an envelope to go on a vacation with his friend. My class really enjoyed this book. Now we are doing a Flat Stanley project. Each child has drawn a Flat Stanley. Now they are writing a letter about what happened to him and how he wants to travel around the world and have some adventures. We will mail their Flat Stanleys to various people around the country/world and ask them to send a postcard back telling briefly what Stanley does there. My class is very excited. We will post these postcards on a bulletin board with a map and track where he goes. It will help them learn letter writing as well as a little about geography and different places.

If any of my friends out there in other locales would be interested in participating, let me know. I'd love to send a Flat Stanley off to you. All you have to do is send a postcard back. Also, for my several friends that homeschool, this might be a fun project for you to do with your kids. There is even an official Flat Stanley Project that you can participate in. I'm not doing the official one, but it looks cool too.

For myself, the book I finished most recently was Lottery. It is about a man who is slow. He wins the lottery and his selfish extended family wants his money. They are trying to figure out how to take it from him. While he is slow intellectually, he is wise in many ways. He knows what is really important. And he becomes partner in a business and has many great ideas that help the business become more successful. There are some really touching moments. Small warning: There is profanity in this book. The main character's best friend swears a lot and the main character tells you about his swearing. Yet because of the way it is written, in the rambling mind of someone who is slow, the swearing didn't seem as offensive as it usually would.

Right now I am reading an autobiography for my book club. It is called German Boy by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel. I'm only about 50 pages in, but I like his writing style. I think I will really enjoy this book.