Saturday Sentament: Words of Appreciation

You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime. ~ Dale Carnegie

eXtremely Blessed

These last few letters of the A to Z Challenge are going to be tough, I'm curious to see what the other participants pull together.  Hopefully I'm not the only cheater using words like extreme.


I want to use today's post to counter how overwhelmed I've been feeling, and focus on my blessings.

• I'm extremely blessed to have a wonderful family.
• I'm extremely blessed to have the gospel in my life.
• I'm extremely blessed to be healthy.
• I'm extremely blessed to have my temporal needs met.
• I'm extremely blessed for my education and life experiences.
• I'm blessed my garden is growing.

These are my basics (except for the garden - that's a new one for me), and the list goes on and on.  Sometimes life is hard, but the hard stuff seems less overwhelming when I focus on the good stuff.  Share what's blessing your life today.

Saturday Sentament: Gratitude

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. ~ Epictetus

If you live in Arizona and are looking for some good clean fun for a date night or family activity, check out my post on Arizona Mama for one of my favorite spots!

Never Give Up

I'm not sure why, lately the smallest amount of bickering or sassy voices sets me on edge.  I've been on edge a lot lately!  Everything came to a head on Sunday.  After chewing everyone out, I was ready to go lock myself in my room and spend the day observing the Sabbath as I saw fit.  I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere with teaching my children the importance of keeping the Sabbath holy - among other things.  I wondered if I was asking too much; lots of other parents don't seem to be teaching their kids, so why should I?  I was pulling out all the decorations for my own little pity party.  Fortunately, there was too much going on to fully wallow in it.


The next morning's scripture study was very clear on my responsibility.  Moroni 9:6 states "And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God."

The prophet Mormon spent his time teaching a people bent on destruction, but he kept trying because he loved his people and so he would not be under condemnation.   Even though I'm not a prophet, I think the charge also applies to me as a mother.  Even when I don't feel like my children are listening, I need to keep teaching and loving.  Even when I see them choosing paths that break my heart, I need to keep teaching and loving.  


I'm grateful that my Heavenly Father keeps teaching and loving me!  I'm grateful the words I needed to hear came to me when I most needed them, that He encourages me and shows me the right path.  I'm sure He is often disappointed when I don't listen to Him or when I choose a path that breaks His heart.  He knows how I feel and He knows the path I need to follow.  I need to listen and keep on keeping on!

Christmas Is More Than the Gifts!

This morning I was reading a series of short Christmas stories on Latter Day Woman.  There was one story called A Happy Christmas by Lori Nawyn that especially touched me.  She talked about there being two kinds of people at Christmas, those who focus on the gifts and those who focus on gratitude.  I'm not sure the distinction is so clear.  I know there are times every Christmas season that I yearn to give more and there are times when I can focus on the joy of the season.  But I do agree that I feel His peace and comfort when I focus on the greatest gift of Christmas.

This is the gift I want to give my children at Christmas, the Savior's birth is the gift - everything else is the icing on the cake!
 

Family Home Evening: Thanksgiving

It is only fitting to have a Family Home Evening lesson on Thanksgiving this time of year.  We talked about Thanksgiving's importance is more than the food, which is a shocking concept for our family.  Thanksgiving includes being thankful, or having gratitude, and the important aspect of giving thanks or turning gratitude into an action.  As part of our lesson we used the Topical Guide to look up scriptures about Thanksgiving or thankful in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.  Any topic the Lord discusses in all four books must be important!


Our activity was another game of Harry Potter Uno and we warmed up to our treat of Hot Cocoa with marshmallows.  A child or two stirred their cocoa with a candy cane. 

Family Home Evening: Joseph Smith's First Vision Revisited

Have you ever wondered where I get my fantastic Family Home Evening topics every week?  We have a simple chart that divides the responsibilities.  Every family member rotates from lesson to treat / conducting to scripture and so on.  I like this method for two reasons. One, it's a lot less work for me.  Two, and more important, it gives my children ownership in FHE and the experience of planning, preparing and executing their responsibility.  When they were little, I'd help them plan their lesson (sometimes even help them find a topic).  Now they usually do it on their own.  I'm still making or helping with the treat half the time, and that's OK because it's good quality time with my children.


One downside is sometimes the lessons, activities or songs get a little repetitive (sometimes even the treats)!  I pulled the bad mom card and banished a certain lesson because it felt like we were having the same lesson every week.  I do like the "Hold to the Rod" activity as much as the next person, but after four or five times in a row I was in desperate need for a change. 

One of my children chose the First Vision as a lesson.  Although we had the lesson several months ago, it was a good review.  And thanks to some awesome youth leaders, the lesson was well prepared; he even had cute little visual aides on a stick.  I was again impressed how different parts of the same lesson stand out.  This time we focused on scripture study, prayer and faith.

Our activity was one of our favorite games - What If?

I introduced our gratitude garland.  


One of the kiddos volunteered to bear their testimony for double treats.  You bribe your kids one time ... but it was nice to hear their testimonies again.  The double treat thing worked out because I made brownies and we had vanilla ice cream in the freezer!

Saturday Sentament: Thanksgiving

Not what we say about our blessings,

but how we use them,

is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

- W.T. Purkiser

Do you like our Gratitude Garland?  Hop over to Arizona Mama to read the article!  

Time is running out to enter the CSN Stores $35 giveaway.

Favorite Feeds Friday

Welcome to the November 12 edition of Favorite Feeds Friday.  Can you believe Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away?  We made some serious progress on our Christmas shopping and even a little cleaning yesterday!  Here's my favorite feeds I found on Google Reader today:

• Raimi from If Your're Happy & You Know It gave a touching Veteran's Day tribute.  And she took me on a little trip down memory lane with her picture of my childhood hometown.
• The Mother Huddle shares some non-dinner Thanksgiving traditions.  Did I mention Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away?  I'm so excited!
• Celebrations at Home has a great DIY gift box and candy recipe!

Thank you to all who have entered my drawing!  I'm so excited that CSN Stores is sponsoring the $35 giveaway so I can help one of my fantastic readers with their Christmas shopping.  (I won't tell if you spend it on yourself.)  If you still haven't entered, find out how here.  Remember to comment by Sunday at midnight!

Family Home Evening: Gratitude

This week's lesson is about Gratitude.  For me this is a lesson that gives itself, we have so much to be grateful for in our lives.  Gratitude is a matter of focusing on the good things that happen.  We did have a very cool visual aid to go with our lesson.  As one of my kiddos talked about what we can be grateful for he poured water into a cup.  Then we listened to part of the story of Job and how he remained faithful to the Lord despite all that he lost.  Water was taken from the cup as we listened to all that Job lost, but his cup was never completely empty.  After he remained grateful through his trail, he was blessed with more than he had originally.  At this point more water was poured until the cup overflowed.  (Thank goodness it was in a bigger bowl to keep it from being messy.)  I like the reminder that the Lord has a desire to bless us with more than we can even imagine - and I can imagine a lot.  He is waiting for us to be open to all the blessings He wants to give until our cups are overflowing.

We had a unique activity.  We gathered on the floor around a bunch of Lego's and spent a minute building something we were grateful for, then passed to around the to let someone else add to it while we added to the person's on the opposite side of us.  My Christmas tree turned into a whole Christmas scene by the end!


Our treat was homemade caramel corn.  It was only the second time making it, I still have some room for improvement.  Everything but the burnt parts tasted good.  (I'll ignore the recipe and not even try to bake it next time!)

Gratitude - You Better Get Some

On the first day we set up camp, the girls dug a lovely latrine, and surrounded it with a tarp.  We had a seat and privacy - kind of like the comforts of home.  After a few hours, it was a very stinky "comfort".  By the bedtime, the smell was hard to bear.  The girls buried it and dug a new one the next morning in a different spot.  But this time the tarp didn't wrap all the way around the trees, so it was open on one side.  


After a day of canoeing, we were sitting in a circle around camp telling jokes when someone mention the latrine.  I told the girls they better hurry and get grateful.  Yesterday we lost flush toilets and today we lost our privacy, who knows what they will take away next!

Things I've Learned From Blogging

I've officially been a blogger for a year as of last Saturday and I've learned many lessons from blogging!

• Our family has a lot of fun!
• Blogging holds me accountable.  It's one thing to have a desire, another to have a goal, and something totally different to be accountable to that goal by making it public.  Even if no one reads my little blog, there is still something binding about having my goals out there for anyone to see and ask me about at any time.  
• It also helps me refocus my goals when needed.  When I'm running on empty, feeling frazzled and can't get it all done; I can look at life with slightly different eyes and use my time and energy for the things that matter most.
• I understand life's lessons more deeply when I write about them. It's like the difference in learning about a subject and preparing to teach a subject, I get a higher level of understanding from putting what I learned into words.
• Similarly, accomplishments are more meaningful when they are recorded.  This blog gives me a place to record my accomplishments - and share them with other moms who might be reaching for similar goals.  It also helps me stop and notice the accomplishments of my children, sometimes they grow so subtly.
• Life is pretty in blogland.  This can be good and bad.  I try not to dwell on the bad things in life on my blog and I definitely don't want to use it as a tool to vent.  I want my blog to be encouraging and motivating.  On the downside, sometimes life in blogland is a little too artificially sweet.  And sometimes, we as women have a tendency to compare our worst with other women's best.  
• Just because people don't leave comments doesn't mean no one is reading and enjoying.  I've caught myself feeling hesitant to leave a comment on someone's blog; other times I'm just too busy.
• Rereading entries reminds me of cool things I did that I'd like to do again!

Today is the last day to leave a comment here for a chance to win a month's subscription to The Homemaking Cottage!

Tips for My Teenage Self

Over at the Mother Huddle, Rachel Meeks had a great post about what she wishes she could tell her teenage self.  What a great way to step back and look at how far we've come since those awkward years. 

• Beware of people who act differently around different people.
• Things that seem so important now, won't be in a few years.
• Things that seem fairly unimportant now, may be very important in a few years.
• Have the courage to fail.
• Date just to have fun and to get to know people.
• Soap operas are a waste of time - so are those teen romance books.
• Good looking doesn't equal good.
• You're a lot stronger than you know.
• Life gets better, much better!

They say hindsight is 20/20.  What do you wish you knew then?

Drawer #21

Today's drawer is our annual Christmas feast with our totally awesome neighbor! Every year, she spoils us with good food, generous gifts and most of all, her wonderful company. She is such a good example of generosity, that the kids decided to shower her with 12 days of gifts. We've exercised our creative muscles trying to come up with just the right ones. Saturday's might have been the most creative. We cut out cool paper snowflakes and taped them all over her front screen when she was gone.

Gratitude Tree Update

Our Gratitude tree filled up quite nicely. There were even more leaves added on Thanksgiving day, but I forgot to take another picture. Our neighbor liked the tree so much, she asked to keep it when we took it down. Probably because the kids put her on one of the leaves. This morning when we were packing up the Thanksgiving decorations, the kiddos put it on a piece of poster board and took it to her.

Now the Christmas decorations are up and the tree is ready to be trimmed!

I Love Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving, and not just because it's the official kick-off to legal Christmas celebrations.

• I love the parade
• I love the food
• I love having family and laughter fill my home
• I love the after-dinner street hockey game
• I love the pies (yes, that is different from the rest of the food!)
• I love watching Louisa May Alcott's "An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving" on the Hallmark channel
• Finally, I love watching "Elf"! (Its allowed after dinner)
  

Gratitude Tree

I've seen many versions of gratitude trees, so I thought I'd share ours. The older kiddos helped cut the out tree and the leaves. We've all been writing the things we are grateful for on the leaves and taping them to the tree. One of the first leaves put up at the top said "Heavenly Father", and I wasn't even the one who put it up there! I'm grateful for children with good hearts who know that their blessings come from a loving Heavenly Father!

The picture is from the first morning we put it up. It's already much fuller. I need to cut out more leaves! I'll post another picture before we take it down.

Hobbies Lead to Friends

When my photography club kiddo went back to school after fall break, there was a few class activities to share what the kids did over their breaks. My kiddo shared our camera shopping trip. A few other kids shared their intereste in photography too or had experiences that would have made great pictures. My kiddo has struggled a little bit to make friends and was excited at these new potential friendships.

It made me think of hobbies in a different way. I've always thought of hobbies as a way to relax or pursue interests. But now that I think of it, there is a often a social aspect to hobbies. I made some great friends through scrapbooking. Even a "solitary" hobby like reading builds friendships, through book clubs or exchanging information on good books with others that like to read. When my parents moved, my mom talked about how it was hard to meet people when you don't have kids at home and don't go to an office for work. They ended up buying a a sports car and joining a car club. And now, their calendar sometimes gets a little crazy too.

I'm grateful for the lessons my children teach me! It is always so interesting to look at life through another pair of eyes.

Going Out of Business

I was planning on taking one of my kiddos for to get ice cream from a small local ice cream shop, only to discover they had gone out of business. Fortunately, one of the businesses a few doors down had purchased their small ice cream freezer and we were able to get an ice cream cone there. At least half of the shops are now empty in that shopping center, which led to the inevitable discussion of why stores go out of business. It was pretty challenging to give a brief, simple explanation to the under 10 crowd!

As the conversation came to a close, I expressed gratitude that we still have our family's income and have only needed to make comparatively few cutbacks to our spending habits. I encouraged my children to reach out to their friends whose families are having a hard time.

It's amazing how many lessons are ready to be taught from spending a little one-on-one time with our children!

Time

For me, time has been a two edged sword lately. I struggle to slow down enough to enjoy my family and our activities. While at the same time, I can't ever seem to get everything to fit into the week. Maybe that's just two cuts from the same edge. I've known for a long time that life (and time management) is all about balance - it's the application that eludes me. But the most important things usually get done, I just might not be the most pleasant person at the time :)

I had a friend that needed some help, so we traded a responsibility until she was able to get back on her feet. When the time came for her turn, she would tell me how hard it was to meet that responsibility - repeatedly. I vividly remember the challenges I faced when I was helping her out. We all have the same 24 hours in the same 7 days in the same week. But how we use it, and the attitude about how we use it, is where the challenge lays.

I think I've learned the greatest lessons from the different ways people handle the same challenges, good and bad. I'm so grateful for friends that help me out and show me how to be the person I'm slowly becoming. Today's lesson is a reminder in balancing time and not using it as an excuse.