Gratituesday Archives | Page 24 of 40

Gratituesday: Is This Really February?

February 14, 2011 by Laura 25 Comments

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I beg your pardon, but I’m going to talk about the weather today. I’m not sure what it’s like where you live, but here in Nebraska, it is unseasonably warm.

Normally, a “nice” day in February would be say…upper 30’s. Today, it was in the 50’s! It’s been beautiful for several days in a row, and it looks like our “heat wave” is going to last for several more days.

I sat for a while in the sun today, soaking it all in and praising God for this fantastic treat in the middle of what is usually a long winter. Matt and the boys did some outside work, played outside, walked to a nearby park and shot some hoops.

What a lovely, warm blessing in the middle of February.

Only God can create blessings like this one!

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Gratituesday: God, Your Love is Enough

February 7, 2011 by Laura 23 Comments

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Being sick, while it’s terribly un-fun, does give a person some time to reflect. Over the weekend, as I lay in bed trying to recover from the flu, I was able to do some good thinking – as much as a person can think with a foggy brain, that is.

I was on the verge of feeling sorry for myself. I hate being stuck in bed. I hate seeing my kids suffering. I hate that Matt was having to take care of everything that I should have been helping him with.

And then, I read some emails from some of you who are struggling mightily with family members who have health problems. I learned of some terrible health situations from family members in our congregation. Some of my friends on Facebook shared prayer needs that hit me hard.

I stopped feeling sorry for myself right away. What our family is suffering with isn’t fun…but it’s just the flu. It’s normal. It happens. We’ll get over it. We’re already working our way back to normal (as in, the kids felt up to getting the swords out and swinging them today).

Justus had received the WOW Hits 2011 CD for Christmas and Matt put it in for me to listen to while I rested. I heard a song that was new to me, and I just couldn’t get enough. I played it over and over. I’m excited to share it with you here.

The song is Let the Waters Rise by Mikes Chair. It is a message of comfort, especially to those of you going through difficult times. I pray that it will be a blessing to all of you, whether you’re struggling, or whether you’re in the midst of calm and peace. God’s love IS enough. We can trust Him.

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Gratituesday: Hard Work Tastes Good

January 31, 2011 by Laura 39 Comments

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Remember all the abundance of produce that I was tripping over last fall and trying very hard to appreciate? All the canning and preserving we do during August and September (in the midst of soccer season) is overwhelming at times. We know we’re doing it for our family’s health and to save money…but it really is a lot of hard work!

But now that it’s (almost) February? Now THIS is why we work so hard in the fall!!

Everytime we run out of applesauce, we go to the pantry. Each time I decide to make spaghetti or pizza? We get out a jar of sauce. We’ve enjoyed many a grilled cheese sandwich with homemade tomato soup. We’ve got a great supply of salsa left. We have canned peaches to eat in cottage cheese for a quick and easy snack. Our supply of frozen green beans and corn is holding up just fine, and we haven’t been holding back.

Healthy food doesn’t get much easier than this.

All that hard work back in the fall? It was SO worth it.

Remind me of this post in September when I’m again overwhelmed and tripping over boxes of apples and tomatoes.

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Gratituesday: Prayer for Healing

January 24, 2011 by Laura 23 Comments

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When my friends are hurt, I hurt.

Last week, one of my friends became very ill. I’ve watched my church family rally around her family, helping with the kids, taking meals…and I’ve been so thankful to be a part of a body of believers that cares for one another.

I’ve been fighting a head cold myself, so it wasn’t wise for me to head over to her house to offer any help. But I’m doing much better now so finally tonight I got to go for a short visit.

I didn’t do much. I delivered milk to her door and made a Wal-mart list of things they needed since I was on my way to the store. That was it.

But I got to hug my friend’s neck…and more importantly…I got to do what I’d been longing to do since I heard she’d become sick: I got to pray with her.

Prayer is so powerful. When I feel helpless to do something to “make everything better” when truly, there’s not much I can do to help her body heal…I am so thankful that I can fall to my knees, take my friend’s hands, and pray.

It was beautiful, and I’m not sure but that she may have felt just a little bit better when I left.

I know I sure did.

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Gratituesday: History Lessons

January 17, 2011 by Laura 39 Comments

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I am dealing with a head cold, which has resulted in laryngitis, which is why it is amazing that you can all hear me telling about what I’m grateful for this week. ;)

It’s very difficult to parent your children when you can’t really talk to them. Even just giving them a small command like “Come eat” is difficult…much less trying to offer them advice or break up a squabble. I’m thankful that my voice is starting to come back. I’ll be singing and reading and loudly breaking up arguments in no time, right?!

One big problem with not being about to talk is the fact that I generally read aloud to my kids a lot during each school day. Matt has happily stepped in and done all the reading today, but here is what I recognized:

I had full permission and some very real excuses to take the day off and go hide and read and be by myself all day while Dad took over school time. The very idea sounded lovely and appealing and I fully intended to do it.

But then I realized that I didn’t want to miss out on what was being read. If Matt and the boys did all the reading without me, I would have missed all the chapters read today and the transcontinental railroad had almost made it all the way from New York to California. HOW could I possibly miss the part where the railroad finally came together?!

So Matt read to all of us today…even the Mama, who has finally, now that she is all grown up, decided that she loves history lessons. I know I’ve said it before at various times, but I was reminded again today about how much I enjoy homeschooling our kids and how much I want to be a part of their education. Learning has become such a joy, and while I love watching my kids learn, I just LOVE what I’m learning too!!! History never made sense to me as all the reading I had to do as a student seemed so dry. I only read it so that I could get a good grade on the test, never with the intent to actually learn (if that makes any sense at all).

I have gained a much bigger appreciation for the people of our past now that I am seeing how history played out in the big picture. Through books like Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World series and Joy Hakim’s History of US…I finally feel like I get it now.

I’m grateful to be able to share that History Lessons are really, really cool. Now, if I could just get my full voice back so I can get back to reading out loud. :)

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Gratituesday: Disneyland 2011

January 10, 2011 by Laura 19 Comments

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One of the greatest highlights of our California trip…Santa brought us Disneyland!! We got a lovely deal on this visit as Matt’s brother is a Disney employee (he is SO talented!). What a HUGE blessing (and no, I’m sorry you can’t borrow my brother-in-law)!

Our family, along with Matt’s brother and our three year old nephew, spent a wonderful day at Disneyland together. (SIL and niece weren’t feeling well and couldn’t join us that day.) :(

Right after we walked into the park, we got to meet the “real” Mickey. Hey…what happened to Malachi?

Ah, there he is…

We went on a perfect day when it wasn’t raining and the lines were short. It occurred to me when I was uploading pictures that I didn’t get very many shots of our older boys. They were off having a blast on the “big kid rides” with Matt while I took the younger two boys to some of the “less intense” rides. Picture the older boys screaming (in a manly way) through Space Mountain while the rest of us were hanging out with Peter Pan.

Don’t you love the face Elias gave me when I asked him to smile? He’ll be so proud of this picture when I display it at his wedding rehearsal someday.

Here we are enjoying some pizza, pasta and salad during lunchtime. Riding rides and hugging Goofy works up an appetite.

After Matt and the older boys got off the Indiana Jones ride, they insisted that the rest of us would love it and that we just HAD to all go! We weren’t sure if Malachi would be tall enough to go on the ride and well…he just squeaked by. We cracked up as he walked right under it and was JUST barely tall enough when he stood up straight. I had to get a picture…

I had many favorite parts of the day, but one of my favorites was watching my three year old nephew galloping through the park with excitement for the ENTIRE 12 hours we were there. I kept waiting for him to stop being so excited or to at least get tired. Nope. He kept on galloping and being happy. I think the only time he slowed down was when we went to the “Jedi Training Academy”. When Darth Vader came onto the stage, he (my nephew, not Darth Vader) grabbed onto my leg and hid…peeking out so he wouldn’t miss anything. Is he the cutest or what?

Our Disneyland trip was everything we were hoping it would be. We made great memories for our family and are so thankful we had the opportunity to experience this together.

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Gratituesday: Well Taken Care Of

January 3, 2011 by Laura 22 Comments

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Did I ever tell you about the time we drove to California for Christmas (about 12 years ago) and came home to a flooded house? Yes, we’d been driving for hours with an 18 month old, finally arriving at home at about one in the morning, and saw a bunch of ice in our driveway that seemed to be coming from inside our house. “That’s weird,” we thought.

Come to find out, a pipe had burst probably two days prior and had created so much pressure that it busted a hole in a wall and began shooting water with great force directly into our kitchen. For two entire days.

It was a terribly disheartening thing to come home to. Our house was very little, so pretty much every room had water damage. The kitchen was completely destroyed.

Insurance took care of us, we worked very hard and slowly but surely we put our house back together again.

We learned a few things during that pipe bursting fiasco. First…turn off your water when you go on a trip. (Don’t ask me why we didn’t know that already.) Second…make arrangements for someone to check in at your house from time to time to make sure all is well and that water isn’t shooting through walls.

Recently we’ve been on an extended trip to California visiting Matt’s family (more about our trip as soon as I gather my wits about me). (Has anyone seen where I put my wits?)

I can’t tell you how comforting it has been to know that our house has been well looked after while we’ve been gone. Our friends Adam and BryAnna (Remember them? They’re married now and one of the sweetest couples ever!) (I still like to try beating Adam in Nertz.) (I usually win.) (Not that it matters.)…

Anyway, our friends Adam and BryAnna have been so wonderful to pick up our mail, check things out in our house, call us with updates. It’s a huge blessing to be looked after since we’ve been so far from home.

I’m very thankful to be so well taken care of (and I’m a whole lot thankful for no busted pipes). :)

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Gratituesday: Family Time

December 27, 2010 by Laura 15 Comments

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We are so blessed right now to be able to spend lots of time with our extended family.

There are kids everywhere. There are toys everywhere. There are aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and friends and joy of joys…there are babies. I have taken it upon myself to hold babies whenever “necessary”. Ooh, and I got to brush my six year old niece’s hair for like…ten minutes!! It was so pretty and so fun and she was sweet enough to let me brush and brush and brush. I truly don’t miss having daughters…but it sure is fun to have nieces!

Tonight, we were taken out to The Cheesecake Factory as a Christmas gift. It was wonderful to visit and yeah, the cheesecake wasn’t too bad at all. :)

I hope you’ve been able to spend lots of time with those you love. I’m very thankful to have family to love and spend time with!

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Gratituesday: Tidings of Joy…Somewhere

December 20, 2010 by Laura 131 Comments

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(Oh look, this post has the Christmas Brunch invitation!
That means that any comments left on this post will be included
in the drawing for our Christmas Brunch Presents!)

We’ll pause just a moment in the midst of our Christmas Brunch to offer a little bit of holiday encouragement. Can I get anyone a cup of hot cocoa while we visit?
—————————————————————-

Silent night…Holy night…All is calm…wait, really? Where? When? All I’ve witnessed lately is loud evenings that are anything but calm. There are holiday parties to attend, Christmas programs to prepare for, presents to buy, presents to wrap, presents to send, goodies to bake, cookies to decorate, and somewhere in there I’m also supposed to keep up with my laundry.

There are Christmas songs playing all around us everywhere we go. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be offering us tidings of comfort and joy, but sometimes I believe that the joy gets lost somewhere in between trying to figure out what to buy for Great Uncle Gilbert and looking frantically for my son’s left black dress shoe for his music recital. Incidentally, Uncle Gilbert already has everything he needs plus everything he doesn’t need, including Big Mouth Billy Bass the Motion Activated Singing Sensation. And by the way, why must I always have to be the one to draw Uncle Gilbert’s name in our family gift exchange?

My husband had a sad little chuckle one day as he stood in a long line waiting to return an item at the store. Many of the other shoppers in line looked weary and haggard, some of them were grumbling about the length of the line and the time it was taking to be helped and in general, no one seemed happy. The music heard through the speakers was what caused my husband to pause as, “It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year!” was being sung out cheerfully in the background. Wow, if this is what we tend to look like during the “most wonderful time of the year” I’d hate to see us all during the most terrible time of the year (which is what, say…flu season?).

I’m not sure it matters how much we plan ahead and try to stay organized during the holidays. This is just a busy time and there’s not much any of us can do about it.

This is the part of the article where I’m supposed to smile and kindly say, “So let’s all just take a moment to meditate on the birth of our Savior and the reason we celebrate Christmas.” I’m not going to say that though. If I did, I’d be afraid you’d give me a justifiable bonk on the head with a roll of wrapping paper. Don’t tell me to remember the reason for the season! I’m TRYING to remember…I just can’t find the black dress shoe! WHERE is the black dress shoe?!

While we all look for the perfect gifts (and the long lost black dress shoe), I pray that we also find those tidings of comfort and joy that have been offered. I hear they’re great this time of year.

P.S. I don’t really have a Great Uncle Gilbert but if I did, I would never complain about having to buy him a gift. I think.

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Gratituesday: Printing in Progress…

December 13, 2010 by Laura 7 Comments

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Guess what?! You asked for it…we’ve been working on it…it’s just about to happen!

Ever since we launched our Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve downloadable curriculum, many of you have asked if/when the kit could be purchased in a hard copy. It’s been several months in coming, but it’s allllllllmost ready! Actually…a few are sitting ready to ship! (Always a funny term to me. What…like we have a boat?)

We’ve researched the best way to go about printing and binding our curriculum and finally settled on investing in a nice printer to create the books ourselves. The printer has been humming for a good part of the afternoon and we’re very happy with the quality of the pages. These 240+ full color page curriculum kits are placed in a nice 3 ring binder, making it easy for you to pull out pages for your family’s use.

learnyourletters

I can’t tell you how exciting this is after so many months of working to figure out what would be the best printable deal and option for you. That’s why this news becomes the Gratituesday post for this week. That, and I’ve done little else but play with our printer tonight so that’s sort of the biggest thing on my mind right now. It is SO exciting! I love how the curriculum kit looks in book form!!!

The Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve Curriculum Kit in Book Form is ready for Pre-Order NOW! As we have four Books completely finished, the first four of you to order should for sure have yours sent within a couple of days, making it possible to have in your hands before Christmas!! Beyond that, all we can say is that we’ll do our best. January is a great time to begin using this curriculum so we’ll work hard to get the books out in a timely fashion. (Keep in mind that you can buy a downloadable copy and have it immediately in your possession!)

I’m very thankful to all of you for your patience as we figured all of this out. It sure is nice to see our lovely printer, sitting over there in the corner getting a work-out. Woohoo!

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