Thankfulness

Blogs are addictive. I now have six that I check daily for updates - my sister, Brian's co-worker beginning motherhood through adoption, a woman with four kids under the age of 4 - one of whom is a miracle baby who was born healthy a few weeks ago but was not supposed to even live to be born because of problems with his heart, a local man in the military stationed in Afghanistan, a local family and fellow church member who lost their home to a fire, a woman I briefly knew but still call a friend who lost her 2 hour-old baby this spring, and her brother-in-law who lost his 3 month-old to SIDS just a month later. The strangest part of being a silent observer to these people just journeying through life? The traces of God's Hand I can see in each one. Their fear is suddenly turned to joy and gratitude in His Miracles. Their grief is turned to wonder as they slowly see His Plan and His Purpose. Their pain is turned in to a story that is slowly becoming a new ministry for Him to care for the lost souls who are undergoing the same agony. In even the most fresh and agonizing of their stories, I can see God slowly working in their hearts. They are slowly surrendering their sorrow and finding joy in life once more as they lean on Him and His Promises and they learn that He is still good.

But there was one in particular that grabbed me today. A father still reeling from the loss of his son was attempting to understand why God would want us to be thankful IN everything and FOR everything that happens. I don't blame him - I'd have a hard time talking to God, much less thanking Him if I had woken up one morning to find my newborn son gone. I am choked up even thinking of the idea of losing my son.

But it made me think. It made me spend my day pondering thankfulness. There are some easy things that I am thankful for - my home, my family, my job. But what about the little things? What about the things I spend my day complaining about? So that's what I decided to do: make a list of the reason why I am grateful for the things I would usually grumble, whine or complain about.

1. My messy house. I am thankful for the hours I have to put in attempting to organize and clean because it means we not only have enough, but we have MORE than enough.

2. My piles of laundry. It means we have more clothes than some will ever have in a lifetime.

3. My dirty dishes. It meant we had enough food for all of us to enjoy during our three meals of the day.

4. My cranky 2 year old who refused to pose for a picture by the Christmas tree. Because I HAVE my cranky 2 year old when I know a Dad grieving for the son he will never see reach that age. I can hold my son and rock him and play with him whenever I want (or, rather, when he allows me to!).

5. My crazy 8 year old who wouldn't stop getting in my way as I tried to put the lights on the Christmas tree. Because I have a crazy 8 year old who loves me so much that she wanted only to please and help me, and is so full of joy and excitement that she could barely contain herself.

6. My new van that I really can't afford and that will require Brian to continue to work three jobs for a very long time. Because I actually qualified to buy a car during the time of a credit crunch this country hasn't seen in a long time. And because I now own a beautiful van that I love and that has a great warranty that will mean we won't have any $1,000 car repairs any time soon. I no longer have to worry every time I get behind the wheel. Not only that - but I HAVE a great van when there are those who have no mode of transportation at all.

7. My husband working three jobs and the nights that I am home alone to take care of the kids. Because my husband will return home and my single-motherness is limited to only two nights and one morning a week. Because he has jobs that will cover all of our bills and we don't have to pick and choose which ones to pay. Because he is a sweet soul who has a willing heart to care for his family by working so hard.

My list could go on. In fact, it has gone on throughout the day. By the end of the day, I found myself counting my blessings for every time I had a complaint come to mind. God is so good! Not only do I see the traces of His Hand in the lives of these people as they post to their blogs every couple of days, but it makes me see the trace of His Hand even more in my own life. I can see how He has cared for us, how He has blessed us, how He has protected us. I certainly don't deserve it.

So now I challenge you. What are you grateful for that you normally would only complain about? The clothes that don't fit? The fact that you can't lose weight? The house repairs? The friends who won't let you off the phone so you can get back to work? Your to-do list? The hour-long commute? Try changing your perspective on life's problems. Re-tool your thinking. Change your attitude. And, most of all, remember that God is good!

Birthday Time!

Well we survived the birthday party! And it went off beautifully! We had 15 kids show up so that put us at a total of 17 kids with my own two. It was a little wild but we had a few very sweet parents volunteer to stay (including my in-laws) and they seemed to have as much fun as the kids did! I even watched Brian and his mom slide down the gigantic inflatable slide together (and then went on to have a hard time getting back on their feet to get OFF the slide!). Brian and his dad even climbed into one of the bouncing inflatables with Ann Catherine and a few other girls and they all sat in there giggling, jumping, and throwing balls at each other. Towards the end of our bouncing time, the kids seemed to get a little tired of playing on the inflatables and instead declared war on Brian and Pappy. They just stood there in the middle of the room and threw all the balls at the two guys! Luckily, these very special men are good daddies and just little boys at heart so they just threw all the balls back at the girls.

After our bouncing time, they all went in to the party room for cake, ice cream and opening presents. I really thought Ann Catherine would have a hard time sitting in the special party chair and open her presents in front of everyone, but she really did well and had fun being the center of attention for a moment. Later, after we were home and getting ready for bed, I asked her if she had a good time and she said she had so much fun. I asked her what her favorite part was and she said it was the presents. Surprise, surprise!

The Party Room!

Friends from school and Girl Scouts - and the picture was actually taken by AC herself!

Ann Catherine and one of her friends from school

Brian's about to get smacked in the face by one of the girls!

Time for Cake & Ice Cream!

Happy Birthday to You, Ann Catherine! Cha-Cha-Cha!

Am I Crazy?!

OK - so we've never had a REAL birthday party for Ann Catherine before. Well, we've had family birthday parties but never one with kids before. I was starting to feel guilty once she hit Kindergarten and started getting invitations to other kids' parties. The guilt only grew last year when she hit first grade and it seemed like EVERY kid had a party except her. Of course, my hesitation was always her anxiety and her frequent last-minute decisions to not participate or interact with other kids at various functions. I could only imagine paying hundreds of dollars for a huge party only to have my child hide behind my legs and refuse to talk to anyone while all the other kids had a ball!

But this year we decided to bite the bullet and throw her a party. We had a little extra money left over from vacation and thought it would be great to use it on her party. She seems to have come out of her shell a little bit and I've actually seen her play at other kids' parties this year so we thought this would be a great time to celebrate.

In Ann Catherine's class, the teacher's rule is that if you send party invites to the classroom to be handed out, you have to invite the whole class. I was OK with that. Honestly, I thought not many would come because of how close to Thanksgiving we were and because she's a little shy (or overly bossy depending on which parent's personality trait is coming out at that moment). And since her closer friends are in her Girl Scout troop and go to church with her, I thought I'd go ahead and invite the Troop girls too. I sent out 30 invites but paid for a party for 15 kids (the smallest they offer). I honestly didn't even think 10 would come. I even told Mom she and Dad didn't need to come because the adults were all going to get lost (or ignored) in the party.

Imagine my surprise when, as of this evening, I get 15 kids RSVPing YES! And I suspect we're going to have a few surprise guests as well. So now I'm wondering if I've lost my mind! I only know of 4 adults coming to this party - me, Brian and my in-laws! We've gone from imaging a sweet, quiet party with 10 or so kids. Now I'm imaging a room full of chaos with 20! And more chunk of change rolling out of my pocket to pay for the extra guests!

The good news? It reassures my mommy-heart. It tells me that my child has friends. No one wants their child to be lonely and I've heard my daughter cry more than once because she thought that no one liked her. I WAS that little girl so long ago! And it always hurt my heart for her. I didn't want my life for her. I wanted so much better. So hearing that 20 kids love my daughter enough to want to spend a couple hours with her makes my heart just melt. And I don't even mind knowing that I may have to pay a lot more than I originally anticipated. For my daughter's birthday, I feel like I'm giving her the best gift of all - the knowledge that her life is full of laughter, fun and friends. It can't get much better than that!

My Very Cute Headless Dinosaur

Here's my cutie headless dinosaur! Notice you can even see where the head SHOULD have snapped on! My favorite part of the costume - his clawed hands! (Even though you can't see them very well in the pics.)

Praising God, Decisions, Potty-Training and a Headless Dinosaur

In the past couple weeks, I've composed quite a few blog entries. They were all in my head, of course! Earlier last month, I resolved to get better at updating this thing (even though no one really reads it except my family). But every time I'd sit down to write what was on my mind, my focus would be stolen once again by the chaos of my life.

In the past two weeks, I have thrown loud praises to God. I have survived a round of lay-offs at my company. Even though I still worry about what the future holds, and I miss the friends I had made and loved working with, I am so thankful that God safely carried me through and I still have a job that I love to go to every day.

I have also praised God for caring for my family and for carrying all of us safely through a car accident. My heart stopped momentarily on Tuesday as I watched a truck who was unable to stop in the middle of traffic and chose my lane to try to avoid hitting the car in front of him. I watched as he came straight for my van and my breath was stolen when I realized that I could suddenly hear the glass crunching on the road and the outside noises way too much for a closed car. I knew the impact was right around where AC was sitting and I knew a door or window was ripped open, and my heart stopped as I realized my precious little girl wasn't making a sound. How could I survive this loss? It was my worst fear realized. But God had us safely in the palm of His hands. None of us had a single scratch, cut or bruise. And I praise God for giving us the chance to have yet another day together as a family and for knowing that the loss was only for the material.

And now, we pray for His wisdom as we are confronted with some decisions over the van. I found out yesterday that the damage is about twice the amount that my van is worth. So now we're waiting on pins and needles as we wait to see what the insurance company will do. I'm assuming that they will declare the van totalled and will give us a small settlement check. At this point, we've been advised by friends to do just about everything possible under the sun: keeping the van and just fixing the window (because it's paid for and still driving OK - even though I can't really open my door and AC's door is sealed shut and it's only driving OK); buying a small used car worth only what the settlement is so that we continue life with no car payments; and using the settlement as a down payment on a new or used car even though we'd be back to having car payments. Too many options and I feel too small and stupid to figure it out. But I am blessed because I know God allowed this for a reason and He has a purpose in all of it. So we seek His wisdom instead and wait on the insurance company to decide the option they're going to give us.

But despite the gravity of life in front of us, we have had our fun moments as well this past week! I'm spending my day potty-training my son and remembering how bad I was at doing this with my daughter!!! I am seriously contemplating finding someone who's in need of a little extra money and paying them to take on this job for me! While trying to write this post, I've gotten up twice to clean up two messes on the floor and managed to save a larger, darker mess in the middle of the two accidents! At least we made it to the bathroom in time for that one!!! Did I mention that I hate potty-training?!?!

And life was full of giggles yesterday as we took our son to daycare wearing a flying dinosaur costume with no head! This is what happens when you wait until the day before Halloween to get your 2 year old opinionated son a costume. Since we never go trick or treating and decided to skip the church fall festival since we're so new and the kids wouldn't participate, we really intended to not get costumes this year. But then we found out that daycare wanted all the kids to wear their costumes for the day! So we headed to Target and did what any loving parent will do - fight the 50 other crazy moms in the one aisle they have with the leftover 20 costumes. Beggers can't be choosers at this point in time. The first costume we found was a green dinosaur that Will took one look at and fell in love with. One problem - the head for the dinosaur was missing. We only had his body, wings and tail - no head! So Brian and I both got on the floor and dug through the mess sitting underneath the hanging costumes where the bits and pieces and hangerless costumes were strewn. No luck - No head! We searched in the candy aisles and in the leftover decorations aisle. No head! We went back and found an intact dog costume and a horse costume. No luck - He hated them! He wanted his dinosaur. At this point, I'm desperate, tired, and I realizes that it's now 7:45 and I still have to bake 4 dozen cookies and cut up fruit for two parties! So we spent $17 on the headless costume. And my son loves it so I guess it worked out fine.

Once I can get my son to stop prancing around in nothing but his Mickey Mouse underwear, I'll put his costume back on him and take a picture so you can share in his headless experience. Of course, that's if we both can survive this potty-training day!