Giving Thanks Day 9 ~ Being a Stay at Home Mommy

Today I am thankful, and truly grateful for being a stay at home mom. All moms are working moms, and I count my blessings that I am able to stay home and be with my kids as much as I possible can. Though one day I will go back to school and get another degree to reenter the workforce, a dear friend reminded me yesterday...there will always be time for that. And she is right, they are only going to be little for a little while and if I can stay at home, that is a blessing. While they will always be my babies no matter what their age is, I am blessed to be here for all the moments and realize how precious they are. I have friends who both stay at home and those that go to work, some who have no choice, and some that have had to return to work after years of staying at home. I do not take this blessing for granted, as life can change in an instant. I don't know how my friends go to work and then come home and do all the things that I know they do, they must have super powers! I have friends that say they don't know how I do all the things I do, having a child with special needs and all that entails. I think as mothers we are equipped to adapt to any situation life throws our way because we are forever thinking of our kids and what we feel is best for them. I know one day I will return to the workforce and my boys will see that a Mom can do it all. I grew up with a mom who worked until I was 7 and then she became a Stay At Home (work from home) mommy. I was able to see the pros and cons of both. I saw the sacrifices both my parents made, we didn't always have the best but we never did without, they made sure we had what we needed and showed us how to make the best of everything. I feel extremely lucky and blessed to be able to stay home, as I know many would love to the same. Those that have been able to stay at home, know that it is not an easy job but one with great rewards and sacrifice (it is not all bonbons and soap operas). Today at awards day, being able to sit and watch the boys get their Principal and Honor Roll Awards, I felt so honored and privileged to be able to be there. Many parents were there and you could see the kids faces lighting up as they panned the crowd searching for their moms and dads. After the awards assembly they kids were treated to a reception in the cafeteria and we were able to go hang out with them. I love Fridays because for the past 4 years I've had a standing lunch date with my little men. I enjoy packing my lunch and sitting at the cafeteria table hearing all the kids sharing their stories and laughter. I felt blessed to be there and thankful that I have seen so many moments of their lives...and look forward to seeing many more! I love this poem from Diana Loomans "If I had my child to raise over again, I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less. I'd do less correcting, and more connecting. I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I would care to know less, and know to care more. I'd take more hikes and fly more kites. I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play. I'd run through more fields, and gaze at more stars. I'd do more hugging, and less tugging. I would be firm less often, and affirm much more. I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.I'd teach less about the love of power, And more about the power of love.It matters not whether my child is big or small, From this day forth, I'll cherish it all" ♥

Giving Thanks Day 8 ~Thankful for Traditions

 Today I am thankful, and truly grateful for traditions.  Yesterday I posted a picture of one of our Christmas trees that we left up all year long.  We didn't intend to leave the tree up all year long, it just sort of happened.  It started off innocently enough, we always take our family Christmas photo in front of the Christmas tree each year. We usually take it in January after the hustle and bustle of the season is over and just before we take the tree down.  This year, things were busy with the boys in Cub Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind and dealing with the damage at our beach condo....and each month the tree was up, but no picture.  By March it seemed pointless to take one, the weather was warm, and spring flowers were emerging.  Who wants to put on a Christmas sweater and take a picture then?  I thought about my Grandma Cooper who had left her Christmas tree up all year long...it was a tradition I don't know how or when it started....but she always left her tree up in her formal living room in the front of the house.  So, this year I decided to leave the tree up in her honor.  I wondered if I was going to have to dust the tree, worried if the lights would work, and then there were the puzzled looks and giggles of friends and family when they would see or hear that my tree was still up.  Yesterday I turned the tree on....and know how the tradition may have started for my Grandma.  It's a lot of work getting the trees decorated and the house set up for Christmas.  Especially when you love Christmas so much and with each little thing you put out the kids eyes light up with excitement.  My grandma no doubt tirelessly decorated her home and kept things up so that kids never lost their sense of wonder.  It made me think about traditions, the many we started and some we've continued over the years.  We hang a pickle on the tree each year, the first one to find it gets a surprise.  We have an advent calendar (my mother would buy us one with the chocolate treats in them that we'd open each day)...and now we have a wooden one that has little toy surprises in them.  We have a Christmas Dinner at our house early in December for all our friends and family.  We would get a pink peppermint pig each year to enjoy after dinner with our friends and family.  We go to Disney during the holidays as often as we can, because it's even more magical decorated for Christmas.  We decorate our trees listening to Christmas music (a tradition that started with my mom and I hanging ornaments on her "fragile" tree...scratchy albums dusted off and played on a very old stereo that even had an 8 track tape deck on it), We play CD's of Christmas music now, but I will always be fond of the albums (and may have to search online to find them to play on our record players).  We hang ornaments we've made, ornaments from places we've traveled or visited (recalling our memories as we hang them on the tree), and angel ornaments for those that have passed on (honoring and remembering our treasured memories with each one), and special ornaments that once hung on our parents Christmas trees.  We have themed trees, and the boys love the ornaments that "do things" like play music or have motion.  They look forward to going to Hallmark to pick out a new ornament to hang on our tree. We started a tradition of collecting nutcrackers and add  one or two to our collection each year.   The boys look forward to setting them up (and playing with them).  We set up a train board with trains that Santa has sent the boys when they were little...and put our Polar Express Train under our biggest tree.  There is nothing like the sound of a kid's train and seeing a little ones eyes light up looking at all the houses with their lights glowing of a Norman Rockwell Christmas Scene displayed on the train table.  My dad always had a train out with Christmas houses and he even has a train room, filled with the sounds of Christmas!  We read Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve and spend the day watching our favorite holiday movies A Christmas Story, It's A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, A Miracle on 34th Street, and ending with the Polar Express.   We bake chocolate chip cookies especially for Santa, and my little "elves".  My mom and I would bake in a frenzy for an entire day to make a box of treats to give our family and friends...the smells of peanut butter/chocolate fudge, mini cheesecakes, snicker doodles, chocolate chip cookies, covered pretzels would fill the house and expand many a waistline!  We decorate the yard with inflatables and light displays....and always a Nativity. My dad has always decorated our yard and makes it a Winter Wonderland that people come from all over to see.  We have purchased things for his yard and I've painted countless Disney Christmas wooden cutouts that he displays with pride.   We look forward to putting something new in our yard and seeing neighbors drive by and stop with their kids to watch the lights, see the displays and hear the music.  And speaking of the Nativity, it is a special moment to bring out the Manger scene and the kids take turns on who places baby Jesus in the manger.  We started the tradition for our family, my parents, brother and sister's families with the Elf on a Shelf....which has brought so much joy to the little ones over the years.   Every year at Thanksgiving our Elves return and provide joy and mischief to all the kids in our family.  We started a tradition of going to the ICE Show at the Gaylord Hotel each year and the boys look forward to seeing the sculptures each year.  We've been going since 2009 and it is something we look forward to when we go home to visit family and friends. We have a tradition of getting pictures taken each Christmas, with Santa and display each years pictures near our fireplace.  We started a tradition of going to historical places over the holidays and we look forward to going to a Candlelight service as the Christmas Story being shared between Christmas Carols.  We started a tradition years ago at my moms house when I wanted the boys and their cousins to make a Gingerbread house and decorate it. We bought a kit and my mom said "they are going to make a huge mess" and I said "that's the point".  I'll never forget their first house they all made and my mom sitting there holding all the walls up tirelessly as the frosting was drying.  And now each year she gets each one their very own Gingerbread house to decorate (and we assemble them first before decorating them, lesson learned from that first comical Gingerbread house).   I am thankful I left my Christmas Tree up all year, it reminds me of traditions started years ago with my Grandmother, traditions my parents started, and ones our family has started.   Each year at Christmastime, as we get our "Totes" of decorations out, we open those traditions filled with nostalgia and unleash a flood of memories and we get wrapped up in happiness of the season.   Especially at this time of the year, we are thankful for our traditions both old and new and we are blessed to have them....Now I want to get out the rest of our decorations, I am in the "spirit" of the season after thinking of our traditions...and I am sure as I open the totes this season there are some I've forgotten to mention, and there will be some that may start this season...and some that will end at some point...but I hope that my little men will cherish them as much as I do!  

Giving Thanks Day 7 ~ Freedom of Speech

♥ Today I am thankful, and truly grateful, for the right to have freedom of speech. I am thankful that I was raised in a manner where you could share how you felt and what you thought even if it wasn't the most popular or what people would want to hear. Not everyone is going to like what you say 100% of the time, but I am thankful that in our country we all can say what is on our minds (even here on Facebook). It would be great if we lived in a world that was respectful of our speech and not judgmental, but I am thankful for the right for all of us to say what we feel. I may not always agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Each voice deserves the right to be heard, that we can express what we feel, as we feel it without fear or reservation. And when it really comes down to it, it's not so much having the right to say what is on our minds it as it is to be heard. To have someone "hear" what we have to say. I am thankful that I was raised to fight for what I believe in, to stand up for what is right, and to not be afraid to go against the grain. I am thankful I was raised to challenge what I was taught, to question what is presented, and to be compassionate with others as I discover and grow. What you have to say is important and vital, and is real. I was raised with the strength and courage to make difficult choices when an easy option was presented, to speak up in times when no one else will. To talk about the good, the bad, the joys, the sorrows, to not be ashamed to speak up, and that even when things are "unsaid" they are heard.....I am thankful I can speak about them all. I was raised that we all make mistakes and hopefully we learn from them an grow. I was raised to help others in times of need. I was raised to have an open mind and be objective, and to search for answers, and to try to make things work. These are things I hope to instill in my children...♥ Audre Lorde sums this up beautifully “I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

Giving Thanks Day 6 ~ The Right to Vote

 "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin ♥ Today I am thankful, and truly grateful for the right and the honor, to vote in the USA. Growing up, my parents were hush, hush about who they voted for (and sometimes even to this day still are). They kept their vote "private" and they kept that to themselves even after the election was over. Now, the media, the ads, the debates are exuberant with spending and words bashing one another....friends and family becoming bitter enemies because they do not share the same views, it is clear that the verbal assaults were not limited to just the candidates. Not to mention the amount of money that is spent campaigning could be better spent reducing our debt, helping charities, etc. For this, I am thankful this election will be over, but I feel that the division runs deep and I still predict that one will win the Electoral Vote and the other will win the Popular Vote. This will be a close election which means the division will be there after the polls close and the winner is announced. It is sad to see this great country so filled with bitterness and hate towards their fellow man all because they do not share the same point of view....it's shameful. I respect the right for individuals to exercise their rights to free speech, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and who they view things presented...I dislike the mean spirited, name calling, the lies, the character assassinations that have seen from both sides, their parties, and their supporters.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" ♥ Today is the election at the boys school and Cooper is running for Secretary along with 6 other candidates. They present their campaign speeches this morning and the 3-5 graders will get to view them and then cast their votes. Their speeches were only about who they were and could not be filled with promises like "no homework" or bashing the other candidates. They were allowed to make 2 posters, one speech, and could pass out stickers/candy (only to kids in their class). Our state and national politicians and their campaigns could stand to learn a lot from a simple school wide election and the kids who are running for "office". That is the kind of election I could wholeheartedly stand beside and support. I can honestly say that I would have no problem casting my votes at their Elementary school Election as I do today casting my vote ♥ Maybe they should have elections with a "none of the above" so we can opt not to choose any of the individuals running until someone steps up that can unite ALL Americans in a way that has not been done before. It is our right, and civic duty, to vote....for me, it will be based upon the content of one's character, both mine and the person I am voting for. Henry David Thoreau sums it up best “All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obli­gation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.” ♥ Vote for Obama, or Vote for Romney, it's your Civic Duty...Vote for SOMEBODY!!

Giving Thanks Day 5 ~ Photographs

 “Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham ♥ 

Today, I am thankful and truly grateful for photographs. It is no surprise to anyone that I am a shutterbug...My camera has been an extension of my being for as long as I can remember. I think in part because with my camera I can capture the moment, the feeling caught in a still frame to become a lasting memory. What has always been a hobby, remains so...I enjoy taking pictures of my children, sunrises, the beach, and have many treasured memories captured forever of family and friends. There is something nostalgic about a photograph to me, turning pages in an photo album, old black and whites, snippets of moments to share with generations to come. There are those "still frames" in my mind that require no memory card or photo album, but I am thankful for photographs that take me back in time to a memory, feeling, and I am so thankful that there is a picture of that moment. Sometimes photographs gently remind us to be grateful and thankful for our many blessings. I take so many that one may wonder am I in the moment enjoying it since I am behind the camera. I find myself behind the camera more than I am in front of it, I think because I feel more comfortable behind the lens...watching the moments unfold and then just clicking away, snapping up memories....there are some moments that are posed, moments that are spontaneous, celebrations captured, ordinary and insignificant moments...no matter what the picture is of I find myself lost in a sense of wonder of that image.....So I am thankful for treasured moments, captured on film which will always be most important and most valuable memory. They say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I say a picture is worth a priceless treasured moment....one we can never have too many of ♥

Giving Thanks Day 4 ~ To be a Mother

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

♥ Today, I am thankful and truly grateful to be a mother. There truly is no greater gift God could have given me, I am so blessed and honored He chose me to be their mommy. There is no greater joy or love than being their mom. Through all the trials, losses, anxiety, treatments, and bed rest...I was blessed to be a mother to two beautiful miracles. I thought my heart had felt love before, I thought I knew what love was...but nothing prepared me for the amount of joy, hope and love that I felt holding my babies for the first time...That feeling only grows with each passing day. Each day is an adventure, with new things to learn and discover. Being a mother, challenges me in ways I never knew, tests my courage, strength, and patience. I find that I am discovering things about them just as much as I am learning about myself, sometimes I am rediscovering things in a way I would have never seen before. Being a mother has made me realize what is truly important in life, and to appreciate all the moments that come along...to enjoy the little things, the small things...the magical world of imagination, to be silly, to play, and to laugh, and laugh a lot. This is the most important role anyone could have in this world to help children grow, discover, and love... I thank God everyday for this opportunity to make a difference in their lives and am blessed for what a difference they make in mine ♥

Giving Thanks Day 3 ~ The Beach

At the beach, life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun. -Anonymous

 ♥ Today, I am thankful and grateful for waking up at the beach. To see the sunrise cast it's sparkling rays over the ocean and sand, watch dolphins play, the sounds of waves crashing onto the shore, feeling the sand between my toes...to be there with my boys enjoying the moment, very thankful for every day I wake up and I'm alive....but even more so here at the beach, where the lifestyle is laid back, carefree, and serene. Knowing it is always changing, it is always beautiful and a sight to behold, even during a storm, when it is raging with waves relentlessly pounding the surf and the powerful waters that crush onto the shore...then after the storm the water is so calm, serene, and peaceful....Maybe that is what I love about the ocean so much, each day is different, it's ever changing. And just like the ocean and it's sunrise, you can never take it for granted, each sunrise is different, the water is unpredictable, that everything could be gone or taken from you in a wave, tomorrow isn't promised, you have no control over what happens, but if you are lucky enough you learn to surf or sail and find a way to ride out the storms of your life and the sun will rise up and the waters will be calm again, sometimes even more beautiful than before, and just like the ocean recedes after a storm, things are made clear, and you begin to focus on what really matters, what is really important and that becomes your sunrise at the beach in your life each and every day no matter where you wake up. ♥ For this I am thankful and truly blessed.