30 Days of Thankfulness

It's that time of year again. When the stores jump straight from Halloween to Christmas with only a small nod to Thanksgiving in the form of end of the aisle displays with sales on things like pumpkin pie filling, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. I get so frustrated in the weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving because I feel very strongly that in between "Gimme, gimme candy!" and "Gimme, gimme presents!" there should be more than a one day pause where we stuff ourselves full of food and maybe say a quick "Thanks." But Thanksgiving is difficult to celebrate for more than a day. Sure you can make hand print turkeys out of construction paper (mental note to try these with the twins!), or pilgrim paper dolls, but I've found myself looking for something with more substance. And then last year, inspired by my husband's Thank You book (where he daily records 5 things from that day that he's thankful for) and my friend's Thankful Thursdays (where she weekly recorded the things she was thankful for), I started 30 Days of Thankfulness for myself. Instead of 1 day of Thanksgiving, I take the whole month and specifically look for things each day that make my heart thankful.

And so, Day 1, I am thankful for:

Aldi. Without Aldi I wouldn't be able to keep our weekly grocery bill under budget. Today I managed to start the month way under budget, and this also made me very thankful!

My wonderful husband. I am on the brink of sickness. Although I have nothing full blown, I'm having some pain and difficulty when I breath. This left me completely exhausted by this afternoon (which we had anticipated when I decided to do our weekly, 2 store, grocery trip this morning). I called my husband and asked if he could come home for 30 minutes for me to take a quick nap and jump back in. He not only came home, but he brought work to do later so that I could sleep for an hour instead. And then took the kids outside after dinner so I could rest a little more. And then entertained them with a giant pile of leaves at the bottom of the slide. He was definitely my hero today, and I'm so thankful for him.

At the top...

...hitting the leaves...

...so much fun!

At the top...

...hitting the leaves...

...and searching for the baseball he tossed down before him!

Occasionally, they had to stop to jump in the pile of leaves in between the slide and the ladder!

What is this random pile of sticks under the picnic table?

It is the result of the twins' favorite new outdoor activity - stuffing sticks down the umbrella hole!

An amazing year. I realized today that the first folder of pictures I put on this computer was November 2009 (since we purchased it after Thanksgiving). I looked back at their pictures from last year (and the Thankfulness posts from last year), and couldn't believe how much had changed. A year ago we were living in our apartment in MA, the twins weren't even crawling yet, Lucas was looking for a new pastorate position but we had no clue (or even any strong leads) where we would end up, the twins only had 1 cousin who they had only met once, the twins still had no teeth, solid foods were relatively new, and the twins were just starting to say "Mama" and "Dada!" What an amazing difference a year makes. Looking back I feel so amazingly blessed, and so thankful to see the ways God has provided when a year ago we were faced with so many unknowns!

I would love for you to join me in celebrating a season of thankfulness. Feel free to leave comments (on as many or all of the days that you want) telling me what you are thankful for!