A friend I met in Africa, Mandie Joy does a gift list on her blog but she uses pictures, which I LOVE. I thought I'd give that a try, since it helps me focus on what I'm thankful for, but also share our life in pictures.
So here's my first "CAPTURE GRATITUDE" post... Hoping it lasts longer than 1 post :).
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“There is no event so common place but that God is present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize Him or not to recognize Him.” Fredrick Buechner
Gift #1: I was home in time for our church's Christmas program.
My original flight home was scheduled for the day of the concert. I was SO thankful to be home in time to be there, and for Tobin to participate. He's such a microphone hog at every opportunity, I thought he'd love being on stage.
2. My journal.
Journalling is more of a necessity to me than a discipline... And I am thankful to have a lovely place to keep my thoughts. I was SO thankful for the amount of time I had to journal my thoughts and prayers in Africa...I'm looking forward to going back through what I wrote at some point.
3. With that in mind...
I'm VERY thankful for a DVD player, DVDs that hold both smaller boys' interest, and the sight of them piled up on the couch with all their "friends" in the morning. Offering me the chance to write in my journal now that I'm home.
4. I'm grateful to be a family of five... Even if it's hard to capture that in a picture. :)
If you're facebook friends with me, then you know that I was a little frustrated by our first attempt at a family-of-5 photo. We're not sending out Christmas cards this year - trying to keep things as simple as possible. But I would love to send something out early in the new year, to our family and to the MANY who supported us and helped us to bring Micah home.
Maybe I'll send this one out, just to keep things real?
5. A 4 year old who loves to "read".
6. Family Christmas traditions (and being HOME to enjoy them).
Sometimes the amount of family we have makes it hard to enjoy Christmas - there's just so much celebrating to do with 5 families to celebrate with.
New perspective this year... Thankful to be here for EVERY one of these celebrations, and the ones still to come.
Singing at the McCutcheon family Christmas... Blue Christmas, but also "Rockytop". Precious memories, and fun to add our "gee-tar" loving little one into the mix this year.
My favorite tradition: Our homespun nativity play at Grammie & Papa's. Group picture (and a video!) coming soon... In the meantime, here's the angel and the smallest shepherd.
Decorating cookies with the little ones. It was a HIT with Micah: I put frosting on his plate, and he wiped it all over his cookie and himself, put on sprinkles, licked everything off. Then repeated the process until I dragged him screaming from the table to hose him off in the shower. :)
So many things to be grateful for!!
