Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for my husband. Last night at dinner Jack asked if he could look at my ring. I held out my hand for him to inspect and a conversation ensued about just what this ring on mommy's finger was. He asked if I would take it off and I said no, I never take it off because it is very special (and possibly stuck!). I told him that Daddy gave me these rings because he loves me and because he promised to always be married to me. I don't recall the exact questions Jack asked, but I repeatedly told him that I would never take them off because I would always love Daddy and that these rings were a gift from Daddy. So today I rejoice and am thankful that those words are true. And I praise God for my husband who won't bail when I make life miserable, who is an encouragement to me, and who works incredibly hard for his family. My best friend who loves me unwaveringly.

Thankful Thursday

Today we thank God for:

-our house. Paul and I have recently thought over the last year and a half and all the changes we had. We are so incredibly thankful to God for walking us through that time. We know just how blessed we were to have a good, temporary living situation, to sell our home in such an awful market, and to find a new home that was beyond our expectations but within our budget. A home is not everything, but to have a home that we love is something we are extremely grateful for. We feel blessed beyond words.

-our neighbors. Along with a new house come new neighbors. We've had some doozies in the past but God has blessed us with a wonderful neighborhood and wonderful neighbors. As strange as it was to end up right next door to high school classmates and a few houses down from other high school classmates, we are so thrilled. I have loved being able to reestablish friendships and see our kids become friends. And having a wonderful friend right next door provides many opportunities for impromptu get togethers and adult interaction-which of course I love.

And on our way home from school today I asked Jack what he is thankful for. I've been trying to ask him every day and talk about what it means to be thankful with him. Yesterday he was thankful for his two blankets. Today he had a whole list. His blankets, the road, the safe road, the sidewalk, and the grass and the fields. 

Thankful Thursday-Thankfulness Plate

My sister had the idea to do a Thankful Thursday blog post for every Thursday in November as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm stealing her idea.

Jack had a bit of homework for school this week. He brought home a small paper plate and we had instructions to decorate it however we wanted to show the things the Friend family is thankful for. True to my nature, we started the small project about 8:20 last night and Jack had to stay up late to get it done. Oops! Early in the day I had talked to him about the project and tried to explain thankfulness to him. I'm quite certain the concept did not click, but he did his best to understand. Last night we sat down at the computer and looked for pictures of the things we were thankful for. His plate turned into a collage as we crammed as many pictures on as we could. After Jack went to bed I took all the pictures off and re-glued them and rearranged them so they actually fit on the plate. At some point (probably starting now!) I have got to resist my urge to make Jack's projects look better. I'm working on that, but this time none of the pictures were staying because he hardly put any glue on, so I had to do something :-)

Jack's plate showed our thankfulness for:
-Family
-Friends
-Jesus
-School
-Tractors
-Play-Doh Toys
-and of course Trains-which he insisted we had two pictures of

Clearly, Jack chose some of these and Paul and I chose some of these. When I talked about being thankful for our families, Jack was quick to name all of his cousins. We do love our extended family a great deal and feel extremely blessed to have such a loving and supportive community of parents/grandparents, siblings/aunt/uncles, and nieces/nephews/cousins.

Fall Program

Jack had his first preschool program on Tuesday morning. I'd been eagerly anticipating this for the past week, so much so you might have thought it was my program! Since school started Jack has taken to randomly bursting out into song. It's incredibly cute and I love that he is learning. So I had heard bits and pieces of the songs I knew we would be hearing on Tuesday, and I was excited to see Jack singing them with his classmates. Of course, one can never be sure how their offspring will behave when placed in front of a large group of people to perform. Driving to school Tuesday morning I was quite anxious. Once again I felt as though I were on my way to my own performance. Once we got to the gym and found seats, my nerves subsided and I was just really excited to see Jack in this new element. As the classes started filing in I spotted Jack quickly and noticed him taking in the scene and trying to spot us in the crowd. Finally, he saw us and grinned and waved excitedly. Just about the first thing I noticed was how short he was compared to, not just his class, but the entire preschool student body. I'm not certain, but I think he might have been the smallest kid there. But he doesn't realize he's small, he frequently talks about how he is getting bigger and bigger. The program began and I think I had a giant grin on my face the whole time. Jack did such a wonderful job. He stood where he was supposed to and didn't act up. He did his best to sing all the songs and he tried to do most of the actions. I was so proud of my little big guy. Besides Jack, my favorite kid was one of his classmates who stood stone faced with his hands never leaving his side during the entire thing. His mom was sitting in front of me and we just kept chuckling at him. The only time he would move or open his mouth was to whisper to his mom if he could come sit with her. Kids are funny. Jack had a great time and I think was super excited about the program, but also that his daddy, Grandma Vest and Papa Friend all came to see him (plus of course myself and his brothers). The rest of the day he talked about being a farmer (they all dressed up as farmers). He slept in his farmer clothes, boots and all at nap time and in the evening he requested to sleep in his farmer clothes. I told him that farmers sleep in white t-shirts and fleece camo pants because Paul had already changed him into that for bed. After a moment of thought he bought into that idea and was satisfied with his farmer sleeping clothes, thank goodness!

These are all the kids in his class.