It's the Small Stuff

 Every single day there are new images like this on my phone.  Brenna (along with her big bro and sister) is a sneaky little thing.  Half of the time, I never even knew she had my phone.  When they are surprise photos, I laugh.  When I am running after her telling her to hand it back to me, it is not so funny.  It is interesting to see what things we find as blessings and what we don't recognize as such.

We had a great month and a great Thanksgiving holiday with my family this year.  Awesome food (sweet potato souffle, caramel pecan pie and pretzel jello were my assignments this year), a fun, fabulous movie (Frozen), and games.  It was a near perfect holiday, we just missed Brad and his family. 

Lots of families have a tradition leading up to Thanksgiving where they list blessings or things they are grateful for.  We did that this year on our kitchen chalkboard and it was the best thing each night for each of us to think of a blessing or somehow we recognized the Lord's hand in our life that day.  Brenna would talk about doing 'our thankful-fors' throughout the day.  Here is our board by the end of the month:

 

There was a wide variety of blessings, color coordinated by each member of our family.  The grateful subjects ranged from the coast guard, to prayer, to food, to the Savior, to friends, to pumpkins and minions.  Yes, minions...that was Brenna's pick one night.  Katelee, while not listed on our board, found she is grateful for high heels.  She got her first pair and she feels like she is walking on cloud nine.  She walks on that cloud somewhat carefully, so as not to fall, but she is in love with them...and herself in them.  Her first day wearing them to church, I saw her writing a note with a picture that said, "I got my first hi hills.  I look gorjis." (gorgeous).  That made may day. 

 She actually gave me something to smile about that same day when she locked herself in my room screaming and sobbing after a fight with Grant and me telling them to stop.   She was in there for a good 30 minutes.  That wasn't what made me smile, that makes me shake my head, but as I was getting ready for bed that night, I found what she had been doing for that half hour.  On my desk was a book she had made.  She is very into making books right now.  This is a very special one.  It is dedicated to our whole family.  Every page highlights every person and Katelee has listed what each member does to bug her and what we all  need to work on.  Apparently, I am the yeller in the family and I need to talk about things and not yell.  Dave's truly says he is 'prfikt of not bugginging' her except for popping her toes.  We both need to work on those.  Brenna needs to stop biting and hitting (agreed) and Harrison needs help from mom and dad in not pulling her hair.  I am feeling a little bit like my page was unfair.  Grant had a page, but he ripped it and drew on it before I could see it.  Oh, I have had a good laugh about that book.  Poor poor Katelee living with us!  But, small things like that make me smile. 

 I love that baby Harrison is getting big enough for his little jumper.  I love the days I can catch Brenna being sweet to him and not saying "Get out of here, Baby!"  like she did yesterday.  It is indeed the small things he does that fill me with so much joy right now.  He has had a few good nights and I am SO grateful for that.  I held him after he ate today and and we just stared at each other.  He would smile, I smiled and he would talk, I would talk.  He just stared at me until he was ready to close his eyes and go to bed for the night.  That seems like such a small thing, but it truly is the greatest.  Well, that and minions...