Find the "Wonderful" in Today!

It was a cold and blustery week...

we woke up to this lovely snow on Sunday

We had rainy afternoons
for several days without much sunshine at all!
(yes the weeds in my yard are growing quite well, if I do say so myself) ;)
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And I reflected often on a quote I have in my kitchen and at my office at work:
"Find the Wonderful in Today"
(here is a little blurb
from our Christmas letter we sent to family and friends last year that always "Cheers me" when life gets stressful and overwhelming)

(December 2007)

.......Tracy has gone back to school, attending BYU-I and continues working as the Network Administrator for Fremont School District, this keeps him extremely busy and so we have had to be very creative with our family time. I can’t count how many times we would put our dinner in a thermos, pack the cooler and take our kids to the Lake, the Cress Creek Trail, or the Park to have dinner so we could add “fun” to our day". Since we didn’t get to see Tracy as much as we liked to, we compromised and took our FUN someplace different and created memories with our kids that will last a lifetime! With that being said, my new saying this year has been:
Find the “Wonderful” in Today!!

Sometimes it’s hard to find the “wonderful” in today, but there is ALWAYS something you can enjoy and be thankful for.
Whether it be the beautiful sunrise or sunset, holding hands with your sweetie, a hug from your kids, having your spouse, kids or grand-kids tell you the sweet words “I love you”, warm chocolate chip cookies, talking with a friend, your “health”, the sunshine, walking in the rain, the picture your kids drew for you, fresh produce from your garden, the flowers in every season, eating your favorite meal, weekend breakfasts, having a few minutes of free time to work on a project or read a book, listening to beautiful music, going for a walk in the fresh air and the list goes on…(end of quote)

Poor Jade...
Friday we had another stressful afternoon as Jade had a "seizure afternoon"
(read Jades story about Epilepsy here).
I feel SO badly for Jade and the struggles he experiences daily in life and I just hope I can be a great mom to him and always be the encouragement that he needs to have a happy and productive life!!
I feel SO blessed to be Jade's mom
and I love and appreciate
the JOY that he brings
to our home and our lives!

*********

Feeling very grateful
that he didn't have a seizure on the bus, or worse, a seizure at his track meet, which thankfully got cancelled and most of all I am thankful that we only have to deal with a Seizure day once every 10 to 12 weeks.

When Ethan started Kindergarten...
his teacher read the book "The Kissing Hand" to his class and Ethan loved it so much we bought it and we read it quite often ourselves. It is the SWEETEST story and one of my all time favorite children's books and at the end of the book there is the
"I Love you" sign
in sign language and so I am always
doing this sign to my kids when I see them in public.

I go and help out in Ethan's school class

on Thursdays and I always do this sign
when I am leaving
and the kids always ask Ethan
"What does that sign mean that your mom is making". Ethan tells them it means
"I Love you"!
I just hope my kids know
how much their mom loves and adores them
and how proud I am of them!

VERY grateful for my "handy" hubby

who fixed the door on our dishwasher this weekend!
(our dishwasher is only 1 year old--it is an Amana and we have loved it, except for the cheap plastic handle assembly inside the door, which broke).
Anyway, he took the door off and machined some parts in his garage workshop to replace the broken plastic ones and now it works as good as new.
I sure NEVER take for granted all of the MANY, MANY things that he does for us to keep our homing running smoothly.
Me and my kids are SO lucky to have Tracy!

It seems that every time you turn on the news, you hear depressing information about the economy, the Swine Flu and SO much negativity and also with the daily UPS and DOWNS of family life and the trials that come our way it is sometimes easier to dwell on the negative instead of the positive and so
I always try and do my best to make it a point to do as my quote says and:
"Find the Wonderful in Today"!
I can honestly say...
LIFE really IS GOOD!!