How’s everyone’s Cyber Monday going? Ours was great. We did no shopping, but I did go to my cardio aqua-therapy class!!  So fun and invigorating!

This giveaway is for two packs of fill-in-the-blank notes from Lil’ Miss Gratitude!!  One of your packs will be thank-yous, and the other pack will either be birthday cards or “Hello” cards.

The front of the cards come blank so your kids color the front, or you can also send them out uncolored! These are appropriate for ALL AGES of kids.

I colored this one!

My boys colored this one. Creative.

These are an awesome way to get your kids expressing gratitude, brightening someone else’s day, and all without the whining and fussing.

Here’s a sample of a completed card:

Sample of a “hello” card that we used as a thank you note.

Joshua needed to write about 12 thank you notes after his birthday party, and when he saw these fill-in-the-blank cards, he was so relieved, he ACTUALLY SAID, “Oh, phew. Thank you, Mom. Thank you so much for these. This makes it so much easier.”

Click here to learn more about Lil’ Miss Gratitude!

Giveaway rules! TWO simple ways to enter the giveaway this time.

1.) Subscribe to my newsletter. I have one going out this week! Already subscribed? No problem. That also counts. No need to subscribe again. Just click on the giveaway form below.

OR

2.) Visit Lil’ Miss Gratitude on Facebook, and  give her a “Like.” 

OR You could also do BOTH and get double entries.

I wish you could all win! Merry Christmas!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Cyber Monday Gratitude GIVEAWAY!!!!! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Our family has never been known for our stellar thank-you note etiquette. Instead, thank you notes typically make my boys want to actually return their presents.

“Skylanders, YES!!!!!”

“THANK YOU NOTES??? Oh, um, oh, uh. Moaaaannnnnn….Groannnnn….”

Look, it’s not that they are ungrateful. They SAID thank-you 100 times, jumped up and down, and gave the giver a hug. We are thankful, okay. But sitting down in an actual chair and WRITING out thank you notes??? Apparently some people don’t love that idea.

And many of you know that even after they write them their mother may lose them, forget to mail them, or stick them into a drawer and find and mail them a year later.

Not me, of course. Ahem. Never, no. I’m just so organized and careful. That would never happen to me…. (Ha!!!!! Right.)

But we do want to do the right thing and teach our children to show gratitude to others. We’ve been blessed so much.

The Solution

So Lil’ Miss Gratitude, over at….well…..Lilmissgratitude.com invented something that’s pretty awesome. This is what I used for my son’s birthday this year. He took one look at how it was basically already written and all he has to do is fill in the blanks, and he calmed down.

“Oh. I just fill in these blanks?
“Yep. So easy.”

“OKay. Sure. Do you have more of these? Because I got a LOT of presents.”

“No, but I have some “Hello” cards with blanks too. You could make those work for thank you notes.”
“Let me see. Yeah, okay, I got it. THANKS, MOM! Thank you so much. Phew.”

And look how cute:

I actually colored this one myself. It was fun.

a filled in “thank you” note

He’s too cool to color them, of course, so we sent some out uncolored, and I colored some of the others.

My son also decided that his friends don’t want thank-you notes, so he only delivered them to his grandparents and aunts and uncles. Well, all right, this is me we are talking about. He wrote them 2 weeks ago, and they are sitting right beside me because I can’t remember anyone’s exact address, and I haven’t found the time to look them all up.  Hey, I may be a slacker mail handler, but at least I got him to write the notes! Right?

I love Laura’s slogan for these cards: “We said thank you notes; they heard root canal.”

So if this sounds like a story you can relate to, here’s where you can order your own. I can’t recommend these highly enough:

Go here to order them.

Click here to learn more or place an order.

Believe it or not, this is not a sponsored post, but these fabulous products were provided by Lil’ Miss Gratitude.  Check them out! 

The post Do your kids love writing thank you notes???…..So here’s a solution. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The other day, as I dug through the books on my shelves, I came across a book I have thought of a lot lately, a book like no other.

It’s the little book of Poetry, written by my grandmother, BHK. We’ll call her Beth. Beth died when I was 16, of breast cancer. Her death was one of those that didn’t sit well with anyone. No one said, “Well, it was just her time to go.”

Everyone was more like, “Why did she have to go so soon?”

It was Christmas, and she was only 56. You see, that’s another reason some of us have never been the same on Christmas. There’s more to our Charlie Brown-ness than just commercialism.

To make it worse, Christmas was HER THING. No, really. She owned Christmas, I tell you. She made such a display of decorating her house that she won town awards.

(I’m going to do that this year, too, Grandma! I’m going all out!)

senior portrait

Beauty was her gift. Beautiful Beth. She had a house full of beautiful ceramics, all created by Beth, all perfectly arranged and well kept. Her closet was full of hand-made clothes, mostly dresses. She was prissy, frilly, sarcastic, and fun. Sitting down with a good book, a glass of un-sweet tea, and a cigarette, that’s how we’ll always picture her.

You won’t believe me when I tell you this, but by the time I was born, she wore false eye lashes every single day, and perfume. I used to stand in her bathroom for 30 minutes at a time, just gazing at the fantastic display of Avon perfumes, tiny ceramic pitchers and people, and her unmatched and always tidy collection of make-up.

Grandpa used to jokingly imitate her answering the phone saying, “Hello, this is Beth,” in THE most feminine voice you can imagine.

I loved her so. I often have thought about what it was that made me love her as much as I did, and I think part of it was because she was purposeful in spending time with us. We spent a week at her house each summer, and she would play board games with us kids for hours. She and our grandpa took us to the beach, to Six Flags, to the zoo, to movies, and thrift store shopping. From MawMaw (another name that we called her) I learned the fine art that is bargain hunting.

She used to write me letters, and I would write her back. I kept all of them. I’d love to come across those! She kept my letters too, so I also have those now.

She knew how to get along well with people. She was accepting.

Oh! And did I mention her vast collection of books! Well, obviously, she spoke the language of my heart! There were even times when she owned little book stores, but always there was her downstairs library, wall to wall with books. And scrapbooks! I think we counted about 198 scrapbooks.

At 4 foot 10, or was it 11, I hate how memories fade, she was the first grown-up that any of us kids caught up to.

The year she died was the same year that she announced to us that she had breast cancer, but by then, she’d already had it for two years. She had kept it a secret. I cannot imagine how. I never could, but by the time we found out, it had already moved to her bones. She was eaten up with it. It was only a couple of months after she broke the cancer news to us that she was gone.

We spent that Christmas vacation a couple of hours from home, so Mom could be by her side. We slept at my aunt’s house. I still remember the overwhelming heart break of the visitation service the evening before the funeral.

I sat in a chair near the casket, sixteen years old, losing one of the pillars of my life. I couldn’t take my mind off all the people around me making small talk about the weather. I was suffocating in my thoughts, and I just wanted to make them all be quiet or go away. How could they talk so carelessly? I could barely breathe, and when I couldn’t take it another minute, I ran out to my parents’ minivan, climbed inside, closed the doors, and bawled alone.

I don’t know how any of them figured out that I was there, but one by one, my brother, my mother, and my father all came out and sat in the van with me.

And it turned into one of the sweetest, most comforting moments in my life. There is something about sharing grief with the people who know, who get it, who have lost as much as you have. There is something about it that bonds you like glue and heals hurts deep inside.

I remember saying that I just couldn’t get past the fact that they were going to bury her, my dear little grandma, into the ground. I could not stand the thought of her being put down there and covered with dirt.

“Oh, April. That’s just her body. That’s nothing to her. Her spirit is in Heaven. She is with God, and we will see her again. That’s just her body. Don’t worry about that.”

I don’t remember what else was said, but for some reason, in the midst of my very first great loss, these were the words that I needed to hear. Even more so, I needed the comfort of sitting in the van, just me and the three most important people in my life.

But I’m not going to share this heart-rending story with you, and leave you feeling sad. I would never do that. You know I wouldn’t.

Here is one of my favorite little passages from Beth’s book of poetry. It isn’t a poem. Just wise words from a much loved sinner turned saint.

MY SECRET FOR HAPPINESS

I have a secret for happiness I’d like to share with you.

When you awake in the morning, think of three things you are looking forward to. Remember life’s simple pleasures are often best. They don’t have to be big occasions.

When you retire at night, reflect on three good things about that day.

You’re sure to smile and be happy.               by BHK

Try her suggestion, I dare you.

The post My One of a Kind MawMaw and Her Secret for Happiness appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Bye-bye trick-or-treaters

Any day now it will start to look like Christmas. I, of all people, should not be a Scrooge. I decided to own this whole Christian thing twenty years ago, and yet Christmas gets on my nerves a little bit.

Not like Scrooge.

More like Charlie. You know, Charlie Brown. I love that guy. No, I mean, way more than the average Joe likes him. I, no joke, read every single Charlie Brown collection at my city library when I was around 9 years old. That was about 10 hard back volumes of little “blockhead” comic strips. I know them like the back of my hand. You can see why I can never be a book snob. I completely relate to my son’s love for Big Nate.

But I, like that poor chap Charlie, do tire of the commercialism of the holidays. I need a Linus!

Before we start singing carols, let’s remember something….

It isn’t Christmas yet! It’s the season of THANKSGIVING!!!!!

We have a tradition in our family to never do the same thing twice in a row for Thanksgiving, and we don’t. We don’t go home. It’s too far away. We don’t always do anything. We do whatever we decide that particular year.

Well, we do ALWAYS do ONE thing. We give THANKS. We give thanks to God above, God the Creator, not to be confused with any god that someone made up with their own two hands. I’m sure there are many people who will give thanks TO their food, rather than give thanks FOR their food.

Why is giving thanks to God so important?

God deserves our thanks. Plus, when we are thankful, we are happier. When we are happier, we are more useful. When we are more useful, we bless others. When we bless others, we make THIS world a better place. After all, this world is where we live right now. If we aren’t any good HERE, right where we are, then what good are we?

It’s a chain effect!

When I am thankful, I am happy. Happiness gives us ENERGY! Like that scene in Despicable Me 2! Gru realizes he’s in love, and he’s thankful. He’s happy. He’s hopeful, and he becomes KIND. He brightens the day of every single person that he passes by.

Until someone squashes his hope. Just like that, his new love is gone.

Then he is gloomy, unthankful, and he walks home in despair, crushing many of the same people he just encouraged.

Don’t worry. It gets better at the end. I love those little minion movies.

Let’s be thankful. There is always SOMETHING  to be thankful for.

thankful for fun times with friends

Today I am thankful for rain. Caleb wrote this in his journal this morning, “It is a good day because today it rained.”

Ah! Thankfulness!

“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”     Colossians 3:14-15

Thank you for reading. I’m sick, and when I’m sick, I blog often. Have you noticed? 😉 Every cloud has a silver lining, right? I’m thankful, even thankful for bronchitis, well I mean, a little bit. I’m DEFINITELY thankful for DayQuil and Nyquil. hehe

The post Why Thankfulness is So Important appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The oldest children are off on a play date. JD is taking his nap, and the house is quiet.

Can you feel the excitement??  I’m so excited; I could dance around and make carpet angels……if I had more energy. However, I’m old, and I spent all of my energy on teaching them and making their lunch, so instead I’m going to throw a VIRTUAL party, sitting right here, with my laptop. 🙂

Okay. I will calm down now and try to share what’s on my brain. I just heard a noise, and I sincerely hope that it was the wind and not a two-year-old waking up. I’m sure none of you want to see a grown woman cry.

Let’s talk about what’s been going on lately.

I’m still glowing from the women’s retreat. Real life is back in full force, but all’s well.

Every time I hear “all’s well”, I think of Disney’s Robin Hood and the little vultures that shouted, “It’s two-o’clock, and ALLLLLLL’S WAYEL! ALLLLL’S WAAAAAYEL!”

I only watched that movie 100 times when I was a child.

So yes, “All’s waaaaaayel!”

This weekend:

1. I was on my last pair of contacts because I keep forgetting to go pick up the new ones. JD broke the leg off of my glasses. Then the power went out for almost 24 hours! For a minute, I was worried I’d never get to see again. Ha! But all’s well that ends well.
2. I lost all of my home school paper work that was overdue to my umbrella school. We are not our own private school this year. This year I wisely chose a local Christian school to be a part of, which will make the move go much more smoothly.

So those were my issues, but those things have all been taken care of, for the most part. I totally just took all four boys into the eye clinic with me and picked up my new contacts. It was a long 20 minutes and a whole lot of little boys making faces at themselves in the mirror, but it is done. Phew.

Caleb has been improving in soccer like never before. Two games ago, he had SIX goal attempts. The goalie caught every single one, but we were still thoroughly impressed. Go, Caleb!

Daniel is tearing it up in pre-school. I’m as pleased as punch. I hit upon three must have tools for FUN pre-K learning:

1. Chutes and Ladders: This game will drill numbers, counting, and how to play a board game into a kid’s head like no other. Even for K and 1st grade it’s helpful because every board space is numbered, all the way to 100, which reinforces the higher numbers.
2. Alphabet Bingo: Now that Dan knows most of his letter sounds, this is perfect. We don’t call letters by their name, but by their phonetic sound, which makes for a quick transition to reading.
3. Popsicle Number Puzzles: Aunt Amy created a pre-school kit that is mega, mega wowza. Both littles love the craft stick-puzzle activity the best; I mean now that they’ve used up all of the sticker shapes. Here is the kit:

Here’s the WOWZA KIT! Dan and JD LOVE it. Their fave: She took 10 craft sticks, glued a photo onto them and then cut them apart and numbered the sticks. You can line up the numbers and the picture…..pic to come soon!

Big thank you to Luke!

Alan was privileged to go fishing in Big Sur with his friend Luke last week. If any of you are dying for ling cod, stop by, and we’ll give you a few fillets from our freezer. Alan caught the maximum allowable amount. Alan rarely does anything like this, so I can’t tell you how excited we were for him.

ling (?) cod

Big Sur area

Update on the back drama:

I have this ongoing hip, shoulder, lower back, and finger tip pain problem. Well, actually my fingers aren’t in pain. They are just sensitive to the touch, and I have trouble with fine motor movements. Plus, I get these random low fevers that only stay 24 hours (thankfully) and then go, but that’s been happening for a year now.

I still say I have psoriatic arthritis. I have ALL the symptoms, except for “sausage fingers”. I just haven’t asked my doctor about it, which I need to do.

Anyway, whether it is just a mechanical issue from always using all the wrong muscles or an arthritis issue, either way EXERCISE helps.

The only catch? I’m out of the exercise habit. I still walk daily, but that’s about it.

Enter physical therapy round #2. I’m very happy with my PT team, Ryan and Jesus. Yes, that’s Spanish, so it’s pronounced Hayseuss. I asked him if anyone ever calls him “Jesus” (pronounced the English way). He said, “No,” and I don’t think he laughed. Ha! I told him that just means he’s never been to the South because I know plenty of folks back where I’m from that do not know the Spanish pronunciations of anything.

I still laugh when I think of one family member calling queso, “queso,” pronounced the English way, at a Mexican restaurant.

Okay. Sorry. I got off topic. My point was two-fold:

#1. It will make their lives easier to know at least a little Spanish, so I do think that’s important for children raised in America.

and

#2. I’m hoping my chronic back pain issues will continue to get better as I go through my second round of physical therapy. It’s a terrible thing to pop Advil all the time. (Don’t worry. I typically only take a couple/day.)

It’s bed time that bothers me most. Who can sleep with an unhappy hip or back?

Don’t worry about me, though. Most of the time I’m so busy I don’t even notice it, and if I would take better care of myself, this would improve.

Which brings me to next year…..

We are now 8 months out from our next big move. We aren’t 100% sure where we are going, but we think we will be headed right back to where we came from. I’m researching the schooling possibilities, and this may come as a shock to some of you, so hold onto your seats:

I do not plan to home school the boys next year. I will explain more in a far-in-the-future blog post. I’m thankful I got to do this. It has been so ridiculously hard, but it’s also enlightening.

I have been forced to better discipline my children, and of course, that’s always a work in progress. They are people, after all.

I have had to prioritize deeply. I often scold myself for not doing things I would like to be doing, but the fact is that it just wasn’t a priority. The priority was educating and promoting character growth in my boys.

These boys are my charges. It is my duty to lay down everything else, if need be, to ensure that these boys are raised properly. Alan and I take responsibility for the kind of character that they are or are not developing. Even when I’m not home schooling, that will still be our responsibility as parents. 

I’m continuing to read all I can get my hands on about home schooling and learn from other moms who have done this before me! I may do it again, other years, as needed. Meanwhile, it gives me a great feeling of sweet relief to know that I have several options for next year. It makes the next 8 months feel more doable!

God has provided for me each step of the way, and I see His miraculous work in my life everyday. Some people say there are no more miracles. I guess I am ignorant as to why they say that. I hope no one ever informs me because I still see miracles happening, every single time that I see God intervening in my life. To me, that is a miracle.

I hope you all have a miraculously fabulous week.

…6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.                            Philippians 4:6-7

“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”    Colossians 3:15

The post A Quiet House, Thankfulness, and Sweet Relief appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I resisted posting their picture for as long as I could, but it’s just too good. Such a blessing to share the retreat with these ladies!!

“You can change your life by changing your thoughts.” —Denise Cunningham

I’m still benefitting from my retreat. In fact, look at me. It’s been a week, and I’m STILL talking about it.

This thought-changing lesson is one that God is really drilling into my brain lately. First, it came up in the book I’ve been reading, Unglued, by Lysa Terkeurst. Then Denise brought it up at the retreat.

The importance of our thought life cannot be overstated. It will change who you are! I used to look at any mess in my house and think, “I am such a mess,” allowing that mess to define me and weigh me down.

Why must I be my own worst enemy?

Forget that mess. It’s not ME. It’s just stuff. I’m raising four children here. That mess is just a chore and nothing more.

“Boys! Clean up this floor before you even think about going outside.”

There. Done. My floor is no longer a total mess, and neither am I. I wasn’t a mess before they cleaned it up either. I was just doing that stinkin’ thinkin’ thing.

Let’s be done with that.

What thoughts do you need to turn around?

Let’s level with those thoughts, focus on what we can fix, and pray about the things that we can’t fix.

Figure out what is stealing your joy, and go to war with that. Sometimes we can only pray. Don’t count that out, though, as a small contribution. I have felt powerless about so many things, where all I could do was PRAY. Yet it turned out to be exactly what was needed, and God solved those problems FOR me.

For example: I pray crying babies on airplanes to sleep. Laugh all you want, but crying babies bother me. I know. I know. I can’t help it. I pray them to sleep. It’s never taken God more than a minute or two to get a baby to sleep that I was praying for on an airplane. Now you may snicker and think that’s small beans. It is not. As a mother of four who has flown more than my fair share with all of my babies, I can tell you that crying babies usually elevate stress in the mother the most. Past that, it aggravates those with flight anxieties, headaches, etc. Therefore, praying babies to sleep is a precious gift to many. We all need a little more peace and quiet in our lives, right?

Sometimes we can take practical steps too.

One thing that was stealing my joy was the complaining or negotiating that my boys would do at school.

I have one son in particular that complains and negotiates. That had to go. I can’t live like that. We’re still working on it, but the little chart I made is paying off!!! Big time! Now when a student whines, instead of increasing my heart rate and beginning to unravel myself, I just say, “Go and remove a check mark.”

No need to let someone else’s problem ruin my day. Perseverance is winning this race.

I set up that chart so that every time some one obeys WITHOUT whining or complaining, I give them a check mark. Once they get 17 check marks, they get a prize. They’ve all already earned their first prize: going to see a movie with Mom.

We saw Hotel Transylvania 2. (You can safely skip that movie.)

For the next completed chart, we’re going to Cold Stone Creamery.

I read somewhere that giving toys as prizes increases materialism, so I’m choosing activities instead. This sweet boy is the only one that has already earned his second prize:

My thoughts are still very much a work in progress, but this is not something I have to fix by myself.

When we belong to God, He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us along. We need only to rely on that help.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22-23

“But when they arrest you [for your faith], do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”                Matthew 10:19-20

God will always answer our cries for help, when we are asking him to help us with the right motive. It is definitely his will for us to have positive thoughts, tuning out the lies of the devil, and living happy, productive lives– lives that benefit not only ourselves but also minister to others.

Therefore, we know that if we ask God for help with our thoughts, he will be faithful to send exactly what we need.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”       Philippians 4:6-7

This is the kind of stuff I repeat to myself over and over on days like this, with multiple tutoring sessions, play dates, soccer practices, and meals to get on the table. Phew! Life is exhausting, but if we rely on God and even enlist others to help us, we can feel renewed rather than weary! No one ever said that we need to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. I will no longer be ashamed to reach my arms up and out for help.

My friends and I, on our way home from retreat

“We pray that you will be strengthened from God’s boundless resources, so that you will find yourselves able to pass through any experience and endure it with joy.”   Colossians 1:11

It took going away for a weekend for me to see my life for what it actually is:

My life is adorable!!! No, life isn’t supposed to be easy, but gracious, it ought to be FUN!!

Sometimes we all need to take a step backwards to look at the whole picture. Wow! What a lively, large, laughter-filled, lavish, light, liberated, lovely, lucky, Lord-honoring lot that I have in life!

Today I am thankful, and being thankful brings joy, and joy cannot help but spill over.

The post You Can Change Your Life By Changing Your Thoughts appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.