We had a couple days of pretty weather this past week, and we took the opportunity to go outside and soak up the sunshine. On one of our walks we discovered a big patch of dandelions! I always think of the saying, “Some people see a weed, others see a wish”, when I see a dandelion. I am a believe in wishes type, and I still love blowing the little seedlings off the dandelion. David caught eye of a nearby friend and ran off to play with him, but Emma, Samuel and I made wishes. 🙂 Samuel loved blowing on the dandelions, and occasionally tasting them. 🙂 Emma was really into making wishes! She made so many I wish I could remember them all! She wished for our garden to grow food, for daddy to be safe at training, for the field to be full of beautiful flowers, for paw patrol to be real, for a pony, for rainbows, and I can’t even remember the others! It was so precious, and I do remember thinking about how selfless a lot of her wishes were. Emma has such a sweet heart.

Time has passed pretty quickly for the most part this week. I am glad to finally be in February! We are marking the days off the calendar! The days that I am busy, my mind is occupied, and I feel like I am accomplishing a goal, I do really well. I can maintain a positive mood. However, when I find myself unsure of what to do in a day, or if we are in a lull, my mood deteriorates and I start to feel the sadness. I have been trying to make sure I stay focused on keeping our routine, and playing with the kids. I am also trying to downsize the amount of our things. I have had some success in selling and donating quite a bit of stuff, but I still need to clean out some more! Mostly toys that I need to sort through. I will have to be sly to accomplish this! If the kids get the slightest hint of me getting rid of anything that could possibly be theirs, the cause will be lost! If I succeed, they will never miss anything. At least not for a while… 😉

David has been doing well at school, and he made excellent grades this last quarter. He has his days where he wants to be lazy, but once he gets into the work, he does excellent. He loves reading, and can read so well! I often forget just how well he can read. The other day we ran some errands and picked up some lunch. On the way back home we passed a street corner where there was a person standing on the corner holding a sign. We didn’t have to stop at this corner because our light was green, and so I barely even caught sight of this person, plus I am jaded because there is almost always someone standing on that corner. However, David, for apparently the first time, noticed this person and read his sign. David said something to me in the car about that man’s sign said he was homeless. I was focused on driving and I don’t recall even really responding. When we arrived at home, I noticed something was wrong with David. I asked him what was the matter. He said something to the effect of “I am sad because of that man’s sign. He doesn’t have a home”, and then he went into total melt down. We had to have an impromptu lesson about poverty, and homelessness. We watched some you tube videos for kids about it, and we had a talk about it. I must have told our kids a hundred times how we need to be thankful for what we have because there are many people in the world less fortunate; There are people who don’t have enough food, clothes, or a place to live, but I guess it went over their heads because they have never experienced meeting or seeing someone like that before. It also made me think about my actions!!😳 I want to set a good example for my kids, and help make the world a better place for them. Maybe I need to start paying more attention to people on the street corners! I was given an idea from my mother-in-law, and I think I will start keeping a small bag of non perishable food items, and toiletries in my car for just such an instance! My parents also say they sometimes go buy a fast food meal and then give it to someone who says they are in need of food, instead of giving them cash. I told David I was proud of him, I loved his caring heart, and that I wish for him to always care about others like that.

Yesterday we went to Jim and Alesia’s house, or as they are more commonly known around here, Grand-mama and G-pa. 🙂 Emma has really been into having tea parties lately, and so we had another tea party at Grand-mama’s house. Emma wants to dress up on the days we are planning to have tea. It’s so cute, she goes and picks out one of her dresses to wear for that day. The kids had fun playing, and spending time at G-pa and Grand-mama’s house, and we all went for an afternoon walk together too! We spent the night, and the kids loved sleeping on the bunk beds at Grand-mama and G’pa’s house. 🙂

This evening I started a fire in my fire pit. We enjoyed being outside! The temperature was actually pretty nice, however it did start to shower on us just as we were going to roast hot dogs. The rain wasn’t enough to put out the fire, and so I roasted hot dogs and marshmallows anyway! The kids then enjoyed a picnic on the living room floor while watching Monster’s Inc. 🙂

I stole this picture from Facebook. Andrew is leading a briefing in one of his classes. I’m still not used to the camo!

If I had a hundred wishes And only one of them could come true I would wish that, over this distance I could be right there, now, with you.

Love,

PK