My baby brother Daniel turned 30 on November 17th.  He was very excited for his birthday (as he is every year) and began planning his “surprise” party a couple months in advance (as he does every year).  Without fail, Daniel plans the location, time, menu, food assignments, and gifts and gives every family member a 3X5 card with their assignments several weeks in advance (every year). 

This year we thought we would actually try to suprise him by throwing a real suprise party the Sunday before his birthday as we already had family plans for the adults to go to dinner on the 17th.  Daniel had previously mentioned a get together at my cousin Tanya’s home with as many relatives as he could muster.  We have seen many distant relatives lately due to, well, sad circumstances, so inviting them for a happy celebration made sense.  And anyway, who doesn’t love Daniel?

With a couple of emails and assignments drawn up by my sister and I (undetected by Daniel) the party was set.  Sunday evening at Tanya’s house, gifts of 30 things, cake, ice cream, punch, appetizers, fun.  While at church on Sunday my mom gave Daniel a note that said they were going to go for a drive around 6:00 that evening.  Daniel’s shy smiled appeared as he asked where they were going.  To my mother’s reply of “it’s a surprise” Daniel’s wheels started turning.

While everyone arrived, mom and a blindfolded Daniel sat outside in the car.  When it was time for the guest of honor to enter, he asked mom when he could take of the blindfold so he could walk up to 2 or 3 steps to Tanya’s door.  Who did we think we were fooling?  He knew it all along, but that did not damper the excitement of the evening.  He was thrilled!

We counted about 65 people in attendance which in turn lead to lots of presents!  Some examples of presents are:  30 soda cans, 30 fun size m&m’s, 30 gold $1 coins, 30 $2 bills, 30 ties, 30 bags of snack size chips, 30 christmas songs on CD, and many more.  All in all the party was a success.  Here is a little viewing pleasure of the moment he arrived…

I could go on and on and on about how great Marc’s mom is, how much she does for us, or how much the grandchildren love her, but this post is to thank her for one specific thing.  Take a look!

She made these great curtains and darling “Thomas” valences for Carson’s bedroom.  Although she completed them quite some time ago, we finally had time to put them up (Thanks Daddio).  Marc was waiting for Carson to clean his room before he put them up and yesterday was THE DAY.  I love the way these curtains dress up his room and bring more color in.  They are perfect.  His room feels cozy now and not so stark.  They also compliment the wonderful Thomas mural by Lucinda that we just can’t get enough of, so here’s a picture of that too.

I don’t know how much longer Carson will enjoy the innocence of his “Thomas” room, but for now I’ll take it!  Thank you Erma!  You’re the best!

I am not a crafty person.  After many years of unsuccessful tries which turned into crafts gone bad, I’ve become comfortable with that statement.  With that said, I will, upon occasion, put something together that can be considered a “craft”.  There is a big “but”  with that though.  I have to thoroughly think out each step in the crafty process to determine if I have the patience and talent to pull it off.  If there is any portion of putting it together that I don’t think I can do without it looking horrible, I decide it’s not worth my time or money so I just won’t do it (that’s what Lucinda was for, but she moved far, far away- never to craft for me again-sigh!).  Anyway, I noticed a cute Thanksgiving “craft” on a blog I frequent (eighteen25.blogspot.com) & after much thought, decided I could do it.  Without further adieu, here is the unveiling…(with a little help from “vanna”).

If you can’t tell exactly what it is, it’s a handprint turkey from each member of our family.  For FHE on Monday, we all traced one of our hand’s and colored our turkey.  I have put everyone’s name under their turkey and included the year so we can look back and remember the size of the kids’ hands on Thanksgiving 2011.

So if you’re crafty or not and want a new Thanksgiving decoration please feel free to copy me and “get your craft on”.

With Thanksgiving fast approaching I thought I’d share with you 3 things that I have been blessed with this year.  These are not the most important things to me, but they are each something that bring me joy every day that I didn’t think would bring me as much joy as they do.  They really are quite simple, but to me, that is the beauty of it.  Simple things can bring great joy.

1.  My Swimming Pool

Rumor has it that I wasn’t completely sold on a house with a pool when we began looking for our new home.  Well, the rumor is true.  I wasn’t against a pool completely, but the safety issues scared me a bit since we have small children and we have several small children in and out of our home.  The more we looked, the more Marc pushed for a pool, slowly he wore me down (when he finally said he would not even consider or look at another home without a pool, I realized his conviction on this matter).  He made some good points, mainly, we don’t ever plan on moving again and if we have to live in up to 120 degree summers for the rest or our lives, we may as well have a pool of our own to enjoy and keep cool in.  As long as the pool had a fence and other necessary safety features, I agreed.  Alas, we found our home with this beautiful pool and very much enjoyed our first summer in it.  With as much fun as we had with family and friends over the summer in our pool and as much as it helped us keep cool in our never ending Phoenix summer, those are not the reasons why I find so much joy in my swimming pool.

Look at that!  The color!  The peace!  The calmimg effect it has on me when I look out my windows and see that is AMAZING.  It really has done wonders for my mental health (no joke).  I have always loved water- the beach & ocean, but I would have never thought that looking at a swimming pool could be so therapeutic.  So there it is, one of the simple things that bring me joy.  All year long!

2. My Rose Bush

Here it is from two angles.  It is quite ironic that this is one of the things that brings me great joy.  The reason I acquired such a beautiful plant was the most painful event I have experienced in my life.  After my dad died in August, two thoughtful friends bought this for me and had it delivered to my surprise.  I love flowers but do not have much of a green thumb so I was a bit nervous that I would destroy this beautiful gesture.  I contemplated the best place to plant it for a while and finally decided that the flower box overlooking our pool was the most fitting place.  My dad owned a pool service.  He and my brother would come every week and take care of our pool for us.  Since the beautiful plant was meant for his memory, I really couldn’t have put it anywhere else, but overlooking the calm, blue water that Dad had onced cared for.  As you can see, the plant is faring quite well.  I also count this bush as a tender mercy in my life.  After I planted the rose bush, the first new bud appeared on my dad’s birthday, October 13th.  I can’t help but think that he is still with us, enjoying the view.

3. My New Backyard Lawn

The size of the yard was one of the main selling features of the home for Marc and me.  This yard has taken on a whole new role within the last two weeks as Marc and I have labored diligently preparing, seeding, fertilizing, and watering to produce the grand sight above.  The beautiful, seemingly endless, sight of green, green grass brings a smile to my face every time I look outside (which is often).  I look forward to this winter when the kids will run wildly outside and play on our lawn.  We want to share it with everyone, so come on over!

I hope this post has given you the opportunity to contemplate the simple things in your life that bring you great joy.  Sometimes life is difficult, but if we can focus from time to time on the simple things that our Father in heaven has blessed us with, we can find peace through the storms that come our way.

Now, for many (possibly most) suburban families, parking two cars in a two car garage is probably not that big of a deal, but for us it is huge! What is even more spectacular is that this photo was taken the day we finished cleaning out the garage (about 2 months ago) and it still looks the same. Yay for us! Just thought I’d share….