Final Gratitude Posts - plus my kids' thankful lists

I posted here or on Instagram every day from November 1 through Thanksgiving. Have to give myself a pat on the back for following through. I have to say November was one of the best months I've had a in a long long time. I was looking for the good stuff every day in a very deliberate and determined way. And when you sincerely look for the good, you can always find something, even on the toughest days.

I challenged my kids to join me in recording what they were grateful for each day - and offered the chance to go on a special dinner and movie outing to all who consistently recorded what they were grateful for every day from Nov 1st through Thanksgiving. I reminded them a bit here and there but tried to just be a good example of doing it myself and left it mostly up to them. On Thanksgiving morning, after a little family hike and a great family "Turkey Bowl" football game in the freezing cold, I asked everyone to share their Thankful list in the car on the way to Thanksgiving dinner. Wow. They all actually did it - every day! I've shared all their lists at the end of this post - as a great snapshot of what each of my kids is doing and what they're thinking about right now in their lives. (We went to see "The Martian" - everyone loved it - and coincidentally it made us all extra grateful for a lot of things!)

I'm not posting daily about gratitude now. But I'm still in the habit of looking for the good. And finding it.

Here are my last posts as I wrap up my gratitude posts:

Here are the kids' thankful lists 

(These are totally unedited - just cut and pasted from where they wrote their stuff on Google Drive)

Eliza:

(she did the rest of the days on paper while we were out of town but can't find her paper now...)

Oliver:

Things I am Thankful For

1. November 1st 2015

I am thankful for food and water because without them I would not be alive and they are really really good. I am thankful for them today because I fasted today because it was fast sunday. The also are the stuff that I need to have a healthy life.

2. November 2nd 2015

I am thankful for the trampoline because it is the most frequently used fun thing that is in our neighborhood. It also helps me calm down. It also lets me have more fun and jump really high.

3. November 3rd 2015

I am thankful for school because without it we would probably be pretty dumb. The teachers are also so kind and try to help you to do your best in school. The school also serves as a learning place to learn and have fun.

4. November 4th 2015

I am thankful for the dogs in this world because they are so cute and are so fun to play with. They almost always are nice and they also cheer you up with lots of licks/kisses. There are also a lot of dog.

5. November 5th 2015

I am thankful for the transportation because without them our feet would be sore from walking everywhere. Also I think that I wouldn’t be very happy without the constant entertainment. Lastly I am happy that I can relax and lay back.

6. November 6th 2015

I am thankful for the friends that I get to play with. I love that all my friends have a creative imagination and love to play anything that I want to play. Friends also give me a fun time and to do something else than play with silas and me.

7. November 7th 2015

I am thankful for the entertainment because when a movie night comes, everyone is happy. Also I like entertainment when you get to play with your friends. Lastly I like entertainment because you can listen to music while you do stuff or you can listen to it when you are calming yourself down.

8. November 8th 2015

I am thankful for baptisms because I when you go through the process of being baptised, you lose all of your sins. Another great thing about baptism is that you can always have the holy host by you. lastly, you can even baptize people from the dead if they haven’t been baptised already and make them have no sins.

9. November 9th 2015

I am thankful for rain because it cheers some people up and it lets you put away your feelings for a while. Also you can splash in the puddles and splash other people. The rain also shares your emotions, especially when you are sad.

10. November 10th 2015

I am thankful for winter because you can go skiing and snowboarding. I also love winter because you get to go sledding, and you get to do jumps. Lastly you get to have snowball fights, which I believe are super fun.

11. November 11th 2015

I am thankful for the trash because we can put things in there and you don’t have to store everything in one place. Also with the trash there is sometimes (rarely) some stuff cool stuff that you might want. Lastly you can go dumpster diving (not that I do it).

12. November 12th 2015

I am thankful for friends because friends can be just what you need if you are feeling left out ar sad. They also have other things to do than just your everyday stuff. Lastly they also have imagination different than yours (not that your imagination is nat as good) and I think that that is good.

13. November 13th 2015

I am thankful for the trees because they are so fun to climb in. Also another reason is that you can do tricks of of them, like jumping off of them. Lastly, you can hide in them.

14. November 14th 2015

I am thankful for the sun because it warms you up. Another reason is that it lightens your day and makes you feel generally happy. Lastly it makes shadows for a good place to hide in.

15. November 15th 2015

I am thankful for church because you can learn about the gospel there. Also, at the church, you can feel calm and listen to the faithful people that share their stories with you and everyone else. Lastly, you can feel safer there because Jesus and Heavenly father protect you. Jesus has felt every sad or bad thing that we do and the stuff that you feel, like pain, sadness, sin, misery, and bad things that we feel bad about.

16. November 16th 2015

I am thankful for the piano because you can always feel calm when you practise piano. Also when you play you can always feel happy. Lastly you can show your expressions by playing hard and low if you are sad and playing light and high when you’re happy.

17. November 17th 2015

I am thankful for math because you can solve fun problems. Also you can always doodle with math, to. Lastly you can figure out fun numbers!

18. November 18th 2015

I am thankful for chess because you can think of strategies. Also I like chess because you can play against your friends. Lastly you can play different game modes like speed chess.

19. November 19th 2015

I am thankful for the tablets because you can play on them. Also,  I am thankful for tablets because you can text your friends with them. Lastly you can call on them and they will listen to your voice.

20. November 20th 2015

I am thankful for the nerf guns that nerf produces because you can play with them. Also, why I am grateful for nerf guns is because of the speed and length that that they can travel. Lastly they can have different bullets in them.

21. November 21th 2015

I am thankful for night games because it gives you lots of practice at fun things like aiming nerf guns and hiding. Also I am thankful for night games because you almost always have fun with your friends in playing together. Lastly you can get free of your fears and start to get good at lots of things that they do at night games with your friends helping you.

22. November 22nd 2015

I am thankful for my mother because she always there to help me do the stuff that I think is important to me even if she doesn’t necessarily like it. Also she helps me get prepared for what is ahead and she is always really really nice to me and she lets me do lots and lots of very fun stuff. Lastly she does fun stuff with me like eating hot chocolate and giving me food and giving me credit for the things that I do, and she always loves me.

23. November 23rd 2015

I am thankful for the sunrise because it brings light into your part of the world. Also it makes beautiful colors and they are fun to watch them fading away. Lastly the sunrise marks the beginning of a new day and you can’t be sad during a new day, can’t you?

24. November 24th 2015

I am thankful for the Leonardo because there is really cool exhibits that are made for the fun for kids. It lets you learn stuff in a very fun way like building stuff in Leonardo's workshop and testing them in a wind tunnel. Lastly it uses electric conductors to spike up your hair.

25. November 25th 2015

I am thankful for City Creek Center mall because you can have a variety of stores to choose from like Nordstrom, Microsoft, and Apple. Also you can meet new people, and in my case, dogs. Lastly in City Creek there is also very good food.

26. November 26 2015

I am thankful for rocks because they are very fun to climb on. Also, on rocks, you can be the king of the world. Lastly you can get footholds and climb all the way up the mountains to the top. You can also jump over higher stuff with bigger rocks.

Silas:

Isaac: (He didn't quite catch the assignment to write why you were thankful for things and just pick one special thing each day - he listed a few things every day instead...fun glimpse into his mind still!)
Beds.
Clothes.
Chairs to sit in.
  Metal that is used to build things. Wood.
  Phones.
  Note apps. 
  Blankets. 
  Doors.
   Prophets. 
   Parents. 
   Teachers
   Paper. 
   Board and card games.
  Sports.
   Utensils. 
   Glass. 
   Grass. 
   Relatives. 
   Pillows. 
   Socks. 
   Buildings. 
   Temples. 
   Brothers. 
   Sisters. 
   Journals. 
   Oxygen. 
   Smartphone. 
   Desks.
   Pens. 
   Pencils. 
   Trees. 
   School. 
   Paintings. 
   Scrabble. 
   Printers. 
   Books. 
   Plastic. 
   Outdoors. 
   Good examples. 
   Food. 
   Oceans. 
   Rivers. 
   Plants. 
   Hair gel. 
   Brushes and combs. 
   Swim meats. 
   Friends. 
   Backpacks. 
   Shoes. 
   Stores. 
   Cool rocks like geodes and crystals.
    Mountains. 
    Eyes to see color in the world. 
Soft carpet. 
Jobs. 
Money. 
America. 
This buttock world that we get to live in.
Power. 
Creation of Light bulbs. 
Tomas Edison. 
Great scientists that have made a huge impact on the world we live in.
Astronauts. 
Space. 
Stars/constellations. 
Snow and rain. 
Skiing. 
Snow basin. 
Elevators. 
Escalators. 
Cars (our minivan). 
Yummy snacks to eat. 
Animals on the ground, in the air, and the animals in the water. 
Restraints. 
Being tall. 
Trains. 
Tracks. 
Public transportation. 
The smell of good food. 
Collages. 
Bikes. 
Plates. 
Candy. 
Holidays. 
Bathrooms when you need them. 
Pants without wholes in them. 
My stuffed animal dog.

Gratitude: General Conference and Favorite Talks

I'm so grateful for General Conference. For the past couple of weeks, after the busy rush of getting kids to school each morning, I've been carving out time to sit down with some breakfast (I never get a chance to eat breakfast while trying to feed everyone else!) and a cup of my favorite herbal tea (Sweet and Spicy by Good Earth) and watch a talk from last month's General Conference. This daily dose of inspiration has made such a difference for me. Some talks are simply nice reminders for me. Others bring tears to my eyes as they help me realize something really important and timely and offer messages that resonate on a deep level with me.

Today's breakfast was homemade sort-of-healthy oatmeal cookies and persimmons.

Here are a few of my favorite talks so far:

What Lack I Yet by Larry Lawrence (I often pray for help with specific character traits I know I need to work on, but praying to know WHAT to work on is something I haven't really thought about before - and something I'm trying to do now. I know that if I work on changing one small thing at a time - and find out from the Lord what to work on first - I can become more of the person I really want and need to be.)

It's Never Too Early and It's Never Too Late by Bradley Foster (great parenting advice)

If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments by Carole Stephens (great ideas to help me in my mothering and in my personal path towards greater obedience)

Gratitude Days 9-16: laundry, speech therapy, faith, hair, little kids, food, light and music

It's been so very good for me to seek out the good each day and take a moment to quickly celebrate it with an Instagram post. I've felt so generally happy and my life feels so good - even though nothing has really changed as far as my situation. I'm so grateful for gratitude!

Here are the posts I've done since last posting on this blog:

On Saturday the 14th, I didn't do an Instagram post because I wanted to share a favorite recipe as part of my gratitude for that day - and recipe-posting works better on a blog.We had friends over for dinner and I made my favorite fall soup. I'd forgotten how delicious it is! I'm so grateful for great recipes and for flavor and for good food.

Here's what we ate:

Curried Chicken and Apple Soup

This is a huge fall favorite around here - my husband and I and all my kids LOVE this. Maybe it sounds like a weird combination of things - apples, chicken, curry - but I've never had someone NOT love it.

Curried Chicken and Apple Soup

1 tsp. vegetable oil or olive oil
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 3 big breasts)
1 large onion, chopped
5 crushed/chopped garlic cloves (or 1-2 tsp bottled crushed garlic)
1 medium green pepper and one yellow bell pepper, chopped (optional)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (or bottled crushed ginger)
½ tsp red or black pepper
1 tsp salt
5 cups chicken broth/stock (can use bouillon cubes to make this)
2 15 oz. cans or one 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (the whole can with the juice) or one large can crushed tomatoes (if you don’t like tomato chunks)
2 apples, chopped in small chunks (Granny Smith or Fuji work well – the crisper the better!)
1 cup rice

Saute everything down to the broth/stock together in large soup pot until chicken isn’t pink anymore and onion is tender. Then add the chicken stock, rice and diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes (until rice is tender), then add the apples and cook about 8 minutes or until apples are somewhat soft and rice is done.

If desired, serve with a garnish of chopped cilantro and a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream. Great with warm crusty bread

Makes 10 one-cup servings.
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I had to do two posts after a gorgeous walk along the Shoreline Trail on Sunday afternoon:

Gratitude Day 8: My husband and kids (and the final chapter on our MFME trip)

I wrote this back at the beginning of October, when my flight home was cancelled. I felt such overwhelming gratitude for my family during that delay - absence does make the heart grow fonder! I'm sharing this journal entry as a wrap-up on the MFME trip plus a gratitude entry - I bolded the part that is specifically about gratitude for my family - so if you don't want the whole family, skip on down to the bolded part!

I’m sitting here in a rather odd but fairly nice little hotel room - one twin bed, dormer window, large nook where another twin bed could easily fit but it’s just empty. Rain is falling gently outside - we’ve been blessed with a solid week of beautiful fall weather - so amazing that the first rain came as we were leaving. Perfect timing.  I’m eating a really delicious apple (all the apples have been so crisp and delicious here - I saw some applies in a bowl at the reception desk and even though it looked like the yellowish variety that is often mushy when you get it in the States, I grabbed one. Good call.) And I’m also eating a totally delicious Lindt dark chocolate hazelnut bar and a piece of bread I didn’t quite finish at breakfast. Bread, chocolate and an apple. It’s not exactly a great lunch - but by 3:30pm, you’ll take what you can get for lunch! My back hurts from standing in line for hours this morning and now sitting in this uncomfortable chair trying to catch up on Power of Moms work (so much to do for this Mom Conference next week!). My eyes are heavy from so many short nights and so much adventure. My heart aches because I want to be with my husband and kids right now - so much. But here I am. And I’m choosing to be grateful for the chance to reflect a bit and catch up on emails and watch conference before spending tons of hours on a wifi-less plane tomorrow and being slapped with the beautiful but probably overwhelming reality of jumping back into motherhood when I get off that plane.

I’m supposed to be on a plane headed home right now. But after waking up at the crack of dawn to sneak out of the hotel room while my sisters slept and get to the airport for my flight, I found out my flight was seriously delayed and was excited when they said they could get me on a different flight that was supposed to leave earlier but was delayed a bit. Then I sat on that plane at the gate for almost an hour (in the very last row in the corner, feeling pretty claustrophobic…) before they said it would be 2 more hours at least and might get cancelled (no visibility in Amsterdam because of crazy-thick fog, I guess). They invited those of us w/o checked luggage to get off and get rerouted. I jumped at that chance. 

I hurried right over to the ticket/check in area and talked to an agent who told me I could get on a flight leaving in just a couple hours - there were seats available - hallelujah! But then she double checked and said that she didn't have the right authorization to put me on that flight and that I'd need to wait in the super long line across the way to see if they could put me on that flight. Since by then, all the flights to Amsterdam were cancelled and there were like 200 people waiting in line to get re-routed, that was bad news. While waiting in line, I tried to get on the phone with the airline (Delta) but my phone wouldn't work as I didn't have an international plan. I tried to set up a plan but no luck. Then I was so excited to see my sister Charity happen along, headed for her flight, and she let me use her phone. I called Delta and they said that they COULD book me on that LA flight but then, after checking on some things, the agent came back on the phone and told me that as the flight was now only a hour away, the system wouldn't let her book me on that flight - there was no way I'd get to the next terminal and get to the gate on time. So she booked me on an Air France flight the following morning but told me to stay in line to get a hotel voucher. Oh, I was so sad and worried - I'd been away from home for so long, missed my family so much, Jared had been holding down the fort so kindly for over a week, and I had SO much to do on the Mom Conference! I needed to get HOME. And I was so sad that I'd been forced to miss that LA flight because of mess-ups on the airlines part.

When I finally got to the front of the line (over 3 hours in line), the agent said the flight I thought I had booked over the phone wasn’t actually booked for me and I’d have to take a later flight tomorrow and not get home until 6:30pm. I really really tried not to cry. But I was so tired and was longing to get home to my family SO much and was SO frustrated by feeling so helpless and stuck that I admit some tears did come out and I couldn’t quite talk to answer the agent when she asked if a 10am flight tomorrow getting in at 6:30pm would be OK.

The lady just sort of looked embarrassed for me but went on typing away for like 10 minutes to book this later flight for tomorrow. Then she handed me a printout with letters and numbers all over it and highlighted my flight time for tomorrow on the paper. She told me to go to another long line and wait for a voucher to go to a hotel for the night. I told her I’d already been in line for over 3 hours and she said just go up to the front. So I did. And when I finally got someone’s attention, a lady took my precious paper with all the letters and numbers on it that I understood was supposed to be my ticket for tomorrow and went off into the back room for ages then finally came back with a paper in German and said it was a hotel voucher. I asked where my paper was that had all the letters and numbers on it and she said she had to keep it but that she would get me a copy because I would need it in the morning. She left for another 10 minutes and I could see her fighting with a malfunctioning printer in the back. Then she came back out and started helping someone else and seemed to have completely forgotten about me until I flagged her down and asked her for my paper. She just sort of humphed and kept going with what she was doing. Then a while later she printed out a new paper full of letters and numbers for me and told me to take that to the ticket counter in the morning - but not this ticket counter - a different one which she thought was maybe in the B area of Terminal 1 but it could be somewhere else - apparently I was just supposed to come early tomorrow to figure out where to get my actual ticket. 

I totally get that weather happens and that everyone was probably doing their best to do their job in tricky situations like this. But wow, you’d think they’d have some better procedures in place and have more personnel who could stay on or be called in! Surely stuff like this has happened before and will happen again. None of the staff I talked with (6 or 7 in all) seemed concerned about the length and duration of the line. No one explained what was happening or what the procedure should be. And I totally could have made that 12pm LA flight that was open according to the Delta agent on the phone if the first agent I talked to at the airport hadn’t told me I had to wait in that long line becuase she didn't have the right authorization to put me on it!

The rest of the story (Journal from the following day):

So I settled in at the hotel last night (finding the hotel shuttle was quite an ordeal but it was OK in the end) and tried to make the best of things. I got on Skype with my family that night and was so glad ot see their faces and hear their voices. And I asked Jared to call Delta to double check that I was all set for the flight in the morning. After a couple of hours, he called back to say that he'd talked to agent after agent on the phone and there was no record of me having a confirmed ticket on that flight in the morning and that Delta was now saying that that flight had been oversold so they were putting me on a flight the FOLLOWING morning. I couldn't believe it. Seriously? I looked on Delta.com and it showed that you could still buy tickets for the flight I was supposed to be on the next morning. But after talking to people for over 2 hours on the phone, Jared was told that my only option was to wait and go on the flight the following morning - over 48 hours after my original flight.

I cried to Jared for a while (a long day at the airport can sure do that to you - especially when combined with disappointment after disappointment as I was bumped from flight to flight by people who didn't explain things and weren't very nice and when you miss your family a ton!). Then I started looking for something - anything - good about this situation.

I was safe. My family was safe. I had internet (spotty but OK so I could work on Mom Conference stuff). And all this will make me extra grateful for home and family.

I’ve missed my family SO much this week. I always miss them when I’m away. But I guess I haven’t been away from them for more than a night or two in ages plus the time difference has made it really hard to communicate much with them while they’re gone. So I’ve just felt a dull ache - which sometimes jumps up into a serious pain - these last few days when I think about my dear husband and children. I am so incredibly blessed to have them. I know I take them for granted too much. So this is good for me.

I miss Oliver’s big hugs that happen whenever I’m stressed (he’s so sensitive to my worries and so good at helping me feel better). I miss Silas’s cute little song he sings to me (“Mom, I love you so, so much, I will never stop loving you”) and I miss making meals with him. I miss hearing all the details of Eliza’s day each day after school and really missed seeing her beautiful stride and determined face in last week’s cross country meet (she came in second!). I miss Ashton’s great and somewhat rare smile that makes the skin around his eyes crinkle up. And I keep wishing he was right here to help me figure out how to get on the internet of get my phone to do what I want it to do (my storage is full thanks to all the photos I’ve taken and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to delete very much…). I miss seeing Isaac making things fun for Oliver and Silas and all the neighborhood boys - he’s always up for fun and the little boys adore him. I missready for school earlier than anyone as he heads out to early morning seminary and seeing him so responsibly get his homework done. I miss Jared’s great hugs - I feel so safe in his arms. He always makes everything OK. I miss his deep voice leading family scripture study in the bleary-eyed mornings. I miss family dinner time each night when we sometimes laugh a lot and sometimes get into a deep conversation and sometimes I wind up sharing stories about things I wish I’d known sooner or experiences I’ve had and the kids get sucked in - I love spinning a good tale and seeing them wrapped up in it.  I miss tuck in time when the kids want to talk and I get some great one-on-one if I can remember to pad the time and take a deep breath and just sit there on each of their beds for a few minutes.

I’m so very very very blessed to be a wife and mother and to have the children and husband I have. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  And I guess my main resolution from this trip is to slow down. To savor and enjoy the beauty of my family life. Just like I’ve been savoring the beauty of the scenery and the food and the conversations I’ve been having with my mom and sisters. I need to build and keep high and strong fortress walls around the time it takes to really enjoy my kids and husband. I can’t be on my computer after school and in the evenings. I just can’t. I’ve got this huge conference coming up but I’m sure it can be awesome without me stealing from my precious family time. I can prioritize better and be way more efficient and wise so that I can get the most important things done and leave the rest.

I'm SO frustrated with Delta and all the agents at the airport and over the phone who couldn't seem to give me straight or consistent answers. But I’m SO excited to go home to see my family. I am grateful for the added dose of love and gratitude for my family that this delay has brought on. But I just can't wait to get home!

Update:

I got a lot of work done in that funny little hotel room and went on some nice walks through the fields full of corn and carrots in the area. I was able to get on that flight home 2 days after the original flight. The flights were completely packed but I was just so grateful to get home! Jared and the kids were there waiting for me when I got out of the secure part of the airport. It was so wonderful to see them and hold them in my arms again! 

I did let the Mom Conference steal some precious family time. There were so many timely things that needed to happen combined with crazy stuff no one could have anticipated (like the website crashing on the first day because somehow we'd been set up with a faulty server despite our careful efforts to set things up so they'd be crash-proof when we got a lot of traffic!). I pulled a lot too-late nights and worked when the kids were home from school way more than I would have liked. But I still got everyone where they needed to go and made sure we had family dinner most every night and didn't even open my computer on Sundays so I could enjoy total focus on my family. Things are much better now that the conference is over (and it was really great in the end - almost 40,000 moms from around the world attended and we got so much kind feedback!). I've got boundaries in place and I'm being much more realistic and careful about what I take on.

I contacted Delta to ask for the compensation due to me for a delay over 12 hours and/or being involuntarily bumped from a flight according to EU law. They deny that they owe me anything despite what it says in the EU law regarding long delays and involuntary bumping from flights. It clearly says that they need to put people on the next available flight and they did not. I've sent them full information on every step of the ordeal I went through but they completely deny any sort of responsibility or compensation for me. This is extremely disappointing that Delta would choose to deny a legitimate claim like this. I totally get that they can't control that flights need to be cancelled from time to time and delays are often inevitable. But as their negligence caused much of the problems I encountered, they should clearly take responsibility. Delta is now a company I will avoid and will encourage others to avoid. So I guess Delta makes my "stuff I'm really not grateful for" list right now!

Gratitude Days 4, 5, 6 and 7: Running, Braces, Hiking and Healthy Active Kids

Here are my gratitude posts for the last few days (from Instagram). It's been so great looking for the positive in my life and celebrating it daily. There are plenty of not-so-good things I could dwell on. But celebrating all my blessings makes me a much happier - and nicer person!

Day 4: Beautiful runs exercising body and mind (and my current favorite podcasts - This American Life, Invisibilia, and Radio Lab)

Day 5: Orthadontics (Isaac's done and Eliza and Silas have an appointment this coming week to decide when they'll get started - ortho appointments are going to be part of our lives for quite some time. But how grateful we are that orthadontics exist! Isaac could barely close his mouth back when he started. So far 100% of the my siblings, my kids, and all their cousins have had the big "Eyre teeth" come in when they get their permanent teeth - and often those big big teeth cause some crazy crowding and serious overbites. So braces are something all Eyres are grateful for!)

Day 6: Hiking (and the first snow! we hiked through gorgeous swirling snowflakes this week.)

Day 7: Healthy Active Kids

I have to admit that I've complained about the huge amount of driving kids around and going to kids' sporting events that has been such a large part of our lives this fall. But I'm so grateful that they want to be involved in great things that keep them active, help them form good friendships, and teach them so many important things. At Isaac's first swim meet on Friday afternoon, Jared, Ashton, Eliza and I got a crash course in how swim meets work (this was the very first swim meet any of us had ever attended) as we got roped into being timers. For almost FIVE HOURS, we carefully timed event after event in the lanes we were each assigned and we learned a ton while supporting Isaac and the team. Not only are the kids who are participating in each sport learning and growing and making new friends - so is the rest of the family as we support them!

Gratitude Day 2 & 3: Beauty and Safety

I posted this to Instagram yesterday as my gratitude post for the day:

The deep, rich colors of late fall have filled my heart with joy. I love how leaves, in the very act of dying, become amazingly beautiful. And I just love fall - especially days like Monday when it's crisp but not cold and the overcast skies make the colors really pop. I went for a run on Monday and it was just so beautiful and perfect.

For the past few days, I've been thinking so much about the huge blessing of safety that I enjoy so that's what I want to focus on for my gratitude post today. On Sunday, we decided as a family to fast for the refugees who've left their homeland of Syria to find safety. On Sunday, we watched these YouTube clips (and a lot more - but these were some of the ones we liked the best) to learn more about the whole thing:

• The European Refugee Crisis and Syria Explained (great quick overview of what's going on - with some pretty sad statistics)
• Syrian Refugee Crisis Explained (offers further information, laid out very clearly - great for the ages of my kids - 10-15)
• What is ISIS and What do they Want? (basic quick information explained well)
• What is Islam (simple overview of the main beliefs of Islam)
• We Walk Together: A Syrian Family's Journey to the Heart of Europe (When there were no trains available, this family and hundreds of others started walking from Hungary, trying to get to Germany where they could find asylum. Loved seeing the kind people who helped them.)
• On Board a Smuggler's Boat with Refugees (shows an example of how lots of refugees are paying all the money they can gather together to smugglers who put them on crammed old boats and point them in the general direction of safety - scary but no one ends up drowning so this was a good one to show kids)

We've talked a lot the past few days about how blessed we are to feel safe in our country, to be able to sleep at night in our own comfy beds rather than sleeping on the streets while traveling to find asylum or in a tent in a refugee camp, hoping to have a roof over our heads again some day.

How blessed I am that I've never known war and have always felt safe.

Gratitude Day 1: MFME Trip to Switzerland, Austria and Germany

It's weird that it's been SO long since I've written. I wrote 2-3 times a week on this blog for years and years but something just had to give over the past year - so my blog got put on the back burner. I've been Instagraming regularly and podcasting a lot so I'm sort of journaling my life and thoughts that way. But now that the big Mom Conference I co-hosted is over (it was SO much work and stress but I learned a ton and we had nearly 40,000 moms attend - many of whom took the time to write the nicest notes of thanks), I've decided to slow down on Power of Moms projects and make more time for writing, for reading, for thinking, and for actually taking the time to enjoy my beautiful life (my word for this year is "enjoy" and I'm determined to get better at actually doing it!).

You won't be seeing a lot more posts here in general. But you'll be seeing more. Especially this month as I've decided to do a quick gratitude post every day (maybe here part of the time, on Instagram part of the time - still deciding...). A couple year's back, I did a quick daily post about something I was especially grateful for during the whole month of November up until Thanksgiving and that was such a positive thing for me. I enjoy life much more and find a lot more happiness when I'm actively looking for the good in my life- and knowing I'll be writing a gratitude post each day helps keep me actively looking for the good.

My first gratitude post for this month will be WAY longer than the rest. I finally got a chance tonight to read over my mom and sisters' great blog posts about our fabulous MFME (Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm) trip to Europe at the end of Septemer/beginning of October. And I'm just SO full of gratitude for these fabulous women I get to be related to and the precious time we had together and for my mom who made it all happen. Plus I'm so grateful that my mom and sisters recorded the trip so well already - so I'm going to share links to their great blog posts full of photos at the end of this post and keep my post to a few full group photo and the text I wrote up at the end of the trip but haven't gotten around to posting until now.

Oh how I love these ladies!

In the schoolhouse- turned-museum where our great great grandfather and mother went to school
In Schmeidrued, Switzerland (with the sweet museum curator and his wife)

At the church where my great great grandparents, Verena and Samuel Weber, went to church

In Flims where Anita grew up

Walk through the gorgeous hills near Tal and Anita's house

In the Alps

At Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany

On our "Sound of Music" bike tour in Salzburg

at the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg

getting creative with pictures - downtown Salzburg

Munich - during the height of Oktoberfest

Final dinner together - in Munich

Here's what I wrote at the end of our trip:

I’ve had a truly wonderful and amazing week with my mom and sisters and sisters in law, traveling around Switzerland, Austria and Germany. 

• We visited the town where our great grandmother grew up and and saw the school and church that she went to as a girl. 

• We wandered through beautiful Zurich and climbed to the top of the towers of the cathedral there. 

• We had a fabulous Sunday dinner at the lovely traditional chalet where my brother Tal and his family live (Tal’s wife Anita is from Switzerland and is SO excited to be living there again after living in the States for 20 years!). 

• We visited the breathtaking ski town in the Alps (called Flims) where Anita grew up and visited her parents in her childhood home which is right up against one of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen. We saw the bedroom she had growing up and marveled at the view she had from the desk in that room as she did her homework! 

• We hiked along the “Grand Canyon of Switzerland” and walked around the lake in Flims plus rode a ski lift up to where we could get sweeping views. Then Anita and I walked down the mountain into the old village center of Flims, cow bells clanging all around, chalets and old barns dotting the hillside.  

• We wandered along the remains of a 2000-year-old Roman road as we went through the Julier Pass. 

• We saw traditional Swiss mountain cheese made the original way - in a huge kettle over an open fire - and learned facinating facts about cheese making before enjoying a fabulous (and HUGE) platter of many kinds of cheese. 

• We rode a gondola up to the glacier peaks outside St Moritz and felt like we were on top of the world. 

• We ate amazing chocolate and wonderful fondue and so many other tasty things (which were all VERY expensive - wow, Switzerland is one expensive country!). 

• We explored adorable mountain villages in Switzerland and Bavaria with flowerboxes bursting with color at every window (Zouz, Oberarmegau, Mittenwald). 

• We stayed in a wonderful apartment tucked into the attic of a house from the 1500’s and felt like we’d stepped right into a storybook. In fact, every place we stayed was just wonderful (thanks to Anita and Aja for setting up all the accommodations!). 

• We went to the fairytale castle of Neuishwanstein and wondered at the care and expense that went into that exquisite palace that King Ludwig only enjoyed for a couple years before he mysteriously died. We hiked up above the castle to enjoy amazing views. 

• We visited Mittenwald which was the violin-making capital of the world for centuries and learned about how violins are made in the lovely little museum there plus rode a wonderfully slow old chairlift up to the top of the mountain outside the village and enjoyed lunch looking out over gorgeous mountains with the town spread out below. 

• We visited beautiful churches - some dripping with Roccoco pastels and gold accents, some simple and stark and pure. 

• We rode bikes all over the gorgeous city of Salzburg, ate lunch at the Museum of Modern Art there with a spetcatular view of the city, heard all the bells pealing at the same time from the countless steeples of Salzburg, and climbed up to its ancient fortress before finishing off that grand day with a truly amazing and intimate concert in the guilded Marble Hall at the Mirabell Palace - in the very room where Mozart played with his father and sister when he was a boy.

• We spent half a day wandering the grounds and enjoying the silly fun of the trick fountains at the Hellbrun Palace on the outskirts of Salzburg, then spent our final night together in Munich, unwittingly getting there at the climax of Oktoberfest so we were surrounded by slightly drunk and very happy crowds of people, most of whom were wearing lederhosen and dirndyls. We found a slightly less crazy little alley with a great restaurant for our final meal together and enjoyed the parade of Oktoberfest revelers walk by.

Perhaps most importantly, we talked. We had great conversations as we drove from place to place, alternating who went it which of the two cars. We had 5 in one car, 4 in the other. And 4-5 is such a perfect sized group for great conversation. We talked over meals and gathered in one of the hotel rooms each night to talk late into the night - even when we were so tired we knew we should really go to bed - we just had to enjoy every possible bit of good conversation! We each shared the best and hardest things going on in our lives right now. We talked about what books we’ve read and what podcasts we’ve listened to and all that we’ve been learning. We talked about our children and helped each other come up with ideas for handling various things going on with our kids. We laughed a lot. Oh, how good it feels to laugh with these women I love so much!

And we all had so much fun passing little 5-month-old Dean around. What a good baby he is - and he’s just plain adorable with all his smiles and coos and funny expressions! What a great mama he has - Julie just totally rolled with everything and never complained a bit about how hard it can be to travel with a baby who needs to eat in the night and has his fussy times while you’re trying to enjoy travelling with 8 other women. She’s amazing.

I’m so grateful that my mom has made such a point of getting us together regularly, that she comes up with great topics for us to discuss, and that she works to hard to make sure everyone is comfortable and happy thorughout our get-togethers. Our first “Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm” (MFME) trip was back in 1998 and involved just me, Shawni, Saydi, Charity and my mom on an epic trip through I tay and France with a little time in Barcelona as well. SInce then, we’ve had gatherings pretty much every year, adding great new members as my brothers have gotten married. Some years we’ve just taken a few hours to go to dinner together while we’re at Bear Lake, leaving our husbands with the kids. Now there are 9 of us and we’re all mothers other than Charity. Because we’re all at different places financially, mom has quietly and generously helped ensure that all of us can get to every gathering. Usually our trips are much less expensive. But this year, my mom decided to use the money she got from selling the farm that her parents left to her to enable us to go on this grand adventure and visit the land of her ancestors. I know my grandparents were smiling in Heaven when she decided on this great way to use the money she got from them! They scrimped and saved all their lives and their farm never really prospered. But when the farm finally sold a few years back, my mom invested the money from the sale wisely and earmarked that money for MFME. How grateful I am to my mom and my grandparents for making this trip and all our other MFME trips possible!


How in the heck did I get so blessed to have the mother I have and the sisters and sisters in law I have???! They are each so precious to me. I learn from every one of them all the time through their examples and words. We’re all so different in wonderful ways and so much the same in important ways. There’s no group I’d rather be with. And I know having my favorite people right in my own family is a blessing that not everyone has.

Here are great posts by Shawni:
Switzerland intro
Anita's wonderland
Engadin Valley
Neuschwanstein
Bavaria
Salzburg
Sound of Music Bike Tour
Munich

Here are excellent posts from Charity:
sisters in switzerland
flying through the alps (I'm so mad I didn't go with them paragliding!)
So much beauty in the engadin valley


And here's my mom's take on it all:
On to Switzerland and the Beginning of an Epic MFME
Flims

And here are the photos everyone Instagrammed while we were travelling.

What I've been doing plus more great things to listen to/watch

OK, after weeks of super intense work and months of part-time focus, the online Mom Conference that Power of Moms is co-hosting this year is now open for registration (it'll be held Oct 13, 14, 15). I'm so so so excited about this online event that will give moms around the world the chance to participate in top-notch training by some great authors and speakers without having to get a babysitter or leave their homes. And thanks to some great sponsors, we're able to offer this conference for FREE.

Click below to learn more (and see a video of me and my kids with my Mom Conference partner Desi and her sweet kids):
Mom Conference 2015 

Another thing I've been working on is updating the Family Systems eCourse I've been working on for years. We launched it last spring to a group of 200 families as sort of our "beta testers." It was really well received by this initial group and they gave some valuable feedback which we've now incorporated into our now more full Family Systems eCourse. To celebrate this more full and finished version of the course, we've got a special $50 off this week only. So click on the link below the picture to check out the eCourse and if it seems like the right thing for you, use promo code "save50" and you'll get it for the best deal we'll ever be able to offer.

Family Systems eCourse

And of course, I'm always working on our own family - updating our routines and family systems for the new school year, working on my relationship with Jared and trying to protect some time for the two of us, talking to kids about what they're doing and how they feel about things, getting kids where they need to be - scouts, mountain bike practices and races, cross country practices and races, football practices and games (but Ashton takes care of most of that on his own, thankfully - see more below on that). Plus Isaac just decided he simply must join the swim team at Ogden High. Trying to figure out if we can make that happen on top of everything else. Really want the kids to be able to pursue the things that they feel excited about but wow, they're all interested in pursuing a lot of things! Other than the twins. Oliver and Silas just want to play with the neighborhood kids, build forts, climb trees, have nerf wars and jump on the trampoline plus go to scouts once a week. And I'm so glad they're so happy with this simple stuff for now.

Here's a glimpse inside my brain through what I found to be super interesting the past couple of weeks:

Ted Talk: 
The Story we Tell about Poverty Isn't True

I was drawn to this title as we live in an area where there are a great number of people living below the poverty line and as Jared (as the bishop of our ward) works to help a lot of people who are really struggling financially. I loved hearing her stories of people who are figuring out how to make ends meet and helping others along the way.

Podcasts:

I've been really into RadioLab lately. This episode was especially interesting to me:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/football/

Ashton decided he wanted to play football this year. While Jared was a great football player back in the day, we've never really pushed football with our kids - it's really not my favorite game and there really weren't any great football programs for younger kids in the places we've lived. Ashton played touch football one season but didn't seem to care about it that much. But then quite suddenly, he declared he was going to play football for Ogden High. He found out about tryouts. He borrowed cleats from a friend. He got himself to the school for practice on his bike. He walked all over the place selling football cards (cards that give lots of discounts on local restaurants) until he'd raised the full $400 he was asked to raise to support the team. He figured out and did everything completely himself. We'd have been happy to help and support him but he just jumped right in there and did everything himself.

So I've decided it's time that I learn about football. We've been to the games (where Ashton supports from the sidelines - he's hoping to actually get in the game at some point!). I'm finally learning about how football works. I've asked Jared a lot of questions and pulled out my phone to look up answers to questions while watching the game (so that poor Jared could watch in peace for a while).  And you know what, football still isn't my favorite game. I don't like violence. Not one bit. I don't like seeing kids encouraged to run into each other. It just seems to go against everything most every parent is trying to teach their kids. But I really like the work ethic that football is giving Ashton and it's so great to see him just really go after something and take initiative.

Anyway, this episode from Radio Lab was so interesting and helpful to me - it offered details about football's history and helped me understand more about why football is so important to so many people, while examining how dangerous it is and what the future of football might be.


And I recorded these three podcasts for Power of Moms in the past little while and they've been really well received:

Setting your Family up for Success

Reflections of a Failed Tiger Mother

Protecting Kids from the Me Me Me Epidemic

This podcast by my Power of Moms partner, April, and "Hands Free Mama" really made me think. Oh how much I want to be more present in my own life! I learned some important principles that are helping me. There's so much more I need to figure out though. I know a big part of the answer is to do less. But I felt strongly that I needed to help spearhead this Mom Conference so I've got to see it thorugh! Then I can slow down on my work hours more and apply the principles Rachel teaches more fully...

Hands Free Life with Rachel Macy Stafford