Thankful Thanksgiving Thursday

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so grateful for many things - and happy to be with family this year once again. We are taught to thank our Heavenly Father for all that we have in our prayers before we are to ask for any blessings that we might need. Sometimes our list is long as we thank Him, and I am so happy when Claire adds her own touches of gratitude in her prayers. She is grateful for her school, her bed, her blankets, her books, her friends, her cousins, and her family - she mentions all of us by name and also mentions herself, which I always like too.

Miles is thankful for prayers, trees, games, May and Papa, going to California, his blankets, Duke, and MeMa and Papa.

I am incredibly thankful for the health of my children and their physical, mental and spiritual development. And though I am working on my own fitness and finding motivation to lose weight, I am also grateful that I can walk, run, play sports, take the kids to the park, and have the independence to drive myself where I need to be each day. I am reading the book "Heaven is Here" by Stephanie Nielson about her near death in a small airplane accident. I cannot imagine how it would be to have your own health taken away so suddenly and not be able to care for your own children. I can't put this book down - it is helping me to appreciate parenting during times of frustration with my young family.