Happy...

  

I was reading a Martha Stuart magazine at work the other day and came across an article about teaching your children about being thankful (it was a Thanksgiving issue) by writing what you are thankful for on a cut-out of a leaf, then tacking it to a framed board. I mentioned it to a co-worker and she said that she made a paper tree and each day they would all write what they were thankful for and also one nice thing they did for someone on a leaf, then attach the leaves to the tree. By the time Thanksgiving arrived, they had a real full tree.
She said it went over so well, that they were going to try something similar for Christmas, by writing on paper rectangles, gluing them into a circle and attaching them together to make a chain. Her children are 3 and 5 (plus she's a cool mom!)
I was reading Stacey's blog http://sdanddoublee.blogspot.com/ , and she is doing Christmas Wednesdays with her two. They've already started by writing letters, drawing pictures and sending stickers to some friends that live far away. It didn't go as smoothly as the article in Martha Stuart, but they did it together.

So, I was wondering what I could do with my children when none of them live at home and two of them live in different states.
I could try to get them to post on my blog everyday, but then I thought...yeah, no, won't work.  Then, maybe they could text me something they are thankful for, or something they did for someone, or something they saw that made them feel the love, beauty, power of God. I'm thinking that if I want this to happen, I'm going to have to bug them relentlessly, and then I just might defeat the purpose of doing it in the first place.

I'm going to give it a try anyway, and I'll start it out.

Tonight, while driving to church for a meeting, I was at a stop light when I noticed part of the Minneapolis skyline in the distance. Now, I might be just the tiniest bit biased, but I think Minneapolis has one of the prettiest, coolest, just perfect skylines. I can't say that I've seen that many, but out of those that I have seen, none of them can hold a candle to Minneapolis.
When Andy was going to the Art Institutes International downtown, I would sometimes drive him to school on my way to work. Every morning the skyline looked different, some days there was a haze, or fog, or mist that surrounded the buildings part way up, other days the sun was just coming up and shining against the glass. There is one building where the top portion changes colors, another that is green, another an odd shape. That skyline always, always, makes me smile and I always make a comment about it when I drive by, to myself if I'm alone. I'm sure my husband is tired of hearing how awesome I think it is, but it's something I just can't hold in. I simply love it!!

   

By the way...none of these photos are mine, unfortunately. I googled Minneapolis skyline and these are just a few that showed up under images. Pretty awesome!