So grateful

I am grateful for my home and my health and the sunshine on my face.  I am grateful for the opportunity to still have my parents here and to learn more about who they are all the time including their perseverance, their strength and their ability to endure the situations they have been faced with.  I am grateful for my in-laws and for the things that I learn from a family who is so different from mine.  For their traditions, their togetherness, and their support.  I am grateful for good friends old and new.  For their words, their actions and their love.  I am grateful for my husband.  For his need to serve others, and for his will to work hard.  I am grateful for the opportunity to be a mother. For the things that I learn from each of my children and the gift that they are to me.  

I am grateful for this boy.  For his dimples, for his laugh, for his hand in mine every morning to get him some milk, for his reassurance that he will help me do anything, for the way he cares for his sisters and threatens to beat up anyone giving them a hard time, for his love of his grandparents and for the special time he spends with Grandpa Marvin, and for the way that he teaches me to laugh and live in the moment with him.  I am grateful for this boy even when I want to take his picture and this is what I get because this is who he is, and he makes me smile.  

I am grateful for this girl.  For her determination, her strong will, her courage and her strength.  For her silly contagious giggle and the way that she can change the room when she laughs, for her dimples and her mischievous grin.  For her quiet ways, and her need for hugs.  For her love of the outdoors and the way that she thoroughly enjoys every minute of her play time for as long as it lasts, for her appreciation of her friends and the time that she shares with them because she knows those moments are few and far between.  I am grateful for the times when she allows me to take her picture because she is so beautiful inside and out.  

I am grateful for this girl.  For her need to do what's right, for her sense of responsibility, and for the way that she looks after her brother and sister.  For her constant help with everything that I do, for her interests in so many things, for her kindness to others, for her consistency and strength.  For the way that she makes me laugh, and for the time that we spend together.  For her support at my side in the things that I do, for her encouragement and for her love.  I am grateful for her allowing me to capture her beauty in pictures because she is giving and she does it to help me learn and grow.

Yes, I truly am so grateful for so many things.