An Attitude of Gratitude

To make up for yesterday's complaining, I'll focus a little more on being grateful. As mentioned earlier, we are trying to focus on being grateful for all of the things that we have. So, I came up with a couple of ways to help us do that. The first is our "grateful tree" which I finally finished after being reminded by the kids - daily - for over a week. The idea here is that any time we are feeling particularly thankful for something, we write it on a leaf and stick it on the tree.Before too long, I hope it will be sprouting full foliage and be a visual reminder of all the things that make us happy.

In addition to the tree, each of the kids got a gratitude journal where they can record things that they are grateful for each day. So far, they have enjoyed doing this. We try for a minimum of 3 things, but they can certainly write more if they think of them. (This is where the difference in my kids' personalities shows up. Samantha will write several each day, Jonas doesn't want to use all of his up, so limits himself to just 3. Hmm, I wonder who is like Shawn and who is like me?)
I'm hoping that this will help us all to remember that even though we sometimes have bad days or even bad weeks, and sometimes we have to do things that we don't like (such as go back to school, do homework, clean up the kitchen, or slog through January,) life is not in fact, horrible, and we are still so fortunate and have so many blessings to be thankful for. It's doing us all some good to focus on the good things in our lives and not so much on the bad.

And look at that, the tree already has some leaves. I had planned on this being a focus for January, but if all goes well, we may extend that a bit longer.
Oh, and here's a little something that is making me happy right now.