thanksgiving.

My friend, Becky, is doing a beautiful project.  She's inspired me and I want to do it, too.  Everyday this month she's beginning a post with "I appreciate..."

For a couple of years I've been keeping a Love book.  In it I record 5 things from each day that I loved.  I've shared an entry one time here on my blog.  This month, I'll do it here on my blog...hopefully, every week day...and if I'm somehow extra efficient...I'll include a picture.  It may have nothing to do with the post but at least it will have some visual eye candy.

Day One.

I love this post about being gentle with each other. What sign would you be wearing?  What sign would your friend, the person you're passing, the checker at the grocery store, your child be wearing?

I love that the early chilly mornings are now accompanied by a fire in our fireplace.

I love my husband.  He works like crazy and loves like crazy.  And I'm crazy about him.

I love planning Amercian Girl parties with my 3 sweet little missies.

I love looking out my window off my back deck and seeing pinks, oranges, rusty reds, deep purpley reds, greens sprinkled on the tips with yellow and burnt orange.  I love all of those gorgeous colors so close together with squirrels running in and out of their rainbow.

I love talking with my friend Melanie.  She is a caring, soulful, inspired, friend and person.  I love that she can say just what needs to be said in the most compassionate and real way.  She is dear to me.

Do you have similar project going on this month?  If so, let me know!

appreciate. LIFE.

favorite.

Grace is a reading maniac.  Can't get enough.  Loves to read everything in sight. 

Junie B. Jones especially.

She's a crazy girl that Junie B. Jones.  Unpredictable and nutty.

At school they had a 'dress-up-as-your-favorite-character-day'.

Gracie was Junie.

In every way.

mania. LIFE.

it's pretty obvious.

You make a candy trail over your entire house.

obviously wonderful. LIFE.

the ripstick incident.

Miriam is an excellent ripstick-er.  She can ride a ripstick better than most everyone I know.  They're not easy.  It's not a skateboard.  It's harder to ride than a skateboard.

Every time I decide I'm going to try ripsticking, I quickly change my mind for fear I may break my neck.

For all of you who are saying, "A rip-WHAT?"  Here's the quick run down.  It's a skateboard, except it's not.  It has a pivoting middle and castor wheels on each end.  Just getting up on the thing is impossible...let alone riding it down a hill.

All of the kids in the neighborhood were out playing in the cul-de-sac and Miriam was doing her usual tricks on her ripstick. 

She rode down the extremely steep hill of our next door neighbor's driveway.  She came speeding down and so did the ripstick. Until the ripstick hit a little tiny rock.  Then the ripstick stopped. And Miriam...didn't.

She went flying. Onto the asphalt.

She came into the house where Mike and I were.  I was chatting on the phone with a friend and I saw Miriam with her chin covered and dripping in blood.  I said, "Miriam's got blood everywhere." Which I meant to be saying to Mike.

My friend said, "Okay, I better let you go."

Not sure when I hung up.

Or if the phone was just off the hook for a while.

When we got her cleaned up we discovered that she had split her lip wide open. And that she had road rash in at least 5 places.  Including her chin.

She was complaining about her wrist kind of hurting but she could move it, move her fingers, and it wasn't swelling at all.

She went to a movie activity with her friend that evening only an hour after the entire incident.

The next day was busy and we went and did all kinds of things.  Miriam mentioned her wrist a couple of times.  We checked it and determined that she may have sprained it.  Still, no swelling.

Sunday came and went.

Monday. No school.  We were sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast.  Mike had said to Miriam, "Maybe your wrist is bothering you because you're not using it.  Maybe instead of holding it, if you use it a bit, it will feel better."

Not ten minutes later as we were all chatting around the table, Mike and I looked at each other at exactly the same second and we knew.  We said to each other, "That wrist just doesn't look right."

So we were off to the doctor.  For the rest of our day off from school, we went back and forth laughing and giggling in and out of quiet doctors' offices.

And we brought home an orange cast. For Halloween.

tough girl. LIFE.

meet kaya.

Back in the spring we had a perfect American Girl Book Club party.  The weather was blue skies and puffy clouds and just right temperatures.

When we arrived and saw the life-sized Teepee the girls were so excited.  I knew before the big day that is was going to be a great party.  I had no idea that we would be next to a pond on acres and acres of land.  The location itself was so much like the place Kaya's family had set up the temporary village. 

We sat around talking about what it would be like to be Kaya, to have responsibilities for the younger children, weave and make beautiful beaded things, cook dinner, go to the bathroom outside, and cook dinner for your family over a fire, eat mostly roots, berries, and the deer the men would kill. 

We also talked about how important it is that you create the story of your own life.  You get to choose how it plays out.

Everyone crowded around the table to eat fruits, beef jerky, salmon jerky, and nuts.

The girls even got to create their own bead bracelet by learning the ancient art of beading.

My favorite part was when the activities were over and the girls ran around the land, waded into the pond looking for tadpoles, finding blue robin's eggs, swinging in a hammock, giggling, discovering, exploring, and completely unaware that the world was moving at the speed of light everywhere else on the planet.

We stepped back in time and walked and played with Kaya for those couple of hours on a Saturday in May.

storybook. LIFE.