This past week I have spent a fair amount of my time scanning pictures – 250 pictures to be exact! That’s a lot of pictures! I decided to put together a surprise for my husband for his Christmas gift – a digital storybook of all the “professional” portraits of our family that we have had taken over the last 25 years. (thanks to team member Karen Herrema for the idea!) I spent hours going through albums and boxes, trying to collect all the photos and then spent hours scanning them into the computer. Fortunately sweet husband was out of town most of the week on business.
I began with our engagement picture, a few of our wedding pictures, pictures of our first sweet baby boy clear through to our most recent family portrait taken this summer. It truly was a trip down memory lane. As I took this trip, a sense of gratitude came over me. Not only a gratitude for the wonderful, beautiful, brilliant family I have been blessed with (o.k. – so indulge me a bit here!) but also a sense of gratitude that as a homebased mom I have been able to be there for every twist and turn of their lives. I have been there to observe, guide, direct, nurture and clean up the messes!
Believe me there were days I wished I wasn’t there but I am grateful that I was, even for the chicken pox, the broken arms, the temper tantrums, the teenage tirades etc. I am grateful that I was available to be the room mom, plan the class parties, be the Brownie and Cub Scout leader, go on the field trips, run the lunch to school when it was forgotten and able to pick up the sick child from school when they called (although I have been known to ask the school nurse – “how sick are they really??)
I am nearing the tail end of having children at home (4 more years and trying not to count because every time I do I cry!). The greatest joy and blessing of my life has been being able to be a homebased mom. Because of my homebased business our life has been blessed, my children have had the blessing of having a mom at home when they needed her (and even when they didn’t need her) and our family has been financially blessed. My business has provided the extras and the necessities, especially during the past year when my husband found himself unexpectedly unemployed – twice within one year! There are so many other blessings that have come into my life as a result of my homebased business but those are for another day!
So during this week of Thanksgiving I hope you will take the opportunity to “Count Your Many Blessings”- especially those blessings that come into your life as a result of being a homebased mom.
So I couldn’t resist – I had to share with you two of the pictures I scanned in this week – they are two of my favorite. A photo of my two sweet college boys when they were 3 and 5 and then a picture we had taken two years ago when they were 19 and 21 – Logan had just returned from his church mission to Argentina and Clark was leaving for his mission to Chile – aren’t they handsome. I have these two pictures framed in my family room and they bring me such joy!! In less than 36 hours (and who is counting!) sweet college boys will be home for the Thanksgiving break – yeah!!!
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