Lent Thanksgiving

So my sister, Jessica, has a lot of great ideas.  She sickens me with her immense creativity and her ability to think up new stuff all the time.  Now, she's outdone herself again.

Ash Wednesday was yesterday and seriously, People, I did remember that (even if I did not acknowledge it publicly), but today when I took the kids to the zoo (with friends) I was contemplating how last Lent season I gave up chips and fries for 40 days.  That was really difficult back then.

But now that I've gone Paleo for the most part, giving up food doesn't seem like such a challenge.  My priorities have changed.  I just didn't know what to do in recognition of Lent this year.

And then, Jessica comes along and instead of removing something from her life to remind her of what Christ did for each of us, she decided she'd add something important to her life.  For forty days, she's getting all thankful about stuff.

I'm jealous.

First, read her introductory post on the subject.  Then join with me as I shamelessly steal her great idea for my own blog and get some thanksgiving going on here at Mama Flock. 

I've done thankfulness journals in the past and really loved the process and the positivity that stemmed from it.  That began from a 30-day challenge given at church.  So 40 days of Lent and Thankfulness is going to rock.  I love this plan.  (And hopefully she's not too mad at me for doing it, too, because I give her all the props for the idea of it.)

Day 1 - Ash Wednesday (yesterday, if you aren't sure)...

I'm just going to go ahead and say it.  I am thankful for my sisters.  I thought about Jessica a lot yesterday because she is such a good gifter and I felt so bad that I didn't even send her some M&Ms for Valentine's this year.  I didn't want her to have a sad, chocolateless Valentine's Day.  But I forgot about what great friends she has.  She was treated up pretty good from the sounds of things on her blog.

But more than that, I can count on her to help me with all my graphic design efforts (most of the time unless she's swamped at work).  She photographs our kids and expects nothing in return for some pretty amazing portraits.  On top of it all, she is just a fantastic Tia to our kids.  I love that she is so fun when she visits and she's always up for an adventure, which suits me fine!

Our sister, D, lives close, so I see her a lot more often.  But still, she takes time to text me little notes in the day and sends me really cute backgrounds or pictures for my iPhone.  I don't know where she gets this stuff!  And she gave me an awesome, framed, 3-D giraffe picture to hang in our house.  I love it!  She gave it to me on the evening of February 13th and so I had it for all of Valentine's Day. 

She isn't always up for the same adventures I am, but she often will allow me to include her daughters and we go and do and see stuff together as often as we can.  Then she forgives me regularly when they come home with messy faces, overtired and having eaten too many junk foods because that's what was most convenient at the time.

My sisters are so great.  I love them both.  If you didn't know this already, you haven't read enough posts in my blog.  But just so you can see how much I've always loved them (and to colorful-up this post), here are a few photos of us when we were younger (not in any particular order).

Where would Lucy be without my Charlie Brown and my ... clown?

This seems like a perfectly normal time to take a picture.  Trying to get some water at camp for washing dishes or whatever and hello, say, "Cheese!"  It's totally what I would do with our kids.

We're almost triplets in our matchy Strawberry Shortcake dresses.

I mean, my goodness.  Look at those eyes!

Just hanging inside a hollowed out tree trunk.  Totally normal day.

Aren't we so cute?  I'm the oldest, Jessica is our middle sister and D is the youngest.  Enjoy my big beaver teeth in most of these.  Ha.


Day 2, Valentine's Day...

Today -- and everyday -- I'm so thankful for our five kids.  Every year for Valentine's I like to get them red or pink or Valentinesy shirts and take pictures of them all together.  Every year, they don't want to pose for a picture, but they do it anyway.  That's my Valentine's gift from them.

How can I not love these guys?

I'm thankful for my husband, too, but he's gotten lots of press from me today in Instagram, so we'll focus on the children on this day of love.