MaryAnne of MamaSmiles turned me on to this gratitude challenge:
Today I’m joining a group of bloggers who are uniting to blog about 50 Happy Things for 2015 – and we would love for you to join us! If you’d like to join in, here’s how it works: set a timer for 10 minutes; timing this is critical. Once you start the timer, start your list. The goal is to write 50 things that made you happy in 2015, or 50 thing that you feel grateful for. The idea is to not think too hard; write what comes to mind in the time allotted. When the timer’s done, stop writing. If you haven’t written 50 things, that’s okay. If you have more than 50 things and still have time, keep writing; you can’t feel too happy or too grateful! When I finished my list, I took a few extra minutes to add links and photos. Dawn has a linky you can join on her blog if you decide to write a post!
- My good health
- My husband
- That my kids are healthy
- My blogging
- Valarie and Becky at Multicultural Children’s Book Day
- That I’m able to give back
- Watching my kids play soccer/volleyball and finding joy in sports
- That two of my kids like to box
- Reading with my son
- That my high school daughter reads a book a month on her own
- The way my husband smells
- Snuggles from my son
- Boxing with my mom friends
- My new vegetable garden and our first harvest
- Our home that my husband spent one year building for us
- Our family dog who is so sweet and patient
- My son playing guitar
- My daughter playing flute
- My oldest’s drawings and paintings
- That my kids let me follow them on Instagram (though they refuse to let me follow them on SnapChat)
- The view from my bedroom window
- My office
- That my oldest talks to me even though she’s old enough to drive
- That my middle child overshares her life to me
- How thoughtful my son can be (he remembered his best friend’s mom’s birthday and insisted that we get her a gift. Her birthday is Christmas Eve so I’m sure it gets overlooked.)
- How much my dog loves to be near me
- My husband’s hugs and snuggles
- My kids in pajamas
- A really good book
- Meeting an author who’s really nice and inspiring, especially when I can do this with one of my kids
- Watching Chef’s Table series from Netflix with my husband and discovering my oldest loves it too
- A really good foodie movie (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman; Tampopo; Jiro Dreams of Sushi; The Hundred-Foot Journey; Haute Cuisine; Babette’s Feast)
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens and our first family movie experience in a long time because my oldest daughter was away a lot
- That my oldest traveled to Australia for a six week service trip and it really gave her an adventurous travel bug
- That my oldest found volleyball and MGA (her club team) and is having such a great experience
Whoops! Time is up! That went fast!
BEST #OWNVOICES CHILDREN’S BOOKS: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages 1-12 is a book that I created to highlight books written by authors who share the same marginalized identity as the characters in their books.
Great list! I think it is very cool that two of your kids share your love of boxing. I hope you see your daughter playing soccer for Stanford someday 🙂
Hi MaryAnne,
My daughter thinks she won’t ever be good enough to play soccer for Stanford so she’s switching to rowing. She thinks she might be able to be a coxswain for Stanford (after studying the Stanford crew team LOL). This kid is trying so hard to get into Stanford! She’s learning three languages in hopes that it helps!