To be with you

The following lyrics are from Sara Groves new Christmas cd, O Holy Night. Although the song is referring to Christmas...I think any holiday where you congregate with family applies. We are heading to Grandma's in Pennsylvania today.

"To be with you
To be with you
I love this time of year
It always brings me here
To be with you
I fall in with my sisters
Just like when we were young
Grandma holds the baby
She rocks and softly hums
We gather round the table
We close our eyes and sing
'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'"

Maddie is excited to sleep with Grandma, make cookie dough and go shopping in her car.
Josiah is counting the days until the Boise Broncos play and he gets to watch the game!
Cole wants to read Dawn Traeder over vacation. Both boys are so excited to talk/play football with Cam & Cade!!
Isaac is getting very successful at potty training himself (mom's not sure he's really ready to do this). It may be an interesting visit at grandma's...
Mom & Dad are so thankful for time to be together with nothing to do but enjoy our family...both immediate and extended.

Pausing to give thanks....we must first learn to pause.

"Gratitude... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy." ~Henri J. M. Nouwen