Catching Up Gratefuls

I have been neglecting my blog the past couple of weeks.  There has been a lot going on in our lives and much of this has caused blogging to get knocked down the priority list. However, I have still been collecting various moments and memories in an effort to continue cultivating gratitude in my life.  Here's my effort to catch up a bit on my 'moments of gratitude'.

1.  I am so thankful for safe travels for me and my family in all of the amazing snow and below zero temperatures we have been having in Minnesota.  I have had 2 incidents of my car (the saturn) not starting/needing a jump and they both happened in places where I was safe and could get warm and thankfully Ross was close by enough to come to my rescue.
2.  My Mom and I baked Christmas cookies starting back in November and it has been such a blessing to have a lot of our baking done for the holidays.  I go 'shop' in her freezer when I'm in need of cookies to share/eat.  Baking early on has allowed us to enjoy doing other fun things and I think made the baking less stressful and more fun because we were so far out and not under the other 'pressures' this busy season can bring.
3.  I have been enjoying being a part of MOPS this year at Grace Fellowship Church.  We had a Christmas tea this past Monday to celebrate Christmas and the end of this semester.  I was in charge of helping to create the center pieces and I think they not only turned out well, but all of the women really pitched in to make their tables absolutely beautiful.  Every table brought china and goblets and much more to create their own really amazing table.  It was neat to see it all come together.  I have been blessed  by the "Mom" time this Fall and I'm looking forward to continuing with MOPS again in January.
4.  This past weekend, we drove up to Fargo to visit Josh and Ann.  Jill and Jake also happened to be in Fargo this weekend because Jill was serving as a bridesmaid in a friends' wedding, so we got to see them for a few hours, too.  It was fun to see Josh and Ann's place and hang out with them in Fargo.  We did have to cut our time short in order to come home before the 2010 Blizzard hit the Twin Cities, but thankfully we enjoyed time with them and made it home just as the first flakes were starting to fall from the sky.  Unfortunately, we missed out on the Manders' Christmas gathering in Osakis, but we were thankful to be safely tucked inside our warm home and not traveling on the roads.  I am also thankful for how blessed E-man is to have so many 'fans' in his life and for him to get some quality time with them.

5.  Today, E-man, my Mom and me went to visit the 8th floor at Macy's.  They put up this kind of weird (weird as in if you are afraid of clowns, etc. you might find the elves to be kind of creepy) display you walk through  called "A Day in an Elf's Life".  We decided to go during a work day before all of the kids are out of school and that was a VERY good decision.  We road on like 16 escalators, and walked right up and into the display with not a single line in sight.  There were very few people near us while we were walking through which was nice for my little man's sight lines of everything.  Here is a picture of me and E-man near the 'singing' woods.

At the end of the display, you can go visit Santa and we weren't sure how that would go with E-man but we decided to give it a try ... and ...

NO TEARS!  Santa asked him what he would like for Christmas and E-man responded "Toys!" so Santa asked him what kind of toys and he said "CARS!"  It was very cute and I was actually quite impressed E-man did not melt into tears.  After our journey through the 8th floor, we headed down to the Lower Level in search of some replacement goblets for my crystal.  After locating those and getting a fairly good deal on them (minus the shipping fee because they didn't have them in stock), we headed up to the 12th floor to the Sky Cafe and enjoyed a DELICIOUS salad bar and lunch (thanks Mom and Dad!).  It's a neat room, with a view of the city and good, fresh food.  So our first trip to Macy's 8th floor with E-man couldn't have gone better and it was a very fun memory-making day.  For these memories and so much more, I'm grateful!