Gratitude

This is the time of year to remember all that we have been blessed with. I pray everyday that I will remember all that the Lord has blessed me with and that I will be able to teach my children to recognize their blessings and have gratitude for those blessings. Some of the things I am the most thankful for are my wonderful husband, my children, my testimony of the restored gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ. I could go on and on, but those are the things I am most thankful for. You might remember our "Wall of Thanks" we did last year at Thanksgiving time. If not you can click here for a refresher.

This year my mom gave me the idea to keep a "Family Gratitude Journal". You get a notebook and number it from 1-1,000 ever November. Then you keep it out on your kitchen counter and every time you sit down to eat everyone writes some things they are thankful for in the book. And when you have guests over, you can invite them to write in the book also. You try to get 1,000 things in your book by Thanksgiving day. And you keep the book from year to year and can go back and see and remember some of the blessing your family enjoyed in years past.

I used to keep a running list like this a long time ago. Each night I would sit down and write down everything that I was thankful for that day. I remember that when I was doing that, I noticed so many little things that normally would go unnoticed. But when I was looking for things to be thankful for daily, the smallest things gave me such a huge sense of gratitude.

So I made these notebooks today. One for our family, another for a friend. This is a new family tradition we are going to start this November. I hope that it will help be an answer to my daily prayer, that I will be able to show gratitude and teach my children to show gratitude for the things we have been blessed with. So, what are you waiting for? Go grab a notebook and let the gratitude begin!