This week everything was thrown off a bit because of the holiday Monday.

We usually have FHE (Family Home Evening – we actually call it “Family Night” for short around here) on Mondays. We went to the fireworks this week, but we had a few business things to discuss – including our quote of the week to review (will discuss below).

But first, the kids are still heavily petitioning us for dog. My answer is still no. So now, they are petitioning us for trampoline. I told them to put it in writing.

This is what we got:

Why we should get a trampoline
To: Leah and Rob (note the formal title)
The reasons & benefits: we should get a trampoline because it’s fun for all of us. It also provides a good alternative to other sports. It keeps us conflict free and will keep us distracted from asking to play and we will take turns rotating on the trampoline.
The rules: you guys decide the rules. Signed by: Gabe, Zach:), Joshua, Zandra and Sam.

FYI – Zach always signs his name with a 🙂 beside it.

We’ll talk and get back to them.

Josh ran family night this week and it was quite comical. Normally we all sit in the living room, but tonight we sat at the dining room table immediately following dinner. He decided to welcome everyone to family night by running round the table yelling “Welcome to Family Night”. Except he didn’t see Rob’s briefcase and totally tripped and fell over it. It was like a comedy! We laughed so hard. Typical Josh.

We then played broken telephone and the kids had a hoot.

Finally, we discussed our quote: “Do small things with great love” – Mother Theresa. For a visual, I had a lilac in a little cup. (By the way, these are all TERRIBLE pictures I know. I forgot the flash and am still trying to figure out how my camera works. I wanted to include the pics though so I have a baseline to see my progress!!)

I made them all smell the lilac.

I got the lilac when I was running. I love lilacs. Reminds me of my childhood. The other day, I was telling the kids about my memories of lilacs in the front yard when I grew up. Then I saw them when I was running. I tried to convince the boys to come with me over the weekend to see and smell the lilacs. They looked at me like I was crazy. So I ended up bringing a lilac home the next time I went for a run.

I told them they could have come with me to see the flowers and that was a small thing that would have communicated great love to me.

They laughed.

I told Josh he could still make it up to me by wearing a lilac in his hair everyday.

He really laughed (although said he would do it if I would promise to get them a dog or a trampoline!)

I told them to stop and appreciate the small things in life as that can sometime bring us the best things. They agreed and smelled the lilacs.

But they were really wondering how my quote of the week had anything to do with the lilacs. It didn’t really. I just loved them and wanted them to appreciate them as much as me!

Simple pleasures in life is my real point. It doesn’t take much to communicate love. But a whole lot of little things all put together speaks volumes and makes someone feel really loved. Sometimes we don’t do anything because we can’t afford to do something big, or don’t have the time or the energy, so we end up doing nothing. Intentions may be good, but in the end, it is our actions that count. So do small things often, no matter how small – and do them with lots of love.