Oh! The Thankfulness!

• My baby has a personality and its best description is: SWEET. He likes to snuggle. He likes to smile at any and all people in his sight. He likes to grab noses. He likes to chew on his toes. And…he has started giving kisses. Yes, that’s right. He gets this dramatic look in his eyes, squints, and goes for it open mouthed. He kisses my neck, my face, my nose, and if he’s lucky, my lips. And he seems to totally know what he’s doing. I guess he’s been kissed a lot in his life and he thinks this is a proper greeting. Which, thankfully, it is.

• Chris has been trying to win me over to the beauties of Pinterest for the past two months, but it took my being away from him for a couple of weeks to get me (p)interested. (I have to come to these things on my own.) One day in and I can’t get enough. Have you ever seen a Baguette Car?

Or, a bearded man handmade porcelain necklace?

Exactly. I’m thankful for so many beautiful things in one place.

• I’m thankful that on Thursday morning my cute family is leaving for “Cousins Camp,” where my brothers’ families join my parents and the boys and me for a long weekend in the mountains, complete with hiking, fishing and kids crafts. (It’s a homemade camp for cousins!) And it’s heaven for August.

• I’m thankful for the time I’ve had over the past week to be challenged in the child-rearing department. One of the things I’m learning about is Godly Play, a Montessori-based philosophy of teaching Scripture to children and helping them experience God in an authentic way. Our church in San Francisco is beginning to use it and I’m in love with the idea of it. (Embracing wonder in the narrative of the Bible, opening children up to including themselves in God’s story, helping children develop a sense of worship in their play.) I’m going to learn more and tell you about it. Then I’m going to put it into practice at home with my kids.

• I’m thankful for Isaiah 55, which is the passage I’m praying for the kids from Radnor High School who are at Young Life camp this week.

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.

For those kids I love in Philadelphia who may be hearing for the first time this week that God loves them and for all of us: May we who are thirsty come to the waters. May we be brave enough to believe that there is a life-giving God who offers us everything. And may we be grateful. Happy Thankful Tuesday!