Gratitude*Sunday

I'm joining Taryn at Wooly Moss Roots and several other lovely bloggers in honoring the things for which we've been grateful for throughout the week. A quiet, weekly practice of appreciation and positivity. A time to breath and reflect. A small step towards a more simplistic and appreciative outlook.

If you would like to join us, just click the image at the bottom of this post.

This Week I am Grateful For:

* More time with my family than I expected! For laughs and talks around my kitchen table, for cooking in my kitchen alongside my mom, for getting to watch my son light up at everyone and to see the delight and love for him on their faces. For sips of fresh coffee together in the mornings, for my brother's hilarious rendition of "Let it Go" from Frozen, for the non judgmental curiosity and questions over my choices of cloth diapers and breastfeeding - firsts in my family. For things feeling comfortable and normal and happy, they way they always should when a family is together, for the first time in 5 or 6 years - since we all moved apart.

* The time spent watching the interaction between Khloe (3) and Acorn (4 months tomorrow). She kept telling him she loved him and he is her best friend and he would giggle and squeal and tell her all sorts of stories that she had no desire to share with us. On the last night, while he was laying in bed getting a diaper change, he was fussing. She came in, crawled in bed beside him, shushed him and patted his belly, put a little blanket over him when he was done being changed to "tuck him in" and then said "I'll show you how to sleep" and laid on the pillows to try to help him fall asleep. My heart was a puddle.
* Journaling, both in my own journal and in the one I started for Acorn.
* Hot, relaxing baths and glasses of wine.

* Functional heating, blankets of all shapes and sizes, my beat up slippers, a brand new soft hoodie and the snuggles of my boys and fur children to keep my heart and body warm now that we've started to have truly cold days here.
* A gentle pattern to my days emerging. A cycle of sleepy eyed, milky mornings spent in golden morning light, playing and breakfasting giving way to afternoons spent napping, cleaning and reading leading to daddy coming home from work to scoop us both up in hugs and kisses before dinner. As the light dies we may wander the neighborhood before Acorn's bedtime. The night wraps up with lazy kisses, curled up in bed, quietly talking before sleep claims us. All broken up with quick snippets of time to write, to draw, to create, to reflect.
* Quiet moments of crocheting in bed before bed.
* A brand new, soft pullover sweatshirt that my mom surprised me with after I mentioned that it was pretty. I'd forgotten how delightful and snuggly a hoodie that isn't a decade old and threadbare is! Also, even as a grown ass person, I still get all excited over presents from my mom.
* The crisp, clean bite to the air both in feel and scent, of the tail end of Autumn.
* Quarts and quarts of long stewed homemade bone broth, portioned out and tucked away in the freezer for the coming Winter.
* Signs and messages from the Nature. The medicine of Falcon, Crow and the (unpleasant) encounter with cockroach. I hear you, Universe. Loud and clear.
* A sense of ease and peace over me that I haven't felt in months and months. A sense of gentle confidence, of easiness, of no stress and quiet happiness.

To join in Gratitude Sunday, click on the image below! Happy Week, lovelies.