6.13.16 Some Traditions

One the hardest parts of summer for the kids is the absence of the school library and ebooks on their ipads. One of the hardest parts of summer I am finding as the mom is to pry their hands and eyes off the books and get them to stick with jobs. What a problem to have I know.

This reading habit is a tradition. It is one that I have conscientiously worked hard to create- one that I gained from my father who loves to read and my mother who religiously took us to the library and my grandmother who was a voracious reader. You may have picked up on that with the numerous posts including books. It's not one that I regret. In fact as I scrubbed the kitchen down this morning- just in time to start lunch- I was pondering traditions. I'm so thankful to live on autopilot as a busy-distracted-mom just doing what we do as the seasons and time of  year roll around.
I was talking with a super mom about how our families differed from others and how shocking and sad it is to hear about the neglect going on with children. I could rant about government control and master plans but I won't. 
I will say I love having my kids home, although it requires a lot more trips to the grocery store and a lot more floor mopping and cleaning I love observing their interactions. One of which is the older kids reading to the younger.
 My heart melted watching Mark read a book to Reed last night and watching the others kids quickly and silently gather round to hear the story. It takes a lot more books to keep them satisfied. However I believe summer is a prime time to spend time in good books. Picture books, informative books, great stories with sequels, and books that take a long time to finish because they are harder than normal.

So back to the traditions one perk of a club we joined years ago is funds to do service projects. Long ago we chose the scripture "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are in the service of your God." We have used that as a guiding mark and a natural extension of our belief we can and should help others.  Being a frugal person having lots of funds to spend was a bit of a challenge. I'm not use to spending a lot on anything. So when I realized I had a lot of money to spend like over $800 I was perplexed. My wise mentor suggested a library book donation!!! Oh the joy! I love buying books.
I picked about 30 on my own then Aliza came and requested a few more (10) and we hit purchase and the fun began! Many books have been delivered everyday- we get to read them before we donate them. Life is very exciting these days!

Proving we are not short on books. Our own stash on the right is just one of many book areas in our home and on the left borrowed from the library. And still they say they have read them all and need more!!

A budding reader who is adamant about having her own books. She has quite the personality coming on.

Another project we are able to fund is donating to the local homeless shelter. We found water on a really good sale and bought 10 cases to donate. We helped donate toilet paper last month and are moving on to socks. I was surprised and thankful to learn of their needs. Sometimes it's hard to know who needs help. This population is often veterans with PTSD or recently released convicts.

And one more tradition we have created. Helping clean-up receptions has become a real highlight for our family. This may have sprouted from all the stories we heard about the fun our families had cleaning up our reception. We love swooping in with lots of eager hands (all hopped up on cake and ice cream etc!!) to help dissemble a reception. The kids are well practiced and careful. They love being helpful and I know from experience how overwhelming the end of a wedding day can be. And the thought of all the hours to take down and carry back and forth to cars is daunting!! But allow those young happy hyper hands and voila 1 hour or so and its being vacuumed and mopped and not so bad.

Today we got this thank you in the mail. Some chocolate covered almonds, a gift card to Dairy Queen and a sweet card. Seriously this is one of my favorite traditions. Not for the reward, but for the fun it is for our family. After the reception we get to visit with the host family and we get to 'payback' our invitation. Probably hold over from always hearing "We don't want to impose" growing up. I don't want to impose or put people out with this larger than normal group of mine. I like the reputation of being helpful and I love the feeling from serving others that you love and respect.