God's Hand in Our Lives

Today I was preparing for my lesson for Sunday school and the topic really spoke to me about seeing God's hand in our lives. 

While I truly love living here in Colorado Springs, and I honestly don't wish to be back in Tucson, there are growing pains and some degree of loneliness when it comes to establishing your life in a new place. Or maybe there is a certain degree of loneliness just in adult life. I had few days of texting back and forth with old friends and I was almost scared to put myself out there with new people. One Thursday morning, I prayed for a friend. Within an hour, Jess texted me about going to body pump class with her. It was such a clear answer to my prayer. 

This weekend was a social weekend for our family. On Friday Jess and her kids came over after school for a play date and all the kids, including Aleksi, happily played together. It felt effortless to chat with her which was a huge blessing. On Saturday, the Sidwell family came over for dessert and again, we really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to see Troy chatting away as he doesn't get the same social opportunities as I do with play dates and the gym. The kids were crazy but happy together. 

On Sunday we went over to the Brinton family for dinner. It was nice to be invited into someone's house and have a relaxing night.

I am writing this down so I can remember that when I put the effort in and when I reach out for people, good things take place and I need to be more willing to swallow my pride and get out of my comfort zone and just ask people to spend time with me and our family. 

Other note worthy things around here:

Saku is currently reading the 4th Harry Potter book. He can read so quickly. But I think he reads much like I do, he doesn't get quite all the details due to his high speed and desire to know what happens next. And to make things even more fun, he has a piano homework of learning a Harry Potter theme song. There were some tears tonight as Troy was trying to have Saku count the appropriate rhythm and notes and Saku felt like Troy was pushing too hard. I am writing this down because I feel like this is the first time that this has occurred. It could have been me just as well. How to push them to reach their potential but not make them feel like a failure for not getting it perfect right away.

Eerika has started gymnastics and she is such a perfectionist so she has struggled with the fact that Saku's bridges and handstands are better than hers and that she can't do everything perfectly yet. Today we practiced many handstands during the day and she actually improved already quite a bit. It is good to have this growing experience and learning to not give up. Gymnastics is very hard and it requires a lot, so this will give her a good foundation of trying hard things. Eerika has made progress with her reading and can sound out words such as "me" and "see". Or she has them memorized, but either way she feels better about he reading. She has also started to show interest in playing the piano. She has figured out few simple songs and does an impressive song trying to figure them out. 

Aleksi loves to walk around saying "mamamamama". He is constantly trying to get on the computer and bang on the keyboard. He likes to sit on the piano and play music just like Saku and Eerika.