What I want my kids to learn in my home...

I have been thinking a lot about what I want my kids to come away with from our home.  What ideas out of everything I teach them do I want to stand out?  Things that when they see, or feel or come across will be very familiar to them and the feelings in our home.  This is what I came up with.  

To be anxiously engaged in a good cause.
To render simple acts of service
To be thoughtful and kind to the one-to love individually
To find the joy in all things
To be courageous in standing for truth and right

So, with our whole theme of being deliberate, I am going to engage them in a good cause tonight.  We are going to rake leaves at an elderly lady's home that we have done the last couple of years-she has such a beautiful piece of property with an apple orchard as far as the eye can see.  So one experience after another it will help them see that that is what we do.  We help those in need.  And then when they are older and away from home they will naturally look for moments to serve...and their hearts will yearn for it because it will be a part of them.  I like how simple it is.  All it requires is an idea, some rakes, sweatshirts, and hot chocolate at the end.  Whalah! 

Carefree Timelessness...

This to me is the epitomy of what carefree timelessness is...it is so easy to recognize it when you see it, just easy unassumming family togetherness.  We see it and we are immediately attracted to it.  When I look at this picture I want to jump back in that moment.  It was a crisp fall day in McCall.  I grabbed some snacks, got shoes, socks, and sweatshirts on and ignored the whining comments of not wanting to go. (This is always amazing to me.  Who wouldn't want to go on a Rhino ride into the mountains and soak up nature by finding sticks, throwing rocks, playing pine cone baseball, holding hands and reconnecting?!)  I knew they wanted to go, but for some reason it seems to be so much fun to moan and pretend you are so put out at first.  But the second they were all loaded in the smiles immediately overtook the initial hesitant remarks.  We were off.  It was what a mother always yearns for.  No homework, no soccer, no friends, no spills, no anything.  It was just us.  Our little Smith Crew as we call it.  It was a couple of hours that had to be created to press a reset button in us.  Matt and I have really tried to be conscious of carving out time to create moments of nothingness.  Every time we do we are recharged and have added a priceless memory into our children's book of experiences that they can replay anytime in their heads.  I love it when my 4 year old Ashton talks about things that we have done months earlier.  They do remember and they do love it.