We Do

In our family...

We do magic. Moments of surprise. The ones that take your breath away. We create opportunities to experience magic both big and small.

We do adventure. We take trips and see new places and experience new things to expand our worldview.

We do hard things. With grace and courage and bravery. We face our fears and we support each other. Challenges are welcome as a path towards greater personal understanding.

We do forgiveness.

We do compassion. For others. For ourselves.

We do community. We have friends over. We invite. We welcome. Our doors are open. And we accept invitations and show up.

We do movies. On the couch. At the theater.

We do outside. We swim. We bike. We walk. We play. We chase. We dine.

We do failure. We know without a doubt that trying hard and making mistakes and screwing up and getting back up again is one of the ways we all grow.

We do quiet times. In our own rooms. On the couch. In the reading room. We value time on our own.

We do one-on-one time.

We do creativity. We build. We paint. We might not all do the same forms of creativity but it is encouraged and celebrated.

We do laughter. We do joy. We do giggles and silliness.

We do different. We embrace and celebrate our individuality. We celebrate imperfections. We challenge assumptions (our own and the ones others have about us). We help others to see that different is amazing and makes our world and our lives a much richer experience.

We do family. Our family might not look the same as other families. Ours includes a wonderful collection of people who are related and un-related by blood or certificate. Some we see everyday and others on occasion. Love binds us together and we are thankful.

We do reading. On our own. Together.

We do education. We are involved and active and in-touch with our teachers. We thank them when they are awesome and gently challenge them to question their own assumptions when we know there's room to grow. We are always learning.

We do gratitude. Around the table. In the car. On the page.

We do love. Every single day. No matter what.

I wrote this last month in a flurry of inspiration while sitting in the car waiting for one of the kids or just after dropping them off at school (I can't remember which it was now). "We do..." is basically a family manifesto of who we are and the things I value and want to pass along by example. I wrote it out using Evernote which is the program I'm definitely using most these days for writing things down and keeping track of ideas while I'm on the go (thoughts, post ideas, workshop ideas, etc).

As I was getting this post ready Katie and I went back through many, many photos looking for a recent one of the me and the kids and we are severely lacking in that department. This needs to be remedied very soon. Katie printed out and put together the fun collection of recent photos you see above.

PS | Thank you so much to those of you who have taken the time to fill out the 2014 aliedwards.com Reader Survey. I appreciate it greatly. There's still time to fill it out if you haven't yet. I'll close it up on Monday.

What do you and your family do?