We do...

I was catching up last week on some blogs I read, and one of them is always Ali Edwards' blog.  A few weeks ago she had this post called 'We Do' where she describes values that she wants to pass on by example to her family and that she felt important enough to write down as a family manifesto of sorts. I really liked that idea, so as I read it, it made me wonder what 'We do' as a family that I would consider being our set of values I would like to pass on to our boys, and I've been slowly writing them down over the last few days.

Here are a "few" I came up with, but I know I will be either adding or changing this list as I continue to think about it some more so.

In our family...

We do Religion. Its a priority- church on Sundays, its a given. We love that the boys know that God is part of their lives this way.

We do Prayer and gratitude. We always give thanks at every meal and never take for granted that we are together, that we have food on the table and a safe warm place to sleep. We are always thankful!

We do grandparent/family time. Our boys our have been lucky enough to have Jerry's parents and my mom and my aunt as loving grandparents in their lives to share their time with, and a big family of Tios and cousins so we make sure we see them as often as possible. 

We do birthdays. each one is special and the entire family celebrates each one- cousins, aunts/uncles young and us older ones too. 

We do creativity. We encourage and praise each others talents be it through song writing, pictures, voices, baking, music playing, drawing and we encourage each other to practice and to love what we do. 

We do music.  It is an important part of our family- through the vibrations that come from multiple instruments playing in our garage, to singing, to the keys on our piano and even through our own headphones. Music is always alive here. 

We do outside too. Some of more than others- some of us walk, some of us ride bikes, we play in our backyard, and we are exploring our community and what it has to offers us. Oh and lets not forget we love the beach! 

We do friendships. They don't all live near but we make it a point to get together as much as possible. 

We do learning. We always expect the best out of ourselves, we learn to the best of our abilities and 

we push and encourage to put out the best effort we can do...and then expect a little more. There is always room for improvement. 

We do housework.  We help out when we are asked and even when we're not. Our house is not perfectly kept up, but this is our home and everyone is expected to keep it in order as best as possible. 

We do please and Thank you's. With everyone and everywhere, but especially amongst ourselves. Politeness is never an overdo even with family. 

We do food. We are foodies and love to eat! We love to eat at home and enjoy a special meal out every week, but I love that the boys appreciate when I recreate their favorite foods at home. 

We do silly. There is always a time to let loose and we let each other be who we are. 

We do surprises. We love to surprise and get surprised and have special ways to deliver said surprises. There is no peaking in this house. 

We do communication. Its been the corner stone to our marriage and to our family. We do not always agree on things, and we definitely have our arguments, but we also have learned to give each other time to calm down, and then learn to communicate, to safely speak our minds and talk things out. 

We do 'I love You's.' To our loved ones, friends and family members, but more importantly to each other. One of the things I cherish the most is hearing the boys tell each other they love each other without hesitation or embarrassment.

....
That is is our list for now. Like I said, it may change and I may add to it, but it was worth writing down to make them visible. Its a reminder of what not to lose sight of to keep our family close.

Have you ever thought of what your family list of "We Do's" are? Food for thought, right?
It's been a really nice exercise for me so I encourage you to explore this idea for you and your family.

From my corner to yours...Have a wonderful week!