Happy Veterans Day, 2010!

Greetings from a mostly well-rested Crazy Key Family. The kids and I had the day off today in honor of Veterans Day. The strange about that is that the 3 of us are not even Veterans! The Crazy Key who has been serving his country since he enlisted in the Army at age 18 was hard at work today. I guess that is true of lots of service people today. I am just thankful that his work today was in Illinois and New York, not Iraq and Afghanistan!

The kids and I were happy to honor Veterans everywhere by sleeping in and taking full advantage of all the freedoms that we have thanks to their selfless service. I am very blessed to come from a long line of Veterans. Both of my grandfathers served in the army. And my Daddy's mother and father met in WWII. My Daddy and both of his brothers all three retired from the Army after long careers. And then of course, here I am a proud Army wife of 12 years.

And I am trying to make sure that my babies realize how blessed we are to have so many wonderful men and women who sacrifice every day to keep our country free. So I have been really tickled at all the neat things that Jessa's school did this week to celebrate Veterans Day. She even wrote a journal page about it. My favorite part was when she talked about how her Daddy was a Veteran. She wrote, "My Daddy is in the Army, Navy, and the A.F." (Air Force is hard to spell out, I think.) I mean, she takes this joint assignment VERY seriously. I told her that he worked with the Navy and A.F., but he is actually in the Army. They have collected "Pennies for Patriots" throughout the week. They also collected various items to take to the VA Hospital nearby. Jessa enjoyed shopping for "her Veteran!" And tomorrow morning there will be an assembly complete with bagpipes for all of the kids to get to celebrate this special holiday.

But perhaps my favorite thing to come out of this week happened at Awana. Our theme night for November was "God and Country." So the kiddos were asked to bring in a card or letter that they made for a servicemember. Our Awana Commander is sending them to a unit overseas. I love this idea to help the kids remember that even though it is not in the forefront of the media, we still have thousands of troops serving far from home everyday. So I would like to share with you what my sweet children came up with when I told them about their assignment.

Spencer drew this picture.

I love the camo uniform and the fire works overhead.

And my Jessa made a card.

This is the front.

This is the back.

And this is the inside.

I love the saluting soldier, don't you?

And you must also know that they are studying bar graphs in math, so she is really into using them right now. The columns are giraffes, soldiers, herself, and trees. As you can see, she like soldiers more than giraffes, trees, and even herself!

My heart is so full when my babies do sweet things like this.

And I am so proud to that we all come from a family who believes in selfless service.

Thanks to all Veterans everywhere.

God bless America:

Home of the Free BECAUSE of the Brave!