You are good at many things

My son Anïas is a very empathetic and sensible 10 year old.  By some, he is considered childish, but to others he is viewed for what he is;  a very young, kind, helpful, caring and innocent boy.  I am proud of the fact that he prefers to play with legos, Plus Plus and sticks in the woods .

His school Fokusskolan, Nyköping gave all students grade 1 - 6th a choice of 'proud to be me' buttons (that all had positive self reinforcement messages) as a treat after a completed day of track and field.

He still has his button and it reads:

"I am good at many things.

Especially with being myself."

It takes guts, inner strength and conviction to dare to be oneself.  We can learn a lot from children like  Anïas.  How many times do we fall short in being good at being oneself, and to accept who we are,  and dare to be different in today's society?  Grownups seem to have a knack for saying one thing and being another.

Eternal love

"I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love."

2 Nephi 1:15

Thumbs down to all thieving actions out there.

So here we are again.  Once again -this time in broad daylight- my bicycle was stolen.  Every year, a bicycle gets stolen from us.  For a while there, they were stolen in the bicycle sheds.

I was going to pick up my kids from school and walked out to a cut lock that was on the ground.  Can't exactly bike on that.  This is really terrible, especially since we are all so very dependent on our bikes.

I had to call school to have my two eldest sons bike home by themselves today.  The good thing is that they will have a couple of roads to pass and then they can travel safely on a bicycle path all the way home.

People that steal the bikes here want one for themselves or sell them off.  There is no bike insurance worth paying for, it is such a terribly common crime here.  The sad thing is that most people that steal have no means, and they usually end up stealing from other people that also have no means.  Like I wrote earlier, societies in the modern world are built on taking... not giving.

That person which so disgracefully and selfishly stole my bike can have it.  I will leave it at that, and get an un-cuttable lock for my next used bike. 

Choose the right... uhm, or the right timing

So Anïas, Illïus and Xavier are sitting for a group photo they want to have of their newly made Choose-the-Right badges.  We had been talking and reading a bit about examples of things one can do to choose the right.  In short, be good to oneself and others.  If one looks around today, it is becoming increasingly evident that people are more unaware and less kind to others.

 They worked hard on these badges, cutting, painting, threading.

So this picture below is the 3rd try of getting a picture when all are looking at me.  Xavier decides to eat his banana AND look at me, and Illïus decides to make a RANDOM infomercial WHILE looking at me, and Anïas is just reveling in his crazy little brother's ingenious pranks (Their elder brothers Duncan and Liam are such goofballs that this is probably to be expected).

Anïas tries to sort the brothers out.

Illïus is now ready, but oh that sweeeeeeheeeeeet banana.... muuust ....haaaaave  ..... 

Anïas is trying his best to keep it in.

Then, the unthinkable happens (or does it?) Xavier rips a fart and it is all over with as you could imagine.

... and time goes by

... and goes by

In the end, they all sat there admiring their good works, and Xavier got to finish his banana.  I got a bunch of pictures that could not be more perfect.

Why did I pack the winter stuff away?

Of course this is to be expected.  We are in Sweden after all.  2 days out of every week for the past 3 weeks we have been hit with cold weather and hail/sleet and snow.  It hits real fast and real hard.  At the end of the week, it will be all gone...  or not (it just started snowing again).

We all bike and walk to school.  Good thing we have not taken off the studded tires on the bikes yet.  Iceeeeeeeee, ice baby.